44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, what is accurate is that this bill is there to support media across the country. As I said, around 500 media outlets have closed their doors. Big ones and small ones, in regions and in cities everywhere, have closed. It has a huge impact on our democracy that they are not there to tell their stories. In some regions, there is no more coverage, so the population does not know what the local MPs do in Ottawa. People do not know what the local provincial MLA goes and does in the capital. They do not know what the city councillor is doing in terms of making decisions. That is bad for our democracy. We have to be there.
Contrary to what my colleague said, there are many programs in place. As I said, we have a tax credit on labour and local journalism initiatives, as well as the Canada periodical fund. There are many projects, and this would reinforce all those programs.
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- Jun/20/23 2:43:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for Quebeckers, July 1 is not a day to celebrate; it is a nightmare. July 1 is just a week and a half away and hundreds of people do not know where they are going to live because we are in the midst of a housing crisis. In five years, Quebec will be short 50,000 social housing units. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's 2021 findings, if we rely on funding from Ottawa, we will not have any more social housing units.
The federal strategy is a failure that barely maintains the status quo. In other words, there will be no more housing units available in the future than there are today. When will this government truly address this housing crisis?
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Madam Speaker, what Canadians knew and understood was that, whether it was the Prime Minister, the cabinet, members of the Liberal caucus or others, we made it very clear that we would have the backs of Canadians going through this pandemic. We took a team Canada approach, as we worked with provinces, territories, indigenous leaders and many other stakeholders at a time when we needed the country to come together. Therefore, when former prime minister Brian Mulroney ultimately provided the compliment to the Prime Minister and the government, I think that same principle applied. As a government, we did a good job, but it was a collective good job. It was Ottawa working at its best with the different stakeholders, and we made a difference. Lives were saved as a direct result. A lot more time was saved with people not having to be in hospitals—
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By doing that, I would argue we are demonstrating leadership not only from within our national boundaries, but even beyond them. It is not an easy task. As I say, at the end of the day, within this legislation, we provide enough scale to allow for provincial jurisdictions. Those numbers are actually even larger, in terms of the number of corporations and businesses, than what we would have in Ottawa. I suspect, if we were to canvass these jurisdictions, we would find that all of us benefit if we can pool the resources and get everyone onside in the form of a larger national registry, and that is what this legislation is doing.
Corporations do a lot of amazing things. There is no doubt about that in the business community, but there is a percentage of those companies that do a great disservice. Those are the ones that continue to seek out ways, directly or indirectly, to launder money or to cause issues related to real estate, such as speculation of property, tax avoidance or even tax evasion. There is a difference.
We also see the issue of terrorism being financed, all through illegal money. Members should be aware that money laundering takes many different forms. I know British Columbia is a good example of it in terms of the casinos. Illegal money comes in, gets washed and then somehow exits as clean, filtered or cleansed money. That has cost millions of dollars.
We can talk about cryptocurrency. A number of months ago, there was an article in the Winnipeg Free Press on the police department cautioning people about fraud taking place with cryptocurrency. These are the types of things we need to be aware of. That is why we need to be careful.
I know we often mock the leader of the Conservative Party because of his attitudes toward endorsing cryptocurrency. He talks about it being a good way to fight inflation. At the end of the day, we have to be very careful. It is one of those possible tools that can, in fact, be used for unethical financial exchanges.
We are very dependent on our financial institutions and the protections that we put into place to track money that is flowing into Canada, and even money that is not flowing into Canada but has been acquired in an illegal fashion. We need to be cognizant of that fact. That is why, if someone goes into a bank and makes a deposit of more than $10,000, there is an obligation to report it.
There are many outstanding Canadians who work at our financial institutions who are very aware of the types of things to watch out for. We need to watch out for certain behaviours that take place. They also play a critical role in terms of protecting the integrity of our system.
From my perspective, and I would ultimately argue in the best interests of Canadians as a whole, the government takes actions where it can, like it is doing regarding Bill C-42, with the idea of establishing additional confidence in the public regarding corporations.
There is something that I should make a quick reference to, as I felt quite good about it a couple of budgets back. The federal government found that we had a lot of people outside of Canada investing in real estate who were driving the costs up. In particular, cities like Vancouver and Toronto were being subjected to all forms of speculative investments. There were also issues surrounding money-laundering allegations and so forth in real estate, in particular in condo developments. I heard about some of the empty units. Imagine building a unit that is worth $2 million-plus and no one is living in it. After I talked to some people, I found out that a huge percentage of the overall new condos being developed in communities like Toronto and Vancouver were empty. They were sitting empty. One of the measures the government put in place to try to deal with that issue was a special tax for non-residents.
Like many others, I think housing should be all about homes for people. However, they are becoming more of an investment, and a lot of the investments are driving up costs, especially with some of the vacancy rates across the country. It could be that or just a mindset that is often referenced about corporations in general: Corporations are greedy, and there is a lot of corruption, laundering and tax evasion or avoidance. A lack of trust is often found among the public in regard to corporations.
That is why when looking at the very heart of Bill C-42, what we are really talking about is corporate accountability and public trust in our corporate institutions. We see this because of the requirement to have a public, searchable ownership registry. That is at the core of the Canada Business Corporations Act and the amendment the government is proposing today. One could ultimately argue that the industry itself has been saying it wants to see this legislation.
The other day when I was speaking to this legislation, it was interesting. I was one of the individuals expecting to see the legislation ultimately pass unanimously or very close to unanimously. That will depend on what the leader of the Green Party and its other members do. That is the type of support potential it has.
I often suggest that members see the legislation for what it is worth and listen to the comments being made at the committee stage. If members really want to help restore confidence in our corporations, one of the best things they can do is get this legislation passed so we can make a very strong statement. That statement deals with the beneficial ownership that individuals have in corporations, which would have to be part of a registry. Individuals could then find out about ownership when someone has a major portion of that ownership. I know that some want to see a lower percentage and that others might want to see a higher percentage. However, at the end of the day, what we are seeing, which I think is 25%, is an acceptable percentage for now.
At least let us get the legislation through. By doing that, we are establishing the framework. I would then hope to see more discussions taking place at the different provincial legislatures in support of it.
I talked about smaller businesses in our communities and the impact they have. I do not want to in any way try to imply that corporations as a whole need the legislation as much as it is important that the legislation is there to support corporations. We will find that law-abiding corporations and businesses are actually very supportive of the legislation. They understand the need for it. It is the idea that we have a registry that would enable consequential penalties. I would like to cite one in particular. By passing this law, to use a very specific example, corporations that fail to provide their beneficial ownership information to Corporations Canada may be prevented from obtaining a certificate of compliance.
Keep in mind that if they cannot get that certificate of compliance, that has an impact on their ability to borrow funds. If a corporation wants to expand and go to a bank, they will need that certificate, in good part because without that certificate, chances are they will not be able to get financing. This is not to mention exports. Many corporations today are dependent on exports. To get those exports and have the market, these certificates are absolutely critical.
If I look at it from that perspective, I think of my own community of Manitoba and some of the corporations that have done exceptionally well. The other day I talked about Hylife. Hylife is a company located in Neepawa, Manitoba, that creates hundreds of direct jobs, not to mention hundreds of indirect jobs. We can find out who those beneficial owners are, which is really important. It is the same thing with New Flyer Industries. These are in provincial jurisdiction, but some are in federal jurisdiction.
We are talking about millions of dollars in transactions. If we look at New Flyer Industries, a huge corporation—
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Madam Speaker, I would not underestimate the member's influence over her colleague, her seatmate, and I highly recommend that she recommend to him that he join her in supporting this legislation, because it is good legislation.
One thing that I hope I have emphasized at great length is recognizing that Ottawa plays a strong national leadership role. I would like to emphasize and re-emphasize how important it is that Ottawa continue to work with provincial jurisdictions, in particular, to ensure that we can expand the registry so that all Canadians will be that much more emboldened to feel we have public confidence and trust in corporations. The bill would ultimately add more value to our economy, because even corporations want to see this type of legislation.
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- Jun/20/23 10:07:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think I did answer the question. I was very explicit about the numbers that we have invested over the past few years and will be investing in the upcoming years.
I do agree with the hon. member that for far too long indigenous peoples in Canada have suffered from inadequate housing. That is why, as I mentioned earlier, the government has been working with first nations, Inuit and Métis to come up with practical solutions to meet their needs. We have co-developed strategies as well as policies and we have worked together to implement them.
We are working with indigenous partners to understand what will work best for communities. We have not imposed a top-down, made-in-Ottawa solution to go with indigenous housing problems. It is the opposite, from the bottom up. We are seeing results. We are seeing improvements that are being made across the country.
We know there is much more work to do and that work is under way. Having safe housing is the foundation for everyone and we are committed to making this a reality for indigenous peoples across this country.
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