Situation in Ukraine  Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with my former seatmate, the member for Vancouver Centre. It is getting late, and I note that at the end of this week is the beginning of the Olympics. There will be one nation out of all the nations in the world that will not be allowed to compete under its own flag, and that is the Russian nation.

Situation in Ukraine  Mr. Chair, the hon. member's speech was thoughtful and historical. I want to get his views on a quote by Henry Kissinger where nations do not have friends or enemies, that they only have interests. I would like him to articulate, as the member for Etobicoke Centre did, why it is in Canada's best interest that we give full-throated support to Ukraine.

An Act to Provide Further Support in Response to COVID-19  Madam Speaker, the narrative of the Conservative Party in particular has been to blame the Government of Canada for all inflation ills. However, putting that aside for the time being, I would be interested in the member's comments on the mismatch between supply and demand. There is a buildup of demand over the course of the pandemic because people had no place to go, no place to spend, and then there is now a huge demand for goods and services.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, two reports of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The seventh report is entitled “Concurrence in the Findings and Recommendations of the Final Report on the Implementation of the Merlo Davidson Settlement Agreement by the Hon.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, entitled “Systemic Racism in Policing in Canada”. Sometimes, committees actually do what they are uniquely able to do: receive evidence, hear witnesses, ask questions, minimize partisanship, work hard and produce a very useful report on one of Canada's premier institutions, the RCMP.

June 1941 Anniversary  Mr. Speaker, June of 1941 marked the commencement of a reign of terror and forced deportations in the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a friendship treaty that carved up Europe and facilitated the commencement of World War II.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1  Madam Speaker, I am glad to hear that the finance committee is actually debating this issue. I do not profess to be a world-leading economist, but I have lived through the stagflation of the 1970s, the erosion of people's savings and the mismatch between what inflation was doing to their assets and to their income.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1  Madam Speaker, it is an issue, but the first point I would make is that if inflation does take off, it erodes everybody's purchasing power, seniors and non-seniors alike. The second point I would like to make is that the government had to pick one age, whether it is 70, 75, even 80 or whatever, because the government's finances are not unlimited.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1  Madam Speaker, I have three points. The first is that the ombudsperson is a serious person and very capable. The second is that the government did give her a decent budget. The third is that she is right; we should have the appropriate suite of powers for the ombudsperson.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, people are starting to be cautiously hopeful. As vaccines roll out and we approach herd immunity, Canadians can dream, once again, of something approaching normality. What the new normal might be is, of course, anyone's guess. However, some people are starting to turn to thinking about how we are going to pay for the debts and deficits that have been necessarily incurred over the course of the last 14 months.

The Budget  Madam Speaker, one is not the business of issuing guarantees on anything that one cannot control. The member is justifiably worried about whether we can pay the debt. The real question is whether the finance minister's assumptions are realistic under the circumstances. The other assumption I would add as I have a chance to is that President Biden is proposing $2.3 trillion in stimulus spending and Canada will be well positioned to pick up on that uptake, in spite of the buy American provisions.

The Budget  Madam Speaker, I will tell the hon. member that I do not own a yacht or a fancy car, unless one calls a Subaru a fancy car. The short answer is that wealth taxes do not work. When they have been tried, they have been abandoned. The most effective wealth tax we have is the capital gains tax.

The Budget  Madam Speaker, what I would say about that is simply that the government has provided massive amounts of stimulus to be put into the economy in order that provincial governments survive and service their own jurisdictional responsibilities. The transfers to provinces in the past 18 months are unprecedented.

The Budget  Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Hochelaga. Ironically, I had occasion to repair my deck. Normally I would ask somebody else to do it, but these are strange times so I thought I would apply my formidable carpentry skills to the repairs. To no one's great surprise, it is clear that I should try to keep my day job.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in relation to the main estimates 2021-22, and reports the same. On a personal note, I want to thank the clerk for saving the chair from impeachment.