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Hon. Marco Mendicino (Minister of Public Safety, Lib.)

Oct/6/22 3:08:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House say with a very clear voice that Iran is a state that supports terror. We will continue to call out those who are responsible for all the transgressions of human rights. We will continue to stand with the families who are advocating for women's rights. Conservatives want to talk about being weak on law and order. When are Conservatives going to finally wake up and do what is right when it comes to combatting gun violence in our communities? Their only plan is to make assault-style rifles available again. That is wrong. On this side of the House, we will continue to do what is necessary to protect the health and safety of Canadians and to protect human rights around the world.

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Ms. Sonia Sidhu (Brampton South, Lib.)

Oct/6/22 3:08:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, diabetes is a serious chronic disease, and it is one of the most common, affecting millions of Canadians. It poses extensive challenges for those living with it, and for their families and communities. Yesterday, a framework for diabetes in Canada was tabled, marking a pivotal moment in our ongoing efforts to support Canadians impacted by this disease. Can the Minister of Health tell the House how this will contribute to our efforts to better support and collaborate with those impacted by diabetes in Canada?

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Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (Minister of Health, Lib.)

Oct/6/22 3:09:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking the member for Brampton South for her outstanding work, including the work she did to proceed yesterday with the announcement of the first-ever framework for diabetes. That same work is going to support the lives of millions of Canadians living with diabetes, their caregivers, their families, their friends and their health care professionals, with better access to diagnostic services, treatment and prevention services. We are going to support the work of all those who help people living with diabetes and all those who care for them.

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Ms. Lori Idlout (Nunavut, NDP)

Oct/6/22 3:10:10 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, Nunavummiut deserve a government that takes indigenous mental health seriously. It is not enough for the government to announce only $11 million for the national Inuit suicide prevention strategy, despite committing to $228 million for indigenous mental health. Indigenous people rightfully expect more from the government, which continues to be all talk with no action. Will the government finally commit to the culturally appropriate indigenous mental health funding it promised?

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Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario, Lib.)

Oct/6/22 3:10:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member opposite for her constant advocacy for equity and for indigenous-led and indigenous-designed mental wellness strategies. In fact, that is what we were announcing today with Natan Obed, president of ITK. We announced an additional top-up of $11 million for the work ITK is doing with partners across the territories. I will say that promise is being shown in these indigenous-led approaches. It was an honour to be with ITK president, Natan Obed, today to announce that the federal government will top up the funding ITK has by $11 million.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Oct/6/22 3:11:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier this year we learned that the cost for the Trans Mountain expansion project had ballooned to $21.4 billion, more than double the cost that was estimated when the government bought the pipeline in 2018. At the time, the Deputy Prime Minister assured us that the government would spend no additional public money on the project, yet a new report out today shows that Canadians are being misled. Trans Mountain is not commercially viable, and $17 billion in TMX debt owed to Canadians will not be repaid. When will the governing party stop wasting Canadians' money on this climate-killing project?

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Oct/6/22 3:12:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as Canadians, we all know how important it is to get our resources to market and to get fair value for them. Putin's illegal war in Ukraine and OPEC's actions this week have further underscored that essential truth. The government does not intend to be a long-term owner of the project. A divestment process will be initiated once the project is more advanced and de-risked, and essentially, when consultations with indigenous partners have been concluded.

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Mr. John Brassard

Oct/6/22 3:12:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In Ontario, the government funds a program that provides free preventive routine maintenance and emergency dental services for children and youth 17 years old and younger. It is the healthy smiles program, and it is for low-income households. With the House's permission, I am seeking unanimous consent to table the documents, in both official languages.

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The Speaker

Oct/6/22 3:13:21 p.m.
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All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay. Some hon. members: Nay.

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The Speaker

Oct/6/22 3:14:52 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-30

It being 3:12 p.m., pursuant to order made on Monday, October 3, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-30. Call in the members.

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The Speaker

Oct/6/22 3:27:09 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-30

I declare this motion carried.

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The Speaker

Oct/6/22 3:27:14 p.m.
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I wish to inform the House that, because of the deferred recorded division, Government Orders will be extended by 11 minutes.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle, CPC)

Oct/6/22 3:27:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today with the traditional Thursday question. As this is the Thursday before Thanksgiving, I would like to take the opportunity to wish you, Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleagues from all sides of the House, the House administration, the staff and the pages a happy Thanksgiving. For most Canadians, this will be the first Thanksgiving in a long time that everyone will be able to get back together. I know it will be especially meaningful for families from coast to coast. We have so much to be grateful for in Canada and it is a great time to reflect on that. Even as parliamentarians debate how we can make things even better, it is always worthwhile to take a few moments to appreciate what we do have. The things we do have are getting more expensive. To help put food on the plates of Canadians, we would like to know if the government House leader will tell the House if, after the Thanksgiving break, we can expect any legislation that would cancel the Liberal tripling of the carbon tax to help make the essentials that Canadians need to enjoy Thanksgiving more affordable; and if he could inform the House of the calendar of what parliamentarians might be expected to debate when we come back after the break week.

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

Oct/6/22 3:29:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me echo the comments of my hon. colleague. Thanksgiving is one of my favourite times. It is an opportunity to be with family and friends. As the hon. member said, we have not had that chance in a very long time, so it makes this a very special Thanksgiving. As the member correctly stated, and we should reflect on this, we really do have an enormous amount to be grateful for in our country. It is a special occasion to give thanks and to be with the people I love. I hope every member has a wonderful time with their family and friends, and with their constituents, over the upcoming constituency week. With respect to the member's question about when we come back, I will be talking about what we are going to be doing, but first, in answer to this question, we absolutely cannot, and I will say it every time he asks me this question, give up on action on climate. While we take action to make life more affordable, and in a minute I will talk about what we will do over the next coming weeks, we cannot afford to make pollution free again. We cannot allow pollution to be something that spews into the environment without consequence. We will continue to return that money to Canadians. Eight out of 10 Canadians will see more back. We can fight climate change, we can do affordability and we can do those things at the same time. I am proud to say that our agenda to make life more affordable for families continues. It continues tomorrow when we take action, again, on the environment with Bill S-5, making important amendments to the Environmental Protection Act to improve and protect our environment, and at the same time take essential action to move forward with Bill C-31, which would provide families right across Canada the opportunity to ensure they have dental care, that this is not something, as life gets globally more challenging, that is left to the wayside. We know how important dental care is to health. I hope the member opposite will be supporting us in that as it comes forward. On the Monday, when we return from our constituency week, we will continue with debate on Bill C-31, as I referenced earlier, with respect to dental care and support for housing. On Tuesday, we will move forward with Bill C-22, the Canada disability act, which is critical support to help lift hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are disabled out of poverty. This is essential action to help them, and I hope the Conservatives would support that. I know other parties are. On Wednesday, we will return to Bill S-5. Thursday will be an allotted day. On Friday, we hope to make progress on Bill S-4, which is an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Identification of Criminals Act, COVID-19 response and other measures. We also look forward to advancing Bill C-9, with respect to the Judges Act. Last, I would like to inform the House that the Wednesday, following question period, there will be a really important opportunity to pay respects and tribute to our friend and former colleague, who we are all mourning, the late Bill Blaikie.

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Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP)

Oct/6/22 3:32:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again I am pleased to rise in the House and bring the voice of the people of Vancouver Kingsway to this chamber, particularly as we discuss this very critical and important New Democrat motion that would make such a difference to so many Canadians' lives across this country. I might add that I am going to be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Timmins—James Bay, who will once again provide the powerful view of people from northern Ontario. In short, this motion calls on the government to recognize that excessive corporate profits fuel inflation. It would force CEOs and large corporations to pay what they owe by closing tax loopholes. It would request the Competition Bureau to launch an investigation into the behaviour of chain grocery stores, and it would support the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food in its investigation of high food prices and obscene profits in chain grocery stores. The context in which this NDP proposal arises is very important. People in every corner of this country are frustrated and hurt that they are paying excessive, historically high prices for their food while the huge food chains are making massive, unprecedented profits and their CEOs in particular are getting huge bonuses off the backs of hard-working Canadians. After seven years in government, the Liberals are still protecting the profits of the wealthiest in this country by refusing to toughen the Competition Act to punish corporate CEOs who are gouging consumers and, in this case, also agricultural producers. For their part, the Conservatives played their role in the current crisis when they were in government by cutting the tax audits of the wealthiest Canadians and prioritizing excessive CEO profits over the interests of working men and women. The Conservatives refused to toughen the Competition Act when they were in government as well. Only the NDP members are standing in this House fighting for the people who are suffering from these high prices. We will continue to pressure the Liberals to make sure that the wealthiest CEOs in the largest profitable corporations in this country pay what they owe and stop the price gouging that they are inflicting on people. Let us review some of the basic facts. It is absolutely crystal clear that the inflation being experienced today is greedflation. It is not caused by governments or deficits. It is not caused by workers' excessive wages. It is caused by excessive prices. In particular, it has been caused by price gouging by corporations who have used the cover of the pandemic and the war to jack up prices and, in turn, their profits. Let us review the facts. In August of this year, the price of the grocery basket rose 10.8% in one year, more than twice as fast as people's wages. Where did that come from? As people pay the price for the biggest increase in the grocery basket since 1981, the Sobeys' CEO has been given a total compensation package of $8.6 million in 2022. His increase is more than 15.5% over 2021. While a quarter of Canadians, which is nine million Canadians plus, are cutting back on food spending, a necessity of life, Metro's CEO boosted his company's profits to $275 million just in the last reported quarter, which is 9% higher than the same point in 2021. I am going to stop here just for a moment. I am sure members are noticing a pattern: 9%, 15.5% and 10.8%. These are all numbers over the inflation rate of 8% today and they are all caused by CEO increases, massive compensation increases and price gouging by food producers. Do we wonder where inflation is coming from? While Canadians pay the price for rising food prices, billionaire Galen Weston, chairman of Loblaw, has increased dividends to shareholders from $118 million to $125 million, just in 2022. Who is paying the price for this? A new survey shows that nine out of 10 Canadians are now tightening their household budgets because of continuing high prices. Another survey found that 23.6% of Canadians have had to cut back on the amount of food that they buy. Imagine that. Almost one in four Canadians is reducing their caloric intake in this country while rich, wealthy corporations make massive profits and reward their corporate masters for doing so. Despite a slight deceleration in the rate of inflation recently, food prices continue to rise at a rate of over 10.8%, so in 2002 Canadian families are expected to pay almost $1,000 more for groceries than in 2021. This is a crisis. This is a problem. People are being hurt every day by this price gouging. What do the Conservatives say? They say to cut the deficit and cut taxes. That is their solution, but they refuse to say a word in this chamber or outside the chamber about the cause of this problem being corporate greed. Why? It is because the Conservatives are the party that represents Bay Street and the party that represents large corporations and CEOs in this country. While they claim to support the little guy and working people, their silence on issues like this speaks volumes. For the Liberals' part, they claim to care as well, but their policies, in truth, on these economic issues are really no different from those of the Conservatives'. While people are paying the price for the biggest increase in the grocery basket in over 40 years, we find ourselves at this juncture in history. What is the NDP saying we should do about it? We are saying, let us take action. That is because we know it is not people's wages that are causing the cost of living crisis, but again the obscene profits being made by corporations and CEOs. Indeed, corporate profits, along with prices, have reached their highest share of Canadian GDP ever, and now I am talking about across all sectors. Corporate profits have increased by $22.9 billion this year, which is about a quarter of the increase in costs to consumers. The contrast between these profits and people who suffer the price gouging is not new. As far back as 2018, Loblaw, run, again, by the billionaire Weston family, admitted to participating in a cartel from 2001 to 2015 with other major grocery chains to artificially inflate the price of bread. This potentially, what I would call, prima facie criminal practice is reportedly still under investigation by the commissioner of competition. If someone stole a load of bread in this country today, the person would have been tried, convicted and punished by now, but when billionaires defraud millions of Canadians, it takes years to even investigate. That is under the legal scheme that has been devised by successive Liberal and Conservative federal governments over decades and decades. Therefore, it is no wonder that corporations are price gouging. They have been given the green light by Conservatives and Liberals for years. Where is the penalty? The Conservatives, who like to talk about being tough on crime, do not seem to be too tough on Loblaws right now. The commissioner of competition recently called for greater enforcement of Canada's competition laws to combat rising prices, and he noted the federal government is ill-equipped compared to other countries. For example, under European competition law, companies can be heavily fined for abusing their dominant positions in the market to exploit consumers, including the imposition of unfair purchase prices. Recent cases handled by them include pharmaceutical companies that raised their price of off-patent cancer drugs, of all things, by a percentage in the hundreds, and Gazprom, which has been accused of setting unfair prices for gas. These companies will take advantage of crises, even of cancer patients and people suffering from the Ukraine war, to gouge and pad their profits. It is time the Liberal government put an end to this. The NDP stood in this House today and moved a motion to do exactly that. It will be interesting for Canadians to see how these two parties vote on this, because that will tell the tale. It is easy for them to say they support working people, but we will see who stands up in the House, attacks these corporate profits and stands up for working people when this motion is voted on.

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

Oct/6/22 3:42:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not sure if the NDP member has been following the debate that has been going on in the House today, but I have said on at least one occasion, along with other Liberals I believe, that I really like this motion. To draw the conclusion that perhaps Liberals are just going to be against it is disingenuous, at least to the process of what goes on in here. I think this is a good motion and I like the wording of it. There are a couple of words that perhaps I would have phrased slightly differently, but, nonetheless, I appreciate the intent. The motion focuses primarily on grocery stores. I am wondering if the member can inform the House of other sectors and industries, other than oil, which is the obvious one that we know of, that might also be practising this and if there should be further investigation into those as well.

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Mr. Don Davies

Oct/6/22 3:43:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would be pleased if the Liberals voted in favour of this. I hope they do, but one vote today is not going to make up for decades of inaction and refusal to make corporations and companies pay their fair share. There absolutely is a comprehensive corporate gouging across all sectors of this country. My colleague asked what other sectors are doing it. The oil and gas sector is doing it. In fact, some of the biggest oil companies have recorded the highest profits in the history of their companies in the last 12 months. The so-called FIRE sector, which is finance, insurance and real estate, is recording double-digit profit increases, as are other companies across this country. This corporate gouge is not limited to the food sector, for sure. That is why we need fair corporate taxation, something the NDP has called for over a long period but both the Liberals and the Conservatives have refused to do.

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Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

Oct/6/22 3:44:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the intervention by the member for Vancouver Kingsway. I may not agree with everything he stated, but I agree with the intent behind this motion. We have to address high food prices in Canada. My question to him is this. Why did the motion not include talk about the costs of inputs and how they impact high food prices? I think that would have made it even more clear. That additional cost is driving up food and making it so expensive for so many Canadians. The second thing is that I know the member mentioned Loblaws. I and other Conservative members have pointed out the hypocrisy of the Liberal government over the $12 million that it gave to Loblaws. I did not hear anything about that in his speech, and I am just wondering why.

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Mr. Don Davies

Oct/6/22 3:45:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was a pleasure to serve with the member on NSICOP. The motion is, I think, very well crafted. It identifies the problem in a very pithy way, and it identifies four concrete solutions. I suppose there are always things to add, and the Conservatives could have added an amendment if they had wanted to. In terms of inputs, what we are talking about here is plain gouging. It is my assertion that corporations, including food companies, are using the supply chain problems as a cover to gouge consumers. There is no question about that, because their increases bear no resemblance whatsoever to any of the input costs, including wages, which is usually the single largest component of any product, like a food product. They are gouging agricultural producers as well. It is certainly not our farmers who are reaping the benefits of these prices. It is the food companies themselves. That is why we are zeroing in on them.

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Mr. René Villemure (Trois-Rivières, BQ)

Oct/6/22 3:46:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. Surely no one could oppose a motion that denounces greed. I wonder, however, whether it needs to go a little further. We know that Canadian companies managed to hide $381 billion in 12 tax havens this year. We know that tax avoidance goes relatively unpunished by Ottawa. I know it is more dramatic to talk about retail and grocery store profits, but I would like to know what my colleague thinks about going further and looking at tax havens.

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