44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 22, 2022 10:00AM
- Sep/22/22 5:01:48 p.m.
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Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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Madam Speaker, to address inflation, Bill C-30 proposes an additional GST rebate for the less fortunate. It is a good measure. We have been asking for this for quite some time, and we will be voting for it. It is good, but it is long overdue.
This measure was announced at the same time as the measures introduced in Bill C-31, namely rent relief and dental insurance. We support those measures in principle as well, but I feel the need to scold the government here. Bill C‑31 is really poorly constructed. It is sloppy. It is embarrassing that Parliament is considering something so poorly drafted, and I am choosing my words carefully.
With respect to rent relief, we are concerned that Quebeckers will not get their fair share because it is a supplement to the Canada housing benefit, which no one in Quebec receives. Quebec has had its own program since 1997, so we have the right to opt out with compensation. Our program is more generous, but the eligibility requirements are completely different. However, Bill C‑31 makes no mention of it. Once again, the government has forgotten that Quebec exists. There is no talk of aligning the two. It is embarrassing. It is as though the bill was written on the back of a napkin.
The same is true of the so-called dental insurance. If the parents pay any fees for a child who is 11 or under, then Ottawa will send them a big cheque. The programs are not properly aligned. What is worse, in Quebec, dental care is covered for children under the age of 10. People in Quebec are already paying for insurance. Once again, the government did not harmonize the programs, except to say that, if the services are covered by Quebec, then Ottawa will not pay and will not compensate Quebec for the cost of its insurance. However, if the parents pay for a service that is not covered, then they are entitled to a big cheque, even if Quebec is already covering most of the costs.
How much is Quebec being penalized? The government is not saying. This is sloppy work. The bill is badly written. It seems as though the department did not even calculate the cost of all this. All it did was reuse, dollar for dollar, the numbers that the Parliamentary Budget Officer came up with and the work that he did when he costed the NDP's proposal.
Once again, this shameful government forgot that Quebec exists. Once again, there is no alignment. This bill could be called “how to turn good principles into bad legislation” or “Quebec does not exist”. I say to the government, way to go. To add insult to injury, this government chose to brief journalists on this bill long before it briefed parliamentarians. This government is showing a serious lack of respect for the House.
I now want to talk a little about inflation. There are some well-known factors driving the surge in prices, such as changes in demand during and after the pandemic; supply chain problems and bottlenecks in response to fluctuating demand and health measures; China's COVID-zero policy, which is drastically disrupting supply lines and is a good example of the health measures I mentioned; the terrible war in Ukraine, which we all hope will come to an end soon; the radical transformation of the labour market and what is being referred to in the U.S. as the great resignation; the ongoing housing shortage; and natural disasters associated with climate change that are also having an impact on the global economy.
All of these factors have significantly affected the economy both here and abroad, and prices have skyrocketed. In a number of sectors, economic abundance has given way to Soviet-style scarcity.
We hope to be able to return to some semblance of normalcy, especially if we get serious about tackling climate change. In the meantime, however, families, people, businesses and farmers are bearing the brunt of this overall imbalance. The world is struggling, and there is no easy solution.
What can be done?
In the short term, we must support the most vulnerable with measures such as those set out in Bill C‑30. We should also support the hardest-hit sectors to ensure that they get through this imbalance. I am thinking of our farmers, for example. In the longer term, we must help make our economies more resilient. With oil and gas prices rising, we must support the development of the green economy.
Unfortunately, there is no quick fix for the type of imbalance we are currently experiencing. Keynes proposed effective tools to deal with crises in demand, but not crises in supply.
In light of this imbalance caused by multiple factors, how long will inflation last? It is difficult to say. The central bank has chosen to get out the heavy artillery to fight inflation. It wants to clamp down on inflation expectations. Here is its reasoning. Once expectations of higher inflation become entrenched in the economy, everyone tries to raise their prices to compensate. That creates a snowball effect. In other words, inflation expectations cause inflation.
It is easy to fall into this vicious cycle. The Bank of Canada, like the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Fed, wants to minimize that risk, even if it means seriously slowing the economy or even helping trigger a recession. Central banks believe that it will then be easier to stimulate the economy to support growth as needed. They are still traumatized by the inflationary episodes of the 1970s and 1980s.
Inflation is still high, but there are signs it is stabilizing. We appear to be emerging from this period of overall imbalance, at least in some sectors, but not because of monetary policy, which is slow to bring about change.
Is the central bank's policy too aggressive? Possibly.
Some economists suggest waiting a little longer to see how the economy will respond to this interest rate hike. Nobody can say for sure where lies the sweet spot between fighting inflation and avoiding recession. The Bank of Canada, again inspired by the Fed, apparently prefers to fight inflation. Over the next few months, we will see if it made the right choice. Meanwhile, economic conditions remain uncertain.
This is a difficult situation for many people, as I said. It is important to adopt policies aimed at those who are struggling the most and to implement them in the context of the Bank of Canada's monetary policy. We also need to promote structural measures, including supports for social housing and measures to address the labour shortage. On that point, I do not understand why the government still has not introduced any tax breaks to lure retirees back to work.
I want to talk briefly about the situation in developing countries. It is downright catastrophic, and Canada and other rich countries must do a better job of supporting them. On top of food shortages, developing countries face high levels of public debt, as international institutions encouraged them to take on debt during the pandemic. Most of their imports and loans are in U.S. dollars. However, in the context of global uncertainty, the value of the greenback has soared, serving as a hedge and reducing the purchasing power of these countries. The energy crisis is also taking a toll. Lastly, China is drawing back from doing business with developing countries due to its own economic difficulties.
That is why wealthy countries need to come together quickly to support these countries in order to avoid a cascading series of crises in these emerging economies. Everyone will be affected. We have to prevent that from happening.
Let us also invest in the green transition. We are facing a serious crisis, and we need to act urgently.
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Madam Speaker, it was refreshing to hear a detailed economic presentation from the hon. colleague across the way, and one that is not putting forth simple answers.
The hon. member mentioned the targeted programs trying to do one-time transfers to people who are getting hurt the worst in a way that will not stimulate inflation, and that balance is very difficult for us to make and for the Bank of Canada to make in conjunction with us. The constrained supply cycle that we are in right now is one that is unusual for us to deal with.
Could the hon. member comment on how we need to be nimble in the months ahead, knowing that we could be facing higher unemployment and we could also be facing other challenges on the road ahead?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Guelph for his comments and his question. I quite agree with the issues he raised.
The global economic outlook is uncertain, especially considering the central banks' fight against inflation and the entire context that I referred to. Most economists expect there will be a recession in Europe, especially with the war in Ukraine, which is having serious consequences there. It will be very difficult to get out of. China is also experiencing a major economic slowdown. The unemployment rate among young people is especially high in the major cities. It is very concerning because China is still the workshop of the world, or at least a major production centre. Then there is Canada and the United States. What will happen? We expect a slowdown. The latest figures are less encouraging.
In the meantime, I believe that the labour market is going through a transformation, and comparing current job market statistics with the ones from a few years ago is tough. We have to be very alert and careful for the next steps.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague, whom I greatly respect, spoke at length about Bill C‑31. However, we are supposed to be debating Bill C‑30, which was introduced thanks to the hard work of the NDP. This bill will put an average of $500 into the pockets of Canadians who are struggling to cope with inflation. This measure will help around 12 million Canadians.
Bill C‑31 will provide dental care for all families with children under 12 and will help people who are renters. We are talking about nearly two million Canadians. The NDP had a hand in getting both of these bills introduced.
My colleague spoke about Bill C‑31 and we are currently debating Bill C‑30. I have a simple question: Which of the two NDP bills does he like best?
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Madam Speaker, I want to remind my hon. colleague that bills are introduced by the government. That is why I chided the government and not the NDP. Bill C-30 is well written. It is a few pages long and everything is clear. We support that bill. The Bloc Québécois was already asking the government last fall to increase the GST/HST credit to fight inflation, so we are very happy to see that.
Bill C-31 provides for rental assistance. As it now stands, people in Quebec will not be entitled to that assistance because Quebec has its own program, and the government did not think to harmonize the two. The bill is therefore poorly drafted when it comes to rental assistance.
The same is true for dental care because Quebec has insurance for children aged nine and under. Bill C-31 proposes measures for children aged 11 and under, and again there was no harmonization with the Quebec program. The government cut corners and that is what we are criticizing—
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- Sep/22/22 5:14:05 p.m.
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I must interrupt the member to let a member ask another question.
The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Joliette for his speech.
I completely agree with the member for Guelph. It is good to reflect with him on ideas that are slightly more complex and on a nuanced approach. These are not very simple issues and it is difficult because of the different challenges, which are complex. For example, we have the war in Ukraine, Canada's current situation, and issues related to the pandemic, as well as the impact of climate change and the climate emergency on our economy and economies around the world.
I want to ask my colleague from Joliette and the Bloc Québécois what they think of the idea of providing a universal guaranteed livable income to everyone to protect all Canadians from these complex problems.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to acknowledge my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, who has been a very active member of the Standing Committee on Finance since the beginning of the parliamentary session.
We find the idea of a universal guaranteed livable income interesting, because everyone would have the right to it. That said, we have to determine how it can be applied, particularly in the context of federalism, under which Ottawa manages some programs and Quebec manages others. They are never able to get along. At least, that is what we see with health and infrastructure, for example.
There are a number of challenges, and we often say that it would be easier for Quebec to have its own income by becoming independent than to negotiate it within this federation.
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Madam Speaker, as this is my first speech of the new parliamentary session, I would like to salute the people of Trois-Rivières.
Bill C‑30 offers up a temporary measure, a brief respite. Respite is relief from suffering or a delay in the carrying out of something unpleasant.
I do appreciate the initiative, but I have to say it is tepid and clearly inadequate under the circumstances. I also want to point out, as was mentioned before, that this measure appeared in the Bloc Québécois's budget expectations last spring. We knew then that people would be suffering because of the economic situation.
I want to come back to the word “respite”. Unfortunately, this relief will not come right away. Despite what the bill suggests, we know that the machinery of government will not be able to get it done until November or December. It is going to take some time. I think the government has to treat people fairly in this.
Why bring in such a measure? The Liberals like to talk about treating everyone fairly. When we talk about fair treatment, we mean treatment that is appropriate to the situation. We tend to call this equity. Equity is about recognizing what each individual needs. It means giving more to one person and less to another, depending on the circumstances. It is very different from equality, where everyone is treated the same regardless of economic status, for example.
It is a fair assessment of what each individual is entitled to, but who is “each individual”? It is of course the most vulnerable, those who are struggling the most. I immediately think of seniors who are on a fixed income, while their expenses keep increasing. What does it mean to live on a fixed income? It means no longer having a choice. If having a choice denotes wealth, having no choice is a sign of poverty.
Even though our seniors live in a rich country, it means being forced to choose between getting enough to eat or heating their homes. In short, they are being forced to live in or near poverty. We must ensure that seniors can live in dignity.
Quebec seniors are suffering indescribable discrimination at the hands of the Liberal government, which is denying them fair and equitable treatment. Doubling the GST temporarily is good, but the government should also stop reducing the guaranteed income supplement for seniors between 65 and 75. That is what I hear when I walk around Trois-Rivières and talk to Mireille or Roger, who say, “Where is the justice? I am 68 and I cannot get enough to eat”.
Hearing things like that breaks my heart. In a supposedly wealthy country, it is shameful. Equity means being able to adapt to each person's situation. It means adjusting. When we draw a line between two points, we often draw a straight line and say that it is the shortest path, but in society, not everything is the product of a straight line. Some things are near the line or outside the line. Equity will adapt. I believe that government measures should also adapt to different situations to achieve a greater degree of fairness.
Equity means fairly determining what everyone deserves. Who is “everyone”? Let us not forget low-income families. They cannot accept the response that the Minister of Finance keeps repeating every day, like a mantra, namely that things are better here than elsewhere.
Low-income families do not live in Australia or Japan. They live in Trois‑Rivières, Saint‑Liguori or Gaspé. Low-income families are vulnerable. I am certain no one will be surprised to hear that the word “vulnerable” comes from the Latin word vulnerabilis, which means “one who can be hurt”. Vulnerability is the potential to be hurt. Doubling the GST benefits these families for a little while, but we do not know for how long. Plus, it is not enough. The price of housing, for example, keeps going up, and inflation rose to 7.6% in July.
I think everyone will agree that we need to help the most vulnerable, the hardest hit. To paraphrase Gandhi, the greatness of a nation can be judged by how it treats its weakest members.
It is time to act like a great nation if we want to claim that title. More social and community housing must be built. The housing shortage in Trois-Rivières is unacceptable. The vacancy rate is less than 1%. The population is increasing but the housing stock is not keeping up. That is a recipe for poverty.
For that reason, in addition to temporarily doubling the GST, the federal government should permanently earmark 1% of its revenue to be transferred to Quebec, which could add the funds to its own housing programs.
That is not all. When we claim to be a great nation, we must do more. I believe that we must preserve the independence of the central bank, seriously address the labour shortage, improve productivity, make fragile supply chains stronger, strengthen the competition regime, and so on and so forth. These measures are in fact a statement that it is imperative that we reclaim our sovereign authority to provide protection. In short, it is about being decent.
We seldom hear the word “decency”. We hear the word “indecency” more often. What is decency? In addition to ending suffering, which means bringing respite, we must not forget that decency means doing good, acting in a proportionate manner and adapting to a situation to improve life. It is the opposite of indecency.
The government is not a program manager. I often say that the government needs to act as a government, or in other words, it needs to take the helm and steer, not act as a manager that is only responsible for dealing with problems. That is diligent governance.
I simply want to say that the government needs to start walking the talk. The Bloc will support the bill, but it has some concerns.
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Madam Speaker, I know the Prime Minister does not like to think about monetary policy. I know the members of the Bloc do care about money policy because I have discussed monetary policy with some of them.
The reality is that it is generally accepted that, when the money supply is increased, it causes inflation. I am not an economist, so do not take it from me, but the reality is that just two days ago, in a speech, Mr. Beaudry, the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, said that in hindsight, governments and central banks should have actually withdrawn stimulus measures earlier to keep a lid on inflation.
I am asking, after $400 billion in stimulus spending over the last two years, why would the Bloc agree to throw fuel on the fire of inflation? The people of Quebec, just like all of the people of Canada, are suffering from inflation. These benefits will be eaten up by additional inflation before they have had any effect.
I would appreciate an answer to that question.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley for his question.
He started by saying that he is not an economist. I am not an economist either. I am a philosopher. I can talk to the House about decency and indecency, and the duty to protect, but I will leave it up to my colleague from Joliette, who does great work, to talk about monetary policy.
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Madam Speaker, I look at today's legislation as relief for millions of Canadians. It is going to have a very positive impact on the issue of inflation. I would note, even though we recognize that inflation affects us all, it affects some more than others.
One of the things that I think is missing in the debate is the fact that, when we compare Canada to the rest of the world, our inflation rate is doing quite well. That does not mean we should ignore it. It is the reason it is important that we take measures, such as this legislation, to provide direct relief and money to support Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Would the member not agree that is a good reason for this bill, and that members should all be supporting it?
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Madam Speaker, I think that the member for Winnipeg North basically just answered the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley's question.
Our citizens do not live outside the country. They live here. We need to have the decency to put caring for people and their health ahead of any considerations pertaining strictly to inflation. It does not do any good to control inflation if people are starving to death.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to take a moment to share the concerns of my constituents in Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix about the current labour shortage. I very much appreciated the speech from my colleague from Trois-Rivières, who stressed the importance of taking care of seniors and the unemployed.
In my colleague's opinion, how can Bill C-30 help retain workers in regional markets, for instance in the tourism sector, and help improve the living conditions of seniors who could return to work, perhaps even part time, in order to participate in the economy?
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Madam Speaker, the reality is complex. I believe that incentives could and should be introduced. Doubling the GST credit is a good start. However, I think tax benefits are needed for people returning to the labour market. Certain monetary incentives, particularly on the tax front, could help address this problem.
I am not an economist, but I know that something needs to be done.
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Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the debate today on Bill C-30.
I am in Winnipeg now. I was in Ottawa as recently as this morning. Earlier this week, for the first time in the 10 years I have lived here, a couple of seniors set up camp in Park Circle here in Transcona, which is where we have our cenotaph. The Main Street Project has since visited, and the seniors have moved on from the park. I can certainly appreciate the concerns residents had and why they may not want somebody living in the park across the street from their houses, but I could not find it in my heart to be angry, because they are a couple of seniors who no longer have a place to live.
We have heard stories like this, and we are hearing more of them. People are seeing the effects of higher prices, and particularly higher housing prices, on people in their communities. There are folks who are camping out in bus shelters because they have nowhere else to turn. We are in this really challenging moment, challenging to be sure for the Canadians who are experiencing this directly and do not have a place to sleep, as well as for those who are now seeing people living in their communities in ways they never imagined they would and wondering what that means, not only for those folks, but also for themselves and their safety, because we know when people are desperate it sometimes results in some unfortunate behaviour that has an affect on the wider community.
People are experiencing this in all sorts of ways. At the grocery store, there are folks putting things back on the shelves or changing what they buy in order to change some of their family's habits to conform better to the realities of budgeting in the inflationary period we are experiencing. Even though, from a public health point of view, we are moving further away from the peak pandemic point, the fact of the matter is that our economy is still very much affected by the pandemic. We have not come back yet. That is one of the reasons people need help.
Members, and Canadians who have been listening to the news, will know there has been a lot of debate in this place about this moment of inflation and what the causes are. There was a good article published by some economists recently that essentially said that the main forces of inflation are energy prices, housing prices and grocery prices. When we think about the role that energy, housing and food play in our lives, if those are the things going up in price, we can imagine people really feel that in their budget.
There is no real alternative. We cannot choose not to have a roof over our head. We can end up in a situation where we do not have a roof over our head, but nobody is choosing to live on the street as a first option. We cannot choose not to eat. We cannot choose not to heat our home in the winter months in Canada, if we are lucky enough to have one. That is why people are feeling the squeeze. It is because the costs of the things we cannot do without continue to rise.
There are those in this place, particularly the new leader of the Conservative Party, who would have everyone believe that somehow this is simply the fault of big-spending governments, and if government would just get out of the way the free market would step in to provide housing for the homeless, provide affordable food for those who need it and cannot pay for it, or provide energy at a fairer price. I would call on Canadians to think hard about that line and the bill of goods trying to be sold to them by this new leader of the Conservative Party.
We all know that the oil and gas companies have not had the best interests of consumers at heart for a long time. That is not a news flash. Anyone who has filled up their car to go out to the lake on a long weekend knows that oil and gas companies have been there to gouge Canadians with every possible excuse. There are also some really challenging reasons out there in the world right now. Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine is just one that has caused some real supply issues in the oil and gas sector. We can bet they used that as an excuse to raise their prices, not because the gas currently in the tanks at gas stations got any more expensive or they had to retroactively pay a premium for it, but because of speculation about future oil and gas markets.
Really, it is just an opportunity to make more money now, and we are seeing that in the bottom line of oil and gas companies that are logging record profits. This is not just record revenue, but record profit, which means what they are taking home and giving to their rich CEOs, investors and board members is much more than it has ever been.
They are making that money. That money is not falling from the sky. That money is not coming from nowhere either. That money is coming directly out of the pockets of Canadians who need to pay for gas at the pumps to get to work, do the things they need to do in their lives and heat their homes.
In other jurisdictions, we are seeing governments that are willing to act. We have seen it in the United Kingdom, where there is a windfall profit tax levied on oil and gas companies to take back some of the additional profit those companies are making in these difficult circumstances and to invest that back in people.
That is just one example of a jurisdiction that recognizes what is going on is not simply government largesse driving inflation. It recognizes that corporate greed is playing a real role in driving that as well. Those profits being logged are coming out of the pockets of citizens, and they can be taken back to be reinvested in citizens, as we must do if we are going to keep our communities safe, our neighbours housed and make sure kids have a proper breakfast and lunch when they go to school so they can learn what they need to learn to become productive members of society and to enrich their own lives in all the ways a good education will do.
We do not hear outrage from the Conservative leader about that extra profit on the part of oil and gas companies. We do not hear him admonishing those companies for taking this moment as an opportunity to pad their pockets.
When we think about housing, which is another major driver of inflation right now, the new leader of the Conservative Party would have us believe that somehow this problem was created in the last two years. He would have us believe that somehow the liquidity the government made available to banks created it.
People talk about pandemic benefits and how they should have been wrapped up and how they drove inflation. People who normally might have made $4,000 or $5,000 a month were living on $2,000, and we are supposed to believe that was inflationary. That is ridiculous. I have said that many times in this place, and I will continue to say it.
If there is anything that actually caused inflationary pressure from the government's spending package, it would be these two things. One, and this one drives me nuts, is the wage subsidy program, which we know many companies benefited from and made extraordinary profits from at the same time. This is something that never ought to have happened. They should not have been allowed to take from the wage subsidy pot while they were logging huge profits, and there should have been a mechanism for paying some of that back if they were making extraordinary profits.
When we talk about an excess profit tax, this is part of what we are talking about. It is one of the reasons we think it is just and good to tax excess profits, because in some cases those excess profits were a function of public spending and went to rich CEOs, their buddies and investors, and it should not have. It never should have come out of the public purse for that purpose. That money was for companies to pass directly on to their employees to run their businesses as usual, and not to make extraordinary profits.
In some cases, that did happen. In many cases it happened, and that is good. It is something we called for and supported. What we did not support was it being abused, and from the beginning we said the government needed to have a mechanism to make sure it was not abused. There was no concern from the government to get that piece of the puzzle right, and there were really no proactive solutions proposed at the time by the Conservatives either to make that happen. There is certainly some frustration there.
Another place where there was a lot of public spending, and CERB and the wage subsidy public spending paled in comparison to what was spent on this, was the liquidity that was made available to major banks on day one.
That approach was also taken in the 2008 recession by the Conservative government. The Conservative government, on which, incidentally, the new leader of the Conservative Party sat at the cabinet table, also granted a huge amount of liquidity to banks. If that made investors feel more bold or made banks willing to lend more, there is a case to be made that it contributed to the acceleration of housing price increases, which was already off the chain long before the pandemic.
How did that happen? I know people do not always like a history lesson, but to really understand what happened, the fact is that it goes back to the mid-nineties when the Liberal government of the day cut the national housing strategy. It did not reduce it but got rid of it. That strategy was producing somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20,000 to 30,000 units of affordable or social housing every year, where rent was actually geared to income. That went on, and it meant that we did not get any more meaningful injections of affordable or social housing supply. It was left to the market. That is what happened in the nineties.
We hear the leader of the Conservative Party say to let the free market reign and people will having housing, as if there are a bunch of developers just waiting to give housing to people who cannot afford it. He says they are not going to do it now, but when the government gets out of the way, developers will discover their generosity. It is such a ridiculous story. I do not even know how people can listen to it, let alone how much it gets repeated, not just in this place but in the media, as if it is something that could possibly happen.
The only time we have made progress as a society in successfully housing people who do not have the money to pay market rates to own their own home has been when there have been ambitious, targeted, non-market strategies led by government. We have all benefited from those strategies. We have benefited by not having people live in our bus shelters. We have benefited by not having the effects of homelessness spill over into our emergency rooms and our prisons. We have benefited by not having to pay the cost of having people so destitute that they have nowhere else to turn. That is why it is so important that government gets back in the business of building housing.
This is not just about cities issuing permits to developers. There is such a need across an entire spectrum of types of housing that we absolutely need a plan and need non-market housing solutions. Whether those are co-ops, government owned and operated or rent-geared-to-income suites, we need to build far more housing.
Of course, it was not just in the nineties that this happened. The new leader of the Conservative Party was also part of the government that gave out operating grants. This was money the federal government gave to organizations that were running social housing so that people could pay rent that was a percentage of their income, usually between 25% and 30% of their income, whatever their income was. The federal government gave money to organizations that for 40 years successfully ran those operations and housed people who never could have afforded to live in rental housing at market rates. When this came up, the current leader of the Conservative Party was at the table when that government decided not to renew those operating grants.
In the last seven or more years now, unfortunately, the current Liberal government, despite running on a promise to do something about this, never really did. We have seen these affordable units come up, and the people who have been managing buildings for 40 years say they cannot manage on the model that they used to because they do not have the operating grants anymore. That is how they could offer rent at below market rates. Market rates are meant to cover costs and have some profit margin. If we want to have deeply affordable units that are actually geared to people's income, that money has to come from somewhere and it came from those operating grants.
The Conservative government of the day, with the member for Carleton sitting at the table, decided that it would not renew those operating grants, so these buildings are not sustainable now. They are going out on the market, and big developers are snatching them up, renovating the suites and evicting the tenants who were there before because they are jacking up the rent. That is how we end up with people camping out in bus shelters and setting up camp in parks. I beseech Canadians who are outraged to see that to carry their outrage past being mad about the problem.
That is what the new leader of the Conservative Party is selling. He is selling a lot of rage, and some of it is justified. I am mad about a lot of things, but we are not going to fix those things unless we focus on the solutions, and not try to pretend that every problem somehow comes from government when there are clearly a whole lot of actors in the economy with real power and real self-interested motives. They are not those we can trust to fix the problem, because they are deliberately blind to part of the problem.
Inflation is a great example, because as studies out there show, about 25% of the current inflation is actually attributable to increased profits. Price gouging is going on. It is a real thing. We would not know it listening to the member for Carleton. We would not know it listening to the government, which also, incidentally, is not acting the way it should. That is why we have been pushing it to take the tax on excess profits it has announced for banks and insurance companies and apply that to oil and gas companies, big box stores and others that profited hugely during the pandemic and continue to make record profits despite the hardship that so many Canadians are facing.
Doubling the GST tax credit is a way to try to get help to some of the people who really need it the most. We are talking about 12 million Canadians. That is a lot of people who receive the GST tax credit. They are going to see some kind of relief to help with these increases in costs. However, it is not going to be enough on its own, and it should have come a lot sooner.
This is something the New Democrats have been calling for, and for well over six months as inflation began to really take hold and we saw that it was not going to go away. We wanted a way to get help to people and also wanted a way to get help to people that would not drive more inflation. The problem, again, with the new Conservative leader is that any time we talk about having a plan to help people, he says it is just going to drive up inflation, and that is not true. There are certain ways the government could try to help and end up driving up inflation, but when we are serious about it and look at what is actually going on in the economy and at what the potential solutions are, there are ways. Doubling the GST tax credit is one of those ways.
This is why the New Democrats believed that was an important immediate step the government could take. Over six months later, here we are and the Liberals have finally seen reason and accepted that there is a need for action. However, as usual, it is a little slow, just as it was too slow for many seniors who were seeing their GIS clawed back. They had the audacity to accept the government at its word and apply to the CERB program they qualified for when they lost their jobs during the pandemic and needed the supplementary income. They then saw their incomes clawed back the following year.
We could see it from July 2020. It was coming like a slow train wreck. The government knew about it and did not act on it, and I think it knew as early as May 2021. Members will forgive me if I am wrong, as it was a little while ago and a lot of water has passed under the bridge, but I believe that to be the case. It was not until this year that they finally implemented a solution for that. Of course, we know that unfortunately some seniors took their lives in the meantime because they could not see a future for themselves and could not contemplate pitching a tent in a park and living there in the winter in Winnipeg in January.
This is a government that I think has been far too slow to act when it comes to helping people. However, there are solutions if we are intentional and if we do not rule out the very real and positive role that the public sector can play not just in times of need, but in structuring our economy so that we do not find ourselves in these kinds of crises, whether it is the housing crisis or other ones.
Employment insurance is something I love to talk about. Perhaps I will get a chance to do so during questions and answers. The government is reverting to the old EI system, even though that was always a disaster. The new system has been working better, although it is not great, but that is another place where the planning has not been put in place. Instead, we have actually gotten a lot of what the member for Carleton calls for, which is a hands-off attitude from the government and pretty well letting the market reign when it comes to these things. That is part of how we got here and that is why we need a different approach. This is a small down payment. Let us get it done quickly.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to what the member was saying, particularly when he was talking about housing. A lot has been coming from the other side of the House on this, particularly from the Leader of the Opposition, who talked about gatekeepers. He seems to focus a lot on these gatekeepers at the municipal level that are preventing development from happening, as if that is the golden ticket to the housing crisis we have now. I do not believe it is, and I am curious if the member can comment on that.
I would also like to hear the member's thoughts on co-operative housing. He mentioned it in his speech and offered it as one solution. It is a solution that, at least as I have seen in my riding, can be very effective at getting tenants and those who are in co-operatives to genuinely participate in the organization. It becomes a sense of pride and ownership to participate in that.
I wonder if he could comment on whether or not that is his preferred model of affordable housing when it is being built or if he envisions something different.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the points I was trying to make and I hope came across is that the member for Carleton has been a gatekeeper himself. When an important decision came up about maintaining affordable and social housing and continuing to make it available for people who needed it and who otherwise would be on the street, he chose to cut government funding to those very housing projects and allow big economic players to swoop in, buy those units, renovate and evict, or renovict, those tenants, jack up the rent and make a killing. That is part of the culture that has only accelerated in the pandemic years.
We know what this guy is like. We saw what he did when he had his hand on the lever. He decided to let those big players in to essentially dine out on the housing that had been built in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and make huge profits instead of preserving that housing for the people it was built for who actually needed it.
I would be happy to talk a little about co-operative housing another time. I see the Speaker is anxious to get to the next question.
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- Sep/22/22 5:51:01 p.m.
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It is just me being the keeper of the gate.
The hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.
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