44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 5, 2022 02:00PM
- Oct/5/22 2:49:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, gas prices hit $2.40 a litre in Vancouver. They just jumped 10¢ a litre in one day in other markets. What is the NDP-Liberal solution? It is more price gouging. The costly coalition voted to triple the tax on gasoline and other essentials. The biggest price gougers in Canada are these two parties that form this costly coalition.
When they do triple the tax, how much will it cost across Canada to buy a litre of gas?
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- Oct/5/22 5:48:39 p.m.
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We have a point of order from the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway.
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Mr. Speaker, I was so engrossed in my colleague's excellent speech that I did not want to interrupt, but he has forgotten to indicate in his speech that he is splitting his time with the member for Vancouver Kingsway.
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Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the member for Vancouver Kingsway. I talked about dental care at the very beginning and I was supposed to mention it at that time, so I will return to that subject later on. I appreciate the intervention, because I did not officially recognize that I was splitting my time.
I will continue. One of the things I want to move to is some of the conditions we put ourselves in with regard to inflation and competition, and the lack that we have. A number of members have referenced gas prices. This House, in the past, with credit to Dan McTeague, a former Liberal, and Paul Crête, a former Bloc member, and this is something I worked with them on as well, passed a gas monitoring agency. This was supposed to be implemented under Paul Martin but it was not.
What ends up happening is a lack of competition in this country, because there has been a lack of refinery development. We do not even have the same reporting process the United States have. One of the key things creating a lot of uncertainty and some frustration among Canadian consumers is that we do not even have a good advocate for that. The Competition Bureau has some powers but very little. At the same time, gas prices are going up with very little explanation, and more importantly, less accountability, which has a cascading effect on our entire economy.
If we look at the specifics related to this, how many more refineries had to be closed in Canada? There was Montreal, Oakville and a number of others, including one in Vancouver. What was taking place was vertical integration in the industries, and a country like Canada is facing the same challenges when it comes to telecoms and others. Right now, additional charges will potentially be placed on credit cards, as well as extra taxes, where Telus wants to introduce an extra tax on Canadians.
All these things start to eat away at the pocketbooks of Canadians. For as much as we do, such as increasing the GST in this instance, it is going to be lost because of increases in services and fees.
At the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, we looked at issues during the pandemic such as food costing and food workers. What is interesting is that the record profits companies were enjoying also included record bonuses for the CEOs. What is amazing, and we cannot do anything about this because of the lack of supports in our legislation, is that all major grocery chains ended pandemic pay for their workers on the very same day. That is as close to collusion as we can possibly get.
What was discussed at committee was the fact that the lawyers were okay because the CEOs could talk to each other under our current system. This comes from an industry the Competition Bureau fined for fixing the price of bread. They actually had to come to a settlement on that. The number one staple for lower- and middle-income Canadians, which is bread, was actually price-fixed by these organizations similar to a cabal that would take advantage of people. This is one of the problems we have with some of our industries, where we have this vertical integration.
I want to talk a bit about where we can find a difference, and that would be with Bill C-31, the dental care bill. The member for Vancouver Kingsway has done a great job. Often we talk about it in terms of helping the children, and later on it would be seniors, persons with disabilities and the general public. As the industry critic, I can say our health care has always been a standard principled point to get investment for the auto industry and manufacturing, even during the darkest times, when the United States, with its different states, or their federal government, and other places like Mexico were lowering wages. All those competitive factors that go against investment in Canada were offset by our having a public health care system that was paid for.
That is one of the major controllables we have. When we look at small businesses and medium-sized businesses, SMEs have really struggled. Now their employees, and even the people who own these businesses and often do not have any benefits themselves or have very basic ones, will have that relief. When it comes to labour unions with large contract negotiations, it will also open up the door and take the pressure off for increased medicines and costs that can create some types of labour disruptions because of fights over benefit programs.
One of the things I really want to highlight is that these types of structural improvements are more important in the long term than Bill C-30, which is something that is short term. The long-term investments we are going to get in this other package will be very significant.
I know from the CEOs, the investors and all the other different people, the labour negotiators, that those types of infrastructure pieces that we have, including employment insurance, which needs a major overhaul, are things that will get investment and keep investment in Canada. That includes research development and innovation. We have a terrible record for patent development to go to manufacturing, for bringing products to market compared to other parts of the world and for getting our university innovation together, but these are the assets that we have.
As I wrap up, I want to say that I appreciate the fact that Bill C-30 is not necessarily the biggest solution that we have for this problem of structural inequality, but at the same time, it is a measure we can control right now. The quicker we get the bill through the House, the quicker we can get more investment, more innovation and more jobs for Canadians, because it is a structural point that we need to compete.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the people of Vancouver Kingsway, to bring their voices to this place, to reflect their experiences and to express how we can, in this House, best support them and their families and the businesses that operate in the wonderful riding that I am fortunate to represent.
Tonight, I rise to speak on Bill C-30, called the cost of living relief act, no. 1. Bill C-30 amends the Income Tax Act to double the goods and services tax or harmonized sales tax credit for six months, effectively increasing the maximum annual GST/HST credit amounts by 50% for the 2022-23 benefit year. What that means is that doubling the GST credit would provide about $2.5 billion in additional targeted support immediately 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.
To give an example of the impact of this, single Canadians without children would receive up to an extra $234 and couples with two children up to an extra $467 this year. Seniors would receive an extra $225 on average immediately. I want to stop at this point to say that this is an interim stopgap measure. By no means will this measure adjust or improve the systemic problems of the Canadian economy or address the long-standing inequities that exist along with the poor distribution of wealth in this country. In fact, the distribution of wealth has gotten worse over the decades, as wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and more and more people struggle. That has been the unmistakable, undeniable trajectory of how wealth and income have been distributed in this country over the last 40 years.
Given the horrible impacts of very unusually high inflation, New Democrats have been pushing for urgent action to address Canada's cost of living crisis for many months. We did not just start this yesterday. We identified this problem and have been advocating, working hard and fighting for Canadians in this place for the last six months.
If the Liberals and Conservatives had supported the NDP's call last May to double the GST credit, which is when we did that in this House, eligible Canadians could have received up to $467 before the start of the summer. This money would already be in Canadians' hands if the two major parties in the House had the same commitment to working people and marginalized Canadians that the NDP has in this country. However, it is the fact that not six months ago both the Liberals and Conservatives voted against the very proposal before the House today to provide this essential relief to Canadians.
New Democrats are now proposing that all parties work together to fast-track Bill C-30 through Parliament to ensure that people receive their increased GST rebate as soon as possible. Last week, Canadians were told by the Conservatives that they will have to wait even longer for relief, because the Conservatives refused to work evenings to get this urgently needed support out the door and, again, opposed the NDP's offer to work on an expeditious basis because we recognize the urgency of the problem today.
New Democrats are delivering real results for Canadians beyond this. The Canadian dental benefit will deliver up to $1,300 to parents with children under 12 who do not have access to dental insurance. The top-up to the Canada housing benefit, again proposed by the NDP in the last election platform will deliver a $500 payment to 1.8 million renters who are struggling so mightily with the cost of housing. This more than doubles the government's original commitment reaching twice as many Canadians as originally promised. Of course, doubling the GST credit will provide $2.5 billion in additional targeted support, again, to some of the poorest and most needy Canadians in our country from coast to coast to coast.
Taken together, the result of these three NDP-driven proposals would mean that a family of two will receive between $3,000 and $4,000 due to NDP advocacy and hard work in this Parliament. That is the result of the NDP working for Canadians.
By way of background, the GST tax credit would help offset the financial impact of the GST for low- and modest-income people and families. That is the whole purpose of it. The credit is paid quarterly, in January, April, July and December, with benefit years beginning in July. The total annual value of this credit depends on family size and income. For the 2022-23 benefit year, eligible people can receive up to $467 for single people without children, $612 for married or common-law couples, $612 for single parents, plus $161 for each child under the age of 19.
I want to pause for a moment, because I have heard people in the House, mainly on the Conservative side, who have scoffed at the amount of money we are talking about here. They have said that this is not enough money, that these are crumbs and that this is an insufficient amount of money. I can tell them that to someone who is trying to live on $20,000 a year or $25,000 a year or $30,000 a year, $500 makes a big difference. I have said it before and I am going to say it again. It is easy for MPs, who make $185,000 a year minimum, to stand in this House, like the Conservatives have done, and tell Canadians that $500 does not mean much to them. That might mean a child's hockey; that might mean a child's school lunches; that might mean clothing for children for a year. That is what $500 means to people who are earning between $20,000 and $40,000 a year, and that is meaningful.
The GST credit is indexed for inflation on an annual basis using CPI index data, but of course, for this year, for the July 2022 to June 2023 benefit year, the value of that GST credit grew by only 2.4%, because it was based on the CPI from 2020 to 2021. Because those increases are based on the inflation rate from the prior year, the current GST credit does not reflect the unusually high inflation that Canadians are experiencing now. Depending on where they live, it is somewhere between 7% and 9%. That is why this money urgently needs to get into the pockets of these needy Canadians as soon as possible, and the NDP will work hard to do that.
I want to pause for a moment to speak a bit about why we are where we are, because there are different views on that in the House. Why are we experiencing inflation of 8% or 9%? New Democrats believe that this is inflation driven by prices, and of course the data and empirical evidence support that. This is not driven by wages. Wages have not gone up 8%. This is not driven by anything other than prices at the gas pump, in grocery stores and in insurance bills issued by companies in this country.
The other thing is that the Conservatives like to pretend that the inflation was caused by the deficit. That may play some role, but everybody who has been paying attention knows that when prices started to rise in this country, it started with the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020, when supply chains began to be interrupted around the world. Then we had the Ukraine-Russia war, which of course interfered with all sorts of supply chains and energy resources, and now corporations are clearly using the cover of this to drastically increase their profits and prices, taking advantage of the current situation. Whether it is the so-called FIRE industry, the finance, insurance and real estate industry, the oil and gas sector or major grocery stores, the data from economists is clear. Their profits, not their revenue, but their profits, are at dramatically higher levels.
In the case of the FIRE industry, it is up 24%. Nobody earning wages has received 24% more income. What would justify a 24% price increase? Oil and gas companies in this country are reporting record profits. They have never made more money. Then there are the financial institutions and grocery stores. Every Canadian who walks into a grocery store can see what is happening with prices.
The answer here is not to blame workers; it is not to attack politically. The approach here is to attack the source of the problem, and that means making corporations pay for their excess profits so that the money can to go to the government and it can use that money productively for Canadians, for things like dental care and other programs that will make such a huge difference to Canadians' lives.
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak to the specifics of the financialization and/or corporate preferential tax treatment outlined by the New Democratic member from Vancouver. However, I can say that the rate of home ownership in Canada has decreased to a level that we have not seen in a generation. All political parties, especially mine, want to restore and maintain the hope of young people to have a reasonable chance of owning a home. We want people to be able to get a university or trades education. I want people to have the dream of being able to save up for a home and have a reasonable chance of getting it. That is being eliminated at a faster rate than we have ever seen in the history of Canada, and it is troublesome for our democracy.
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