Debates of June 17th, 2024

Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Innovation]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate my hon. colleague's remarks.

Every day we hear in the House the Conservatives talk about the cost of living pressures that Canadians are under. Obviously, they continually make it sound like global inflation has been caused by our government. We know that is not true, and it is misleading to imply that.

We see in this budget numerous measures that would help Canadian families save money on their bills: more child care spaces, the national school food program, dental care, pharmacare and others. Could my hon. colleague speak to how our government is there for Canadians in helping them out with the cost of living pressures they are under?

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listed a few things in some of the other answers. For example, the member mentioned the dental program. We have over 500 dentists now signed up in my city of Richmond, British Columbia, who are ready to help those who need help the most. I speak to all of these measures as being a way toward productivity. If people can get help and get a leg-up, they can contribute in a better way.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about homelessness. The Auditor General of Canada has said that for the government to meet its target of reducing chronic homelessness by 50% by 2030, it would have to invest seven times more money than it is currently investing.

What does my colleague have to say to address the homelessness crisis?

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I encourage the member to look at all the measures that were put into this budget. They amount to billions to help with homelessness and to give people another chance.

Alleged Premature Release of Speaker's Ruling on Social Media—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

Before we move on with debate, the Chair wishes to make a statement in regard to the concerns raised earlier today by the member for Edmonton Strathcona about the premature publishing of a tweet on the @HoCChamber X account.

In her intervention, the member pointed out that the account had prematurely disclosed the conclusions of the Speaker's ruling on the question of privilege raised by the member for Winnipeg Centre. The member stated that it was inappropriate that the conclusions of the ruling would be shared publicly before members of the House were apprised of them.

The Speaker wishes to note that the tweet in question was published in error. According to the process in place, a courtesy advance notice of tweets about rulings is shared with a very small team in the House administration to expedite publication on social media. The instructions are clear: Tweets must never be posted before a ruling is delivered. In this case, the text of the tweet was unfortunately posted as the ruling was being read and not afterwards. To our knowledge, this is the first time this has happened. I should note that at no point is anyone in my office involved in publishing these tweets.

On behalf of the House administration, the Speaker would like to sincerely apologize for this error. It is very important to the Speaker that members have the first opportunity to hear the conclusions of a ruling. To ensure that such a thing does not happen again, I immediately requested changes to our internal processes on your behalf.

While I am on my feet, I want to address the strong language that was used after the point of order was raised. The member for Winnipeg Centre made a significant point for all members to consider, yet used words that were not acceptable on the floor of the House. There are ways to make one's point without resorting to profanity, and I trust that this will not happen again.

I thank all members for their attention.

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has a point of order.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, you pointing out my language in the House speaks exactly to my point. You commented just now, with all due respect, that my language was unparliamentary, but saying in this House that “he was more likely to reoffend because of his racial background”, which is highly racist, was totally disregarded. In fact, it was not just totally disregarded. The total meaning of that sentence was allowed to be changed.

I will not watch unparliamentary language in this House, with all due respect, if racism, bigotry, anti-LGBT bigotry and sexism are tolerated, behaviour that I find highly unparliamentary.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-69, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 16, 2024, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise here this evening to speak to Bill C-69, a bill that enacts certain provisions of the budget tabled back in April. I spoke to the budget at that time, back in the spring, but I would like to add a few comments now that it is before us as an implementation act because it is an important budget. All budgets are important, but this one in particular is important.

As we all know and hear every day, Canadians are struggling, especially to find housing, to pay the rent, to dream of paying a mortgage or even to find a roof to put over their heads. They struggle with the cost of groceries and the price of gas at the pumps.

Also, we are facing a climate crisis that is bringing us fires, floods and other extreme weather events that cause widespread stress to Canadians, their health, their homes and their livelihoods. Last year's fires in my riding and surrounding areas not only destroyed houses, but put tens of thousands of people on evacuation. They ended the tourist season abruptly in early August, just when all my local businesses are poised to make an income after months of losses. Then a mid-winter freeze caused serious damage to grapevines and peach, apricot and cherry orchards, which are part of the agriculture sector, a real backbone of the economy in my riding. Any budget has to recognize and face the climate crisis head-on.

While Canadians are struggling, big corporations and wealthy Canadians are doing better than ever. Big oil companies are making a killing. Big grocery companies are making record profits. Budgets are documents that make choices that will help Canadians. That is what we hope. It is clear that it is ordinary Canadians who need that help, not big corporations and wealthy individuals.

The NDP has used its leverage in this minority Parliament to deliver results for people. In this budget alone, we have compelled the Liberal government to build more homes, preserve existing affordable housing, protect renters and bring in universal single-payer pharmacare, starting with contraception and diabetes medications and devices. I want to pause there because, while they are all critical, people may not realize how critical diabetes medications are. A friend of mine, who was 27 years old, died because he could not afford the full cost of his insulin medication to monitor and help his diabetes. That will not happen again.

This budget would establish a national food program. Canada is the only G7 nation without a national school food program. A quarter of Canadian kids live in homes that are food insecure. This is another NDP initiative put in this budget. We are very proud of it. The Conservatives voted against it.

This budget would reverse damaging cuts to indigenous services. It would invest in accessible, high-quality, non-profit child care, another NDP initiative. It would establish a dedicated youth mental health fund. It would double the volunteer firefighters tax credit. I will talk more about that later.

As I said, several elements in this budget are key NDP initiatives. They are the pillar of this budget, I would say. However, they would not be there without the NDP's pressure. This is not an NDP budget. It would be different if it was an NDP government. We would go much further in some areas to help Canadians who need it the most.

I will talk about some of the victories, the things that will change the lives of Canadians for the better, and some things that are conspicuously missing.

We have the homebuyers' plan, which has been enhanced by increasing the withdrawal limit from $35,000 to $60,000. The government is also cracking down on short-term rentals by denying income tax deductions on income earned.

Short-term rentals are one of the big issues in my riding. My riding is a very popular area for people to come visit and spend their vacations at all times of the year. Increasingly, it is becoming more and more difficult to find housing, simply because it is very profitable for people to buy houses simply for investment and to put up as short-term rentals. This will help curb that, along with some important provincial legislation that has just been introduced. That is very welcome news.

This budget implements the Canada health transfer 5% growth guarantee. Canadians expect the federal government to support provinces in delivering the health care that we need. We all know that our health care system is struggling as well. This will help keep it going and give us the health care that we need, which we are so proud of, health care that was brought to us, again, by the NDP back in the 1960s.

I mentioned the volunteer firefighters tax credit. It used to be $3,000. There are almost 100,000 volunteer firefighters across Canada. They are the people who keep us safe in small communities from one end of the country to the other, and yet they receive so little in return for that brave and hard work.

They used to get a $3,000 tax credit. That was raised to $6,000 in this budget, again, based on an NDP initiative by my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni, who put forward a private member's bill to increase that to $10,000. We will take $6,000 as an improvement, but let us keep supporting our firefighters.

There is one thing that is not in this budget. With regard to wildfire firefighters who are not part of local firefighting corps but who fight wildfires in the summer, one would be surprised to find that they are not defined as firefighters under the CRA regulations. Firefighters, policemen and other people, such as ambulance drivers, get special dispensation under the Income Tax Act to put more money aside for their retirement. Wildfire firefighters do not. They are specifically excluded, and we need to change that, to call wildfire firefighters “firefighters”. It was not in this budget, but I hope it will be soon.

While I am talking about firefighters, another thing that is not in this budget is a national wildfire-fighting force. We need this, and 75% of Canadians have come out in support of such a force, which would be there to support local and provincial firefighting services. We need this help. It is clear that things are getting worse year by year. We cannot go on as we have been. We have been depending on the armed forces to help us. This year, the armed forces have said they are not going to be there this summer. We need to do something different, and I think a national wildfire-fighting force is the way to go.

I will also mention the good news about support for research. Finally, the government is putting funding into the scholarship and fellowship funding for young researchers in Canada. That funding had remained stagnant for 20 years. Students were living in poverty, and that has finally been fixed. That is very good news.

I will just finish by mentioning the Canada disability benefit, something the NDP has been fighting for, and yet we are very disappointed that this was brought in as a $200-a-month benefit, something that will not get people with disabilities out of poverty. People with disabilities live in poverty all across the country. No province gives them enough money to live above the poverty line. We had a chance to finish that, make it right, and we will continue fighting for people with disabilities, to make sure that they will not live in poverty.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the member's role in our caucus, as well as in this House, with his many years of expertise.

One of the parts he mentioned in his speech that really resonated with me was the realities of climate change and the impacts it has on smaller communities and their economies. I am just wondering if he could talk about some solutions that we could be looking at, instead of giving so many dollars to the oil and gas industry.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, small communities are really at the pointy end of the stick when it comes to climate change and its effects, whether it is through floods or wildfires. We have to mitigate the effects of climate change, that is, get serious about the emissions we put out by bringing them down through every means possible, but we also have to help these small communities adapt to climate change.

Just outside my riding, there are small communities in my area, Princeton, Merritt and Abbotsford, that were devastated by floods, for instance, in 2021. They are still waiting for adequate federal help to pay for the rebuilding of their communities in a way that they will be resilient in the face of future floods or fires. I could go on.

We have to support small communities. They do not have the resources, and we should and could help them.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, maybe we could talk a bit about what was not in the budget: eliminating the price on pollution, as an example, or cutting programs for people who are struggling. We are continuing to invest in Canadians and at the same time fight climate change.

The hon. member had started talking about science. If he could work science and climate change, and our need to invest in that, as well, into his answer, that would be great.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that sounded a bit like an improv act where one has to talk about a couple of things to bring it in, but I am happy to do that. I sit with the member for Guelph on the science and research committee. Right now, we are studying the effect of climate change in the Arctic and the research that we need to support in the Arctic about that: about how it is affecting people, what we can do about it, and how we can mitigate it. There is so much that needs to be done.

We have all heard about how Canada has to maintain and strengthen its support for Arctic communities, about how we have to work with indigenous groups there, the Inuit, the first nations of the north. We need to invest in infrastructure across the Arctic for that research. We have to invest in logistics support.

There is the polar continental shelf project, which, like the fellowships I mentioned, has been stagnant in funding for many, many years. It is the backbone of Arctic research. We have to maintain and strengthen that.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member comes from a beautiful part of the province, but not as beautiful as North Okanagan—Shuswap.

I would like to ask the member what his thoughts are about the $60 billion in additional debt that this budget is going to be passing on to future Canadians. Members in his riding, just the same as in mine and in every riding across the country, are going to be forced to pay the debt and the interest payments, which will now overcome what we actually do in health care transfers to the province. How does he justify passing that debt on to future generations?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we could talk all night about this. I would simply say that budgets are about choices. There is some increased funding here in this budget. It would go to a dental care plan that would bring dental care to nine million Canadians. For the first time, they would have access to a dentist. All of us here get free dental care, but the Conservatives want to keep that from the rest of Canadians. That is an investment in our health care system that would save us money in the long term. There are many other examples like that.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House this evening to join the debate on the budget implementation act.

As this may be the last time I have the opportunity to rise in this House before the session ends for the summer, I do want to take some time to acknowledge my staff members, who helped me tremendously, allowing me to do the work that I do: Natasha, Norman, Kevin, Donna and Kiran on my constituency side, and Sophie, Edith, Ahdi and Danica helping me on the legislative side. I thank them so much for the incredible work that they do.

I do want to spend a few minutes talking about budget 2024. Particularly, this budget takes some significant steps forward in ensuring that we can get more housing built faster. In my mind, there is perhaps no bigger challenge that we have in the country right now than tackling the housing crisis. This year's budget lays out an ambitious plan that shows how we would build 3.87 million new homes by 2031, which is what we need to do to close the housing gap. This is about building more homes by bringing down the cost of home building, helping cities make it easier to build homes at a faster pace, changing the way Canadian home builders manufacture homes and growing the workforce to ensure that we get the job done. The budget also includes funding for below-market housing.

I have very much seen the impact of these programs already through many of the municipalities, through the housing accelerator fund, speeding up the permitting process for new housing, as well as the federal government supporting the construction of over 1,000 new below-market homes since I was elected in 2019.

The budget also takes some significant steps forward in helping with the high cost of living. There would be $1 billion in additional funding to build new child care spaces. Already, through the federal government's programming, families are saving, on average, $6,600 per child on child care each year in B.C. The budget would also provide additional funding for training of more ECE workers. We are also moving ahead on the first two parts of our pharmacare program, providing free access to contraceptives and diabetes medication, which would make a tremendous difference in the lives of so many Canadians.

This budget also moves ahead with the national school food program, as well as launching the Canada disability benefit, and I will get to those a bit more in a few minutes.

This budget also takes some steps forward in growing the economy in a way that is shared by all. There would be a generational investment in artificial intelligence, which is going to be a huge part of improving productivity in Canada going forward, as well as major investments in research and development, which was just mentioned in the previous intervention. We are also moving forward on a number of investment tax credits that would continue to grow the green economy in Canada, which has already led to Canada's being the largest per capita recipient of foreign direct investment last year.

I do want to highlight a few measures in the budget implementation act, knowing that I will not have time to cover all of them, as this is a 660-page piece of legislation.

With respect to the housing file, there are changes to the Income Tax Act that would now prevent folks from deducting income for short-term rentals in areas where municipalities do not allow them. This would be really important to ensure that those homes go back into the long-term rental pool. The homebuyers' plan withdrawal limit would also be increased from $35,000 to $60,000 to allow people to save for a down payment for their first home, which would be in addition to the first home savings account that we created, which is already allowing Canadians to save $40,000 tax-free in and tax-free out.

There are a number of measures that would make life cost less for Canadians. One that would make a tremendous difference in my riding is doubling the volunteer firefighter tax credit and the search and rescue tax credit for volunteers. As someone who has both Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue and normal search and rescue, as well as a number of volunteer firefighter stations in my riding, I know this would make a tremendous difference for folks who put themselves at risk to help us in our most vulnerable times. Therefore, this is a small token of our appreciation for the incredible work that they do.

As I mentioned before, we are moving ahead with a national school food program. We are currently the only G7 country that does not have a national school food program. Through an investment of $1 billion over five years, we would be providing meals for 400,000 children across Canada.

Through measures in this budget, we would be able to start negotiations with provinces, like my own, British Columbia, which has already started on the work to ensure we can pass along these benefits, which are not only going to ensure that children get fed but also save families an estimated $800 per child per year.

This budget also moves ahead with the Canada disability benefit. This is the largest single-line budget item in this budget, which would provide $2,400 tax-free to Canadians living with disabilities. We know these are some of the most vulnerable Canadians who face high costs because of living with a disability, so measures in the budget implementation act would give effect to this benefit.

The budget implementation act would also expand the Canada student loan forgiveness program, which provides student loan forgiveness for professionals to tackle labour shortages in remote and rural areas. As a proud representative of a semi-rural riding, I am pleased that the budget implementation act would offer loan forgiveness to ECE workers, dentists, dental hygienists, pharmacists, midwives, teachers, social workers, personal support workers, physiotherapists and psychologists, in addition to doctors and nurses in all communities in my riding outside metro Vancouver. Up to $60,000 over five years in loan forgiveness is available in some cases. For those in one of these professions, it is yet another reason to consider coming to my riding.

This budget would also cut the excise duty rate on craft brewing, which is 90% of brewers in Canada. It would make a big difference for those businesses and their customers as well.

This budget would also drive inclusive growth. We are moving ahead with a number of investment tax credits, including for green hydrogen and clean manufacturing, as well as the extension of the mineral exploration tax credit, which would ensure that we can find the critical minerals that we need and use those critical minerals in the value chain to build the technologies we are going to need to decarbonize, as well as to produce the green hydrogen that we are going to need in a number of sectors, like heavy transportation, where electrification will not work.

I also want to mention that this budget would make a number of legislative changes to improve Canada's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regime. In fact, in every budgetary bill, both the budget and the fall economic statement, since I was elected in 2019, we have made legislative amendments to improve this regime, in addition to investing close to $375 million to ensure we can better combat financial crimes. The budget implementation act would expand coverage under this regime to tackle more high-risk areas, like cheque-cashing businesses, leasing and financing companies and others. It would also allow businesses that report under this regime, like banks, to communicate with each other while maintaining privacy regulations. This is very important as we know we are dealing with very complex matters that would require that sharing of information, provided that we do it in a safe way. Lastly, we would allow FINTRAC to communicate directly with civil forfeiture offices. This is very important because it would make it much easier to seize assets, ill-gotten gains, where it is very difficult at times to prove at a criminal level.

I want to mention a couple of things that I would like to have seen in the BIA that were not included. Number one, while we do make some important changes to the underused housing tax, there are more areas that we need to address. As an example, in my riding, there are areas that municipalities zone to prevent people from being long-term renters. The areas are zoned to be short-term rentals, where foreign direct investment was sought after to build up the bed capacity. We need to take into account examples like this to create exemptions.

Lastly, we made a number of changes to the Impact Assessment Act in this budget implementation act to respond to the Supreme Court of Canada case. I believe we may have gone a little too far and were too cautious in those changes, such that we have created gaps in our environmental assessment regime. My suggestion is that in the fall economic statement, these are two areas we should look at to make sure we improve them going forward.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague's intentions are sincere.

The challenge with the government is that it has no problem making promises it has no intention of ever delivering on. What does 3.9 million homes over the next seven years amount to? It is about half a million homes a year. We built 240,000 homes last year.

Could the hon. member tell us how on earth he expects us to get to 3.9 million homes?

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, this is perhaps one of the largest challenges that we have in the country.

We cannot keep building houses the way that we are building them right now. I can give an example from my riding. A company called Nexii is building homes in a factory sense. If we can prefabricate homes and then assemble them on site, that is one way of increasing the productivity in that space. It is something that we need to do. We need to get more people to work in trades to build more homes. That is part of the challenge.

Through the budget, we are now expanding funding through the housing accelerator fund to speed up the permitting at the local level. We need to work very closely with municipalities and provinces. I am very fortunate with my province of British Columbia. We have a great working relationship.

We need to make sure that we have the density as-of-right, and that we are working together, rowing in the same direction, because it is a tremendous challenge that we need to be able to solve as a country.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is my neighbour, and it is always good to see him here in the House.

My question is around the disability supports. We know that the NDP has been fighting desperately for a long time, along with a lot of advocates for the disability community, talking about the high level of poverty and the reality that so many are slipping through cracks that we should be filling.

It was very disappointing to see the Liberal government not put forward something more substantive, but instead, something that will keep people in poverty rather than lifting them from it.

I am just wondering if he has heard the same thing, like I have from my constituents, that this is a significant concern, and they expect to see more.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a tremendous step forward in this budget, creating the Canada disability benefit. To have $2,400 each year, tax-free, going to individuals living with a disability makes a huge difference in people's lives. Again, we are talking about some of the most vulnerable Canadians. This is moving ahead with something that was committed to in the 2021 platform for my party.

Can we do more? Absolutely. There is more we can do to make life more affordable for all Canadians, but particularly some of the most vulnerable. This is just one such measure in this budget.

We are also moving ahead with providing a dental care plan for low-income Canadians, as well as a lot of the investments in housing and pharmacare. Collectively, these are a lot of the measures that we are taking to make life more affordable, in addition to the Canada disability benefit, which I think is already going to make a tremendous difference in people's lives.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to continue in the spirit of my colleague's question on the Canada disability benefit. The Bloc Québécois criticized one thing in this bill, and that is the fact that the rules, the eligibility requirements and the benefit level were all to be determined by regulation.

The government used the budget to announce a benefit amount that we feel is insufficient, and it did this without having tabled the regulations as planned. What can my colleague tell us about that?

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said to my other colleague, this is a very important program to support Canadians who are in very challenging situations.

We also need to work with the provinces to implement this program. We need to make sure that this program will take effect and that the provinces will not use the money that is to be used for this program for other purposes. There are a number of things we need to do to ensure this program works well.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to stand today and talk on Bill C-69, the budget implementation act, or as I prefer to call it, “the economic vandalism act”.

This is a budget that continues to build upon the inflationary deficits that Canadians are struggling to deal with. The government's spending continues to be out of control. First it was borrowing money, then it was printing money, and now it is going to continue to dip into the pockets of Canadians and raise taxes so it has money to spend on all its crazy ideas and programs.

We know the Liberals have gotten no results the entire time they have been in government. For the past nine years, we have witnessed rent double. We have witnessed the cost of a mortgage double and the cost of a down payment double. Our children and grandchildren will not have the opportunity that we did to own a home and to move ahead in life because of the out-of-control spending of the Liberal-NDP government.

We have a deficit this year that is going to be over $40 billion. It has been described as the worst budget since 1982. Who said that? The former, Liberal-appointed Bank of Canada Governor, David Dodge.

We have witnessed that Canada has the worst living standards in 40 years according to the Fraser Institute. We have also seen, under the Liberal-NDP government, that we have had the worst growth in GDP, or income per person, since the 1930s. Nine in 10 middle-class families are paying more in income tax today than they were nine years ago.

We have a situation that is increasing and is hurting everyone. In my riding of Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, it is hitting everybody. Our farmers are struggling with increased carbon taxes that have gone up 23% and they now have to deal with the capital gains tax, and that is really starting to take a bite.

We can look at how farms have been structured, family farms, over the last number of years. I come from a farm family. My daughter and son-in-law are grain farmers. I have two brothers who are farmers. They put hard work and effort into growing their properties. They want to make sure that there is something to pass on to the next generation, which is the same thing that my father did for his children, and that is at risk.

To make things more manageable, people have formed their family farms into limited corporations. Our doctors, our dentists and our chiropractors, especially in rural areas, have set themselves up into limited liability partnerships and corporations. Those limited corporations pay out capital gains. Of course, now these capital gains are all going to get taxed by the Liberal-NDP coalition by up to 67%.

This is not a tax on the wealthy. This is a tax on the hard-working people who feed us, take care of us and take care of our health. All of them are going to be attacked and become either less profitable or be forced to relocate to jurisdictions like the United States where it is easier to make a living without having to work as hard. I have had doctors and dentists tell me that they are going to work fewer hours because of the income tax implications with the capital gains tax grab by the Liberals and the Minister of Finance.

This is also hitting cottage owners and those who have secondary residences, whether they bought a property for rental income or they bought a home that they hope to pass on to their children. Now, when they go to sell those properties, they are going to get nailed with this capital gains tax that they did not expect. There is a word for this. When somebody takes something away from another that they never deserved, it is called highway robbery. That is the economic vandalism that we are talking about here by the Liberal-NDP coalition.

As the shadow minister for national defence, I do want to switch gears and talk about how this budget does not support, in any way, shape or form, the even less ambitious defence policy update. The defence policy update had some ideas, but all the spending, especially in this budget, has been kicked down the road until after the next federal election. We are talking three, four or five years down the road before we see any increase in spending for national defence to support our troops.

At the national defence committee today, we actually had one of our witnesses say that the defence policy update is a national “embarrassment” that fails to recognize the threat environment we are in and that, technically, Canada is already “at war”.

We are witnessing what is happening in Ukraine. We have had increased escalation in the conflict in the South China Sea between the PRC and the Philippines, plus what we are seeing in Taiwan. This defence policy update fails to recognize those threats. All the money that has supposedly been promised is kicked down the road.

As a case in point, we have a retention and recruitment crisis happening in the Canadian Armed Forces. One thing that we identified is the lack of housing. The Minister of National Defence even said that we are short 6,700 residential housing units for our troops. We have troops who are living homeless and actually couch surfing. They are living in campers or in their cars. Worse yet, they are stuck in these tent cities that have sprung up across the country over the last nine years under the Liberal government.

Even though the government recognizes that we need more homes for our current serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the budget has zero dollars for new housing for our troops. It has zero dollars next year. There is only $8 million in the budget in three years' time, which does not build 6,700 housing units. Eight million dollars will not build, in today's dollars, 24 homes. Again, that is a national embarrassment. We have people who are serving this country but cannot house themselves properly, and the government and the defence minister fail to recognize that we have to support our troops. Therefore, we have a retention and recruitment crisis, and the defence policy update gives no idea of how we are going to increase our troop strength. We are 17,000 troops short today, and it could get worse if this is not rectified soon.

We have a housing shortage and, of course, we have no money to put into new houses. As we heard today again at committee, we have an army that the government has no plan to get new kit for so that it can become the expeditionary force we have come to rely on as Canadians.

A case in point on how the government does not take our forces seriously and puts them in awkward positions is the news we heard just this weekend that the Canadian Armed Forces, through the Royal Canadian Navy, positioned one of our Arctic offshore patrol vessels in Havana, Cuba, for a celebration of the Communist dictatorship there. It is docked alongside Russian navy destroyers. Why would we want to use the Royal Canadian Navy to liaise with a hostile dictatorship in Cuba and an aggressive country that is invading Ukraine today?

We know that Cubans are serving in the Russian armed forces today and fighting in Ukraine. Cuba has actually sent troops to Belarus to train alongside Russian and Belarusian soldiers so that they can invade Ukraine again from the north. This is a national embarrassment and, again, speaks to the fact that the government does not have a plan when it comes to supporting our troops. Instead, it uses them for photo ops with Communist dictatorships rather than supporting our allies in fighting back against the evil that is occurring around the world.

We have frigates that cannot be deployed on as frequent a basis. We no longer have destroyers. We no longer have any of our own supply ships. They are slowly coming, and we have the Asterix out there, of course, which we ordered when we were in government. However, we do not have the same reach in the navy that we used to.

When we look at Ukraine, our government, again, continues to dither and delay in delivering. It announced 18 months ago that NASAMS was going to be sent to Ukraine, and it is still not there. The Liberals finally announced that we were sending 2,000 CRV7 rockets, but guess what, Mr. Speaker? We asked back in February to send the 83,000 we had, not 2,000.

We will continue to put pressure on the government to do the right thing for Ukraine, for the Canadian Armed Forces and for rural Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Innovation]

Mr. Speaker, I had a very hard time listening to the member referencing support for Ukraine in his speech. He stood up multiple times in the House and voted against more support for Operation Unifier, support for Ukrainian refugees coming to Canada and an updated free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine, which President Zelenskyy himself asked us to pass. I cannot understand.

The BIA has additional support for Ukraine, in terms of using seized Russian assets. We just heard an announcement that the Prime Minister made at the G7 to support Ukraine with additional funds.

How can the member honestly criticize our government when he cannot stand up for Ukraine?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member over there knows well that no one has fought more and harder for Ukraine than I have. I was one of the first of 13 to be banned from Russia because I have taken a strong stand in support of Ukraine for a long time. I will take no lessons from the member.

When we did not support the free trade agreement, it was because we already had a free trade agreement in place. It was better than the current free trade agreement, in which the Liberals actually stuck a carbon tax. We know that the Liberals also supported sending over turbines to pump Russian gas into Europe to help fund Putin's war machine. We will never take lessons from the Liberals on how to not stand up for Ukraine.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!