House of Commons photoLost their last election, in 2021, with 32% of the vote.
Business of Supply December 7th, 2020
Madam Speaker, the reason the carbon tax is an issue at this point in time is that businesses can sorely afford to have added input costs into the production of their goods and services. That is the issue. This is not a discussion around the environment. It is purely that they cannot afford it. If the member looked at the statistics I mentioned earlier in my remarks, many are going to fail. One thing they cannot afford is added taxes and burdens going into the future.
Business of Supply December 7th, 2020
Madam Speaker, in fact we have supported many of the programs that the member talks about. The reason we have supported them is that we realized that, when the government shuts down the economy, there has to be a reaction to that.
What the member missed from what I was saying was that there is a lack of certainty and a plan for how we will start to move out of this. The government announced 100 billion dollars' worth of potential stimulus spending with no details or concrete plan. Businesses need to understand the strategy, how we are going to grow our exports and how we are going to grow our economy. The time is now. It is not to wait another six months and then start to develop it. The time is now.
We should get moving and we should see a budget so that we can better understand where the government is going and in what direction it expects to go forward.
Business of Supply December 7th, 2020
Madam Speaker, that would suggest there is a direct correlation between the programs that are put in place and what the provinces are doing to try to limit the spread of this horrible health crisis. I acknowledge that we have a significant issue with the health crisis.
However, the point I was trying to make to the member was that we should do a comparative of the programs we put in place and the amount of money we are spending versus the unemployment rate, and then compare that to other countries. Other countries actually have results that are comparable, if not better, than ours when it relates to illness during the pandemic. It still strikes me that these programs could be more efficient and more effective, and that we could get more people back to work while keeping them safe.
Business of Supply December 7th, 2020
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. It is a great honour to speak to this opposition motion today.
When the world caught the news that multiple vaccines for COVID-19 had finally been approved, that this horrible year was finally about to come to an end, there was great relief and a sigh from across the world. That was until we realized that help was on the way for many of our close international partners including the U.K., U.S.A., Germany and Mexico and their economies might be able to reopen and their citizens would start to engage in normal life again, but Canada would have to wait. Granted, today's news was great. It is fantastic news that we will see the first vaccines coming to Canada, but certainly for our economy to re-engage we absolutely need to see far more, as soon as possible.
The government spent $44 million on upgrades to the National Research Council's Royalmount vaccine production facility in Montreal, and that is despite the Prime Minister saying that there would be no vaccine manufacturing in Canada. Unfortunately, the upgrades at that facility still are not finished and are not projected to be finished until 2021, so that really lagged our ability to produce vaccines and thus put us further behind many other countries.
Most people need some kind of certainty, and “as soon as possible” just does not work. With the variety of vaccines that have been announced and the contracts that the government has put in place, it seems entirely reasonable to ask, once they are approved, what the timing would be when Canadians can expect to see these vaccines, and to give the provinces the latitude to know what is coming down the pipe so they can start making arrangements for these vaccines that Canadians so desperately need to land at their pharmacies or to whatever execution method each of the provincial governments would use.
Our opposition motion today highlights the unequivocal fact that a lot of Canadian business owners are in distress and I am sure many of the members have heard this. Business owners need help just to survive while waiting until some form of rapid testing or a robust vaccination plan rolls out. They are really struggling.
Forty-six per cent of business owners are worried about the survival of their businesses. We hear a lot about essential services. For many of the business owners whom I speak to, their businesses are essential to them. They are essential for their livelihood. They are essential for them to look after their families and to generate incomes. It is essential for them that they get back to work. Some are working at reduced activity, and I really admire their ingenuity in trying to make the best of what is a very difficult situation.
As early as March, 56% of business owners said they had no more capacity to take on debt during this emergency. That is a phenomenal number, and even debt does not necessarily solve the problem. During the first wave, the government determined which were considered essential and non-essential businesses. Their businesses were absolutely essential for their livelihoods. A lot of large corporations, such as Costco and Walmart, would still be able to benefit and sell products that a lot of small businesses sell as well, so the small business owners really want to get back to work.
A simple fact is that there will be no recovery if there are no businesses left, so the government has handed out about $240 billion in the first eight months of the pandemic. Not to say that we should not have been spending money, but that is about $952 million a day between March 13 and November 20.
While the government members had been starting to talk about their great reset stimulation and other singular-driven goals, we are spending virtually more than any other country in the G7, but we have the highest unemployment, so it is obvious that some of these programs are not working for their intended people. The Liberals have been stingy in regard to spending on what Canadians need, but what people really want is to get back to work and earn a paycheque.
The federal government must support employment by removing barriers to job creation, such as taxes and regulation. This is something that we could do that does not cost anything and creates that opportunity for businesses, particularly around interprovincial trade barriers.
The government needs to fix the large employer emergency financing facility, the LEEFF program, by reducing restrictions and amending the interest rate schedule. As of today, there are only a couple of companies that actually have used this particular program that the government has put forth. It strikes me that it would be time to fix this, do something with it and make sure that it is more accessible for companies.
Postponing the increase of the Canada pension plan payroll tax plan for January 1 again is a tax burden on businesses that they just cannot afford. They are not in a position to increase their input costs and, quite frankly, they have nowhere to pass it on. Postponing the increase of the carbon tax and the alcohol escalator tax plan for 2021 is not to say that we should not have the increase, it is just that these small businesses cannot have this kind of input cost in their businesses at this time.
The motion also calls for complete details on the highly affected sectors credit availability program by December 16, including criteria when the businesses can apply, when the sectors are eligible and when repayment will be required. Giving details like this should not be a battle. The government often announces these programs, but with details to follow. I can say from what I hear from businesses that they want certainty. These plans are clear as mud, there is a bunch of smoke and mirrors and the Canadian public needs to know.
We have the hangover. Kevin Page, who served as the PBO for five years, says he can hardly make sense of the 223-page fall economic update, saying after spending an evening going through the charts and all the verbiage, he had difficulty even understanding where it is at. We cannot sit idly while the rest of the world recovers. We cannot sit by while the world starts to move along. We need a plan. We need a timeline. We need to understand when vaccines are going to arrive and when we are going to be able to get back to business.
Ultimately, we know that the long-term cure for the ailing economy cannot be sustained by government programs no matter how many are provided to help small business. Whether the government wants to believe it or not, the debt we are accumulating, in excess of $1.1 trillion, will be unsustainable. If we continue along this path, we will effectively ruin any chance for future generations, our children and grandchildren, from realizing the immense possibility that once lay before us when we were their age.
We need a plan that will unleash private sector companies. Let them get back to work and create jobs. The investment plan that the government talks about I hope is in assets that will help improve productivity and our export potential. Canada, at the end of the day, is a relatively small country that has enormous potential and resources and it needs to be able to sell to other people in the world. There is a tremendous opportunity to unlock the IP that many companies in this country have and put policies in place that would support that export capacity. Handouts are not the answer. All of the businesses I talk to want to be able to execute their plans, but they want the government to put policies in place that encourage them to invest and do not stop them from investing.
We need to recognize and support our strategic sectors, allow them to grow and make sure we understand what our strategic advantage is. As nice as it would be to rely solely on ourselves for economic growth, the hard reality is that in order to flourish economically, limiting our recovery efforts by internal selling, selling to ourselves, will never get us out of this hole. We need to get focused on what we can do to make sure we can get people back to work and create an environment where Canadian companies are competitive and able to sell their goods and services all over the world. That is what they want to do, that is what they want to focus on and that is what we need the government to get focused on.
The vision of growth and prosperity after this pandemic must include a recovery for all. It has never been more important than now. It is important for creating opportunities for Canada's youth now and in the future instead of burdening them before they even have a fighting chance.
Health November 25th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, that does not help today. The Prime Minister has had eight months to deal with this. I have a son who is compromised and worries every day about his health and the health of his caregivers. We have no rapid tests, no vaccine access and no manufacturing. The Prime Minister said that the citizens of vaccine manufacturing countries will likely get the vaccine before manufacturers ship internationally.
Let us ask him this again. Did the Prime Minister even bother to negotiate the right to manufacture the leading vaccines in Canada?
Health November 25th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister tried to excuse his failures by saying that Canada does not have any domestic production capacity for vaccines. Did he just realize that we have been in a pandemic for eight months? The Prime Minister has admitted that getting Canadians first access to a vaccine was not the priority for the Liberal government.
Why on earth did the Prime Minister give $173 million to a Quebec company, Medicago, to develop a vaccine and manufacturing facility and then state we do not have any production capacity?
Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020 November 24th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, there are no specifics in this particular act that would deal with that directly. That is all the more reason this particular piece of legislation needs more study.
Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020 November 24th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, absolutely, it is valuable, but it really raises the question about why the Liberals would prorogue Parliament. Why would we not get on with these things? This is the kind of legislation that has been delayed. The government has been studying it. It is one thing to take consultation before developing legislation, but it one's interpretation of what was heard from the consultation. Until we actually hear from people on what they think, now that they see this legislation in writing, we cannot necessarily determine if it will get to the goals to which we aspire.
Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020 November 24th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, I have the same concerns. The track record is not there with the government as it relates to privacy. We have seen this in a variety of different areas where it has not taken this sort of thing serious. That is all the more reason the bill needs significant review to ensure we get it right.
Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020 November 24th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, what is in the act, with the increased fines, certainly provides somewhat of a deterrent. People are going to look at those fines. Then it becomes the reality of how do we ensure we enforce those fines. This is a new system with this tribunal. It looks like there is the potential for it to have more lay persons on it than actual experts in the field, which concerns me. I am concerned that this is the fear of enforcement to try and derive the result needed. There have to be adequate provisions within this act to ensure bad players are held accountable.