SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 179 - Apr/18/23

Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

Apr/18/23 10:13:44 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to table two petitions in the House today. The first comes from hundreds of people who are very concerned by the lack of civic participation in the admissibility and consideration of complaints from the public regarding federally appointed judges. The Canadian Judicial Council is made up exclusively of judges. A number of studies question whether their professional ties prevent the judges from being completely impartial when they review complaints. These citizens are calling for a joint committee composed of citizen representatives and judicial representatives to be created to study the admissibility of any complaints filed and follow up on them. They also want us to ensure that the appointment process for citizen representatives on the various committees of the Canadian Judicial Council is transparent and to create an appeal procedure for the complaints review committee.

140 words

Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

Apr/18/23 10:14:35 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the second petition is related to extremely concerning events happening abroad. On September 2021, Azerbaijani forces initiated an invasion and attacked the Republic of Armenia. Several hundred people have died, thousands of civilians have been displaced and prisoners of war have been captured. There have been constant human rights violations and attacks on Armenia's national sovereignty. An area covering 130 square kilometres of Armenian territory is occupied at the moment. Thousands of people are calling on Canada to assume a leadership role in defending the victims of human rights violations, urgently impose economic and military sanctions against Azerbaijan to pressure it to withdraw from the Republic of Armenia and demand that Azerbaijan return all prisoners of war, detainees, and the remains of fallen Armenians.

130 words

All Topics

Mr. Todd Doherty (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC)

Apr/18/23 10:15:23 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I rise this morning to present a petition on behalf of the village of Lytton and the businesses in Lytton, British Columbia. As has been mentioned previously, the village of Lytton was decimated by fire on June 30, 2021. The village remains under an evacuation order, with construction not yet started on homes and buildings. Since rebuilding has yet to begin, doors cannot open and businesses have had no revenue for nearly two years. Already incurring large deficits due to the pandemic, businesses destroyed by the fire will not be in a position to repay the CEBA loans when due on December 31 of this year. Almost 100 business owners in the village of Lytton signed this petition, calling upon the Government of Canada to recognize the extraordinary circumstances of the businesses of Lytton and to forgive their amounts owing on the Canada emergency business account loans. Due to the magnitude of the disaster and consequential bureaucratic delays, businesses have been unable to rebuild for nearly two years. Forgiveness of the CEBA loans for Lytton businesses would help them to empower economic development and restore the destroyed community. This impacts both first nations and non-first nations. I know what they are speaking of, because in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George, many businesses and farms are still waiting, since the 2017 wildfires, to rebuild, and they are in the same boat. The petitioners are pleading with the government to forgive these loans.

246 words

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Apr/18/23 10:17:07 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I rise in this place, on the territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people, with the following petition. The petitioners identify that, in the effort to address the climate crisis, our built infrastructure plays a large role. Seventeen per cent of all energy used in Canada is used in various forms of energy for our homes, and the result of wasteful consumption of energy is a barrier to climate action. The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to work with the provinces and territories to develop a new national building code to reduce overall energy demand by 15%. This is doable, but, as we all know, the national building code takes a long time to develop, and the petitioners are asking that the government address the energy efficiency issues in our homes with urgency.

137 words

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.)

Apr/18/23 10:18:04 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I table a petition today. I want people to imagine working 30 or 40 years of their lives, accumulating perhaps $300,000, $400,000 or $500,000 in savings, and those savings being taken away. Retirees are increasingly becoming targets of fraud, given that they have built up wealth over their lifetimes to help support their retirement years, and they are vulnerable due to the lack of controls and protections in the transmission of money within the Canadian banking system. Seniors are seeing the savings they have built up over the years removed due to sophistication, deceit and trickery foisted on them by professional fraudsters to exploit them and the current Canadian banking system. Petitioners are calling upon the House of Commons to undertake a serious and comprehensive review of the current transit system of Canadian citizens' money, with the aim of putting more stringent procedures, protocols and safeguards in place to protect seniors, in particular, from losing their life savings.

168 words

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Apr/18/23 10:19:14 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand at this time, please.

16 words

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Apr/18/23 10:19:18 a.m.
Watch

Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

7 words

Mr. Matt Jeneroux (Edmonton Riverbend, CPC)

Apr/18/23 10:19:50 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this place, the House Commons, and particularly to speak to budget 2023 today. Before I start talking about the budget, I would like to first bring some good news to the House. Some of our very good friends, Carl Brown and Veronica Dubak recently had a little baby boy, Sterling Vesely Dubak Brown, on March 17. I look forward to spending lots of time with him. He is happy and healthy, and we could not be happier for them and their family. I note the applause for Hansard. On a more sombre note, this is the first time I have been able to rise in the House since the tragedy that hit Edmonton more recently, where we have now lost three frontline police officials. First it was Constable Travis Jordan and Constable Brett Ryan, and more recently Constable Harvinder Dhami. I cannot imagine the amount of grief their families are feeling right now, and I wanted to make sure to send my condolences out to them. It certainly has gripped our town of Edmonton very strongly as we come to terms with the loss of three lives in our community, of those who put their lives in the way of fire every single day. I do want to get to the budget. First of all, I want to address three or four items that I found to be of particular interest to me, mental health being the key one. In the lead-up to the budget, we heard a lot of talk about mental health and the supports that may or may not be in the budget. Unfortunately, it was the latter. A number of mental health committees I have spoken to over the last number of weeks talked about how disappointing this budget has been to them. It is unfortunate. We are going through an incredible mental health crisis right now. It is something I know every member of this House ends up supporting. However, it did not seem to make it to that final step and get into the budget. These are not just my thoughts. I will give a quick rundown of what the Canadian Mental Health Association stated. The headline of its press release the day of the budget says it all: “Budget 2023 out of touch with mental health crisis”. The press release goes on to say: The Canadian Mental Health Association...is profoundly concerned that Budget 2023 did not include the promised Canada Mental Health Transfer. Failing to establish the Transfer is an abdication of responsibility on a long-awaited policy and mandate priority.... The promise of federal funding starting in 2021 with an initial investment of $4.5 billion over 5 years never materialized. The press release then quotes the CEO: “The budget is out of touch with the reality of Canadians’ well-being and their ability to afford mental health services. I believe that the government has missed the mark, and that there will be deep human and economic costs to pay.” Mental health is something I know a number of these organizations have spent a lot of time coordinating, and they have been reaching out to the government about trying to get that support. This is an opportunity to highlight some of these serious mental health aspects. There is an awareness event that I do each year with members of this House. With the Liberal member for Richmond Hill and the NDP member for Courtenay—Alberni, we do an event called Father's Day on the Hill every year. It raises awareness of men's mental health, because 75% of suicides in this country are of men. We have even seen some more statistics come out that an average of 50 men are dying by suicide per week and that 81% of the drug overdose deaths are also of men. I am always pleased to raise awareness of this event. We are now in our seventh year of doing this, but the numbers continue to climb and it is something that I know most members of the House are concerned about. To drive this home, in terms of just how important the support for mental health is, not seeing that tied into the budget has been disappointing to see. Before I move on to the next topic, on men's mental health, we have even seen, this year, the Bloc Québécois join us in putting together this event. We started a foundation through it last year, which is going to promote research and programs throughout the year. Ultimately, what I would love to see in this budget, and going forward in future budgets, is not just support for mental health as a broad budget number and a lump sum of money, but for a lot of that to be dedicated to the people and the issues that need it most, whether it be the overdose deaths or the mental health of men struggling with suicide. Those sorts of supports are what Canadians are asking for and what Canadians need right now. I want to move on to the other topic that jumped out at me in the budget, the supply chains. It is something that I take on in this caucus, as our shadow minister of supply chains. There was a lot of reaching out and advocating for supply chain issues in the lead-up to this budget. However, unfortunately, we saw even more movement in the opposite direction. I will just read a quick quote from the Railway Association of Canada, which was not pleased with what happened in this budget: “The Railway Association of Canada...calls the federal government’s move to resurrect the failed policy of extended regulated interswitching misguided and harmful to Canada’s supply chains.” Its CEO goes on to state, “The measures announced today will not improve the efficiency, capacity or reliability of Canada’s supply chains. They will do the exact opposite, as we saw under extended regulated interswitching that was in place from 2014 to 2016.” The supply chain issue is something that I know has gripped many Canadians, particularly in my community. Since the pandemic, I have been hearing a lot about what supply chains have meant to this country, and I think that more and more people are paying attention to the supply chains now too. In downtown Vancouver, if people see a barge out on English Bay, they might be wondering if maybe that is their Amazon package delivery or the IKEA bench they were hoping to purchase over the weekend. I think that more Canadians are looking at what governments are doing when it comes to supply chains. It touches each ministry over there, yet there is not a lot of coordination between the ministries. I think this is partly why it was astute of our leader to put that focus on supply chains. If we can get a coordinated approach where we can bring forward those solutions, whether it is reducing red tape or providing efficiencies, I think we will see a lot more success at the federal, provincial and municipal levels when it comes to supply chain management. There is one last topic I want to briefly touch on. I sit on the parliamentary aerospace caucus, and I co-chair that with a member of each party in the House. I have been on it for five or six years now. What we do is raise awareness for the aerospace industry and the aerospace sector. They were also disappointed in this particular budget. For example, immediately following the budget, they said, “This budget was a missed opportunity for the federal government to support the development of a national aerospace strategy, increase resourcing in Transport Canada's certification capabilities and exclude aircraft from the Select Luxury Items Tax Act to mitigate the significant negative impacts we are currently seeing on Canadian manufacturers and workers.” The reason why that is important is that the aerospace sector has been advocating for a national aerospace strategy since I got here, since 2015. It is too bad to see that it keeps getting pushed down the aisle. These are just three items that I got to talk about, but I do not think I have seen, in my time here, a budget that has been criticized by so many different associations and organizations. I think that should be a wake-up call for the government on the other side to think about when it is looking at future budgets or future legislation in this place.

1452 words

All Topics

Mr. Lloyd Longfield (Guelph, Lib.)

Apr/18/23 10:30:07 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the hon. member across the way cited in his speech several media references. I wonder if any of those media references were from the CBC, and whether the CBC reporting on our budget gives us the critical input we need to see the benefits and downfalls of the current budget.

52 words

Mr. Matt Jeneroux

Apr/18/23 10:30:33 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I think my good friend across the aisle is trying to set up a trap on the CBC side, but he is mistaken. I did not actually quote from any media articles. I quoted from the association's press releases. It came out and sent out its own responses. I am certain there is a lot of CBC criticism of the budget. I am happy to find that for him and send it his way.

77 words

Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Apr/18/23 10:31:14 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the budget has several important elements. However, the fact remains that it meddles in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the Canadian provinces. I would like to hear my colleague's opinion on this. Does he have any concerns about the fact that part of the budget does not respect the jurisdictions set out in the Constitution?

59 words

Mr. Matt Jeneroux

Apr/18/23 10:31:46 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, it is important, in this House, that the government reflect all aspects of this country. I am hearing that my Bloc friends are also disappointed in this budget. We are disappointed in this budget. They are disappointed in this budget. If only we could get one more party on side to be disappointed in this budget, we might end up with a confidence vote and we might have an election. We might have somebody else in the chair to put forward a better budget that would be better received across the country.

94 words

Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Apr/18/23 10:32:25 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I work with my colleague on many different items, like mental health, pensions and whatnot. We know that one-third of single women in this country are living in poverty. It is completely unacceptable. We know that pensions need to be increased. One thing he talked about in his speech was around British pensioners who have retired in Canada. Public servants who worked in Britain and who receive a pension are restricted. They do not get the rate of inflation increase that Canadians get when they retire in Britain, for example. It is basically pension theft. It is leaving many British expats who live in Canada vulnerable to the costs of inflation. Can my colleague speak about the importance of Canada and the British government working on a collective agreement? When we come forward with a trade deal, we want to ensure those conversations are part of it so that we do not leave British pensioners here in Canada in poverty, and so that we call out the British government for abandoning its own citizens.

177 words

Mr. Matt Jeneroux

Apr/18/23 10:33:37 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, that is a very timely question. I thank my friend from Courtenay—Alberni for raising it. British pensioners are actually here in Ottawa this week. There are over 150,000 members who are not receiving proper British pensions. This is not a partisan issue. My friend from Courtenay—Alberni and members from the Liberal side have been advocating for this for years. I think it even goes back to former prime minister Jean Chrétien and Tony Blair sitting down and discussing this. It is unfair treatment of Canadian citizens. They are here this week to push this issue. They are here this week to raise awareness. They are also here this week to flag the issue with the Minister of International Trade to make sure she is aware of the urgent need to see a change and see this reflected for the many pensioners being treated unfairly in this country.

156 words

Mr. Michael Kram (Regina—Wascana, CPC)

Apr/18/23 10:34:44 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the budget debate this morning. It has been eight years since the Liberal government has been in office, which is ample time for people to step back and take things into perspective. Imagine for a minute a typical Canadian family that is driving an eight-year-old car. Let us say they decide it is time to buy a new car, so they head down to the local car dealership to walk through the showroom and maybe take a car for a test drive. What are some of the new features they would notice in a 2023 car that were not there in 2015? For starters, the entertainment system has improved by leaps and bounds, with features like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It has never been easier to parallel park or fit into tight spots, with rear-view cameras, dash cameras and even 360° bird’s-eye view cameras. Gas-powered cars have never been more fuel-efficient, and more options for electric or hybrid vehicles are showing up in showrooms every year. Safety features have improved immensely as well, with motion sensors to tell us if another car is in our blind spot or if we are following the car in front too closely. With all these improvements in cars that we have seen over the last eight years, I cannot help but wonder if we have also seen any similar improvements in the federal government. What does the federal government do today that makes the average Canadian pause and say that it is a big improvement from eight years ago? Let us look at the passport office. I remember that just a few years ago, when I had to renew my passport, I was in and out of the passport office in maybe half an hour; my passport arrived in the mail in a couple of weeks. However, over the past year, the passport office has been a national embarrassment. People have been camping out in front of passport offices for days, only to be turned away because their travel plans have not yet been finalized. To this day, my constituency office still gets phone calls and emails from people asking for advice about how to apply for a passport so they do not have to cancel their vacation plans or camp out in front of a passport office for days on end. Let us look at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the IRCC. If someone wants to sponsor a friend or family member to come to Canada and that person needs a visitor’s visa or a permanent residency card, it used to be a relatively simple process of filling out and rubber-stamping a few forms. Now it takes many months or even years of waiting. Literally every day, my constituency office receives multiple phone calls and emails asking what the problem is with the IRCC, why their cases are past their processing times, why it will not return their calls and when their loved ones will be allowed to come to Canada. What about inflation and the cost of living? It used to be that anyone with a full-time job could at least put food on the table without having to turn to the local food bank for help, but that is not the case in Canada anymore. With the carbon tax pushing the price of groceries higher, more fully employed working families are turning to food banks for help. In my home province of Saskatchewan, food bank use was up 35% last year. How about openness and transparency? The current Prime Minister once tweeted, “It’s hard not to feel disappointed in your government when every day there is a new scandal.” Today, the current government has been found in violation of Ethics Commissioner rules on five separate occasions and counting. However, that will probably slow down a bit now that the sister-in-law of a Liberal cabinet minister has been appointed as the new Ethics Commissioner. Has the government at least made our streets safer? Are dangerous criminals being kept behind bars, or are tougher penalties deterring these criminals? Sadly, the answer is no. Year after year since the Liberal government was elected, violent crime rates have gotten worse than the year before. It is no longer uncommon to hear of a fatal stabbing on public transit or in front of a downtown Starbucks in broad daylight. To continue our car shopping analogy, by any objective measure, the government has been a major downgrade compared to what Canadians had just eight years ago. Unlike that Canadian family that is shopping for a new car and checking out all of the new whistles and bells that did not exist eight years ago, Canadians are left wondering why the Liberal government cannot perform the basic functions that governments should. How is it that Canadians traded in a safe, reliable, dependable vehicle for a lemon that is always breaking down? I think it is fair to ask this: If we are consistently getting so much less from the government, then are we at least getting what we paid for? Is the deterioration in government services the result of massive spending cuts and massive tax cuts? If one takes a closer look at the numbers, that is not the case at all. Indeed, the Liberal government continues to implement higher and higher taxes. The carbon tax was raised yet again to $65 per tonne and will continue to increase up to $130 a tonne by the end of the decade. The excise tax on beer, wine and spirits was raised again by 2%. If that were not enough, in the budget, the government has also decided to implement a global minimum corporate tax, a share buyback tax and a tax on dividends held by financial institutions. Therefore, the government is not getting taxes under control; in addition, it is not getting spending under control. Total expenditures for this budget would be just under $500 billion. That compares to a budget of just under $300 billion only eight years ago. This means that annual spending by the federal government has increased by nearly two-thirds over the past eight years. When one looks at the details of where exactly these expenditure increases are coming from, the picture becomes much more troubling. This year, $44 billion, or almost 10% of the government spending, will go towards interest payments on the federal debt. In the past, the Liberals have said that the government's massive debt burden was nothing to worry about because of record-low interest rates. Sadly, the days of record-low interest rates are over, and Canadians are left paying the bill. What is also troubling is the ever-growing size of the federal civil service. During the last term of Stephen Harper's government, with a consistent focus on efficiency, the size of the civil service was gradually reduced by 25,000 employees. Since coming to power eight years ago, the Liberal government has hired back more than triple that number. Perhaps if the government were not so obsessed with regulating social media newsfeed algorithms, confiscating hunting rifles and shotguns from law-abiding firearms owners, restricting fertilizer use by farmers or sending COVID cheques to dead people, we would not need this small army of federal civil servants. While these times may be difficult, it is important to stay optimistic. For the 1.5 million Canadians who had to use the food bank last year, the thousands of Canadians whose vacations were ruined because they could not get their passports renewed and the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are trying to sponsor a loved one to come to Canada, I would say that they should not lose hope. This latest Liberal budget shows that it is time to trade in this old, broken-down, rusted-out clunker lemon of a Liberal government for a shiny, new, reliable, dependable Conservative government that people could depend on.

1352 words

All Topics

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

Apr/18/23 10:43:32 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, towards the end of the member's speech, he talked about the size of the public service and the individuals who work for the federal government to deliver the services that we provide to Canadians. The member talked with great pride about Stephen Harper's legacy of reducing the public service size. I am curious as to where he thinks the best places to start eliminating jobs within the public service would be. Could he inform the House about that?

82 words

Mr. Michael Kram

Apr/18/23 10:44:07 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I would say Bill C-11, with the new government policy of regulating social media newsfeed algorithms, is a very clear example of something the government has no need to do, no business doing and no need to even contemplate doing. If we were not so focused on Bill C-11 and social media newsfeed algorithms, a lot more federal civil servants could focus on issuing passports and doing the things that government should be doing. I would also add the confiscation and buyback of hunting rifles and shotguns and the fertilizer restrictions on farmers. There are lots of things the government does that it does not really need to do.

113 words

Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

Apr/18/23 10:44:58 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague spoke against a number of government expenditures. There is one expenditure that the Bloc Québécois is opposed to, and I would like to hear his comments on this subject. Billions of dollars are being allocated in a crafty scheme involving grey hydrogen and carbon storage. Around the globe, 100 carbon capture and storage projects have been abandoned. The U.S. is eliminating government incentives. Why not do likewise and eliminate the incentives included in this Liberal budget?

89 words

Mr. Michael Kram

Apr/18/23 10:45:36 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am of the view that the natural resources sector is best left to provincial governments. The Constitution in this country is very clear, under sections 91 and 92, that natural resources are the jurisdiction of the provincial governments. In my home province of Saskatchewan, the natural resources sector is actually a major generator of revenue for the provincial government. It seems like a good idea, and it would make sense to me, if the provincial governments in this country were allowed to take the lead on managing their resource sectors. The federal government can best help by staying out of the way.

105 words

Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)

Apr/18/23 10:46:19 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I want to go back to a question from my colleague from Kingston and the Islands because the member really did not give an answer to the question. The question, as I heard it, was this: Which department in the civil service would the member cut jobs and fire people from?

53 words