44th Parl. 1st Sess.

June 7, 2022 10:00AM

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

Jun/7/22 8:36:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the last intervention. I appreciate the fact that the member for Elmwood—Transcona was talking about the estimates and government policies. I respect the fact that he disagrees with some of them, but it certainly was a departure from the previous speeches that we heard from across the way, which literally had nothing to do with the estimates. I should say that I am splitting my time with the member for Kings—Hants. I will go back to the answer the member for Elmwood—Transcona provided me when I asked about government intervention in dealing with environmental issues from industry of the past. Although I agree with him that we certainly would not like to see that moving forward, unfortunately that has been the reality of pretty much everything since the Industrial Revolution. My city is still dealing with former tannery sites that are leaching material into the river along Kingston. The reality of the situation is that quite often, unfortunately, we do not know the consequences in advance of the environmental impact the economy is going to have on particular sectors, and it falls on the public to deal with that. Certainly, I would love to set up a system, and I think we have a lot of stewardship systems in place at various levels of government, to help deal with that sort of thing now. However, we cannot just leave these abandoned oil wells because we think somebody else should have dealt with it; we need to deal with it. That is where a lot of the money is coming from when the NDP refers to the subsidies in the fossil fuel sector. I respect the fact that the member for Elmwood—Transcona also brought up the fact that some of it had to do with carbon capture. As much as I would like to see us move away from this concept of carbon capture, because I honestly think it looks as though we are now grasping at opportunities to profit from carbon, so there is not going to be an incentive to move away from it. I get that, and I do not see carbon capture as a future, but I realize we are going to be using oil for the foreseeable future in some form or another, because we are not going to be able to flip a switch tomorrow and be completely off of oil. In the meantime, if there is something we can do to help invest in these technologies to help capture some of that carbon, I am all for exploring the various different options we have out there. As we know, we are in a crisis right now when it comes to our environment. Personally, I do not think we should be picking and choosing which environmental policy is better or worse. We can certainly put them on a scale from what we see as best to worse, but I really think we should be throwing our weight behind as many different opportunities as possible. That is how I see a productive outcome for this. If that means that carbon capture is part of that now, I am okay with it. I want to see us get to a net-zero place, but I realize we might have to find ways to deal with some other forms of carbon in the near future. I also want to talk about the Canada Infrastructure Bank a little, because I know it is a bit of a political lightning rod. I apologize for picking on the member for Elmwood—Transcona, but he was the last one to bring it up. He suggested that it is just about buying buses. That is not the case. I would encourage the member, all members, and the public for that matter, to go to the website cib-bic.ca to see the various different projects that are being funded by the Infrastructure Bank, everything from Alberta irrigation to Algoma Steel retrofits and hydroelectric expansion. Yes, there are buses in there, but there is so much more in addition to that, such as upgrades to terminals, increases in broadband, highway improvements, retrofits with respect to various different large-scale operations, fibre links, particularly in indigenous communities, and the list goes on. They suggest that the Canada Infrastructure Bank is there only to help municipalities get electric buses, and yes, that is one of the things in there. I imagine, out of the billions of dollars that have been allocated and spent from there, that it is a tiny fraction of it when we add it all up, because there are so many other very important projects happening. I hate the thought that we are trying to diminish the value of this bank, specifically for political gain. Public transportation, green infrastructure, broadband, trade and transportation, clean power and indigenous infrastructure are the main objectives of the Canada Infrastructure Bank and what the bank is able to fund and move forward on. Members do not have to remember the website, but just google “Canada Infrastructure Bank”. They will get to the website almost immediately and see the projects going on in all the different provinces within Canada. The other thing that I have heard relates directly back to the estimates because, quite frankly, the supports that the government has been moving forward with over the last couple of years and continues to in this budget are to help Canadians deal with the rise in costs and, in particular, the cost of living increases. We are focused on providing supports to those who need them the most, rather than trying to provide blanket tax reductions like the Conservatives were calling for earlier today with the removal of GST on certain products. We believe that it is most important not to attempt to apply the same tax reduction on everybody or provide boutique tax credits. As we know, we got rid of the boutique tax credits that Stephen Harper had before, because our focus is more on helping those who need it the most. Guess what? When we help those who need it the most, does anyone know what they are doing with that money? They are not putting it in tax-free savings accounts; they are actually spending the money, and the money continues to generate economic activity in our communities, our provinces and throughout the country. It is a win-win. It is not just about giving supports to those who need it the most. It is also about helping to generate economic activity, because we know the individuals who need the money the most are those who will be spending it. One of the huge misconceptions in this place, at least as it comes from the Conservatives in this direction, that I have heard repeatedly over the last number of weeks is with respect to the rates of inflation. If we were only to listen to Conservatives, we would think that inflation was a Canada-only problem. Inflation is a problem right now throughout the globe. In fact, Canada is below the OECD average when it comes to inflation. We are actually doing better in terms of inflation than most developed countries in the world. I do not want to suggest for a second that that means people are not struggling with the rising cost of living. What I am trying to say is that this government is absolutely committed to doing whatever it can to bring those costs back down for Canadians, so that people can see some relief from those rises in costs. I will conclude by saying that I strongly believe that the direction the government has been moving in in its budgets, what it did with supports during COVID and how it supported businesses and individuals coming out of COVID through the various measures, have all been to the good. Have they led to some economic challenges? Yes, and we have certainly seen that throughout the world, in other developed countries as well. Is the government focused right now on turning its attention to dealing with the affordability crisis that is happening with many people? Absolutely, and this budget goes to that. The elements contained within the estimates go to supporting Canadians, because we genuinely believe that a stronger economy is going to happen only when we have a strong middle class in place and people are able to prop up and support our economy and keep it moving forward.

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