44th Parl. 1st Sess.

December 5, 2022 11:00AM

Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Dec/5/22 4:11:45 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-32

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to have a chance to respond to Bill C-32. It pulls together a number of different items, some of which were in the governing party's fall economic statement and some of which date back to the budget introduced in the spring. I would like to start where I usually do, which is on some of the items I appreciate in Bill C-32. The first item was in the fall economic statement, and this is the governing party's stated intent to finally fully eliminate interest on Canada student loans. This was set to expire March 31 of this coming year, as it was temporarily waiving interest, but if Bill C-32 were to pass, this would become a permanent measure. This is critical, because the number I have for the average student debt for a student in this country is over $26,000 a year. This is at a time when young people are already dealt a pretty bad hand, whether because of the rising cost of housing while their wages do not keep up, the gig economy they are getting thrown into or the climate crisis, as they are going to have to deal with the repercussions of decisions made or not made in this place and others around the world. This measure would not be huge, but it would be a significant amount, $410 on average per student per year. That is a step in the right direction. It is something I am happy to support and call out the importance of while encouraging the governing party to go further. Second, there is inclusion here of a measure from budget 2022, which is the Canada recovery dividend. It was announced last April and would finally be implemented here. It would require banks and life insurance companies to pay a one-time 15% tax on profits above $1 billion over the next five years. The Parliamentary Budget Officer did a review and found that it would raise $3 billion in revenue, which on its own would be more than enough to pay for eliminating interest on student loans. It is clear that it is possible for the governing party to raise revenue and use it to address really critical needs. The third point that encouraged me is something that was not in the fall economic statement, and that was talk of a potential further increase for another tax credit for carbon capture and storage. It is a false climate solution and it is going in the wrong direction. In the budget, the governing party introduced this as a new fossil fuel subsidy to the tune of $8.6 billion a year. Carbon capture has been studied around the world, and 32 out of the 42 times that it has been implemented, emissions have actually gone up. I was glad that, despite all the lobbying from oil and gas companies across the country, at least in Bill C-32 and in the fall economic statement, there was not a further increase to send billions more in a new fossil fuel subsidy. I would like to turn now to some areas where I would encourage the governing party to consider going further, if not in Bill C-32 then in budget 2023. I will start with climate, because we have heard it very clearly. Here is a line from the co-chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, working group three, from back in April. His name is Jim Skea. He said, “It's now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.” This is at a time when profits from the oil and gas industry are just off the charts. Imperial Oil, for example, reported profits of $6.2 billion in the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year of $1.7 billion, which is an almost four times increase in profits. How is it doing this? It is gouging Canadians at the pumps. Wholesale margins, in other words, profits per litre, are up 18¢ a litre. No doubt, one solution is the same Canada recovery dividend I mentioned earlier that is being applied to banks and life insurance companies. Why not apply that to oil and gas? In fact, thanks to colleagues of ours here, the MPs for Elmwood—Transcona and Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, we know how much this would have raised. It would have raised $4.4 billion a year that could be used to invest in proven climate solutions on top of the tens of billions dollars we could be eliminating in other subsidies currently continuing to go to the very sector most responsible for the crisis. Of course we cannot expect the arsonist to put out the fire. I will also point out that eliminating these subsidies is part of the confidence and supply agreement signed between the governing party and the NDP, one line of which mentions a commitment to develop “a plan to phase-out public financing of the fossil fuel sector, including from Crown corporations, including early moves in 2022.” I would love to have seen one of those early moves in Bill C-32. We have about two weeks left to see one of those early moves. If they were to make those moves, they could invest in renovations across the country, as called for by the Green Budget Coalition, calling for a $10-billion investment in deep energy retrofits so that homeowners can invest in reducing their emissions. As they do so, every dollar they spend would contribute two to five dollars of tax revenue that could be reinvested in climate solutions or invested in ground transportation, for example, which we also would not see in Bill C-32. The second gap that is really important for the governing party to pay attention to is following through on its promise to address mental health. Mental health is health. Whether we listen to students across the country, housing providers or health care professionals, of course we need to be investing in mental health, yet we have not seen that in either last year's budget or this fall economic statement. A $4.5-billion commitment was made in the Liberal Party's platform. It is incumbent on all of us here as parliamentarians to continue to put pressure on having that commitment realized, recognizing that not one cent of it was committed in last year's budget, nor do we see anything in the fall economic statement. The third piece that is really important for us to be calling out and encouraging the governing party to go further on is to follow through on addressing the disproportionate rates of poverty experienced by those with disabilities across the country. Over 40% of those living with a disability are living in poverty today. While we are slowly making progress on Bill C-22 that would bring about a guaranteed income for folks with disabilities, I am looking forward to seeing amendments passed at committee to improve Bill C-22. In the meantime, nothing changes for a person with as disability living in poverty. We know it is possible for parliamentarians to provide emergency supports, because they did it in the midst of the pandemic. I join disability advocates from across the country calling for a disability emergency response benefit to address the gap and provide support today until we move toward a more permanent solution, ideally a holistic one, when Bill C-22 gets passed with improvements. Last, I will briefly comment on housing. We have heard already this afternoon some speakers mention that, while money is being spent, the results are not there. In my community, homelessness has tripled in the last three years, from just over 300 people living unsheltered to over 1,000. It is obvious more needs to be done. There are some initial measures in Bill C-32, including a tax on those flipping homes in less than a year. If we were to recognize and really be honest about homes needing to be places for people to live and not commodities for investors to trade, there is far more that can and should be done to tilt the market back toward homes for people to live in. In closing, it is important to be clear that there are some important and timely measures in Bill C-32 and I would strongly encourage the governing party to go further on some of the areas I mentioned.

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