Debates of Nov. 3rd, 2026

Motions in Amendment

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once again my friend from Winnipeg North did not listen at all to what I said. I did not say that I am against CMHC mortgages. I am against the Liberals sneaking a $1-trillion increase in the total mortgage debt allowed in this country in contravention of their stated campaign promise—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

The hon. member for Winnipeg is rising on what I hope is a point of order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is not a $1-trillion increase.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

The member knows that is a point of debate, not a point of order.

The hon. member can conclude his comments.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I misspoke. An increase to $1 trillion is not the direction the Liberals promised to take Canadians in. I wish the member would spend less time on semantics and more on policy and the general direction.

The other thing the member for Winnipeg North does with literally half the speeches I have ever given in this House is stand up and say, “but Stephen Harper...”. Stephen Harper was my dad's prime minister. I think I was 18 when he became prime minister. I did not come here to defend the record of Stephen Harper. I like him. We are talking about 11 years ago. I do not take the criticism at all.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Mr. Speaker, housing is extremely important to this country. I would absolutely agree that we have a generation of young people who are losing the hope of home ownership in this country.

The member talked about our Conservative approach with respect to increasing supply. One of the things I think is also important within the context of that conversation is how much goods and services in this country cost right now, which is also adding stress on the construction side of new housing. I wonder if the member would like to expand on why our approach restores the dream of home ownership for the next generation.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think I am picking up what the hon. member put down regarding goods and services. A cornerstone of the Conservative plan has been the elimination of the GST on new homes up to $1.3 million, GST, of course, being the goods and services tax. As usual, the Liberals have sort of done a half-measure to meet us halfway on that part. Half measures only work by half.

Then, to the member's larger point about the price of everything going up, housing just being the most extreme, and perhaps important and close-to-home example, the price of everything continues to go up, because the Liberals keep printing money in the form of deficits. I imagine, on Thursday, we will find out that the deficit is even more out of control than they promised.

The Liberals will continue their weird accounting tricks about operating versus capital, putting what are obviously operating expenditures into the capital budget. I think the phrase is, “Micturating on someone's leg and telling them it is raining.”

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague is very interested in issues related to privacy, the protection of disclosed information, and transparency.

Could Bill C-31 have included a provision that better protects the privacy of Quebeckers and Canadians?

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the list of things the Liberals could have done in Bill C-31 is literally endless.

As I explained, it is a mishmash of totally unrelated measures. I cannot find any thread that connects them. If the question is whether they would they do that, the answer is obviously not. The Liberals have taken steps again and again in this House and in forthcoming bills to restrict privacy rights of Canadians on the Internet and otherwise. They have taken actions related to the Emergencies Act in the last Parliament that obviously were against our civil liberties. If the question is whether they could, the answer is yes, of course they could improve our civil liberties and privacy rights. If the question is would they, the answer is no, they have not. The leopard does not change its spots.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to contribute to the debate today on Bill C-31. The bill is back from committee at report stage, and it is our last chance to amend it before third reading.

A budget implementation bill is where promises meet the actual commitment in law, and the test is rather simple. Would it make life more affordable? Would it build what the country needs? Would it respect the House's duty to examine how money is spent and how power is used? On every count, the answer is, sadly, no.

Budget 2025 is the costliest budget outside the pandemic, with the biggest deficit, at least for the next two days. What did it buy? It bought record food bank usage and rising insolvencies. This morning, the Welland Tribune reported that one in 10 Welland residents used a food bank last year. That is one in 10. This Saturday is the Welland food drive, and I urge residents to give generously. It is likely that one of their neighbours needs some help because of food insecurity.

The government's so-called affordability plan is fundamentally a plan to stabilize the problems it created in the first place, and herein lies the difference between Conservatives and Liberals. Liberals have spent a decade ignoring the structural inefficiencies of government and failed to recognize that we need to actually fix the machinery of government rather than subsidize the problems it creates.

The government cut 10¢ off a litre of fuel and called it relief. We asked to remove all federal fuel taxes for a year, which would save a typical family about $1,200. Ten cents is a gesture, but $1,200 is a month of groceries.

At second reading, our critics moved a reasoned amendment naming what is missing: full fuel tax relief; less tax and red tape on homebuilding; an end to the industrial carbon tax, which touches everything in the food chain right to the family at the checkout; and an end to the waste that feeds inflation. Conservatives voted for it. The government did not.

There is a better way: repeal Bill C-69 so major projects only take a few years, not decades; repeal Bill C-48, and if the Prime Minister is serious about his pipeline memorandum, put it in law; eliminate the industrial carbon tax; and cap spending. The government cannot fix affordability by subsidizing scarcity.

I want to turn to a few things closer to my home, my riding of Niagara South. My riding is an economic zone where this budget could have a real impact. There is a gap between an announcement and actually building, and it sits right along the Welland Canal. I will take the government's own words. Division 16 would create the Defence Investment Agency. Clause 12 would require the minister to consider the efficiency of defence and security procurement and the promotion of investment in the defence and security sectors. By this bill's own test, the Welland Canal corridor belongs in it. It was left out at tabling, and the bill came back from committee with it still left out.

At the north end of the Welland Canal sits the Port Weller Dry Docks, with a sister yard in Hamilton. Both are run by Ontario Shipyards, the largest Canadian-owned ship repair and construction company on the Great Lakes. Port Weller has built more than 80 vessels, including icebreakers. The company has invested $107 million there and already fabricates components for federal ships built on the west coast. The company has struggled to get a reasonable share of federal work.

A Globe and Mail piece from about a month ago reports that its bid to join the national shipbuilding strategy failed, with Davie being chosen instead. Its hopes now rest mainly on federal corvette work. If the company does get that contract, the CEO says, the corvettes will be built at the Port Weller Dry Docks in Ontario, on the Welland Canal. This is a shipyard with a proud history and a promising future, but it needs to be integrated into the federal shipbuilding strategy.

In February, Hanwha Ocean signed an agreement with Ontario Shipyards to bring large-scale shipbuilding back to Ontario, with a training hub in the Hamilton yard alongside Mohawk College. The province has put $11 million into Ontario Shipyards and more than $8 million into Allied Marine in my hometown of Port Colborne. Everyone has stepped up except Ottawa.

The government's own defence industrial strategy promises 70% of defence acquisition to Canadian firms. The navy will need yards to build, maintain and refit its fleet. Right now, coastal yards carry order books measured in decades, and Port Weller is able to step up. Capacity in Niagara and Hamilton would not be a favour to this region. It would be an insurance policy for the navy. The bill would give the new agency up to $1 billion in standing authority and says nothing about these yards or the canal that connects them.

At the south end, in, again, my hometown of Port Colborne, which I love to talk about in the House, sits Wharf 18. Ottawa built it, Ottawa owns it, and it has been out of service for close to 20 years. In January 2023, the government announced $22.7 million to rehabilitate it, but there was a catch. It was dependent upon a private sector partner to ante up the next $20 million. Three years on, that money still depends on a match no one will provide. A seaway official confirmed to me at the transport committee that there are no plans to rebuild the wharf, and now the funding is at risk.

I have been looking for examples where the St. Lawrence Seaway required the private sector to invest in wharf rehabilitation on property it can never own. There seems to be an evolving plan to move in this direction, but inherently, there are incredible barriers to moving to a P3 business model. The conundrum here is that we cannot ask the private sector to rebuild a dock it can never own. It probably cannot finance it. Ottawa does not ask the private sector to co-fund repairs to federal bridges.

The engineering on Wharf 18 is done. It is shovel-ready, and the balance of capital needed could actually lead to year-round shipping through the Great Lakes. The money needed is the equivalent of a rounding error in the billions of dollars allocated to major projects. Sometimes minor projects like this can turn into game-changing opportunities, particularly in short sea shipping. Here is where the government has looked at this project with limited scope rather than at the long-term economic development opportunities, including year-round shipping. However, this also illustrates that many of the problems could be fixed through this legislation like stubborn bureaucracy. I will give an example.

The City of Port Colborne needs to acquire about a half-acre along the canal to be merged into a parcel it already owns. The land is useless, both to the seaway and to Transport Canada, which has refused to reclassify the land so it can move through what might be a 10-year disposal process and then be acquired by the city. The city has been waiting decades to move forward with economic development projects but continually hits brick walls with federal bureaucracy, including duelling departments and agencies.

The absurdity of bureaucracy drives me crazy. If we could get the seaway and transport to fix this silly problem, the City of Port Colborne could move ahead with a multi-use facility that would dramatically improve tourism, including berthing for over 100 cruise ships per year and expanding industrial and commercial activity along the waterway. This should be easy, but everyone knows dealing with Transport Canada often takes more than a career timeline can handle.

A working Wharf 18 would add about a million tonnes of capacity to Port Colborne, and Port Colborne is the only point on the canal that has the potential to move to all-season shipping. Put together, a federal wharf with the engineering done, dry docks that are working and expanding, a training hub on the way and a fabricator backed by the province are not a wish list that needs another study. This is a corridor that needs a federal commitment. Every tonne moved port to port inside Canada does not pay a tariff.

Here is my ask, and I admit that it is close to home for me: delete division 16 at report stage, send defence procurement to the defence committee and include Great Lakes shipping and repair capacity in the study; bring back a budget bill that lowers the cost of living, with full tax relief, full fuel tax relief, no industrial carbon tax on food, fewer taxes on new homes and a spending cap; fund Wharf 18 in Port Colborne, with a construction schedule and a completion date; and treat the Welland Canal corridor from Port Weller to Port Colborne to Hamilton as the defence and trade asset that it is. If we do that, we will start to make progress that puts Canada first.

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that my hon. colleague has been here for the same amount of time that I have been here. I wish him good luck with the food drive this weekend. I would also observe that the food drive has been going on in his community through seven prime ministers, since 1992, as well as the importance of making assistance available to Canadians in Niagara South who may need it.

I want to ask the hon. member if he believes we should be offering assistance to people like those in Niagara South who depend on the food bank.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a sad reality in the country that we have come through so many years where we have government subsidizing the problems it created in the first place. Do we need to help people with food insecurity? Absolutely we do, because they have food insecurity, but we cannot continue to throw cheques at people without dealing with the underlying structural failure of government to deal with the underlying components of what produced that food insecurity.

Yes, we need to help people in need. Conservatives will always have that point of view. We will always help those who need a hand, but we need to focus, fundamentally, on looking at restructuring the problems at the granular level of government, to fix those fundamental structural problems, so that Canadians will not need to have cheques mailed to them once a month.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the remarks by my colleague, with whom I serve on the all-party border caucus.

Speaking of borders, Bill C-31 could have included tools and additional resources for the Canada Border Services Agency to better equip border communities to clear small containers through customs or to manage people's personal belongings more adequately and efficiently.

Could he tell us what he would have liked to see in Bill C-31 regarding this issue?

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the work that we have done on the all-party border caucus. The caucus is non-partisan, for the most part, and we talk about issues like this.

The allocation of resources from CBSA among border communities is a continuing problem across the country. I guess there are CBSA resources that are going to come to the port of Hamilton soon, but we could have expanded economic development opportunities along the Welland Canal and the St. Lawrence Seaway. If CBSA would provide resources, it would stimulate millions and millions of dollars of investment in industrial and commercial activity, particularly in short sea shipping. Absolutely, the CBSA should have been included in the bill. Additional resources would have an enormous impact on my community.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's passionate and very poignant speech was about economic opportunities for his riding that are not being acted on. I would like him to expand a bit. I believe he was in the chamber when the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader mentioned the quiet part out loud, that all the grocery tax rebates and benefits are really just a repackaging of the GST rebate. It is a shell game that the government has been playing to try to obfuscate the circumstances and the systemic problems that have created an affordability crisis. I wonder if my colleague could comment on that.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, where do I begin? What concerns me as a relatively new member of the House is coming here and looking at a budget document like this, where we have repackaged problems into subsidies. I do not believe that Canadians want to have continual subsidies thrown at them for problems that the government has refused to, has failed to or will not solve.

As I said a minute ago, we have fundamental structural issues with how the government operates in the country. That costs billions of dollars. The interest we are paying on the debt next year exceeds what we spend on health care transfers to the provinces. That is an outrageous amount of money. That means the only way we can pay for additional programs is to raise taxes on Canadians. We raise their taxes, and then we send them back a cheque for all the pain those taxes have caused.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by acknowledging a few people from my riding, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan. We are talking about the economic statement and, of course, its implementation. A budget will be presented on Thursday, and many members across the way have told us that Thursday's budget contains some real gems. In the meantime, there are people in my riding who are struggling right now. Obviously, we are constantly talking about the cost of living, the crisis with the United States and tariffs, as well as housing.

I am also thinking of the folks who work for Parks Canada, for example, who have just learned that their jobs are being eliminated because the government has decided to make arbitrary cuts, just like that. Entire communities are going to suffer, and we are not getting any answers from the minister.

I am also thinking of correctional officers. There is a penitentiary in my riding, Port-Cartier Institution, and officers there do not have all the tools they need to keep themselves, the inmates and the public safe. Many people back home are already suffering as a result of several measures introduced by the Liberal government. Meanwhile, members on the government side keep going on and on about how they are looking out for Canadians and they understand that there is a cost of living crisis and a tariff crisis.

In fact, the Bloc Québécois made a number of requests to the government, all of which were dismissed out of hand. These requests were in line with what the public wanted. Again, on the ground, this is what people are telling us. When we talk to people, they do not talk about creating another agency, for example, or about some of the other measures set out in Bill C‑31, which seem to be very out of touch with the public. Some measures might be worthwhile, but I think it has been shown that many of them are not. When the government introduces too many bills that create Crown corporations, or when it seeks yet another mechanism to concentrate more power in its own hands while reducing accountability, I think that is a sign that it is short on good ideas and is simply making things up as it goes along. What is more, it is doing so through a succession of bills, each one amending the last. That suggests the government itself has not yet settled on a clear course of action.

Let me get back to the Bloc Québécois's requests, which are in line with what the public wants. We are here to represent our constituents. Personally, I am here to represent the people of Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan. One of the first things the Bloc Québécois asked for was to establish a wage subsidy program for sectors affected by the U.S. tariffs. In my riding, the forestry sector is a backbone of the economy, as is aluminum. My region has abundant natural resources. It is a forestry and mining community. People back home would have liked to see wage subsidy programs put in place to support them.

I am thinking, for example, of the workers at the Outardes sawmill in my riding, which had to close its doors. I am talking about this sawmill in particular, but other devastating events have taken place before this. Entire families are being affected. I am talking about 300 families. In a region like mine, which is made up of small communities, 300 families affected means that not only is the industry itself shutting down, but so is the entire community. Sometimes that is what it comes down to. It is a vicious circle. We would have liked to see this measure put in place. Governments have acted in that way in the past whenever a crisis arose. This time, however, there is not even a willingness to help the people who will find themselves without a paycheque. Beyond the closure itself, there is also the question of the development opportunities that have been lost as a result. This is truly devastating. The government could have helped these people if it had wanted to do so.

I want to talk about another measure that is also important to me. We keep raising it because it remains unresolved. People will tell me that this is the case for many things in this Parliament. I am referring to EI reform. Once again, the government tells us that it is going to change it at some point, and once again it makes promises. I have run in several election campaigns, and every time, there were candidates who told me that, yes, they would fix it this time. Some even told me that they would not change it and that they would have to be in government to do so. I figure that they are the ones in government now, and they would be able to change it if they wanted.

We have been calling for this reform for decades. I am repeating myself, and we are tired of doing so. At the same time, we keep hoping that one day the other side of the House may finally see reason. EI currently covers 40% of workers, which means that 40% of workers who pay into EI will be able receive benefits.

I spoke about this earlier today, but my thoughts are particularly with the seasonal workers in my riding. I spoke about natural resources, but I did not talk about fisheries, which is also a part of my riding.

There is thus the whole issue of the fishery. The benefits of fish processing workers, for example, will run out at the beginning of winter or around Christmas, depending on their situation and the number of hours they accumulated. As members know, fishing is not something that people can do year-round and, unfortunately, we cannot make the fishing season last longer, because Mother Nature prevents us from doing so. Nevertheless, it is vital that we support these workers and this industry. There are several measures that could be put in place. I am not saying that this is just about employment insurance, but the issue of the spring gap has never been resolved. This is about supporting industries located in so-called remote areas, like mine, where the economy is built on natural resources, some of which are more lucrative than others. The mining industry is one example. The fact remains that many fishers are once again being abandoned

I would like to talk about other sectors. I talked about forestry, but tourism is equally important back home. Why not resolve this issue once and for all? It is still possible to do so, but this issue has been completely left out of every bill. Again, I do not know what will happen on Thursday, but I hope there will be a thought for the people in my riding, who have very real needs. Much is being said these days about the crisis and the cost of housing, but the issue I am raising regarding employment insurance has existed for a long time. It is not a new problem. For those people who really struggle to make ends meet at certain times of the year and who are often skilled workers who want to work, we need to ask ourselves what message we are sending them. That message is that, even in times of crisis, we do not want to help them. They are being completely ignored.

Earlier, one of my colleagues opposite said that the government has not forgotten about them at all, and yet the government has been promising to change things and reform the system for 12 years. I have been hearing the same promises since I was elected in 2015. However, after 11 years, soon to be 12, the government has done absolutely nothing. I therefore strongly disagree with him. Fortunately, organizations like Action‑Chômage Côte‑Nord and the Interprovincial Employment Insurance Alliance continue to drive this message home to the government. There is actually a petition going around right now, and I would encourage all of my colleagues to sign it, if they so desire, so that the issue of employment insurance can finally be resolved once and for all, so that discussions can take place and so that the government keeps its word, if it is capable of doing so.

I have several other examples in mind. I had planned to discuss eight of them, but I think I have only two minutes left. Even so, I would like to remind the House of a request the Bloc Québécois has been making since 2025. There was an election that year, but the Prime Minister, who had not yet been elected, made a promise on April 25. Election day was April 28. On April 25, a carbon tax rebate of $814 million was promised to residents of the Canadian provinces, but not to those in Quebec. We were not asking for a rebate, since we would have preferred that the money be transferred to Quebec. However, every other province received compensation in respect of the carbon tax. It was a nice election gift, a gift that Quebec did not receive. We asked for the same thing. After all, giving money back to someone who did not pay anything is not a rebate; it is a gift. This gift was announced on April 25, no less. We, too, want our share of that $814 million. The people in my region, in Côte‑Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, need it. The needs are real. As I said, some people are struggling to make ends meet. Why was the government able to hand out this election gift to part of the country while denying it to Quebec? I find that unacceptable, and this situation should be corrected.

There are several issues that could be resolved quite easily. It is simply a matter of common sense, fairness and justice. Let me mention one final example, an issue we have been raising for years because it, too, deserves to be addressed: the existence of two classes of senior citizens. The government continues to discriminate by providing an increase in OAS benefits to one group of seniors while denying it to another. I cannot understand why we must continue to point this out year after year, whether during the economic update, pre-budget consultations or the budget debate itself. The inequity is obvious. In my constituency, which has an aging population, seniors need this support. However, the government continues to deny it to many of them by maintaining this distinction. There is plenty more I could say about this, but we will no doubt have the opportunity to return to it in the next budget.

All that to say, there is nothing for the riding of Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan in this economic statement.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoy hearing my colleague talk about her part of the country. It is indeed very special. I do not know whether you have ever had the chance to visit. I have only been to Sept-Îles, myself, and I was totally impressed by the strength of the community.

I hear the members opposite saying that seasonal workers should find work elsewhere once the season is over. What we really come to understand, however, is that these are not seasonal workers; they are workers in seasonal jobs.

Perhaps my colleague could explain the difference and explain what it means for a region to have seasonal jobs. What would happen if everyone who works in seasonal jobs found work elsewhere, while waiting for the season to return?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question gives me an opportunity to dispel a stereotype about workers in seasonal industries. Words matter. Workers are not the ones who are seasonal; it is the work.

Earlier, I gave fisheries and tourism as examples. We might like to have more snowmobiles on the north shore, but that does not always happen. Sometimes there are winters with no work in tourism. The same is true of fishing, because people do not fish in winter. Investment is obviously needed to extend those seasons so that people can work more. Production needs to be diversified. That could lead to a much broader discussion, but the fact remains that these people are the lifeblood of coastal communities with populations of 200 to 300. I am thinking of the lower north shore, where some communities are 200 to 300 kilometres apart and are not connected by road.

What do we do about these communities? We need to support them because the support they receive through EI helps ensure that they can continue to develop. It may sound unbelievable, but that is the situation in my riding.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her intervention on Bill C-31 at report stage. Included in Bill C-31 is division 16, which deals with the Defence Investment Agency, which would now be replicated in Bill C-40. This actually was the second iteration of the BIA. We would now have, under Bill C-40, a federal Crown corporation.

Is the member at all concerned that what the Liberals are trying to do is put more power into the hands of a minister, unnamed at this point in time, who would be able to exercise more political interference in procurement, stop competitions and ultimately undermine our Canadian Armed Forces by not buying what it actually needs?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this may come as a surprise, but I completely agree with what my colleague just said. I would add, for the first part, the whole issue of the bill. The government is introducing another Crown corporation. This feels like lack of planning to me.

It amazes me how the government introduces something and, at the same time, introduces a new bill because it may not have fully thought through what it wanted to do in the first place and is working on two things at once. It seems to me the government is doing things on the fly. As for the second part, I think giving more power to a small group or an individual is a total non-starter.

We want to see accountability. We are here to work for the people, and they want us to be transparent. This is about trust, so I agree with my colleague.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member was talking about immigration, and I want to pick up on that particular point. When we think of open work permits or people who are studying in the province of Quebec and have been there for an extended period of time, does the member have any sense that they should ultimately be allowed the opportunity to become permanent residents? What is the Bloc's position on issues of that nature?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if my colleague across the way wants to talk about immigration, then I would like to make a request on behalf of my constituents. Right now, in my riding of Côte‑Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, the whole labour market impact assessment process is very problematic.

The government is not putting enough resources into processing these applications, so it is jeopardizing certain industries, certain public health care services and, above all, the people who decide to come work in our region. If the government wants to act fast, it can simply provide more resources so that applications can be processed quickly.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been looking closely at what the government is doing with the Defence Investment Agency in Bill C-31, and I have to say that the more I look into it, the more questions I have.

Imagine my skepticism last October when the government announced it was creating a new Defence Investment Agency. We were told that it would speed things up. Creating yet another level of bureaucracy to fight bureaucracy seemed like a bad idea to me. Then they brought in Doug Guzman, a former senior banker and friend of the Prime Minister, to run the agency, promising procurements at speeds not seen in generations.

Now, barely a year later, the government is back with another plan. Apparently, the agency it just created is not structured the way it would like, so now the government wants to turn it into a Crown corporation. I have spent a good part of my life in business, and I can say that when something is not working, the last thing anyone wants to do is add another layer of management. We should find out where the problem is and fix it. If people are sitting around waiting for approvals, we should figure out why those approvals are taking so long. We should not build an entirely new organization around the problem and hope things will somehow improve. However, that is what the government seems determined to do.

What exactly have we accomplished over the past year? When Mr. Guzman appeared before committee, I wanted to understand what had actually changed since the DIA was created. Had it eliminated unnecessary approvals? Had it reduced the number of signatures required to get a contract approved? Could he point to a major procurement that had moved faster because of this new agency?

When I hear the government celebrating another announcement about submarines or aircraft, I want to know whether our military is any closer to getting that equipment. It turns out that he admitted all of those projects were already under way long before the Defence Investment Agency existed, in 2016 or something like that.

Believe me, I understand the frustration with government paperwork. I have dealt with enough of it as a farmer to know how ridiculous the requirements can be sometimes. Maybe people find themselves filling out forms to prove something that the government already knows, and then they wait weeks for someone to say they should have filled in a different form.

I am all for getting rid of unnecessary red tape, but when we are talking about spending billions of dollars of taxpayers' money and changing the agency to a Crown corporation, I think we need to be very careful about which of the rules we will be getting rid of as we make those changes. Some of those approvals exist for a very good reason. They are there to make sure contracts are awarded fairly, public money is accounted for and somebody can be held responsible when things go wrong. I am particularly concerned about what happens to parliamentary oversight when we move these decisions into a Crown corporation.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report showing that over the next five years, the federal government is projected to run about $333 billion in deficits, but borrow almost $733 billion. That is a difference of roughly $400 billion. Honestly, Canadians must be shocked to hear that the government can borrow that much more money than what shows up in its reported deficits. It turns out that when government borrows money to make loans or investments through a Crown corporation, for example, those transactions do not necessarily count as expenses in the annual deficit. Will we know why one company received a contract instead of another? When something goes wrong, will the minister be responsible, or will we be told the Crown corporation is to blame? When government decisions go badly, Canadian taxpayers are the ones who bear that cost.

That brings me to another part of this legislation that I find particularly troubling. The government is proposing broad powers to award defence contracts without going through a competitive bidding process. I understand that there are circumstances where that makes sense. If our military needs something urgently, or if there is only one company capable of providing a particular piece of equipment, obviously we need to move very quickly. However, when I read through the proposed exceptions, I was gobsmacked by how broadly some of them are written. I have to ask where Parliament fits into all of this.

If the government can decide that a contract does not need competition, how are we supposed to know taxpayers are getting the best value? How are Canadian companies supposed to know they have been treated fairly? What safeguards will prevent political favouritism from influencing decisions that should be based on what our military actually needs?

Let me give another example of why these safeguards matter. Canadians recently heard the Prime Minister talking about how Canada needs millions of military drones. I could not help wondering who was going to build all these drones and how that contract would be awarded. Well, it turns out that a fellow named Eliot Pence, who sits on a trade advisory board with the Prime Minister, conveniently started a company a little over a year ago called Dominion Dynamics. That company has since raised $139 million from an investment firm called Georgian. A man named David Court serves as chair of the advisory board of Georgian, is a member of the board of directors at Brookfield and was previously corporate director of Brookfield when the Prime Minister was chair of Brookfield. Coincidentally, Georgian has recently acquired defence contracts to produce drone vehicles, which will likely be in the millions of dollars, maybe billions.

If the DIA turns into a Crown corporation, these kinds of shenanigans will all become so much easier to do. Contracts will be awarded to brand new companies with basically no track record because somebody happens to know the right people. Does this sound familiar? If the government wants to expand sole-sourcing powers while moving procurement into a Crown corporation, should we not be demanding more accountability, not less?

I raised a similar concern when Mr. Guzman appeared before the committee earlier this year. I asked him whether defence dollars were at risk of being spent for market outcomes rather than giving our troops the right gear at the right time. His answer was that defence spending will be used to create Canadian economic growth. He said that National Defence needed to be “accepting of more than one solution”. Does that mean it might not get what it needs because a friend of a friend is opening a new business building knock-off night-vision goggles? Is that what he means by being accepting of more than one solution?

I certainly want Canadian businesses to benefit from defence procurement. We have some remarkable manufacturers in this country, and I would love to see more of the equipment our armed forces use being made right here at home. If we are sending young Canadian pilots into dangerous situations, mothers want to know that the aircraft they are flying was chosen because it was the right aircraft for the job. They do not want political connections or investment announcements getting in the way of buying the right equipment. The government says there will still be oversight, a board of directors, audits and reporting requirements, but I want to know what happens before these enormous contracts are signed, not simply when it gets reported afterward.

Sometimes the problem is not that we need another organization; it is that the organizations we already have are not working together efficiently. As with any business, we know what happens when too many people are involved in making a decision and nobody wants to take responsibility. Everything slows down, costs start climbing and eventually someone has to step in and sort it out. We do not fix that problem by handing someone the company's chequebook and telling them they can make the decisions with fewer questions being asked.

Our armed forces have waited long enough for the equipment they need, and we want to see it delivered as quickly as possible, but we also want to know that when billions of dollars are being spent, somebody is keeping an eye on the money. If the government can create a new agency one year, decide it needs replacing the next and then ask Parliament to give the replacement even more powers, we have every reason to ask whether we are solving a problem or being told, as in The Wizard of Oz, to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

So far, the only thing moving at speeds not seen in a generation seems to be the creation of more government bureaucracy. How many times does the Liberal government expect Canadians to fall for the same line? It is another agency, another reorganization and another promise to cut red tape, and now the Liberals want even more power to spend billions. When does someone finally have to answer for the results?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives want to debate Bill C-40 more and more it seems, and I get it. They do not like Crown corporations, even though Crown corporations in Canada have done, from a national perspective, exceptionally well, as they have done in many provincial jurisdictions, including the member's home province of British Columbia, where there are many Crown corporations.

Crown corporations are, in fact, held accountable, because even though they are at arm's length, there is usually a minister tied to a Crown corporation. There are annual reports. There is a litany of things to ensure accountability and transparency, but the Conservative line seems to be to oppose Bill C-40 at all costs.

Here we are on Bill C-31. Why does the member want to talk about Crown corporations—