Karen Vecchio

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, November 1st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, in some sorts of infrastructure there needs to be partnership. When it comes to private businesses, if we are helping out there, there needs to sometimes be partnerships.

However, in the situation the hon. member is referring to, the public infrastructure, which is the roads, the hospitals, the things that we see in Canada where we have the provincial and territorial governments as well as the municipal governments, I am very concerned that the government will back out of some of those.

As I said, I compare it to a washing machine. There is good and bad debt. If a road is built, we have that road for decades and decades with a few repairs. I do not think that we are spending ahead of ourselves because we see that the Liberals have put themselves into a new position where we are expecting lower growth and not the revenues the government thought it would have.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, November 1st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise to speak to Bill C-29, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016, and other measures.

I had spoken about this budget, initially, when it was tabled. At that time, I was very concerned with the numbers and the spending that I saw, but today I am even more concerned, especially when we have seen a lack of growth and a lack of support, with a number of groups jumping off the bandwagon, saying the Liberals are not doing what they said they would do.

When the bill was initially tabled, there was $113 billion that was being borrowed. TD economic services has now estimated that there is going to be an additional $16.5 billion in new expenditures.

Let us go back to what the government promised during the 2015 election. The 2015 election was just a year ago. We have seen so many changes in terms of what the government is delivering compared with what it provided in its platform.

I would like to go back to a debate that I had in the city of St. Thomas. It was one of our final debates. There were six candidates. I recall the Liberal candidate, at that time, saying that they would have shovels in the ground by December of 2015. Obviously, I am here and I am very grateful for that. However, she obviously heard that as part of the platform. She was being told by her leader and by the leaders of her party that they were going to have shovels in the ground doing great work for Canadians and building infrastructure. I think they actually believed it. I believe many of the members who are now sitting across on the government side believed when they came here that they were going to be doing some good work.

As I said, December 2015 was when they promised to have shovels in the ground. I can tell members I have not seen too many shovels in the ground. I have not seen these projects they were talking about and that they were going to be working on.

The infrastructure minister will come out and talk about the projects that have been proposed, the projects that the provincial governments have submitted, saying that, yes, they are going to support these projects, but that is only stage one of this process. That means there is only a finite number of people who are working on this infrastructure build. They may be the architects, the engineers, or the administrative people who are putting in these applications, but it is not the people with the hard hats and the workboots who are out there doing that work. We do not see that happening yet.

Of all of these communities and provinces that were promised more roads and better infrastructure in the 2015 campaign, where is it and where is the spending? We have seen spending from the government, but we have not seen any results.

I go back to when we go to the bank and we talk about good debt versus bad debt. It is simple. It is something I say to my children. A good debt is when you go and buy a washing machine because it's something that you need and that washing machine is going to stay with you, not just one day or two days, it's going to stay with you, hopefully, for 20 years, which is the way I like to buy my washing machines, at least. That is a good debt. That is when we are investing in our homes and in the things in our homes. Going out and buying a gourmet dinner that might cost $200 or $300, however, is good for one day, if that, or it might be good for three hours. There is a difference between good debt and bad debt. I am very concerned that the government does not know the difference between the two and that we are spending a lot of money for things that are hot topics, but we are not spending on long-time prosperity.

The Bank of Canada has actually lowered the forecast for the GDP down to 1.1%. That has not even been within a year. It was 1.4% that was forecast in January, prior to this budget, and unfortunately the Bank of Canada is seeing the light as well and seeing that it is going to be 1.1%.

When this budget was tabled, it was not just organizations like the C.D. Howe Institute or the Fraser Institute but also the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, along with the members of the Conservative Party, that were very concerned with what was in the budget.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, we are seeing more groups, more organizations, and more individuals jumping on board, saying that this budget is not delivering the stimulus that they thought it was going to, this is not what the Liberals promised, and this government is not doing what it promised. I think that is one thing people are saying. Yes, they cast their vote in 2015, and like I say, we talked about seven million compared with six million, some of those people, 39%, cast their vote for the Liberal Party and many of those people are sitting there with voter's remorse, saying that they are not getting what they thought they had voted for.

We now see the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Council of Canada all being much more skeptical of the spending being done by the government.

However, there are also other groups. This is one thing I was really quite surprised about. We have a Prime Minister who talks about building relationships and one of the key relationships he is going to have is with first nations and aboriginal peoples.

Last week the Standing Committee on the Status of Women had the opportunity to listen to a lady by the name of Tracy O'Hearn. Tracy was representing the Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada. She talked about the work they had done regarding violence against women and a program that was done through phase one under the Conservative government.

Phase one of their program had some fantastic results, but they are ready to initiate phase two. In the last year, the current government, which is trying to build relationships with first nations people, has not been part of these negotiations and has not been at the table to communicate with them. We are not seeing a progression. We have seen some great things started, but they are now halted because the Liberal government has not acted.

This building of relationships with first nations is something Conservatives see as another broken promise. The NDP opposition has also had to put forward some of these concerns, because we have a government that is not listening. It is promising but not listening.

There was also confirmation by the parliamentary budget officer that the Conservative government left a $2.9-billion surplus in the 2015-16 fiscal year. The government proposed to spend its way to prosperity. If we just take the numbers out and do not look at what the Liberals were spending, we see that the Conservatives did very well as a government.

When this budget was proposed, a lot of economists said deficits can be good and in the previous session an NDP member asked my colleague if it was right to have a deficit. In 2008, 2009, and 2010 when Canada went through the worst economic downturn, Conservatives actually spent wisely. We had shovels in the ground and created retraining programs. We did everything we possibly could to get people back to work. That is why we were one of the first countries to recover from the economic downturn.

The current government is saying that it will spend its way to prosperity, something that seems to be okay because economists have said, yes, it could go into deficit as long as it spends money well, but we have not seen the money being spent well. The government is going into deficit and we are not seeing anything for it. Instead, people in Canada are floundering. The government is looking at employment insurance reform and things of that sort, rather than creating jobs.

One thing I am very proud of is being the critic for families, children, and social development, so in the last two minutes, I am going to touch on the changes to the Canada child benefit.

Once again, in the election campaign, it was all about nine out of 10 kids doing better under the Liberals' program. I have done the numbers and there is a lot more money being spent. I am not going to say there is not, but once again, the Liberal Party was selling something on which it had never put a pen to paper to see what the actual numbers were. There were not true estimates done.

As we debate Bill C-29, the CCB is being indexed. Back in July when these payments started, the first thing the media noticed was that the money was not being indexed and the programs by the Conservative government were actually better than the ones by the Liberal government today. With the indexing now, there is going to be double the spending on the Canada child benefit. A program that is already very large and questionably sustainable is going to be doubled in the next five years. That is absolutely poor fiscal management.

Yes, there are going to be hiccups and difficult things in the first year of taking over as government, Conservatives understand that, but there seems to be no focus. It is about spending and spending, but not creating prosperity or opportunities for Canadians. The government thinks if families have problems, it will give them more money, not opportunities to be educated or build new roads. The government is not going to do those things. It will just throw money at the problem, and that is not what is supposed to be done.

This government is in charge of the country and in charge of its finances, and I am very concerned that the promises the Liberals made in 2015 are extremely irresponsible. I am very concerned about where we will see our government and our country by the end of October of 2019.

[Poverty Reduction Act, October 31st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I am truly honoured to stand here today to speak about such an important piece of legislation introduced by my NDP colleague. Bill C-245 is an act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada. Regardless of where one sits in the chamber, I believe everyone here wants the same thing. We want what is best for Canadians, but we have different ways of getting to that goal.

The purpose of this legislation is to create a national poverty reduction strategy, an independent poverty reduction commissioner, a national poverty reduction advisory council, and to alter the Canadian Human Rights Act to add social condition as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Those are the key points in this bill. As my colleagues had said, these are very important facts and when we come to a national strategy and look at what we can do for Canadians, everyone in the chamber needs to be onside.

However, I have some observations and concerns about the bill. I too have had the opportunity to speak to the sponsor of this bill and know she has great passion and focus and has done her homework on this, so I appreciate all of the work she has done.

In this bill, many of the measures are open-ended. A big concern I have is that it would create permanent levels of red tape. There are also some financial considerations that we should look at in the bill. When we sit in the chamber, we have to recognize that debate is not about saying it is good, bad, or ugly, or anything in that sense. Rather, it is important that we have this dialogue so that we do what is best for all Canadians. This is where we start to differ in some of our approaches to poverty reduction.

The effects of Bill C-245 cannot be accurately forecasted because there are a number of issues that need to be considered. First, we need to look at how a strategy is going to be implemented, at the number and salaries of employees of the commissioner and the 16 members of the national council, and what the spending estimates are for those.

Data from six federal offices allow us to make an estimate of what the costs will be. This is what I find very difficult to comprehend. The costs range anywhere from $7.6 million to $719 million. That was the forecast spending that we just received. I believe it was on October 25 or 26 that the report was released. Just on that, there is a gap of almost $700 million. That is a big concern for me, because $700 million could do a lot. It could put more people into job training or put more food on people's tables. At the end of the day, it would put more money into the pockets of Canadians if dealt with properly.

Another of my concerns is that duplication could occur. The one thing this government is very well known for is its duplication. Many studies have been done over and over again. Studies are really important to do, but unless action follows these studies, they are truly worthless.

Starting in June of 2016, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities adopted a motion to study poverty in Canada. The committee is currently studying four main areas, including government administered savings and income support programs, education and training, housing assistance, and community initiatives.

As of now, the study will continue until, I believe, June 2017. Indeed, I had the opportunity to sit in committee as a spectator, because I sit with three other members on that committee who are doing a great job, and it is very important that we allow the study to continue and for witnesses to bring forward some of their ideas for a strategy.

It is being studied and continues to be a major issue for Canadians, and there is a reason it is being studied. Poverty has continued for decades and decades and there needs to be a stop to this issue. We know that a reduction of poverty could strengthen the economy, reduce health care spending, increase the level of children's education, and reduce crime. I would like to commend the committee for doing this study and looking at some very important key points that would help all Canadians.

I am not denying the importance of any of these factors. However, as I said, Conservatives on this side of the House have different approaches to this. We believe that the government should develop a dynamic solution that relieves the pressure felt by many seniors and those with disabilities. We must work with our provincial and territorial governments and communities to coordinate, by integrating education, job creation, and employment strategies as part of this plan.

People do lots of studies when in government, whether federal, provincial, or municipal. There was a study completed in 2010 by the human resources committee. We have all of these studies, but we need to look at them and ask, “All these facts were found, how can we start implementing them into action?” That is something we need to start doing.

Creating more bureaucracy does not eliminate poverty. That is one of the biggest concerns. We can continue to study, but we need boots on the ground doing the work. Canadian Families need to have the skills and opportunities to achieve self-sufficiency, and we must target support for those who face barriers.

Reviewing the bill in its entirety, there a few recommendations I wish to be considered. Rather than creating a new position of commissioner, this role should be under the deputy minister of the Department for Families, Children, and Social Development, since many of the programs, such as our income support programs, old age security, and CCB, are monitored by this department. This would become part of the deputy minister's role. It is also very important because in the same department they are looking at the disabilities act. It is also responsible for the guaranteed income supplement, which is very important to many people suffering from poverty in Canada.

Through the duties of the deputy minister, he would have access to and the ability to review all of these programs. The information on how much is being spent is available there, and how many families are receiving the benefits. There is a great link in that regard, and he or she, working as the deputy minister, would have access to all of these programs and have insight that is second to none. He or she would also have the ability to prepare reports from the data available, providing a measurable benefit for Canadians. As the member who sponsored the bill noted, we do not always have the appropriate data, so we need to make sure that when data is collected, we put it together so we can look at the intersectionality of it all so that it is best for all Canadians. The deputy minister would be able to develop and monitor, as well as report the findings from, the poverty data to the minister and to the House.

We also need to ensure that the council is not just made up of anti-poverty organizations. Just a few weeks ago, I went to a poverty panel and there was not one person in the room who talked about job creation. That has to be part of the conversation. What else can we do for Canadians? Therefore, job creators have to be at that table as well. It just cannot be people talking about poverty; we need to involve those people who are going to be part of the solution at the end of the day. We need to take action and work together to reduce poverty in Canada, but adding more bureaucracy and red tape is not the solution. We must provide lower taxes and put money back in the pockets of Canadians.

Can we do more? Absolutely, and I think all of us in the House recognize that we can do more. From 2004 to 2014, we did see a reduction in poverty from 11.4%, as reported in 2004, to 8.8% in 2014.

The one concern I have with this is that we need to make sure we do not have a one-size-fits-all approach. We see a lot of programs implemented throughout Canada, and not all Canadians are the same. Not every region is the same. Whether rural, urban, or on reserve, we need to recognize that communities and the people who reside in them have different needs. We have to recognize the differences between the provinces as well. Even cities in my own riding are very different. I am very fortunate to represent Elgin—Middlesex—London, where I have a number of communities, ranging from 100 people to 380,000 people, so I recognize that even in the riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London, there are communities that are very different.

I know that the sponsor of the bill truly has pure intentions, but I fear a new level of bureaucracy that will do nothing for those who need assistance now. We need more action and opportunities for Canadians, and we need to focus on how we can help them. This role, I believe, should be under ESDC and be that of the deputy minister.

This is a very important conversation we are going to have, and I appreciate all the work that has been done by the member of Parliament on this. I continue to look at the good work that is going to be done by the human resources committee, but I think that some of the considerations I put forward should be looked at if we are to support this bill.

[Canada Pension Plan, October 25th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am a mom of five children, so any time we are talking about children and employment and youth opportunities, I will be right there at that table because they are important.

The CPP is not the golden retirement that it is made out to be. It is a small part of retirement. The sky is falling and we have to look at that fact. I have never said that before in my life, but the sky really is falling. We have to look at the fact that municipal taxes will continue to increase, that the carbon tax will be here, and that there will be so many other things for businesses to deal with because we are in a global economy.

It is fine to say that we need to save for the future, but there will be no saving if small businesses do not exist.

[Canada Pension Plan, October 25th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, any time it is an expense to a business it is seen as a tax. When we look at the Canada pension plan contribution, employment insurance contributions, WSIB contributions, and the business tax that small business owners would see, those are taxes. Those things are not on the bottom line. When businesses are looking at their ledger page, those things are removed. They are in the red column instead of the black column, so we need to look at that.

I am not confused by any means by this. I am definite that this is not a good thing for Canadians. We can sit here and try to sell this as a future option, but we cannot be selling future options when people do not have options today.

[Canada Pension Plan, October 25th, 2016]

I was trying to be kind to the member, Mr. Speaker. He asked a good question.

We have to make sure that every time we look at that, it is part of this balance we talk about. But if we are saving for the future, the number one thing we have to save is money from employment. If we do not have jobs, we do not have money to save.

[Canada Pension Plan, October 25th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that great question. Truly, we are talking about saving for the future in 40 years. If people do not have jobs, they cannot save money in the first place. What we are going to be doing is taking a big slash at small-business opportunities. People cannot save something if they do not have something, and that is what we have to remind ourselves.

If we want to see great job creators in Canada, then give them the opportunity to succeed. Make sure that things like the 9% small business tax is implemented, instead of saying that we are going to do it in the future.

Make sure things like carbon pricing—or carbon tax or whatever we are going to call it—are taken into—

[Canada Pension Plan, October 25th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, this week the Minister of Finance tabled Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act and the Income Tax Act.

I had the opportunity to listen to the minister's speech, and the question and answer portion. I listened to him try to explain to us in the House, as well as to the viewers, how this bill was good for Canadians. I had the chance to ask the first question to the minister during that period, and although he is a great speaker, I did not get the answer I requested.

To start, I am going to pose this question once again, but in a different way and hope that through the following hours of debate that there is finally an answer. I shared with the minister two quotes from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business CEO, Dan Kelly:

It is tremendously disappointing to see that finance ministers are putting Canadian wages, hours and jobs in jeopardy and willfully moving to make an already shaky economy even worse. Despite all the talk, it appears that jobs and the economy are not particularly high priorities for the governments that have signed off on this deal.

Another quote from Dan Kelly stated:

Two thirds of small firms say they will have to freeze or cut salaries and over a third say they will have to reduce hours or jobs in their business in response to a CPP/QPP hike.

These two statements are very troubling, especially with the statistics from 2013 indicating that there are 1,116,423 small businesses in Canada. That makes up 98% of all employer businesses in Canada. This same information shows that 86% of Canadian exporters were small businesses in 2009, that accounted for $68 billion in exports or approximately 25% of Canada's total export value.

Locally, I have received data from my riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London, done by CFIB. When polled on the support for CPP increases, 12% of all Canadians in Elgin—Middlesex—London supported this increase. That is 12%. That means 88% of the people polled did not agree with the CPP tax increases.

With these important figures, I will continue to discuss the concerns with increases to CPP and the impact on small businesses. Rather than continuing with all the stats and figures, I want to share with the House my own personal experience as a small business owner.

Many of us come to the House with different skill sets and different assets, which is very important. One of the assets that I have was being a small business owner. I had the opportunity to run a small business with seven employees. That was run by my former husband and I. When we took this business over in 1998, we purchased it as a franchise. The gentleman was moving out of the franchise business.

At that time, we had received the books showing how well the business was doing, so we were very excited about the first day on the job. However, our first day accomplished $81 in sales. My former spouse and I had paid two staff throughout the entire day. We were open from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., and we paid two staffers throughout the day for their shifts.

At the end of the day, our cash received for the items we sold was $81. Obviously the issue here was we needed to look at how to run a proper business. How could we do this? We had many obstacles in front of us, but one of the first things we needed to do was reduce our costs. By doing so, we had to look at what were some of the costs that a business could reduce without impacting what is being sold.

I was in a small coffee shop. We were a coffee house where there was entertainment five nights a week. We served an area where there was a TD Bank and many other local businesses. We were a very common stopping ground for people on their way to work and leaving work.

One of the first things we did was business promotions. That was able to bring in some sales, but at the same time we had extraordinary expenses. I was in a location where our actual cost for rent was $3,800 per month in the downtown core of London. I was dealing not only with an extravagant expense when it came to the rent, but we also had high hydro costs. For anyone who lives in Ontario, believe it or not, it is actually even worse than it was in 1998. We were spending at least $400 and $500 per month on those costs.

We also had other costs that we had to look at, whether it was municipal taxes or different things that we had to go and propose to council, so we could put seating outside. There were many things we had to deal with that had red tape.

The number one thing I did was to reduce costs. It was a really horrible choice to reduce the number of staff. To make that business work, I needed to make sure we had inventory. I needed to make sure there were coffee beans and milk, that the lights were on, and that we paid the rent. That was what was important to me, because without those things, I could not run a business. The first expense I could change was to decrease my staff by two employees. It was a very difficult decision for us to make because it involved the lives of two students going to Western University. We had to take away 15 hours of work per person just to make ends meet.

Over time, we did do better. Nonetheless, anyone who is a small business owner will recognize that we are not just there counting the receipts at the end of the day, but are paying the bills. In my case, I recognized that I could buy a pound of pre-cooked bacon for $7.50, or I could pre-cook that bacon myself in my own kitchen for $3.50. Every single thing mattered, especially when the first day of business brought in $81.

The first thing I had to do was to reduce my staff. Seven days a week, for a year and a half years, I would go in and work. Take into consideration that at the time I had a child who was three months old, as well as a 19-month old, and a child who had just reached the age of 4 and had just started junior kindergarten. This is about a family run business. It is not about rich small business owners. This is about a family that was running a business: a mom, a dad, and three children. I would go in there and scrub the toilets and do all of those things so that we had the business.

By the end of this, we did end up doing very well, and after about 18 months, it was either a matter of our mental wellness and selling the business, or continuing to work every day. We decided to sell that business.

However, one of the biggest things we had to do to keep our costs low was to reduce wages. With wages, we have to look at what payroll means. It is not just the CPP contributions that the government is talking about. Those premiums are matched not only by employers but also by the employees themselves. We have employment insurance premiums. We have WSIB, and I am sure there are very similar programs across the country. Therefore, as a small business owner we are not just dealing with paying the taxes that are removed from someone's pay. We are also doing matching contributions.

There are many things to consider, but I think that is the one thing on which we have to sit back and get into the shoes of a small business owner.

Making business decisions can be very difficult. I fear with this change to the CPP that the government is asking small businesses to make that same decision I had to make in order to have a successful business. To reduce costs, we had to reduce expenses. An easy way of reducing expenses is the hardest job, and that is by cutting staff. It is cutting human resources, and we need to talk about that.

On Friday, I asked the member for Foothills about the challenges in his region, where over 200,000 jobs have been lost in Alberta. In my region I saw a similar thing happen between 2008 and 2010, when we went through the global economic downturn. I asked him in particular if the CPP tax hikes would hurt new businesses. Obviously, the answer is yes.

Changing direction, we also have to make sure that Canadians are aware of what this program is. In the CFIB's Ipsos poll, it was noted that 40% of Canadians think the government contributes to the CPP. We have to make sure that people realize that is not the case. It is the employees and the employers who contribute. It is not about the government here.

We cannot confuse Canadians when we are talking about CPP and are throwing in the point that the GIS has been increased. All we are doing is taking the three pillars of retirement and confusing the average Canadian who has not had an opportunity to sit down and study it.

Retirement is about three pillars. It is about the CPP contributions of the employee and the employer. It is about the social programs, such as old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, and it is about personal savings. This government has reduced personal savings with its changes to the tax-free savings accounts. However, the bottom line is that more money cannot be taken out of Canadians' pockets.

I want to finish with a quote that I am sure the government has heard many times:

Whatever the reason might be to expand the CPP, it is not to eliminate poverty. The poverty rate among seniors is now as close to zero as we can get. Yes, a little over five per cent of seniors today still have income below the poverty line...

That was Fred Vettese, chief actuary of Morneau Shepell and co-author of the finance minister's book, The Real Retirement. This segment was taken from The Financial Post, June 5, 2016.

I would really ask that we look at these things and recognize that CPP is not about poverty reduction. These proposed CPP increases would hurt, especially when we are going to be seeing things like a precarious carbon tax and the cancellation of the small business tax reduction by the current government.

[Canada Pension Plan, October 21st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I can totally empathize with him, because during the 2008 global recession, in my own community, there were huge job losses. We saw over 6,500 jobs lost in the St. Thomas area and region. I completely understand the member's concern for his constituents.

When I listened to the government speakers, I recognized that they are really confusing the Canada pension plan with what they are doing for seniors on old age security and GIS. I want to make sure that we separate those two things. They are two different pillars of retirement, so I do not want Canadians to get confused with GIS and the CPP. I just wanted to make that statement..

We talk about the CPP investment, as they are calling it, and one of my greatest concerns is that, if we are going to see job losses, we are not going to see our youth who are just graduating from colleges and universities and our young families having jobs. They will not be able to pay into the CPP anyway because to pay tax they need to have a job.

I am just wondering what his thoughts are on how we are going to help those young families and those young students get on a path so that they can have economic independence.

[Petitions, October 21st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I am proud to present a petition signed by many Canadians regarding a national strategy for Canadian seniors.

I would like to table this today. I hope all members will look at this seriously as an important matter for all seniors in our growing economy.