44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 6, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/6/22 2:46:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, every day I get another letter from my constituents in Calgary telling me about the challenges they are having making ends meet.
Inflation rises, taxes rise, but their paycheques do not. Eight per cent inflation has the effect of cutting a full month of purchasing power from the annual family budget. Many Canadians are worried about how they will eat and stay warm this winter.
Will the Liberal government cancel its plans to triple taxes on gas, groceries and home heating?
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- Oct/6/22 2:46:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me start with a small point. On inflation, the latest number was actually 7%. That is still too high and that is still causing real challenges for Canadian families. That is why I am really sincerely pleased that the Conservatives swallowed their pride and are supporting our GST tax credit, which would get nearly $500 to Canadian families. I would like to urge them now to take the next step, although it is hard, to swallow their pride again and to support dental care for children under 12 who need it.
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- Oct/6/22 2:47:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, everything is getting more expensive as the government drives up inflation with its tax-and-spend policies. Now it is planning to triple taxes on gas, triple taxes on groceries and triple taxes on home heating. This is all while Canadians are struggling to get by and are just barely able to afford the basic necessities.
Will the finance minister, today, finally announce a plan to cancel her tax hikes that would triple these costs?
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- Oct/6/22 2:54:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, daily, Westman residents tell me it is getting tougher to make ends meet. Under the Liberal government, Canada is the only G7 country to raise taxes on energy. This drives up the cost of everything, particularly for those in rural Canada. It is not just; it is inflation.
Will the Prime Minister leave these dollars in the pockets of cash-strapped seniors and families by cancelling the plan to triple the taxes on gasoline, groceries and home heating fuels?
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- Oct/6/22 2:55:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the inflation and affordability crisis facing Canadians right now is a direct result of the Prime Minister's failed economic policies. When the Prime Minister of a G7 country admits that he does not even think about monetary policy, it is Canadian families and businesses that pay the price, and they are. They are paying the price with higher payroll taxes and higher costs for the necessities of life, like food, shelter, heating and clothing, and it is getting worse. Families need a break.
Will the Prime Minister stop his planned tax hikes on Canadian paycheques and his plan to triple the carbon tax?
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- Oct/6/22 2:57:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we fully understand that affordability and the cost of living are important and difficult issues for many Canadian families. That is why I am so happy today that the House is going to vote unanimously for our idea, our plan to deliver inflation relief payments. It is the right thing to do.
Now, we must come together once more for children's dental care.
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- Oct/6/22 3:48:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always it is a great honour to rise and speak on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay, particularly at this time of incredible uncertainty. We noticed and are very pleased to see the Russian army suffering defeats in Ukraine, but we are in a time of major global uncertainty. We are in a time of crisis in prices and crisis in supply chains. Workers are being told, with respect to their lack of ability to get higher wages, that if they somehow got a more level playing field, it would exacerbate the inflation crisis.
What New Democrats are calling for today is to focus in on where these inflationary problems are being driven. They are being driven by gouging by some very major and powerful corporate interests. On the oil sector, around the world there are questions being raised about the massive profits coming out of the pockets of ordinary consumers, who cannot even afford to heat their houses.
The other really disturbing issue we are seeing is the crisis in the affordability of food, and that is directly tied to the price gouging that has been under way throughout this crisis. What we are asking for is very straightforward. We are asking the Competition Bureau to launch an investigation into grocery chain practices, to increase the penalties for price fixing and to strengthen competition laws to prohibit these companies from abusing their dominant positions in the market, which exploit both consumers and agricultural producers.
We are also calling for the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to look into this, because we want to make sure we are dealing with issues of fairness, as people are being gouged and cannot afford to pay their bills.
It is very interesting and indicative that we are debating this today, when the New Democratic motion on doubling the GST tax credit has received support from this House, because we came into this Parliament saying we were going to fight for people who are being left behind in this time of uncertainty.
We brought forward three major initiatives for the fall. First, the doubling of the GST tax credit will get money right back into the hands of people, families and seniors so they can buy their groceries. Second, for low-income renters, the $500 supplement is essential support at this time of gouging and particularly high housing prices. Third, of course, is the initiative the Liberals have now moved to agree with us on, which is a national dental care plan. If a person cannot afford to get their kids' teeth fixed, all other issues pale in comparison. A mother or a father who cannot afford to get their child's teeth fixed is in a situation that should not be allowed to happen.
My friends in the Conservative Party have been very much against these initiatives. I appreciate the flip-flop on the tax credit, but the word they have been using is that actual steps to help people in this crisis would somehow be “vaporized” by inflation, as though inflation is some kind of magic thing. I am interested in the term “vaporizing”, because the only thing I noticed that vaporized over the summer was the price of cryptocurrency after the leader of the Conservative Party told us that he gets his financial advice from a conspiracy blogger on YouTube.
I know they got a lot of their medical advice from anti-vax conspiracy bloggers on YouTube, but the idea that the leader of the Conservative Party was promoting cryptocurrency, which dropped 70% in value after he began promoting it, is something we should think about for a minute. I know a lot of working-class people in northern Ontario who do not have savings, who are insecure and who thought maybe crypto would be a way of allowing them to get some kind of savings. They listened to the Conservative leader. Seventy per cent of that value vaporized.
I will tell members what is not going to vaporize, which is getting that $500 cheque if someone is a low-income renter, or getting the $460 to $600 GST rebate so people can pay their rent. What is not going to vaporize is the hopes of children to get dental care. That is what New Democrats came to Parliament to do. It was to get results for people.
What we need to do is strip off a lot of the mythologies and misrepresentations on what is causing inflation. Now, I mentioned the Russian war at the beginning, and we know that has destabilized the situation globally, but when we drill down on the numbers in Canada, it becomes very clear that certain powerful interests are using the fears of inflation to drive up their profits and their corporate lines.
The CEO of Sobeys was paid $8.6 million in compensation this year. What does this guy do to deserve this? Groceries rose nearly 11% in that time. It is supposed to be inflationary growth that caused the 11% rise, but the profits we saw from Sobeys, Loblaws and Metro are much higher than the rate of inflation. The rates of wage earnings are much lower than the rate of inflation, so workers who got an increase this year did not contribute to inflation; it is the gouging that is going on. The CEO compensation at Loblaws was $5 million; at Metro it was $5 million, and at Sobeys it was $8.6 million.
I want to focus in a bit on the Weston family, on Galen Weston, living in his gated community. He was found guilty of price-fixing with respect to bread, for crying out loud. I want to thank Irene Breckon, a good northern Ontario woman from the mining town of Elliot Lake, who led the class action lawsuit. Does anyone think that Galen Weston is ever going to be punished for ripping off families with respect to bread? That is not what happens to the super rich. They get free gifts, for example, $12 million to fix Galen Weston's fridges.
My mom, and I am thinking of Loretta Lynn today, is a coal miner's daughter. I had to explain this to her. She called me to ask what was going on with the Liberal government fixing Galen Weston's fridges, and whether it would fix her fridge. I told her that I knew it was really not right and that we were trying to deal with it. Then she came home and told me about the grocery prices she is having to pay and asked about Galen Weston and all the money he is making. I told her not to worry, that we are going to make this right.
That is why we are in the House today. Across party lines, we need to start saying to these CEOs that they cannot use inflationary fears anymore to gouge working-class families that have no choice but to go to the grocery store and pay for the food they need for their children.
In our motion today we are not talking about the oil price gouging that is going on, but that has been one of the other massive drivers of inflation. At the beginning of October, when the price of a barrel of oil was $80, prices were still 13% higher than they were the last time the price of a barrel was that high. I am sure other people in the country know this too, but anyone in northern Ontario knows that the second a hurricane hits the southern Gulf coast the price of gas at our local pumps jumps up 30¢ overnight, but when everything is going fine that price does not come down. There is consistent gouging.
Members do not have to believe me. I know people think I am the wild New Democrat from northern Ontario, but I would say that my good friend the CEO of Shell agrees with me, because he is saying that the situation around the world is so unstable due to the gouging of the oil companies that this crisis can no longer be left to the markets. He says it is time we started to tax that windfall back.
We are not saying it is wrong to make profit. Profit is good. It is what drives industry. However, companies are gouging people over their fears of inflation and using the Russian war to pad their pockets. How are they padding them? Let us talk about the $52 billion in the second quarter of this year, which is an increase of 235%. That is the kind of gouging that is going on.
The United Nations, California, the EU and even President Biden are talking about the windfall tax that is necessary to pull some of that gouging back and restore it to ordinary Canadians. That is our job in the House of Commons, to stand up for the people who do not have a voice in the back rooms of power, who do not have the lobbyists and who do not have the Cayman Islands to hide their tax accounts. They have to go and feed their kids. They deserve dental care. They deserve an investigation into the gouging that is going on in the grocery stores right now.
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- Oct/6/22 4:03:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will start by saying that I am sharing my time with the deputy House leader to the government.
I have had an opportunity to read this motion and I think there is a lot of good in it. Quite frankly, I am inclined to support it and most likely will, to be completely honest.
It reminds me that just a few days ago, during a question and answer on a different issue, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie asked me specifically about this issue in the context of another bill that we were discussing. I can recall replying to him that I thought it was a very important issue to discuss. I did not realize that this exchange would lead to the NDP, just a couple of days later, introducing a motion to that effect, but I am absolutely delighted to see it. I think it will give an opportunity, if passed, for the necessary studies to be done.
I think there is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence out there to suggest that there are large corporations profiting off of inflation and the fear of inflation, and it is something we need to address. I look forward to, hopefully, this passing with the support of the House and to the opportunity to ensure that these practices are dealt with in a swift fashion.
I want to compliment the NDP on bringing forward a very reasonable motion, quite frankly, unlike my colleagues from across the way, the Conservatives. They bring in motions that are pretty much predicated on slogans like “triple, triple, triple” whatever.
By the way, I do not understand this “triple, triple, triple” thing. It does not make any sense to me. When I hear them say “triple, triple, triple”, all I think of is that there have been three times in the last eight years that the population has rejected them. Maybe they are referencing “triple, triple, triple” because they have been rejected at the polls three times in a row. I am not sure. That is all I can really put together based on it, because otherwise it does not make sense. It does not even deliver well. In any event, that is what I assumed.
The Conservatives have policies that are completely out there, as opposed to coming forward with stuff like what we are seeing today, which is very reasonable, in my opinion. We obviously know their position on cryptocurrency. That is becoming very well known in the House. The Leader of the Opposition is a big fan of cryptocurrency.
As a matter of fact, and I am not sure if the public knows this, there is a private member's bill in the name of the member for Calgary Nose Hill on cryptocurrency. We were actually supposed to debate that private member's bill during the first sitting of the House, when we resumed in September, but guess what. The Conservatives punted it forward. Do members know when it was punted forward to? It was today. We were actually supposed to discuss that bill today at 5:30 p.m., but guess what the Conservatives did. They punted it forward.
The Conservatives seem to be very scared about the issue of cryptocurrency. If they are not, why will they not let the member for Calgary Nose Hill bring forward her bill? Free the bill. Free her bill. Allow it to come to the floor.
The Conservative leadership, run by the member for Carleton, the Carleton crypto king, is purposefully preventing this bill from moving forward in the House. Let us have a discussion on cryptocurrency. Allow the member for Calgary Nose Hill to bring her bill before the House. The Conservatives need to stop holding it back, because, quite frankly, it is unfair to Canadians to not let us have the opportunity to discuss this very important matter.
That is the contrast I am trying to show here with the reasonable motion we see today to look into a very important matter. The NDP clearly accepts the global reasoning that has been supported by economists throughout the globe as to why we have inflation. No, it is not the Prime Minister of Canada who caused inflation. It is a global issue. The NDP knows that and I am fairly certain the Bloc knows that too.
The Conservatives are set on trying to convince the Canadian population that it is actually the Prime Minister who caused global inflation. If he had the ability to do that, I would be really impressed, quite frankly, especially considering that the Conservatives routinely accuse the Prime Minister of being incapable of doing just about anything. Now suddenly they are willing to give him credit for being able to control global inflation.
Nonetheless, those are the kinds of issues the NDP is trying to look at in a realistic way, rather than saying that we do not want to spend money giving GST rebates because that is going to cause inflation. Members might note that this is one of the original arguments that came from the Conservatives before they flip-flopped on it. They have now decided that it is maybe not in their best interests to vote against that, so maybe they should support it. Rather than taking the approach of the Conservatives and saying we are not interested in inflation because we know where it comes from, the New Democrats are actually trying to get to the root cause of it, and I think their main complaint here has a lot of merit to it.
We have seen a lot happen today. It has been a pretty revealing day for the Leader of the Opposition. We have learned this morning that he was actively using misogynistic tags on YouTube to get users to go to his YouTube page. For people who do not understand how this works, there is a particular hashtag, #mgtow, which is “men going their own way”, from a group that is specifically based around anti-feminism and misogyny. There are primarily and pretty much only men in this group. What the Leader of the Opposition was doing was using that hashtag—
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- Oct/6/22 4:32:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have a chance to rise and ask a question of my colleague from Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne. I have not had a chance to take the floor today. It is difficult when the rounds are 10 minutes and five minutes for questions.
I want to put on the record that I plan to vote for this motion and I am grateful that it has been put forward. I am particularly concerned with an aspect that, as the member for Timmins—James Bay noted, is not mentioned, which is a real driver of inflation, and that is the war profiteering of the big oil and gas companies. Their profits are entirely due to Putin invading Ukraine, and they are astonishing. The big five, ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell and Total S.A., in one quarter, the second quarter of this year, made $55 billion U.S. As Eric Reguly with The Globe and Mail noted, it is not as if they showed any business acumen to get this money. They got it because of war.
Does my hon. colleague know if her government is prepared to put a tax, as recommended by the UN Secretary-General, on these excess war profits and distribute that money to the people who need it?
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- Oct/6/22 4:34:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the reality of war has absolutely impacted inflation, the costs and availability here in Canada of oil and gas, and so on. There are definitely questions to be asked with respect to the profits that oil and gas companies are making in terms of what is happening in Ukraine.
My son deployed as part of Operation Unifier, so I am absolutely terrified about what is happening right now in Ukraine.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate many of the words the member has put on the record. I think of the children in Winnipeg North, or just people in general in Canada, and we all recognize inflation is in fact very real. We might be doing better than other countries around the world, but it matters here.
The price of food is of great concern. We all want to try to do what we can to assist Canadians in fighting inflation. One of the things we just did is pass Bill C-30. We also now have Bill C-31. Before us is a motion for it to go to a committee. The committee will no doubt be able to do a lot of fine work in dealing with this, but there is more we can do.
I am wondering if the member can provide his thoughts on the passage of Bill C-31. Unfortunately, it is not going to pass, by the looks of it, before the end of the week.
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- Oct/6/22 5:03:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really want to praise the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith. She is a new member, but she has done such an effective job of standing up for her constituents. Nanaimo—Ladysmith is better represented than it has been in years because she is so outspoken. She has pushed for dental care, for ensuring we have housing supplements and for the GST rebate. These are all important measures that she has helped to bring about, and I want to compliment her on her amazing work.
The reality is that in Nanaimo—Ladysmith, and in fact throughout this country and across Vancouver Island, we are seeing grocery chains raising prices more than they should be. Yes, there is inflation, but it is very clear that we need a government that can step in and say, “Whoa. They have these huge bonuses, they have these huge profits and Canadian families are struggling. There needs to be a balance here.”
That is why we are calling on the Competition Bureau to launch an investigation, with enhanced supports from the federal government. We really need much more robust Competition Bureau legislation to ensure that these kinds of things do not happen anymore.
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- Oct/6/22 6:51:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are seeing higher inflation rates and higher costs of living in Canada and, frankly, right around the world as a large result of many factors, which include the war in Ukraine; global supply chain bottlenecks, in large part due to the pandemic; and global energy market uncertainty.
This is something our government is concerned with, and I can reassure my colleagues that we are working on solutions to support Canadians day in and day out. Canadians are facing the pressure when they reach for items at the grocery store and when they pull into a gas station. However, inflation is actually less severe here than it is among many of our peers. It was 7% here in August, while it was 8.3% in the United States, 9.9% in the United Kingdom, and 7.9%. in Germany. We recognize the challenges.
The opposition would like us to drop the GST on gasoline and get rid of our pollution pricing system. Quite frankly, this would be a terrible idea. It makes much more sense to support Canadians who need it the most with targeted measures, such as those included in our $12.1-billion affordability plan. Gas taxes represent only a small portion of the total price that Canadians pay at the pump, so cutting them would be ineffective in protecting consumers from powerful global market forces.
It is important to understand that these market forces are driving daily changes in gas prices that are often substantially greater than the proposed 5% tax cut. This means that any positive impact on the price of gas would be wiped out in a day. The government would also be in the uneasy, unfortunate position of having spent tens or hundreds of millions of dollars trying unsuccessfully to fight market forces over which it has little control.
Putting a price on pollution is the most effective and least costly means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is important to note that Canada's approach is flexible. Any province or territory could design a pricing system that meets its needs, as long as it meets the federal benchmark. The federal backstop only applies in jurisdictions that do not have a pricing mechanism that meets the federal benchmark. The federal fuel charge is part of this, and one thing is clear, it does not make life less affordable for the large majority of people.
In provinces that do not meet the federal benchmark and where the federal fuel charge has been implemented, approximately 90% of direct proceeds are being directly returned back to households. In 2022-23, these climate action incentive payments mean that a family of four would receive $745 in Ontario, $832 in Manitoba, $1,101 in Saskatchewan and $1,079 in Alberta. In addition, families in rural and small communities are eligible to receive an extra 10%.
The reality is that, as part of the climate action incentive payments, most households are getting back more in payments than they pay in increased costs from the federal carbon pollution pricing system. Also, dropping the federal fuel charge in these provinces would mean smaller climate action incentive payments going back to the individuals in those backstop provinces. It would mean less money in the pockets of many people, including those living in the member opposite's own riding.
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- Oct/6/22 6:54:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, tonight we see a continued doubling down on the same points we have heard from the government. I did not hear much about housing in that response, even though that is really what the question we are debating tonight was centred on.
We see the same old splitting of hairs over whether or not Canada's inflation crisis is really the worst among peer countries. Other countries that engaged in destructive financial practices, which ran enormous deficits on printed money, are also suffering the same effects that we are having here in Canada.
Tonight, yet again, we have a defence of the carbon tax and the claim debunked by the Parliamentary Budget Officer that the majority of people are somehow better off with this tax.
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- Oct/6/22 6:55:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, our government understands quite well that Canadians are feeling the effects of elevated inflation, particularly at the gas pump and when they reach for items at the grocery store.
However, dropping taxes on gasoline is simply not the right solution. We have developed an affordability plan that provides more money to Canadians who need it the most when they need it the most. Our plan is a suite of targeted measures in new support in 2022. In fact, some of our measures are already putting money back in the pockets of the middle class and those working hard to join it this year.
Canadians can count on us to continue to support them through this inflation crisis while remaining prudent fiscal managers.
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