Debates of Sept. 26th, 2024

Opposition Motion—Confidence in the Government

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech today, particularly the beginning part of it where she spent a lot of time talking about the incredible programs that have been brought forward during this session of Parliament. However, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that the Liberals and the NDP had a really good working relationship and were able to bring stuff forward together.

Now that we are in the position of not knowing when an election will be, the Conservatives will keep bringing forward these motions because they understand that there is no supply and confidence agreement anymore. I am interested in hearing my colleague's perspective on why it was so incredibly important for the NDP to back away from an agreement that had been working so well up to that point.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I can imagine the Liberals are quite upset that we broke an agreement with them, but frankly, right now we are disappointed in so many of the things that the Liberal government has done.

Let me be clear. I am not interested in supporting the Conservatives in any possible way, but when I look at the Canada disability benefit, with the laughable small amount that the Liberals brought forward for it; when I look at OAS and their failure to meet the needs of seniors in this country; and when I look at the way they have failed time and time again to meet the truth and reconciliation that this country is required to do, those are huge issues. Then, to top it all off, when I look at their foreign affairs failures, with their lack of clarity and lack of courage in recognizing the state of Palestine, it has become incredibly difficult for us to continue to support them.

They can continue to earn our vote. That is fine. However, we are done working with them.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I know my colleague has a keen interest in women's issues. Since she also talked about pensions, I will try to combine the two issues.

How can restoring equity between seniors aged 65 to 74 and those aged 75 and over also benefit women, who are often senior women disproportionately affected by insecurity?

How would putting an end to this unacceptable inequity created by the government help senior women?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for being a strong advocate for women in this Parliament.

It is true that the impact of not adequately providing the OAS disproportionately falls on women. Women typically live longer. Women typically do not have as strong a pension because maybe they stayed home to care for their families. That is the reality. We need to make sure we are doing everything we can to protect all seniors, particularly recognizing that senior women are more vulnerable.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to rise in this House, although I have found in my 20 years here that the House has sometimes not lived up to its standards of credibility. People expect us to come here to be their voice, a voice that brings some kind of hope and direction, and I do not see that here most days. Most days, it has become a very dumbed-down and vicious affair.

Today, the Leader of the Opposition is once again demanding an election. We have not really seen much from him, except that he wants the election right now. Yesterday, he wanted an election right then, and the House voted non-confidence in him because there is no trust in the Conservative leader. This is because we have such serious issues facing us as a nation and as a planet, and the Leader of the Opposition is not a serious leader for dealing with them.

We could be here talking this morning about the homeless crisis, which is a devastating crisis. We know that the Liberals have failed multiple times on their housing plans, but what is the plan of the Leader of the Opposition, who lives very well in a 19-room mansion at Stornoway with his own private chef? He attacks municipalities. He ridicules our mayors. When he comes to northern Ontario, he does not bother to meet with any of the frontline people who are trying to solve the housing crisis. He says he is going to go after them and calls them gatekeepers. That is not a plan; that is a slogan.

We talk about the rising use of food banks. The Conservatives wipe crocodile tears every time they talk about hungry children, yet they voted against a national nutrition plan for schools. The New Democrats pushed the government to address and fill the gaps, but the Leader of the Opposition, who has his own private chef, seems to be out of touch with that.

A huge opioid crisis is devastating our communities. What did the Conservative leader and his MPs do? They viciously attacked medical doctors and frontline nurses, to the point that doctors trying to keep people alive have faced death threats. That is not acceptable. It is not acceptable that MPs face death threats from the mob, whom I see Conservatives patting on the back every day. There are people threatening and attacking indigenous MPs, attacking women MPs and attacking racialized MPs, but to attack and threaten medical doctors is not what a leader does. Those are the tactics of the Leader of the Opposition, and he wonders why we do not have confidence in him running our country.

We have a number of huge international crises. With the situation in Lebanon and Gaza, a humanitarian disaster is unfolding, yet the member for Edmonton Manning had nothing to say about the threats facing Lebanese Canadians and the Lebanese people. He had nothing to say about it because if those in the Conservative caucus do not repeat talking points, they do not get a gold star and they sit on the backbench. That is not leadership. We are all brought here to represent our communities. In Edmonton Manning, the Lebanese community is living in terror from the Israeli air assaults, and the member says nothing because he wants to get the gold star from his leader, who lives in the big mansion in Stornoway, by repeating and repeating the same dumbed-down slogans. People's lives are at risk. We are watching—

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I think the hon. member should read the tweet from the member for Edmonton Manning, because he did do something about it yesterday. The member is spreading misinformation and disinformation in the House.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I invite the member for Edmonton Manning to come into the House and say it. I do not read his Twitter feed. Who does? Not many do, but I know they read mine.

This shows the lack of seriousness about a horrific humanitarian disaster, the genocide happening in Gaza, with people dying, the targeting of medical doctors, the targeting of civilians and the targeting of journalists. This is something we in the House would deal with, but what we have learned from the Leader of the Opposition is that he has no interest in standing on the international stage. He ridicules the Prime Minister for staying at an expensive hotel. Well, he is the leader of a G7 country. I guess the Super 8 was booked the weekend he went to London. The Leader of the Opposition has to show a vision, but he does not have a vision; he has division.

The opposition could have brought in a motion today on the crisis we are facing in our medical system, but the Leader of the Opposition has no vision on that; he has bumper sticker slogans. His great favourite words are “radical” and “extremist”, and he is now saying that providing diabetes medication to people who need it is a radical idea. No, that is just plain human decency. That is what we should doing in Canada, but decency is not part of this leader's mantra.

What we have is a Conservative leader who has taken the fears and uncertainties of Canadians and pushed them down into dumbed-down slogans, which he has insisted that every member on his team repeat. I have been 20 years in the House and have never seen so many members reduced to caricature rhyming schemes. It is like a toxic Dr. Seuss, and the Conservatives repeat them again and again: “I don't like green eggs and ham. I don't like them, Sam-I-am. I don't like the carbon tax.” That is not leadership.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I got a laugh out of them. They smiled and woke up because they are used to hearing these dumbed-down slogans. That is not leadership.

Why is the Leader of the Opposition, whom I have known for 20 years and I feel is fundamentally unfit for public leadership in any capacity, is so desperate to call an election now? There are a number of reasons, and I think he does not want to be questioned about them because he has incredibly thin skin.

Members will notice that to the Leader of the Opposition, it is carbon tax, carbon tax, carbon tax. Well, Ken Boessenkool, who is a long-time Conservative, said that he is not serious about the carbon tax: “I just don't see any government in any future getting rid of that”. He also said:

Look, there’s a huge gap between what Conservatives say and what Conservatives do. And I hate to admit this, but it’s true. Jason Kenney ran on “Axe The Tax” and he beefed up the industrial carbon price in Alberta. Danielle Smith ran on “Axe to Tax” and she not only beefed up the industrial carbon price in Alberta, she said she was going to go to $170 (a tonne).

When we asked the Conservative leader, who lives in the mansion at Stornoway, what his view of the industrial carbon tax was, he said that it did not exist. He does not like to be questioned. No wonder he is so mad at CTV. No wonder he is so mad at CBC. No wonder he attacks Global TV. He does not want the questions. He is trying to stay ahead, which is why he wants to force an election.

I think it is really important to point out that with the foreign interference inquiry, documents have been tabled that say Erin O'Toole believes he was taken down as leader of the Conservative Party by foreign interference. That was in the documents. We know that many in the cabal over there supported the takedown of Erin O'Toole, and the one who benefited is the man now living in Stornoway. Why is he is not willing to be in the House to answer questions about foreign interference in his caucus? Maybe that is why he is trying to force this election. These are really important questions.

Of course, I think the other reason the Leader of the Opposition is trying to force an election is to stay ahead of the extremists in his caucus. The member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands went down to Florida to vow that he would end the right of women to make choices for their bodies, while we see in the United States women dying in parking lots from bleeding to death internally because they are unable to get a proper abortion. This is what the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands would say. We know the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan brought, on the Canadian dime, a legislator from Uganda who called for the death penalty for gay people. Let us stop and think about that. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan had Canadians pay to bring someone here who wanted to bring the death penalty to gay people. That is his caucus.

Therefore, when we see degrading and debased behaviour in this House, and these really ugly slurs against the Prime Minister of the country, and not one Conservative will stand up and admit they were the one who said it, it is because they hide behind their hate machine. However, we see them. We have it on tape, we see the footage and we know those who are making the hate. We know that people like the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan can only get away with it as long as the light is not shone on them, and we will continue to shine that light.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I just want to remind members that referencing something that has not been determined, that is still questionable, may not be the right avenue.

I do want to come back to the points of order that were raised earlier. Can I go to the point of order here and then go back to the hon. member?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I just raised an issue that happened. That is all. We know it happened because it is on the tape. If you, Madam Speaker, are saying I cannot even mention that an event happened, that is taking it one step too far, I would humbly—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

What I indicated was that when the Speaker was here, he indicated that he was not sure who had said what and that they would be reviewing the tape and we would come back to the House. Therefore, I just want to ask members to please wait until that decision comes back. There were two other points raised that I want to address.

The first one was from the hon. member for Edmonton Griesbach, and I am glad that I am able to come back to that. Sometimes, I cannot hear everything perfectly at this end of the House, and I do not think that all Chairs can either, but what was said was, “We are expecting a quick and judicious response to what is extreme cowardice from...that side of the House.” After reviewing this and after discussion, we recognize that this is not directed directly to any particular party. The member said “that side of the House”. Therefore, I want to indicate that the hon. member will be able to speak. I am not going to ask him to withdraw the comment, but I do want to ask members to please be careful with respect to how they say things because it does create quite a difficult situation. Again, we are all hon. members and we should all be conducting ourselves according to what is expected of us.

There was another point of order, which was raised by the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George, about what the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona had indicated. After reviewing the footage on that, I do not see an issue with what was said. It was not directed at members here. The member for Edmonton Strathcona specifically said, “Conservative social media people...identified as being in the pocket of Putin”, so it was not referencing individuals here in the House.

Again, I want to ask members to please be careful with respect to how things are said. Sometimes, they are misunderstood or misconstrued.

The hon. deputy government House leader has a point of order.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for so quickly coming back to the House to address these points. I appreciate the very quick response.

I would ask that similar consideration be given to the member for Etobicoke Centre, who has not been able to speak in this House for six or seven months as a result of a very similar statement to what you, Madam Speaker, just ruled on. That member was not even given the reconsideration that you have now come back and given so quickly to an event that happened moments ago. I would encourage the Speaker and the occupants of the chair to give that same consideration to the member for Etobicoke Centre because he deserves that as well.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I appreciate the hon. member's raising this point of order. We will come back to the House if need be.

The hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, we see a government that is proud of its record.

Over two million Canadians are using a food bank each month. More and more homeless encampments are creeping up in communities all across our country, with over 1,800 homeless encampments in this province alone. Homeless encampments are cropping up on the sides of freeways and highways in my province of British Columbia. Over 47,000 Canadians have died since 2016 due to overdose. I will say it again: Overdose is the leading cause of death for youth aged 10 to 18 in my province. Thousands upon thousands of forestry workers are out of work due to this government's inability to get a softwood lumber agreement. There are mill closures all across our country. There is scandal and corruption.

I ask our hon. colleague if this is really a government that is proud of that record. That is the record of the current government. That is the truth, and I ask my hon. colleague if it is a record to be proud of. I am just puzzled by it.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, certainly I am not here to defend the Liberal government. What I am asked today is to vote on whether or not the opposition is credible, and I would like to ask that hon. member why he and his colleagues targeted a medical doctor on the front lines of the opioid crisis who received death threats. If the member is concerned about the lack of food for children, why did he vote against funding for a national school food program? If he is worried about the mental health crisis, why did he come into the House and vote against the suicide hotline?

These are questions we need to ask, because it is about the confidence that we would have in him as a minister. He is not willing to stand up on these issues, yet he stands up and uses the homeless population and uses the opioid crisis as people are dying, and then he votes obediently to shut down all those programs and target the doctors and the nurses who are trying to keep people alive.

What person would ever have confidence if that person was a minister? My gut feeling is that he is not going to be, so we are not going to have to worry. It is all hypothetical.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to my hon. friend from Timmins—James Bay, I am very grateful for his participation in this House, and I know I am not the only one who is going to miss him because he has chosen not to run for re-election.

His speech started to really try to drill down on why it is that the official opposition wants an election now. As a British Columbian, I sent out an email far and wide asking constituents how they thought I should vote on the non-confidence motion. Of course, all of my constituents are in a provincial election right now. I did not get a single person, which is unusual, saying to please vote with the Conservatives. I do not have a lot of constituents who want our current Prime Minister to stay on, but I do have a lot of constituents who think, “What? We are having an election right now.”

One of the things that occurred to me, and I will ask the hon. member, because he has spoken of foreign interference, is that perhaps the leader of the official opposition wants to avoid any questions as to why he does not seek top secret security clearance. I think we need to ask him to do so, so there is not a lingering question about whether he is worried he would not get it.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that that my hon. colleague the leader of the Green Party is going to miss me. I know the people who are going to miss me the most are the Conservatives, because they are not used to anyone telling the truth. In their caucus, they get fed slogans, so they appreciate someone who can actually talk about facts.

To speak facts, I would like to respond that we have, in the Conservative leader, the only leader in the history of this country who either cannot or will not get security clearance. What does it say about confidence in being a national or international leader, when he came in the middle of the night and voted against Ukraine, voted against support for the Canadian military mission to Ukraine, and stood up and voted against Ukrainian support?

We now know, according to documents that have been filed, that Erin O'Toole, whom I respected, believes he was taken down by foreign interference. Who did that benefit? It benefited the guy who is living in the 19-room mansion, Stornoway. He needs to answer that question. Why is he not here to explain his role in taking down Erin O'Toole? I ask him to stand up and stop hiding behind the desk.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House. I am always conscious of the honour that people have bestowed upon us by choosing us to represent them. We must take the people's grievances and aspirations to heart and champion them by all the means available to us in the House.

I would like to note that I will be sharing my time with my wonderful colleague from Oxford. I will read the motion first, because it is very important:

That, given that, after nine years, the government has doubled housing costs, taxed food, punished work, unleashed crime, and is the most centralizing government in Canadian history [and that ought to get the Bloc Québécois's attention] the House has lost confidence in the government and offers Canadians the option to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.

This is far from a frivolous, much less capricious, motion or claim by the Conservatives. We are all hands-on people who spend a lot of time in our ridings. We spent the summer criss-crossing our constituencies. Quite frankly, if members of the other parties contradict what I am going to say today, it just shows that they are not hands-on people, that they are out of touch. Almost everyone I met seemed to feel that this government's day is done. The Liberal government may not be happy to hear it, but even long-time Liberals are telling me that enough is enough and that we really need a change of government.

Why do we need a change of government? It is because Canada is no longer the country we have known since its foundation. It is no longer the Canada where dreams are possible, where a couple or a small family can build a home, or where having children, feeding them well and ensuring their well-being and growth is easy, like it was for so many years until now.

Is it right that, today, two million Canadians are using food banks? Is it right that there is so much homelessness in a country as rich as Canada? How can people just pretend that these problems do not exist and say that the Conservatives are being ridiculous with their motion to bring down the government? Things need to change. They have been like this for nine years, and there is nothing that shows me that keeping the Liberals in office longer is going to fix things.

The Conservative leader has been hammering this home for months. He has been voicing the distress of Canadians and Quebeckers. Unlike what various members of the House have suggested, we have outlined the broad strokes of what we want to do, particularly in terms of housing and of getting our fiscal house in order. To support my position and to make sure that everyone knows why we moved this motion, I want to remind the House of a few very important facts that will bring home the reality that we are facing.

Let us talk about the budget. The Liberals have increased the number of public servants by 40% since they took office. There are an extra 100,000 people on the government payroll. Do members recall what was happening last year at Service Canada offices? People who needed passports and other federal government services were lined up out the door and camping outside Service Canada offices. That is not even to mention immigration and the endless delays there.

The debt has increased so much that it has actually doubled since the Liberals took office. Debt charges are now at an all-time high. They cost more than health transfers. They are equal to the amount Canadians pay in GST.

Inflation has reached a level beyond anything we have seen in the past 40 years. Everyone knows it. Everyone is aware. Everyone is experiencing it every day. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, a serious institution, Canada's economic growth is projected to be the worst of all member countries over the next three decades—not the next three years, but the next three decades.

This Liberal Prime Minister has personally increased the debt more than all prime ministers on that side combined. Need I remind the House that, since 2015, nine years ago, the Liberal government has not balanced the budget even once? No father or mother, and certainly no single mother, would ever manage their household budget so irresponsibly. We are the trustees of the public purse. We are entrusted with public finances, taxpayers' money, to use it intelligently. Over the past few years, since 2015, the Liberal government has not balanced a single budget. It has run deficits every year.

No one here thinks that there was no need for any effort to be made during COVID-19. That is not what we are talking about. Before COVID-19, our economy was flourishing, things were going well. The government said it would run small deficits, but that it would not matter. The Liberals made a lot of promises that they never kept, especially when it came to housing. The Liberals promised us housing. Does anyone how many homes will have to be built between now and 2030 to meet all of Canada's housing needs? A whopping 8.5 million. The cost of housing has doubled, rents have doubled, mortgages have doubled. There is not one young person left who can afford to buy a house. Young people can barely afford a two-bedroom apartment.

I will remind members of what the leader of the Bloc Québécois said recently about the federal Liberal Party. He said, “The government has two choices then. It can hold off on its aggressive centralization agenda, its abuse of the fiscal imbalance and abuse of spending power until the end of its mandate, which would normally run until late 2025, or it can call an election now to try to obtain that type of mandate, which I strongly doubt that Quebec will consider.”

That was on May 23, 2024. The leader of the Bloc Québécois rose in the House to speak on behalf of his party. Today, the Bloc leader is so filled with hubris he reminds us of Louis XIV, who used to say, “I am the state”. He is telling us that things will no longer work like before and that the Bloc Québécois will not support the Conservatives.

I do not have enough time to thoroughly demonstrate this government's negligence, as I wanted to do. The Premier of Quebec, who is the head of the Quebec government and who represents all Quebeckers, says that he no longer has confidence in the government. Everyone knows that this is the most centralizing government ever. The Bloc Québécois voted against our motion last Tuesday. Then they unabashedly say that they will not vote for our motion next week. What country are they living in? They are living in Canada, where children are hurting and where people cannot find housing. It is high time that we got a new government.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member criticized the Liberal government quite a bit for its deficit budgets and she implied that the Conservatives could fix that.

Could the member inform the House as to how many balanced budgets Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper brought in and tabled in the House. If she does not know, I can answer for her. It was a grand total, between both prime ministers in 16 years, was a total of three balanced budgets. Two were actually on the heels of Paul Martin's surplus, and the other one, the one they called balanced in 2015, was done on the backs of veterans and selling shares of GM at bargain prices.

I wonder if the member could inform the House as to how many other balanced budgets she remembers the Conservatives introducing here.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the saying goes, people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. If I were him, I would not be rising in the House to ask questions about their ability to manage Canada's budget. I would not do that if I were him.

They are incompetent. Quebeckers are asking us about it. In Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, people are telling me that this government has to be defeated, that they cannot take anymore. People are broke.

What we propose is to put money in their pockets and end the waste. People are fed up with seeing $21 billion sent to outside firms or another 100,000 public servants hired to deliver the same level of service.

We will have a new government soon.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis looks really mad right now. Based on what she is saying, one might think the Bloc Québécois is in power. Maybe she is mad because she can see that we have a bit of power and that we are trying to use that balance of power to do good things for Quebec.

In her speech, she talked about housing. She also said that they would be less centralizing than the Liberals. I have my doubts about that. Housing seemed so important to them, but the Conservatives do not invest in it. Historically, they have not invested in social housing. Still, my colleague says it is a priority. Their leader sure says it is a priority. He says that it is a priority and that he basically intends to take over from mayors and tell them how to do their job. I find it strange that the leader of a non-centralist government would go around insulting all these mayors and telling them that he is the one who will decide how cities do things.

At the very least, would my colleague be willing to give us a list of the incompetent mayors they want to replace?

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is another one who should not throw stones.

The Government of Quebec says it no longer has confidence in this government, but the member is pretending not to hear it because his leader suddenly realized that he may now hold the balance of power. That has him a bit excited. He says they are going to stay put and keep the government in place.

I remember the Harper government, when I was minister in Quebec. He respected Quebec. He had an asymmetrical agreement with Quebec on health. My colleague should go back to his history books because he does not know the history of Quebec.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the question today is really a confidence vote on whether the Leader of the Opposition should be trusted. I would like to ask my hon. colleague a question about values, Quebec values and Canadian values. How does she feel about one of her colleagues using taxpayer money to bring a legislator to Canada to testify, a legislator who called for the death penalty for gay people in Uganda? The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan was supporting a legislator who believed in the death penalty for gay people. How does she feel about having those values in her caucus?

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to fall into that trap. There is one more person who should not throw stones.

Roughly four or five weeks ago, his party tore up the agreement with the Liberals. It was all for show. In the House, his colleague tells us that the Conservatives are ridiculous for wanting to trigger an election. They are the ones who tore up the agreement and put the Liberal government on shaky ground.

Who here is the most ridiculous?