Debates of Oct. 23rd, 2026

Official Languages

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Minister of Government Transformation]

Madam Speaker, first of all, we need to clarify one thing. There are interpreters, and there is the Translation Bureau. They do not perform the same function. I just want to be clear. The Translation Bureau is responsible for translating documents, while interpreters provide services to the House and its committees. I want this distinction to be clear. It seems to me that the Bloc Québécois is not clear on that. I just wanted to clarify that.

As for the Translation Bureau, we respond to departments' needs by translating the documents they provide and by ensuring the timely delivery of high-quality work. Any reduction in staffing over the coming years will be based on operational requirements and will occur through natural attrition.

The Economy

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

Madam Speaker, Food Banks Canada's new 2026 report slams the Liberal Party's promise. Food banks saw an increase of 189,000 visits compared to the previous year, representing an 8.7% increase. Since 2019, the number of visits has risen by 117%. Working people account for 23% of those receiving food assistance in Quebec. It is scandalous.

Have the Liberals broken their promise to Canadians?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Minister of Finance and National Revenue]

Madam Speaker, I know the people of Lévis—Lotbinière would like their member of Parliament to vote with a voice that loud.

Unfortunately, when it came time to vote for the Canada groceries and essentials benefit, we did not hear the loud voice of the member for Lévis—Lotbinière. He voted against it. I know people in Lévis—Lotbinière, and some of them are very dear to me. They would like their MP to stand up in the House and defend their interests.

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

Madam Speaker, 600,000 Quebeckers use food banks every month. The Liberals voted against a Conservative motion to eliminate taxes on gas and diesel and to acknowledge the affordability crisis. They voted against the motion. Practical solutions are needed to stop hunger from worsening.

Will the Liberal government vote in favour of our Conservative plan to reduce grocery bills by eliminating all federal taxes on diesel at least until Canada Day?

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Minister of Government Transformation]

Madam Speaker, my colleague wants practical solutions, yet he has voted against practical solutions for the past 10 years. One practical solution is the Canada child benefit, which provides 21,316 children with an average $3,237. That amount of assistance is considerable and substantial for families. He voted against it.

Another practical solution is the Canadian dental care plan, which 19,770 constituents in his riding are using. Something else we strive for is to create good jobs. At the Davie shipyards, we created 5,000 jobs related to the icebreakers. He should be thrilled by this program.

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

Madam Speaker, in Prince George, the Salvation Army served over 6,000 people in a single month. That is a 20% increase in just three years. One in five food bank clients has a full-time job, and over 32% of those clients are children. After 11 years of Liberal taxes and inflationary spending, Canadians are struggling to put food on the table.

Relying on food banks is now the unfortunate reality for 2.5 million Canadians every month. How is that okay?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Secretary of State (Sport)]

Madam Speaker, unlike the Conservatives, when we receive a report, such as the hunger report from Food Banks Canada, we do not just read the headlines; we read the recommendations. What do not feature among any of the recommendations are any of the things the Conservatives have put on the table to combat poverty.

It is a complex challenge, and we are listening to what Food Banks Canada says. One of the policies it suggests is to expand funding for deeply affordable, supportive, non-market housing, co-operative housing, which is something the Conservatives not only vote against, despite the fact that the Conservative leader actually lives in government housing, but also stigmatize. They call it Soviet-style housing. It is a shame.

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

Madam Speaker, how unattached is this Liberal Member of Parliament? It is like using a dumpster fire for a wiener roast.

Food bank usage in Williams Lake rose over 39% over the last two years. When are the Liberals going to wake up? These are families, seniors and working Canadians who are being forced to turn to the food bank because they can no longer keep up with the cost of living.

Are the Liberals that arrogant and out of touch that it has become okay for children, seniors and full-time workers to have to rely on food banks? When will they finally take responsibility for the affordability crisis they have created?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Secretary of State (Sport)]

Madam Speaker, what Canadians would like are actual solutions from all sides of the House that would help reduce poverty in this country. Literally everything the Conservatives have put on the table has been rejected by poverty elimination experts. Not even one single policy recommendation from the Conservative Party appears in the list of policy recommendations in Food Banks Canada's hunger report.

One of the most important recommendations is affordable housing, which is true non-profit, non-market housing, and it is something the Conservative Party has voted against consistently over the last seven years since I have been here. They should look at their own record when talking about eliminating poverty.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, of course, the member used the opportunity to attack Conservatives instead of focusing on a solution. One in nine households in the Waterloo region struggles to afford food. Across Canada, food banks saw 2.36 million visits in March alone, and one-third of those were children. There are 800,000 children going hungry in Canada.

Canadians cannot afford excuses, and they cannot afford the government. When will the government take responsibility for making life more expensive and finally admit that we are in an affordability crisis?

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretaries of State for Labour]

Madam Speaker, with great respect to my colleague across the way, I would ask, when can Canadians expect the Conservatives to get on board with the income security policies that the very report they have been holding up this week speaks to? We are talking about the Canada disability benefit, the workers benefit, and the groceries benefit, as well as the national school food program, which is serving over nine million meals to kids in that colleague's province.

Those are real solutions to many of the challenges that Canadians are facing right now and that this government is squarely focused on.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a sad day for Canadian agriculture. The historic beef herd at the Nappan research farm is being shipped to auction today.

The Liberals are sacrificing 140 years of irreplaceable research and shutting down one of Canada's oldest experimental farms. More than 70% of the cuts at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are in science and research. As a result, research farms in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia are being shut down.

Will the minister pick up the phone and save this beef herd now before it is too late, or will he continue to cripple food research in Canada?

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade and to the Secretary of State (International Development)]

Madam Speaker, that was very important question. Science and research have always been integral to agriculture and agri-food, and they will continue to be a priority for the government. We are consolidating our infrastructure to reduce rising overhead costs and ensure that more of our available resources are being directed towards scientific research and innovation.

We remain Canada's largest agricultural research organization. With 17 research centres nationwide, every province will continue to have at least one research centre to research farm-related issues, addressing regional and national priorities.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, what are the available resources, when 72% of the cuts in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are in science and innovation?

As a result of this, we are losing research farms in every single province across the country. Instead of investing in food research here at home, the Liberals spent $22 million on beans for Women of Empowerment in Congo and $8 million on gender-neutral rice in Vietnam.

If the Liberals continue to say that food sovereignty is such a priority, how can they be dismantling the very research that ensures our food is safe and affordable here in Canada?

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade and to the Secretary of State (International Development)]

Madam Speaker, I have the great honour of representing the riding of Ottawa Centre, which is home to the Central Experimental Farm, one of the largest agriculture research centres in the country, which has been, for almost 100 years, providing worldwide global quality research to ensure that we have good, safe, healthy foods, not only in Canada but also around the world.

Canada will continue to do this important work and make sure that research and food quality benefit not only Canadians but also everybody abroad.

The Environment

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, with Bill C-39, the Liberals are acting as if it were the environment, endangered species, workers, and indigenous peoples who are preventing them from resolving the tariff crisis. They are taking people for fools. Essentially, what they are doing is exploiting the tariff crisis to make permanent changes that benefit the oil companies.

The environmental consequences will also be permanent. Fifty-six of Canada's most eminent scientists addressed this in a letter yesterday. With Bill C-39, the Liberals will cause costly and irreversible damage.

Will they reverse course?

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, this is not about changing standards. The standards remain high on the environment. The duty to consult first nations is absolutely, as I mentioned the other day, sacrosanct. It is what we need to do. We need to do more of it. There needs to be more partnership.

This is about a generational and transformative initiative, this legislation, to build Canada strong and to build from coast to coast to coast with Canadian workers.

Labour

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-39 will also be damaging to labour rights. The Liberals are effectively placing the right to strike under their control with their interpretation of section 107 of the Canada Labour Code. The Canadian Union of Public Employees has already announced that it will challenge this in court, and it will win because there is a precedent. The Tribunal administratif du travail du Québec overturned a nearly identical measure two weeks ago.

Instead of getting schooled in court, will the liberals collaborate with the workers?

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Minister of Government Transformation]

Madam Speaker, there is a lot of talk about this bill, but the right to strike is protected. The goal is to add guardrails around section 107 and its use. We want to ensure balance, and we want negotiations to start early to avoid strikes as much as possible so that we have greater predictability and certainty as we build this country, build major projects and build a strong economy.

Finance

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Madam Speaker, the markets are predicting it, the government's own parliamentary watchdogs are predicting it, and even Tiff Macklem is indicating interest rates could go up by a quarter of a point as early as next week. That is going to mean higher mortgage payments for the residents of my community. That is going to mean higher costs for our business owners. The Liberals are literally fuelling the affordability crisis they deny exists.

When will the Liberal government finally curb its spending and allow Canadians to live their life?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Minister of Finance and National Revenue]

Madam Speaker, I am sure the member has been reading the international press and has been following what the international agencies are talking about with regard to Canada. The IMF just recently said that Canada would have the second-fastest growth in the G7.

We have been acting on the three most important things for Canadians: the cost of food, the cost of gas and the cost of homes. We are going to continue to work for Canadians because every day is a good day to fight for Canadians.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be honest. I have not been speaking with the IMF, but I have been speaking to people from the food bank in Newcastle, which has seen a 3,000% increase in usage since 2015.

When will the Liberals finally get the message to curb their spending so Canadians can afford to live?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Minister of Finance and National Revenue]

Madam Speaker, I hope the people in the member's riding are watching TV this morning, because they will know that the member, and all the Conservative members, voted against every affordability measure we put forward to support Canadians. It is a shame. Every time we said that we would support Canadians with the price of food, with the price of gas and with the price of all, the Conservatives were missing in action. Why do they not come on board and help us to support Canadians? That is what the people in the member's riding are expecting.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, barely a day goes by without the Liberal government's making an announcement of billions of dollars of new spending. Press releases are issued, media content is bought, consultants are paid and dollars go out the door immediately, yet results for Canadians are years away, if at all. The bulk of this announced spending is part of no budget plan. This is government by blank cheque. Just this week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released the fall economic outlook, showing just how out of whack the spending has become, and the economic outlook just gets worse.

Can the minister stand here and explain how more spending leads to worse results?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Minister of Finance and National Revenue]

Madam Speaker, I know it is Friday, but let me help my Conservative friend. Six million people are going to receive the Canada child benefit, 400,000 kids will be supported with the national school food program, 465,000 people will receive the Canada disability benefit, 12 million Canadians will receive the Canada groceries and essentials benefit, and 900,000 kids will be supported with early learning and child care. I could go down the list, but I will give it to him so he can inform his constituents the next time he engages with them.