Small Business  Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today on a really important issue that is impacting small businesses throughout Canada. Throughout the pandemic, small businesses closed their doors to protect public health and the people in our communities. They are the unsung heroes that are not talked about enough in the House or in this country.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, nowhere in the world has the free market solved an affordable housing crisis. We know that under the Conservative watch, we lost 800,000 units. We saw REITs and corporate ownership of residential housing go through the roof. We saw housing prices double. Today, we still hear of no plan from the Conservatives.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, I am looking for what the plan is. If the plan is to put pressure on local governments to create density, what are the Conservatives going to do to ensure that a large part of that housing is going to be non-market housing? Right now in this country, there is 3.5% non-market housing and 30% corporate ownership of housing, something I am sure the Conservatives are very supportive of.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, I find it quite ironic when Conservatives rise in this House and blame the NDP when they are responsible for losing 800,000 units when they were in government. Also, they have not negotiated or gained any housing in the whole eight years I have sat in this place.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, the Liberals try to pat themselves on the back and say that everything is great, but all we have to do is go outside and we will find homeless people everywhere. It is not working. We lost 800,000 units under the Conservatives. They failed to deliver. In fact, they said that they were going to commit to making sure there was housing for 50% of homeless people within a decade.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, I grew up in co-op housing, so I know how important it is. Back when I grew up in the era of non-market housing, we were actually building non-market housing, at about 25,000 units a year. This was before the Liberals pulled out of the national housing strategy and then the Conservatives carried on with building nothing.

Public Services and Procurement  Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' for-profit pet project, the Phoenix pay system, was supposed to save over $80 million. Instead it has cost over $2 billion and does not even work. This has hurt workers like Tina in my riding, a dedicated public servant for 30 years, who has been missing pay for years.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, we have heard from Dream, another REIT that is using public financing through CMHC to build housing because it is cheaper. We now know from the Infrastructure Bank that private investors are looking at this financing because it is cheaper, and they would be making profits off of public money.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, my colleague likes to talk about McKinsey, but under the Conservative government, we saw PricewaterhouseCoopers go from $9.8 million to $45 million in terms of outsourcing. We had Michael Wernick testify at the government operations committee. He cited that there was a direct correlation between the gutting of the public service and, later, the cost of outsourcing.

Taxation  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for talking about my bill, Bill C-310, on the volunteer firefighter tax credit. I hope the government comes to its senses and prioritizes the over 100,000 volunteer firefighters and search and rescue volunteers, because inflation is having a huge impact on them.

Taxation  Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise tonight to talk about a really difficult year that we had in my riding of Courtenay—Alberni. We know that ocean temperatures around the world have been rising rapidly. It is a record year for air temperatures, ocean temperatures and wildfires globally.

Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023  Madam Speaker, we are talking about trade agreements today. We have been talking about other trade agreements outside of this one as well. Right now, Canada is negotiating the UK-Canada free trade agreement and my colleague and I have been working together because we know that recipients of British pensions who live here in Canada have had their cost of living indexed and frozen, unlike Canadians who are living in the U.K., who are getting the cost of living increase.

Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023  Madam Speaker, any time we talk about Ukraine, I want to send my thoughts and love to the people of Ukraine. I want to thank the Comox Valley Ukrainian Cultural Society in my riding that is doing a lot of advocacy for Ukrainians who are here in Canada and helping those who are in war-torn Ukraine now.

Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023  Madam Speaker, I will follow up on the question of my friend from the Bloc. We are talking about trade. What do the Conservatives want to talk about? The carbon tax. The carbon tax, according to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, is contributing 0.15% of inflation, which was affirmed as well by the PBO last Thursday at the OGGO committee, which I am on.

Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023  Madam Speaker, I just want to refer back to oil and gas. In this place, we continue to see the Conservatives try to focus on a diversion. They talk about the carbon tax. Last year, it went up two cents. The oil and gas profits went up 18¢ on every litre of gas; the Conservatives do not talk about that.