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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 216

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 19, 2023 11:00AM
  • Jun/19/23 8:29:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup for his work. I was thinking back to the question that he asked me earlier. The key word that I missed was interoperability. It is important to have laws that are interoperable, so I would like to try again by putting it in a comment and asking him the following question. How important is it that our laws remain interoperable?
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  • Jun/19/23 8:29:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, by interoperability we understand the connections and interplay between the provincial laws and the federal law that enable them to work together. It is imperative and fundamental that these laws can work together so that the work done upstream or downstream—whether at the federal or provincial level—can be constructive and effective, particularly against money laundering. I think my colleague is right, and I thank him for that. I must say publicly that my colleague is a very fine individual who does great work on the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology and who always makes an effort. As he said earlier, we do not always agree. However, in general, I think his arguments are geared towards the common good of Quebec and Canadian society as a whole. That is what we are arguing for as well. To answer his question, I think it goes without saying. Everyone should realize that this is really something that should be interoperable.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:31:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on this same point, I would say that this interoperability is really important. The provinces that already have a public registry have set the threshold at 25%. The member mentioned 10% before, but, for the bill to be compatible with the laws of the provinces that already have a public registry, it seems to me it would be important to start with a 25% threshold and to then have some conversations with the provinces, instead of legislating something in the House that is incompatible with the provincial registries. How can we address this and make sure we create laws that allow the federal government to have an important tool it can use to go after the Russians who are hiding their assets in Canada?
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  • Jun/19/23 8:32:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his excellent question. To move society forward, we must move bills forward, be it at the federal or provincial level. I realize that the registries are all harmonized at 25%. We are fully aware of that, but, in moving amendments like the one meant to lower the ownership threshold to 10%, we have made people think, not only in the House, but also at the provincial level. In doing so, we could perhaps improve the registries to ensure that all the information could be collected more effectively, both at the provincial and federal levels, so as to eliminate, once and for all, money laundering, tax evasion, and related crimes. The tighter the measures across Canada, the greater the chance of limiting the damage. I am an entrepreneur and I regularly consult the Quebec registry. I will be consulting it again soon, because my daughter will be taking over for my associate in my company. I will be required to have a notary make the change at the IGIF, the institute that records all the information in a registry. We will record my company's new shareholder, my daughter. Actually, it will just be my daughter and me. That is very important. We each hold 50% of the companies' shares, but there could have been several shareholders, and the threshold could have been 10% instead of 25%. In our case, it does not matter, because we are not fraudsters. I remember that my colleague said that there are companies that own multiple companies. It becomes a sort of puzzle. It would have been more obvious to have a 10% threshold rather than a 25% threshold.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:34:22 p.m.
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Is the House ready for the question? Some hon. members: Question. The Speaker: The question is on Motion No. 1. If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:35:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote, please.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:35:14 p.m.
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Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the division stands deferred until Tuesday, June 20 at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:35:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I believe that you have received the proper advance notice and, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent to see the clock at midnight so we can begin Adjournment Proceedings.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:35:53 p.m.
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I have received notice from all recognized parties that they are in agreement on this request. Is it agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:36:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am standing today representing my constituents and the constituents of Alberta. I want to tell a bit of a story. In May 2020, amid COVID-19 shutdowns, on the Friday afternoon before the May long weekend, Alberta's United Conservative government quietly revealed that it was rescinding Alberta's coal policy that had protected the Rocky Mountains and the eastern slopes from exploration and mining since 1976. Albertans had no insight into this. They had no inkling that this change was going to happen, but the mining companies absolutely did. Within days, on 240,000 hectares of environmentally sensitive land on the eastern slopes, areas that included the headwaters of Alberta's major watershed serving Edmonton, Calgary and southern Alberta, thousands of trees were bulldozed and hundreds of kilometres of temporary roads were carved through the landscape by coal-mining companies. The outcry from Albertans and other Canadians was swift. It was overwhelming. Through various petitions and forms, hundreds of thousands of Canadians turned to the federal government for help. They asked that the government enforce federal laws, including the species at risk legislation and the Canada Water Act, and consult with first nations and other indigenous groups in keeping with the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is something that the provincial Conservative government had very clearly failed to do. I stood in this House and called on the government to close a loophole in the legislation. In fact, I brought a private member's bill forward to do that. The loophole was that in the past any mine that was under 5,000 tonnes per day did not trigger the Impact Assessment Act. What we were finding was that mining companies were building two mines side by side that were 4,950 tonnes or 4,925 tonnes to get under that 5,000 tonnes per day loophole. Therefore, I brought my private member's bill to the minister of the environment at the time, the now Minister of Natural Resources, and he agreed with me and he agreed in policy to change that loophole. It was the best day of my life as a parliamentarian because my legislation was put into policy, so we were delighted. It meant that all coal mines in the Rocky Mountains were going to trigger an environmental impact assessment. I am pleased to say that meant that some of the mines that were going to be most destructive in southern Alberta were shut down and the ones that were most destructive in the eastern slopes were shut down and did not go ahead. The investors pulled out, the mining companies pulled out and our water and our land was protected in Alberta. However, after that we got a new minister and the new minister has now rubber-stamped a coal mine that is going into the Grande Cache mountains. The minister has completely discarded the policy that his predecessor put in place. Either he is not paying attention or he does not care, and if that is the case it is a betrayal. Either the minister thinks that this mine does not have to be under the threshold of 5,000 tonnes or he thinks that selenium is not a risk. What I would like to know from the government is, which is it? Which reason is it that the government is betraying Albertans and not triggering an environmental impact assessment on a coal mine in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains?
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  • Jun/19/23 8:40:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the question by the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona regarding the impact assessment process and coal mining. I want to assure the member that the government will continue to lead the global effort to phase out coal-powered electricity and the mining of thermal coal, and to ban thermal coal exports from and through Canada as swiftly as possible, and no later than 2030. In June 2021, the government issued its policy statement on the new thermal coal mining or expansion projects, stating that these projects are likely to cause unacceptable environmental effects within federal jurisdiction and are not aligned with Canada's domestic and international climate change commitments. Canada is taking decisive action to address climate change, and we will consider the policy statement in deciding whether to designate any new thermal coal mines or expansions under the Impact Assessment Act. With respect to metallurgical coal mines, we will consider designating any new mines or expansions that have the potential to release selenium into the environment. Canada has a rigorous federal impact assessment process that considers the positive and negative environmental, economic, social and health impacts of mining projects, among others. The type of projects subject to this process are identified in the regulations known as the project list under the Impact Assessment Act. Summit Coal Inc.'s proposed summit mine 14 project near Grand Cache is a metallurgical coal mine, not a thermal coal mine, and is well below the threshold identified in the project list that would automatically trigger a federal assessment process. In August 2022, a number of first nations wrote the Minister of Environment and Climate Change about the proposed summit mine 14 project, and requested we consider designating it for assessment. To support our consideration of this request, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada provided the minister advice about the project informed by science, indigenous and community knowledge, input from the proponent, and consultation with Alberta, other jurisdictions and potentially affected indigenous groups. On November 14, 2022, the minister decided, after carefully considering the scientific analysis and advice from the agency, to not designate the project. His response and the analysis that the agency provided him are publicly available on the Canadian impact assessment registry in support of transparency and accountability.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:43:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have three additional questions from that response. One is this: Does the minister not understand the damage coal mining does to the mountains, whether it is metallurgical or thermal? The minister before the current Minister of Environment and Climate Change promised they would assess every single coal mine. We also know that there is no way of him knowing what the selenium outcomes are going to be. We do not have that information because we have not tested and we have not looked at it yet. Selenium poisoning is what is going to kill the water, kill the fish and kill the land. Does the minister not understand how selenium poisoning works, and will he not listen to the indigenous groups in the community that have asked for this impact assessment and have asked him to close this loophole? He has the ability to do this. I beg of the minister to close this mine down and bring in an impact assessment, as was promised, now.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:44:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government is committed to preventing and managing pollution from industrial sectors. Effluent from coal mines in Canada can be a source of pollution that harms aquatic life, specifically fish and fish habitat. Environment and Climate Change Canada is developing coal mining effluent regulations under the Fisheries Act. These regulations would reduce the risks to fish and fish habitat by limiting levels of harmful substances in coal mining effluent. Once in place, they will apply to the 28 existing coal mines in Canada and to all future coal mine expansions and new coal mine projects.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:45:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the pandemic there were folks who were in quite desperate financial situations. One group was foster kids graduating out of care in the spring of 2020. There were no jobs available. They were told by the provincial government that they could not access social assistance unless they applied for CERB. The provincial government knew very well that it was a no-fail application. That is how those kids, at the time, got money to support themselves, as they were striking out on their own at the age of 18. Now, the government is calling in all of those debts, and many of those Canadians are still in a desperate financial situation. The government said it was going to take a compassionate approach, but recent media coverage has said it just cancelled the $5- and $10-a-month payments, so people cannot access that anymore. The government is clawing back benefits. If the government is really committed to a compassionate approach, at the very least it should know how many CERB debtors fall below the low income cut-off. Has it done the analysis, and if so, what is the number?
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  • Jun/19/23 8:46:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Elmwood—Transcona for his question and his ongoing advocacy on behalf of his constituents. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we quickly introduced the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB, and ended up helping more than eight million Canadians. When it came to delivering the benefit, we knew that speed was of the essence. We knew that we needed to get money into the hands of Canadians quickly so that they could feed their families and pay their bills. We were clear from the onset that eligibility would be verified at the back end, once tax data became available. This approach kept workers attached to their jobs and positioned our economy to come roaring back. Since day one, we have treated all cases individually and fairly to ensure that Canadians were not placed in financial hardship. We have also been committed to responsible financial stewardship. That is why we developed a comprehensive four-year plan to support post-payment verification activities on the CERB. By late 2021, we estimated that about 1.8 million people had an outstanding amount, owing between $500 and $2,000 as a result of CERB advanced payments. That is when we began to notify people who had an obligation to repay. When we started the post-payment verification process in January of last year, we asked people who had received the benefit to assess their own eligibility and voluntarily repay what they owed, and many people did just that. To date, ESDC has sent out 1.8 million overpayment notices of CERB advance payment reconciliation for an amount of $3.1 billion as of June 16, 2023, and $2.17 billion has already been repaid. While we recover overpayments, we are doing everything we can to avoid causing undue hardship to Canadians. We are continuing to take an empathetic, people-first approach. When a person facing repayment tells the CRA that they are struggling financially, the agency will assess the person's ability to pay, based on their entire situation, and that includes family size, current income and assets. In addition, we are not imposing penalties or interest on overpayments. We treated Canadians with compassion and understanding when we created these benefits and we are continuing to do that now. Once again, I thank the member for Elmwood—Transcona for his ongoing advocacy on behalf of his constituents.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:49:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a compassionate government would proactively assess the financial situation of people it was trying to collect a debt from and then have that assessment inform the debt collection strategy. That is not what this government is doing, and it has recently cancelled a lot of the measures that it claimed were part of its so-called compassionate approach. I have been asking for almost two years now how many people who owe CERB debt fall under the low-income cut-off, and I think it is pathetic from a government that wants to claim it is compassionate that it still does not have an answer to that question. One more time: Of the people who owe CERB debt, how many of those folks have an income that falls below the low-income cut-off?
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  • Jun/19/23 8:50:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we were clear from the onset that we would recover CERB overpayments without any interest or penalties. To prevent undue hardship, flexible repayment options are available. People can establish repayment schedules based on their financial situation and their ability to pay. We understand that some Canadians may still be struggling to make ends meet, and they will be treated with compassion and understanding. We will continue to take a responsible approach to ensure a fair process. I thank the member opposite for his advocacy.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:50:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to stand today and address a question I originally raised on April 17. It is based on a letter that came from the Conference of Defence Associations Institute, where 60 plus prominent Canadians who are military leaders, former ministers of defence and other parliamentarians from both sides of the aisle, both Conservative and Liberal, as well as a former chief justice, Beverley McLachlin, all wrote a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, which was published as an open letter. It says, “There is no more important responsibility for the federal government than protecting Canadians against all threats—foreign and domestic”. Then it goes on to say, “Now is the time to fully discharge the commitments we have made to our allies and partners in sharing the burden of collective security, commitments which are essential to safeguard our peace, prosperity and way of life [for all Canadians]”. In that quote, they are referring to the commitment we made to NATO, at the Wales Summit in 2014, that we would spend our 2% within 10 years. That was nine years ago. We know the NATO summit in Vilnius is coming up this July. Of course, there is going to be extra pressure on the Government of Canada, under the Prime Minister, to come up with that 2%. We know from the Pentagon leaks that happened just recently that the Prime Minister said there is no way Canada is ever going to reach that 2% commitment. Our other collective security agreement that is important to us is NORAD and NORAD modernization. We know the Americans are concerned about that. The letter from the Conference of Defence Associations Institute further reads, “Years of restraint, cost cutting, downsizing and deferred investments, have meant that Canada's defence capabilities have atrophied.” They have atrophied so badly under the Liberals that, today, we are 10,000 troops short of where we should be to be able to fulfill the commitments we have here domestically, and for what we are able to do in NATO, especially the missions we have undertaken as the leadership in the enhanced forward position in setting up a battalion in Latvia and leading that battalion. We are slow in getting our numbers up to over 750 troops. We know we were not able to participate in the recent military air force exercises that 26 nations of NATO participated in. Canada was a no-show because we do not have the equipment or the personnel to fly the planes we have today; we are short on pilots. We know that we are short on military procurement, although there have been some announcements which have recently come from the government, and we are going ahead with the Canadian surface combatants that were originally ordered by the former Conservative government. We know that the F-35s are finally being bought. The Prime Minister said, in 2015, that he would never buy the F-35s, but finally, we are purchasing them. However, we do not necessarily have the right people doing the procurement; according to the Conference of Defence Associations Institute and other sources, we know we are short 4,200 military procurement experts within the Department of National Defence, as well as at PSPC Canada. We see this happening. We are hearing stories coming from the front in Latvia, where our troops are actually having to go out and buy their own helmets, hearing protection, radio communications equipment and flak jackets because the kits they are getting from the Canadian Armed Forces under the Liberals are inadequate. In a letter that was recently leaked, one commander wrote to Ottawa saying that it is embarrassing, as they have seen the Danes walking around in new Canadian equipment that was purchased from Canadian companies, the very equipment that our troops should be using and wearing. Unfortunately, the government has not been able to carry off those procurements, leaving our troops vulnerable and embarrassed. Of course, we also know that our troops in Poland were not provided with any meal vouchers, and they are out of pocket for thousands of dollars that the government has not been able to reimburse them for. That is shameful.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:54:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his empathetic agreement that our government has no greater responsibility than to keep Canadians safe. If there is one thing that everyone here can agree on, it is that the threats we face today are many, complex and rapidly evolving. Our military must evolve with them. That is why we have been working to ensure that our brave people in uniform have what they need to defend this country and its citizens, now and into the future. Since launching Canada's defence policy of “Strong, Secure, Engaged” in 2017, we have committed to invest significantly in our people and in the equipment, infrastructure and programs that set them up for success. Our defence policy commits to increasing Canada's defence spending by 70%. Through SSE, our military has been able to count on sustained and reliable investments to meet evolving security challenges, with a funding model that offers the flexibility to adapt to changing situations. In January we announced that Canada is acquiring a fleet of 88 F-35 fighter jets with the United States government, and Lockheed Martin with Pratt & Whitney. These state-of-the-art jets will ensure our air force's ability to protect Canada from a broad range of threats for decades to come. In March, the Prime Minister also announced a $7.3-billion investment to upgrade and build new infrastructure that would house this fleet of F-35 fighter jets. This is just one part of a broader, nearly $40-billion plan to modernize Canada's NORAD capabilities, in close collaboration with our partners in the United States. At sea, we continue to work on delivering a new fleet of 15 Canadian surface combatants for our navy. Three Arctic and offshore patrol ships have been delivered to the navy, with three more in production. On land, we are equipping the Canadian army with a new and modern fleet of 360 armoured combat support vehicles. These will serve as ambulances, mobile repair and vehicle recovery vehicles, as well as engineer support vehicles and command posts for both domestic and international operations. We will continue to move quickly because the threats we face continue to evolve rapidly. No matter the domain and no matter the challenge, we are committed to ensuring our armed forces have the modern equipment they need to protect Canada's interests, as well as global peace and security.
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  • Jun/19/23 8:57:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just to go on with the letter from CDAI, they said: Russia's brutal war...in Ukraine...as well as the continuing expansion of the military arsenals of authoritarian regimes...should have prompted a re-assessment of our defence posture. The reality is that well-connected consultants, big bankers and wealthy bondholders get more from the Liberal government than our troops. We know that the deficit that is going to the big bankers is over $40 billion. We know that McKinsey and other Liberal-connected consultants are getting billions of dollars every year, while our troops do without. In this fiscal year that just ended in March 2023, we had $2.5 billion of lapsed military spending that will never be available again. That has dropped our GDP ratio, which was supposed to be at 1.33%, down to 1.29%. The difference between what was supposed to be spent on military expenditures and where we are at relative to the 2% of GDP shows that we are actually $20 billion short. That is unacceptable. People cannot buy house insurance when their home is—
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