44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 29, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/29/22 2:36:54 p.m.
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Order.
The hon. member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte.
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- Mar/29/22 2:37:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a February 2022 report by the Barrie and District Association of Realtors indicated that the average selling price of a home in Barrie was over $950,000. This is a 36% increase compared with the same time just one year ago. The report also stated that prices have risen 86% over the past two years in Barrie and the surrounding area. This astronomical increase in home prices has now made home ownership only a dream for most.
Would the Prime Minister please tell Canadians what his government is planning to do to stop this rampant price increase in the housing market and make home ownership a reality again?
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- Mar/29/22 2:37:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, not only will I tell the hon. member what we have done, but I will also tell him what the Conservatives have done constantly to oppose measures to help Canadians, whether it is the first-time homebuyer incentive or the Canada housing benefit. We heard another member talk about rental supports.
The Conservatives voted against the Canada housing benefit and, as recently as last week, a number of members on that side of the House called for us to pull back from the national housing strategy. They have called for no more help for first-time homebuyers. They have absolutely no credibility on this issue.
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- Mar/29/22 2:38:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel is a failure that is slowing the arrival of Ukrainian refugees in Quebec and Canada. The government needs to arrange to airlift them out and deal with the paperwork once they are safely here. The government can enlist border services officers to help with that. They are trained in immigration and can help collect the biometric data, and I think they would be very proud to contribute to this effort.
Will the government airlift people out and ask border services officers to help families with the administrative details?
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- Mar/29/22 2:38:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the concern that he has demonstrated in recent months for the people of Ukraine and for his willingness to help the government design measures that are actually going to advance the arrival of Ukrainians.
I would point out, with respect to the situation involving biometrics on the ground, that we actually are opening a second visa application centre in Warsaw. We have sent more teams, who arrived yesterday, and we are going to continue to boost that capacity. I should also point out that for certain low-risk cohorts, certain individuals will no longer be required to have biometrics so that we can facilitate the entry of more people into Canada as quickly as possible.
Regarding the airlift, we continue to have conversations with airlines to arrange to get as many people here as quickly as possible. I look forward to continuing to co-operate with the member in this pursuit.
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- Mar/29/22 2:39:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is not good enough for us, and it is not good enough for Ukrainians. This is day 34 of the war, and we cannot spend any more time getting bogged down in the paperwork. Border services officers can deal with that once Ukrainian families are here. They are already trained, they are in place, and they are already working in airports. They even have prior experience because they handled all the Syrian refugees' biometric data in 2015.
Now that we are at day 34, will the minister acknowledge the urgency and ask border services officers for help now?
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- Mar/29/22 2:40:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with respect, the member drew an analogy to the situation in Syria where we intervened, after the 2015 election, three years into a conflict.
The member mentioned it is day 34 of the conflict in Ukraine. Let me tell him some of the things we have done. We have extended the ability of people who are already in Canada to stay. We have waived fees for applications through IRCC. We have expedited applications in the system of almost 12,000 people who have arrived since the beginning of the year. We sent teams and equipment into the region before the conflict, and more arrived yesterday. We created a new, expedited pathway and attached an open work permit so people could support themselves.
Yesterday, we advanced settlement supports. We removed the biometrics for certain individuals in low-risk cohorts. We are going to continue to do more, as much as we can, as quickly as we can.
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- Mar/29/22 2:41:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are the only ones saying that this is going well. At some point, a reality check is needed.
The government is failing. It does not currently have the resources in eastern Europe to look after refugees from Ukraine. However, it does have the resources here, with border services officers supporting the immigration department. There are probably even some employees working from home who would be honoured to get back out there and help.
The government has a duty to turn its failure into success. First, will it charter flights to go and pick up families? Second, will it mobilize border services officers to look after these families once they get here?
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- Mar/29/22 2:41:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with respect, the member suggested the only people who were saying it was going well are Liberals. I would invite him to speak to one of the 12,000 people from Ukraine who have arrived in Canada since the beginning of this year.
We have been leveraging resources not only internal to our department, but from other departments since the very beginning of this effort. I would point out to the member that, if he thinks there is not capacity on the ground, just yesterday more staff arrived in Warsaw, Vienna, Bucharest, Budapest, Prague and Bratislava.
We are going to continue to send resources where we see the people moving. That is the best and most responsible way to act. We are going to do everything we can to help as many vulnerable people as possible who are fleeing these circumstances today.
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- Mar/29/22 2:42:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP-Liberal government's planned carbon tax increases on Friday will have a dramatic impact across the country. We know the carbon tax has significant and disproportional negative impacts on prices for the poor, and everything continues to rise. Businesses in my riding have indicated that increased carbon taxes will lower their profits, undermine competitiveness and limit investment.
When will the coalition government give Canadians a break and cancel its planned carbon tax increase?
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- Mar/29/22 2:42:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, I want to thank the Parliamentary Budget Officer for his work in pointing out that the price on pollution is progressive and gives eight out of 10 families more in climate action rebates than they pay in.
Putting a price on carbon pollution is recognized as one of the most efficient ways to drive down pollution. Again, let me point out that the Conservative member for New Brunswick Southwest is on the record as saying that his province should go back to using the federal carbon price. I agree with that member.
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Mr. Speaker, my Conservative colleague for Huron-Bruce introduced a bill that would remove the Liberal carbon tax from grain drying and heating.
At a time when global food security is so important, the government continues to restrict our agriculture industry. This bill would have passed in the last Parliament if the Liberals had not called an unnecessary election.
Will the government help to support Canadian farm families by supporting Bill C-234?
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Mr. Speaker, no later than this morning, the Minister of Environment announced a significant increase to our program to support agricultural clean technology. We have tripled the budget as promised. This would support our farmers very significantly in affording energy-efficient technologies, including grain dryers.
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- Mar/29/22 2:44:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, recently at committee, the Commissioner of the Environment revealed that there is no metric in place to measure how much Canada’s carbon footprint has been reduced as a result of the carbon tax.
This is the core policy of the NDP–Liberal government’s environmental plan. We have no way to know if it is even working after over a decade of it being in use in some parts of our country. What we do know is that this tax is ineffective and punitive, and that it disproportionately affects seniors, farmers, producers and those living in rural communities and small towns.
When will the Prime Minister abandon this failed policy and get off the backs of hard-working Canadians?
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- Mar/29/22 2:45:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know that pollution pricing works not only to reduce pollution, but also to drive innovation and to help create the clean growth economy that is exploding around the world. This means billions of dollars in economic development, and the good jobs of today and tomorrow. We know where the world is headed, which is to a low-carbon economy. I would say, once again, that Conservatives are stuck in the past and we are looking to the future.
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- Mar/29/22 2:45:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the last thing Canadians can afford right now is anything that will make life less affordable, yet the Liberal government wants to raise the carbon tax by $10 a tonne on April 1. Not only will this cost Canadians an extra 11¢ a litre at the pumps, but it will also have an inflationary impact on the cost of living by raising the prices of groceries, energy bills and everything else.
How can the government justify its high-tax, high-deficit agenda when Canadians across the country are already struggling to make ends meet?
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- Mar/29/22 2:46:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps the hon. member did not hear me when I cited some numbers from the various provinces a little earlier. This year, a family of four in Ontario will receive up to $745 in rebates. It will be $830 in my home province of Manitoba, and $1,100 in Saskatchewan and Alberta. We are fighting climate change and we are promoting affordability.
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- Mar/29/22 2:47:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, millions of Ukrainians continue to flee violence in their country. The majority are women, children and seniors. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress says, “There are virtually no federal supports for Ukrainians”. The government must do everything it can to get Ukrainians and other displaced people to safety and help them settle in Canada by ensuring access to supports such as language training, employment assistance, child care, health care, housing and more.
Will the minister guarantee that these vulnerable people get resettlement supports, no matter where they are in Canada?
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- Mar/29/22 2:47:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question, but more importantly, for her sincere concern for the well-being of those who fled Ukraine to come to Canada.
I am very pleased to share with her that yesterday we announced that we would be extending settlement supports to Ukrainians who have landed in Canada, including employment assistance, language training and other measures that we make available directly to refugees who come to Canada. We continue to work with provinces and territories to see what more we can do to support people when they get here. It is not enough that they arrive. They have to be set up for success once they get to Canada.
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- Mar/29/22 2:48:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week, I asked the minister when he would provide timelines, targets and funding to respond to the calls for justice of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The response was “reconciliation is a journey, not a destination”. What a gross, callous and cold response to this ongoing genocide. Families and survivors of violence are suffering. This is not a journey. This requires urgency.
When will the government put in place timelines and the resources needed to save lives?
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