SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 105 - Sep/29/22

Sep/29/22 3:12:21 p.m.
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I am going to take a deep breath and remind all members to please, when they are addressing each other, address each other with respect, regardless of what is done to them or what is said. We want to keep as much decorum and respect in the chamber as possible. I also want to remind hon. members that when somebody is asking a question or answering, they should not shout them down. That is not a polite way of acting. There are two apologies that should come out of that, but I am not going to touch either one of them. We will continue. The opposition House leader has a question.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer (House leader of the official opposition, CPC)

Sep/29/22 3:13:21 p.m.
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I have a very important question, Mr. Speaker. Can the hon. government House leader update the House as to the business of the House for next week? I will point out that when the House leaders were given the calendar for next week, there were a couple of open days. I will make the suggestion, as the government House leader prepares his response to this question, that either one of those empty days would be a perfect opportunity for a piece of legislation to cancel the tripling of the Liberal carbon tax.

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Hon. Mark Holland (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Sep/29/22 3:13:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, before I begin, let me thank the member opposite and all Conservative members for their support in advancing Bill C-30, which is critical support at this time on the issue of affordability. I want to thank them for helping to move it to committee and for their work to move it through committee. It will be our priority next week to ensure that those critical supports are passed. In response to the question of whether we will cease taking action on climate change, I note we will never stop fighting for this planet. We recognize that the climate and the economy are intricately bound. However, I would suggest, as my hon. colleague has suggested, that we have critical supports for vulnerable people. An example is Bill C-22. It needs to be adopted so that those who are disabled in this country can be lifted out of poverty. I would suggest there are families that need dental care, and that is covered in Bill C-31. I would suggest there are people who need support on housing, and that is also covered in Bill C-31. The good news for the member opposite is there are many ways he can help as we work through the affordability crisis that is hitting across the globe. On Monday, we are going to continue with second reading of Bill C-31, which I referenced earlier. It is an act respecting the cost-of-living relief measures related to dental care and rental housing. On Wednesday, we will call Bill S-5 concerning the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I would also like to inform the House that next Thursday shall be an allotted day.

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Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, BQ)

Sep/29/22 3:15:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, during Statements by Members, just before Oral Questions, the member for Nunavut made her statement in her mother tongue. Her statement must have been very interesting, but, unfortunately, I was unable to understand what she was saying. There was English interpretation, but not French. I deplore this situation, and I hope it will be fixed before next time. I believe that my privilege was infringed, as was the privilege of many other members.

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The Speaker

Sep/29/22 3:16:14 p.m.
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I would like to thank the hon. member for his intervention. We will look into what happened, and we hope to fix it for the next time. I thank the member for pointing this out.

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

Sep/29/22 3:16:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I spent eight minutes prior to question period trying to inform the Conservatives that inflation was a global issue. However, it did not seem to resonate with them, because they spent the entire question period talking about “Liberal” inflation and inflation as though it were a problem unique to Canada. The reality of the situation, which I honestly believe the vast majority of Canadians understand, is that inflation is a problem happening throughout the world right now. It is not going to be dealt with by using cheap antics, like the Leader of the Opposition buying a shawarma with Bitcoin, which would have cost him the equivalent of $10 Canadian in March and would cost him $22.35 today. The reality of the situation is that we are going to deal with inflation and the effects it is having on Canadians by working with Canadians, by bringing supports to Canadians and by introducing numerous pieces of legislation. As the House leader indicated just moments ago, we will be focused on them next week and in the weeks to come. The Conservatives have an opportunity here. They can be onside with the rest of the House and work together with us to support Canadians, or they can continue the games and antics that we have been seeing up to this point. I think it goes without saying that I certainly will not be supporting the motion put forward by the Conservatives today. I really hope they have an opportunity to reflect on their role in this House and will start bringing forward issues, policies, ideas and motions that will genuinely have an impact on the lives of Canadians.

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Mr. Michael Coteau (Don Valley East, Lib.)

Sep/29/22 3:18:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, does the member believe that there are initiatives being proposed by the government that will help mitigate the rising daily costs for people in his community and for Canadians as a whole? What types of initiatives can we offer Canadians to help mitigate some of those costs?

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Sep/29/22 3:19:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I absolutely do. We can look at the initiative that this government has brought forward with respect to increasing the GST rebate for six months. On that issue, I heard Conservative members early on in the debate talk about the inflationary impacts, yet if we talk to any economist out there, they will report back that the inflationary impacts of that particular program are next to nil. It will not have an impact on inflation. While the Conservatives continue to try to scare Canadians into trying to support them, as we have seen day after day, we will be focused on providing supports for Canadians that will have a genuine impact on their lives so that we can help them get through this time of inflationary impacts we are seeing throughout the world.

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Mr. Warren Steinley (Regina—Lewvan, CPC)

Sep/29/22 3:20:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy join in the debate. Does the member not realize that tripling the carbon tax will have a disastrous effect on the most vulnerable in our society? I get emails from people all the time who are now going to food banks. Food bank use has more than tripled in many cities across the country. With this carbon tax increasing by three times to $170 a tonne by 2030, does he really not think that it is going to have a cascading effect on the affordability crisis, which has been created by inflation and by the Liberals?

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Sep/29/22 3:20:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Regina—Lewvan for taking one for the team, because it appears as though no other Conservative wanted to get up to ask me a question. I appreciate him doing that. Nonetheless, once again, he referred to it as “Liberal” inflation. It is global inflation, and out of the G7 countries, we are the third lowest in terms of the inflationary measure. How the Conservatives can get up time and time again to talk about inflation as though it is a problem unique to Canada absolutely gets me. By the way, as a piece of advice for them, the vast majority of Canadians realize this. I do not know who they think they are speaking to when they continually repeat that over and over, but Canadians do not believe what they are saying. The member asked me specifically about the price on pollution, or the carbon tax, as he refers to it. What the Conservatives continually leave out of that discussion is the fact that Canadians get back, through the climate action incentive rebate, the price they pay into it. By the way, the only provinces that are impacted by that price on pollution are the provinces that have not stepped up to do their part. Unfortunately, the province I live in, Ontario, is one of them. However, members can look at British Columbia, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, which all have programs in place and as a result do not have a price on pollution.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

Sep/29/22 3:22:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think we agree on the fact that the Conservatives' motion is completely out of touch with reality. The Conservatives are conflating premiums, social programs, retirement investments and taxes. On the subject of taxes, is it not true that the Liberals are lagging behind and that they are not getting on with taxing the superrich, billionaires, CEOs, all the major oil companies and grocery chains that are using global inflation as a pretext to hike prices and line their pockets? When will the Liberals do something about this?

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Sep/29/22 3:22:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not disagree with the sentiment of the comment. As a matter of fact, I had a great conversation with the member for Kitchener Centre earlier today about this exact issue and about the fact that perhaps we should be looking toward oil companies, which are receiving record-high profits right now, as an opportunity to bring in taxes, similar to what we did for big banks and other organizations. I respect the question by the member from the NDP. He suggests that perhaps it is taking too long. I will not necessarily disagree with him on that, but I hope that the NDP and the Liberals can work together, because it is clear that some of the other parties are not interested in making sure that policies like that are put in place.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)

Sep/29/22 3:23:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it will be my absolute pleasure to split my time with the great member for Thornhill. It an honour to be in the House today to address the affordability crisis that is gripping Canadians across our land, from coast to coast to coast, including in my great riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South. Milton Friedman once said, “Many people want the government to protect the consumer [but the] much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.” This is particularly true today, as the Liberal government is driving up the cost of living. For two years now, the Conservative leader has been pushing the government to put people first and to start fighting inflation. However, inflation continues to rise, at this point, over 7%. Canadians are feeling that pain. Today, I am honoured to call on the government, along with the rest of my colleagues, to scrap its planned tax increases, including the payroll tax hikes slated for January 1, and the tax hike on gas, groceries and home heating scheduled for this April. To give some context to the opposition motion, I think it is important to understand the relationship between the government and the economy. A fundamental principle, which must be the bedrock of all political discussions of the economy, is the indisputable fact that wealth or prosperity is created by the businesses and workers of our communities. It is through the production of goods and the delivery of services that a country adds value to the economy. When the country increases its ability to produce goods or to deliver a service, or, in other words, enhances its productivity, that country, by definition, becomes wealthier and its people more prosperous. A country can temporarily and artificially increase its economic performance through the printing of money or quantitative easing. However, this is always short-lived, and the consequences are nearly always worse than the initial increase in improvement in the economic times. What happens with this government spending, is that some of it wasted, of course, but some of it hits Canadians' bank accounts. When this money hits the bank accounts, what happens to that money is that, by the time it is available to be spent, the cost of everything has increased. The illusion of the windfall is quickly taken away, and we see we are left with nothing but inflation. The true path to a more prosperous nation, a wealthier Canada, a more successful Canada, is through productivity. In fact, enhancing productivity is really the only way that this affordability crisis will be cured. When we improve productivity, we increase real wages. We increase real profits, and we create jobs. Unfortunately, the government appears to be doing everything it can to reduce the productivity of Canadians. There are at least three significant policy directions that the government must reverse course on if it really is serious about tackling the affordability crisis. The government must cap its spending. Excessive spending is eventually paid for either through taxation or inflation, which reduces the ability of our productive sector to make things competitively, be profitable and be prosperous. Worse yet, it continues to drive inflation. Who ultimately pays the cost of inflation? It is not the wealthy in our communities. It is not the super rich. It is not the government. It is our workers, our workers who are going out there. I ask members to think of the worker who is earning $50,000 a year. They are already subject to a high rate of taxation. Now, they have seen inflation eat thousands of dollars away from their real buying power. These are people who are already struggling to get by. Thomas Sowell famously wrote that inflation is one of the biggest and oldest forms of taxation. The effect of our government's overspending is to starve the productive sector, or the private sector, of resources. Those resources are needed. If one listens to my friends in the NDP, one will hear them say that those monies are just wasted on yachts and wealthy billionaires, and I am sure there is probably some of that. The reality is that the majority of that money is invested back into businesses. Right now we are starving Canadian businesses of the ability to reinvest. We are dead last in the OECD in capital investment. For every dollar that the U.S. invests in capital investments, we are investing 43¢. That is the money that is building our businesses in the future. These are the dollars that will make us competitive in the future. We are losing ground at a tremendous rate every single day. That will make our economy less productive and every worker less effective. It will impoverish our country today, as well as tomorrow. The government must commit to no further tax increases. Tax increases, and it is simple and as plain as day, by very definition, increase costs for workers and for consumers. That will drive inflation. In fact, do not take my word for it. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to ask questions of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem. I asked him if the carbon tax was a driver of inflation and he unequivocally agreed. In fact, he said that it was a significant driver of inflation. I think all sides of the House would acknowledge that we are in an affordability crisis. We are at really high rate of inflation and that is making life more difficult for Canadians. We would think the Liberal government would understand that the carbon tax at its current rate is driving inflation, so it should pause the carbon tax or maybe reduce it, but the government is taking the unthinkable action of tripling the carbon tax, which the Governor of the Bank of Canada has already said is fuelling the fire of inflation. Now it is going to triple it. It is really unthinkable. Further, with every new tax increase, we are taking away the rewards and incentives of hard work. When entrepreneurs go out and put their whole lives on the line, risking their homes and families' futures, they need to be rewarded. When those workers work 20 out of 24 hours to ensure their families are fed at the end of the month, they should be rewarded for it, and they need to be incentivized. Because of our progressive tax systems and the clawbacks that exist in our current system, middle-class wage earners, and even low-income Canadians, are facing income tax rates of 30%, 40% or 50%. It is not fair that Canadians who are working the hardest should have to pay an exorbitant amount of taxes. This is really unconscionable. Once again, what has been our Liberal government's response to that? It is going to increase taxes. The Liberals are going to dramatically increase the payroll taxes. This is not fair to Canadians. It also is detrimental to our economy. If we take away the rewards, the very dollars that people have worked so hard for, we reduce the incentive and the rewards for which these people have worked so hard. Finally, we need to invest in those sectors of the economy that are extremely productive. We have a huge productivity gap. Productivity is measured by the contribution to the GDP per hour worked. Currently, Canada is at $50. Contrast that to Switzerland at $60; the United States at $65; and Ireland at $85. However, we do have sectors in the economy that are doing exceptionally well. In the oil and gas extraction sector it is at $664 per hour. To make life more affordable for Canadians, we need Canadian energy. It is inescapable that we are all dealing with the consequences of these failed Liberal economic policies. Perhaps no problem is as pressing as food inflation. This is creating challenges for Canadians from coast to coast. According to Statistics Canada, 20% of Canadians are utilizing food banks. Life is getting more challenging for Canadians. Many are experiencing these incredibly difficult economic challenges: inflation is at near highs, rising interest rates and punitive rates of taxation. The government, however, has the opportunity to reduce people's pain, to give them some hope by cancelling their proposed and planned tax increases on gas, home heating and groceries as well as on paycheques. It is time that the government stops blindly following its ideology and actually help Canadians by cancelling its proposed tax hikes.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Sep/29/22 3:33:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives consistently talk about getting rid of the price on pollution. In Winnipeg North, 80% of the constituents who I represent have a net gain. They are receiving more money because of the price on pollution and the credit that follows, yet the Conservatives try to give the impression that the residents of Winnipeg North are being financially penalized. How would the member justify telling this to Canadians who are affected by the price on pollution, such as in Ontario and the prairie provinces? Those are the provinces where there is the federal price on pollution, yet they are receiving 80% more money than they are contributing. How would he square that?

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

Sep/29/22 3:34:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would not take a politician's word for it, but I would take that of the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has said that 60% of Canadians pay more in carbon tax than they receive in rebates. Quite frankly, that is the experience of those in my riding. I can tell the residents of Winnipeg North that, if we were to form government, we would reduce their burdens. We would truly have their backs and get the Liberals' hands out of their pockets.

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (Terrebonne, BQ)

Sep/29/22 3:35:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I would appreciate an answer to my question. As I said in my speech this morning, I am surprised that the Conservative Party does not have more to say about the free market. We know that businesses are charging way too much and that the existence of oligopolies and monopolies has a huge impact on consumers. We know that this is a problem. Yes, inflation is having an impact on the marketplace, but why target taxes when we could address free market issues directly and strengthen the Competition Bureau?

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

Sep/29/22 3:35:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I very much enjoyed working on the public accounts committee with the member. I always found her thoughtful. I will say that, from Milton Friedman to Thomas Sowell, it is clear from history that, throughout the numerous inflation crises this world has experienced, including the last one under Pierre Elliott Trudeau, it is nearly always a government issue, either because it was printing too much money or taxing too much money. In this case, the government is doing both.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Sep/29/22 3:36:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South is quite concerned with the carbon tax. It is recognized by leading economists as the most efficient way to act on the climate crisis. It went up by just 2.2¢ this past year. Meanwhile, the federal government has announced a new $8.6-billion tax credit for carbon capture and storage, a technology that has led to increased emissions 32 of the 40 times it has been implemented around the world. Is the member not similarly concerned about this amount of public funding going to carbon capture? Would he not want to see that go toward proven climate solutions?

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

Sep/29/22 3:37:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am mindful of the public accounts committee where I asked the environment commissioner if the government had hit one single emissions target. The answer was a clear no. What is the signature policy of the Liberals to get emissions down? It is the carbon tax. The proof is that this policy is failing.

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Mr. Fraser Tolmie (Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, CPC)

Sep/29/22 3:37:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find it very amusing that the member from the Green Party would say that they can solve a crisis by creating another crisis, a financial crisis. I would ask my colleague what his thoughts are on the tripling of the carbon tax when, on top of that tax, most people are also paying GST. What would he say about that?

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