I declare Motion No. 81 defeated. I therefore declare Motion No. 82 defeated.
House of Commons Hansard #89 of the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was veterans.
House of Commons Hansard #89 of the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was veterans.
This summary is computer-generated. Usually it’s accurate, but every now and then it’ll contain inaccuracies or total fabrications.
Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1 Report stage of Bill C-15. The bill proposes changes to various laws, with opposition parties raising concerns. The NDP seeks to delete clauses related to the digital services tax, underused housing tax, and luxury tax, arguing these repeal measures the Liberals previously deemed essential. The Bloc Québécois criticizes proposed expropriation powers for the high-speed rail project and the elimination of the digital services tax, while Conservatives highlight amendments to limit ministerial powers to exempt entities from laws, which they call "King Henry VIII-style powers." 23300 words, 4 hours.
The Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia
I declare Motion No. 81 defeated. I therefore declare Motion No. 82 defeated.
Bill C-15 Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1Government Orders
Saint-Maurice—Champlain Québec
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne LiberalMinister of Finance and National Revenue
moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in at report stage.
The Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia
If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Mr. Speaker, I believe, if you seek it, you will find consent to apply the results from the previous vote to this one, with Liberals voting yes
Chris Warkentin Conservative Grande Prairie, AB
Mr. Speaker, Conservatives agree to apply the vote, with Conservatives voting against.
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois agrees to apply the vote and will be voting against.
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Mr. Speaker, the NDP agrees to apply the vote and will be voting against.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, the Green Party agrees to apply the vote. We will be voting no.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I suspect if you were to canvass the House, you would find unanimous consent to go to Adjournment Proceedings.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
Mr. Speaker, on October 2, the health minister's senior official told the health committee that no federal funds were used to buy crack pipes. On December 9, the same official corrected her testimony and revealed that federal funding can in fact be used to buy crack pipes. Then, on December 11, the health minister herself stated in the House that the government does not fund the purchase of crack pipes.
Both statements cannot be true, so can Health Canada funding be used to purchase crack pipes? I ask for a simple yes or no.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member opposite that issues related to drugs are ones the government takes very seriously. In fact, as a government, whether it is on the issue of crack pipes or of safe injection sites, which is what I was expecting the member to raise and talk about this evening, we continue to work with other levels of government. In working in co-operation with other levels of government, at the end of the day we want to be able to achieve what is healthy for the community.
There might be instances that occur, and if the member has a specific file or case he is concerned about, I would recommend he bring it to the attention of the ministry, possibly to the deputy minister or the minister directly.
I cannot give you a clear yes or no on that particular issue, for the simple reason that I had no indication you were going to be asking about crack pipes—
Mental Health and AddictionsAdjournment Proceedings
The Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia
The hon. member, who is very experienced, knows that he must go through the Chair.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry.
At the end of the day, what I want to do is indicate that the Department of Health works with many different stakeholders, and the purpose of doing that is to ensure that the policy set out by Health Canada is in fact in the best interest of the community and of the individuals who have drug-related issues.
If there is something specific, like what the member just raised in regard to crack pipes, I would suggest that he might want to bring it directly to the attention of the Minister of Health. This is the first I have heard of it, because the question I was provided with did not, I think, make any reference to it whatsoever.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, if the member would like, I could read the question:
... yesterday Health Canada officials revealed at committee that there are no age requirements at federally approved drug injection sites. In fact, Health Canada revealed that there is not even a requirement for ID. That means minors can legally use drugs in these consumption sites under Liberal law. The health minister approves supervised drug injection sites through the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Why are the Liberals allowing minors to inject hard drugs under their watch?
This is the actual question the member put forward, so that is what I am responding to. I am trying to be as courteous as I can in trying to indicate to the member opposite that with respect to drug injection sites, there is a process that needs to be followed, and it involves a considerable amount of consultation by the different levels of government and the different stakeholders, which is what we have seen.
I would really encourage the member, if he wants to pursue the issue of crack pipes, to bring it up directly with the ministry and possibly the minister. I was not prepared for that specific question, and that is the reason I am taking more of a general approach.
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
Needless to say, Mr. Speaker, the member did not answer my question. I guess he was unprepared for the question on crack pipes, on which we have a conflict of opinion.
However, he did bring up another important issue. Why are the Liberals allowing minors to approach and use drugs at consumption sites?
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, one of the things I have learned over the years of being a parliamentarian is that out in our communities we have all sorts of experts, people who truly understand the issues and complexities of drug-related issues. What we have witnessed is a great deal of co-operation from the different levels of government and first responders. By doing that, the government works in co-operation with them and, ultimately, there is a consensus brought forward dealing with the manner in which drug consumption sites or safe sites are administered.
Mike Lake Conservative Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB
Mr. Speaker, hopefully the parliamentary secretary does a better job with this question than the last one. It is interesting that he is here again today to pad his word count. I noticed that the challenge he had just now was that he was answering questions the Liberals knew were coming from the shadow minister for health. Rather than have the parliamentary secretary for health answer the questions, as would normally be the case, I do not know why they would have this parliamentary secretary answer. I do not know why he is here to answer my questions today as well.
The question I asked back in November came after the budget. At that point in time, Fitch Ratings came out raising an alarm. It said, in a release it put out, that “Canada’s...proposed budget, announced in Parliament on Nov. 4, underscores the erosion of the federal government’s finances”. It went on to say, “persistent fiscal expansion and a rising debt burden have weakened its credit profile and could increase rating pressure over the medium term.”
At that point in time, I raised the issue of the previous long-standing Liberal government, the government that was in place from 1993 until we finally got relief in January of 2006, just over 20 years ago. Of course, that government was dealing with the impacts of another previous Trudeau government that ran 14 deficits in 15 years. A generation later, the Chrétien-Martin government had to deal with the effects of all of those deficits and the debt that had risen. By the way, the debt that had been added was so high that the subsequent Mulroney government, who the Liberals at that time liked to say ran the biggest deficits in Canadian history, deficits that were entirely interest on Trudeau debt, was forced to cut 32% from the transfers for health, social services and education. I think it was called the Canada social transfer.
I raised the fact that at that point in time, those cuts were precipitated by a ratings cut. Fitch has announced that it is concerned about Canada's fiscal situation. I asked if anyone over there understood the situation. At that point, instead of the finance minister standing, the Minister of Energy stood up, and I am sure this is very reassuring for all Canadians. He said, “We are doing just fine.” That was the reassurance we got.
Therefore, I asked a second question that day and walked through some quotes from the early nineties from Reuters. From February 1994, it says, “Liberal government brings down what it considers to be a tough budget.... It nonetheless still has spending rising slightly, and immediate public and market reaction is it did not go nearly far enough.” In January 1995, this was a headline: “A biting editorial in the Wall Street Journal headlined 'Bankrupt Canada' calls Canada 'an honorary member of the Third World'”.
I have been raising this alarm and I think Canadians should be concerned, because the government has added another $16 billion in debt since the promise made at election time, and since the budget it has added billions more in spending that is not accounted for. I am curious how we have gone, in just a decade, from a country with a balanced budget and the richest middle class in the world to a country that has to borrow from our kids to subsidize groceries for an entire generation.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, first, if I may, the member seemed to be a little upset with the fact that I might have some knowledge in regard to the issue of health care. Having worked with health care workers for many years in the province of Manitoba, having been the health care critic and having visited drug sites, I do have a bit of a sense of the issue that is being raised.
The member opposite brought up an issue that was not going to be raised, and it was a specific question. At times, yes, it is better not to provide a concise answer to a question until one actually knows what one is talking about. I suspect that even the member opposite would have to concede that it is, in fact, the case.
On the issue the member raised, I have a very good sense of what needs to be said here, which is that the Conservative Party continues to go around talking about how Canada is broken. That is just not the case. If the member was to check with his constituents, he would find that Canada is the best place in the world to call home.
When the member talks about the deficit, seriously, the Harper government, which his leader was a part of, inherited a multi-billion dollar surplus back when they took over the reins of power. By the time that ended, they actually had nothing but deficits throughout that period of time, and they had to sell GM shares in order to falsify and make it look as if they had balanced the budget.
Today, we have the strongest and healthiest credit rating possible, which is a AAA rating. As a government, we have a Prime Minister who has economic experience and has dealt with being the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Governor of the Bank of England. He has impeccable credentials in dealing with the economy, and we have decided to build a stronger, healthier economy by investing in Canadians as opposed to ignoring Canadians and doing nothing but rage mongering and trying to give a false impression that Canada is all doom and gloom.
We have good reason to be optimistic, because we have a Prime Minister, a cabinet and a Liberal caucus that truly understand the value Canada has to offer the world. That is one of the reasons we have ministers and a Prime Minister who are going around attracting billions of dollars in foreign investment to our country. It is the reason we are increasing trade opportunities around the world while at the same time working on making sure that we get a good trade agreement with the United States of America. We can contrast that to the Conservative Party, which talks about misery and spreads misinformation constantly, whether it is on the floor of the House of Commons or through social media.
I do not need to take a lesson from the member opposite on what the Conservative Party might be able to do in some sort of dreamland. I know full well that when we talk about the policies they espouse, we will find that, at the end of day, they do not make any sense, and that demonstrates that they do not care about the interests of Canadians.
There have been a number of opposition days, and if we look at those we will find that what the Conservatives constantly want to talk about is rage and getting Canadians upset. A good example of that was yesterday, when they took the issue of asylum seekers and meshed it in with the issue of health care, which is an issue that Canadians are truly concerned about. They tied them together in order to portray an impression that immigration is bad for Canada, when in fact immigrants have built Canada to what it is today. In one sense, we are all immigrants.
I would just give that as a piece of advice to the member opposite.
Mike Lake Conservative Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB
Mr. Speaker, I would point out that there was not even an attempt to answer my question.
To put it in context, if we want to contrast, in 2008 we faced a global economic crisis, and our government at the time put in place a plan to spend money to get through the crisis, but with a plan to get back to a balanced budget by 2015, which we did. We had the richest middle class in the world, according to The New York Times at that point in time.
We can contrast that with his government's approach, which faced a global crisis and has run increasing deficits. In fact, in the election campaign just 10 months ago, the Liberals promised in their platform that they would run an astounding $62-billion deficit. That deficit grew to $78 billion in the fall, and then they announced a $12-billion plan to subsidize food, groceries, for a quarter of Canadians. How in the world did we get there?