44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, lately I have been spending a lot of time talking to my constituents, and it seems to me that there is a common theme: affordability.
I have seniors from Peanut Plaza telling me how expensive their groceries are. I have young couples from Henry Farm telling me how expensive it is to raise their kids. I have new grads coming out of Parkway Forest telling me how expensive it is to get a place to raise a family, and then there are individuals from Bayview Village Association telling me how important it is to pay attention to the environment and how important it is to reach our emission targets.
I tell them why I think all of these affordability problems are happening. What they say to me is this: “I don't care, Han. I want to know what you are going to do about it.” I start talking about all the details in the latest budget introduced here in this House, and they say, “Well, that all sounds good, and we can be supportive of it, but when is it going to come?”
Can the Minister of Tourism explain to this House how important it is for budget implementation to happen as soon as possible and how that is going to provide affordability to Canadian homes?
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Madam Speaker, I would say this move today is hypocritical of the government, but I am not surprised, because we have a Liberal-NDP group that does not want to talk about the economy. The Liberals and New Democrats do not want to talk about inflation and they do not want to talk about the cost of living. They surely do not want to talk about the carbon tax and the price of gas that they are backtalking to their constituents every day, so it is not a surprise that they are trying to ram this budget through.
No, we have not had adequate time. At report stage on Friday, we heard from one member from the Conservatives and one member from the Liberals, the member for Winnipeg North, who I always enjoy hearing from, but Liberals do not even want to get up and talk about their own budget. They try to shut the debate down. I do not blame them, given how things are going and how their plan is not working.
I want to ask a specific question of the minister about the budget. I will use what the Auditor General agreed with me on in the public accounts committee last week, when she said that this government is spending more and getting less when it comes to results, particularly on customer service levels, particularly when it relates to the timely Auditor General's reports last week. Service levels are absolutely collapsing at airports, Passport Canada, CRA, immigration and Veterans Affairs. NEXUS cards are an absolute disaster. They say they are spending x dollars of more money. We want to know specifically what and when Canadians can expect in getting proper customer service levels back and why we cannot have more time to debate those issues and frustrations that Canadians have.
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Madam Speaker, I find it mind-boggling and ironic that the minister talks about Conservatives bringing in U.S. problems, when the current government's whole modus operandi is to import U.S. culture wars.
I want to give an example of why it is so important that we continue debate. We heard the exact same response from the government over Bill C-8, Bill C-10 and the supplementary estimates (C), where there was $4 billion in Bill C-8 and Bill C-10 for rapid testing, and then a duplicate $4 billion in the supplementary estimates (C) for rapid testing.
We just found out today that the government is sitting on hundreds and hundreds, if not billions, of rapid tests unused, warehoused. This is the reason we need debate on this and other issues, so we do not have a repeat of this incompetence where the government is spending billions of dollars for items that are not even used.
Would the minister perhaps comment on why he wishes to stop any oversight of taxpayer spending and the government's incompetence?
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Madam Speaker, my colleague and I served at the public accounts committee together for a while. The Auditor General concluded that the government is spending more money but getting less service for it. We saw it recently with the report tabled last week on services for veterans' disabilities.
I would like him to comment, from his time at public accounts, about the frustrations. It is one thing to spend money; it is another thing to manage it properly, which the government is not doing.
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Madam Speaker, the member talked a lot about the idea of revenue versus spending. We have seen the Conservative Party vote against all of the common-sense tax reform efforts that we have brought forward. We have seen them vote for 2% spending for defence spending, for NATO.
I would love to hear just one idea from the member on a revenue stream that the Conservatives are supportive of, that they would be looking at to deal with the revenue side of our equation.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-19 today and to talk about how the policies, procedures and investments that we are making are affecting so many people across Canada. Most importantly, I want to talk about how it is having an impact on the people I represent in the House of Commons, the people from Newfoundland and Labrador, and from Labrador in Canada's north.
Over the last number of weeks, we have talked not only about Bill C-19, but also about the budget itself and what the impact is on Canadians. The one thing I always find in the House of Commons is that we hear members say that we have to be more conservative in our spending, but in the very next sentence there is an ask for more money and more allocation in a different area. It is funny how that happens. I am sure it happened when we were in opposition just like it is happening with the members who are in opposition today.
What is important to note is that we put in place investments that will really help address the issues that Canadians are facing on a day-to-day basis and in the times they are facing them. Being able to do that and still continue to grow the economy and keep it stronger for many years to come is not an easy task no matter who is in the government.
I want to talk about some of the highlights in the budget and in Bill C-19 and where our government is creating new opportunity and new direction for people in the country.
First of all, I have a remote riding in Labrador. It is large and vast in geography. It is small in population. It has very distinct cultures. It is isolated on many fronts. Therefore, the challenges are very unique. They are not more unique than any other region of northern Canada, but they are certainly very unique when we compare them to those in urban centres and larger cities across the country. The infrastructure is different. The needs are different.
Like everyone else in the country, we hear a lot about affordability. Today, I think affordability is on the minds of all Canadians, simply because of the time and place we are in. We are coming out of COVID-19. We have seen many businesses shut down for months. We have seen workers out of a job, some of them for 18 months, before being able to go back to their regular jobs with regular salaries. This has had a huge impact. We add to that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how that has affected the flow of goods around the world, the supply chain that we all depend upon and also how it impacts major commodities worldwide. It is not just Canada that is feeling the brunt of affordability today. It is being felt all throughout North America and right across the world.
Is there a reason for us to be concerned? There is always a reason, absolutely. Our concern is with the people of Canada. Our concern is with families today who are waking up and understanding how the invasion of Ukraine has affected their lives at home. They are waking up to understand how the outcome of COVID-19 is having an impact on them and their children and their everyday lives. They are looking for solutions. I think we are all looking for how we can do more to help them.
Our government has been very creative in rising to the affordability demands of Canadians. First of all, we can look at the fact that we are focused on connecting more and more Canadians through high-speed Internet, no matter where they live. Some may say that is an old story, that they do not have a problem with Internet. They should try living in rural Canada or try living in northern Canada, where one is feeling not only the pressure of affordability but being cut off from the rest of the world.
When we see investments in that kind of infrastructure, it does make a difference. It does help with issues around affordability.
Let us look at child care. Building on the child care agreements is something our government has focused on with every province and territory in Canada, with its $625-million fund for early learning and child care infrastructure. These additional child care investments, including the building of new facilities, are making affordability closer to becoming a reality for a lot of families.
Regardless of where Canadians live, it is a process. Negotiating child care at $10 a day is a process. Getting there is a process. The fact is that we are stepping up to make those investments so that families can work and can put their children in child care facilities and programs where they are safe. Being able to afford to do so would be huge for many families.
Does it mean that we have to grow the spaces? Absolutely, that is what it means. It means that we will have to grow the workforce around early childhood education. We will have to ensure there are appropriate salaries attached to the jobs. We will have to ensure there are spaces available and that new facilities are a part of that.
We are getting there on early learning and child care reform. It is a huge part of affordability for many families.
The Liberal government has done things around labour mobility that have helped with affordability.
One of the things that I like more than anything around Bill C-19 and our budget is the investments in health care. I live in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and represent the riding of Labrador. Health care is always a priority. It is never easily accessed, and it is never affordable to access. People have identified huge concerns around health care in my riding. They have talked about it very openly. They need to be able to access doctors, specialists and more health care professionals. They need the ability to get services that they have not had access to in the past.
This is what I like about what we are doing on health care. The government is investing over $45 billion in support to provinces and territories through the Canada health transfer, which is an increase of almost 5% over the 2021-22 baseline budget. That money is there to help provinces, like Newfoundland and Labrador, deliver better services to residents, like those I represent.
We have also increased the Canada health transfer by $2 billion to help with the backlogs of surgeries and procedures. We are seeing this right across Canada, including here in Ontario, across the border in Quebec, and at home in Newfoundland and Labrador. People are going on wait-lists. There are backlogs for surgeries and procedures. As a government, we are stepping up to help our provinces and territories deal with this problem, because Canadians need to have those procedures and surgeries in order to maintain good health. We know how important that is.
There are also the investments the government is making in dental care. For so long we have seen so many people go without appropriate dental care because they could not afford to see a dentist. This is a program that would allow seniors to get the dental health care they need, and to be able to afford that dental health care. It would allow families with incomes of less than $90,000 a year to access dental health care. These are good investments that would make life affordable for people across the country and would help in areas, like the one I represent in Labrador, with health care needs.
We are investing to recruit more doctors and nurses for rural and northern regions. This would allow us to have better services at our hospitals in places like Labrador City and Wabush, like Happy Valley-Goose Bay, like remote clinics in Labrador and across northern communities. This investment is allocated for the recruitment of doctors and nurses, but it is allocated to improve the health care and access to health care for so many Canadians who need it.
I am definitely supporting this bill, simply because this bill would allow people to access good child care for their kids, and be able to afford to live a better life in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place to speak to the issues that impact Canadians. Today, that issue is Bill C-19, the budget implementation act. To reference the speech by my colleague across the way and the comment she made, and with no disrespect to people having health issues, my back is sore from carrying my share of the national debt that the Liberal government has accumulated over the last seven years.
The budget implementation act, in short, is the way the Minister of Finance plans to carry out the promises made in her budget. However, maybe we should start with a brief examination of what the budget really is.
I think when the minister first decided to draft the budget, she got a couple of definitions confused. Investopedia has a pretty layman's-terms approach to what a budget is. It says:
To manage your...expenses, prepare for life's unpredictable events, and be able to afford big-ticket items without going into debt, budgeting is important. Keeping track of how much you earn and spend doesn't have to be drudgery, doesn't require you to be good at math—
Clearly, we know that.
—and doesn't mean you can't buy the things you want. It just means that you'll know where your money goes, you'll have greater control over your finances.
It mentions preparing for unexpected events, affording big-ticket items and knowing where our money goes. Wow. None of that sounds anything like the Liberal budget, does it? The Conservatives and Canadians have not forgotten that this very Liberal minister has yet to account for $600 billion in public spending from the 2020-21 fiscal year.
The definition of “rhetoric”, on the other hand, is “the art of persuasion, of using language—both written and oral—to convince others of one's point of view.” However, many perceive such convincing as dangerous, especially in democracies, where individual voices actually matter. The line between persuasion and manipulation is not always clear, and the effects of crossing it can be incredibly corrosive. That sounds like the document the finance minister presented to the House.
The finance minister, in her budget implementation act speech, took special note to discuss the existential threat of climate change. She went on to say that it is why she was focusing on growing the economy and making life more affordable for Canadians. That is laughable. May 3 must have been backwards day, because the finance minister's unveiled attack on the Canadian economy and on affordability for Canadians was directly her doing. The budget did nothing to deal with the skyrocketing cost of living or the inflation crisis, which, by the way, is now at the highest rate in 30 years with no signs of slowing down at all. I would argue that this is the single largest existential threat to Canada and Canadian families.
The Minister of Finance was unwavering against the pleas of Canadians and the Conservatives to stop the carbon tax escalator, even now as the price of gasoline and diesel are well over two dollars a litre. Workers and commuters have to pay that new higher price just to get to work. Farmers have to pay more to put their crops in, take them out and get those goods to market, and the price of groceries, dining and household necessities are all driven up exponentially as a result. She calls climate change an existential threat, but for Canadians, the finance minister, her policies and her government's poor financial management are the real existential threat that most Canadians face.
When I talk to constituents about what they wanted from this budget, not one of them said they wanted more rhetoric about how the government was helping them. In reality, the government continues to be the single largest problem in Canadians' day-to-day lives.
The government acts like it is fighting for the little guy while it taxes the rich. The finance minister made a big to-do about taxing the sale of new luxury cars and aircraft with a retail price of over $100,000. This tax would also apply to the sale of boats that cost more than $250,000. Canadians see through that. This is not a tax revenue generator, nor a deterrent to those who would buy a car worth over $100,000, much like the silver Mercedes 300 SL the Prime Minister has. This would also not have an impact on those who would buy a private plane to be whisked away for a day or weekend in the sun at a vacation island. The Prime Minister knows this because he has been there.
This tax is nothing more than an attempt to persuade voters, while the Liberals are trying to do something with rhetoric to address an issue. It really just muddies the water with additional rhetoric aimed toward Canadians, who now find themselves having to work longer shifts to afford the new inflated price of everything from gasoline to groceries. This affects families. They can no longer afford to sign up their children for recreational or educational activities because thanks to the inflationary actions of the government, they now have no money left for such activities. However, Canadians can be comforted to know that the Prime Minister and his friends, with their private aircraft and $100,000 vehicles, will have to pay a couple cents more on the dollar in taxes.
The government is so disconnected from reality that it is unbelievable. The reality is that for more and more Canadians, the government's incompetent policies have driven up inflation to the point that it now consumes their entire paycheques. There is little to no money left at the end of each month. There always seems to be more month left at the end of the money. For many, paycheques are purely going to subsistence living and in many cases do not even cover that.
With that reality, it becomes even more laughable that the government praises itself for subsidizing the price of zero-emission vehicles. It is like the finance minister and the Liberal cabinet have only ever met urban downtown Toronto socialites. She thinks that new cars are in the budgets of average working Canadians. Even if those same Canadians scrimped and saved to remotely afford such a vehicle, they would be plagued with backlogs, delays and chip shortages.
Maybe in the finance minister's world of social elites, the government decided to just scrap their barely used cars and buy new ones. However, the majority of Canadians, like the hard-working constituents of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, work hard, budget carefully, buy quality vehicles and maintain them because they rely on them to last. They simply do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. To put it in the language of the Liberal cabinet for it to better understand, they do not throw out the champagne with the cork. Speaking of champagne, the Liberals have a tax on that too, with an automatic escalator annually. They want to ensure that no matter what Canadians do and how they live their lives, there will always be a tax creating price inflation.
The budget has missed the mark and the budget implementation act has therefore also missed the mark. This is not good for Canadian families. It is simply the Liberal elites' manifesto of what they think the world should look like: more debt, more spending and higher costs for everything. The supports the government brags about, such as reducing the cost of new zero-emission cars, only benefit the rich and those who can afford them. This is not the implementation of a budget; it is “the art of persuasion, of using language—both written and oral—to convince others of one's point of view.” Simply put, it is just rhetoric that, in reality, will continue to destroy the economic and social stability of this country.
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Madam Speaker, what I will say is that the budget makes it very clear that the NDP-Liberal government has no plan to increase defence spending to reach the target of 2% of GDP, which Canada committed to as a NATO member. Despite promising to invest $6 billion in the Canadian Armed Forces, there is no plan to ensure that the NDP-Liberal government will follow through on any of its commitments.
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Madam Speaker, just weeks ago, the Conservatives were in the House arguing on an opposition day that we need to increase the defence budget in a way that, according to the PBO, would cost more than $30 billion, but then they oppose dental care and they oppose investments in child care.
If the hon. member had a choice, which programs would the Conservatives cut first? They are certainly not standing up for people. Would they cut dental care, child care or the $8-billion increase to military spending?
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