44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 1, 2023 11:00AM
- May/1/23 2:19:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today, we learned that Beijing worked to punish an MP's family member for the way that MP voted here in the House of Commons. The intelligence agencies and the government were aware of these actions for two years, but the Prime Minister did not inform the MP in question and did not expel the diplomat in Toronto who was orchestrating all this.
That diplomat is still on the website of the Chinese consulate in Toronto. Why?
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Madam Speaker, before I start, I would like to thank the constituents of Brampton East for their support. It was a pleasure seeing so many constituents out in downtown Toronto yesterday for the Nagar Kirtan and to celebrate Vaisakhi alongside colleagues and, of course, the Prime Minister of Canada.
I am grateful to rise in the House today to talk about how budget 2023 is going to benefit both the residents in my riding of Brampton East and all Canadians across the country. Budget 2023, brought forth by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, reassures Canadians that our federal government is delivering on its promises.
We are making decisions that are smart, sustainable and innovative, which in turn will propel our economy toward a greener and more resilient future. We have recovered from the pandemic stronger than before, with record low unemployment rates and one of the fastest recoveries versus other comparable G7 countries. The Canadian youth unemployment rate is down by 22%, and 830,000 more Canadians are employed compared to when the pandemic first hit three years ago.
Our recovery efforts worked because we listened to Canadians and acted in their best interests so that families could put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. We acted quickly and provided the help Canadians needed when much of the world was in a state of unknown.
While pandemic supports have ended, our commitment to helping Canadians succeed has not. Budget 2023 proves this statement. Our federal government is making record investments in health care, child care, dental care and a clean, green economy, among many others.
The health of Canadians is what creates the foundation for a healthy economy. Universal high-quality and accessible health care is how we keep that foundation strong from coast to coast to coast. The pandemic put an unprecedented strain on an already overworked health care system. From health care workers feeling burnt out to emergency rooms constantly being overrun to elective surgeries being delayed or cancelled, the level of care that Canadians deserve and rely is not being delivered and can be greatly improved.
What is being delivered is an urgent and much-needed investment of $195 billion over the next 10 years from our federal government. This funding will accompany the tailored bilateral agreements with each province and territory to provide targeted supports throughout the health care sector, and will also include the accountability measures that Canadians expect and deserve from their provinces and territories.
Health care also extends into dental care, and going to a dentist can be expensive and out of reach for many Canadians and their families. It is concerning to say that one in five Canadians reported that they avoid going to a dentist because of cost. The new Canadian dental care plan outlined in budget 2023 plans to eliminate the difficult decision between taking care of one's teeth and being able to pay the bills at the end of the month. Another record investment of $13 billion over the next five years, starting in 2023, with $4 billion ongoing, to Health Canada is being put forward in this budget to help uninsured Canadian families receive dental care.
Programs like the Canada dental benefit have helped more than 240,000 children receive the dental care they need. This includes close to 3,000 children in my riding of Brampton East alone. I have heard first-hand from parents who are over the moon that they can provide important dental care for their children for healthier teeth and bigger smiles.
Here in Canada and around the world, the cost of living has gone up and inflation is a top-of-mind issue. The rising cost of food affects Canadians, small businesses and families who are trying to put a nutritious meal on the table. That is why, through budget 2023, our government is introducing the new grocery rebate, which is targeted to help provide relief to Canadians who need it the most. The $2.5 billion in relief will help eligible families with two children receive up to an extra $467, and single Canadians without children can receive up to $234. This support will assist close to 11 million Canadians with the cost of food. This is yet another way in which our federal government is helping Canadians live their lives in a way that benefits them so they do not have to choose between food, paying rent, and other expenses.
Young Canadians, specifically students, have faced immense pressures trying to navigate their way through the consistent changes, cancellations and delays caused by the pandemic. Our government stepped in to help. When we invest in the success of students and young Canadians, we all prosper. Their research and training achievements strengthen our workforce and economy. When we help more students train in the career of their choosing, this helps fill the gaps in labour shortages that many industries are experiencing across the country.
This is a consistent message I hear from my Brampton East Youth Council. Many aspire to go to college or university, but they are also worried about being able to afford tuition, books, meal plans and other needed expenses. The stakes are high, and for many, they are the first of their families to go to university or college.
I assume that many of my hon. colleagues in this House believe that a student's education should not be cut short because of financial hardship, and this is where our government is stepping in. Over 750,000 post-secondary students across Canada rely on federal assistance each year, and that money is the difference between starting a career with good-paying jobs versus not knowing what their next steps may be. It is clear that during the pandemic, our government should not be making money off the already strained purses of post-secondary students.
That is why we acted and eliminated interest on Canada student loans and Canada apprentice loans. By increasing Canada student grants by 40%, raising the interest-free Canada student loan limit and waiving the requirement for mature students to undergo a credit check for a loan, our government has created access to an additional $14,400 in Canadian financial student assistance. Students can now spend less time worrying about how they are going to pay for tuition, rent, food and other expenses, and spend more time focusing on their studies.
Budget 2023 would invest over $800 million to enhance student financial assistance for the school year starting in August 2023. However, our commitment to helping students does not stop there. For budget 2024, we have pledged to work with students directly and create a long-term approach to develop a financial assistance plan that is tailored to their needs for the years to come.
As I mentioned previously, Canada's economic recovery from the pandemic has been steady and climbing, with record low unemployment rates and more than 800,000 more Canadians employed than when the pandemic first hit. We are building back stronger than ever. Historic investments in early learning and child care are helping more women enter or re-enter the workforce.
Budget 2023 would also help students gain the necessary training to transition straight into the workforce once their work placement training is complete. Our government is making it easier for students to work in their desired fields, and we are also encouraging partnerships and increased learning opportunities between post-secondary institutions and businesses across Canada. It is crucial that we help bridge the gap between schooling and employment so that young Canadians entering the workforce can earn a good wage in addition to businesses gaining valuable skilled workers.
Canada is proud to be home to one of the smartest and most skilled labour forces in the world, and my riding of Brampton East is proof of that. Brampton East is home to the MDA plant, which is currently designing the Canadarm3, a robotic arm that will maintain, repair and inspect Gateway, which is a lunar outpost that will enable sustainable human exploration on the moon. Due to the contributions of the Canadarm3 space technology, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut will be part of the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972 with Artemis II. This was something that President Joe Biden touched upon when he addressed this very House during his official visit.
Canada and the United States share an incredibly strong partnership, which will be of value to the Artemis II mission. It is a friendship unlike any other in the world. Through our co-operation, we can improve economic prosperity and productivity, and benefit from a secure sharing of resources that will help the citizens of both of our countries.
While we are reaching for the stars in terms of innovation and technology, or more precisely for the moon, we are also moving toward a greener future with clean, green economic growth. Canada is on the right path forward toward electrification and green energy. A significant portion of our electricity already comes from non-emitting sources, such as hydroelectricity, wind, solar and nuclear, but more can be done. We know that Canada's electricity demand will double by 2050, and our government, through budget 2023, has proposed to make significant investments to accelerate the expansion of Canada's electricity grid, which will supply and transmit clean electricity across Canada.
We are seeing this progress happen in our local communities. Brampton is taking the necessary steps to become a green city by transitioning its transit fleet with fully electric buses, made possible through our federal Infrastructure Bank. With those buses comes a new maintenance facility of over 600,000 square feet of indoor bus storage that will help ensure our electric transit fleet is running smoothly. In Brampton East, this new maintenance facility is set to bring in over 1,000 good-paying jobs in my riding, and I am proud to say that we are on track to establishing Brampton as a newly electrified economic hub.
In two years, Brampton will also be home to the newly revitalized Stellantis plant for Chrysler, made possible by federal investments made by our government. This plant will be a flexible, multi-energy vehicle facility properly equipped to produce new electric vehicles and batteries. This plant will help fuel the green economic growth that budget 2023 is moving toward. It will change how we manufacture electric vehicles and will bring good-paying jobs to the city. This was all possible by the hard work of many of my federal colleagues from Brampton who are here in this House. It will help to fight climate change while growing our economy.
As I end today, I want to talk about parents I met recently, Matthew and Jennifer, who live in my riding, where they are raising their son Sebastian. They want to be close to family and close to the hospitals where they work as full-time nurses. They can rest assured knowing that we will be there to continue to support their young child with our new child care program.
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Madam Speaker, as someone who will be getting married in the summer, I hope you will pass on tips on how to have a happy long marriage, beyond just saying, “Yes, dear.”
Budget 2023 has some positive aspects, but they are achieved by abandoning the now politically inconvenient fiscal anchor, which was the Liberals' long-boasted-about measure of fiscal responsibility. The Liberals are also jettisoning the people who helped them first come to power in 2015: young people and the middle class, their electorally convenient but quickly forgotten voter base. Additionally, the budget threw Toronto under the bus. They are the same people whom the Liberals relied on to cling to power, but continue to ignore now that they are back in government.
Budget 2023 would not do enough to offset the challenges facing Canadians, especially the failure to combat the most pressing housing and cost of living crises in Canadian history. We are in a crisis. A recent report on housing affordability from the National Bank of Canada states that it now takes 311 months, or just about 26 years, for a Toronto household on a median income to save enough for a down payment for a home. I want to reiterate that point. The unit of measure that Torontonians are using to project when, if ever, they can own a home is fractions of a century. That is wrong.
What the government is doing is clearly not working. It should be consulting experts, yet it ignored the National Housing Council, which is the advisory body that the Liberals themselves set up in 2019. It called for $6.3 billion over two years, beginning in 2022-2023. This call, I guess, was no longer politically useful, so it went by the wayside, as did the hopes and dreams of Canadians wanting to get their first home and those who have no home at all.
The failures of budget 2023 also point to an urgent need to rethink the national housing strategy. The government has sunk $82 billion into the strategy, but so far has little show for it. Adequate and affordable housing has become a dream. The state of housing in Canada is in crisis.
With housing the way it is, it is no surprise that homelessness is getting worse in Canada, yet the homeless crisis in our country was mentioned all of three times, and not in anything of substance or real policy, just three buzzwords. Sadly, if we examine the national housing strategy from the perspective of homelessness, even the Auditor General has found that the strategy “is not resulting in measurable decreases in chronic homelessness.”
The strategy is failing to meet its goal of cutting in half core housing needs and eliminating homelessness by 2030, yet despite having the independently researched and confirmed analysis of the government's failure to address homelessness by the Auditor General, budget 2023 does not include measures to improve homelessness in the national housing strategy. Homelessness in Canada is a crisis.
Canadians are facing some tough challenges, and it is not getting any better. In fact, it has gotten worse. Canadians have been hit with inflation, especially in food; increasing interest rates; and an economy sputtering along toward a potentially mild recession. I heard from Amy in my riding, who lives with celiac disease. She shared how rising inflation in food costs is especially hard for her and for everyone in Canada living with this lifelong condition.
We have new records being set, all of them the wrong records, on seemingly a monthly basis by food banks. In March, 270,000 people, which is the equivalent of more than four Skydomes, or Rogers Centres, or over 13 full Scotiabank Arenas, visited a food bank just to ensure that they did not go hungry. Worse still, the Daily Bread Food Bank has warned that among the fastest-growing number of food bank users are people with full-time jobs.
I want to zero in on Toronto, where these three crises of housing, homelessness and inflation have come together to present Torontonians with some of the most challenging barriers right now to their prosperity and the future of our city.
On March 29, the deputy mayor of Canada's largest city, and the engine of our Canadian economy, bluntly stated that the federal government shut the city out of the federal budget. Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie further stated that the government ignored a direct financial commitment it had made to Toronto during the last federal election to assist the city with ongoing COVID costs largely associated with transit and shelter.
At a time when the government wants to tout this budget as one focused on growth, it is unwilling to acknowledge that Toronto is in a state of recovery. The city is facing a budget shortfall in 2023 of $933 million. There is a lot at stake. To touch on a few major things, the city's ability to provide social services and to operate the largest transit system in Canada comes to mind.
The transit system is facing line cuts and decreased TTC ridership. Services combatting homelessness and the provision of social and mental health services are stretched to the brink. Our city is also facing policing reductions, even with increases in violent crime. Moreover, Toronto did receive federal assistance for a refugee shelter in 2022, but heard nothing for this year. What does the federal government think happened to the refugees? Did they just go home? No other municipality in Canada operates its transit and social services at the same levels as Toronto with three million residents.
Let us discuss an election promise. After almost a year and a half after getting re-elected, the government will finally remove the interest on Canada student loans and apprenticeship loans. There is no better investment a country can make than in its youth. I am grateful that the Liberals will finally honour an election promise.
Sure, it took me holding it accountable in my question to the minister responsible on February 17, 2022, and calling it out on September 23, 2022, when they quietly tried to sneak into the Canada Gazette the expiration of the loan interest waiver for students. I was more than happy to do the heavy lifting for the government with my private member's bill, Bill C-301, which mapped out exactly what needed to be done.
I am sure it was just a coincidence that, after the National Post featured my bill on November 2, and how the Liberals would have to potentially be forced to vote against their own election promise, the very next day, on November 3, the Liberals finally declared to the nation, in the fall economic statement, that they would do what they had promised.
If only the government could also move on creating a national pharmacare program. It would also help if it removed the tax it applied to all of the other taxes on gasoline. Surely, the government would agree with me that taxing taxes is wrong.
I also want to highlight that, while the government proudly boasts about child care, which I support, it does not contain a workforce strategy or advance higher wages for child care and personal support workers, as promised by the Liberal Party in the 2021 election. Affordable child care is great, but only if one has the spots and the child care workers to actually care for the children.
Budget 2023 could be viewed as a stopgap document, one that gives the government time to prepare for its next election platform. However, Torontonians and Canadians should not have their needs held in abeyance to the Liberal Party's re-election hopes down the road. Canadians want action now, not later.
Many Canadians are facing tough times and are having to make tough choices. With higher interest rates and the ensuing rising costs associated with inflation, Canadians are seeing higher food prices, higher housing costs, increased energy costs, and higher rent and mortgage payments. Canadians are feeling the pinch, and not just the low-income Canadians. Some of the government's much-discussed middle class are now visiting food banks. If they were looking for the government to help them, budget 2023 does not look like it is the answer.
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Madam Speaker, there are many aspects of what the member has indicated that I would suggest are somewhat misleading. If we take a look at all of the accomplishments the government has been successful in through working with the City of Toronto and the whole 905 and 416 area, I think we would find that it has been overwhelmingly successful on the issue of infrastructure.
We can compare that to the Conservative years. We have accomplished so much more in a far shorter period of time, on a wide spectrum of things. Could the member indicate if he believes the Conservative Party would be doing a better job?
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Madam Speaker, I feel a need to remind my colleague that the Conservative government has not been in power for eight years.
Moreover, I also want to reiterate, because I had this discussion with my colleague during a late show, that there is a difference between capital expenditures and operating expenditures. He loves to talk about the infrastructure the federal government has helped Toronto invest in, but that is like the bus the Liberals have thrown our city under. The operating expenditures are the gas and money which allow it to ride over us, reverse and run over us again. There is a vital difference. What we are missing is money for the operating expenses.
Which TTC bus routes would it like cancelled? Which homeless shelters should we close? Which ambulances, police cars and fire trucks should we have mothballed?
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