Adam Vaughan

[Business of Supply, November 5th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, the nice thing about having an iPad on my desk is I can read the NDP platform from the last election. I just went through the three chapters that cover health care and dental care is not mentioned once. We know the program was not costed, and dental care was never mentioned. It is not that we should not provide it or look for ways to provide it, but members should not make up facts on the floor of the House of Commons, even if doing it remotely.

I want to talk about the right to housing. An NDP candidate stood on my sister's porch in Victoria and claimed Liberals had not legislated it and furthermore, that we have never made an investment in Victoria. My sister said, “Yes, they have. My brother is the parliamentary secretary and every time he comes to Victoria, he stays at my house.”

We have made those investments. We did legislate the right to housing. We are in the process of constructing the advisory council. Does the NDP want us to move faster or is it that they do not understand what we have done?

[Business of Supply, November 5th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, many people know that my father and I were journalists at Queen's Park at the same time. He once said to me, “You want to know how to make a New Democrat angry? Agree with them.” I have to tell members that as someone who has now run against the New Democrats, I think about three to six times, nothing could be further from the truth. There is nothing in the motion that someone can disagree with on principle. The question is how do we get it done practically and how do we sequence it, pay for it and structured it.

The member opposite listed pharmacare and now added dental care, which is not in the NDP platform or its costing. She has gone from universal income to basic income, but has not explained what that would look like. She talked about and indigenous urban and northern housing strategy. She knows that we are working on it and are very close to delivering it. We have accommodated it within the new national housing strategy. Now she has added a couple of other things, but I will not go into the long list.

The NDP is proposing one tax to solve this problem. The dollars attached to that tax address one part of that list, but not all of it. Where are the additional tax dollars coming from and where is the program structure on how to accomplish these? Why is that not a part of the NDP proposal? Why is it just a bunch of slogans and a simplistic solution, with no practical process to actually address the issues that have been raised?

[Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act, November 3rd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is an interesting speech that, unfortunately, is not supported by any facts.

What we know about casinos and the trouble they are having right now, is that they are losing a demographic because they have effectively bankrupted it. Then they prey on the next demographic coming down the road. In this case, casinos are now looking for single-event sports betting as a way of supplementing their income because they are losing on all other fronts. This has been shown time and again.

What I take issue with is this notion that it is going to expand the economy. It is kind of like the NDP tax hike for wealthy Canadians that is going to pay for everything seven times over because it is actually using the same tax hike to pay for everything seven times over. The list of what would benefit from this, from hospitals to schools to addicted gamblers to major league sports franchises to amateur sport, is continuous.

The trouble is that casinos take four dollars out of the local economy for every dollar that goes into it. Why would you want to bankrupt small business right now with a new casino offering?

[Business of Supply, November 3rd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, first of all, the member should know that Tony, Tim and Will are in our hearts and minds as we pull through this pandemic together as Canadians. I hope they see good days ahead as we work together to make sure those good days arrive. I thank the member for telling their stories.

I will put aside the party opposite's concerns that we are spending too much money. The member for Carleton often says we should stop spending money. I am not sure how to do that and help small business simultaneously. However, I will ask a very particular question.

I have a run a restaurant and had to meet a paycheque running a restaurant. I understand entirely the complexities of the leases that restaurant owners have and the debt structure that many restaurant owners have in terms of putting their private assets up against the business in order to get the financing they need to open. Leases are an area of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. The laws that govern commercial leases are entirely within provincial jurisdiction. The time it took to get provinces onside to help small business was substantial, including the province that the member opposite comes from.

If we were to intervene unilaterally in a private contract between two individuals under provincial jurisdiction, does the member opposite think the courts would for a minute defend our actions against landlords who decided they did not want to participate? Does he think we could have overridden the courts, overridden provincial jurisdiction and intervened in private contracts unilaterally, with no consequence?

[Business of Supply, November 3rd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I was a city councillor in 2008 when the real estate industry triggered a collapse of not just the North American economy but in fact the global economy, which created a recession. I was also a city councillor when I watched the federal government propose a budget that did absolutely nothing to protect thousands of jobs and the production of new housing in the country. It was only when the opposition parties threatened to bring down the government that the former Harper government decided to act.

Would the member care to contrast the substantial delay, the proroguing of Parliament and the inadequate response from the Harper government to that recession, that economic crisis, which at the time was the deepest and darkest recession the country had faced since the Great Depression?

The Harper government refused to act, was bent into action by the opposition and then acted with measures almost too small to make a difference to save the jobs and the construction industry. We lost thousands of houses and thousands of jobs in that 2008 slow response.

[Citizenship Act, November 2nd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, putting aside the controversy that the Conservatives tried to manufacture around changing the citizenship oath in the last term, which held things up, my question for the member of the Bloc is very simple.

The member identified the systemic way in which indigenous people have been discriminated against in Canada, which, of course, includes Quebec, yet at the same time the member is part of a party that refuses to acknowledge that there is systemic discrimination and systemic racism at play in Quebec.

How can indigenous people across the country claim that there is systemic discrimination and systemic racism in the way in which they are treated, and yet somehow be exempt from that analysis when in the province of Quebec? Surely they must be subjected to exactly the same sort of racism in that province as they are right across the country. They especially are when you talk to them about it, but some in the Bloc Québécois say that it does not exist in Quebec.

[Housing, October 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I was very proud to work with Mayor Iveson on delivering these critical dollars, and with Susan McGee from Homeward Trust, one of the most effective programs across this country in combatting chronic homelessness.

This funding is divided into two streams. Both streams are accessible to Edmonton, but Edmonton was given block funding to deal with the immediate crisis of homelessness through the COVID crisis. It can also apply to the other stream. I will remind members that this is the first instalment of many instalments to come on this file.

I would be happy to work with the member opposite to find out what properties are available for acquisition and deployment toward any chronic homelessness. I am very proud of the $1 billion we have put on the table.

[Housing, October 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, this government through the national housing strategy has actually restored lapsed funding agreements with co-ops to sustain the rent geared to income program that the Conservative government was letting disappear under its watch.

Regarding the co-op in question, I would be happy to sit with the member to review what CMHC has done around re-establishing those subsidies, but in response to COVID, this government is now taking the unprecedented step of launching the rapid housing initiative, a $1-billion initiative to acquire, renovate and provide emergency housing immediately for cities across this country. We look forward to continuing to work with Parliament to achieve on this file.

[Bills of Exchange Act, October 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I have often said one of the great honours of being a parliamentarian is to hear speeches like that in this House. While we have to do it virtually during COVID, I want to thank the member opposite for reminding us of the shameful and troubling history that we inherit in this country, but the important and critical work we have to do going forward.

I listened to what can only be described as a story that is as powerfully painful as it is joyful in terms of where it is leading us as a country and in the transformation in one family's life. I ask the member opposite, as we move toward recognizing this day, what she would see as important ways to mark the day, what children should do, what government members should do, what educators should do, what all the parts of Canadian society should do to make sure that this day of reconciliation is not a day of reconciliation, but in fact the celebration of the achievements of reconciliation that I hope we see in the days ahead.

[Housing, October 29th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this chamber again and talk about housing and cities. This week, our government took the historic step in choosing to work with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and directly fund cities as we work together to end homelessness in Canada.

Our government knows that not everyone can safely practise social distancing because of shelter conditions or overcrowded homes. We know that when people who are already struggling with illnesses are left to sleep rough or pitch a tent in a park, this precarious situation turns deadly very quickly during COVID-19. This is why $1 billion is there to help cities directly, to fund non-profits and indigenous housing providers in rural, urban and northern communities immediately and help them acquire new housing. This funding, combined with close to $500 million in Reaching Home funds this year for frontline homeless services, is so critical right now.

I talked to someone living in a tent encampment in my riding who told me that homelessness is not like COVID. They do not need a treatment, they need the cure. This rapid housing initiative is a bold move to do just that. We need to end chronic homelessness now.