SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 186 - Apr/27/23

Apr/27/23 7:00:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would take that comment and question as coming from a mouse because they believe that the government is always the answer to fix everything. Saskatchewan was doing much better before the Liberals took power. They brought policies forward to try and make, in the government's eyes, Saskatchewan fall behind. We were doing fine with oil and gas extraction. We were doing fine with carbon capture. In fact, we have the ingenuity to move forward. The thing is that sometimes the government does not understand that it just needs to get out of the way so we can unleash our economic potential.

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Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

Apr/27/23 7:01:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly think that speech should be watched by all Canadians. We are in very serious times. We are dealing with a war in Ukraine that has upended inflation. We are dealing with a climate crisis. I find it telling that the Conservatives are telling us toxic nursery rhymes about how much they hate mice and how much the world would be better if we all hated mice. This is a party that believes the world is flat and does not believe there is a climate crisis. This is a party that believes that its leader is entitled to a chef and groundskeeper, that is paid for by the taxpayer, and he lives in a mansion, when he has a house that is only half an hour away from Ottawa. What I find concerning is that the Conservatives want to present these toxic fairytales, rather than talk about the serious issues we need to address in this nation and whether this budget is doing that. There are some great things in this budget. There are real problems in the budget, but if the member is happy reading nursery rhymes, then he is probably very happy in the Conservative caucus.

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Mr. Warren Steinley

Apr/27/23 7:02:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is the problem with the NDP. The old NDP does not exist anymore. His party is the one that started storytime with Mouseland and he thought it was really funny when his colleague talked about Mouseland and Tommy Douglas. The NDP has always been the party of “do what we say, not what we do”. That is why it is drippingly ironic that he talks down on something that his party member did. This is a very interesting time to be an NDP member because he will talk about how the Liberals are leaving people behind, but then that member will support the Prime Minister and his party every step of the way. The NDP will do anything to make sure the Prime Minister stays in power.

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Douglas

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Apr/27/23 7:03:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to commend the member for Regina—Lewvan on having done a great job reading somebody else's speech. It is always interesting when people choose to use the words of others, rather than their own words in this place. I thought maybe the member for Regina, of all places, might have a better handle on the Mouseland story, in which, of course, the mice are working people. I take his criticisms of mice running government as being quite demonstrative of the Conservative position over the years in respect of working people and whether they should be allowed to control their own destiny, which is the point of the Mouseland story. I know he talked a lot about inflation. He talked about fat cats. Perhaps he will know that 25% of every inflation dollar spent by Canadians in this economy has gone not just to the oil and gas industry but to the profits of the oil and gas industry. That has not been shared with workers. That $18 billion in extra expenses by Canadians has gone to the oil and gas sector, and only $650 million of it actually went into the pockets of workers. What does he think about that?

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Mr. Warren Steinley

Apr/27/23 7:04:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, obviously the member did not listen to the actual story I told. It is always an honour to bring forward the words of someone like former premier Wall into this House because he was a great premier. The fact is that the Mouseland that we talked about was about bringing people together. They always want to divide and conquer, and that is not what we are going to—

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Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)

Apr/27/23 7:04:52 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-35

Madam Speaker, I am going to bring the discussion back to the budget. This budget is certainly not as strong a budget as one that an NDP government would table, but I am supportive of portions of it, and those portions are very important to Canadians. Because of the NDP, this budget includes structural, social supports that will increase the well-being of Canadians forever. It will strengthen the health and safety of Canadians with the biggest investment in health care in over 50 years. I am talking about the dental care program. NDP members of the House are proud of their work to bring a universal dental care program to Canadians. Already, the Canada dental benefit has helped more than 240,000 children in this country. In 2023, by the end of this year, coverage will start for uninsured Canadians under 18, persons with disabilities and seniors who have a family income of less than $90,000. This is important. There were 700 people in my riding in the month of March alone asking for more information about this dental program. Seniors who were in my office just a few weeks ago talked about the pain they have been in for over two years and could not afford to have a root canal and dental surgery. This is a very important program for Canadians. I would note that the largest day surgery for kids in this country is for the treatment of cavities. It is just not fair. If there was preventative care, we would have a lot fewer surgeries, and we would have a lot fewer children having to go through those surgeries at such a young age. Second, there are the investments in health care in this budget, which we can thank the NDP for. There is an immediate $2 billion Canada health care transfer to address immediate pressures on our health care system. Canadians want this. We are an aging population. Canadians are worried whether they are going to be able to access care. I am from Port Moody—Coquitlam, Anmore and Belcarra in B.C., and residents are in my office many times asking about health care and finding a doctor. People are concerned. They want to know that when they need health care, it is there for them. I am happy to see those transfers here, and this budget is important for those transfers. I want to take a moment to talk about the feminist lens on this budget and how important health care is to women in this country. It underpins the economy and has for a very long time. We talk about the fact that nursing is a very gendered profession. We know that long-term care and child care are very gendered professions. I also want to take a moment for a shout-out to my NDP colleague for Winnipeg Centre who is fighting right now for decent wages for health care workers as we work through Bill C-35. It is because of their gender that women have been underpaid, undervalued and under-respected in the health care system in this country, and it continues today. As well, I will take a moment here to shout out to immigrant women who underpin the economy and have underpinned the economy in the health care sector and in child care. They are undervalued, underpaid and under-respected. I really hope that this government will take some action on making sure that there is status for all of these immigrant women who have come here to support the Canadian economy, but have not had access to the benefits and status that they deserve. We would be supporting this budget on those things alone, which are so important. However, I want to add the piece on murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, again, to put that gender lens on this very important budget. This budget makes important investments in implementing the national action plan to end the tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, including increased funding for indigenous-led projects, for safer communities, helping families access information about their missing or murdered loved ones, ensuring that families and survivors are at the centre of implementing the national action plan, and establishing a standing federal, provincial, territorial indigenous table on murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, which will provide a specific forum to take action on areas of shared roles and responsibilities, including prioritizing a red dress alert system. This was also an initiative of the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre. This budget should be supported because we need to support indigenous communities and murdered and missing indigenous women and girls. I will mention today on this budget that the member for Nunavut was in the House yesterday talking about the need for more investments for indigenous, Métis and Inuit women in this country. It is not acceptable that this budget has not prioritized more housing. For all of these investments, the NDP will be supporting the budget, but it does not mean that we are satisfied with it. Despite NDP wins, the Liberals continue to drag their heels when it comes to making other important investments. I refer again to indigenous housing. There is a serious lack of investment in housing for indigenous communities in this budget. The Liberals have not tackled the housing crisis at all in this budget. They have not taken it seriously. It has been mentioned in this House that reforming employment insurance and modernizing the system is missing in this budget, as is truly addressing disability poverty. As the critic for disability inclusion, I will share this message with the government as I am standing in the House today. It was devastating news to the disability community that the Canada disability benefit did not have financial supports for them in this budget. As I talk about what is missing in the budget, I want to revisit the feminist lens on employment insurance. Employment insurance reform is not in this budget. When employment insurance was first visualized and imagined, the employment rate for women was less than 50%. Employment insurance was built for men; it was not built for women. Now employment rates for men and women are the same in this country, yet women continue to be discriminated against through the system, and it is just not acceptable that a feminist government would not have brought modernization to employment insurance. I want to go to poverty and disability poverty. We know that almost a million people in this country with a disability are living in poverty. I know there is a one-time grocery rebate in the bill, and the Liberals talk about how it is something that the disability community should be able to rest on. That is not true. It is not acceptable. A one-time grocery rebate is not a structural change in addressing poverty in this country, but the Canada disability benefit is. The government needs to get serious about that income support and reducing poverty among persons with disabilities in this country. We see it happening in our communities every day. More people have to go to food banks. There was a study out recently on women with disabilities and their ability to earn an income in this country. They are disproportionately marginalized from adequate employment because of their gender and the intersection with their disability. The government needs to get serious about the Canada disability benefit and lifting people with disabilities out of poverty. I am going to close with the biggest gaping hole in this budget, which is housing. I have mentioned the investments in indigenous housing, but as my colleague, the member for Nunavut, has said over and again in this House, it is only a tiny chip on what we need in this country with respect to housing. I would say, as the government is sitting here, that housing also needs infrastructure. We have this market-driven lens on housing that is all about how many units of housing we can build and ensuring that the developers are making money. I understand we need a housing supply in this country, but we need infrastructure investments as well so we can get adequate housing built all across the country. I will close by saying that Canadians will benefit from this budget. The NDP will be supporting it, but let us get real about housing and indigenous housing in this country.

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Mr. Chad Collins (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, Lib.)

Apr/27/23 7:14:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the member's focus and concentration on housing. I would have to differ, though. The national housing strategy has given weighted importance to our affordable housing programs and providers. Many of the programs are specifically for municipalities and municipal non-profits, as well as non-profit housing providers. There is the rapid housing initiative, the housing accelerator fund, the national co-investment fund, and the list goes on, in terms of the programs we have provided to assist non-profit housing providers with social housing units. I really appreciate the member's advocacy on this issue. Does she not see the benefit in many of the programs that her own riding and her community have benefited from as part of that? I think we are at year five or six at this point now. Those investments have been made all over Canada, specifically for non-profit housing providers. Has she not seen those benefits in her own riding and her own community?

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Ms. Bonita Zarrillo

Apr/27/23 7:15:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is probably not a good question to ask me, because no, I have not. Even though there has been investment in my community, we have lost housing at a rate of 15 to one. Affordable housing has come down, and luxury condos have gone up. Up to 20% of those condos are sitting empty, and our homelessness rate is rising, our mental health impacts are rising and our opioid overdoses are rising. We cannot sit in this House saying we are doing A, B and C, when the results are not happening on the ground, and I will say that the National Housing Council just came forward with a report that said the national housing strategy is not working.

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Mr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC)

Apr/27/23 7:16:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, being from B.C., I know there are many issues the member and I share in many areas. I get lots of people asking about health care. I have asked another member of her caucus the following question, and being from B.C., I think it is important to hear her answer. John Horgan, the former premier, was actually the chair of the Council of the Federation. All the premiers had asked the government specifically not to fund new, expensive, untested and, in some cases, duplicated programs, like dental care, and instead to focus on health care and giving provinces what they need. We saw for the longest time the government did not give any of those things. How does the member square this expansion of a program, when B.C. already has a program for low-income seniors as well as for children under the age of 12? Why has she said that, instead of funding those important programs, now we have bigger government in Ottawa doing duplicative things that do not actually help people in her riding?

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Ms. Bonita Zarrillo

Apr/27/23 7:17:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not sure, but the member might have missed when I mentioned that just in the month of March, 700 people reached out to my office for information about the Canada dental program. Dental care is health care, and we need to keep people out of the hospital when they can have dental care to proactively look after their health. In the month of March, 700 people in my riding reached out for additional information, in need of dental care.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

Apr/27/23 7:18:23 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-47

Madam Speaker, currently, when big emitters pay the carbon tax, the money is put aside and is used to finance green projects in the province where the tax was collected. If oil companies do not propose any green projects, they lose that money at the end of the year. This approach encourages them to move quickly. With Bill C-47, the money would not be lost at the end of the year. Oil companies would keep the money for future projects, which would give them no incentive to hurry to implement green projects that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What does my colleague think about that?

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Ms. Bonita Zarrillo

Apr/27/23 7:19:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I had an interesting meeting today talking to some colleagues across the country just around natural infrastructure, green infrastructure and the way to build infrastructure better in community, and there are a lot of NGOs doing this work. I have actually talked to the infrastructure minister about bringing the expertise of those NGOs together. I think that always relying on corporations is not necessarily the path to this new green economy.

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Mr. Jamie Schmale (Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, CPC)

Apr/27/23 7:19:45 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-47

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this House to speak to Bill C-47, the budget implementation act. This is also my first opportunity to address a developing situation in my riding, which is the closure of the emergency room of the Minden hospital. This emergency room serves the community. The population changes in the winter and summer months, and we are approaching the busy tourist season in just a few weeks. That is unfortunately when this emergency room is scheduled to close. Colleagues can imagine the impact this has had on the community itself. As someone who grew up in Bobcaygeon, I unfortunately have been a client of the Minden hospital on more than one occasion and was always impressed with the service they provided. I do understand the impact this is having on the community. It is not necessarily a decision I support. I do not agree with the closure of the emergency room in Minden, especially the unfortunate timing of it. The board of directors, I am sure, did not make this decision lightly. The administration, I am sure, did not make this decision lightly. I do not think it is something anybody signs up for, to close an emergency room in a small community when, in recent times, during the pandemic specifically, health care is really valued, not only in rural communities but in this country as a whole. This closure could potentially put pressure on other facilities. Of course, the closest hospital for many would be in Haliburton. Facilities in Peterborough and Lindsay are already stretched, not to mention that at the same time we are seeing growth rates that we have not seen before, many attributed to the fact that people are moving after the pandemic to start a life in what was once cottage country, or what I call paradise. I do not blame them. The area around Minden Hills is scheduled to grow at, I believe, the fastest rate in Haliburton County, so this decision is very emotional for a lot of people, and rightly so. Immediately after this decision was made public, I was contacted by the media. I offered a few suggestions, which I am going to tie into the debate we are having on the budget today. I have also written to the ministers. That was one of the first things I did after hearing about the closure of the emergency room in Minden. The fact is that there are areas the government could be helping with and could have taken action on many years ago to help mitigate this blow. The administration is telling us that the closure is due to staffing constraints. I think we can all acknowledge in this place that there is a global shortage in health care professionals. I hear stories all across the country oftentimes that there are shortages of nurses, doctors and PSWs. The list goes on. I think this is a very real concern and a very real challenge that the administration and the volunteer board of directors were having in Minden and that, of course, as I said, hospitals and health care facilities are having across the country. There were many suggestions I offered about the recruitment of doctors and nurses. There are an estimated 19,000 doctors and 34,000 nurses in Canada who cannot work in their trade because they were trained abroad. There are tens of thousands of health care professionals who want to work, who want to help address this health care crisis and who could be helping communities like Minden, but they are held up by bureaucratic gatekeepers because they cannot get an answer on whether they can practise in their specific field, the field they are trained for. I asked the minister of immigration to adopt our leader's stance on addressing this and to create a blue seal program, sort of like the red seal program where trades are recognized for their skills. We can do this in the health care field. I do not think the government has taken a leadership role in getting the provinces together to agree on a standardized test where health care professionals can travel. Not only that, but those who are coming to Canada and who have been trained abroad should be able to take a standardized test and within a decent amount of time get a yes-or-no answer on whether they can practise in that field. If the answer is no, they need to know what to do to get up to that standard. If the answer is yes, that obviously speaks for itself and they can then start to practise in that field. This is a tangible way the government could have taken action. The government could have looked into this many years ago, because this is not a surprise. In Ontario, we had hallway health care before the pandemic. We had issues with long-term care long before. Had the government kept its eye on the ball, we might have been able to address this before the crisis and before decisions like that made in Minden. We could have potentially had these bodies, and that is a lot when we are looking at 19,000 doctors and 34,000 nurses. The blue seal program is one solution we brought to the table, and I spoke to the media about this. Let us start addressing this and getting our health care professionals who want to work and are trained into their field. The other issue is housing. Many of the speeches that I have been listening to today in this debate have focused on housing, and rightly so. In fact, just a few weeks before this announcement about Minden was made in Haliburton County, the town of Minden had a summit. It was a volunteer group, Places for People, that arranged a housing summit. Haliburton County is beautiful. It is paradise, and it is probably one of the best places in this country to live, to be, to work and to play. However, in my speech, I actually mentioned the fact that health care professionals who wanted to come to the area could not find housing. Not only was it hard for the hospital to recruit, but the municipality was also having trouble recruiting executives in its leadership circle. We also heard from many tourism operators who were not able to find bodies. Housing was a real issue. The fact is that we, as a country, are not building the amount of housing we need in order to address what is in front of us today, which is a housing crisis. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada needs 3.5 million more homes than projected to restore affordability. That is 3.5 million homes just to address the affordability problem that we have. Many communities say they do not have housing, and that is true. In Haliburton County, it is absolutely true. Housing has been a massive problem. It actually hurt the economy. There was opportunity to grow, but because there was nowhere to house people for businesses that they wanted to start up, to maintain or to expand, it was hard to attract people because they could not find a suitable and affordable house to live in. That is something the government has failed at. It keeps touting its housing strategy, but the affordability has not gone up. The affordability problem has actually worsened. The average mortgage and rent payment has nearly doubled since the government came into power. When the Prime Minister took office, the average monthly payment on a new house was $1,400. Today it has gone up to over $3,100. In 2015, the average rent in Canada for a one-bedroom apartment was $973. Today it is $1,760. That is for a one-bedroom apartment. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment here in Canada was $1,172; today, it is $2,153. In fact, when the Prime Minister took office, someone needed only 39% of the average paycheque to make those monthly payments on that average house. That number has now risen to 62%. By every objective measurement, things are now more expensive and Canadians are taking home less. The affordability crisis and the housing crisis are two of the biggest problems we have. This is not to mention that when we are talking about building homes and building the economy, we also need to include labour in this conversation. We have a massive labour shortage, especially in the skilled trades, which are the trades we need to build houses. Something else the government has failed to take into account is the fact that we should be providing more incentives for those who want to get into the skilled trades. I will give the government credit. It did include some incentives for those in the skilled trades in the budget, and I thank it for that. This could have been done long before.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Apr/27/23 7:31:06 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-214 Bill C-233 Bill C-228 Bill C-11

Order, please. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows: Rideau Hall Ottawa April 27, 2023 Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to inform you that on behalf and at the request of the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Governor General of Canada, the Right Honourable Richard Wagner, Deputy to the Governor General, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 27th day of April, 2023, at 6:26 p.m. Yours sincerely, Maia Welbourne Assistant Secretary to the Governor General The schedule indicates the bills assented to were S-214, An Act to establish International Mother Language Day—Chapter 5; Bill C-228, An Act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985—Chapter 6; Bill C-233, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Judges Act (violence against an intimate partner)—Chapter 7; and Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts—Chapter 8.

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Mr. Chad Collins (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, Lib.)

Apr/27/23 7:32:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I support Minden's mayor and their call to keep the emergency room at Minden Hospital. I have spent a lot of time in the member's riding. It is a beautiful riding. I have had many summers in Coboconk. However, I am trying to rationalize the comments that were made earlier. It is a provincial decision. He knocked on doors, likely for the premier and his local member, who sit at Queen's Park where the rally is occurring. How that health care decision to close the Minden emergency ward has anything to do with us after all the resources that we are investing in health care in this budget is beyond me. The member supported the premier who is making the cuts that the member mentioned earlier. How does the member square that?

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Mr. Jamie Schmale (Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, CPC)

Apr/27/23 7:33:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad my friend across the way could experience summers in Coboconk. It really is a beautiful area. A few things that the member got completely wrong in that speech include the fact that it was not a provincial decision. It was actually made by the local board of directors. The reason for it was not fiscal, from what we are being told, so he got that wrong. Let us just set the record straight that the decision was made, from what we are being told, because of a staffing issue, with the massive shortage in doctors and nurses right across the country. I bring it up in this capacity in this chamber because where the government does have responsibility is with foreign-trained doctors and nurses. It can get the provinces to work together and start to develop a standardized test, the blue seal trade program that we are talking about. We can get provinces at the table to agree to a test. It is done in the Red Seal program. It can be done in the blue seal program. We can get them together and get something done, rather than just throwing our hands up.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

Apr/27/23 7:34:51 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-47 Bill C-46

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend for his speech. On the topic of health, the primary role of the federal government is to properly fund health care. In Bill C‑47, there is $2 billion in unconditional transfers to the provinces. The member for Winnipeg North said that the government would try to remove that money from the bill because it is already in Bill C‑46, which was passed by the House. First, the government is not doing its job properly. It is forgetting to harmonize its own bills. That is not very professional. Second, we believe we need a lot more in health transfers from the federal government. We want this $2 billion to stay in Bill C‑47. What does my hon. colleague think about that?

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Mr. Jamie Schmale

Apr/27/23 7:35:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am a fan of provincial governments having the jurisdiction to operate within their authority. Health care is one of the jurisdictions that specifically belongs to the provincial government. An area that my friend brought up and refreshed my memory on is the fact that the government spent hundreds of billions of dollars during the pandemic, only half of which, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said, was related to the pandemic itself. The other half was couched in the language of COVID. If it was truly a health care crisis, why was that money not given to the provinces to deal with health care specifically? Why were we starting to build all these other pet projects of the Liberal government? We should have been addressing that crisis at the time, which was health care, but this is something the government failed to do.

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Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

Apr/27/23 7:36:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I get a real kick out of the Conservatives. They figure conspiracy theories are the best thing that has ever happened to them, because they can blame gatekeepers for everything. Let us talk about the gatekeepers that have resulted in the staffing shortages at Minden. They are Doug Ford and the Ontario Conservatives. Remember Bill 124 and its attack on nurses' wages? It was so bad, it was found to be unconstitutional. At a time when nurses were leaving the profession in droves, Doug Ford picked a fight with them. The fact is that Doug Ford under-spent $1.8 billion in health care in Ontario, and it was dead last out of all the provinces. I think the member has a lot of gall to use the crisis in Minden to promote a conspiracy that there is some kind of bureaucratic gatekeeper when money that is given to the provinces, in Ontario, is not going to frontline health care or to support the nurses who could be doing the work to keep people safe.

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Mr. Jamie Schmale

Apr/27/23 7:37:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what planet my friend opposite is on. The member clearly put his fingers in his ears and did not hear a word I said. The decision was made because of a staffing issue, and the staffing issue is all across Canada. It is a global issue. We are talking about health care and the fact that there are tens of thousands of doctors and nurses who are not practising in the field that they are trained in. This is something that should be addressed, yes, by the provinces, as well as the federal government. Why are we not creating a blue seal program that allows these people to get into the trades they are trained in?

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