44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 4, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I do not mind heckling at all. They can go ahead all they want. At the end of the day, the member for Abbotsford was right, and he knows he was right. Unfortunately there was a cost, but I will leave that for another day. I do respect that, on that particular occasion, he was right.
However, we have to remember that the Conservative leader was telling people that the governor of the Bank of Canada was bad and that he would fire him. He was advising Canadians to buy cryptocurrency. I wonder if any Conservative members of Parliament bought cryptocurrency. Could all those who bought cryptocurrency please put up a hand? After all, no doubt they would want to impress their leader. I wonder how many of them actually followed the advice of the member for Carleton, today's leader of the Conservative Party.
An hon. member: The member for Abbotsford did not.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, no, the member for Abbotsford would not have done that. I agree. Having said that, we can imagine those individuals who did. It is somewhat sad, because many people we represent have confidence in what they are hearing. With a leadership candidate going around saying, “Invest in cryptocurrency”, I suspect many Canadians did just that.
Unfortunately those who followed that advice lost a great deal of money. I think a conservative estimate would be at least 20%, some might even say it is considerably higher than that. My colleague suggests it might be much higher.
The bottom line is that that is the type of economic advice that was being provided, but it does not stop there. Let us remember that the initial response from the Conservative Party to Bill C-30, the bill we are actually debating today, was to not support it. I like to think that the response received by the Conservative Party over a few days ultimately caused them to change their mind, and I am glad they did because it is good legislation.
However, initially they were not going to support it. In part, it was because the Conservative Party feels that everything involving a collection of money from Canadians is called a tax, as a member across the way suggests. It is such a sad statement, and I will give two examples of that shortly. I do believe the Conservatives were shamed into supporting Bill C-30. I would like to see them do the same thing for Bill C-31.
If Conservatives support the children they represent in their constituencies who are under the age of 12 and who do not have dental plans being able to access dental services, they should be supporting Bill C-31, not filibustering. That is how children would receive the dental services they need. Many of those children who do not receive dental services often end up in a hospital situation, getting surgery for things that could have been prevented. That is what Bill C-31 would do, not to mention also supporting renters by giving them payments.
However, the Conservatives do not want to support that. They say it is about taxes, and I said there is a couple of issues I want to raise on that particular front. A number of years ago, when I was in opposition, I used to be fairly disappointed in Stephen Harper not recognizing the importance of CPP. CPP is an investment, not a tax. The Conservatives would argue today, as they did from their seats, that CPP is a tax.
Stephen Harper refused to negotiate with and talk to premiers about increasing CPP contributions. When we took government, we worked with all political parties, and provinces and territories, to get an agreement to increase CPP contributions, what the Conservative Party today calls a “tax”. It really is for individuals who are working today to invest in their retirement, so when they do retire, they will have more disposable income.
Only the Conservative Party of Canada, not Conservatives at the provincial level, just the national Conservative Party, does not believe in the importance of CPP and the importance of ensuring that people have more disposable income when it comes time for retirement.
When it comes to taxes, in the Conservative Party we see a party that is in complete disarray. Do members remember when I spoke about flip-flopping? I have referenced the analogy of pulling in a fish and it ending up on the dock, and we see it flip-flop around. That is what I think about when I think about the price on pollution and the Conservative Party of Canada. Again, it really does stand alone.
Back in 2015 and 2016, governments around the world, with the Paris Accord, came together and said that we need to deal with the environment, and one of the best ways to deal with the environment was to deal with the price on pollution as a policy tool that would have a real impact. At the time when the accord was reached, and the Prime Minister, along with a delegation from different provinces, came back from Paris, there was a great deal of enthusiasm about it. It was only the Conservative Party here in the chamber that was negative toward it.
The Conservatives had had a change in leadership, if members will recall. Shortly after the second change of leadership, the Conservative Party changed its mind, and it was applauded. I believe the record will show I stood up inside the House and complimented the Conservatives for changing their minds on the issue. They, or at least a good number of them, finally recognized that climate change was in fact real and that having a price on pollution was a good thing.
Let us pause to stop and think about that. When we think about that, let us reflect back to a year ago when we were all knocking on doors. It was not that long ago that we were knocking on doors. What was the Conservative Party saying as its members were knocking on doors? The Conservatives were saying that they believed in a price on pollution. The leader at the time insisted that candidates and the Conservative platform would dictate a price on pollution. That has changed once again. There is new leadership and new direction. The climate change deniers are prevailing, and we now have the leader of the official opposition saying, “No, we are going to get rid of the price on pollution”, or the carbon tax, as he refers to it.
Let us remember that the federal carbon tax is only applied Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Is the federal Conservative Party now going to go into the provinces and say to the other provinces that do not have the national program and that they are going to get rid of any price on pollution? I would be interested in seeing the negotiations that would take place about that. Is the Conservative Party saying only some parts of Canada should have a price on pollution?
This is the reason I look at Bill C-30 as a positive step. It is an encouraging thing to see Conservatives change their minds and support Bill C-30. I applaud that. I would like them to revisit a number of the issues I have pointed out that continue to support Canadians in a very real and tangible way. One of the things they can do, and I will conclude my remarks on this, is not only support Bill C-30 but also support Bill C-31. They should do it for the individuals who need that rent subsidy and the children under the age of 12 who need the dental insurance.
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Mr. Speaker, there is one thing the Conservative Party suggested to counter inflation: cryptocurrency. We learned in a recent Privy Council backgrounder that cryptocurrency offers no protection against inflationary shocks.
This summer, cryptocurrency lost half of its value compared with the beginning of last year. I would like my colleague to explain why it is that his leader, the hon. member for Carleton, claims that cryptocurrency protects against inflation. Specifically, I would like to know whether my colleague really believes that cryptocurrency is protected from surges in inflation.
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Mr. Speaker, I follow some of the financial markets, like my fellow colleague. I am not sure that members of the Conservative Party have said that cryptocurrency is going to solve inflation. If we say that Canada should be a destination for fintech revolution, I would welcome that.
Let us remember what is happening around the world and why some people use cryptocurrency. We can look at countries like Venezuela and Argentina where inflation is incredible. Those people have turned to cryptoassets as a hedge against inflation. Yes, the amount has come down in some cases by 10% or 20% or even 30%, but if we look at what is happening to inflation in those countries we see that those people are losing purchasing power at upward of 50% in some years.
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about crypto, since we are on the topic.
With regard to the member for Simcoe North, I found it just astounding when, moments ago in the House, the Bloc Québécois member asked him a very good question about his party's position on crypto. I want to thank the member for Simcoe North for doing what I have been asking the Leader of the Opposition to do for a long time, which was to explain the Conservatives' policy on cryptocurrency.
Instead of completely avoiding the question from the member from the Bloc, the member for Simcoe North tried to address it, which I think was very admirable of him.
What did he say? He basically said this: First of all, he compared Canada to Venezuela, saying that, well, if we look at countries like Venezuela, people have decided to hedge their bets against their currency by investing in cryptocurrency.
Can we extrapolate, then, the objective of the Leader of the Opposition? When he made those comments months ago about cryptocurrency, he was basically telling the Canadian people to not trust the Canadian dollar and to put their money into cryptocurrency and bet against the Canadian dollar. That is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition was doing.
I hand it to the member for Simcoe North for actually standing up and saying what he thinks, because the rest of them would not do it.
This is what we are seeing, so now we get to start to understand a bit of the picture of what is going on. We have the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the leader of the official opposition, the individual whom I crown as the king of cryptocurrency, in the House, in public, telling Canadians—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, nobody is more egregious with regard to calling people names based on actions that they do than the leader of the official opposition during his 22 years or however long he has been in the House.
Nonetheless, the reality is that what we discovered in the House today, thanks to the member for Simcoe North, is that the Conservatives are actively encouraging Canadians to hedge against the Canadian dollar by investing in cryptocurrency.
I do not think this is responsible for any member of Parliament to do, let alone the leader of the official opposition in the House.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his timely comments about the need for this legislation and how it is going to help hard-working Canadians who are suffering as a result of inflation.
I have also heard from a lot of people who took the advice of the Leader of the Opposition on cryptocurrency because somehow they thought it was a legitimate way of investing their money. They have, unfortunately, lost a lot of money.
Can the member for Kingston and the Islands tell us why that advice was so dangerous and how it has impacted the lives of so many Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, I would note, for starters, that this is the second time in a row that I have given a speech and both this time and the last time I spoke, no Conservative got up to ask me a question. As we know, the first opportunity to ask a question goes to the Conservatives. I just want them to know that I certainly take that as a compliment.
To the question that the member asked me about those who may have taken the advice, the Leader of the Opposition is seemingly unaware of the fact that his words have consequences. When he says something in the position that he is in or in the position that he was seeking to be in at the time, people will listen.
Those who did listen to him and chose to invest in cryptocurrency at the time will have seen their life savings absolutely diminish, and he does not recognize that his words can transpire into those actual actions, but it does happen.
For those who did take his advice and invest, I feel sorry that they were put in that position, and I deeply regret that the Leader of the Opposition, who was at the time the candidate seeking to be the leader, made those comments.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's candour. She certainly speaks with passion, and sometimes I wish I could use language like that in here too, even if just accidentally.
My question is in relation to the member's private member's bill. This member has a private member's bill on cryptocurrency. We were actually supposed to debate it the first day that the House resumed, and for some reason we did not. It got bumped.
I understand that the member's private member's bill on cryptocurrency is coming up in the next couple of days. I wonder if she could provide some insight into what her bill is about, to inform the House.
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