Madam Speaker, just before I got up to speak, I was looking at the website of Environment Canada, a science-based department that we love. The government is cutting positions in that department. According to Environment Canada, the temperature in Ottawa today felt like -18°C. On days like these, it warms our hearts to see you in the chair, Madam Speaker, so thank you very much for being here.
We are talking about Bill C‑15. We are talking about the budget, and we are going to talk about its substance, its content, but we also have to talk about its form. We cannot ignore the fact that the government chose to introduce a 603-page omnibus bill.
These big omnibus bills have become grab bags that include much more than what is in a given budget. They were roundly criticized by the Liberals in the Harper era. Even in the Harper era, people thought this approach was undemocratic. Budget implementation bills used to be much slimmer.
We have before us today the second-longest budget implementation act in the history of the Confederation. It is 603 pages long and amends 49 statutes. This poses a problem for democracy because, as I said, it is a real grab bag. A lot of the legislative items in it have no business being included in a budget implementation act and should have been debated separately in the House.
These 49 statutes, 603 pages and certain measures pose significant problems for democracy and for people's rights. I am going to talk about expropriated individuals, but I am also going to address other issues. We had just one day in committee to study all that. That just goes to show that the government has decided to govern without the House of Commons and has little regard for Parliament. We know that the Prime Minister has decided to act like Canada's CEO. We saw an example of that today.
This budget was tabled partly because parliamentarians had asked for one. In the last election campaign, we were told that the world had changed, that a budget needed to be presented quickly, and an election was called. We were not told whether there would be a budget when Parliament returned and, in the end, there was no budget. Fall came and we had to nag the Minister of Finance to tell us whether he was going to table a budget. He did not know.
Eventually, the government decided to switch up the budget cycle. It did not allow the Standing Committee on Finance to hold pre‑budget consultations. It did not let us listen to Quebeckers and Canadians so we could consider their recommendations. It tabled a budget.
Despite the fact that some top-notch officials worked on the document, it is a budget that is, in many ways, poorly cobbled together and inadequate. There are some poorly drafted measures, and certain provisions will have unforeseen effects, so we had to work very hard during the only committee day we had. In some cases, the government listened to us. In other cases, it did not.
One example of something that should not have been included in the budget is the high-speed rail network act. I believe it should be debated. I believe that cost-benefit analyses are needed, as my Conservative colleague said. I believe conversations are needed. I even believe that it could be a promising project.
However, as part of this project, a decision was made to create two classes of citizens along the proposed route. A decision was made to make it easier to expropriate people living along the route than would be possible with any other project in Canada.
Mirabel is an expropriation case study. What the people of Mirabel and people along the route are being told is that they are not equal before the law and that there is a special law for them. What they are being told is that, if this were any other project happening elsewhere in Canada, when they receive a notice of expropriation, they would have the right to challenge the price and ask to be heard by a hearing officer, who is impartial, before the minister makes their final decision. However, since they are along the route, they will be pushed to their limits. They will be asked to drain their savings and their RRSPs to go before the Federal Court.
With our amendments, we simply wanted to restore people's right to be heard. I do not think it is unreasonable to ask for justice and equality and to ask that folks not be treated like second-class citizens. It seems to me that this has nothing to do with the project itself. It seems to me that this is about a basic level of justice. The Liberals have decided that justice no longer matters, as long as the train goes through. As for the Conservatives, some of them decided to hide behind the curtains when it came time to vote to restore the rights of people in our communities and across Canada who live along the proposed route.
We think a study should be conducted on the impact this will have on communities. Villages are going to be separated. This train will cross 700 roads in Quebec. It is possible that villages will be cut in half. This is not about opposing the project, but it is normal to want to know what is going to happen. It is our job as parliamentarians to seek the truth. Truth is not Alto's specialty, and it is our job to demand it.
Under the legislation that is about to be passed, if the train runs through the end of a farm or field and the owner receives an expropriation notice, they will not even have the right to rebuild their silo, barn or stable in the event of a disaster.
Yesterday in the House, I talked about my friend Éric Couvrette from Sainte-Scholastique, whose cattle shed burned down two summers ago. He is a dairy farmer. His farm runs alongside the airport fences. He has experienced expropriation before. He had to rebuild from scratch. He lost his livelihood to the fire. We saw his cows lying charred in the field. I went there the next day. It was awful. Rebuilding all of that is complicated.
These people have a right to earn a living. Under Bill C-15 as it stands today, if the train goes through their property, they would not be able to rebuild everything and would not be able to earn a living. They would be told to just declare bankruptcy.
We introduced an amendment, but the government would not hear of it. What does this have to do with the actual train? It has nothing to do with the actual train. We actually want to help improve the bill, but the government is telling us that it is no good and it is unwilling to get better. However, the opposition can be constructive, and that is exactly what we suggested.
We also said that expropriations should not happen by email by default. We understand that it is the 21st century and people do not communicate by telegram anymore and they can send emails. Alto officials told the committee that if someone wants a registered letter, they just have to ask, and Alto will accommodate them. I introduced an amendment to incorporate what Alto asked us. It was not a joke. Our amendment said that traditional means of communication would be used, unless someone asks to receive communication by email, in which case the rest of the process could be done by email. I do not think this constitutes extremism, obstruction or opposition aimed at preventing the budget from passing. We are saying that the government has gone a bit overboard—“a bit” is a euphemism here—and that it needs to respect people. The answer we are getting is that we are the opposition, that we are just whiners, and that people's land is being expropriated by email. However, on the ground, Alto officials are saying that they cannot expropriate by email. It is in the bill. It is in the legislation. It is written in black and white, and we explained that in committee. These people are being given tools to misbehave. We cannot assume that they will misbehave, but they have been given the tools to do it. They are coming to our ridings. They were there this week, and they are lying to the people who show up for their so-called consultations.
Our amendments would not have delayed this project, because there is no project yet. Mr. Imbleau, Alto's chief executive officer, appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance and was asked how much the train was going to cost. He does not know how much it is going to cost. He cannot tell us that. Two weeks ago, I asked the chief executive officer of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, or CIB, whether it was going to be providing funding. The CEO of the CIB said that it was hard to know, because the project does not exist yet. However, for some reason, there is an urgent need to expropriate land at top speed, accelerate the process and say it is coming soon. Something does not add up. None of this was slowing down their project. What we are asking for is decency and respect in a project where all the usual red flags are already up.
My colleagues know that megaprojects that fail and become a disaster for taxpayers all have a number of things in common: overestimated revenues, underestimated costs and very long-term forecasts to make things look better, because most of the costs come earlier in the project. We have the right to ask these questions. We have the right to want to improve things. That would have required an entire committee and a separate bill. That is what Parliament is for, and that is why this should not be included in such an omnibus bill.
We have a major democratic issue with a bill that is so thick that I had to buy a trailer for my car to haul it around with me.
Let us talk about the digital services tax. The Prime Minister said he would exempt companies that are already evading taxes from the digital services tax, and at the same time, the minimum tax for multinationals was removed. These companies are not paying their fair share. It was a gamble on the part of the Prime Minister. He figured he would bow down a little to President Trump in the hopes that that would put him in a good mood, but he was still in a bad mood, so then we thought the Prime Minister might reinstate the tax. The president was in a bad mood, but the Prime Minister did not want to reinstate the tax because he said it would put the president in an even worse mood. Then, however, the Prime Minister went to Davos and infuriated the president, but he is still not reinstating the tax, despite the media crisis and the fact that our local media are having their content stolen and that it is a struggle to fund our newsrooms. There are no measures in the budget to ensure the health of the fourth pillar of democracy. It seems to me that this alone would have warranted a debate.
When an omnibus bill of this size is tabled at the last minute, in the fall rather than in the spring, there can be unforeseen events and effects from the budget. Let me give an example. The government decided to exempt Canada Post from its obligation to have its rate schedule approved by the government. However, Canada Post provides services that may not be financially profitable but are socially beneficial, particularly for visually impaired individuals and for the BIBLIO Network of municipal libraries in the regions that send books to each other, sometimes over long distances, at preferential rates. The government worked so quickly, because it was not ready to table its budget, that it forgot it would deprive all the remote regions of Quebec and the rest of Canada of this preferential rate.
I asked the Minister of Finance and National Revenue in committee whether he was aware that his bill had that impact. He did not have a clue what I was talking about. The government was right about that. I followed up with the minister and an amendment was introduced. That is what the Bloc Québécois is for. An amendment was introduced and as we say back home, we managed to patch that hole. However, how many holes are there in this bill, which parliamentarians did not have time to go through in one morning? This is fundamentally a democratic issue.
There is a rare earth elements and critical minerals strategy. The government forgot one important mineral, namely, phosphate, which is used to make batteries. We had to add that in the bill. The government did not want to. The government says it wants an energy transition, but it overlooked the fact that batteries require phosphate and that 100% of new phosphate-refining projects are geared towards battery manufacturing. That is what the Bloc Québécois is for. It took the Bloc Québécois and my amendment to add phosphate to the bill. The government said no initially, but through debate, it finally said yes.
When you cash a cheque in Canada, federally regulated banks are not allowed to freeze a cheque that is for less than $100. This amount has not been indexed for years. Today, if you have a small family, you cannot even deposit $100 and then go to the grocery store. This means that if you deposit a cheque for the new Canada groceries benefit at the bank, under the current law, the cheque will be frozen for two weeks. The Bloc Québécois had to introduce an amendment to increase the minimum amount to $250 to ensure that individuals who get these government cheques can deposit their cheque, and the funds will not be frozen. We are not making this stuff up. Had the Minister of Finance and National Revenue taken the time to do his job properly and to ensure public servants did their job, we would not have been forced to patch yet another hole.
Let us talk about regulatory sandboxes. Countries around the world have regulatory sandbox arrangements. There are ways to make legislation and regulations more flexible for innovation, particularly in the health sector. No country in the world introduces legislation that applies to all sectors indiscriminately and to all laws but the Criminal Code. That does not happen. Taking those powers away from Parliament is a Canadian innovation. We think this can be a good idea, but everything depends on how it is done. This way of doing things does not exist in other countries.
The Conservatives joined forces with the Liberals. An agreement was reached. They decided there were some laws that the government could not waive in those regulatory sandboxes. That is better than nothing. However, environmental laws are not protected. Labour laws are not protected. First nations' rights are not protected. The official opposition's temporary absence from the House allowed things to move forward. They can shout until they are blue in the face, but that is what happened in committee.
We are in favour of open banking. We all want competition in sales and banking transactions. We want apps on our phones. However, banks are regulated by the federal government under the Bank Act. They are manufacturers of financial products. The brokers are regulated under Quebec's Consumer Protection Act. They are not manufacturers of financial products. The Bloc Québécois had to get an amendment adopted that explicitly says that the new federal legislation will not effectively invalidate Quebec's Consumer Protection Act. That is basic stuff, but the Liberals are still not doing their job properly. We had to patch those holes. We are not just complaining, we took tangible measures. We were forced to propose amendments so that the Quebec government would be comfortable with the bill. Do these ministers not have phones? Does the House not pay for phones?
I want to talk about the clean electricity tax credit, which will apply to modular nuclear reactors that will be used to clean up dirty oil. What is clean about that? If my colleagues think that is clean, I invite them to drink a glass of it and see how they feel the next day. This is like a bad movie: long-winded and zero suspense. A clean electricity tax credit should not apply to dirty oil. The carbon capture tax credit is being extended until 2041 and, at the same time, this bill is weakening the anti-greenwashing law. Since Bill C‑15 was introduced, oil company advertisements have started to once again promote carbon capture and green oil. At the same time, the government is funding these technologies. That is what this bill does. It is anything but an energy transition.
With regard to the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the government is increasing its capital from $35 billion to $45 billion even though the bank's officials have not managed to spend what they already had. Our committee has been chasing after them to find out how they spend the money. We do not know and they are incapable of telling us, but the government went ahead and added $10 billion in capital, all of which is hidden from parliamentarians because it is outside the government's reporting entity.
The budget has $11.5 billion for Build Canada Homes. No one is against homes. Personally, when I take a walk in my riding, I see that everyone likes homes. However, the $11.5 billion is for an administrative entity. We do not know the programs or how things will work. Neither do we know whether Quebec will get its share. We do not know how the funds will be distributed across the provinces. However, we do know that this is important, because Quebec is the only province that has permanent social, community and co-op housing construction programs. This has always been a sensitive matter. This is exactly what derailed the Liberals' national housing strategy initially for three and a half years. That was three and a half years ago. Well, here they go again. We would have liked to have some answers about that. However, what can we do, under closure, in a single morning?
There are many things we could mention. There are a few good things in the budget, but not enough to vote in favour of it. For example, there is the luxury tax on aircraft. The New Democrats are shouting themselves hoarse, but the luxury tax was a luxury in name only. What we were doing was taxing commercial aircraft. We were taxing our own aerospace industry. Do members know what people were doing? They were buying aircraft from other countries. Aircraft fly and cross borders. We were killing our own market. It took three, four, five years for the minister to understand, even though it was part of our budget requests.
The government also agreed to reimburse customs duties to organizations for donated goods. Organizations were receiving donated goods and paying customs duties. I do not know if anyone looked up the word “generosity” in the dictionary, but that was not part of the definition. We had that corrected. Furthermore, is the accelerated capital cost allowance a good measure? It is an investment support measure. However, the Liberals choose the winners. The winners are oil. The winners are gas. We also have a problem with digital sovereignty. Fibre optic companies are chasing after the minister, trying to alert him to the fact that they were overlooked. The Liberals have picked the winners. For once they were in the right place, they picked the winners.
I believe in the work of the opposition parties. I think that we can improve budgets and are capable of doing something good with them. However, nobody thinks that spending half a day in committee on 603 pages makes the slightest bit of sense. In future, I urge the government to perhaps not do that again.
