44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 25, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, first I have a couple of quick corrections. It is not business as usual at Gymnastics Canada. A lot has changed. It has committed to an independent cultural review road map, the CEO has resigned, contrary to what my colleague said, and it is now in fact a signatory to OSIC and Abuse-Free Sport. These are the changes that we demanded. These are the changes that MPs from all parties demanded to see at Gymnastics Canada, and we are grateful to see that those changes are under way and progress is being made. Also, contrary to what the member said, in the budget there was $13 million for Sport Canada to develop a compliance unit so that we can continue to monitor the activities from that direction.
There was not a word about the $13-billion announcement for Volkswagen from this government, which the member attended recently. It is about creating green jobs, it is about creating the green economy of the future and investing in decarbonization electrification. Why was there not one passing mention on this budget implementation act about a $13-billion investment in—
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- Apr/25/23 9:00:32 p.m.
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The hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.
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Madam Speaker, I want to ensure that this member of Parliament who looks over the sports file realizes that this was signed on November 14, and I am referring to gymnastics. It was not until close to March 2023 that the CEO actually resigned, so perhaps those facts are really important because it was not because of OSIC that he resigned. It was nothing to do with that, so let us look at that.
I would like to say I am one of the biggest champions for our community and I will continue to fight for prosperity in my community. That is my job as a member of Parliament. Although the Prime Minister likes to come and try to use me as a pawn, I am sorry but he is not winning there.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, whom I appreciate in particular for her excellent interventions, notably on safe sport issues. She is a woman of commitment and what she said about gymnastics is a great example of that.
I would like to draw a parallel with restoring funding to Hockey Canada. I get the impression that the minister gave a bit of a blank cheque, in opposition to what she wanted. In fact, maybe we were the ones giving her the blank cheque. When she establishes structures, when all the elements are ultimately her responsibility and need to be accountable to her, that does nothing to change the culture of out-of-court settlements. She might even say that she is comfortable with the measures announced by Hockey Canada. Although I salute the Cromwell report and the will to go there, after four months, it cannot be said that a board of directors truly changed anything.
Is it somewhat the same situation in the world of gymnastics and is she prepared to give the minister this blank cheque?
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Madam Speaker, the member referred to Hockey Canada and we saw that with no accountability; not even after the London police reinvestigated. We have not seen anything. They have just once again signed over to Hockey Canada, saying that all is fine. We have seen the exact same thing with Gymnastics Canada. I would like to see accountability.
At the end of the day, when our children go to play sports, they must be safe. We need to ensure that coaches are well trained, that they have criminal record checks and that they have not abused a person in another province and then gone to coach the same sport in a different province. That is what we have seen happen here in this country. There has been zero accountability and these national sports organizations are continuing to let this go. I will continue to fight for athletes just as this member has done.
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Madam Speaker, tonight we are hearing a lot about fiscal responsibility from the Conservatives. That is nothing new, and we are not surprised. However, they never seem to mention the fact that the Harper government ran deficits eight of the nine years it was in power, and it was not until the ninth year that it balanced the budget. Even then, it was because the government sold off the GM stock that it had bought during the auto crisis.
If the member really wants to eliminate the deficit, what is she going to do? Is she willing to go out and collect more revenue by stopping subsidies to oil companies or taxing billionaires? If not, what public programs and services does she intend to cut?
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting because I do not think I have ever talked about cutting programs. We are talking about investing in things that are actually going to be accountable. I have talked about where the current government just continues to throw out money with band-aid approaches. When we are investing, we expect results, we expect fiscal responsibility and we expect there to be key indicators that are telling us how this money is spent and how it is actually improving the lives of Canadians. We are not talking about cutting. We are making sure that when we spend we actually spend wisely.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today, as always, here on the territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation. To them I say meegwetch.
We are here tonight to debate Bill C-47. Bill C-47 is not the budget. The budget is a different document. It is related, of course, but Bill C-47 contains those legislative changes that are necessary in order to have the measures in the budget, not all of them but some of them, move ahead.
The measures in the budget that are simply allocations of funds that do not require legislative changes will not be found in Bill C-47, and so I find myself strangely in the position, having studied Bill C-47, of thinking I might vote for it, even though I could not possibly vote for the government's budget. The budget has much in it that I could not support, such as increased subsidies for fossil fuels disguised as carbon capture and storage, and the use of fossil fuels to create hydrogen, thus taking what should be a green fuel and making it a fossil-fuel source again. However, the budget implementation act is not that. Let me go over what it is.
The budget implementation act is 429 pages in four parts. The longest part, part 4, has 39 different divisions. They are wide-ranging and cover many different things. In that, let me confirm that this is an omnibus bill, but it is not an illegitimate omnibus bill. It is nothing like Bill C-38 of spring 2012 when the previous administration under Stephen Harper destroyed 70 different acts in one bill with changes that had not been forecast in the budget. That was an illegitimate omnibus bill. This one is a reasonable omnibus bill, because in order to implement the budget, multiple things need to be changed.
For instance, part 1 of this very long bill deals with the Income Tax Act and such things as creating a deduction for tradesmen's tools and going on to divorce and that separated parents can open up a joint registered educational savings plan for their children. There are such things, as we have heard about, related to the new program to cover dental care and changing the tax rules so that CRA can disclose personal information about Canadians so that they can get their dental care. Part 3 deals with air traveller security changes. I could go on and on, because it is 429 pages. By division 39, at the end of the bill, we have changes to the Canada Elections Act to deal with the protection of personal information. This is a wide-ranging bill. It even touches on foreign policy. This next one is good, and I think Conservatives would want to vote for it too. At division 5 of part 4, we remove Russia and Belarus from the most favoured nation tariff treatment.
I want to devote the time I have remaining to talk about one of the longer sections, which relates to issues I have been working on for years and some of which I was ecstatic to see. This deals with division 21, the oceans protection plan.
The budget itself has two references to our oceans. They are both found on page 135, and they are remarkably brief. One says that we are going to protect Canada's whales. Now, this is basically a dressed up repackaging of new money to such departments as Fisheries and Oceans, Transport Canada, Environment Canada and Parks Canada for what the budget claims will be continuing to protect endangered whales and their habitats. That is just fine and dandy, but that is not in the budget implementation act, which is just as well, because I have rarely been as furious, disillusioned or angry.
I am absolutely distraught by the government's April 20 decision to approve this terrible project that goes against the interests of endangered species.
On April 20, what did the government do just in time for Earth Day? It approved a disastrous project that likely spells the extinction of the southern resident killer whale, our Fraser River chinook salmon and numerous other species, including the western sandpiper. It is a project called Roberts Bank on the Fraser River estuary. It will result in basically covering in concrete over 70% of that flood plain habitat. It is an outrage. It is not in the budget implementation act, but it puts the lie to the budget is going to have a section that protects whales. Right. It is hypocrisy writ large. I see other friends from British Columbia nodding. We know. This is an outrage.
The next part of the budget that deals with oceans is, I think, where we see most of the over 60 pages in the budget implementation act, for what is called the division that deals with the oceans protection plan. That probably relates to this one line item of cleaner and healthier ports. Budget 2023 proposes to provide $165.4 million over seven years to establish a green shipping corridor program to reduce the impact of marine shipping on surrounding ecosystems, and there is more to it.
What do we find in the budget implementation act and how is it relevant to what I just read? I have to say there is a lot in here that is just playing catch up with time passing. This bill deals with things such as oil-sourced pollution. Where there is pollution caused by a vessel, we are increasing how much the shipper, the owner of the ship, might have to pay. I do not think it is enough, by the way. It has changed from what was said in the Marine Liability Act, which is already on the books. Believe it or not, in respect of claims for loss of life or personal injury, it was a $1-million limit. This budget implementation act moves it to a $1.5-million limit and so on. That is one specific area.
There is another specific area that I want to mention briefly because I really think it is important. At page 241 of the budget implementation act is a section which says that under the Marine Liability Act, in terms of costs that the vessel owner and company must be responsible for, under the Hazardous and Noxious Substances Convention, they will now be required to compensate indigenous peoples for economic loss in relation to hunting, fishing, trapping or harvesting rights under section 35 of the Constitution. It is a better recognition of indigenous rights.
There is much here but I do want to concentrate on what was, for me, what I have been hoping for, for some years. Ironically, about a week before the budget implementation act came out, I wrote to the Minister of Finance, Minister of Transport, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister of Environment to ask if we are ever going to see any measures to implement the Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act. Are we ever going to see the promised vessel remediation fund? Is it going to be in the budget implementation act? Surprise, it is. It is found at section 430, page 277 for anyone reading the budget implementation act at home. I have to wonder about their lives if they are reading the budget implementation act at home, especially if they are reading it out loud to their children. It will certainly put anyone to sleep.
It is very exciting because we passed the Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act four years ago, in March 2019. We were excited on that day that we got it done. Most people here who do not live in coastal areas would not know what a hazard it is to have an abandoned vessel, somebody's old sailboat. They are fibreglass. If somebody owns them and they are moored in the harbour, moored in navigational lanes, getting rid of them is really hard.
In Atlantic Canada, it is not so hard, because over the course of the winter any abandoned boat will be smashed to bits and gone by spring, but if someone lives along the coast of the Salish Sea or along British Columbia's coast, the boats are there almost forever. In a time when we have the horror of people who are inadequately housed, many people who are homeless will move onto these vessels and live there. They are unsafe.
Once we got the act passed, we thought we had solved the problem, but then the government refused to act. I have constituents who say there is an abandoned vessel and ask if we will do something. The Coast Guard, DFO and Transport Canada all pass the buck and do not move the vessel. The problem is they do not have the money, they say.
Now we have this new fund. Details will come out on how it is going to work in regulations, but I could not be more pleased that we now have a vessel remediation fund and additional powers for the Minister of Transport. There are other related measures in Bill C-33 which we have not yet debated in this place but maybe, just maybe, the budget implementation act, at long last, will allow us to implement the Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act.
With that I will close.
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Madam Speaker, with respect to the speech of the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, I did not get that far into the budget implementation act. I may be 25% of the way through.
The member and I had a conversation earlier about the funding for the Great Lakes and Lake Simcoe, Lake Winnipeg and the Fraser Valley. For freshwater resources, $650 million over 10 years is only $65 million a year.
The Deputy Prime Minister promised $40 million for Lake Simcoe four years ago. Again this is inaction on behalf of the government.
I wonder if she could comment on the insignificant funds for freshwater resources across Canada.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. On page 134 of the budget, there is the heading “Protecting Our Freshwater”. The waters mentioned include the Great Lakes. My goodness, the Great Lakes alone require an enormous investment.
Lake Winnipeg right now is one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world and it is dying. It will take much more than the total amount for all these bodies of water to figure out how to protect Lake Winnipeg, which is now dealing with runoff of nitrates and phosphates causing really toxic algae blooms. Lake of the Woods, St. Lawrence River, Fraser River, Saint John River, Mackenzie River and Lake Simcoe are also listed. The Mackenzie River is now a recipient of toxic tailings from the oil sands going downstream into the Northwest Territories.
The $650 million over 10 years is a wish and a prayer.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for particularly mentioning the wrecked and abandoned boats program measures. As a coastal MP in B.C., I really appreciate the importance of those measures. It is really frustrating to see the scourge of some of those ships and what those do to coastal communities.
I want to ask her about a different part of the budget implementation act. In B.C., the issue of money laundering has been put in the spotlight through the Cullen commission. There are major vulnerabilities within our federal regulations and legislation that have been enabling this.
This budget implementation act, in addition to the new legislation we introduced on beneficial ownership, takes some really important steps forward that were actually mentioned in the Cullen commission. I was hoping my hon. colleague could speak to the importance of that.
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Madam Speaker, hearing my hon. colleague from West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country speak reminds me that when I speak of the Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act, I really should give a shout-out to a colleague who worked in this place, the former MP for St. Margarets, Bernadette Jordan. She went on to be minister of fisheries, but when she was a private member and a backbencher, she brought forward a motion that was unanimously supported and which led to the act.
On money laundering, this is one of the things that is actually in the budget implementation act. It is found at division 3 of part 4. I completely support these measures. It is long overdue to bring in measures that allow beneficial owners to be completely transparent and allow us to get at money laundering. We have been a haven. We are a hot spot for money laundering. This is not what we want to be famous for in Canada. We are the best of the best if one is a crook who has dirty money. That is not what we want, and I hope this will work in Bill C-47.
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Madam Speaker, this budget is interesting in some respects. On the environment, however, I think my colleague and I agree. There are serious shortcomings.
Let us talk about one of the investments being made, specifically in carbon capture facilities, which are currently not at all efficient. They send more GHGs into the atmosphere than they are able to capture.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the effectiveness of these facilities and what other means could be used, such as tree planting and plant filtration, to address these challenges.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou.
It is true that the budget does not contain sufficient effective measures to fight climate change. Instead, it includes measures that will actually undermine our efforts to protect our climate.
Time is running out. It is not too late, but time is running out. We need to do more.
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House and, today, to speak on behalf of the hard-working people of Flamborough—Glanbrook, whom I serve. This time, I am speaking about Bill C-47, the budget implementation act.
I would like to focus on three areas in my speech today. First, there is the out-of-control inflationary spending and deficits that are driving up the cost of living and interest rates for people in my riding and across Canada. Second, there are the tax increases that are being piled on at a time when Canadians can least afford it. Third, there is the desperate need in this country to have homes people can afford.
First, the $46-billion bonanza of new spending in the budget is on top of the billions in wasteful spending that we have seen in the last few years from the government. Certainly, it makes for great photo ops for government ministers and MPs, but all this spending is adding inflationary fuel to the already raging affordability fire. Gone are the fiscal anchors and guardrails.
What does this mean for people in my riding and across Canada? I will paint a picture for us of what is happening at kitchen tables in suburban communities in my constituency like Waterdown, Binbrook or Mount Hope. For context, this is a five- or six-hour drive from this place, both literally and figuratively removed from the Ottawa bubble that the out-of-touch Liberals live in here.
I know this from the hundreds of conversations I have had with constituents in the past few months, particularly the last couple of constituency weeks, when I had a number of meetings across the riding. These are typically young families, often new Canadians, who have moved to fast-growing suburbs of the Hamilton area at the western end of the GTA. They have done so, over the last five to seven years in particular, in search of a home in which to raise their children. A detached family home is attainable for these couples, who often have two incomes, in these communities.
Certainly, the prices in Toronto or Mississauga, where these people have come from, are far more out of reach. They have come here in search of more affordable living. They feel fortunate because at least they got into the market before the prices skyrocketed.
There are others they speak to in their peer groups who have good jobs but cannot even contemplate saving up enough for a down payment, particularly when that has doubled since the Liberals took office. Moreover, they do not have the means to qualify for the million-dollar-plus mortgage that would be required, given the average cost of housing in the area.
These families and individuals are really worried right now. A lot of them are at the point where their five-year mortgages are coming up for renewal. Interest rates, of course, have gone up. Some of these people have seen their renewals cause their mortgages to double or be hundreds of dollars, maybe even a thousand dollars, more of their monthly budget. That is a real punch to the gut.
This comes at a time when they are also dealing with credit card bills that are mounting. This is because, far too often, there is more month left at the end of the money. They have also just gotten their natural gas and home heating bills and noticed a significant increase not just in the cost of natural gas but also in the line items, with the carbon tax and then the tax on top of the carbon tax, the HST, on their bill. There was an article in the local weekly paper about this recently. This has been another hit to their budgets.
They are also often commuting to work. Filling up their tank is now taking a bigger bite of their household budget. Of course they are feeling squeezed.
We know that groceries are up almost $1,100 for the average household in Canada. Often, it is more. The carbon tax has been added and increased for home heating, groceries and, of course, driving a vehicle. That is all expensive. There are no savings for these individuals to dip into.
This is the reality at the kitchen tables across the GTHA and across the country. There is worry. There is concern. We have also heard, from recent polling, that six in 10 people are looking at cancelling their summer vacation plans because of this.
That is why this Liberal budget is so disappointing. It really makes matters worse. It has more inflationary spending, more deficits, more money wasted and billions of dollars in contracts to high-priced consultants. Certainly, the Auditor General found billions in COVID supports that were sent to people like prisoners and dead people.
All this inflation means more dollars chasing fewer goods. It is driving up interest rates, which are really the cruellest tax of all. The budget makes matters worse by not getting this inflationary and wasteful spending under control. When we are on track to spend almost as much or more on interest on the national debt than on transfers to the provinces for health care, as we are now, we know something is very wrong.
As my hon. colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets pointed out in his speech on this bill last Friday, every prime minister since former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who was responsible for the original debt-and-deficit binge of the 1970s and 1980s, ran operating surpluses. That includes Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin and Harper.
We are now back to operating deficits. Canadians are paying the price, with 40-year high inflation and now eight interest rate hikes over the past year. It is no wonder young families, seniors on a fixed income and new Canadians trying to make a fresh start in our blessed country are sitting worried at their kitchen tables.
If inflation and interest rate hikes were not enough to handle in this cost of living crisis, taxes are also up in this budget. This is an incredible thing during the worst cost of living crisis that Canadians have seen in a generation.
We know the carbon tax went up on April 1. That is increasing the cost of three essentials: home heating, gas for vehicles and groceries. It is also increasing an unmanageable tax burden on our farmers, the ones who produce our food.
Fortunately, members on this side of the House supported Bill C-234 from my hon. colleague from Huron—Bruce to remove the carbon tax from farm fuels, the heating and cooling of barns, and farm production. We hope the Senate passes it quickly.
Farmers feed our cities. Canada feeds the world. It is especially important now in the time of Putin's illegal war against Ukraine that Canada be there to feed the world. We should be encouraging this world-class and world-leading agriculture in our country and the agri-food industry in every way possible, not taxing it to death.
The excise tax also went up on April 1, despite a motion from this side of the House to pause that increase this year. Canada already has among the highest excise taxes in the world on wine, beer and spirits. We certainly have some outstanding wineries. There is one in my riding. There are many just down the road in Niagara. There are some cideries and craft breweries. They are being punished by this escalator tax. In fact, this is hampering their competitiveness. That is a shame.
I am running out of time, so I want to touch very briefly on the third area where I think the budget is failing, which is bringing in homes that people can afford. For new Canadians and young people, the dream of working hard, staying focused on goals and achieving home ownership is fading. It is really sad to me that nine out of 10 people who do not have a home today have given up on the dream of home ownership.
We have seen under the Liberal government that down payments and mortgage payments have doubled. How is it possible to get into the market? I am the grandson of Dutch immigrants who came to Canada with nothing from war-torn Europe after World War II. They built a better life for their families by doing exactly that. They worked hard. They built a modest, middle-class life through hard work and sacrifice.
After eight years of the Liberal government, the dream that Canada is the land of hope and opportunity is no more. We know the CMHC said that Canada needs to build 3.5 million more homes to reach the projected number to restore affordability.
We are in a time when the cost of living crisis is ravaging many Canadian households. They need better than what is in the budget implementation act. Families are struggling, and 1.5 million or more are going to food banks. They need better. Our economy needs better.
Conservatives stand ready to deliver and unleash Canada's great potential for everyone.
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Madam Speaker, I may be mistaken, but I believe I heard the member say that Conservatives ran surpluses under Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper. That statement could be no further from the truth. As a matter of fact, between Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper, there were only two surpluses in the entire time both prime ministers were around. The first was on the heels of Paul Martin and the surplus he left for Brian Mulroney. The second came in 2015 at the expense of slashing veterans services and selling shares of GM at bargain prices.
Once again I am learning a new revisionist history given to us by the Conservatives. No Conservative prime minister in the last three decades ran a surplus, with the exception of the two I just mentioned. Perhaps the member can inform the House as to where he is getting his data from. It is clearly not based on the reality of what actually happened.
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Madam Speaker, I think the member for Kingston and the Islands was not listening closely, as often happens. I said operating surpluses, not a surplus overall, which is true. That was articulated last Friday by my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets.
I would further note that the current government inherited a balanced budget from the previous government and has squandered it extraordinarily. We are all paying the price for that.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke at length about the fact that Canadian households have difficulty finding housing. That is a huge problem. He quoted the excellent study by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation showing that Canada needs to build 3.5 million units of all kinds in the next 10 years.
The Conservatives speak of fiscal virtue and reducing the deficit, but investments will have to be made in some areas. For example,Quebec needs 1.1 million housing units in the next 10 years. The private sector will build 500,000, but, one way or another, the government will have to participate in the construction of 600,000 more units in the next 10 years. We will have to spend on programs that work, which is not the case for the Liberals' programs at this time. The big national housing strategy provides $78 billion over 10 years. A little over 100,000 housing units have been built in five years. That is a disaster.
How will the Conservatives solve this problem?
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Mr. Speaker, of course housing is a huge need. As I cited, the fact that nine out of 10 young people and new Canadians in particular have given up on the dream of home ownership is incredibly sad in a country as rich as Canada, where for the entirety of our history, people have come to build a better life.
My friend referenced statistics from the CMHC, particularly with respect to his province. I would note that our approach is to remove gatekeepers and red tape, which are adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of building homes. Thus, we can get those homes built to top up the supply for people and, obviously, increase the affordability of housing in Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the question about housing. The member for Flamborough—Glanbrook just squeaked in the word “affordability” at the end. The real problem with building more houses is that we are not building more affordable houses.
I just had a housing round table in Penticton, and the city representative talked about how the city is building more housing units every day than it has ever built in history, but it has fewer affordable houses every day. That is because, naturally, the housing units that are being built are bought up by the people who can afford them. That will not bring prices down; it will make prices go up. Therefore, I would echo what the member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert said, which is that we need to get the government involved in building hundreds of thousands of units of affordable housing.
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