Gord Johns

[Points of Order, January 26th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

As you know, I had technical problems during my statement, so I request, and hope to receive from my colleagues, unanimous consent to redo my statement.

[Hardest Hit Businesses, January 26th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on small businesses and workers across Canada, especially on those workers in the tourism, hospitality and events industries. For these industries, a return to normal is still years away. If a small business closes in a rural riding like mine, not only does a family lose its sole source of income, but the effect is felt across the whole community. Based on data from the Coalition of Hardest Hit Businesses, almost 40% of businesses in the travel and tourism sector will close for good by the end of February.

Today's announcement of the HASCAP program is welcome. It needs work, but still hopefully will come in time for those who are hardest hit and need it the most. These businesses need the liquidity support that the program offers, but will also rely on an extended wage subsidy, backdated rent relief and the efforts of community members to continue to shop at local retail businesses, other businesses and stores in their communities.

The government still has much work to do to help entrepreneurs and start-ups, protect jobs in the hospitality sector and guarantee the rights of workers who lost their jobs because of the pandemic. It has never been more clear that the government must act immediately to save the hardest hit—

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, January 26th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I sat on the veterans affairs committee with the member, and I genuinely miss working with her on that committee.

We are nine years out to meet our Paris climate commitment, and the government has done very little to support farmers and encourage them to reduce emissions, move toward alternative energy and improve nitrogen management. I wrote a letter in support of Farmers for Climate Solutions, which has been calling for supports for farmers.

The government came up with $90 million, when farmers need $300 million. Largely, they have not been engaged and encouraged to get involved to do their part, which they are already doing, to really modernize their practices and get the support they need.

Could my colleague speak about how important it is for the government to support Farmers for Climate Solutions and all farmers to ensure they are able to participate even more than they do now in lowering emissions and—

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, January 26th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, there were many things my colleague said in his speech that I was interested in, but one thing that he did not talk about is the wild salmon emergency in British Columbia. We just had the lowest return of wild Pacific sockeye salmon in the largest salmon-bearing river in the world. This is after last year, which was then the lowest return. We did not hear anything in the fall economic statement, outside of Big Bar, to help remedy that situation, and the many other watersheds that are facing the same thing.

We are in a wild salmon emergency, and we cannot even get the minister to declare a wild salmon emergency. We did not see any new investments. We are hearing that the $148-million B.C. salmon restoration fund is a drop in the bucket. Advocates are saying that that is over five years and, in fact, we need that every year for the next five years if we are going to make any impact on saving wild Pacific salmon, which is critical to our food security, our culture, our economy and our way of life, especially for indigenous people.

Is my colleague going to be advocating for his government to invest heavily in emergency funding for wild Pacific salmon in the upcoming budget?

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, January 26th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank my colleague for raising this very important issue about start-ups being ineligible for the government's emergency relief programs. I raised this very issue with the Minister of Small Business on Friday.

We have many businesses in our riding that have not been eligible and whose owners have invested a tremendous amount of their life savings to open a business or to restart a business from the past. They cannot collect the wage subsidy or the commercial rent program. They cannot access the CEBA loan program. There are ways for the government to create measures that would allow these businesses to qualify, and to avoid concerns about fraudulent businesses.

These are businesses with expenses that they can prove. Many of them have met payroll or paid rent for months. The government needs to allow them to access these programs. Many of them are in their second or third lockdown without any support. This includes a veteran-led business in my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford's riding where some of the profits go to helping those with PTSD. These are the kinds of social enterprises and businesses we have to save, or we are going to lose a generation of businesses.

I want to thank my colleague. If he wants to bring forward some ideas on how government can use measures to support those start-ups, that would be great.

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, January 26th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, we are hearing that small businesses and consumers are being crippled by credit card fees. When it comes to interchange fees, we are paying some of the highest interchange fees in the world. In fact, the Liberals have committed to moving credit card companies to a voluntary rate of 1.4%, whereas Europe legislated a cap of 0.3% and Australia, 0.5%.

In the 42nd Parliament, Bill C-236 was tabled by a former Liberal member of Parliament, Linda Lapointe. She moved that bill 16 times before she dropped it off of the Order Paper. Now the Liberals say they are not in bed with the big banks and the credit card companies, but she abandoned her promise to the Quebec convenience store association and the retail association of Canada by not taking action.

These credit card companies are making record profits in the middle of COVID. They are not doing their part. We are not all in this together. When is the government going to legislate a cap on interchange fees similar to what Europe and Australia have done instead of putting that on the backs of small businesses and consumers right now in this crisis? It is time for these companies to pay their fair share and it is time for the Liberals to step up to the plate.

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, January 26th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, as we know, small businesses in the tourism and hospitality sectors, have been hit extremely hard by the pandemic. The impact of COVID-19 on these sectors has been devastating. Many are now facing closure, and the Canadian economy could see hundreds of thousands of jobs lost by the end of February.

In November, the Liberals announced help through their HASCAP. However, here we are at the end of January and no help has been delivered. The Liberals do not seem to understand how urgently this help is needed. Small businesses cannot wait another few weeks or months; they need help now.

Will the Liberals tell the House when the hardest-hit businesses will get the help that was promised? How many small businesses are the Liberals willing to let close permanently before they make this help available? It is urgent.

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, January 26th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, before the pandemic, over one million Canadians had been injured in the workplace. We know that when someone is injured in the workplace, every day that goes by without them getting accommodation from their employer means it is harder and harder for them to return to work.

Right now there is a lack of support and training to scale up workers in return to work disability management. We are hearing about long haulers. Due to COVID, we are going to be in an absolute crisis. The government has not even trained its own HR staff in disability management to prepare its own civil service to get back to work and be accommodated while they are dealing with these injuries due to COVID.

Would my colleague agree that the federal government needs to invest quickly in training in return to work disability management in institutions like the Pacific Coast University in my riding, so that we are ready for the crisis that could happen, whether it be mental health or COVID itself? Right now, we need to be ready to accommodate workers and get them back to work after they have been injured.

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, January 26th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I was talking to Jackie Ryan, who owns Jacqueline's Aesthetics in Port Alberni. She is a constituent of mine. She is self-employed, and her home-based business has struggled immensely since the beginning of the pandemic. First she closed her doors to protect public health. Now she is down 50% because people are afraid to get out into the community.

Jackie, like many other Canadians, turned to CERB to help pay back the bills and support her family. She would not have been able to buy food or support her children and deal with her prescription medications. Now the Liberals are telling Jackie she needs to pay back the CERB, which she cannot do. She, like many others, is angry. She is disappointed. She is scared. She does not know how she is going to survive the next few months without support from the government, never mind pay this back.

Does my colleague agree? Does he have constituents who are honest business owners who maybe had a tax-filing year when they showed a loss and a carryforward, and then were caught in this quagmire, where the Liberals say that they have their backs and they do not? Many women, as we know, have been disproportionately affected by the COVID crisis. This is impacting people like Jackie.

Does my colleague agree that the government should back off and not be asking people like Jackie to pay back the government for supports it promised them?

[Keystone XL Pipeline, January 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, energy workers sitting at home watching did not want to hear a partisan speech. I can tell the member directly that nobody is celebrating right now when workers are out of work in Alberta. What we are not talking enough about is the international embarrassment that is happening right now when other countries are making decisions to bring Canada in line because we are failing to do our part in tackling climate change, whether it be the U.S. on this decision or Norway with its sovereign wealth fund.

Right now, we need to clean up is Jason Kenney's failed gamble, and to fix things we need to take real action on climate change. There are opportunity costs for us in pointing fingers like this. We need to get people back to work and invest in clean energy. Workers in Alberta right now want to hear that the federal government is going to step in and put people back to work with clean energy, jobs that are going to bring them into the future, and not another failed plan or another argument over failed pipelines.

I want to hear from the member if he is going to go back to his cabinet and his party and help rescue those workers in Alberta that really have been abandoned by a failed mistake by their premier. Are Liberals going to take real action on climate change so that more countries are not taking action on Canada, because that is what we should expect if we do not take real action on issues related to climate change?