44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 4, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order in response to the Speaker's statement on September 26 statement respecting the need for a royal recommendation for Bill C-285, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act, sponsored by the member for Niagara West.
Without commenting on the merits of the bill, I suggest that the provisions in the bill to amend the Employment Insurance Act provide for an exemption for disqualification or disentitlement for employment insurance benefits. This proposed amendment to the Employment Insurance Act would seek to authorize a new and distinct charge on the consolidated revenue fund that is not authorized in statute. In instances when there is no existing statute or appropriation to cover a new and distinct charge, a royal recommendation is, in fact, required.
The provisions of the bill amending the Employment Insurance Act would provide for an exception for claimants to receive employment insurance benefits if they lost their employment for the sole reason that they made certain decisions in relation to their health. This proposed amendment to section 35.1 of the act is linked to sections 30 to 33, which provide for situations in which claimants are disqualified or disentitled from receiving employment insurance benefits. In other words, the provisions in the bill would entitle a claimant to receive employment insurance benefits in a manner and for purposes not currently authorized by the act.
The royal recommendation fixes not only the maximum charge on the consolidated revenue fund, but also the objects, purposes, conditions and qualifications of provisions subject to the royal recommendation.
Speakers have consistently ruled that bills seeking to change the qualifications or alter the conditions for employment insurance benefits need to be accompanied by a royal recommendation. Let me draw to the attention of members a few germane rulings on this matter.
On April 22, 2009, the Deputy Speaker ruled on Bill C-241, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (removal of waiting period). The Deputy Speaker stated:
[T]he chair is of the opinion that the provisions of Bill C-241 would authorize a new and distinct charge on the public treasury. Since such spending is not covered by the terms of any existing appropriation, I will therefore decline to put the question on third reading of this bill in its present form....
On June 3, 2009, the Speaker ruled on Bill C-280, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (qualification for and entitlement to benefits). In a ruling, the Deputy Speaker stated:
On March 23, 2007, in a ruling on Bill C-265, on page 7845 of the Debates, the Chair had concluded that:
It is abundantly clear to the Chair that such changes to the employment insurance program, notwithstanding the fact that workers and employers contribute to it, would have the effect of authorizing increased expenditures from the Consolidated Revenue Fund in a manner and for purposes not currently authorized.
Therefore, it appears to the Chair that those provisions of the bill which relate to increasing Employment Insurance benefits and easing the qualifications required to obtain them would require a royal recommendation.
Having heard no new compelling argument to reach a conclusion that is different than the one concerning Bill C-265, I will decline to put the question on third reading of Bill C-280 in its present form unless a royal recommendation is received.
As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states on page 772:
Since an amendment may not infringe upon the financial initiative of the Crown, it is inadmissible if it imposes a charge on the public treasury, or if it extends the objects or purposes or relaxes the conditions and qualifications specified in the royal recommendation.
A royal recommendation may be obtained by a minister of the Crown only on the advice of the Governor General. In the absence of a royal recommendation, Bill C-285 may proceed through the legislative process in the House up until the end of the debate at third reading. In cases in which the Speaker has ruled that a royal recommendation is required and it has not been provided before the third reading vote, the Speaker has refused to put the question at third reading and ordered the bill discharged from the Order Paper.
I submit that this is the case before you with respect to Bill C-285. Precedence clearly suggests that a bill that seeks to incur new and distinct expenditures from the consolidated revenue fund, in a manner and for purposes not currently authorized, requires a royal assent recommendation.
I thank you for your patience and for allowing me to speak in this forum.
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I appreciate the information the hon. member has provided and will certainly take it under advisement.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to advise the House that we would like to reserve our right to respond to this point of order at a later time.
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- Oct/4/22 4:45:13 p.m.
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Order.
It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Service Canada; the hon. member for Vancouver East, Housing; the hon. member for Spadina—Fort York, Post-Secondary Education.
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Madam Speaker, not 10 days ago I spoke at second reading to Bill C-30. In fact, it was the deputy government House leader who asked me at that time to compare Canada to the rest of the world in terms of economic performance. I told him that Canada's record should be able to stand on its own and that he and his government should not continue to push up inflationary spending.
I have good news, and that is that I am not alone in my thinking. As of yesterday, an article by Diane Francis was published, and it reads, “Canada need only look to Australia to see how badly Liberals have messed up”.
I am going to quote from this article. It says:
The current government is economically illiterate and the result is the country is slowly sinking in the rankings of most economic metrics among the world’s developed nations who are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development...An OECD report from October 2021 predicts, according to Business Council of British Columbia commentary, that Canada “will be the worst performing advanced economy over 2020 to 2030.” It also forecasts that Canada will have the worst economic growth among advanced economies over—
Wait for it.
—2030 to 2060. “In other words, Canada will be dead last not only for the next decade, but also for the three decades after that.”
Canada's former central bank chief, Stephen Poloz, at the recent Global Business Forum in Banff, said that Canada is a chronic underachiever, a condition caused by poor political decisions and the failure to address unresolved issues.
He also went on to say, “We get in our own way.”
We get in our own way. What is he really saying? I believe he is saying: “Government, get out of the way.”
He went on to list a few problems. He started by indicating “a political quagmire that requires a crisis to make decisions”. For example, I have this article here that states that the transport minister knew in May 2021 that the “federal airport security [workforce] was short-staffed by [up to] 25%, according to a briefing note”.
At the time, he blamed airport delays on Canadians who were eager to travel. The article continues:
In a May 13 briefing note titled “Airport and Flight Delays”, staff told [the minister] that the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority...was [short] a quarter of its employees due to layoffs during COVID.
“The Authority retained 75 percent of its workforce during the pandemic to assist with recovery,” wrote staff. “Screening contractors called back all available personnel in preparation for the summer peak.”
Here was an example where we had a political quagmire that required a crisis to make a decision.
Mr. Poloz went on to cite “layers of regulation”. I have here an example in which the National Capital Commission decided not to grant a permit for a lemonade stand as a result of regulation:
In 2016, those regulations were the basis for which the Crown Corporation shut down a lemonade stand operated by seven- and five-year-old sisters—
It is unbelievable.
—on NCC property in Ottawa. Their transgression: the girls had failed to acquire a $1,500-per-day permit from the NCC. The incident garnered Canada-wide media coverage and the NCC quickly apologized and backtracked, allowing the children to resume selling lemonade the next weekend. To avoid similar incidents, the NCC developed a special permit for the following summer that would allow kids to sell lemonade or other goods on specific NCC property during nine Sundays. The new permit had 15 requirements, including but not limited to a requirement for bilingual signage, stand size restrictions, adherence to municipal and provincial health and safety regulations, an indemnification clause, and reporting of all revenues to the NCC.
This was for a lemonade stand.
These are layers of regulation from the government that are causing problems here.
Next in the list was “permit and consultation that take ages to complete”. Well, the Trans Mountain pipeline comes to mind, and Mr. Poloz also noted that “Canada is one of the most highly taxed economies on earth, which is discouraging”.
I have some information on that. G20 countries with a lower tax rate than Canada include Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil, India and Indonesia. This is the company that the current government is keeping at this time.
As well, Mr. Poloz's final comment was on “interprovincial barriers that cost four per cent a year in GDP alone to Canada”. In fact, a study done by Deloitte indicates that, by removing current interprovincial taxes, which remain unfixed by the government, “average Canadian wages would climb by 5.5%”—if the government would address this—“resulting in a 5% increase in household income and more than $2,100 in real GDP per person. Corporate profits”—which I know the NDP does not like—“would increase by 2%.”
All of these actions result in Canada not living up to its economic potential, but the sad thing is that this does not simply rest with numbers and the economy alone. These numbers have real effects on people, as is evidenced by the article by Alicja Siekierska on an MNP survey, which says, “Canadians are finding it more difficult to pay for food, housing and transportation and nearly half are on the brink of insolvency as rising interest rates and soaring inflation continue to weigh on household budgets.”
I hear this from my constituents in Calgary Midnapore all the time. Gregory writes:
I would like to express further concern regarding our family's electricity and gas bill. It has skyrocketed—
Perhaps it has tripled.
—while our usage has remained the same...We have no option other than to pay, as we can't let our children freeze in the winter, but we cannot afford this dramatically rising cost. Please use your influence to fight for a regulation of this industry to bring the cost down.
Thank you for your efforts on our behalf. We are growing increasingly horrified by our federal government and appreciate your efforts to stand up for us.
From Alicja Siekierska's article, the MNP survey:
also found that 45 per cent of respondents say it’s becoming less affordable to pay for transportation, up nine percentage points from last year, and another 45 per cent say it is becoming more difficult to pay for clothing and other household necessities, an increase of five percentage points from last year. Paying for housing is also a challenge for many Canadians, with 37 per cent saying it is becoming less affordable....
At the same time, Canadians are finding it more difficult to save. The survey found that 49 per cent say it’s becoming less affordable to put money aside for savings, up five percentage points from last year.
Canadians, as the Conservative leader has pointed out, are putting more of their paycheques toward paying for basic necessities as the cost of living rises, which is, in turn, leaving less of a financial buffer to manage the impacts of current and potential future interest rate hikes. Again I hear from my constituents about this. Cindy wrote that she is worried about supply chains, “This is directly impacting our jobs and has been for 12+ months now.” The government has had lots of time to respond to this as well. She continues, “The impact of supply chain issues is going to become such a global tragedy very soon.”
As for the rising cost of living, she lists exactly the things we have been talking about in the House, “Heating, gas, food, housing — all four areas are of concern for our home. The increase in overall federal tax is criminal. They have misspent billions of taxpayer dollars and it is a feeling of helplessness to the average Canadian.” Regarding a “tax on sale of home”, she says, “Again, this is criminal for the federal government to even consider this as an option”—which it has flirted with doing—“due to their lack of fiscal management. Someone has to stop these decisions.”
I can say that my Conservative colleagues and I are here to stop these decisions. Along with Diane Francis, Alicja Siekierska, and my constituents Gregory and Cindy, we say to the Liberal government, “Government, get out of the way.”
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Madam Speaker, I must admit that I found it very shocking to hear that somebody would be told that they have to shut down a lemonade stand. I googled it and in fact the member is right. Back in 2016, there were two 11-year-old sisters who set up a lemonade stand and made $52 in less than two hours before a cyclist stopped to tell them they were not allowed to be doing that. Then, of course, as she said shortly thereafter, somebody from the NCR showed up and told them they had to stop. It is ludicrous that would happen. When young kids are trying to pursue an entrepreneurial spirit like that, I would agree completely.
However, is the member aware that this happened in 2016? The government was elected in the fall of 2015. Does the member think that this government, on day one, instituted rules with the National Capital Commission that prevented the ability to sell lemonade, or perhaps would there have been an opportunity in the preceding 10 years with the previous government to do something about it?
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Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to correct the member for Kingston and the Islands. It is the NCC, not the NCR, and they were seven and five years old, not two 11-year-olds.
On that point, I will say that this is the mentality of the Liberal government: It wants to keep the Canadian people down. It wants to control the Canadian people by taxing them to death and by taking $1,000 and giving them two dollars back. We are not going to tolerate it. Neither I nor my Conservative colleagues are going to tolerate that, and certainly not under our new leader, the member for Carleton.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my energetic colleague what she thinks about this. The Bloc Québécois proposes to do two things to control the cost of living. First, to help seniors in particular, we want to see no reductions in the guaranteed income supplement for those who received the Canada emergency response benefit or the Canada recovery benefit during the pandemic.
Next, the Bloc Québécois would like to increase old age security to preserve seniors' purchasing power.
What does my colleague think about these two proposals?
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Madam Speaker, I think the Bloc Québécois and we Conservatives care about seniors. It is very clear that the government does not care about seniors.
I think the member has some good ideas, and I am sure we can talk more about how we can work together for seniors, because it is abundantly clear that the government has not done anything for them.
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Madam Speaker, I was interested to hear the member opposite's speech. She talked about comparing Canada to other countries. She read off a number of news articles, and it sparked me to think about articles I have seen recently. One was about how Liz Truss came into power with the Conservative Party in the U.K. with promises of tax cuts, and then miraculously there was this huge U-turn because it crashed the economy into a horrible descent. The next article was about how they were desperately trying to figure out how to save the U.K. economy, and the next one was about how the Labour Party was about 12 points up in the polls because of this disaster with the Conservative Party of the U.K.
In comparison, Conservatives in this country are doing the exact same thing, so I would love to hear her comparison of their plan with that of the U.K. Conservatives.
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Madam Speaker, I am not concerned because, frankly, we are leading the polls. We are rocking the polls, so I think we are doing the right things that Canadians want to see. We are going to continue doing them alongside our new leader, the member for Carleton.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Hamilton Centre.
It is a true pleasure for me to speak to Bill C-30 on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport. For those who need a reminder, Bill C-30 is the legislation that, if passed, would double the goods and services tax credit amounts by 50% for the 2022-23 benefit year and would deliver targeted relief directly to Canadians who need it. It would make life affordable for many Canadians who need this additional support.
We are here for the third reading of this bill in the House of Commons after having considered this legislation at the finance committee yesterday. I am pleased to say that Bill C-30 was passed in record time at the finance committee by all parties. It was good see that there was unanimous approval and support for this bill, and I hope that the opposition parties will consider also supporting our other affordability measures, such as providing a targeted dental benefit and a one-time housing benefit top-up.
As members may know, our federal government has made it very clear that our first order of business for this parliamentary session is to make life more affordable for the Canadians who need it the most. We know that Canadians are feeling the rising cost of living through things like higher food prices and rent, so while inflation is a global challenge caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, Bill C-30 would help families weather its impacts by putting more money back in the pockets of the middle class and those working hard to join it.
By doubling the GST credit for six months, this key piece of legislation would deliver $2.5 billion in additional targeted support to roughly 11 million individuals and families who already receive the tax credit, including about half of Canadian families with children and more than half of Canadian seniors. With Bill C-30, single Canadians without children would receive up to an extra $234, and couples with two children would receive an extra $467 this year. Seniors would receive an extra $225 on average.
Let us take a minute to delve more deeply into some examples of what it would mean for Canadians in real terms for the 2022-23 benefit year. I like giving clear examples because it allows people, not only those in my riding of Davenport, but also Canadians right across the country, to see themselves in some of these profiles.
Under the current GST credit, a single mother with one child and a net income of $30,000 would receive $386.50 for the July through December 2022 period and another $386.50 for the January through June 2023 period. However, with Bill C-30, she would receive an additional $386.50. Therefore, in total, she would be receiving about $1,160 this benefit year through the GST credit, and that would be super helpful for a single mother.
Another example is that under the status quo GST credit, a single senior with $20,000 in net income would be receiving $233.50 for the July through December 2022 period and another $233.50 for the January through June 2023 period. However, with Bill C-30, if it is passed, this senior would receive an additional $233.50. In total, he or she would be receiving about $701 this benefit year through the GST credit.
I will give one more example. Under the present system, a couple with two children and $35,000 in net income would be receiving $467 for the July through December 2022 period and another $467 for the January through June 2023 period. With the temporary doubling of the GST credit amount for six months, this family would receive an additional $467, so in total they would be receiving about $1,401 this benefit year through the GST credit.
What is more, with this change the money would be coming to them through a straightforward process. That is because the extra GST credit amounts would be paid to all current recipients through the existing GST credit system as a one-time lump sum payment before the end of the year. Recipients would not need to apply for the additional payment. They only need to have filed their 2021 tax returns, if they have not already done so, to be able to receive both the current GST credit and the additional payment.
Moreover, Bill C-30 is just one out of two pieces of legislation that we have introduced already in this parliamentary session to make life more affordable for Canadians. The Minister of Health has also introduced Bill C-31, which would provide a Canada dental benefit starting this year. I was very privileged to speak on this bill in the House of Commons last week, because a national dental care benefit is so important to Davenport residents. I want to formally indicate the importance of this legislation passing in the House.
Just to remind everyone, Bill C-31, if passed, would allow families with children under 12 who do not have access to private dental insurance and who have an adjusted net income of less than $90,000 to access direct payments totalling up to $1,300 per child over the next two years, up to $650 per year, to cover dental expenses for the children under 12 years old.
Bill C-31 would also provide a one-time top-up to the Canada housing benefit. This would be available to applicants with an adjusted net income below $35,000 for families or below $20,000 for individuals who pay at least 30% of their income on rent. This means a one-time payment of $500 to 1.8 million Canadian renters who are struggling with the cost of housing.
The bills that we are discussing today, both Bill C-30, very specifically, and, as an aside, Bill C-31, will not solve everything. While they will not solve everything, as our Minister of Finance said yesterday at finance committee, they would provide real support for 11 million Canadian households, for people who really need the help.
It is important to remind the House that there are many other measures that would build on Bill C-30 and Bill C-31, which we have been speaking about today. These include measures like enhancing the Canada workers benefit. This would deliver $1.7 billion in new support to an estimated three million low-income workers this year, with a couple receiving up to $2,400 more and single workers receiving up to $1,200 more. Most recipients have already received this additional support through their 2021 tax refund.
Second, as a result of agreements reached with all 13 provinces and territories, we are also effectively cutting regulated child care fees in half, on average, for families in Canada by the end of this year. This Canada-wide plan means savings for families from $2,610 in Manitoba to $6,000 in British Columbia in 2022, and an average child care fee of just $10 a day for all regulated child care spaces across Canada by 2025-26.
We have also introduced a 10% increase to the old age security pension for seniors 75 years and older, which began in July 2022 and which would provide more than $800 in new support to full pensioners over the first year and increase benefits for more than three million seniors.
We are also providing support for students by doubling the Canada student grant amount until July 2023 and by waiving interest on Canada student loans through to March 2023.
Taken together, our federal government's affordability plan is delivering targeted and fiscally responsible financial support to Canadians who need it the most with particular emphasis on addressing the needs of low-income Canadians who are most exposed to inflation.
We will continue to strike a balance between delivering support, where and when it is needed the most, and maintaining the discipline that has given Canada the strongest fiscal position in the G7.
In conclusion, I know that Canadians are counting on parliamentarians to make the support of Bill C-30 a reality, and I would encourage my colleagues on all sides to support the immediate adoption of Bill C-30, the cost of living relief act, no. 1, so that we could continue to make life more affordable for Canadians who need it the most.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservatives support the tax relief found in Bill C-30 and have been doing our part to be helpful to those Canadians. Our leader has gone throughout this great country and has heard the personal stories from so many people who are suffering right now under incredible taxation and inflation under the current government. I would hope the member would recognize that the same family of four might get $467 from this bill, but they are facing $1,200 in extra food costs alone.
The member's government plans on tripling the carbon tax next year. Does she support the tripling of the carbon tax, which will increase the cost of groceries, gas and home heating, yes or no?
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Madam Speaker, I want to repeat something that a colleague of mine, the hon. member for Burnaby North—Seymour, said in the House of Commons with respect to taxes. When our government lowered the taxes for the middle class twice, the Conservatives voted against it. When we tried to lower the taxes for small businesses, they also voted against it.
He also indicated, and I believe this to be true, that the Conservatives are not friends of the Canadian taxpayer because, when they were in government, they raised taxes on Canadians more than 50 times.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Davenport for her speech on this bill, which seeks to help people.
The government likes to boast about things like helping seniors. I will come back to this, because I was talking about it just this morning with a food bank representative who reminded me how difficult the situation is for seniors. Do we really want to force seniors to line up at food banks?
This bill is only partially helpful at this point. The government boasts about providing help, but it is only helping seniors aged 75 and over. This means that half of seniors are being left behind by this government. Those aged 65 to 74 are being forced to line up at food banks. Is that fair?
This is just the tip of the iceberg, since we know that many seniors are too proud to ask for help. They are at home and suffering. What does the government have to offer people aged 65 to 74?
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question and I truly believe that her concern is genuine.
We very much care about seniors. I believe the doubling of the GST credit will continue to support many seniors. I think if we manage to pass Bill C-31 it will also support seniors through the Canada housing benefit one-time top-up. I think that will be very beneficial for them.
The seniors in my riding of Davenport have already told me that they are excited about a national dental care plan. They know it will not go into effect for them until the end of next year, but they are already excited and very much looking forward to its implementation.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.
There is good news in this bill: the GST credit, the housing benefit and dental care for children this year and for seniors next year. The good thing is that this all came about because the government listened to the NDP's good ideas.
The work of the NDP caucus is what got us to this point. Why stop now when we could go even further and tax the excessive profits that big grocery chains, big oil companies and banks are raking in and use that money to make social programs even better? We could improve health care by creating real universal pharmacare.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the hon. member. I think we work best in this House when we take the best ideas and work together to implement them.
We are absolutely raising corporate income tax by 1.5% on Canada's largest, most profitable banks and insurance companies. We have also introduced a recovery dividend of 15% on the excess profits of those institutions during the COVID pandemic. There are a number of other measures that we are putting in place as well.
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Madam Speaker, while I rise in the House as a New Democrat in support of Bill C-30, I should state from the outset that, even with the emergency cost of living economic supports for Canadians made vulnerable in this economy, what people need most is stable social and economic supports that meaningfully improve their material living conditions, funded by a fair taxation that does not place the burden on a consumer tax that disproportionately impacts low-income and working-class people most. What Canada needs is a fair taxation system that would close corporate loopholes in order to recover the reported $30 billion lost due to corporate tax avoidance.
I should begin, in fairness, by highlighting, for those who are watching this debate tonight, that this bill would double the GST credit and provide $2.5 billion in additional targeted support to roughly 11 million individuals and families who already received the tax credit, including about half of Canadian families with children and more than half of seniors.
I believe this debate on Bill C-30 has made clear that most members, despite their partisan rhetoric, agree this bill offers a temporary reprieve from this greed-filled inflation and its inevitable recession, which will likely be associated with further unemployment. That is what keeps me up at night. It is the insecurity of the precarious workers that is built into this cyclical system and reproduced through these cycles to suppress wages and to force people back into exploitative low-paying jobs.
These attacks on workers are simply explained as profit-maximizing measures by shrewd corporate managers. This is why I believe that while contemplating this bill I should spend some time expanding on the preconditions of the economic system that drove us here.
People in Hamilton Centre are suffering. The vast majority of everyday people are unable to keep up with their monthly bills. Soaring inflation has pushed housing, food and energy costs way out of reach for people, and the feeling of insecurity is setting in across the country. Precarious employment is further punishing workers by threatening their ability to survive through this devastating economy, and wages simply are not keeping pace by being kept at and pushed down to devastatingly low rates. In short, workers' wages are being stolen by the record profits of big corporations and the payouts to their CEOs and shareholders.
Every aspect of our lives has been commodified by big banks and Bay Street. Our very existence is valued down to the decimal to be bought and sold by hedge funds and real estate income trusts so that those who have never lifted a finger in hard work in the creation of the means of production are grossly rewarded by the spoils of these dividends and payouts.
There is a class war happening in this country. There has always been a class war happening in this country, and it is being waged by the ultrarich in this country versus everybody else. Over the past 40 years the Canadian economy, both under Liberal and Conservative governments, has generated obscene amounts of concentrated wealth for the rich, while everybody else has been left behind. How can anyone in the House justify the enormous concentration of wealth by so few, while so many continue to suffer?
These everyday Canadian workers are facing down the barrel of another devastating recession, one that we know will be felt most by the rise of unemployment and the overnight hikes of interest rates, making people's payments on mortgages and personal lines of credit explode overnight. The adage of “the rich get richer, while the workers continue to get exploited” is happening now more than ever.
The people of Hamilton Centre are struggling, left to survive the misery of the daily grind of low wages and legislated poverty, should they be living with disabilities, while also facing greed-driven rocket-high costs of living.
The Liberals, with their constant talk about the middle class and those working hard to join it, which is so insulting, would have Canadian workers believe that it is their own fault if they are not getting well-paying jobs or, more accurately, if they are not born into wealth to begin with and that they should blame themselves.
The leader of the official opposition will continue to put big corporations and billionaires first. The Conservatives will blame government for any meagre supports delivered to people living with disabilities, low-wage workers, migrant workers and anybody else left out of this economy. They speak of inflation and the money that was directed to working-class people, yet they never have a critique on the $750-billion bailout of big banks and Bay Street. The Conservatives attack Canada's social safety net of the copay contributions of employment insurance and the Canada pension plan, and not because they care about the contribution of the workers, but because they are fighting to save the contribution copayments by big business corporate employers.
This is at a time when Canadians need this economic support and stability the most. We should be delivering more support to Canadians and not less, particularly those who are left unemployed and our seniors, who are struggling to get by on their meagre CPP. They should be getting more and not less. We should not be attacking their pensions in this House. We should be ensuring that CPP and EI dollars are protected in separate accounts so that successive Liberal and Conservative governments will not have the tendency to raid these funds to balance their books.
While the Conservatives have callously attacked this bill throughout the debate on one hand, we already know that they are going to be supporting it. They are forced to ultimately support it because it is literally the least the government can do in the face of the astronomical costs of living. In their so-called free market fantasy, they never admit that corporations make off like bandits, pilfering government support by exploiting loopholes that have allowed them to take taxpayer dollars while paying out record dividends to their shareholders.
I am often in this House, and when I hear Conservative Party members clapping about the record profits of oil and gas, I ask myself how many MPs are receiving dividends on the profits of the same corporations that took wage subsidies and supports. These companies were not reinvesting in the economy. They were not improving the material working conditions of their employees by raising their wages to keep pace with the basic levels of economic survival. They were lining their own pockets and those of their shareholders.
This capitalist system creates enormous wealth, but it also creates great misery for the majority of people. This entire system is predicated on corporations spending as little as they can while getting the most out of every dollar they spend. It is not that they do not want to pay low wages; they are also pressuring people to get the most output from their workers at this low wage. When we hear about job creation, long gone is the day when a family can have one or two income earners who work nine to five and have enough to pay their bills. Families and workers across the country are forced to participate in two, three or four low-wage exploitative jobs. The rewards in this economy when this wealth is generated always go to the employers while workers continue to be punished.
In this regard and in many other ways, it is the capitalism of the system that generates the inequality. If we can, in a very small tokenistic way, return some money back to the pockets of Canadians, we support that. However, we call on the government to do more by workers, do more by seniors and do more by people who are living with a disability and precarious people who have been exploited by this economy.
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Madam Speaker, the government, over the last number of years, has been working in different communities and has done a great deal to support people from all different spectrums. We can talk about the hundreds of thousands of children lifted out of poverty and the hundreds of thousands of seniors lifted out of poverty by this government. We can talk about one-time payments during the pandemic for people with disabilities and, again, for our seniors.
I do not know if the member is being accurate in his portrayal that this government is not sensitive to the individuals who are in need. In our policy, whether that is legislation from the Minister of Disability Inclusion or other financial matters such as budgets, we have been there. I wonder if the member might want to reflect on some of the commitments that have actually materialized.
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