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House Hansard - 112

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 18, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 112 - Oct/18/22
Mr. Darrell Samson (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, Lib.)
  • Oct/18/22 6:56:36 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-31 
Madam Speaker, a little earlier today, I used four minutes of my time before I was interrupted to go to Private Members' Business. I will now speak for my remaining six minutes while being mindful of the time allocated to me. I talked about the reasoning behind supporting Bill C-31, which is really to make sure that we are not denying access to dental care, as well as not pricing people out in rental costs. It is about affordability. Many of the things our government has been doing are to support Canadians because we realize affordability is a key issue. One-third of Canadians do not have access to dental care. What this bill proposes to do, over a two-year period, is to provide up to $1,300 for eligible children 12 years and under. The families will have to make less than $90,000. I want to read a quote from the Canadian Labour Congress. It says, “Canada's unions welcome [the government's] investment in dental care that will give coverage to millions of Canadians - because everyone deserves a healthy smile”. On the housing benefit, this will help two million Canadians and the support will be for those Canadians families making $35,000 or less, or for individuals making $20,000 or less, and paying more than 30% of their income on rental costs. This is in addition to the $4 billion we have put forward to help Canadians through rental support, cost-shared with the provinces and territories. We are also helping with affordability, which is key here, because of the challenges that Canadians are facing financially today. Last week, we passed the doubling of the GST rebate for a six-month period. That was unanimous. Every member of the House voted in favour of that, and I want to thank them all because it will help 11 million individuals who file their income tax. On affordability, the government also has the CCB, where we see nine out of 10 families receiving support. In my riding alone, it is over $5.5 million a month. That is over $70 million a year in my riding of Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook. I know it is a special riding, but every riding across the country, all 338 ridings, are receiving those types of supports. That is what is important. Finally, on affordability, we are bringing in child care this year, which will lower the cost of child care by 50%. Those are direct supports to individual Canadians and families. It is so crucial. Why and how can we do that? We are in a very good fiscal position. Let us not forgot that just before the pandemic, we had the lowest debt-to-GDP in the G7. Since the pandemic, we have increased that margin, which is very important. We still hold a AAA credit rating. That is very important. Let us look at our economy. Canadians know that throughout the pandemic, we were there and we had the backs of Canadians. We were able to support Canadians through this global pandemic. We, the federal government, put in eight dollars for every $10 in support given to Canadians and businesses across the country. That is what we were able to do because our government was in a good fiscal position. We could bear the challenge of financing, compared to individuals and families, who would have been in a much more difficult situation. Look where we are today. Over 21,000 jobs were created in the month of September. Today, we hold the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded at 5.2%. We have recaptured 113% of all the jobs that were lost. Those are big numbers. They are a strong reason why the government can move forward on topping up renters with $500 and bringing forward dental care to children under the age of 12. Those are the types of decisions we need to continue to make to ensure all Canadians will benefit. That is the type of government we committed to being in 2015, in 2019 and in 2021. We intend to do more for all Canadians as we move forward.
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