Debates of Sept. 26th, 2024

Oral Questions

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

I am moving on.

Is the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona rising on the same point of order?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

The Chair has already given his opinion. The hon. member is an experienced member, and she understands the process available to her.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise a point of order on how the House is being run, if I may.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

I am afraid not.

Business of the House

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it being Thursday, I was hoping that the government House leader could update the House as to the business for the rest of this week and into the following week. Perhaps she and her cabinet colleagues have finally seen the light and decided not to sit next week. Instead, they could give Canadians the carbon tax election they so desperately want. Canadians could then vote in a government that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.

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

Mr. Speaker, the only people who are desperate for an election are the Conservative members of Parliament. Everybody else in the House wants to get to work. We look forward to doing that next week.

[An hon. member]

Are you afraid of the people?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the only people who are afraid are the Conservative MPs. They know that the longer the House sits, the more their hidden agenda is exposed and the more Canadians do not want to vote for them.

This afternoon, we will be dedicated to the Conservative opposition day motion.

Tomorrow, we will consider Bill C-76, an act to amend the Canada National Parks Act, which supports the people of Jasper following the devastating wildfires this summer. As per the special order adopted last week, following one round of debate, this important bill will be deemed adopted at all remaining stages and sent to the Senate.

Next Tuesday shall be an allotted day.

On Wednesday, we will call the vote on Ways and Means Motion No. 26 concerning capital gains. This confidence vote was scheduled to take place yesterday, but, unfortunately, the Conservative members of Parliament blocked it. I think it is because they did not want to lose two confidence motions in a row. I can understand it is embarrassing for them. It seems like they did not want to have that happen.

The Conservatives have also blocked debate on substantive legislation with concurrence debates on five out of nine days since the House returned. The government has a responsibility to ensure the orderly continuance of the work of the House, notwithstanding the efforts of the Conservatives to disrupt this important work at every opportunity.

I will reiterate the fact that there are three parties, not the Conservatives, that are here to work for Canadians, and we look forward to continuing that important work next week.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Confidence in the government

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am the one with the daunting task of calming things down here in the House.

As members know, I have been an MP since 2006. Over the years, I have seen Canada evolve and prosper only to slip backwards and lose the essence of the values it holds dear. That fills me with great sadness as a legislator, but also as a father of five children and a grandfather of seven wonderful grandchildren, whose future has been compromised by the bad decisions made by this Prime Minister and this government.

People are constantly worrying every day because they no longer believe that our country's legislators are dealing with the real issues and working to address their concerns. This summer, I met Ms. Francine, who shared her concerns with me about the direction that Canada is taking. She said, “I can't take any more of the Prime Minister. When will there be an election?” Her words express the wishes of millions of Canadians who want a new government in our country. These are legitimate concerns, especially when it comes to the national debt, which is over $1.2 trillion, and the interest costs for the public purse.

Ms. Francine understands that more interest charges means fewer services and less money in Canadians' pockets for the welfare of the vulnerable. She is also concerned about the price of homes and housing, which puts home ownership out of reach for her beloved grandchildren. She is concerned about everything costing more, with inflation affecting the cost of living, food, housing and energy. I wish I could have reassured her, or at least confirmed an election date, but the Bloc Québécois and the NDP seem to enjoy watching the Liberal government slowly but surely waste away.

A minority government has a life expectancy of 20 months, not 48 months. It is in the Bloc Québécois and NDP's hands to allow Canadians to choose who will govern Canada for the next years. With its strong, renewed leadership, the Conservative Party is offering Canadians a credible and exciting opportunity for the future of our country.

We can offer security and reassurance for the future, because we have a proven track record. The current Conservative government balanced the budget. It worked to create and keep jobs here, cracked down on crime, did not encourage the use of harmful drugs, engaged in missions to restore peace, and ensured that all citizens had the chance to make the most of their opportunities by having a good paycheque and leaving more money in their pockets. The previous Conservative government was consistent and did whatever it took to meet the needs expressed by Canadians.

Today, Canadians are living with the consequences of the bad choices made by a reckless Liberal minority government that has been kept in power since 2019 by two opportunistic parties that take turns blackmailing it for their own benefit, to the detriment of the Canadian population. This illegitimate Liberal government, which the NDP and Bloc Québécois are keeping on life support, has dragged us into serious challenges and crises that we may not be able to overcome now or in the years to come unless something changes soon.

I do not know if the Liberal government can hear me, but I can certainly hear them here in the House talking on the other side—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis on a point of order.

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

Madam Speaker, we are listening to a very serious and emotional speech by our colleague from Lévis—Lotbinière. Our friends opposite are being very loud and we can hear them all the way over here. It is distracting both for us and for our colleague.

I would appreciate it if you would call the House to order.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

I agree. Members need to respect those who are speaking and should not be having conversations while a colleague is giving a speech.

The hon. member for Lévis—Lotbinière.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was proud to be elected as part of a Conservative government that expanded the promise of a better Canada, lowered inflation, cut the GST and taxes for small business, and balanced the budget, all while increasing health transfers faster than any other government in history. Personal incomes rose by 10% after inflation and taxes. In fact, we did more than we promised.

Now, after nine years under this disastrous Prime Minister, the Canadian promise is broken. This Prime Minister has broken numerous promises and dashed many of our hopes. He has not balanced the budget. He has not cut taxes for the middle class. There still is not enough affordable housing. In addition to going back on his word, the Prime Minister refuses to face up to the fact that he is no good for our country.

Being born in or living in Canada no longer comes with the assurance of a minimum threshold for living in dignity and decency. This was a promise that everyone in Canada once received as a native-born Canadian or as an immigrant to this country. It is so sad to see young people working hard but staying longer, even too long, in their parents' homes. It is appalling.

The Bloc Québécois has voted more than 189 times to keep this Prime Minister in power. It has voted for $500 billion in inflationary, bureaucratic and centralizing spending. I would add that this $500 billion does not include health care funding or money for seniors. Those funds are external and are already set out in law.

It is truly scandalous to see all the money that is going to consultants, bureaucrats, interest groups and big business, all subsidized by the state. It is even more shocking to see the Bloc Québécois laughing at us at the same time, voting to increase gas taxes, including in Quebec, with the second carbon tax that does apply in Quebec.

I am also thinking of the Bloc Québécois's support for capital gains taxes, which will force Quebec farmers, entrepreneurs, doctors and home builders to pay more money to Ottawa, only for those funds to be controlled here by the state.

I was part of a Conservative government that increased health transfers. Now the Bloc Québécois wants to keep the most centralizing and costly prime minister in our history in power.

The Prime Minister, with his immigration policy that even his own minister admits is out of control, has pushed Quebec to the breaking point. The Bloc Québécois does not even think that immigration is an important issue. In other words, Quebeckers are far down on the list of the Bloc Québécois's interests and priorities.

It is also important to remember that during the past nine years under this colossal and ineffective government, the Prime Minister doubled the national debt. That means he alone spent more than all the prime ministers before him. He spent more in nine years than all the others did in 148 years.

That debt has a material impact on ordinary people. It means that currently, under this Liberal government, all the money taxpayers spend on GST is being used just to cover the interest on the debt. Unless something is done, these payments will continue to increase, further mortgaging the future of the next generations and their right to a government that has its books in order.

Is that what democracy is about? Is it about keeping the government in a position of weakness indefinitely?

While the Bloc Québécois and the NDP circle around the Liberals like vultures, hoping for some gains that they are very unlikely to get, voters are clear about wanting a carbon tax election. The current situation is not normal. Nothing about it is normal.

Voters did not vote for that in 2021. First of all, if they had known that the NDP was going to form a dishonourable coalition with the Liberals, the outcome of the election probably would have been very different. The same is currently true of the Bloc Québécois. Voters did not vote for that party, which has voted 189 times to keep the Prime Minister in power. Time is up. Why is the Bloc Québécois too afraid to give voters the choice right now? The “Liberal Bloc” is a very appropriate name. What image are we portraying to the international community? Do other countries see a strong, proud Canada that is secure in itself and its destiny, or a Canada where the government is unstable and voters are urgently calling for an election?

Let us talk about the infamous carbon tax. It is the most unproductive government tax ever created in Canadian history, because, like all other taxes, it not only takes money out of taxpayers' pockets, but it also puts Canadian businesses at a competitive disadvantage compared to those of other countries. When it costs more to manufacture in Canada than elsewhere, it forces our businesses to move away and discourages foreign investment in Canada.

Our productivity now falls far short of that of our neighbours to the south. Canada ranks second-last in the G7 in terms of productivity per hour worked. For all these reasons, we are going to vote to bring down this government in order to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.

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

Madam Speaker, the member gets a gold star, just as every Conservative member who stands and repeats the slogans and bumper stickers gets a little credit in the back room. It is mandated by the leader of the Conservative Party that they have to say that slogan.

Does the member not give Canadians credit for being able to understand that an election is more than just slogans and bumper stickers and at some point in time we have to share ideas? I know there are a lot of ridiculous ideas out there from the Conservative Party, but is there no sense of obligation to be a little more honest, particularly in social media posts from the Conservative Party today, which are there to mislead Canadians? That is what we see day after day from the Conservative Party.

Does the member have any remorse for that?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, let us talk about honesty. During the last election in 2021, the Liberal Party platform never mentioned the possibility of a coalition with the NDP if a Liberal minority government were elected. That was never mentioned by the person running to be Prime Minister.

Was it honest to conceal this possibility from Canadians? If Canadians had known that these two parties would form a coalition, I am not sure whether the outcome would have been the same.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is blaming the Bloc Québécois and talking about Quebec. However, when it comes to immigration, we have no idea where the Conservatives stand. Do they agree on the need for a more equal distribution? What are their concrete commitments?

In terms of official languages, for example, we know that almost all official language funding is spent on English in Quebec. Have the Conservatives made any commitments in this regard? I would like to know.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, we would be delighted to unveil our immigration platform in two days if the Bloc Québécois agrees to vote with us to bring down this government.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. The member for Lévis—Lotbinière has been here for almost 18 years, if not more. He has seen a lot, I am sure.

He mentioned the Harper government, which, at the time, brought back a balanced budget after a very dark period in history. Both 2008 and 2009 were very difficult years. In spite of everything and after making considerable efforts, we managed to balance the budget. In the end, that is what has allowed the current government to spend as much as it wanted.

I would like to ask my colleague about the policies put in place by the Conservative government at the time. Similar policies will be part of our next election platform. I am certain Canadians will be pleased with them and, most importantly, they will make it possible to axe the carbon tax.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for that good question, and I congratulate him on all the good work he is doing in his riding. He has become a legend. I have seen my share of snow, but it never snows as much as it does on the shores of the river where he lives, which is truly exceptional.

I had the good fortune to be part of a Conservative government under Mr. Harper. Our finances were sound. Our leader was a man of clear vision who worked hard and did great things for Canada. I am very proud of that. That is exactly what we are going to do when we are back on that side. We are going to restore our country to its former glory. We will build a strong, proud country for future generations.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to hear what my colleague thinks. The Bloc Québécois enjoys boasting that it listens to Quebec's needs and is in lockstep with whatever the Government of Quebec wants. Now, the Government of Quebec wants this government to be replaced. Moreover, the Parti Québécois leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, has condemned this government's inflationary spending.

What does my colleague think of what the Government of Quebec wants and the Bloc Québécois's position?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I love working with my colleague in Lévis. We are really an outstanding pair. Unfortunately, at present, the Bloc Québécois's offices are satellite offices for the Parti Québécois in Quebec. They are in the process of mounting a major national strategy to hold a referendum in the coming years.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, it gives me pleasure to rise to speak to this motion. What I see from this motion is the kind of attention-seeking hyperbole that is becoming the trademark of politics south of the border and the trademark of a certain presidential candidate south of the border. It is the kind of discourse that inserts phrases like, “best ever”, “worst economy”, “best market performance”, “nuclear winter”, “mass hunger”, “people never being able to leave their homes and having to turn their temperature down to 13°C” and that kind of hyperbole.

I could say that the phrase from the motion, “the most centralizing government in Canadian history”, forgot to add the superlatives “ever” and “entire”, to read, for example, “the most centralizing government ever in the entire Canadian history” or maybe “human history”. Why not? It is the language of the sloganeer.

What are the yardsticks for making such sweeping statements? Let us look at our Canadian history. Let us look at Conservative governments, policies and actions that could be seen as centralizing, even if we consider those past initiatives to be good nation-building initiatives of another, more constructive, brand of Canadian conservatism.

Let us go back in history. CN has been in the news quite a bit. Who created CN, a Crown corporation and national railway company that extended from sea to sea and could be seen as too centralizing by some today? It was Prime Minister Robert Borden.

Let us talk about the CBC, the Conservatives' bugbear. How did the CBC get started? It was started in some way with CN, because in the early days CN was looking for ways to keep its passengers entertained, so they created a kind of radio network, an entertainment system of the day, for their trains, and then that kind of morphed into an organization called CNR Radio. In 1932, on the heels of that, R.B. Bennett established CBC's predecessor, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission.

I have just been reminded that I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg North, and I apologize for forgetting to say that at the beginning.

On the environment, which is a weak point for the Conservative opposition, it was the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney who created national, or so-called “centralizing”, environmental legislation. CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, was enacted in 1988 by Mr. Mulroney. It was designed to provide a systematic national approach to assessing and managing chemical substances in the environment, as well as to create criminal law offences for polluters.

Quebec probably saw that centralization as an unwelcome intrusion into provincial jurisdiction at the time. I would think that would be the case, because Hydro-Québec, a provincial Crown corporation, went up against the federal government in court to argue that the federal government had no jurisdiction and that it was essentially invading provincial jurisdiction, but the Supreme Court of Canada found that the federal government did have jurisdiction and that this was a matter of national interest, and therefore criminal law power was justified.

Let us look at national parks. The Canadian national park system began in November 1885, when the federal government of Sir John A. Macdonald set aside an area of approximately 26 square kilometres on the northern slopes of Alberta's Sulphur Mountain for public use. I suppose in today's terms it would be seen as an intrusion by the federal government into provincial jurisdiction.

Conservatives used to say that they liked to stand up for conserving our heritage, natural and otherwise, but today's Conservatives, to me here on this side of the House, seem to be more interested in upending the system by leveraging populist sentiment and by farming anger.

Let us look at, more recently, the unfair elections act, which is a perfect example of a heavy-handed approach by a federal government with a majority. As a matter of fact, the sponsor of the legislation was the current Leader of the Opposition. Of course, the government was using its majority's power to attempt to suppress votes in what was, as they say, a heavy-handed and top-down approach.

There has been some Liberal centralization too, for example with national medicare and the Canada pension plan. If I may say, partly in jest, because this is a good-natured debate, I think the Conservatives are envious that these were not their ideas, so envious that they are trying to dismantle them.

What is the most decentralizing form of human organization known to man, a mechanism so decentralized and so out of the government's reach, a vehicle of citizen agency synonymous with the words “freedom” and “democracy”, the very antidote to centralization? The answer is the market and its price mechanism, what we call the invisible hand that allows society to grow and prosper anonymously through trillions of individual relationships outside the purview and control of the state.

Since the motion mentions the price on carbon, let us be clear that there is no carbon tax; the Supreme Court has said so. We know that Conservatives do not respect the court much, but the Supreme Court has said the price on carbon is not a carbon tax because the money is returned. It is not a tax. That is not my opinion; that is the opinion of the justices of the Supreme Court.

Let me read a quote from a recent analysis by Andrew Coyne in The Globe and Mail, on the Conservative approach to environmental policy. We all know that Andrew Coyne is a clear-eyed, incisive journalist and certainly not a Liberal Party cheerleader. I think Andrew Coyne's is an extremely objective voice. This is what he says about Conservative environmental policy:

The Conservative position [is], as near anyone can make it out...that climate change should be fought, if at all, not by harnessing the power of the free market, but by central planning, a mix of command and control regulation and government subsidy...

How much more efficient is pricing carbon to the alternatives? Some years ago the Ecofiscal Commission, a group of environmental economists, estimated the economic costs of a carbon tax, sufficient to meet Canada's internationally agreed emissions-reduction targets, at 0.05% of GDP annually.

The cost of the regulation-first approach, by contrast, it put up to 0.8% of GDP: 16 times as much. At a time when growth is expected to average just 1.6%, it's huge.

What we see in the rejection of the price on carbon, a mechanism that Milton Friedman, the Leader of the Opposition's economic hero, his favourite economist, agreed with as the best way to fight pollution, is a rejection of the market approach. We see a government that is favouring instead, as Andrew Coyne said, a “command and control” system. That is about as centralizing and as top-down an approach as one can get. I think the party opposite should maybe look at itself in the mirror in that regard.

The Conservative Party claims it believes in provincial autonomy and staying out of provincial jurisdiction, yet the Leader of the Opposition tells cities that if they do not do what he says to solve the housing crisis, he will punish them. I think that Conservative policies and actions do not match the rhetoric of the motion.