44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 22, 2023 01:00PM
- Mar/22/23 2:41:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians well remember that when the hon. member was in government, the character of the relationships between provinces, municipalities and the federal government was fights all the time. There were conflicts and fights with cities, conflicts and fights with rural mayors, conflicts and fights with provinces, and cuts to services that Canadians relied on. The member is demonstrating that eight years of investments in Canadians in growth, in lifting Canadians out of poverty, in creating jobs and in fighting climate change just makes him want to go back to the good old days of Stephen Harper, with cuts and fights with everyone.
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- Mar/22/23 2:52:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, allow me to say that, over the past eight years, it has been an honour and a pleasure to work so closely with organized labour across this country.
We have been able to build opportunities for middle-class Canadians right across the country by standing up for unions, by ensuring that, first of all, we reverse the anti-union legislation the Conservatives had put forward under Stephen Harper, but more than that, that we build for a stronger future in partnership. We have invested in union training and better opportunities for apprenticeships. We have partnered with unions on infrastructure builds. We will continue to draw in investments from around the world, whether it is Volkswagen, Michelin, Dofasco, or any number of investments across the country—
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- Mar/22/23 2:54:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after a decade of neglect under the Harper Government, the Canadian auto sector is finally re-emerging as a global leader. When asked about the opposition leader's criticisms of the Volkswagen investment our government has attracted to Canada, the Ontario premier shrugged them off and characterized them as political comments. Even the Conservative premier of Ontario knows that this is a good outcome and that federal Liberals are bringing jobs home to Ontario.
Can the Prime Minister please elaborate on what this means for Canada and Canadian workers?
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- Mar/22/23 3:03:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it took the Harper government only three months to get the Americans to back down and pay back and stop collecting illegal tariffs on softwood. When the Prime Minister took office, the Americans smelled weakness and they slapped those tariffs right back on, and then what happened? He backed down.
The Harper government got an exemption to buy America laws. Within months of the Prime Minister taking office, the Americans slapped it right back on again, and he backed down again. He is now even saying that he cannot protect our borders against illegal border crossing without the permission of the United States president.
Will he announce resolutions to these problems tomorrow, or will he just back down again?
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- Mar/22/23 3:04:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when Canadians faced one of the most significant threats to our jobs, growth and prosperity in the threat of cancellation of NAFTA, the recommendation from Mr. Harper and the Conservatives was, “Oh, we need to capitulate”.
That is not what Canadians or what this government did. We stood strongly. We got them to lift tariffs on steel and aluminum. We renegotiated NAFTA in our favour. We continue to stand up for Canadians and Canadian workers right across the country.
We will take no lessons in capitulation to the Americans from the Conservatives.
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- Mar/22/23 3:05:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we all remember when Canadians and Canadian workers faced the greatest threat to our economy that we had ever seen: President Trump was going to cancel NAFTA. We stood firm and pushed back against the Americans, even though Mr. Harper and the Conservatives were urging us to capitulate, to avoid upsetting Trump and to accept what he was offering.
We stood up for Canadian workers, we revisited the tariffs on steel and aluminum, and we renegotiated NAFTA in our favour.
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- Mar/22/23 3:08:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a former Conservative government obtained an exemption to the buy America policy under the Obama administration.
The Americans slapped it right back on again when this Prime Minister took over. He then signed a deal that allowed the expansion of buy America from being just projects at the state level to projects at the federal level.
The Mexicans got an exemption. Will the Prime Minister finally do what the Mexicans and Prime Minister Harper did and try to get an exemption from buy America tomorrow?
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- Mar/22/23 3:10:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is hard to really fathom how badly the Prime Minister has capitulated on buy America.
Let us get it straight: Harper got an exemption to buy America in the Obama era to protect our construction workers and their paycheques. This Prime Minister allowed Trump to slap buy America on, and then he signed a deal that would allow the expansion of buy America from being just at the state level to the federal level. Now, the Mexicans have an exemption from buy America, and we do not.
This is a catastrophic failure for our construction workers as a result of the Prime Minister's weakness. Will he get a deal to end buy America for Canadians tomorrow?
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- Mar/22/23 5:39:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am trying to make a fairly simple point here. If we take a look at actions on this issue, we see it is not new. Not only is it not new, but it affects many countries, not just Canada. We can talk about the U.S. We can talk about some countries over in Europe. There are other democracies where we have witnessed and seen international foreign interference in elections. That has been happening for years now.
In fact, when Stephen Harper was the Prime Minister, we all know that a report went to him at that time. Ironically, the minister who was responsible for democratic reform is the current leader of the Conservative Party. It is safe to say that while he was the minister of democratic reform under Stephen Harper, they did absolutely nothing when they were made aware of the issue.
We can fast-forward to the 2015 election, when there was a change in government. We saw a number of changes by the Prime Minister and parliamentarians back in 2015 that made substantive changes in a wide variety of ways. There were legislative changes that, for example, saw Canada complying with what our other Five Eyes countries were doing by implementing a parliamentary committee of the House, which also has participation from the Senate, with the security clearance to investigate this issue in every possible and imaginable way.
As we have seen, our independent agencies, like Elections Canada and CSIS, and the top security adviser to the Prime Minister have given opinions in regard to the issue of the 2019 and 2021 elections. The conclusion has been very clear: Any interference has not affected the outcome of either one of those elections. The Conservative Party is aware of that, yet its members choose to continue to flaunt the issue and ratchet it up in the hopes that they can get Canadians even more upset with the issue. When I hear of issues such as foreign interference, I ask what they hope to achieve. They hope to achieve interference, cause problems and confusion, and cause the public to lose confidence. That is what these agents from abroad are hoping—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Mar/22/23 5:43:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the point is that the Conservative Party of Canada, in co-operation with a few others, is ultimately doing what a lot of these perpetrators of foreign interference are trying to do, and that is to take away public confidence in our elections. The Conservatives have no problem with feeding into that, even though every member of this House knows full well that we have had independent, well-respected agencies and individuals come forward and be very clear that there has been no impact on the last two federal elections. They know that for a fact.
We can look at what has been brought forward by the government just recently with the establishment of a special rapporteur in the name of David Johnston. David Johnston is a former governor general of Canada, someone appointed by former Prime minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative prime minister. He is an individual with impeccable credentials. He is a true Canadian in every imaginable way. He has the expertise and background to look at the situation, as other independent agencies and individuals have done, and come forward with recommendations.
The Prime Minister himself has been very clear that if Mr. Johnston comes back and says a public inquiry is necessary, that will happen. One would think the Conservative opposition, in particular, would respect that. Instead, what they are doing is assassinating the character of an incredible Canadian, much as we have witnessed over the last number of years. The Conservatives have no hesitation in making personal attacks on the Prime Minister or anyone else in the government.
I would just suggest and ask that the Conservatives be more open-minded to doing what is in the best interests of Canadians, step aside on some of the partisanship stuff they have put on the table and recognize that David Johnston is in fact a positive way for us to move forward in dealing with this very important issue.
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- Mar/22/23 10:18:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to get into the reality of the Conservative opposition motion that they are talking about today. We have to put it in proper perspective.
Over the last number of months, there has been a great deal of canvassing. The Prime Minister often says that Ottawa is a great place to be, and one has to bring the issues and the concerns of the constituents in one's ridings to Ottawa.
I can assure those who are following the debate that we bring a wide variety of different types of issues from out in our communities to Ottawa. We do this to ensure that we reflect what Canadians want to see.
The Conservatives are really focused on things like character assassination. In contrast, we are concerned about making sure that we have the backs of Canadians.
I say that because today they want to talk about beer and wine tax. There is no doubt that beer, alcohol, is a very important issue. I do not question that. However, when I do the math, I think it works out to about 15¢ or 16¢ on a case of 24 beers. That is what they want to talk about.
That is an opposition day. They get a few every year. I would suggest that if we were to listen to someone like me, who likes to respond to what my constituents are talking about, they talk about a wide variety of issues of great concern, whether it is inflation, health care or the environment. The list goes on.
By the way, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton Strathcona.
I can assure everyone that there is a great number of issues. However, the Conservatives want to talk about taxes. They are being selective. One of the very first things we did in government, back in 2015 when Canadians kicked out Stephen Harper, was to reduce the tax for the middle class.
How did the Conservatives respond to that reduction, that legislation that reduced the tax for Canada's middle class? They ran. They voted against it.
We also increased the tax for Canada's wealthiest 1% of people. Once again, how did we see the Conservative Party vote? It voted against that too.
Let us fast-forward, right from the beginning to where we are today. It was not that long ago, three or four months, maybe five, that the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, said we want to provide additional tax relief for Canadians. We brought in legislation to say that we are going to double the GST rebate temporarily for the next six months.
Originally, the Conservatives actually opposed that tax initiative. In fairness, it took a little bit of shaming, quite a while, but at the end of the day, they actually flip-flopped. I say it somewhat candidly, but I compliment them on their change of heart.
I am glad, because that tax break that we provided, if we relate it to this one, would buy hundreds of bottles of beer, that one break. At the end of the day, we understand the benefits and the drawbacks of what is happening in our communities from a taxation perspective.
They are talking specifically about alcohol and beer. We are all concerned about that issue. We have a budget coming up awfully soon. I know that I am getting anxious about it; maybe there might even be the odd Conservative who is getting anxious about it. We anticipate that there is going to be a wide spectrum of issues dealt with in that budget.
For years, I have been a very strong advocate, for example, on the health care file. Health care, I have argued in the past, is part of our Canadian core identity. I would suggest that it might have been more advantageous to talk about the health care issue based on what the Conservative Party has been talking about for the last few days, something Canadians are genuinely concerned about: the recognition of credentials and how we get more health care workers, whether doctors, nurses or support workers, into the system.
Conservatives might not fully understand jurisdictional responsibilities and things of that nature. They might be trying to intentionally mislead people in terms of what they could be capable of doing, especially if we look at the history of the Conservative Party. It is not very good when it comes to health care; I can assure everyone of that.
At the end of the day—
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