Business of Supply  We have been refusing to let the Prime Minister's cynicism about electoral reform end the conversation about proportional representation and about changing the voting system here on Parliament Hill. I am proud to have been part of the efforts to keep that conversation alive. We pushed to take back some of the excess profits the banks and insurance companies made during the pandemic and to permanently raise their corporate tax rate from 15% to 16.5%.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023  If we think about it, that 25% number is 5% higher than it was at the turn of the century. What has happened since the year 2000 is that the proportion of wealth controlled by the top 1% increased by those five percentage points. I do not mean it increased by 5%; I mean that it went from 20% of overall wealth to 25% of overall wealth.

Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform  The culprit in all of this is the Prime Minister, who refuses to accept that our voting system encourages division. It is simply untrue to say that a proportional system would sow more division and discontent than we see in our current system. We could not pack more into an electoral system in terms of division and nasty politics than we are seeing in Canadian politics today.

Electoral Reform  The procedure and House affairs committee passed a motion to study this and he ended it by calling an election. Now at the Liberal convention, there is a motion on the floor to look again at proportional representation. Will the Prime Minister respect the decisions of these democratic decision-making forums or is he going to put his personal agenda ahead of that once again?

Canada Business Corporations Act  If we look at the percentage of government revenue that is paid by large corporations, that is down in proportion. Conservatives and Liberals both said that they were going to cut corporate taxes and that it was going to allow business owners to invest in their businesses, it was going to raise productivity and it was going to generate a lot more economic activity than would holding the corporate tax rate where it was to be able to fund social services.

Business of Supply  I think it is wasteful to chase the poor for money they do not have because they took the government at its word, during a global crisis of unprecedented proportion, that if they needed help they should apply for it. When it turned out that they were not quite eligible because they were not poor in the right way, the government then said that they owe all of that money back.

Preserving Provincial Representation in the House of Commons Act  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to participate in the debate on Bill C‑14. The NDP has long supported the principle that Quebec should maintain a consistent proportion of the seats in the House of Commons. That is not what Bill C‑14 would do, but we think that this bill is nevertheless important, to ensure that no ground is lost while we hold a broader debate on the proportion of seats.

Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1  Unfortunately, getting information about where people are at and the kind of attitude pundits have when they are predicting outcomes can affect voter turnout. I would hope that by moving toward some kind of proportional system we could diminish those effects, because people can still go and vote with confidence. I was quite disheartened by the recent comments of the Prime Minister about proportional representation and some rewriting of history in what he presented to the electorate in 2015.

Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1  Also, for a Prime Minister who has shown up at rallies where there has been that on display in ways I condemn and think are inappropriate was also a little much. It was a little much to somehow pretend that there are not countries with proportional representation that are not doing at least a good job of managing polarization within their politics. I was also surprised that the Prime Minister would try to say he only ever advocated for a ranked ballot and that he was never really interested in proportional representation—

Preserving Provincial Representation in the House of Commons Act  Each riding in the country, no matter where it is and no matter how many members there are in that region and in those ridings, is accorded an equal number of points. In fact, I believe those points are distributed on a proportional basis, which is a debate perhaps for another time. Does he feel the Conservative leadership race should be put on hold until they have a representation by population system in place for their party?

Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1  This is one of the main motivations for some to oppose electoral reform, and particularly forms of proportional representation, which tend to lead to more instances of minority Parliaments and minority governments. My view is that the process around this budget bill, without being a perfect process and without the bill being a perfect bill, was actually a decent process, so I want to talk a bit about some of the improvements that were made to the bill during the course of it and some of the ways that it suggests we can make progress on other issues in this Parliament through members of various parties working together, and not only members of the same party working together.

Extension of Sitting Hours and Conduct of Extended Proceedings  I do not think anyone is particularly animated about it outside of this place, but we would not know that by looking at the proportion of time that this place has spent on that bill. We have people calling for real climate action who are really upset at a government that has not done enough and is not doing enough and is not even planning to do enough in order to fight the climate crisis.

Business of Supply  They hear that good news and they do not feel the pinch, because they are part of that 1% that is getting not only a good chunk of that but a bigger and bigger proportional piece of that pie. As the pie grows, not only is their piece increasing relative to the size of the pie but the amount of the pie they get is also increasing. That is why we can hear about good news for the economy and big economic growth and all these things that, normally, Canadians would expect to mean that life would be a little better for them, in the midst of so many stories of hardship, people worried about losing their homes and, in fact, more people than ever losing their homes.

Economic and Fiscal Update 2021  It is defending the trend line that continues to see more of that wealth going to fewer people. While Canada's economic pie has been growing, the proportion that goes to the 1% at the top has been growing much faster, leaving less for the rest of us. As we come out of the pandemic to the extent that we have, which is not anywhere near as far as the government sometimes likes to pretend, and as we venture into this uncertain future with so many more extreme weather events as a result of climate change, we need to make sure we are getting the principles right that will ensure that everybody gets to partake in a prosperous future, not just the people who already own all of the important assets.

Instruction to Committee on Bill C-2  It is pretty hard to get outraged at this idea for people who have amassed more and more of the economic pie. Their proportion of the pie has grown far more quickly than the pie itself, which means more and more people are sharing less and less, and people wonder why we do not have money to fund public services.