44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 7, 2022 02:00PM
Mr. Speaker, sadly, there are not enough letters in the alphabet to adequately express what the many individuals who find themselves homeless face. I could cite the many people in Winnipeg North who use bus shelters as a home or just fall asleep in alleys and on streets in our communities. That is unfortunately what is taking place.
To resolve the housing urgency by trying to put the blame on the national government is not appropriate. The national government needs to work with municipalities and provinces to meet the housing needs that are there. In fact, the programs we have provided are encouraging municipalities and other stakeholders to come forward with their ideas.
The federal government has invested more dollars in housing in recent years than any other government in the last 50-plus years. I am wondering if my friend could provide his thoughts on the importance of ensuring municipalities and provinces do likewise, invest like the federal government is investing and support our communities so that we have a better chance at resolving the housing crisis.
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Mr. Speaker, whether this is done by the municipalities, the provinces or the federal government, housing must be built now. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the CMHC, announced last week that 3.5 million units need to be built before 2030. That is quite a challenge.
Do my colleagues know how many units have been built in Canada since the start of the national housing strategy? The answer is 35,000. About 60,000 have been repaired. That is 100,000 units, if we are being generous. That is what has been built so far. The shortfalls are absolutely insane.
According to a study by a CMHC economist, in Quebec alone, if nothing is done in the next 10 years, 500,000 units will be built. However, to address the two key issues at this time, affordability and accessibility, 1.1 million need to be built. There is a shortfall of 600,000. Somewhere in the process, the government here or the provinces themselves need to get involved. There is money here. The government must get involved to ensure that those 600,000 units are built. They will not fall from the sky.
That is the challenge we have before us.
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Mr. Speaker, we are here talking about money today, and I have heard colleagues from the Bloc Québécois chastise the coalition many times for approving Bay du Nord. Newfoundland and Labrador currently pays into the transfer program, so I am wondering whether the Bloc Québécois will work toward returning the portion of the transfer money that goes to Quebec, which is from the oil industry, to Newfoundland and Labrador and all the oil-producing provinces. Will they send the money back?
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Mr. Speaker, the planet is on fire, yet he is talking about money. That is insane. Canada is the worst country in the world when it comes to fighting climate change, yet my colleague is talking about investments, health transfers and equalization. The planet is already burning. We are the worst country in the G7.
Since the Liberals came to power in 2015, greenhouse gas emissions have increased steadily. We are a disgrace. The Liberals continue to invest year after year. We have learned that we rank second in the G20 in terms of average public investments in fossil fuels. That alone is a disgrace.
Companies like Suncor are making obscene profits. The CEO's pocket change alone could pay for the Bay du Nord development project. I seriously do not understand what my colleague is on about right now.
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Uqaqtittiji, I have people in my territory who are homeless, like Bernie Napassikallak from Taloyoak, who lives in a tent in harsh winter conditions at the moment. I appreciate that the member focused his intervention on the need to increase housing.
I wonder if the member agrees that the Canada recovery dividend needs to be extended to collect revenue from big box stores and oil and gas companies so that the revenue collected can go toward increasing the amount of housing in Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, more money is needed for housing.
I spoke about housing, but there is also the problem of homelessness itself, as we know. The anecdotes that I told are stories, but these things do happen. These are people I met with on Monday. I went to meet with them at one of the centres in my riding. These are stories I was told.
If we do not invest money now in adressing homelessness, people will be sleeping on the street. The outreach workers live alongside these people, so they know what they are going through. It is already getting cold out, so imagine what it will be like in January. People will be turned away, and they will have to find somewhere to sleep, like the entrance to a subway station.
It is appalling that a G7 country is letting people sleep on the street at ‑20°C, period.
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Mr. Speaker, I am particularly pleased to speak after my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, who masterfully demonstrated how inadequate the government's measures are.
I am going to give three examples. We have talked a lot about the economic statement. It has been examined from every possible angle, so I have chosen three measures that I see as either insufficient or counterproductive. I chose these three examples because they demonstrate that the Government of Canada has lost its bearings. It can no longer steer the ship, which is slowly taking on water.
The first measure I want to talk about is the FHSA, the tax-free first home savings account. It would allow first-time home buyers to save $40,000 on a tax-free basis. This savings account is a hybrid between two existing vehicles. Like the tax-free savings account, or TFSA, it allows money to be saved without the gains being taxed. It shares some characteristics with the registered retirement savings plan, or RRSP. Like contributions to an RRSP, contributions to the FHSA reduce a taxpayer's taxable income, meaning they pay less taxes at the end of the year.
Few people know that the FHSA is nothing new. Few people remember, and I was not born when this measure was introduced, but the RHOSP, a plan similar to the FHSA, already existed in Canada. The RHOSP was announced in the 1974 federal budget and abolished in the 1985 federal budget. As with the FHSA, contributions were deductible, returns could accumulate tax-free, and withdrawals were also tax-free when used for the purchase of a house or even, initially, for the purchase of appliances and furniture. The RHOSP was introduced in an economic context similar to the one in which the FHSA was introduced, with high inflation and interest rates.
This has all been attempted before. The conclusion will probably be the same: There are better tools for improving access to home ownership. We have known this since the 1970s. Accounts like this are not effective measures for helping people access housing. The FHSA is an ineffective and, above all, unfair tool for helping people access home ownership.
I would like to cite an excerpt form a study by Larin and Tremblay on the issue in 1978. It is “individuals reporting the highest incomes that benefit most from the plan, with 6.1% of taxpayers earning between $50,000 and $100,000 [in the 1970s] and 6.4% of those over $100,000 using the plan, compared to less than 2% of those with incomes under $7,000 in 1974.”
The biggest shortcoming of this type of measure is that it is not adjusted based on taxpayers' incomes. It necessarily puts people with higher incomes at an advantage, so it is counterproductive. It is fine to be able to shelter $8,000 from taxes, but that money has to be available. Although the government's intentions are supposedly good, the measure allows people who already have money for a down payment to shelter it from taxes. That is fine, but it does not help people who are having difficulty accessing home ownership. It does not help the people whose stories were just told by my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert. It does not help the people who really need it.
The government ought to rely on the scientific literature. A fairer way of offering this type of tax benefit would have been to draw on the example of registered education savings plans. The government could have offered to “pay a grant proportional to the amount contributed regardless of income or even a grant that decreases as income increases”. The FHSA is the first of many examples of the government's outdated and inadequate policies. A savings account is one thing, but the real problem is the industrial and macroeconomic policies that I will discuss in a moment.
That brings me to my second measure. The government is aware of its shortcomings in terms of industrial policy, but it fails to propose any solutions in Bill C-32. Here is what the economic statement says: “Canadian workers need a robust industrial policy that will deliver good-paying jobs by seizing the opportunities of the netzero economy, by attracting new private investment, and by providing key resources to the world”.
Basically, what the government did was create an expert panel in 2020 called the Industry Strategy Council. The council made four main recommendations, but none of them seem to have made their way into current federal government policies.
The government may not want to admit it, but the pandemic significantly changed the global economy. The rules of the globalization game altered drastically with the pandemic. Supply chain resilience is now a key economic issue. Supply problems are one of the main causes of the inflation we are seeing today.
Before the pandemic, supply chains were designed to minimize the cost of each input, so the final product would be as cheap as possible. Value chains were based on minimal transportation costs, so something like a cellphone might be made from parts manufactured around the world.
However, those supply chains are fragile. A delay in the production of one part can hold up the production of several goods. For example, we are still feeling the consequences of the closure of plants manufacturing semi-conductors, which are an essential input for many electronic items. That is why some vehicles are in short supply.
Advanced economies around the world are now investing heavily in acquiring and developing new industries. One sign of that global change is the widespread creation of backup inventories. Many countries and businesses now maintain inventories purely as a safeguard against possible disruptions in their supply chains. Efficiency at all costs is now giving way to a resilience model. The economy is changing. Resilience is the goal now, not efficiency.
Fully 81% of supply chain leaders surveyed by McKinsey are now sourcing materials from two suppliers, rather than depending on one. This is another example of change in the global economy, where globalization as we knew it no longer exists.
The smart way to invest in industrial policy would be to invest in key or strategic industries. Key industries, such as semiconductors, are vital to supply chains. Without semiconductors, there can be no finished product. There is no way to finish them. Strategic industries involve essential goods that we are better off producing ourselves because we need to make sure they are always in stock. In some cases, major shortages could cost people their lives. Medical equipment is one example.
Instead of adopting a clear industrial policy like the U.S., Canada copied another measure, share repurchasing. Companies do this to give money back to their shareholders. Dividend payouts are another such measure. A company can buy back its shares on the market. It can also make a public buyback offer to its shareholders.
In August, the Biden administration implemented a 1% tax on stock buybacks under its Inflation Reduction Act. The Biden administration's measure seeks to encourage companies to invest their capital to grow their business, rather than return it to their shareholders. The tax does not seem large enough to act as a real deterrent to stock buybacks. The connection between stock buybacks and the underinvestment of companies is not all that clear. A company's optimal level of investment is not just determined by its cash flow. It is not advantageous for all companies to grow, even if they have a healthy level of capital.
The Fed studied the phenomenon in 2017 and did not find a causal link between stock buybacks and underinvestment. The measure is a surtax because capital gains on stock are taxable.
Furthermore, this measure was implemented in the U.S. in August, while Canada only talked about potentially implementing such a measure in 2023 or 2024 in the budget statement. Once again, this is very vague. The government is saying that it is going to quickly copy a measure, but ultimately it is not even capable of implementing it.
What the United States is doing, but we are not, is proposing an ambitious industrial policy. Canada is quickly being overtaken. The public purse is a powerful tool. When properly used, it can attract foreign investments to develop a local manufacturing sector. For example, as part of its semi-conductor plan, the United States will be bringing in just over $39 billion in tax incentives to encourage the construction of new semi-conductor plants on American soil.
According to the concept of the fiscal multiplier, one dollar well invested can generate a much larger return. Semi-conductors are the foundation of a digital economy. All the great economic powers are developing semi-conductor procurement and control policies. What policy is Canada proposing for semi-conductors? None at all, unfortunately.
The economic statement contains 34 references to the supply chain problems contributing to inflation, but it does not propose anything to counter them.
In conclusion, the government is clearly short on inspiration. The economic statement contains nothing in the way of impactful, innovative measures. At best, it rehashes things we have seen before, such as the FHSA. Worse still, the Government of Quebec has to make up for Canada's lack of vision, because this economic statement is just like the government that issued it: weak and ill adapted to the changing economic reality.
If Canada does nothing—
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- Dec/7/22 5:33:19 p.m.
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Order. The hon. member's time is up, but I am sure she will have a chance to say more during questions and comments.
The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate a number of the comments that the member made.
One of the issues I would like to raise is in regard to the support programs that are inside the legislation. One of the things is the intergenerational housing credit that will provide incentive for people to build a suite for seniors, possibly a parent or an individual with a disability. It is a substantial credit to encourage that to take place. The previous speaker talked about the issue of homelessness and how important it was for him.
I am wondering if she could provide her thoughts on that specific credit.
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Madam Speaker, once again, I think it is one of the measures that is probably good, but clearly inadequate.
As I said, the Government of Canada is missing the boat. Actually, the boat is sinking. I refuse to see my country, Quebec, go down with it.
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her excellent speech. She really is a public accounts expert.
I noticed that she was cut off before she finished her speech, so I am wondering if she wants to finish her speech.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for his comment, which gives me a chance to finish my speech.
The economic statement contains nothing in the way of impactful, innovative measures. At best, it rehashes things we have seen before, such as the FHSA. Worse still, the Government of Quebec has to make up for Canada's lack of vision. This economic statement is just like the government that issued it: weak and ill adapted to the changing economic reality. If Canada does nothing, there is no doubt it will miss the boat.
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Madam Speaker, one of the things I liked about my colleague's speech was her reference to the lack of an industrial strategy in the government's plan.
Does my colleague know that the government wants to spend more and more money, money that apparently grows on trees? That is what we see when we look at the government's spending. Is that a good strategy for Canada's future?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
If I understood correctly, he is asking me what I think about the current government's industrial policy. In fact, it is almost non-existent. As I said, the key or strategic industries are totally ignored, unfortunately. There are plans and promises, but sadly, there is nothing concrete.
I think that, when it comes to investments, we have to do our best with fewer resources. The important thing is to make government spending more efficient.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.
I think she knows that my riding is home to many seasonal workers. The Gaspé and the Lower St. Lawrence are very popular tourist areas. During the pandemic, temporary measures were put in place for people who had to stop working for mainly pandemic-related reasons. I have to say that those temporary measures were fairly decent. They could have opened the door to employment insurance reform, but in the end, the government did away with those programs, went back to the old program and thus abandoned all of the workers that did not accumulate a sufficient number of insurable hours.
Does she think that the fall economic update or economic statement would have been the right time to announce something for seasonal workers in the regions of Quebec?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her wonderful question, which gives me an opportunity to talk about a third measure that was conspicuously absent from the economic statement, and that is a major EI reform.
The government is saying that we are entering a recession, so why has it not already reformed the EI system to make seasonal workers eligible? Why has it not helped those who are receiving EI sickness benefits? We need EI reform. It was promsed a long time ago, but the government still has not done anything about it. That was conspicuously absent from the economic statement, the budget and the federal government's policy measures.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak to the fall economic statement, legislation that has been introduced in this House. New Democrats are supporting it because there are some important measures in the legislation that we think will help Canadians, and I will canvass a few of them.
This legislation would introduce a Canada recovery dividend, under which banks and life insurance groups would pay a temporary, one-time, 15% tax on taxable income above $1 billion over five years.
I should pause and seek the unanimous consent of the House to split my time with the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.
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Does the hon. member have unanimous consent to split his time?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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Madam Speaker, this legislation would increase the corporate income tax rates of banks and life insurance groups by 1.5% on taxable income above $100 million. It would eliminate interest on the federal portion of student loans and apprentice loans. Finally, it would enact the framework agreement on the First Nations Land Management Act. All of those are positive steps that are worthy of support in this legislation.
While New Democrats are pleased to see advancement on these measures, we believe there is much more that the fall economic statement should have offered Canadians struggling with the rising cost of living. We know many Canadians are struggling to pay their bills. We also know many corporations are making record profits at the same time. We know inflation is crippling. The price of food, in particular, has skyrocketed across this country. The costs of utilities, insurance and fuels are all up, making it really tough for many Canadians in every corner of this country to make ends meet.
That is why New Democrats would have welcomed a windfall tax, like the one this legislation already applies to banks and life insurers, being expanded to other corporations that are making even higher profits than those sectors are, like food companies, including Loblaws, and like the oil and gas sector. The revenue the government could recoup from applying this tax to big box stores and oil and gas companies alone would total over $4 billion. That is money New Democrats believe would and should be used to help Canadians mitigate the rising costs they are facing, including the cost of heating their homes. New Democrats have long called for the elimination of the GST on home heating in times of struggle like this, particularly as we enter the winter season.
Eliminating the interest on the federal portion of student loans would offer loan holders an average of $4,000 of savings over the lifetime of their loan, and this is important. For years New Democrats have called for the elimination of interest on student debt. We should not be making money off the debt that students are incurring to get an education. Frankly, I have long believed that post-secondary education should be free, at least the first four years, whether it is an apprenticeship, community college or university, whatever it is, so that we encourage and facilitate our younger generation to become more educated. I believe higher-educated societies are more prosperous societies, and it is an investment. Just like public school is free until grade 12, there is no reason we should not extend that to 16 years of public education.
What is not in this legislation is what will have the largest impact on people. It has been estimated that the cost of home heating could go up by as much as 30% in some places in Canada, so eliminating the GST on that would be a simple way to offer Canadians respite in an immediate way.
Food bank usage has drastically increased as the grocery chains that supply Canadian consumers with the food they need to survive are recording profits of $1 million extra a day.
Health care systems across this country are in chaos. There is no new money and no progress after the recent meeting of health ministers for improving health care and ensuring that the federal government increases its share of spending to better approach the fair deal that historically is the underpinning of the Canadian health care system.
The economic policy being used in this legislation is a good start, but it is not broad enough. If we expanded some of these good concepts in a much more broad, targeted and intelligent manner, we could generate billions of dollars that could be used for these very valuable social and economic development programs.
Once again, when we educate our young people, it is not merely good for them. These are people who will generate the ideas, economic activities and professional skills that will generate income into the future, so it is an important economic basis as well.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Certainly, the member for St. Catharines had a lot to say earlier, and we would like to request a quorum call.
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