Finance committee  The issue with greenwashing is that it's easy to say any investment can be green in some way, and that's a real risk. We've seen in a lot of climate policy in Canada historically that you get a tiny little bit of reduction in emissions, but there's no structural change. Having a

Finance committee  Thank you. That's another great question. First of all, the tax credit, the electricity credit in particular, is very good, because it's mostly going to be useful to provincial utilities that need to build out that capacity. That's a good thing. It's a good thing for eligible Cr

Finance committee  Yes. First of all, the windfall tax is something that we support. We've included it in the alternative federal budget. We think it's necessary. As you point out, oil and gas companies are raking in record profits, at least over the last three years. Production is at an all-time

Finance committee  Yes. The oil and gas sector is one important part of the Canadian economy, but it's only part of the Canadian economy. It's often overblown, I think, how big the oil and gas sector is in Canada. It plays an outsized political role, certainly, but that sector is certainly not help

Finance committee  Yes. The care economy is super important for two reasons. One is that care work is low-carbon work, and that's important. We know that we need to move to a cleaner economy, and for people working in health care, in teaching and in all kinds of services—often public services—that'

Finance committee  Sure. There are a lot of issues. We know that the housing crisis we're dealing with today has been building for decades. It's not the responsibility of any one government, at any level. It's everyone's responsibility that we let it get this bad. We did hear earlier about how we'

Finance committee  It's definitely something that's near and dear to my heart. I have three young kids, so I'm well acquainted with child care in Canada. That being said, this is not my particular area of expertise. I would be happy to have our child care expert follow up with you, but I'm not com

Finance committee  Yes, I can talk about housing.

Finance committee  I'd be happy to. Thank you. We've heard a lot about productivity so far today, and housing is a huge drain on productivity. We heard that, in the tourism context, if people can't live where they want to work, it's hard to get the workers we need; it's hard to attract the workers

Finance committee  Absolutely. We were very happy to see the labour conditions in the most recent budget. We don't think they went far enough. You could go further—not just requiring a small share of apprenticeships, but also looking at other kinds of economic benefits. We support the use of commu

Finance committee  I don't know too much about the EI reform process. Certainly EI is important. It's an important part of our social safety net. Every time a region goes through economic turmoil, we see how inadequate EI is. It can work in general, but often when we're in crisis, EI is insufficien

Finance committee  That's a great question. The most important thing is having some clarity about which direction we're headed in. We saw that with the coal transition. We gave a deadline. We said, “We aren't going to be burning coal by x year.” That allows workers, the corporations that are affe

Finance committee  Thank you for the introduction, and thanks to the committee for the invitation. Every year, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives produces an alternative federal budget, which we do in collaboration with dozens of organizations and experts across the country. Our 2024 edit

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for that question. The concern broadly is that sometimes we make plans and commitments, and then we pat ourselves on the back and don't do anything about them. There's a risk that passing just transition legislation will allow the government to say that it has closed t

Natural Resources committee  Well, I think the point of the environment commissioner, and I'd agree, is not that the plans are bad, necessarily; it's just that there needs to be a lot more follow-through. We know, for example, that the green infrastructure money budgeted in 2017 still hasn't gone out the d