John Brassard

[Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022, November 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, maybe there is a reason our emissions are not going down as quickly as we would like. I know that the hon. member, whom I have respect for, is not going to like this.

Canada represents a small portion of emissions around the world. I think the solution for Canada is to reduce emissions around the world by supplying clean Canadian energy, which has the best environmental standards, the best labour standards and the best human rights standards in the world, to those emerging democracies and those emerging countries that are carbon intensive.

If we want to help, let us help the world.

[Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022, November 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, it has been that way for seven years: a lot of rhetoric, fine words and plans, but the plans fail.

Look at what is happening in this country. I cited some things earlier. Again, 1.5 million people are going to food banks in a G7 country. What is happening in this country, as a result of these Liberals, is broken policies everywhere.

I can go on. I can talk about passports. The list is as long as the day, of the failures of this government and the broken promises it has made.

[Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022, November 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I encourage the member to read what is in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report and how that impacts Canadians across the country, not just in Winnipeg North.

I can speak to my issue in Barrie—Innisfil. The carbon tax is disproportionately affecting individuals and businesses. People need to drive to go to work, need to heat their homes and need to eat. Businesses that are providing goods and services are being charged a carbon tax and they are not getting any rebate back. It is a tax. It is not a price on carbon. It is disproportionately affecting a majority of people across the country.

Leger did a poll this week, and 71% of Canadians want the carbon tax eliminated, because they know it is having an impact on them.

[Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022, November 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today for the people of Barrie—Innisfil, representing them as their member of Parliament, to talk about the fall economic statement.

Let me begin by saying that those who are residents of Barrie—Innisfil and the businesses within Barrie—Innisfil are really feeling the inflation and the affordability crisis that is happening right now. Despite the rosy picture painted by the government, this lollipops, gumdrops, rainbows and unicorns scenario, people are finding the affordability factor to be real. They are hurting. Businesses are hurting. People are wondering, as we head into the winter heating season, how they are going to heat their house.

I hear from seniors and families all the time about their circumstances and how bad things really are, particularly for seniors on fixed incomes who are making healthy nutrition choices about what they are going to eat. This should never be happening in a G7 country such as Canada, yet it is, and the government sits here with the fall economic statement somehow portraying this rosy picture, when in fact it is not the case.

I am just one of 338 representatives in this place, but I know from talking to my colleagues that they are hearing about it. I am sure those on the Liberal and NDP benches, and others, are hearing about the problem of inflation and affordability, the housing crisis and the issue of rent prices. We are hearing about the affordability and attainability situation with houses and about the many young people who are being priced out of the market. They are losing their hopes, their dignity and their dreams of aspiring to be a homeowner, which is being lost as a result of the self-inflicted wound of inflation and affordability that has been caused by the Liberal government.

I have spoken to many young people, not just within my riding but also across Canada. They feel like they have been lied to and let down by the Prime Minister and the government. I will go so far as to say that they are despondent. They are despondent they are not going to have the same opportunities, hopes and dreams as earlier generations. Something has to change, and this fall economic statement does nothing to change the current situation.

What is required here, and I know Conservatives put this forward in advance of the fall economic statement, is the need to lower taxes. We need to put a halt on the carbon taxes, stop the payroll taxes and the CPP taxes, which are impacting not only the people who are employed but also employers. We did fire a warning shot across the government's bow that we would support the fall economic statement if certain measures were put in, but this one was not. It was that, for every new dollar being spent, the government would find a dollar in savings from government waste. There is nothing in the fall economic statement that actually addresses that.

In fact, I read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report this week, and interestingly, in it he talks about an additional $14.2 billion in spending with no indication at all of how that money is going to be spent. One would think a government, when proposing $14.2 billion in additional spending in its fall economic statement, would at least have line by line items or details on what it is going to spend that money on. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that there was nothing in the fall economic statement to give that indication.

Here we are, as parliamentarians, looking over a fall economic statement that talks about billions and billions of dollars in additional spending without the ability to hold the government to account or ask those questions on a line-by-line basis. The government and the Prime Minister expect we are just going to willy-nilly pass this thing through.

That is not the function of Parliament. It is not the function of parliamentarians. Our function is to hold the government to account, and the government needs to reciprocate that by being as transparent as it can. The fall economic statement, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, does little of that. Those were the two criteria we set, and we gave the government ample advice and ample warning that we would support the fall economic statement if those two issues were met, and neither one was.

We find ourselves in a situation right now where, yes, we are going to dispute the fall economic statement. No, we are not able to support the measures the government is going to implement, because it did not abide by those simple principles, like every Canadian family does: If we are going to spend something, then we have to find those dollars.

Throughout COVID, we have seen a lot of wasteful spending. In fact, recent reports show that $200 billion of the $500 billion that was purportedly allocated toward COVID measures were actually not put toward COVID measures. Where did the money go? We are starting to find out. There was the multi-million dollar arrive scam app. We found out about $240 million in ventilators that were never used. There was $150 million for SNC-Lavalin to provide field hospitals that were never built.

Parliamentarians on this side of the House have every right to question government spending. They have every right to question what is in budgets and in this fall economic statement. I know the government does not like that, but that is our job.

As I said at the outset, there are many things going on around the country, not just in Barrie—Innisfil, but it is important to highlight some of the challenges this inflationary and affordability crisis is causing for Canadians.

Debt interest payment costs have doubled this year. Next year, interest payments will be nearly as much as the Canada health transfer. We are back in that cycle again, under a Liberal government, where the cost of servicing debt is more than the health transfers that are provided to the provinces. Something has to give. It always does when we increase debt and deficits. One of two things happens, which we are certainly seeing this with the government: Taxes go up or services get cut.

Interest rates, as we all know, are increasing at the fastest rate in decades. Families that bought a typical home five years ago, with a typical mortgage that is now up for renewal, are paying $7,000 more a year. The Bank of Canada has signalled that interest rates will have to continue to rise even higher, and that will continue the pain.

I mentioned the carbon tax earlier, and that is expected to triple. This is despite the promise of the Prime Minister heading into the 2019 election that it was going to be capped at $50 a tonne. A year after that election, the government announced that the carbon tax was going to increase to $170 a tonne. That is a threefold-plus increase in the carbon tax.

Who is paying for that? Homeowners are paying for it with home heating, hydro, groceries and everything else. Wholesalers and producers are paying that on the manufacturing and production side, and they are passing that down to the consumers. It is having a cascading effect across the economy. The government's argument is that this is what it needs to do to fight climate change.

We found out this week from COP27 that Canada ranks 58th out of 64 in the world for a reduction of carbon emissions. Clearly, the plan is not working, but Canadians are suffering as a result of the carbon tax that is being imposed. The government will then again argue that more families in Canada are getting more money back than what they pay in the carbon tax. The Parliamentary Budget Officer again says that is not true. The government picks and chooses what it wants to hear from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is an independent agent of Parliament, but when he tells the truth, it does not like the truth.

That is part of the problem that exists today. Liberals are not living in reality. They have lost touch. Their ideology will not allow them to solve the problems that they have created with respect to inflation. Until and unless we get to a point where we reduce government spending, or at least if there is new spending then attach it to dollars found and start reducing taxes to make life more affordable and attainable for Canadians, this situation will be prolonged for a long time. Canadians will continue to suffer, and the only way that we can change that is with a change in government.

[Petitions, November 18th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise and proud to stand to present petition e-4072. This petition was signed by 8,129 Canadians and it hopes to effect change for tens of thousands more Canadians.

The petition calls on the government to remove the ROE codes that identify unvaccinated employees. It also calls for the government to retroactively reinstate eligibility for Canadian EI benefits that were harshly taken away from them because of a personal decision not to be vaccinated. Workers are forced to pay EI, yet the government unjustly chose to strip the rights of Canadians to receive these benefits. These actions caused financial hardship to Canadians who were just exercising their personal freedoms.

On a personal note, I want to thank Dan Janssen for bringing this petition forward. Dan is a member of the Machinists Union. He and I do not always politically align, but on this issue we do.

[Government Spending, November 17th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, here are some sobering numbers to show how much Canada has been broken financially by these Liberals.

Government debt in Canada has doubled since 2015 to $1.13 trillion in 2022, meaning the Prime Minister has spent more than all previous prime ministers combined. The total cost of servicing that debt is roughly $42 billion per year and growing, exceeding the cost of yearly health transfers to the provinces.

Each man, woman and child in Canada owes $56,000 as their part of the national debt, and it is having an impact. Inflation is at a 40-year high and affordability anxiety is a major problem. There are 1.5 million Canadians who visited a food bank in September. Half of Canadians are $200 away from not being able to meet their monthly obligations, and 30% say they cannot meet their monthly obligations.

These Liberals, aided and abetted by the NDP, are causing Canadians to lose their jobs, their hopes, their dreams and their dignity. It is time to stop wasteful spending, eliminate the carbon tax and give Canadians a break, which is what they need the most.

[Committees of the House, November 3rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, as I said at the onset of my discussion today, a lot of money gets thrown at the problem, but it is the processes that really need to be streamlined, filtered and expedited so that the money gets to where it needs to be and the effect of that money is realized when it comes to homelessness among veterans.

[Committees of the House, November 3rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the issue of veterans homelessness, the issue of affordability and attainability among housing stock for Canadians needs to be addressed.

If we talk to the Canadian Real Estate Association or the Ontario Real Estate Association, as I have, they talk about the cumbersome process with respect to zoning and development applications. That needs to be done by municipalities to ensure that the process is expedited so we are building houses.

Young people across the country feel that they have been let down in many ways or lied to in terms of hope and opportunity. I would actually say that young people are despondent right now in the sense that they will not be able to afford a home like their parents did. This needs to be done throughout the entire process, the zoning process, the municipal, provincial and federal process. However, the federal government does have a role. There is excess real estate that could be repurposed to help not just veterans, but the homelessness and attainability problem in general.

[Committees of the House, November 3rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member makes an important point. It is a place that we should all aspire to be, that there is zero veteran homelessness.

It is not just the stakeholders that are involved. Not only does the federal government have a role to play, but all levels of government have a role to play when it comes to the example I gave earlier about Homes for Heroes, ensuring there is proper zoning to allow for micro housing, tiny villages that could be built within built boundaries of municipalities, and dealing with zoning issues to ensure that those types of things happen.

I agree with the hon. member that it is not just the federal government that has a role to play, it is not just advocates and stakeholders that have a role to play, and they are doing great work as it is across the country, but all levels of government. The will to help Canada's veterans should be universal among all levels of government and among every Canadian.

[Committees of the House, November 3rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the motion for concurrence on the report on veterans homelessness that was presented to the House of Commons.

It is really appropriate this Veterans' Week, in advance of the country coming together, to salute and honour our veterans and their families that have given so much and sacrificed so much for our nation, not just fighting for democracy, the rule of law, human rights and freedoms around the world but peacekeeping as well.

This weekend, I know many members of the House will be attending Remembrance Day ceremonies in the lead up to Remembrance Day. I look forward to being at the Lefroy-Belle Ewart Legion and Sandycove Acres for their Remembrance Day services, as well as Cookstown. I will be there to honour and respect those who served our country, those who continue to serve our country and, more important, their families. Oftentimes, it is forgotten that families serve as much as the members who serve. In all of the discussions we have, we have to realize that.

The issue of veterans homelessness has been a pervasive problem for many generations of successive governments. Seemingly, we are not doing what we need to do to solve the issue of veterans homelessness.

Oftentimes this issue becomes a problem during the transition out of services. I happen to believe that transition out of our Canadian Armed Forces, for whatever reason, medical or otherwise, needs to happen the first day a person signs on to be a member of the Canadian forces. It has to be a process, not a process that is an end process at the time of transition but it has to be an ongoing process to prepare veterans for that transition.

Often veterans are not prepared for a transition and that is often the reason we find our veterans in a homeless state. We expected a study to be released in the summer, talking about veterans homelessness, how pervasive it was and how nothing seemed to be done.

I agree with my hon. colleague from Banff—Airdrie that the Liberals are going to stand and talk about throwing millions and millions of dollars at a problem, which is seems to be what they doe, but it is doing nothing to solve this pervasive problem.

The problems in Veterans Affairs, like backlogs and disability claims, are not money problems; they are process problems. Whether the Conservatives are in government or the government of the day, we need to find the will to deal with this processing problem.

In every study that is done, every stakeholder, advocate, family member and every veteran who comes forward, along with the defence ombudsman and the veterans ombudsman, will say the exact same thing. In my experience in listening to these professionals and those who are directly impacted by this problem, it is a process problem and the processes have to be fixed. It is not a money problem.

Groups out there are doing tremendous work, as my hon. colleague from Banff—Airdrie said, to help veterans and their families not just transition, but deal with the existing homelessness issue. There are a lot of solutions out there. There are a lot of partners we can work with to solve this process issue to ensure that veterans and their families are looked after as they transition out of the military.

In my time as the veterans affairs critic, I had the opportunity to meet with the Veterans Transition Network, Wounded Warriors Canada and VETS Canada. Another one I was really fascinated by was a non-for-profit organization called Homes for Heroes based out of Calgary.

I had an opportunity to meet with Dave Howard, who is the president and co-founder of the Homes for Heroes Foundation. One of the things he talked to me about was the need to not just work with municipalities to find areas where we could build transitional housing for veterans and their families, but also the need for government support in that regard.

I want to highlight as one example of many that veterans' advocates are proposing. The program is called “The Path to Recovery”. The goal of the program of the Homes for Heroes Foundation is to assist veterans with reintegration into civilian life. The first step is to provide them with housing, somewhere to be safe, secure, warm, a place to keep their personal belongings and to take care of their personal needs, a tiny home in one of these villages it is building and proposes to build. It has several proposals on the books, but is having a difficult time finding the funding for that. The idea behind it is to create a veterans' village, a community of understanding what veterans and their families are going through as they transition out of the military.

One of the challenges is that 5,000 veterans are homeless. These numbers are as of 2015, but I suspect would probably be similar to this day. I have talked to advocates right across the country like Don Leonardo and the organizations I highlighted before. The last place veterans need to be is in a shelter. They need to be among themselves, with veterans who understand and are going through very similar situations. Therefore, I would encourage the government to use any aspect or avenue it can to support these types of organizations that understand the needs of veterans and their families and to resolve the issue of homelessness by building communities of veterans who can work together.

With respect to some of the other aspects of this, the projection is that each village would provide 5,000 to 9,000 bed nights per year for veterans experiencing homelessness. There is a whole plan. I would encourage the government, if it has not met with Dave and the Homes for Heroes Foundation, to make it a priority to talk them about their vision and goal toward helping veterans and their families as they transition.

It is a broader problem right now that is not just affecting veterans and their families; it is the state of the economy. We are all aware of the inflation and affordability crisis that is facing Canadian families and businesses. Veterans and their families are dealing with the same situation as everyone. The cost of groceries and housing has made it unaffordable. We add to that the challenges they are facing with disability backlogs and claims, oftentimes waiting up to two years for claims to be processed. Despite the fact that the government has thrown millions of dollars at the problem, it has not solved the problem because it is a process problem. Families and veterans dealing with transitional and mental health issues and occupational stress injuries do not need the process to be as cumbersome as it is.

I know the government has, to some degree, started to look at the presumptive benefit claim process, and I would encourage it to look at more. I have said this publicly before, and I believe I have said it in the House. When people file their taxes, if there is a rebate coming back, Revenue Canada will often deposit that into a bank account within 10 business days, yet veterans and their families that are transitioning out of the military face a cumbersome process of delays as a result of claims and benefits that are attributed to service. We need to create a presumptive benefit claim process wherein if veterans file a claim with Veterans Affairs, we presume it to be attributed to service and they should be entitled to the money and benefits they deserve in their service to our country.

There are simple processes that can solve not just the issue of those benefit claims, but also the issue of homelessness. I would encourage the government to heed the advice and recommendations of the committee, after listening to stakeholders from right across the country, those who are in the trenches, who are working to help veterans, the social agencies and veteran agencies, and to work to solve this problem, especially now given the affordability and inflation crisis that Canadians are facing and which veterans and their families are disproportionately facing to a great degree.