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Jun/8/22 6:58:23 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, I want to commend and congratulate my colleague on another very interesting speech. He always has something constructive to say, both here in the House and in committee. I am concerned about the length of the budget implementation bill currently before us. Bill C-19 is a mammoth bill that amends numerous laws and deals with many issues that have nothing to do with the budget, including, for example, enforcing the justice system in space and conducting strip searches in prisons. What does my colleague think of the fact that the government regularly resorts to such mammoth bills that lump together so many issues? Can committees and parliamentarians study all this thoroughly? On top of that, the paper version of the bill that was given to the opposition was some 420 pages long, while the official PDF version that was posted online was over 440 pages long. Could my colleague comment on that?

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Jun/8/22 7:08:42 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8 Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, we are now at third reading of this omnibus bill. In fact, there are all kinds of statutes stuffed into Bill C-19, with topics ranging from strip searches to justice in space. That might be helpful for addressing all the mischief Brad Spitfire could get up to, but it does not belong in a budget implementation bill. This is a half-baked omnibus bill. It is no wonder it is full of problems. To start, the paper copy we were given was missing more than 20 pages. We were working with the wrong version for far too long. That is unacceptable, and it seriously undermines the government's credibility and our trust in it. A lot of changes were made to this bill at the Standing Committee on Finance, and I applaud the work we did. However, it is so big that there was no way the committee could do an in-depth study of the entire bill. I will have to criticize the government's approach once again. The government promised that it would not introduce any more omnibus bills, but only the willfully naive are buying Liberal promises these days. Regarding our study, I am sincerely grateful for the help we got from the other House of Commons standing committees: Justice and Human Rights, Citizenship and Immigration, International Trade, and Industry and Technology. Let me add an honourable mention for the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities and our superhero there, the member for Thérèse‑De Blainville. Bill C‑19 put forward a lot of changes to the employment insurance system, including the EI board of appeal. The government did not do its job properly. It did not consider the consultations and the needs expressed by stakeholders, such as unions. It is rare for the employer and the union to agree that something like this was poorly done. The member for Thérèse‑De Blainville was very efficient at bringing all those people together with the finance committee and the human resources committee so parliamentarians could hear from them. Their message was clear. Better to strike the issue from the bill altogether rather than pass flawed measures. We in the Bloc Québécois prepared for both eventualities. We introduced several amendments and asked that the section be deleted. In committee, I pressed the Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance to lobby his government to have it removed. I tabled a motion to that effect. My colleague from Thérèse‑De Blainville got the human resources committee to adopt a unanimous motion to delete it. The Conservative and NDP members also requested the same thing. The government listened to reason. It backed down and committed to tabling something a little better in the fall. This is what we MPs are here for. It is what the House and the parliamentary committees are here for as well. We study government bills. We review them with the people they would affect. If the bill is good, we support it. If it is bad, we reject it. We work tirelessly to improve the bills. We know the government is tired and worn out. The pandemic took its toll on us all. The Prime Minister gave an election a shot in the fall. That tired out his government, which is still a minority. We had the blockades in the winter, followed by the war in Ukraine, which has been going on for over 100 days. That has kept everyone busy. The Prime Minister is overwhelmed and exhausted. The Minister of Finance is playing the roles of both prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, especially with respect to the war. All the work she is doing is very honourable. The problem is that she is caught up in all these fast-moving issues, so she no longer has enough time to do her job properly as finance minister. We saw that with her budget. We saw that with the crisis facing specialized businesses that convert trucks into ambulances, armoured vans and other specialty trucks. They are affected by the semiconductor shortage, which has shut down truck manufacturers in the United States. This input shortage is hitting our businesses hard. We cannot afford to lose these good niche jobs. In December, the finance minister promised that the shortage was over. We supported Bill C‑8 based on her assurances. She had agreed to provide us with the statistics showing that things were getting better. We believed the Liberals' promises, but we never got the statistics, and the situation of these businesses is getting worse and worse as the weeks go by. We have been pressing the minister on this issue since January, but we have still heard nothing. The only response we received came in her fall economic update, when she committed to subsidizing semiconductor manufacturers. However, this is a far more complex market, and she has completely missed the mark. We were unable to secure a meeting with her to discuss this subject. We were also unable to get her to come to committee to talk about inflation, even though we officially invited her in January to come testify sometime before May 31. It is now June 8, and we have still heard nothing. We know that the Minister of Finance is very busy with the war and all of the other files she manages for the Prime Minister. The only problem is that that does not leave her any time to take care of finance. The associate ministers and parliamentary secretaries have not been delegated to follow up on this or other files. It is a serious problem that will have harmful consequences for our economy. I have another example. In Bill C‑19, the budget implementation bill, the government presents the details of its luxury tax. It is 170 pages long. We agree in principle that people who buy luxury cars, planes or boats should pay a luxury tax. That is one way to redistribute wealth. However, the tax needs to be well constructed and the situation properly assessed. For example, this tax will have serious repercussions on the entire economy and on jobs related to the use of personal boats. When I asked the Department of Finance to show us its impact studies for this new tax, the departmental officials told me that they had not done any studies. There is nothing. This has a real boys‑in‑short‑pants feel about it. Santa Banana could have done a better job of this. What we have here is an ideological tax. It is all about the principle, and no one cares about how it will be implemented. In any case, the minister does not have time to waste on that. This tax will be disastrous for the aerospace industry, which has been in a complete panic for almost a year now, not because the wealthy will no longer be able to afford to buy private jets, but because the tax will apply to companies and exports, even though it is not supposed to. This whole thing is a big mess. The government gave the Department of Finance carte blanche, and it did not do its job properly. It did not feel like doing it, so it did a poor job. Because the Minister of Finance is busy dealing with the situation in Ukraine, the government is letting this slide. That is unacceptable. This measure is so poorly thought out that unions and employers, along with some members of the House, have banded together to warn us about how serious this situation is. Canada is already the only country that has an aerospace industry but no industry strategy, not even for government procurement. Now the government is imposing poorly designed taxes that are harmful to the industry without even doing an impact study. That undermines Canada's credibility with the industry. I would remind members that greater Montreal is the third-largest aerospace hub on the planet. Such a high value-added sector helps drive our economy. Anyone in the world would be very careful to preserve such a cluster—anyone, that is, but Ottawa. Is this all because the industry is in Quebec? That is unacceptable, and it reminds us of the repercussions of being under our neighbour's thumb. Working with the unions and employers, we submitted several amendments to correct the poorly drafted tax measure. For instance, one amendment stated that the tax must not apply to exported aircraft. Another would have excluded businesses from the tax, which is how it is supposed to work. The Liberals and NDP voted against all those amendments. Yes, the NDP voted against what the unions were calling for. Why? It is because of their deal with the Liberals and their promise of unwavering support, to the point of compromising their principles. The Conservatives voted with the unions on the luxury tax in Bill C-19, and the NDP and the Liberals voted against the unions. They were so quick to compromise their principles for a promise that benefits only the party that wanted it in the first place. All of this will undermine our important aerospace industry and its unionized, well-paying jobs. This is all because the tax is ill-conceived and fails to meet its objective of taxing people who purchase luxury vehicles. Instead, the bill will tax airplane and helicopter manufacturers on aircraft that they export, over 90% of their output, or sell to businesses. This comes at a time when the industry is barely recovering from being hard hit by the pandemic. This is all because we have a finance minister who is no longer doing her job, since she is doing the Prime Minister's job and nothing is delegated. This is all because the government is not putting more effort into supporting and developing our economy. In a normal democracy, a government like that would be overturned and replaced, but not in Canada. This government is supported by a party that is afraid of losing seats and is facing an opposition that is torn apart by extreme and polarizing ideologies. This is the price of following our neighbour's lead. It has little concern for our economic issues and has its own fish to fry. With respect to the problems that the ill-conceived luxury tax will cause for the aerospace industry, I spoke numerous times with the finance minister, members of her team, her parliamentary secretary, her department and several other government members. That accomplished next to nothing. All we were able to get passed was an amendment that allows the government to delay implementation until after September at its discretion. In addition, we had to wait until the report stage. My colleague from Saint-Jean and I introduced the amendment, as did the member for Elmwood—Transcona. This is the last glimmer of hope. If the government can take its head out of the sand and does its homework, we are offering it the opportunity to not implement the tax and to come back with a better bill in the fall. I urge the government to take us up on our offer. The government is proposing a vast array of legislative changes in this mammoth bill. It has cut corners and done a poor job. The government is patting itself on the back for holding lots of consultations on everything. The only problem is that it is not taking the feedback into account. The Liberals' idea of democracy is letting everyone talk without listening to a word they say. Luckily, we got the government to backtrack on its ill-conceived employment insurance amendment. We told it to go back and do its homework and listen to stakeholders. Unfortunately, we did not get the government to backtrack on its new tax that is 170 pages of poorly written text, but we did get one amendment passed that will create a window for changes in the fall. That will depend on whether the government sees fit though. I am very worried, as are the industry and union members. The government has not seen fit for quite some time now. We managed to fix another of the government's egregious errors on another subject entirely in Bill C‑19. Australia took its dispute with Canada over an excise tax on wine to the World Trade Organization. Obviously, it was about wine made from grapes. However, because wine is not just grape wine to Ottawa, the tax applies to many other products too. In committee, we heard from cider and mead producers. The tax would have really hurt them and undermined a rapidly growing sector. We worked with them to propose an amendment that would exempt them from the tax. I think we made some important progress that will enable these passionate people to keep improving their quality products so that we can enjoy the fruits of their labour. I think we deserve congratulations. More generally, let me say that I am very proud of every member of the Standing Committee on Finance. We spent many hours working constructively and collaboratively. From my perspective, we engaged in successful dialogue and made progress. I am sincerely grateful to every member of the committee, including its chair and the parliamentary secretary. I believe we made substantial improvements to Bill C‑19, and that is down to how well we worked together. I also want to commend the work done by the other committees that studied parts of Bill C-19. I thank them for their insights. Lastly, I want to once again commend the hard work of my esteemed colleague and friend from Thérèse-De Blainville, who helped force the government to commit to redoing its homework on EI. I salute her for that. Despite all my criticisms, Bill C-19 does include many good measures. Even though the government introduced a mammoth bill, even though it cut corners, even though we were not able to improve the bill as much as we would have liked, the fact remains that, when we weigh it all out, there are more pluses than minuses for the Quebec economy. That is why we decided to support the bill.

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Jun/8/22 7:23:52 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance is hard-working and a fierce fighter who never stops. However, since the start of this year, with the conflict in Ukraine and all the Prime Minister's files she is juggling, I have noticed that she does not have the time she needs to do her job as finance minister properly. That is to be expected given the circumstances. One of the things I like about being an MP, and this is the case for each one of my colleagues, is dealing with specific issues that are brought to our attention by businesses or individuals. We can make a request of the minister responsible, work together and, quite often, solve the problem behind the scenes without garnering media attention. It is very gratifying and we feel as though we are improving people's lives. Of all the ministers, the Minister of Finance is usually the quickest to respond. Since January, however, she has been overwhelmed by other matters and there is no longer any follow up, which is understandable. We see it in the lack of vision and direction for the budget and in this bill, which is very problematic. It is not the person who is the problem, but the way the government is configured. What is needed is someone who can be more focused on the finance department. As for the competitiveness and productivity of our economy, it is clear that more needs to be done, and that takes vision. There are several possible avenues the government could take, but if it does not take any of them, then of course it is going to lose. Every economy is in competition with all the others to attract good jobs and develop this or that niche, such as artificial intelligence, aerospace or the green economy. Whatever the niche, it takes vision. For example, in aerospace, Canada is the only country that does not have an industrial policy or comprehensive strategy to support and develop this sector in order to demonstrate that we value this cluster, these companies and this expertise. This is missing from the budget and it is a massive oversight.

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Jun/8/22 7:27:07 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, the issue that is most important to me in this Parliament is the fight against the legal, yet immoral, use of tax havens by large corporations, Bay Street banks, multinationals and the wealthy. This government is doing very little to combat tax evasion, and Canada lags behind other countries in this respect. I want to respond humbly to my colleague's question. As I said in my speech, the amendment that the member for Elmwood—Transcona, my colleague from Saint-Jean and I proposed at report stage was not extensive and was merely intended to give the government an opportunity to delay the implementation of the luxury tax. This might have given the government time to address some problems, if it had been willing. I remind the House, however, that unions and machinists, among others, told us to make sure that this tax does not apply to exports or to sales to companies. Because of its deal with the Liberal government, the NDP voted against the unions' amendments, while the Conservatives voted in favour. In this type of deal, compromises always have to be made. Since the vote in committee, however, I have been wondering whether the NDP is starting to compromise its ideals.

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Jun/8/22 7:29:35 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8 Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, there are a number of good measures in Bill C-19, and this tax credit is certainly one of them. It is important, and that is why we will be supporting Bill C‑19. However, I would ask the government to implement this tax credit more quickly than the one they gave to teachers in last fall's budget. It is still not in effect because Bill C-8 is still before the Senate. Normally, when a bill is winding its way through Parliament, tax credits can be put in place more quickly. It appears that because the opposition parties are against Bill C‑8, they are being blamed for not granting this tax credit, which several teachers have asked me about. I would therefore ask that the tax credit to help seniors stay in their homes be implemented more quickly than the tax credit for teachers. I do not know if I have enough time to respond, but I would add that the situation in the long-term care facilities was carnage, a real disaster. The long-term care facilities are the poor cousin of Quebec's health care system, which brings to mind the chronic underfunding of the health care system. Obviously this goes back to the years of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin who, in order to balance Ottawa's budget, massively cut transfers to Quebec and the provinces. The situation has never been rectified since, and we expect Ottawa to send massive transfers to the provinces to respect each one's ability to pay.

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Jun/8/22 7:32:38 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, the government does a lot of consultation. The aerospace industry was consulted. Its representatives raised their concerns all year, but no changes were made to the tax. When we attended the Department of Finance's information session about this tax, departmental officials answered all of our questions by saying that it would depend on how it was interpreted by the Canada Revenue Agency. The committee summoned experts and stakeholders, who said that the tax made no sense and that it needed to be changed. However, at the end of the process, the Liberals rejected all of those amendments, with the support of the NDP. What we have is 170 pages of extremely complicated text that does not target the right people, namely the wealthy who purchase luxury products. Instead, the tax targets an industry, manufacturers and their unionized workers.

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Jun/8/22 8:15:09 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, I want to salute my colleague and thank him for his speech. There is all kinds of stuff in this omnibus bill, which deals with such topics as space jurisdiction, strip searches in prison and whatever else, but 170 pages are dedicated to the new Liberal luxury tax. This tax will have a significant impact on entire sectors of our economy. One example frequently mentioned by Conservative members on the Standing Committee on Finance is the whole boating and pleasure craft industry. When we asked finance officials to table the impact studies for this tax, they turned to us and said they had nothing, they did not know about it, and they had not done anything. Does my colleague think it is acceptable for the government to implement a new tax that is going to affect whole sectors of our economy without doing any economic impact studies?

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Jun/8/22 8:31:07 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, I want to commend my colleague on his speech and thank him for it. I agree that the immigration department is having a lot of problems. Cases are not being processed in a timely fashion, and all of our constituency offices are all swamped, trying to help these people. I agree with my colleague that immigration is one solution to the skilled labour shortage. However, there is currently a debate between France and Algeria, and I would like to hear his thoughts about it. There is a shortage of doctors in France. Doctors are retiring, so France is recruiting heavily in Algeria. Now Algeria is starting to say that it needs more doctors, that France is stealing all its doctors. This then creates the issue of displaced resources. I would like my colleague to comment on this phenomenon.

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Jun/8/22 9:59:20 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech, which did not have the slightest connection to Bill C-19. I know that when a point of order is raised to have the Chair ask members of the House to ensure their speeches are on topic, it is always interpreted very broadly. In this case, however, my colleague's speech had absolutely nothing to do with Bill C‑19. First the government introduces a special motion forcing us to sit until midnight every night, at its whim, under time allocation. The normal process of debate in the House is not being followed. Now the government is sending in Liberal members who, as interesting as their speeches are, are more or less filibustering on Bill C‑19. My question for him is—

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Jun/8/22 10:04:09 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, I would like to remind the House that we are talking about Bill C‑19, the budget implementation bill, not the budget itself. Not everything in that speech is in Bill C‑19. My colleague may take offence, but that speech had no connection to Bill C‑19.

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