44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 6, 2022 10:00AM
- Dec/6/22 3:13:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order that you somewhat addressed. You made very clear what a point of order is, and then the member continued to go on about something that was not a point of order. There has to be a point that you intervene when it relates to matters like that.
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- Dec/6/22 3:13:27 p.m.
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I thank the hon. member for his guidance. He is absolutely right.
I want to remind all members that, when they rise on a point of order, it is because a point of order was not followed and they need to explain why it was not followed. Otherwise, it becomes debate, and we do not want to take time away from each other's ability to debate important questions that are already on the Order Paper.
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Mr. Speaker, when I left off just before question period, I was reflecting on the fact that there is too much attention being paid by the Conservatives in the House to inflation only as it relates to domestic inflation. They are not considering the whole picture of inflation being a global issue, something that countries throughout the world are, quite frankly, dealing with right now.
Canada has the third-lowest inflation rate in the G7. Of course, that is little comfort to those who are experiencing the effects of inflation right now, but that is exactly why we are debating this particular piece of legislation today. This is legislation to help those who are feeling the impacts of inflation the most with trying to get through this very difficult time.
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- Dec/6/22 3:15:13 p.m.
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I apologize for interrupting the hon. parliamentary secretary.
I would remind everyone that debate is taking place and people should take their conversations into the lobby or the hallway. Inside the chamber, we all want to hear what the hon. parliamentary secretary has to say, and when the questions come, we will want to hear them as well.
The hon. parliamentary secretary can proceed.
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Mr. Speaker, that is the first time somebody has ever said that everyone wants to hear what I have to say. I certainly thank you for those kind words.
This bill is bringing in measures that are specifically designed to assist those most impacted by inflation right now. Most important is to look at the impact of the measures we are talking about in this bill in support of Canadians, those who need it the most. It is well documented that the impact of those measures on inflation is next to nothing.
I think it is very important that we reflect on exactly what some of those measures are. For starters, the one measure in this bill I am very happy to see, because I think it is long overdue, has to do with the elimination of student loan interest from the federal portion. I know it has been said in the House that we do not have a student loan problem. I would disagree with that. I suggest that is exactly the opposite of the truth because we do have a problem when it comes to education.
The reality is that decades ago, when my parents were in their teens and early twenties, all one needed to get a job that could provide security to build a family and buy a house was a high school diploma. By and large, one could find stable employment to provide for oneself and one's family. That is not the case any more.
Now, one needs much more than that. One quite often needs a university degree, to be highly skilled in a trade or, in some cases, have completed a masters or postgraduate work. The difference between now and then is that secondary school is covered through taxes. It is covered through property taxes and taxes that individuals pay to support the school system. To get to the point of being able to provide and start a family back then was free. Now we are in a situation where education is a lot more expensive. The cost of getting to that place of providing for and building a family is much more expensive.
When we start talking about things like eliminating the interest on student debt, I think it is absolutely important because it moves us toward being able to provide the education that people need to get stable employment. That employment can be used to build a family, buy a house and so on. From my perspective, we ultimately have to get to a point where either community college or university for Canadian citizens is almost as easy to access as high school is because it is through that that people can experience the quality of life that previous generations, like that of my parents, were able to experience.
I really think that this piece of legislation is absolutely key right now. We need to get this through the House. I am glad to see that we are at the final stage of this. The reality is that there are Canadians out there waiting on this legislation to be passed so they can start to get some of the supports in it. We know full well that the House could end up debating this fall economic statement until May or June, just like the Conservatives forced us to do with the last fall economic statement. We have had numerous speakers on this: 38 Conservatives, six NDP, 10 Bloc, one Green and 26 Liberals. After all these speakers, I cannot understand how anybody in the House would possibly think that continuing debate on this piece of legislation would be more important than getting the supports the legislation provides to Canadians.
I am glad to see that there is time allocation on this. We need to get to a point where we can have a vote on this. Let us have our voices heard through that vote, and if it passes, get the supports to Canadians. There are Canadians out there suffering right now who need these supports.
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Madam Speaker, in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's review of the fall economic statement, Bill C-32, he categorized $14.2 billion as unannounced spending. I am just wondering if, before we go to actually vote on this bill, the member would tell us what the details of that spending are.
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Madam Speaker, I will be completely honest. I am not fully versed in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, but I would say that every member of Parliament gets the information from the government at the exact same time.
The member assumes that I am going to somehow have access to that before him, but that would be against the rules of the House. I am allowed to see what is tabled when he is allowed to see it. He knows that. To suggest that there is some kind of information that I have that he does not have is simply not the truth.
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Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands has any comment on this as we debate Bill C-32. I understand his point that other members have spoken. It was almost getting to be like The Twelve Days of Christmas with how many members have spoken. I expected it to move into music. I ended up being the one Green who spoke.
There are other thoughts and comments that we would like to make, but we do not want to prolong debate unnecessarily.
The fundamental point is that we have rules and procedures in this place. We have time allocated for debate. If that is truncated on a routine basis continually, what does that mean for the future of this place as a place that is the heart of democracy, where debate takes place and where we do not truncate and bring down the bâillon every time?
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Madam Speaker, I think that the member brings up a very good point. It is unfortunately the reality of the place where we are now. It is an inevitable cycle. Conservatives are just using every single tactic they have, not only to slow down legislation that they are against, but also to slow down every piece of legislation of the government.
It is almost as though they want to force the government to use time allocation so they can say we are being undemocratic. The cycle continues so they can say that we did it 50 times, 60 times, 70 times and so on. Perhaps the member is on to something, in that we need to look at our Standing Orders and how we deal with this kind of stuff.
I will be completely honest. Before I got here, when I used to hear of Stephen Harper bringing in time allocation and terminating debate, I used to think it was an egregious thing to happen, until I realized, when I am sitting here, exactly how this place functions.
When Canadians actually figure out how this place functions, I know they will understand why it is necessary to do this and why it is necessary to end the games.
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Madam Speaker, I want to get back into more of the substance of the debate. The member has mentioned the student relief and interest payments.
One of the things that we also see compounding is that students are graduating with fewer opportunities to be in a job for a longer period of time, with benefits and pensions. I wanted his thoughts about that. I see a lot of young people simply getting buried and falling behind, and that has caused significant problems for them starting families.
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Madam Speaker, the member makes an excellent point.
Back in the sixties and seventies, one could graduate from high school in Kingston and go and work at DuPont or Alcan. One could have an entire career there, have a pension at the end and have benefits with that pension. The reality is that those jobs are becoming fewer and fewer.
We do not see the ability for individuals to have one job. I think that the average person now has seven or eight jobs throughout their employment time.
To answer his question, what is important now is that the government needs to recognize that the labour force has changed. We cannot rely on these companies to be providing these pensions and long-term strategies for retirement. It is becoming more onerous, quite frankly, for the government to provide those strategies and to make sure that people are prepared for their retirement because the opportunities this member mentioned, and that I mentioned at the beginning of answering the question, just do not exist anymore.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak to Bill C-32, the government's fall economic statement.
With inflation at record highs, interest rates rising and tax hikes on the way, Canadians are paying more attention to the government's spending now more than ever. They expect their government to be fiscally responsible with their tax dollars, and Canadians expect their government to make outcome-based investments and things that matter to them.
Unfortunately, since the Liberals took office in 2015, rural Canadians have been neglected by the government. I wish the government had spoken to rural Canadians and listened to their priorities and concerns before introducing the fall economic statement. Clearly, it failed to listen to rural Canadians.
Missing from the fiscal update is a plan to address rural crime. Rural crime is a pressing issue for Canadians who live in rural and remote regions. Unfortunately, the Liberal government has been silent on this issue.
Statistics Canada has reported that the crime rate in rural Canada has increased at a much higher rate than in urban Canada. The data shows that rural crime rates are 30% higher than in urban communities. Rural Canadians are vulnerable, and criminals are deliberately preying on the individuals and families in rural areas, knowing that the RCMP response times are highly delayed.
I spoke with a woman who lives just outside of the small community of Ethelbert, Manitoba last summer. She told me how her home was broken into multiple times in one year. Her home was invaded, her personal belongings were stolen and her safety was threatened. It took hours for the RCMP to respond, not because the police officers did not care but because they were so busy dealing with other responses.
Like many rural Canadians, the dream of living in a peaceful and tranquil region of our nation has turned into a reality of fear for one's safety. This is just one story, but I can assure members that nearly every Canadian who lives in rural Canada has, or heard, a similar one.
However, now the Liberals want to use the very limited policing services in rural Canada to implement their politically driven buyback program to confiscate legally acquired firearms. Even the provinces and territories are speaking out against this. New Brunswick, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Yukon oppose this wasteful use of police resources.
The provincial minister of public safety in New Brunswick said:
New Brunswick’s bottom line is this: RCMP resources are spread thin as it is...We have made it clear to the Government of Canada that we cannot condone any use of those limited resources, at all, in their planned buyback program.
The Liberals would rather use RCMP resources to enforce a firearm ban, which will do nothing to address rural crime, than use RCMP resources to protect the vulnerable families that live in rural Canada.
I should remind Canadians that violent crime has increased by 32% since the Prime Minister took office, and gang-related homicides have increased by 92%. Clearly, the Liberals' plan is not working. The Prime Minister has no plan to address the 30% higher crime rate in rural Canada, and that is very concerning.
The fiscal update did include new measures to support the victims of hurricane Fiona, and while I applaud the support, I want to raise an issue that was not addressed.
I was recently in P.E.I., meeting with Atlantic Canadians who feel neglected by their federal government, particularly the rural Canadians who feel their government is ignoring their needs.
Access to reliable, high-speed Internet and cellular service is critically important to rural Canadians from coast to coast to coast. When hurricane Fiona hit Atlantic Canada, cellular towers were down for days. The inadequate backup capacity on cellular infrastructure meant that Atlantic Canadians could not make a phone call in times of need.
Thousands of Atlantic Canadians waited weeks before they could reliably make a call on their cellphone. Imagine a single mother who does not know if she can contact local emergency services after a storm. Imagine seniors knowing they may not be able to call their loved ones in times of trouble.
While some cellular towers had backup generators, many did not have sufficient capacity and others had no redundancy at all. I found this very troubling. However, what I found even more troubling was the fact that this issue was raised by Atlantic Canadians to the Liberal government less than three years earlier after hurricane Dorian.
Atlantic Canadians called on the Liberals to address cellular redundancy in Canada, but their request fell on deaf ears. The Prime Minister failed to address cellular backup capacity in disaster-prone areas, and Canadians once again felt the impact of his neglect to this issue.
Even after the premier of Nova Scotia wrote to the Liberals urging them to address this issue, nothing was mentioned in the fall economic statement. Canadians deserve access to reliable cellular service.
If we want to connect Canadians with high-speed, reliable internet and cellular services, we need to increase competition in Canada. The only way to get lower prices and better service is to increase competition, enabling more innovation and choice.
Canada has among the highest, if not the highest, wireless prices in the world, according to a report by Rewheel/research. The minimum monthly price for a 4G smartphone plan that includes at least 20 gigabytes of data is higher in Canada than in Greece, New Zealand, South Africa, Norway, Germany, China, the United States, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Australia, Spain, the United Kingdom, India, Brazil and Italy, and the list goes on and on.
The Liberals think they can solve the problems with big government spending, but a lot of solutions emerge when we remove the government gatekeepers.
I think of Starlink, for example, a private company that provides internet through low earth orbit satellites. This is a company that is not reliant on government funding, that entered the Canadian market on its own, and has probably connected more rural and remote Canadians in one year than the government has since it took office. That is the power of innovation. That is the power of competition.
We should be encouraging private sector growth and innovation, not discouraging it.
Before I conclude, I want to point out one more thing. I noticed that there was a heading in the fall economic statement entitled “A Fair Tax System”. This reminded me of an encounter I had with a local taxi driver this year.
I was heading to the airport at four in the morning. A taxi driver had picked me up from my hotel and he told me he would only work for another two hours. I asked him why. He said that if he worked too much overtime, the increase in his tax rate would not make it worth his time. He would be working to put more money in the government’s coffers than in his own pocket. We should let that sink in.
Our tax system is discouraging Canadians from working. The government is discouraging seniors who want to top up their pensions. It is discouraging students who want to work for their tuition. It is discouraging parents who want to work a little extra to pay for Christmas presents. This is heartless and in no way a fair tax system. We should always be rewarding those Canadians who want to work.
Canadians are concerned with the rising cost of living. They are concerned with the irresponsible government spending. They are concerned with the neglect displayed by the government. They are concerned with what the future holds. I will continue to stand up for these Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative members always express concern with respect to the government spending. I do not know to what degree they recognize the true value of some of the spending that has taken place. We can talk about child care from coast to coast to coast. We have seen massive reductions for the first time with the national child care program. We have seen historic amounts of health care transfers to support provinces and address the needs of Canadians and their expectations on health care. In fact, we brought in a national dental program for children under the age of 12.
Would my colleague not recognize these are the types of programs on which Canadians expect their national government to deliver?
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Mr. Speaker, one thing the member talked about was spending. I will point to the Auditor General's report. The Auditor General found, “Employment and Social Development Canada established performance standards by focusing solely on the speed of payment”, and identified at least $32 billion in overpayments and suspicious payments that required further investigation. We are focused on that kind of spending.
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Uqaqtittiji, I am going to ask the member a similar question I have asked other members. Given the context that, as we all know, some major corporations are making major profits, windfall taxes on corporations like Loblaws and oil companies need to happen, because the people he talked about are the ones who are suffering the most. Revenues from windfall taxes could go upward of $4.3 billion, if this kind of windfall tax was put on corporations like Loblaws and oil and gas companies.
Does the member agree these major corporations need to pay their fair share of taxes?
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Madam Speaker, when it comes to taxes, it was one of our asks in this fall economic statement. We were looking for the Liberals to stop increasing taxes, in particular the carbon tax. Eliminating the carbon tax on home heating immediately would at least cut the costs for people to heat their homes, not sometime when we pass a bill, not sometime when we happen to get the House in order and not when we start to tax someone else. The government would immediately stop taxing Canadians who work so hard to heat their homes.
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Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my hon. colleague on his excellent speech.
He talked a lot about rural areas across Canada. I wonder if he could elaborate on what he would have liked to see in this budget statement. I agree with him that there is not much in this statement for rural areas.
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Madam Speaker, the one thing that really stood out to me was that it did not address Canada's needs at all, especially when it comes to rural crime. Today we talked about things that happened a long time ago and we said it should never happen again. In rural Canada, crime is 30% higher. There was not even a breath spent on that, not even on how we would address it or how we would take those sacred resources from the RCMP and apply them to rural Canada so we could look after rural Canadians. The government has totally blown up that whole idea.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech.
Earlier the member for Winnipeg North praised the government's actions in the area of health transfers with all kinds of conditions. Health care systems in Quebec and the provinces are in a critical state. Now is not the time to dither and try to set standards with absolutely no knowledge of exactly what they entail.
My colleague did not seem to respond as nervously as I did on this issue. I would like to hear his comments on this.
Why is the federal government so determined to impose standards for health transfers? Does my colleague agree that there should be no standards and that health transfers should be increased, as the provinces and Quebec have unanimously called for?
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry that I did not answer the question about health care.
Health care squarely belongs in the realm of the provinces especially, but the key for the federal government to keep our country together is to work with the provinces, respect their power and work as a team. as a country, and not to divide us and take us in different directions. It needs to work as a true leader. A Conservative government will do that.
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