Debates of Sept. 24th, 2024

Auditor General of Canada

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

It is my duty to lay upon the table, pursuant to subsection 94(2) of the Access to Information Act and subsection 72(2) of the Privacy Act, the reports of the Auditor General of Canada on the administration of these acts for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), these reports are deemed to have been permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs in relation to the motion adopted on Monday, September 16, regarding the passing of Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Cathy Merrick.

Lebanon

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition on behalf of Lebanese Canadians and friends of Lebanon.

Lebanon is living in difficult times socially, politically and economically. The petitioners note that Lebanon has the largest number of refugees per capita in the world, and with the escalation of war, Lebanon and the Lebanese people are at risk of losing their lives, livelihoods, sovereignty and independence.

The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to do as it did in 1956 and be a leader in establishing an international force to stabilize Lebanon and the region, to act as a peacemaker and to help address the displacement of people in the region.

They believe there is a diplomatic path to resolving the challenges the country is facing.

I am happy to present this petition to the House.

Pakistan

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the petitioners have given me a petition to present to the House today. Pakistani Canadians are concerned about the political turmoil in Pakistan following the unjust removal of a democratically elected government and subsequent arrest of Imran Khan.

The petitioners call upon the Canadian government, which promotes fair and free elections around the world, to take steps and measures such as implementing sanctions on corrupt military officials and banning those who have been involved with human rights violations from travelling to Canada; leveraging influence with the IMF to tie new and existing loans to Pakistan on the condition that fair and free elections are held; and requiring these measures to be continued until free and fair elections are held later this year, with the participation of all opposition political parties and leaders.

Children and Families

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I received petition e-4753, which has 950 signatures from residents of Edmonton Manning and across the country.

The undersigned citizens and residents of Canada call upon the Prime Minister to stop meddling with education, for which provincial governments have the exclusive responsibility under the Canadian Constitution, and apologize for characterizing parental rights as “far right”.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Opposition Motion—Confidence in the Prime Minister and the Government

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

moved:

That the House has no confidence in the Prime Minister and the government.

Mr. Speaker, Canada made us all a promise. That promise was that anyone from anywhere could do anything. My parents taught me that. They are teachers, after all. They taught me a lot of things. I was adopted by these two teachers because I was born to a 16-year-old single mom who could not raise me at that time. My parents taught me that despite my humble beginnings, I could get where I wanted if I was willing to work hard. The promise was kept by our country.

Canada made that same promise to my wife when she came here as a refugee from Venezuela when she was a little girl. All six members of her family lived in a cramped two-bedroom basement apartment in east Montreal. Her dad would get up early in the morning to pick fruit. Later on, he would get up at four in the morning to work in the banking sector. Today, we can safely say that the family has succeeded. My wife Anaida has one brother who is a soldier and another who is a carpenter. Her sister is a nurse. The promise of Canada was kept for her family.

That is why I got into politics in the first place. When I was elected, I was part of a government that expanded that promise by lowering inflation, the GST, income taxes and taxes on small businesses. We also balanced the budget, and we did it all while increasing health transfers faster than any government in the history of health transfers. Personal incomes went up 10% after we lowered inflation and income taxes. We made the promise even more achievable.

Now, however, after nine years of this Prime Minister, the promise of Canada has been broken. He has broken a lot of promises. He promised to balance the budget, to reduce taxes on the middle class, and to build more affordable housing, but all of those promises were broken.

What is different about this promise I am talking about is that it was not the Prime Minister who made it. It does not come from him. This is a promise made to every Canadian, whether they were born here or immigrated to Canada.

It makes us so sad these days to see hard-working young Canadians who are 35 and living in their parents' basements. This never used to happen before this Prime Minister came along with his policies that doubled housing costs. Every month, 2,000 people line up at food banks. There are 1,800 homeless encampments across Ontario. This has never been seen before. This is the type of thing we see in third-world countries. People are dying in these encampments. Gun violence is up 120% since this Prime Minister, with the help of the Bloc Québécois, went after hunters while letting criminals and gun smugglers go free.

We need to talk about what the Bloc Québécois is doing. The Bloc Québécois is helping the current government. It voted 188 times to keep the Prime Minister in power and supported $500 billion in inflationary, bureaucratic and centralizing spending. I would add that money for health care and seniors was not part of that $500 billion, not part of that spending, because it is already set out in legislation. There was no need to vote to keep it. What I am talking about is spending on consultants, bureaucrats, interest groups, and big government-subsidized corporations.

At the same time, the Bloc Québécois is voting to increase the fuel tax, including in Quebec with carbon tax 2, which does apply in Quebec, and the capital gains tax, which will force Quebec farmers, entrepreneurs, doctors and home builders to pay Ottawa more money that will be controlled by the federal government. Even the Bloc Québécois's current demands will result in an expansion of the federal government.

It is true that I was part of a government that increased health transfers, but I am not a separatist. The Bloc Québécois says that, in order to fund health care, we need to send more of Quebeckers' money to Ottawa, which will send it back to Quebec. The Bloc wants the federal government to have even more control over Quebeckers' health. At the same time, it recognizes that Quebeckers need the federal programs, which goes against its goal of creating a sovereign state. There is an internal contradiction within the Bloc Québécois.

Now, the Bloc Québécois wants to keep the most centralizing and costly Prime Minister in history in power, a Prime Minister whose immigration policy is out of control, according to his own Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. That policy has pushed Quebec to the breaking point. The Bloc Québécois says to wait, but waiting never changes anything. The Bloc Québécois is telling Quebeckers to wait, when Quebeckers cannot get health care or social services or buy a house, when Quebeckers see an economy in which the GDP per capita is lower than it was 10 years ago.

The Bloc Québécois says that it does not know what I am going to do. My immigration policy is very clear. Everyone has seen it. I was a member of the party in power, and we will adopt exactly the same approach to immigration as we did 10 years ago. We gave the provinces a lot of power but maintained control of the numbers. We allowed people to come to Canada and meet our labour needs in sectors experiencing shortages, but in numbers that our labour market, housing market and health care system could handle. That is the approach I adopted when our party was in power, and that is the approach I will adopt in the future. I have already explained my policy in a lot more detail than the other opposition leaders. The leader of the Bloc Québécois has said nothing about most of the major issues. I will be even clearer on the campaign trail, when I will outline my common-sense plan to axe the tax, fix the budget, build the homes and stop the crime.

We will axe the tax to make work pay off again, so that servers, truck drivers and plumbers who work more earn more and bring home powerful paycheques. For that to happen, though, people need a roof over their heads. Currently, Canada has fewer homes per capita than any other G7 country. There is too much red tape. I am going to incentivize municipalities to speed up building permits, cut building taxes and free up land for building, while axing the tax that stands in the way of construction, so that young people still have a chance of getting a home. We will cap population growth so that the housing stock grows faster than the population.

We will fix the budget with a law that requires the government to find one dollar of savings for every new dollar of spending. This is how single moms, seniors and small businesses balance their budgets, and they expect us to adopt the same common-sense approach. We will cut the use of consultants, something the Bloc voted to fund. We will cut bureaucracy, waste and big handouts to multinational corporations that are offshoring our money. We will cut all that to bring the money home so we can lower deficits, inflation and interest rates and fund our social services. We will stop the crime not by banning hunting rifles, as the Bloc and the Liberals want to do, but by being tough on criminals and strengthening the border.

By doing this, we will bring home a country where hard work earns a more powerful paycheque that buys affordable food, gas and homes in safe communities, where anyone from anywhere can do anything through hard work. That is the promise of Canada, and that is what we will bring home.

This country made me a promise when I was born. It made the same promise to everyone in this room and across this country. I was born to a 16-year-old single mom who put me up for adoption to two school teachers, who taught me about this promise. The promise was that anyone from anywhere could do anything. That hard work would earn one a powerful paycheque. It would buy one good food and a decent home in a safe neighbourhood.

It is that promise that brought my wife's family here as refugees from Venezuela. There were six people in a two-bedroom, basement, working-class, Montreal apartment. Her dad was up at the crack of dawn to hop in the back of a pickup truck to go out into the middle of a farm field and pick fruits so he could pay the rent. Today, her brothers are a soldier and a carpenter. Her sister is a nurse. Her father has a business with his wife. They have all succeeded. The promise was kept.

It was that promise that got me into politics in the first place. I was very proud to be part of a government that not only kept the promise, but expanded it with the lowest inflation in almost half a century. Incomes after tax and inflation went up 10%. We cut the GST. We balanced the budget. We did it all while increasing health care transfers faster than any government since that time. That is why I welcome every single time they talk about my experience in government. I would like to do the exact same thing in the future, which is to expand the opportunity, expand the promise of this country.

However, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister, that promise has been broken. Everything costs more. Two million people are lined up at food banks because they cannot afford food. This is a record-smashing number. One in 10 Torontonians now go to a food bank every single month. Housing costs have doubled and two-thirds of young people believe they will never be able to afford a home. That has never happened in Canadian history. We see it most tragically on our streets, where there are now 1,800 homeless encampments across Ontario, and there are 35 in quaint, beautiful, once prosperous Halifax. The Prime Minister has admitted in his own press releases that one in four kids are not getting enough food. Linked to this, malnutrition and diseases, which had long ago been eradicated, are making a comeback. We have lost 47,000 people to drug overdoses, more than we lost in the Second World War.

These numbers are stories. They are human lives. When the NDP says that all these people can wait, that we do not need to fix these problems now, but just delay another year and let thousands more die, let thousands more lose their homes and move into dangerous tent encampments, thousands more become addicted to government-funded drugs or get killed by a rampant career criminal who was released once again for the 76th time to unleash chaos in our streets. New Democrats tell those Canadians who are suffering the pain of a brutal economy to wait. It is the worst economy since the Great Depression. The GDP per capita, which is the income per person, is down more than at any time since the Great Depression. In fact, our economy per capita is smaller today than it was 10 years ago. Our income per person has dropped more than any other G7 country since 2019, the year before the pandemic, while the American economy has grown 19%, right next door.

The gap between our per capita GDP and that of the Americans is now worse than at any time since at least World War II, and according to one Liberal economist, Trevor Tombe, the worst in a century.

We have gone from winning the tug-of-war on capitalism with the Americans, where they were investing $30 billion to $100 billion more per year in our economy than we were investing in theirs in the first 14 years of this century, to $450 billion more Canadian money invested in the States than the reverse in the last nine years. Canadian dollars are building pipelines, mines, business centres, shopping centres and businesses that pay American paycheques. I love America, but I do not want to bring jobs to Americans. I want to bring home those jobs and the Canadian promise to this country.

That is why we have a common-sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. This will be a carbon tax referendum and a carbon tax election. I know that the media has worked hard to try to avoid me saying the words “carbon tax”, as we saw in the extremely dishonest and fraudulent report from Bell Media-controlled CTV, a company whose bonds have been downgraded to near-junk status as its overpaid CEO empties the books to pay his wealthy friends an unacceptably and unrealistically high dividend. He and his cronies at that company are going after me because they know that I am standing up for the people against the crony capitalists and insiders like them.

On a carbon tax election, here is the existential choice. Do we go to a 61¢-a-litre carbon tax, making ours among the highest taxed fuel in all the world, a tax that would grind our economy to a halt, that would force our truckers to leave for the U.S. where there is no carbon tax, leaving nobody to bring goods to our grocery store, parts to our factories or jobs to our people? It will be a nuclear winter if this happens.

That is why common-sense Conservatives will axe the tax. We will bring home jobs, paycheques, businesses and opportunities with abundant, affordable energy. We will fight climate change and protect our economy with technology, not taxes, by approving large-scale green projects that generate nuclear, hydroelectric, carbon capture and storage, and other sources of affordable, clean Canadian energy that will once again get approved when we repeal the anti-development law, Bill C-69. All of this will generate the revenues so that we can fix the budget.

We will fix the budget by unleashing massive growth through the elimination of bureaucratic barriers and firing gatekeepers so that our projects can get built, setting the goal that all three levels of government should aspire to have the fastest building permits process in the entire OECD.

After nine years of tax increases on entrepreneurs and businesses being called tax cheats, we will pass a bring-it-home tax cut to lower the burden on work, savings and investment so that we bring home powerful paycheques and production to this country with lower, fairer, simpler taxes. We will cap government spending with a dollar-for-dollar law that requires we find one dollar of savings for every new dollar of spending. We will cut bureaucracy, waste and consulting contracts, so that we can get the budget close or, hopefully, on balance as soon as possible to bring down interest rates, inflation and debt.

Finally, we will unleash the construction of homes by incentivizing municipalities to grant faster permits, to free up land and to cut development taxes so that we can build in safe neighbourhoods, with jail, not bail for repeat violent offenders, to bring home the promise of Canada, of a powerful paycheque that earns affordable food, gas and homes in safe neighbourhoods where anyone, from anywhere, can do anything.

Our vision is to be the biggest and most open land of opportunity the world has ever seen. That is our purpose. Now, let us bring it home.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, what is particularly interesting is the Leader of the Opposition's revisionist history of the time that the Conservatives were in government, but one thing that stood out to me in his remarks is that he said he was going to do the exact same thing as when the Conservatives were in government. What I recall, when the Conservatives were in government, was a country that was ashamed of what we were doing on the world stage, ashamed that we were not fighting climate change and that we were putting forward divisive politics and not bringing people together. That is exactly what I heard from the member opposite today.

To get big projects done, we have to do so in co-operation with indigenous partners. To get big things done, we have to do that with Canadians at the forefront. What we are hearing from the member opposite is that he has no intention of doing things to move Canadians forward.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I have heard a lot of voices, and it is funny because when the leader of the official opposition was speaking, nobody was making any noise on either side of the House. Now I am hearing a lot of heckling. I would ask members to please be respectful and offer that reciprocal silence to other individuals when they have the floor.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know that the Liberals are ashamed of our country and its past. That is why they changed the passport to take out Vimy Ridge, Terry Fox and other historical triumphs of Canadians. However, I am very proud of how we upheld that heritage. We helped defeat the Taliban and ISIS on the world stage, in partnership with Barack Obama I might add.

Speaking of the Americans, we got a deal on softwood lumber. We got an exemption to “buy America”. We had open and free trade.

Our prime minister was respected in the world. He was not dancing around and being laughed out of India or seen in a drunken stupor in some fancy hotel lobby playing the piano the night before the Queen's funeral. He was proud of this country. I am proud of this country. Canadians are proud of this country. We are going to bring home the country we love.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I just have one question. We have been back for a week and it has now been three weeks since the government reverted to being a minority government, which is what the people voted for in 2021. It is a minority government again, and Parliament has been back for barely a week.

Why the rush to trigger an election? Is this not the perfect opportunity to negotiate and make progress?

We know that the government members are isolated and tormented. No doubt even their pets are not speaking to them. That is why this would be the perfect time, even for the Conservatives, to get down to serious parliamentary work and set aside scorched-earth politics in favour of making progress. This is what our party is counting on.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, the question contained two errors.

The Bloc Québécois has not made any progress. The Bloc Québécois has offered its support to this Prime Minister without getting anything in return. It has not achieved anything at all for Quebec. Progress will be made when a common-sense Conservative government respects Quebec's jurisdictions.

The Bloc does not want a Conservative government because when the Conservatives are in power, there will be peace. When the Conservatives were in power in the Harper years, basically, there was no Bloc Québécois, because we had peace. Quebeckers realized that things were going well in Canada and that they were being left alone, so they did not need the Bloc Québécois.

The Liberals and the Bloc are co-dependent. Quebeckers want to be masters of their own house, and we will allow them to do just that.

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Madam Speaker, let us review the member for Carleton's record on cuts to health care. He voted against dental care. He voted against pharmacare. He voted to cut health care, time and time again. Maybe it does not matter to somebody who has had the government pay for his dentist appointments since his early 20s, but those costs matter to families.

Let us see whether he actually answers this simple question. Would the member for Carleton cut the dental care program that has provided real relief to seniors and kids? Yes or no.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am going to start by correcting the falsehoods.

I encourage the member to find one example where I have not voted to increase health care transfers. When I was in government, we increased health care transfers by 70% because of Stephen Harper's courageous leadership and strong books. The NDP voted against those increases. Now, they propose a pharmacare scheme that would ban union workers from keeping their private pharmacare plans. Unions have fought too hard and too long for their drug plans to have the NDP ban what it calls a “single-payer” system, which necessitates banning any non-government plan.

When I was on the floor of Stelco, the men and women there said they want to keep the plan that they fought for. I told them that I will never allow the NDP to ban their private drug plans and impose an inferior government plan that does not work.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

There are individuals who want to participate in the debate, but they do not have the floor. Again, I ask them to please be respectful and allow those members who have the floor to speak without interruption.

The hon. member for Perth—Wellington has the floor.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the member for Carleton spent the summer speaking with dozens of hard-working Canadians on factory floors at manufacturing facilities across the country. What message did he hear from the hard-working people who build this country?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, the message I heard was that, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, everything is broken. Life costs more, and work does not pay; housing costs have literally doubled. Crime, chaos, drugs and disorder are common in our streets. However, what most disappointed them, especially the ones who voted NDP, is the way that party abandoned them under their radical new leader.

The NDP leader is not like past NDP members. He does not stand up for workers; he stands up for himself and his own narrow self-interest. He has abandoned working people. He has worked to tax their fuel and their food. He wants to ban their pickup trucks and hunting rifles. He supports policies to shut down their union jobs in resource sectors, and he wants to keep them from having their own private drug plans, which they have fought so hard to achieve.

They reject the radicalism and the sellout of the NDP. They want a common-sense Conservative government that would bring home the Canada we love.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind members once again that, when somebody else has the floor, they should please not interrupt; that includes not interrupting me when I have the floor.

The hon. member for Victoria is rising on a point of order.

Alleged Unparliamentary Language

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition used unparliamentary language. I would ask for an apology—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I would like to hear what the point of order is, and I cannot do that if members are yelling out.

The hon. member for Victoria has the floor.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition used unparliamentary language. I would ask for an apology and for him to no longer use the word “sellout”.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

The corporate sellout leader of the Conservative Party used unparliamentary language, and if this language is not acceptable from me, it should not be acceptable from him.