44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 18, 2023 10:00AM
- May/18/23 2:15:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in my community of Port Moody—Coquitlam, Anmore and Belcarra, we support the work to end period poverty.
On May 28, as part of the Period Promise campaign, Soroptimist International of the Tri-Cities will highlight this important cause by hosting a fundraiser and donation drop-off.
With a 6% increase in the price of personal health care products, even more Canadians cannot afford menstrual products like pads, tampons and cups. Lack of hygiene products causes B.C. residents who experience menstruation to miss school, work and social gatherings. The United Way's Period Promise campaign is working to address this inequity.
I will be stopping in at Como Lake Village in Coquitlam on Saturday, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., to support the Soroptimists, who collected 700,000 units to end period poverty last year.
I raise my hands to the work of every community organization that has made the period promise. Their work is invaluable.
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- May/18/23 2:16:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada has just realized that long before the Madonnas and the Lady Gagas of this world shocked audiences with their extravagance and filled stadiums with their voices, there was the great Diane Dufresne.
Yes, the great Diane Dufresne will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame tonight, after 60 brilliant years of magnificent music. She is the first Quebecker to be inducted in 45 years. There is no doubt that this belated but well-chosen recognition of Quebec songs will breathe some life into the Hall of Fame.
On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I want to congratulate this great ambassador of culture and of Quebec's soul. This honour is so well deserved. Calgary is in for a treat when she performs tonight. She said in an interview that she plans to put on her Diane Dufresne clothes and go for a stroll. Yes, Calgary is in for a treat, especially if she sings, in French, one of the signature songs from her famous show Magie Rose.
My congratulations to Diane Dufresne. Quebec shines brightly every time she is honoured.
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- May/18/23 2:17:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government tried to sell Canadians a bill of goods, stating that they would get back more than they pay in carbon tax. However, Liberals' own study proved them wrong.
Now, the Liberals want to impose a second carbon tax. These two taxes combined would create approximately $2,000 in net new costs, above and beyond any rebates. This is at a time when many seniors are having to rely more and more on local food banks. A local Toronto food bank has seen its yearly food budget of $1.8 million become their monthly food budget. With the Liberals' second tax grab, their annual food budget would increase to $43 million.
The PBO report released this morning revealed that the carbon tax would have a greater impact on lower-income households. Our Conservative Party would cut the tax and bring hope back to seniors.
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- May/18/23 2:18:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when the pandemic impacted our semiconductor supply chain, one thing became very clear, which is that Canada needs to nearshore this critical economic sector. I am proud that our government is working to do exactly that by building a semiconductor corridor across North America.
Canada is in a unique position. We have the resources, the critical minerals and the talent to get the job done. Just look at the innovators in my riding of Kanata—Carleton, such as CMC, Ranovus, Marvell, Alphawave Semi and GaN Systems. This is just to name a few innovators; they are designing, assembling and testing semiconductors that are smaller and faster than ever before.
Building out this ecosystem promises to be a transformative step for Canada’s economy. We will not let this once-in-a-generation opportunity pass us by.
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- May/18/23 2:19:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer revealed today that this Prime Minister is imposing a second carbon tax on Quebeckers, on top of all the taxes Quebeckers must pay on gas. It will add another 17¢ to the sales tax for a total of 20¢ per litre, for each Quebec family, each farmer and each business.
How much will every Quebec family have to pay?
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- May/18/23 2:20:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that Quebeckers listening to us today know how important it is to fight climate change. They know that, on this point, the Conservatives have nothing to say; they have no plan and they have no measures, despite the promises they made in the last election campaign. In fact, they do not even believe that climate change is real, in spite of the flooding in Quebec and Ontario and the record forest fires in Alberta.
I believe that Canadians want a government that has a responsible plan to address climate change. Unfortunately, they will not get that with the Conservatives.
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- May/18/23 2:21:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this minister will say just about anything.
Quebeckers are already the greenest people in the world and this Liberal government is blocking the construction of dams and other green hydroelectricity projects. In the meantime, it wants to force Quebeckers to pay another 20¢ a litre, or $500 per family. The government is planning to to do this with the support of the “woke” Bloc.
Only the Conservative Party has the common sense to want to eliminate this regressive tax. Will the government listen to common sense and get rid of the tax?
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- May/18/23 2:21:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will leave it to my hon. colleagues in the Bloc to answer the question of whether they are or are not woke. I do not think that is my call.
What I will say, however, is that once again the leader of the opposition is saying things that are simply not true. What we are putting in place is a mechanism to ensure that the refineries that made record profits in the past few years will do their part to fight climate change. I think that everyone expects every sector of the economy in the country to do its part to fight climate change.
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- May/18/23 2:22:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not me who is saying these things. It is the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who the government appointed.
Just yesterday, the finance minister said that we should believe the Parliamentary Budget Officer. What did he say? He revealed that the first carbon tax would cost 41¢ a litre, and now there is a second carbon tax of 17¢ a litre. When we add the HST on those two taxes, we get a total new tax increase of 61¢ a litre, which will cost $2,000 a family.
How are Canadians going to be able to pay their bills after this new and latest Liberal tax hike?
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- May/18/23 2:23:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from the Parliamentary Budget Officer's analysis, which states, “does not attempt to account for the economic and environmental costs of climate change.” The Parliamentary Budget Officer is looking at one part of the ledger without looking at the other side of the ledger.
We know that climate change is already costing Canadians billions of dollars every year. In fact, it is tens of billions of dollars every year. Of course, members of the Conservative Party of Canada do not believe in climate change and they do not care about those costs to Canadians. Unfortunately, facts are facts, and those costs are real to all Canadians.
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- May/18/23 2:23:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, climate costs are real, but they will not be reduced as a result of this tax.
The minister's argument leads to a dead end. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that carbon tax 1 would cost 41¢ a litre. Now carbon tax 2 is 17¢ a litre. The Liberals then want to tax the tax on the tax by putting HST on top of all that, so it is going to be 61¢ a litre in carbon taxes. We already have one in five Canadians skipping meals because they cannot afford the price of food.
How many people are going to go hungry when the government imposes this tax hike?
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- May/18/23 2:24:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Leader of the Opposition is wrong yet again, because our plan is working. This has led to reducing emissions and climate change pollution by more than 50 million tonnes between 2019 and 2021 beyond COVID. In fact, it was called a pandemic because it was happening all over the world, yet Canada, in 2020 and 2021, had the best performance of all G7 countries.
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- May/18/23 2:25:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, emissions only went down when the government actually locked down the country for COVID, if it wants to do that forever.
The Prime Minister decriminalized crack, heroin and other hard drugs on January 31. He has flooded the streets with taxpayer-funded hydromorphone, and today we have learned the tragic results. The report from British Columbia shows that seven people are dying every day of overdoses. In April, overdose rates were up 17%.
This experiment has failed. When will the Prime Minister get common sense, get drugs off our streets and get our people into treatment?
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- May/18/23 2:25:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our hearts are with all the families that have lost a loved one to this terrible crisis caused by a poisoned drug supply. The B.C. coroner has said that there is no evidence that safe supply has been implicated in any of these drug deaths.
We have to use every tool in our tool box to stop this terrible tragedy and that includes prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement.
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- May/18/23 2:26:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has been calling for an independent public inquiry into Chinese interference every day since February. Every day, the Liberals hid the truth. They knew that China was interfering in the elections, but they hid it. They knew that China had suspicious ties to one of their MPs, but they hid it. They knew that China was hobnobbing with the Trudeau foundation, but they hid it. More importantly, they knew that China was threatening elected officials and their families, but they hid it. Most importantly, they did nothing. That is unforgivable.
When will there be an independent public inquiry?
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- May/18/23 2:27:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I did not realize that hiding information involved putting it in a public report from a Canadian intelligence agency. On the contrary, our government acted quickly to implement measures to counter foreign interference, including China interference. That did not exist before we formed the government.
We will strengthen those measures. We have taken steps to ensure that no member of Parliament is threatened by this interference, as my colleague said. We intend to stay the course.
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- May/18/23 2:27:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, his answer proves that we need an independent public commission of inquiry, a commission whose chair will be selected by the House, a commission whose mandate will be as broad as possible to get to the bottom of this matter, a commission with a clear timeline, a commission that will begin its work quickly, not in the fall, not when pigs fly, but now.
That is the only acceptable recommendation that can come from the rapporteur, who is actually not that special and certainly not independent. It is time the Liberals stopped muddying the waters.
Right here, right now, will they commit to launching this investigation?
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- May/18/23 2:28:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am a former fisheries minister. Far be it from me to muddy any waters.
What is very clear is that our government has decided to seek the advice of an independent expert, the Right Hon. David Johnston. Next week, Mr. Johnston will be tabling his report on this very issue, an independent inquiry into foreign interference. We look forward to reading Mr. Johnston's recommendations.
I would ask the hon. member to wait until Mr. Johnston submits his report next week.
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- May/18/23 2:29:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals gave over $100 million worth of federal contracts to their friends at McKinsey since 2015, despite McKinsey playing a major role in pushing opioids to vulnerable people. That was $100 million to a company that worsened the toxic-drug crisis. The government even knows McKinsey is terrible, as it has joined a lawsuit to hold the company accountable.
Therefore, why do the Liberals not stop giving money to McKinsey and use that money to appropriately respond to combatting the toxic-drug crisis that is killing people in our country?
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- May/18/23 2:29:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Public Services and Procurement Canada is always committed to an open, fair and transparent procurement process while also obtaining the best value for Canadian taxpayers.
In the case that the member opposite has alluded to, we also have an integrity regime that we consult regularly. It is clear in that integrity regime that civil litigation is not a ground for suspension or departure from the existing integrity regime, which was actually put in place by the previous government.
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