Randy Boissonnault

[Carbon Pricing, September 28th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, what is reckless is the Conservative ideology that somehow pausing renewable projects is a good strategy.

People in my riding and in our province want us to lean in. They want clean electricity. They want reasonable electricity. They want hydrogen plants. They want to be part of the economy of the future.

The Conservatives want to slash and burn. Shame on them. We are here to deliver for Albertans and for Canadians.

[Carbon Pricing, September 28th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, residents of Edmonton Centre, indeed Albertans across the province, wrote to me about the fact that this summer, like so many summers before, they could not breathe the air because of forest fires.

What do the Conservatives want to do? They want to cancel the child care benefit; they want to pull the CCB. They want to chop, chop, chop. That is the party of slash and burn. The Conservatives are going to slash programs and let the planet burn. Shame on them.

[Pensions, September 26th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, let me and the government be very clear: Canadians, including Albertans, value the Canada pension plan.

Every single Edmontonian and every single Albertan I have spoken to on this issue, including through email in my inbox this very day, says it is about the Government of Alberta keeping its hands off Canadian pensions and making sure they stay under the management of Canada. People have paid into the Canada pension plan; they want it to be there in their retirement. We will do everything in our power to keep the pensions in the hands of Canadians and in the CPP.

[Small Business, September 26th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, before entering politics, I was an entrepreneur. I know very well what it is like to pay bills and make sure people get paid. I have a lot of empathy for businesses in Quebec, which is why our government has been very clear about the plan for people who have to repay the Canadian emergency business account program. We are going to give them up to three years to repay the loan. We are here to support businesses, and we are here to support entrepreneurs, too. That is our plan, and we will see it through.

[Small Business, September 26th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear and look at the facts. We were here to support businesses during the pandemic. We are now in the post-pandemic period, and we have been very clear about what we are going to do for businesses that used the Canada emergency business account. We will be there to support them. We will also be there to support the people behind the businesses. We were there for entrepreneurs, and we will continue to be there for them.

[Small Business, September 26th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, nearly one million businesses were able to stay open thanks to the actions of this government. We know that global inflation, the rising cost of supplies and everything that is happening in Ukraine are among the factors destabilizing businesses here in Canada. We are ensuring that they will have a way to continue operating.

We are also supporting people with the Canada child benefit and loans for workers. We are here for the businesses in Quebec and we will continue to be.

[Official Languages, September 25th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Sudbury for her question and for her incredible advocacy on behalf of the Franco-Ontarian community. With our new action plan for official languages, we are supporting official language minority communities across the country with $4.1 billion to support organizations, education, communities and more. Whether we are talking about francophones, francophiles or the “franco-curious”, our government will always support the French language in Ontario and across the country.

I wish everyone a happy Franco-Ontarian francophonie day.

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 18th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a) and (b), Employment and Social Development Canada, or ESDC, monitors basic income research and reports, as well as the outcomes of basic income pilots in Canada and internationally. ESDC conducts ongoing policy analysis of basic income in a Canadian context and has identified many considerations including benefit level and cost, program design and interaction with existing benefits, implementation and interaction with provincial/territorial programming, and impact on the labour market. Recent analyses on basic income have not incorporated consideration of the precise parameters and impacts of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit or the Canada Recovery Benefit.

With regard to (c), some of the Government’s programs have many features of a partial basic income. This includes the Canada Child Benefit for families and the Guaranteed Income Supplement for low-income seniors. Moreover, if a provincial or territorial government decides to proceed with a basic income pilot, ESDC would be pleased to share federal-level administrative, survey, and tax data that could support program design and evaluation.

For proactive disclosure purposes, a Question Period note on basic income is available at https://search.open.canada.ca/qpnotes/record/esdc-edsc,GouldJan2022-011

With regard to (d), ESDC’s review of existing and past basic income projects includes domestic projects in Ontario and Manitoba and international projects in Finland, the Netherlands, the United States and Spain.

For proactive disclosure purposes, a HUMA Committee binder for the Minister of Seniors dated May 25, 2021, on the impact of COVID-19 on seniors, including the topic of basic income, is available at https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/corporate/reports/committe-binders/may-25-minister.html

[Finance, June 20th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, what the member opposite said is completely false. You are a fantastic referee, but let us bring in an international referee on the health of Canada's economy.

A report today from the International Monetary Fund said that Canada has an enviable fiscal position, the best fiscal position in the G7. Members do not have to take it from us. They can take it from the IMF. That means we can invest in Canadians, grow the economy, stabilize health care and not take any lessons from the Conservative austerity caucus.

[Finance, June 20th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, last night voters in Winnipeg, in Montreal and in historic numbers in Oxford showed up to vote against the reckless austerity, partisan populism and ugly American-style attacks of the Conservative Party. Thousands of Canadians looked at the Twitter attacks, the video stunts and the artful alliterations of the Conservative leader, saw them for what they were and opted to support a real plan to support Canadians, to invest in communities and to build an economy that works for everyone.