Daniel Blaikie

[Criminal Code, February 15th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address what could only most charitably be described as cognitive dissonance in that speech. When we talk about things like trying to institute a basic income so people can live with dignity and get the help and support that they require, or when we talk about spending more on health in order to be able to create the services that people require in order to live the life the member describes, he opposes those things. Dental care, for Pete's sake, is something that his party has opposed. That is what people living with disabilities require in order to get the services they need and to live with the dignity they need.

Therefore, I am having a hard time reconciling his speech about how we have to pay special attention to the most vulnerable and people living with disabilities, with the position he takes outside this debate on many other important matters. Maybe the member would like to speak to that.

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I am very familiar with the arguments in favour of a national child care program. I recall making them as a candidate in 2015, against Liberals who said it was a bad idea and it was not the federal government's business to invest in child care. I am very glad to see the government come around on that, and I am glad to see some of the positive effects that were anticipated by New Democrats and others who knew better.

I welcome the Liberals to the party. I hope they will join us on some other things while we are at it.

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, we acknowledge the decision that Canadians made in the last election.

We are here to try to achieve progress whenever possible. I do not think that holding an election tomorrow will resolve the issue of the Liberals and Conservatives giving significant support, on behalf of Canadians, to the oil and gas sector. That is something we want to resolve. We are working with people in Canada and Quebec who want to change that, but we are not yet there.

We are in a position where we can have a federal dental care program, which we believe is a good thing. We will achieve gains wherever we can and we will continue to fight wherever we must.

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I would say this is an example of the one-two punch the oil and gas industry gets in this House between the Liberals and Conservatives. The Liberals spent over $20 billion on a pipeline, and the Conservatives get up and say that the Liberals are not supporting the oil and gas industry. They can debate whether they want to or should support the oil and gas industry with massive government expenditures, but I would say the Liberals have been trying really hard to do so. I do not think they are failing to try.

In fact, I would criticize the Liberals for the extent to which they are doing that. I think of the opportunity cost of that $20-billion investment. We are told that we cannot have a western power grid that would help share hydroelectric energy from British Columbia and Manitoba across the provinces. This is because we do not have the money to build it. Then they turn around and build a $20-billion pipeline. We cannot afford to be sinking that much money into new oil and gas infrastructure when we could be spending it on different types of infrastructure that would also create really good-quality jobs here in Canada. The point is to create those jobs in a way that is going to be sustainable over time. I would say that the Liberals have placed their bet on the oil and gas industry, and we think that is the wrong place for that bet when it comes to the next generation of Canadian workers.

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise, with thanks to the member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook for sharing some of his time.

I think it was another colleague who said earlier that he had some rather mixed feelings about today's motion because there is a lot that is true in it, particularly the first parts that name and provide some useful facts and figures about the very difficult situation Canadians are facing. We know that many Canadians right now are concerned about losing places to live, whether because the interest rate on their mortgages has gone up and they are not sure their family incomes can absorb the additional costs, because rents continue to climb, or for various other reasons.

Certainly one important reason is the continuing corporate presence in the Canadian housing market. In Winnipeg, for instance, we just saw Lions Place be offered up to a private developer who has a history of taking over buildings where there used to be affordable rents, doing some superficial renovations and then jacking up the rents. That activity is going on. It is happening and it is a real challenge, putting pressure on the cost of rent.

We know that Canadians are struggling with the 11% increase in the cost of groceries and that that puts pressures on household budgets. It is not an optional extra that people can choose to do without. It is a cost that they either have to absorb or, as the member for Victoria was just pointing out, go hungry because they do not have any good alternatives. We are facing a really difficult moment.

Where I take issue with the motion before us is that it would lay all of that problem at the feet of government and suggest that it is sufficient just to cap government spending, cut waste, fire high-priced consultants and eliminate inflationary deficit and taxes that have caused a cost-of-living crisis for Canadians. There is, again, some truth in that. I am in favour of cutting waste, for instance, but I think my Conservative colleagues and I might have some differences of opinion as to what constitutes a proper cutting of waste, that is, what is truly wasteful and what is not.

As an example, I have been doing a lot of advocacy alongside folks outside of Parliament, like campaign 2000 for a CERB low-income repayment amnesty. I think it is wasteful to chase the poor for money they do not have because they took the government at its word, during a global crisis of unprecedented proportion, that if they needed help they should apply for it. When it turned out that they were not quite eligible because they were not poor in the right way, the government then said that they owe all of that money back. It will pay people to hound them even though it knows they do not have the money, and it will never get that money back. It is going to throw good money after bad. That is waste.

If that is what the Conservatives mean by cutting waste, I will show up any day of the week for that. I suspect it is not what they mean, because I have heard them talk about other things that I value and that I think are good investments. For instance, when we talk about pharmacare on this side of the House, that is a cost. Capping spending is not going to allow us to have a federal pharmacare plan, but do members know what a federal pharmacare plan would do? Ultimately it would save money for Canadians and reduce the cost of accessing prescription drugs in Canada, not just in individual budgets but in government budgets too.

The latest reports, prepandemic, on pharmacare in Canada said that Canadians were paying about $24 billion a year on prescription drugs. That was a combination of government expenditure, private insurance plan and out-of-pocket expenditure. The findings of many different studies over time, including in this particular example, was that a national pharmacare plan would cost about $20 billion a year. Depending on who pays and what ledger it is on, Canadians stand to save at least $4 billion a year on the prescription drugs they are already buying.

To me, it is not the right approach to say the federal government should just arbitrarily cap its spending when there are investment opportunities that could reduce costs to Canadians overall. I think we should be more discerning in our judgment around this place, in a way that this motion simply is not. We have seen a lot of change and we are going to see more change in the economy over the years to come, particularly in regard to energy. We are seeing that happen already.

Many of our allies are trying to lower their dependency on fossil fuel. That is happening, whether Canada wants it and gets on board or not. It is happening for the sake of both the climate and energy security. I do not think anybody in this place needs a lecture on that after the last 12 months, not only with Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and what has happened to global energy supplies but also the real pinch from Russia's supply of oil to Europe and other parts of the world, as well as the power that that has given it.

There are many reasons the world is trying to lower its dependency on fossil fuel for basic things that we cannot do without, such as heating our homes. Canada's choice is whether it shows up to that or not. Back in the 1970s, Peter Lougheed made real investments, as did the federal government, to create the oil and gas industry that exists in Alberta today. That was not at all a spontaneous creation of the free market. There was a lot of very deliberate policy work and financial investment by governments in order to create the oil and gas economy of the late 20th century. Those who say otherwise would be kidding themselves and anyone who listens.

Before us is another moment of policy and financial investment to create a new energy economy for at least the next 50 years. Canada has to decide whether it wants to get on that train. We are not going to do so for free. Arbitrarily capping spending right now just takes Canada out of the game at a time when our biggest continental partner, the United States, is finally getting into the climate change game in a meaningful way. It is doing this with the Inflation Reduction Act. A lot of companies that are in the new energy economy and are also making incredible amounts of profit are sizing up the places where they want to invest.

We should value that investment as much as we value investment in the oil and gas sector, but Canada does not. It has not shown up for other industries, particularly new energy industries, in the way that it did for oil and gas in the 1970s and continues to do today. Mr. Speaker, just think of the over $20 billion that the federal government found overnight to get into the pipeline business, something it has no business being in in the first place.

Do not tell me money is lacking for other important things. Of course there is money. The Liberals have proven that by going out and spending on things like pipelines, which they should not have done.

We are in this moment where we are trying to address critical challenges for individual Canadian households, and at the same time, many businesses that are still reeling from the effects of the pandemic. The world is preparing and laying the foundations for the next-generation economy. It is important to my children and to the children of people in this place and across the country that Canada get that right. This will make good-paying union jobs available to the next generation of Canadian children in the same way that those jobs were available for oil and gas workers in Alberta.

We want to make sure that those jobs continue to be available. Some of them will be in oil and gas, but there are going to be fewer of those in the future. This is not because the Canadian government of any stripe decided that was going to be the case. It is because many governments the world over are deciding that must be the case, if we are going to have a planet to have an economy on in the first place. They are not wrong about that. Canada needs to get with the program, and we are only going to be able to do that through serious investment.

I will close because I know my time is running short. I thank the Speaker for his diligence. I will just mention health care. I do not know that we need to do much more than that, but the idea that we are going to solve the very real problems in the health system without investment is false. In this time when people are struggling to get access to care, government will need to make investments. Provincial governments have been willing to pay through the nose for private agency nurses, overtime work and sending people to the United States to get treatment.

That is not a health system. We need to build it, or rebuild it, here. That will require investment. It is worth paying for. This is why it is not the time to endorse a simple spending cap.

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, there does seem to be a bell ringing. I had heard that the member might be interested in sharing his time. I wonder if perhaps the ringing bell distracted him from that fact.

[Telecommunications, February 13th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, if the minister is ultimately going to say no to the merger, why does he not just come out and say it? We already know that Canadians pay among the highest prices for telecom services in the world, and we know that less competition in the market is not going to lead to lower prices. The answer is pretty clear; he is hinting at it. When is he going to reassure Canadians who are already struggling with their household budgets and cannot afford to give up their cellphones? When is he going to do the right thing and say no to the merger?

[Public Sector Integrity Act, February 9th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this evening to support this bill going to committee. Obviously, whistle-blower protection is something quite serious and important. It is one of a few ways Canadians can come to know about misbehaviour or indeed rule-breaking and unethical behaviour within the government. The fact that Canada's whistle-blower regime needs to be improved is well known.

In 2021, the International Bar Association did a survey of about 50 different countries around the world, and Canada placed dead last in its assessment of our whistle-blower protection regime, so it stands to reason that we should take that to heart. In my first Parliament, in the 42nd Parliament, there was finally a rather extensive review of the legislation under a commitment by this very government that it would improve whistle-blower legislation. This resulted in a number of recommendations that were never acted upon.

We know, and it has been acknowledged in many different fora, both internationally and here at home, that our whistle-blower protection regime is not what it should be and not, what I dare say, Canadians expect.

If we want to talk about gatekeepers, as some do in this place, one of the important ways of trying to create accountability for gatekeepers is to have the people who work under them able to confidently identify instances where they are not doing what they should be doing, where they are not working in the public interest they have sworn to work under or where their political masters are not doing that either. It becomes very important indeed that we have that kind of protection.

Of course the leader of the Conservative Party is someone who likes to talk a lot about gatekeepers and wanting to protect Canadians against them, but it was actually he, as minister in 2006, who introduced this legislation, which has been roundly panned as a terrible way of protecting whistle-blowers within the Canadian public service. Canadians should ask themselves how it is that somebody who managed to design one of the worst whistle-blower protection regimes in the world, or certainly within the 50 countries that were examined by the International Bar Association, will fare as a prime minister trying to stand up to gatekeepers.

We notice in other areas, such as when we talk about housing, for instance, that he wants to stand up against gatekeepers. He pretends that it is only municipal governments that are the problem, and that if only we could push them to approve permits faster, we would solve the housing crisis. There is no mention of the massive corporations that are making billions of dollars with the financialization of the Canadian housing market and the kinds of things we could be doing to make that less of a lucrative enterprise for these large corporations to be renovicting tenants and putting them out on the street. There is no mention of that.

There is no mention of all the gatekeeping that happens in the economy by private actors. He is only seeing one part of the problem, which is government, and sometimes government is the problem. There are government gatekeepers, but here is an example where the cabinet minister had the opportunity to do something about a problem and actually designed one of the worst systems we know of to hold gatekeepers to account. I would just remind Canadians of some of these important facts this bill reminds me of, and it may remind others in the House, on the record of the leader of the official opposition.

However, I digress. It is important also to talk about the record of the government when it comes to whistle-blowing, because at one time the Prime Minister said that he cared about that and that he was aware of the shortcomings of Canada's whistle-blowing regime. Then, not for the first time, he did not follow through on making good on commitments to improve that regime.

Here we are, and a hot topic often in the House of Commons these days, and rightly so, is the extent to which firms such as McKinsey, and I will add, and would like to see my Conservative colleagues add these more often to that list, companies such as Deloitte, KPMG and others, which have also received huge contracts from the federal government.

How would one come to know about an 80-year contract, a contract that is good to the year 2100, is not competitive and does not lock in value for Canadian taxpayers, but actually just shifts expenditure from where it should be in a well-functioning, well-trained and well-supported public service to the arena of private contractors? We would expect somebody who was given the job of administering that contract to blow the whistle, but we cannot get access to that kind of information if people are worried that they will not be properly protected when they bring those kinds of things to light.

I think some of the contemporary topics here in the House of Commons highlight the importance of being able to get good information from our public servants by offering the protection they deserve when they see, in their workplace, that their superiors in the civil service or their political masters are not behaving in the public interest and doing things that rightly ought to be examined in this place, in the media and in all the other fora that matter when we talk about a well-functioning democracy.

We might also expect, frankly, a little more respect for our public servants. We are talking about whistle-blowing today, but another important aspect ties into this question around McKinsey, Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The government, which says it really values public servants, values the work they did during the pandemic and values that going forward, is not coming to the bargaining table to bargain in good faith with the very workers it is willing to praise with words in this place. When they go back to their departmental offices and it is time for action and time to honour those words in the collective bargaining process, the government takes a pass.

PSAC members at the taxation centre in the riding I represent, Elmwood—Transcona, have been without a contract for two years now. The government will not come to the table to talk to them about the offer that workers have put on the table, so they are contemplating strike action. How does that represent the commitment to respect the civil service that the government made in 2015 when it was also talking about improving whistle-blower protection? It does not.

How dare the government plead poverty at the bargaining table and say it does not have money to pay public servants what they are worth when it is hemorrhaging money out to companies like McKinsey, Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers to do work that properly belongs within the purview of the public service. It is unreal.

This perpetual inadequacy of the whistle-blower regime is just another way that a government that says it wants to respect its workers continues to show an incredible amount of disrespect to them. There is disrespect by not allowing them to bring forward problems from the workplace with adequate protections. There is disrespect by refusing to come to the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith. There is disrespect, while doing that, to be paying billions of dollars to private consultants to do the job that public servants were hired to do. The government then says it cannot invest in the public service. Well, that is poppycock because it has the money. It is just choosing to spend it elsewhere.

I am happy to be voting to send this bill to committee, not just to improve whistle-blower protection in Canada, which is long overdue, but also as part of a larger project of manifesting respect for our public servants, who, as others have said in this place, did an incredible service to Canadians in delivering pandemic relief programs on an urgent basis. In many cases, they did that from home while trying to manage children who were not at school and spouses who were also working their various jobs. It was difficult, and a lot of them still, as we all do, bear certain scars from that experience.

What has made it worse and what is tanking morale at a time when the federal government is struggling to provide basic services is this ongoing disrespect by not showing up at the bargaining table and not giving whistle-blowers the protection they deserve. Meanwhile, we find out the government has plenty of cash to pay its friends in the private sector to do the jobs of public servants.

That is why I am quite pleased to be voting to send this to committee, where I hope the whistle-blower portion of the project will be examined in greater detail.

[Business of Supply, February 9th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, while I disagree with it, the member can be of the opinion that he does not have a comment on what just happened in Ontario, and he can say that it should not be for others to have an opinion on what happens in Quebec. However, the notwithstanding clause is something that could be used not only by any provincial government, and this is not mentioned in the motion, but also by the federal government. How governments choose to use it in one jurisdiction will affect what is permissible politically, legally or otherwise in other jurisdictions.

It is not quite right to say that it does not matter how various governments are using the notwithstanding clause because it will matter, with social licence and political licence and ultimately in legal precedent of how various jurisdictions have used it. It would perhaps create the opportunity for certain uses of the notwithstanding clause that the member cannot currently imagine.

There are those of us who think it matters, and not just in how a particular province uses it. I imagine Bloc members could have some serious concerns with the possible uses of the notwithstanding clause by the federal government, so we need to appreciate that it does matter how it is used in various jurisdictions and that there are real impacts in other jurisdictions.

[Canada Revenue Agency, February 9th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, it does a disservice to small business to use them to deflect from answering questions about why giant corporations got over $15 billion in taxpayer money while they were reducing their workforces and paying tens of billions of dollars in dividends. Meanwhile, if one is a Canadian living below the poverty line, the government knows exactly where to find them to send the bill.

Why is it giant corporations are getting general debt relief from pandemic benefit programs when Canada's poor are being chased down by the CRA? Where is the fairness in that?