44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 25, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, it is important we recognize a lot of the good things that have been done across provinces, but it is not just children who need support with dental care. Everybody needs that support. Certainly, seniors in her riding I am sure need that support as well.
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Madam Speaker, it is incredible some provinces are doing some of that work to support children with dental care, but I know a lot of seniors, and I am sure in her riding as well, need that support, as well as people living with disabilities. In fact, everybody needs it.
One of the key things the federal government needs to do is put forward those social programs to equalize and make—
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Mr. Speaker, in a previous life I was a carpenter, I was a chimney sweep and I was a roofer. I ran a small business from my home, and we used to feed our kids french fries to help us get the mail-outs done in time at the end of the month. I had to go to the dentist and try to cut deals so the kids could get their teeth fixed.
I looked at the leader of the Conservative Party's LinkedIn, and I was astounded. He has never actually had a job; what he has had is 19 years of free dental care, and he has the gall to tell senior citizens and working-class families that they are not entitled to free dental care.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague why she thinks the leader of the Conservative Party thinks he is so much better than people who have actually worked their whole lives.
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Mr. Speaker, it is incredible that there are people who would still want to be against dental care in this manner. Dental care helps all Canadians. It helps those who are most in need. As we know, dental issues can cause other health issues as well. It is very important that we allow those who have the least to be able to maintain health security for themselves when they are just trying to live their lives. As my colleague said, he lived on a tight budget growing up. These are the people we want to help. This is why we are here.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be here to talk about the budget bill before us and the next steps that the government needs to take to make things a bit better for Canadians.
Just over two years ago, I remember sending out a mailer to my constituents of North Island—Powell River, asking them what they felt about dental care and if that would have an impact on their lives. We were inundated with responses, letters, emails and phone calls, from people across the riding. They talked about what dental care would mean in their lives.
I remember one day going into my office quite early in the morning and a gentleman was waiting outside. He had a slip and had written an extra note on it. He talked about the fact that he worked a very good job his whole life. He had a pretty comprehensive pension but he was struggling to afford dental care. He had some significant teeth issues and that was such a huge gap in his life. Even though he made a fairly decent income, a fixed retirement income, not a totally crazy amount of money, he could not afford it. He said that he was there to talk about himself, but, more important, he was there to talk about the many people he knew who could not afford dental care at all.
I am very proud that the NDP pushed the government to make this a reality. In this budget implementation act, people under 18 years of age, seniors or people with disabilities will be able to get access to dental care, which will fundamentally change lives. I do not think we can ever underestimate how it feels for families not being able to afford basic dental care for their children and when their children experience bad dental health, what it feels like to know that this weight can be lifted from them. If they cannot make it work, what does that mean to them every day when their children are in pain? It means they are going to the hospital as a last resort, and this needs to change.
I also want to acknowledge that this budget is hard for me. I am the spokesperson on veterans affairs for the NDP. For years, I have been fighting for the government to fix the marriage-after-60 gold-digger clause.
I talk to seniors. Just last week, I talked to a beautiful woman in her eighties, who married a veteran after he turned 60. She looked after him for many years, loved him very much and when he passed away, she did not receive a cent of his pension, nothing, after many years of caring and loving another human being. It is appalling that so many people who serve our country are not allowed to pass on anything to their loved ones, the survivors of their deaths, because they were married after 60.
What is particularly frustrating for me is the fact that the veterans survivor fund was announced in 2019. There was a little research done that said, and I know this is crazy, we should be ensuring that caregivers, largely women, of military and RCMP veterans should get something. This clause was made in 1901; it is now 2023. That $150 million over five years has not been moved to one survivor of a veteran, not one. Statistics Canada told us that about 4,400 or 4,500 spouses, somewhere in that range, were subject to the gold-digger clause. They have received nothing from this $150-million announcement.
As much as I will stand here and fight for people across the country to get dental care and to see an increase in the GST rebate so that people who are struggling every day to make ends meet will get a little more, the hard part is that not everything that would be in an NDP budget is here.
One of the other things that I am proud of, but also have a challenge with, is the investment in a clean energy economy to create well-paying union jobs while addressing the climate crisis. The member for Timmins—James Bay was one of the people who worked very hard to make this a reality.
Workers across the country need to know that, as we move forward to address climate change, their having a good job on the side of that process is important to the NDP. We pushed really hard to ensure that employers who were moving forward were doing things that would help us address the climate change, and moving forward in a more positive green and sustainable way. If they are actually supporting their workers, if they are paying them well, they are going to get better tax credits. This encourages behaviour that we want to see in our country.
We also know that the oil and gas subsidies just continue on and on despite being the biggest emitters. They are not being held to account in a way that I would like to see. We are still working on that. I think of the member for Victoria who is continuously working on that issue, but the government is continuing to not take active steps. A sustainable future is important.
I represent a rural and remote riding. Our economies have been boom and bust because they are largely resource-based. These communities are doing a lot of innovative and great work to adjust to a new and changing world, but resources need to be put in place for those communities to find sustainability.
I was in Port Alice a few weeks ago, talking to the mayor about some of the challenges that his community was facing. He talked about connectivity and the opportunity that they were not getting. They need that bit of money to help connect them to the fibre that is being laid. We are working on that. These communities are working hard to create economies that are strong and they need supports that are going to help them do that in a sustainable way. I think everyone in my riding agrees that we do not want to continue to see the boom and bust. We want to see a steady boom that keeps everybody paid well and respected for the incredible work they do.
I am also pleased to see that there are some things in this budget to address the most wealthy in our country. We know that the top 1% is making an incredible amount of income and they do not have to pay their fair share. People in my riding have to pay their fair share. They work really hard and they pay their taxes because they believe in having a strong country. They also are frustrated that so many in the top 1% are not paying their fair share.
One of the things we see in this budget is the change to the alternate minimum rate, from 15% to 20.5%, and the removal of the tax exemption for dividends received on Canadian shares held by financial institutions as business income. This is important. It means that they are being held a bit more to account, not to the extent that the NDP would do but it is definitely moving in a direction. This means more of the ultrarich are paying their fair share.
The resources that are needed to address the genocide of indigenous people to the missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse population is being a little more addressed. I am really pleased to see the red dress alert. This is something that can be done to allow a system that alerts our communities quickly to any indigenous women, girl or gender-diverse person going missing. We need that.
When I think of my riding, we have a couple of groups that fundraise. They bead and do different activities. They fundraise to help support those families that have lost indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people. There are too many missing. We need to do better. This is a step in the right direction, but so much more could be done.
I am also pleased to see that there is more support for indigenous housing in urban, rural and northern indigenous communities. I wish there was more. I do not think there is enough. I know in my riding that urban communities are really looking for strong indigenous housing, and it has been neglected for far too long.
I will be supporting this budget. Politics is hard and I am willing to take that challenge, because making lives better for Canadians will always be my main focus.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-47, the budget implementation act.
Before I begin my speech, I hope my colleagues will humour me while I take a brief moment to wish my daughter, Maddie, a very happy 16th birthday.
There is a lot in this bill, of course, and I want to start by providing a few words about dental care, which is the most significant, optimistic and powerful policies contained within this legislation. I hear all the time from seniors, young families and people who do not have dental insurance and cannot afford to get their teeth fixed. They are so excited to see dental care finally coming in this bill, and it cannot come soon enough. It is the most significant expansion of public health care in a generation. It is going to make a difference for some nine million Canadians, including folks in Skeena—Bulkley Valley in the beautiful northwest of British Columbia, which is the area I am so proud to represent.
Today I want to focus on the portions of Bill C-47 that deal with air passenger rights. As the NDP's transport critic, this has been my preoccupation over the past year or so. It is something we studied at the transport committee and it is something the Minister of Transport has chosen to slip into this budget implementation act in order to, what he claims, finally fix air passenger rights in this country.
The Liberals brought in their air passenger protection legislation back in 2019. The former minister of transport brought it in to great fanfare. He claimed that it was going to be a world-leading approach and that air passengers were finally going to have a government that would have their backs, yet what we have seen over the past four years has been anything but world-leading.
We have seen thousands of Canadians put in extraordinarily difficult situations by the big airlines. We have seen passengers sleeping on airport floors. We have seen families having to miss much-awaited vacations and trips. We have seen people out thousands of dollars. This system the Liberals claimed was going to be world-leading and was going to have air passengers' backs has really left people in a lurch.
What we see before us in Bill C-47 is the government's third attempt at fixing this problem. Of course, this problem exists because the big airlines make commercial decisions that delay and cancel flights and leave passengers picking up the slack. What we have seen in other parts of the world, particularly in the European Union, are effective approaches that get passengers compensation when that happens, and yet the approach we have seen here in Canada has not succeeded in protecting air passenger rights.
In fact, right now there are over 44,000 complaints before the Canadian Transportation Agency. Who are these folks? These are the most determined air travellers. I say “determined” because they have the fortitude to navigate not one but two complaint processes. Under the Liberals' current system, not only does a passenger need to complain to the airline and wait 30 days for a response, but when the airline almost inevitably declines their claim for compensation, they need to file a complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency and then wait in line while this very complex bureaucratic and expensive process runs its course. Right now the wait time to proceed through that complaint process is over a year and a half.
As I said, the transport committee has been studying this issue. We heard from the leading consumer advocates working on air passenger rights in this country. We heard from all sorts of witnesses and put together a report with a whole host of recommendations aimed at finally bringing Canada's air passenger protection regime up to the standards set by the European Union.
I also had a chance, about a month ago, to table in this place a private member's bill, Bill C-327, the strengthening air passenger protection act, which aims to lay out in legislation precisely which changes are required to create a robust regime of air passenger protections in this country. Then the Minister of Transport brought forward his proposed changes, this third attempt at fixing air passenger protections.
I want to start by giving credit where credit is due. There are a couple of things in this new approach that have been called for fairly consistently by advocates and by me through my private member's bill. One is increases to the fines within the legislation that can be levied against airlines that continue to break the rules and not award compensation as they should. There are other pieces in the legislation, particularly around delayed baggage, that have also been called for, so there are a couple of things the minister got right.
One of the key concerns with Canada's current system is a loophole that exists in the Canadian Transportation Act. Unlike the European system which sets out a very simple two-category classification system for flight disruptions, our system has three categories. In Europe, disruptions, which are cancellations or delays, are considered either ordinary disruptions, such as things that fall within the reasonable influence of the carrier, or extraordinary disruptions, things like major weather events, acts of terrorism or recalls by the airplane manufacturer. Nobody is suggesting that airlines should be held accountable for factors entirely outside of their influence, but we have been seeing airlines deny compensation for factors within their influence that cause delays and cancellations, such as making sure they have enough crew to fly the flights, ensuring the aircraft are properly maintained, and ensuring their computer system is working properly.
This bill was intended to fix that. Everyone knows this loophole exists. It has been a matter of much conversation and debate. The minister claims to have fixed this loophole in the legislation that is before us. I do not see it. When I look at the section of the Canadian Transportation Act where this loophole exists, I see those same three categories.
The category that is particularly problematic here in Canada is the category of disruptions that are within an airline's control but are required for safety reasons. When we are talking about companies that fly passengers around in aluminum tubes at 30,000 feet, I think pretty much everything related to that industry is related to safety. The issue here is that airlines are making decisions within their sphere of influence that are causing real hardships for air passengers. In those cases, passengers should be compensated and treated well.
There are other things in Bill C-47 around air passenger rights that are very concerning. I had a chance to speak to this earlier today. One aspect is essentially a gag order on passengers who pursue complaints through the Canadian Transportation Agency. It states:
All matters related to the process of dealing with a complaint shall be kept confidential, unless the complainant and the carrier otherwise agree”.
If Canadian air passengers file a complaint with the CTA , go through its resolution process and are not happy with how they are treated or the outcome, this legislation is going to prevent them from talking about it. If the minister is truly proud of this system he has put forward, why is he silencing the people who will be using it? It is incredible.
We are at a point now where the minister has claimed to have closed the loophole. He and I have had this conversation. He said that a lot of it will be forthcoming in regulations, which we have not yet seen, sort of like the answer to my questions will be self-evident over the next rise. He is empowering the CTA with a tremendous amount of discretion over this process instead of making the changes in the legislation itself. That is the process we wanted to see, yet what we see falls well short of that mark.
Another issue we see is with respect to transparency and the amount of information the CTA provides. We think the amount of compensation paid through this complaint process should be part of the disclosure. That is something we will be working on when it comes to amending this bill.
I will end with this. Canadians deserve real protections that are easy to navigate and get them their compensation. That is what we will keep fighting for.
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Madam Speaker, I prepared a question about the budget. My colleague's speech was about a lot of things as he acknowledged that the budget is about a lot of things. There are a lot of Canadians and a lot of concerns out there. It does cover a lot of bases.
Two of the things that I am the most proud to bring to my constituents are two programs that are going to help them a lot: the dental care program and the grocery rebate. I have been out there talking to them, knocking on their doors and answering their phone calls. In my constituency just over 1,000 young people have been supported by the dental care program. That means 1,000 smiles will be brighter and cleaner, thanks to our dental care benefit. The grocery benefit is going to support 11 million households across the country with up to $467.
These are really phenomenal measures that are going to support our neighbours. I was wondering if my colleague had any reflections on dental care or the grocery rebate.
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Madam Speaker, one of the things I think we can be proudest of as Canadians is that starting in the 1960s, we said that every Canadian, regardless of their income, deserved the dignity of access to adequate health care. We have known right from the very beginning that health care does not just include going to the doctor. It includes being able to afford the medications that doctor prescribes. It includes eye care. It includes mental health care and it includes dental care.
We know that oral health is so integral to our overall health and yet there are millions of Canadians who cannot afford to visit a dentist. Frankly, it is shameful that it has taken this long for us to get to this point. We in the NDP have been pushing for it from the very beginning. I am so proud that we have been able to get to a place where we have leveraged our position in this minority Parliament to finally get dental care for millions of Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague did talk a little about the dental program and I would like to just ask him this. Former premier John Horgan, when he was the head of the Council of the Federation, encouraged the federal government to not seek new national programs when important programs such as health care need reinforcement.
I am sure the member knows of the drastic needs of rural communities for health care funding. Former Premier Horgan had said to not add any new social programs; reinforce the current ones like health care. What does he think of this when someone who led his own party provincially said that this is not a priority and now he says this is? How does he square that?
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Madam Speaker, the member's question was whether I agree with remarks by a former premier. I think that former premier would agree that the health of our teeth, oral health, is integral to our overall health. Dental care is going to help millions of Canadians.
We also need to be investing heavily in our overall health care system and ensuring that coming out of the pandemic, our health care workers and our hospitals have the resources that they need to function effectively.
However, this is going to help millions of Canadians and I know that my party and many people right across the country support it, moving forward.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague talked a lot about the national dental program. Since this is an area of provincial jurisdiction, as my colleague indicated to him earlier in his question, it is up to the provinces to decide what to do within their jurisdiction. This is basically a Quebec sovereignist asking that the Canadian Constitution be respected.
Does my colleague agree, if this national dental program exists, that Quebec should have the right to opt out with full compensation and no strings attached?
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Madam Speaker, the question was: Should Quebec be able to withdraw from the dental care program?
If we are going to be one country, we need to ensure that every Canadian has access to dental care. Within that question, there are going to be different nuances across the country, and those can be negotiated. However, what we are talking about is a national program delivered by the federal government, and I think a lot of Quebeckers are going to benefit from that.
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise this evening to debate Bill C-47, the budget implementation act.
I would like to start by wishing my daughter, Julia, a very happy birthday yesterday. She brings us much joy.
The budget was tabled about a month ago. We have already voted in principle on these measures, but this bill is a chance to debate in more detail about the legislative changes needed to carry out the initiatives outlined in the budget.
The most impactful part of this budget is the full funding for dental coverage for all Canadians making less than $90,000 who do not already have coverage through an existing plan. This would change the lives of millions of Canadians.
I keep hearing stories from friends and constituents who grew up without dental care because their families simply could not afford to go to the dentist. One friend phoned me soon after she heard about the new dental care plan. She is retired now, but grew up painfully shy after having many of her teeth pulled out as a child because of the lack of regular dental care. That shyness changed her life and personality so much that she still avoids social gatherings. She was very emotional when she told me how much the new dental plan would really make a difference to the lives of Canadians of all ages, but particularly to those of young Canadians. Her example is a clear case of how the lack of dental care is the single visible mark of poverty for Canadians. This dental care program will change all of that forever.
This is an addition to our public health care system that New Democrats have been calling for ever since Tommy Douglas brought universal health care to our country in the 1960s. It would not have happened without the NDP using its power in the current minority government to force the Liberals to act. Both the Liberals and Conservatives voted against dental care in the last Parliament when former MP Jack Harris introduced dental care legislation in this very chamber.
The other missing piece in our national public health care system is pharmacare. Right now, Canadians can go to a doctor for free, but if they are prescribed medication for their condition, they have to pay for that themselves. Millions of Canadians cannot afford their prescriptions and end up in emergency rooms, putting pressure on the critical care part of our health care system, which is already overloaded. A public pharmacare program would provide free prescription medications to all Canadians, while saving us a minimum of $4 billion a year. It is a no-brainer. The Liberals have promised to bring in framework legislation for pharmacare by the end of this year, so it is really concerning there is no mention of it at all in this budget, not a peep.
There is good news in this budget about investments in the clean-energy economy. Significant tax credits will spur development in growth in this critical area. Thanks to the NDP, those tax credits will be tied to good jobs with good union-scale wages. Too often governments give out millions of dollars to big companies only to find that the funds went to executive bonuses and a boost in shareholder dividends. The strings attached to these incentives will ensure that workers are at the centre of the shift to a new clean-energy economy.
I used to work at the University of British Columbia, so I know first-hand how valuable investments in higher education can be. They are essential in this new knowledge economy. This budget has some help for post-secondary students. It will increase the Canada student grants by 40%, up to a maximum of $4,200.
However, the government totally missed the mark by not including anything to help graduate students who are living in poverty. Grad students work full time in their studies. It is their job. Many grad students across Canada are funded by scholarships from the federal government. These students are our best and our brightest, and these scholarships have remained at the same dollar figure and same level since 2003, for 20 years. Masters students are now trying to live on $17,500 per year. It is below the minimum wage. It is below the poverty line.
Students and researchers have been campaigning for over a year to change this. They had big demonstrations here in Ottawa last summer. They appeared before House of Commons committees. The science and research committee recommended that the government not only increase the amounts of individual scholarships, but also increase the number of scholarships. This would help us compete in the information economy and help us stop the brain drain of these young researchers moving to other countries that properly value their talents.
The students were profoundly disappointed when this budget had nothing in it for them. Students and researchers across the country will be staging a big walkout on May 1 to highlight this lack of recognition from the government and this lack of respect. They will not give up until the government agrees to pay them enough so they can live above the poverty line while they generate the innovations that Canadian companies need.
Canadians pay some of the highest interchange fees on credit card payments in the world. This is a real hardship for small businesses that increasingly rely on credit card transactions. New Democrats have been calling for reduced fees for years, for decades. Jack Layton was big on this point. We want to put us on the same level as other countries.
In my role as small business critic, I have talked to Visa, Mastercard, Moneris, the banks, Aeroplan and other players. I know it is a complicated issue, so I was very happily surprised to see that the budget announced real action on this. The lowered fees will save small businesses an average of 27%, which is over $1 billion over five years.
We have been hearing a lot about labour issues in recent days with the job action by the federal civil service. The ability to withhold labour in the face of unfair pay and work conditions is the only power organized labour has. Unfortunately, companies have often chosen to bring in replacement workers when faced with striking workforces. This flies in the face of the right of workers to strike and creates divisions within communities and between neighbours.
The NDP has been trying to get anti-scab legislation passed in this place for years. I remember one of the first private members' bills in 2016, when I was a rookie here, was anti-scab legislation brought forward by one of my NDP colleagues. Unfortunately, the Liberals and Conservatives voted against that bill, as they have for every other piece of anti-scab legislation. Again, I am happy to see that the NDP has used its power here to force the Liberals to bring forward federal anti-scab legislation.
The big disappointment on the labour front in this budget is the lack of any real employment insurance reform. One thing the COVID epidemic quickly taught us was that most Canadian workers are not covered by El. Only 40% are covered. We desperately need a new El system to protect workers for future job losses. If the predictions of some economists for a recession in the near future are correct, those job losses may be just around the corner. We must be ready to protect Canadian workers if that happens.
As I said earlier, while the NDP supports this budget, it is not a budget that an NDP government would table. That is clearly shown on the revenue side of the ledger. Every year Canada forgoes billions of dollars in taxes through legal tax avoidance by Canadian corporations and wealthy individuals. Every year the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The government has made baby steps to reverse the trend that has been going on for decades.
In this budget, the government changed the alternate minimum rate from 15% to 20.5%. That will raise the amount that wealthy Canadians must pay no matter what tax deductions they declare. It will recoup about $3 billion over five years, and 99% of that increase will come from people making more than $300,000 per year.
What we need is a wealth tax that will force super-wealthy Canadians to pay their fair share. What we need is legislation that eliminates the option for Canadian companies to hide their money in offshore tax havens. What we need is an NDP government and a real NDP budget.
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