SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 252 - Nov/21/23

Mr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC)

Nov/21/23 5:06:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I really wanted to ask the Conservative leader this question. It is a very important question. We are dealing with a government that has forgotten what common sense means for all Canadians. Can the Conservative leader tell us what common sense means to him and how a common-sense government will help Canadian families?

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Common
Sense

Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Nov/21/23 5:07:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, common sense means getting rid of the carbon tax to lower the cost of living for all Canadians. Common sense means capping spending and getting rid of waste to balance the budget and lower inflation and the interest rates. Common sense means cutting taxes to make hard work pay off again. That is what common sense is all about.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

Nov/21/23 5:08:04 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-56

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to remind the House that this is an economic statement. It is not a budget. As we know, a budget sets out the government's policies and presents the legislative, fiscal and budgetary measures required to implement them. An economic statement has a more modest purpose. It is supposed to present the evolution of the economic and fiscal situation since the last budget. What this statement now tells us is that the deficit may change according to the government's forecasts, contrary to what the Parliamentary Budget Officer had calculated, which is worrisome. The statement outlines the government's response to these changes. There is not much there. For example, at the end of the summer, the Prime Minister asked the new President of the Treasury Board to cut $15 billion from various departments in order to balance the budget. They promised to give us an outline by mid-October. That did not happen. We were expecting to see it in the economic statement, but all they are doing is putting things off again without any concrete targets. Another objective has been missed. What is the purpose of an economic statement? It is used to present the measures the government plans to take to deal with the emergencies that have cropped up since the last budget. There have been quite a few emergencies since the last budget. The economy has changed a great deal. There is a lot of struggling and difficulty. The economy is not doing well. Many people are affected by that. We were really expecting the minister to address the major emergencies that have come up since the last budget. Unfortunately, this is such a missed opportunity that we might wonder what the point is in having an economic statement. I will come back to that. There are several emergencies that we could have focused on that were simply not even mentioned in this statement. I will give another example. The first chapter has to do with housing. While we are short on housing and social housing and the situation is desperate, we find out that there will be $37 million in cuts this year. For next year, not one penny more will be added to what was already presented in Bill C‑56 to get rid of the GST on social housing construction. We will have to wait two years to see the $54 million and $1 billion promised for subsequent years to tackle housing. Is that enough when we know that most of that $1 billion is money that was already announced and not spent? It is unfortunate. A few weeks ago, we presented our requests to the minister. What we asked the government to do in the economic statement was to respond to existing emergencies, the urgent situations that we are currently facing. Take, for example, homeless people. As we know, it is starting to get cold outside. This morning, the temperature was below zero. There are people who are sleeping in tents and in the streets. It is truly awful. We are asking the government to do what Quebec did in its fall economic statement and to allocate emergency funding to immediately address homelessness. We want to set up an emergency fund to help cities and municipalities support homeless people in their area and give them the resources they need to do so. There is nothing about that in the economic statement. This is a real emergency that we are dealing with, and yet we have here a government and a minister who are ignoring the real emergencies. There was no response to that request in the economic statement. On the housing front—and I will come back to this in more detail later—we provided the minister with ideas of how to create an acquisition fund for non-profit organizations and set up an interest-free or very low-interest loan program to stimulate the construction of social and affordable rental housing. Our program could be easily implemented and rapidly deployed without costing the government a fortune. The main measure being announced here is that builders who want to develop a real estate project will be allowed, in partnership with their financial institution, to pay only the interest on the loan and will not have to repay the capital until the building is built and sold. While this would improve liquidity somewhat, it is not really something that was asked for by the groups that we heard at the Standing Committee on Finance, for instance. At the end of the day, we do not think it will contribute to building additional housing. Let us just say that the impact of this remains to be seen, and we do not see it in this statement. We know that seniors are in dire straits. With the current inflation rate and what was announced this morning, the consumer price index is not as high as what we have seen over the last few months and the last few quarters, but it is still above 3%. Low-income seniors and seniors in general are struggling, and we need to restore some measure of fairness. The government decided to increase old age security for seniors aged 75 and over. However, since then, with my friend and colleague, the member for Shefford, who is our critic for the rights of seniors, we have been saying that fairness must be restored. The increase must start at age 65. People who are struggling need this support, which will not be enough to make up for the lack of indexing to inflation or to the average wage that the program originally offered. Still, it could give seniors a little breathing room in the current inflationary environment. The repayment of CEBA loans is another urgent situation. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, or CFIB, chambers of commerce and many organizations representing SMEs are raising the alarm with elected officials in the House and with the government. They are asking that the deadline be extended by another year. These loans were granted during the pandemic, but after the pandemic, SMEs have had to deal with rising inflation and a difficult economic recovery. Many of them are falling further into debt. Now, the government is asking them to repay their loan or they will lose the grant portion. According the the CFIB's numbers, approximately one in five SMEs could go bankrupt if the deadline is not extended. When we asked the minister about that, she said that it would cost too much. No serious studies were done to determine what it would cost the government, the economy as a whole and society if as many as one in five businesses went bankrupt as a result of this. We in the Bloc Québécois are willing to bet that pushing the loan repayment deadline back one year would be much more profitable. It would strengthen the economy in the sense that it would prevent a lot of predictable bankruptcies. A few weeks ago, the Journal de Montréal published an assessment of the risk for each region. My riding, in the north of the Lanaudière region, was particularly at risk, given the minister's refusal to extend the deadline for repayment of CEBA loans by one year. That is very disappointing. We tried and tried to negotiate with the government. We could not get access to the studies it had used to make that decision because, as we understand it, there were no such studies. In the end, the government chose to team up with its natural ally, when we could have come to an agreement in exchange for that condition, which would have greatly helped our SMEs. The government chose to turn its back on struggling SMEs. We can only conclude that the government's ally did not really care about that too much. There are other emergencies. As I said, the purpose of the economic update is to respond to existing emergencies. We can think of our media. Small, local and regional media, newspapers and radio stations are struggling. They are falling one after the other. The situation is catastrophic. Even the bigger media outlets are having a tough time. We do not even know if they are going to make it to Christmas or next summer. The situation is that dire. We saw the sad announcement of upcoming layoffs at Groupe TVA, with more than 500 employees affected. Even the biggest media outlets are struggling to overcome the crisis. We called for an emergency fund for the next few months at least, but that did not happen either. Also, in order to resolve an inequity, we called for an end to fossil fuel subsidies. We are talking about tens of billions of dollars. That has not been done either, which is appalling. Let us talk about other extremely important points. Since 2015, this government has been promising a complete overhaul of employment insurance. Once again, it has been postponed indefinitely. A year and a half ago, we were told that it was coming in the spring of 2022. After that, they said it would be no later than that fall. Now there is no mention of it, and nothing has been done. I naively wanted to believe the Liberals' promise. Let that be a lesson to me. Nothing has been done, and now they will not even dare talk about it. Shame on me for believing a Liberal promise. When it comes to EI reform, a specific concern was also raised that once again has to do with the need to respond to emergencies. This summer, there were forest fires everywhere. That means that a lot of seasonal workers in the forestry industry were unable to accumulate enough hours to qualify for EI during the season because they could not work in the forest. We brought this to the minister's attention. This is an emergency and the government needs to be a bit flexible. The government needs to do something and to think about those workers, and yet there is nothing in the economic statement to address this emergency either. We often asked questions in the House, and I personally drew the minister's attention to an issue that my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou has been working on. The government announced $1 billion for a school breakfast program for children. The money was promised during the announcement, but it has yet to be delivered so that the program can be implemented. Inflation is high, and more and more children are going to school hungry. It is time for the government to pay out the money it announced. The government could have already dealt with this emergency, but this, too, was not urgent enough for the minister. Many of my colleagues talked to me about regional infrastructure needs. Nothing more is being done. There is also the whole agriculture sector, which was hit by the flooding in some regions this summer. The produce and horticultural sectors are struggling. They are in serious trouble. Could existing programs have been adapted? The economic statement would have been the time to do that but, no, nothing was done. Once again, agriculture was not even mentioned in this statement. There is a slightly technical detail that affects many artisanal businesses throughout our regions that could really change things. As we know, the government increased the excise tax on wine after Australian wine producers sued Canadian wine producers. Regulations on the matter are problematic. In legal texts, everything that is alcohol is called “wine”. The Bloc Québécois managed to get apple cider and mead exempted from the tax. That was a big win, and these producers are grateful. Afterward we realized that if cider producers put a bit of pear in their drink, they have to pay the entirety of the tax. Producers of beverages made from maple alcohol also have to pay the entirety of the tax. As soon as there are a few small fruits in these drinks, producers have to pay the entire tax. It does not bother wine producers in Australia that we help our small artisans who produce these niche products. For two years we have been calling on the minister to settle this. I understand that she is busy, that she is dealing with many challenges, but at some point these are just formalities that need follow-up. This would only help better recognize the artisans without taking anything away from anyone, without frustrating anyone in Australia. It would be easy to do. This could have been implemented in the economic statement, but no, that was not done either and it is really disappointing and upsetting. As I was saying, the government and the minister should have developed an economic statement to respond to the emergencies. I raised a few that have been brought forward by all of my colleagues here. It is not hard. How many of the emergencies we raised did the minister respond to? A big fat zero. I am referring here to a former minister I will talk about and quote. It was a former minister of Prime Minister Trudeau, the father of the actual Prime Minister. I definitely said “actual” and not “actuary”. Speaking of actuaries, let me emphasize that the employment insurance fund surplus has doubled. Once again, workers have to pay to fill the government's coffers. Let us come back to the urban affairs department. What is it? In the economic update, the government has chosen to create a new department, which my leader dubbed the “department of interference” because it deals with housing. It is interference, pure and simple. It is similar to what Pierre Elliott Trudeau did when he created a ministry of urban affairs. Its minister was Mr. Ouellet. That is why I am drawing attention to it. This is a quote from a Library of Parliament research document: Accordingly, in March 1971, Prime Minister Trudeau appointed a Minister of State for Urban Affairs, who took on responsibility not only for CMHC but also for a new Ministry of State for Urban Affairs (MSUA). Given the inescapable constitutional limitations [of interfering with provincial jurisdiction], this ministry had no program responsibilities... Today, the government is bringing this department back. We can see where this is going. The Library of Parliament document continues as follows two paragraphs later: This...eventually led to the downfall of Trudeau's intervention in federal-municipal relations. A bit further on, it reads, and I quote: In view of the Department's lack of credibility and the government's desire to cut expenditures, the MSUA was abolished on 31 March 1979. Is that what awaits us with the creation of the new department announced in this economic update? As my colleagues have said, that is definitely what we can expect. Let us talk about some other aspects of the economic statement. Over the past few weeks, we have been seeing a squabble play out between the Liberal government and the Conservatives in the House. The Conservative Party is all about slogans and is always pointing out problems. The Conservatives made a suggestion on housing. What is it? It involves punishing the municipalities and the provinces. The Conservatives are saying that, if the municipalities do not build 15% more housing units, then the federal government should hold back infrastructure funding. For example, this year, housing starts in Quebec decreased by half. That means that, were the Conservative Party in power, it would have cut the province's infrastructure funding by half. They are real winners, as my colleague said. The Liberal government's response to this proposal is to use it themselves. In the statement, it is clear that they are using the same approach. In other words, they are threatening the provinces and, indirectly, the municipalities. The statement says that if they do not build enough housing, transfers will be cut off. My goodness, does the Liberal government want to go back to the Stone Age, too? I wonder. There is one good measure involving Airbnb. The government wants to bring it in line with municipal regulations. It is going to be difficult to enforce, but there is hope. I am not simply criticizing everything. That is a good measure. As I was saying about the $15 billion in budget cuts, it was supposed to happen in October. However, the plan hatched by the government and the President of the Treasury Board is not even mentioned in the November statement. As I was also saying, we brought up a number of urgent matters, but none of them have been resolved here. There is no plan for dealing with the emergencies. Clearly, the Liberals do not understand what an emergency is. I will say it again: Each and every one of the Bloc's demands and the urgent needs expressed by Quebeckers has been ignored. Clearly, this government, this Prime Minister and the finance minister are confusing fiscal restraint with inaction when it comes to emergencies. It is all going to cost us more in the end. Again, the purpose of an economic update is to take stock of the economic situation since the presentation of the budget and announce solutions for the emergencies we know about. This statement does not address the many changes and does not fix anything. This is such a missed opportunity that we wonder why the government even bothered. Thanks to the Liberals, things will get worse before they hopefully get better.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Nov/21/23 5:28:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are things definitely worthy of note in the fall economic statement. For me, personally, I look at the issue of inflation. Canadians have been concerned about inflation. Even though inflation around the world is significantly higher than here in Canada, the Liberal government has been focused on that. From a high of just over 8% back in June 2022, today it was announced that it is at 3.1%. This shows the government is serious about dealing with the issue of inflation. The member spent a great deal of time talking about housing. The fall statement reaffirms a solid commitment and new monies towards housing co-ops. We all talk about the importance of non-profit housing. Housing co-ops are an excellent way to support growing demands on housing. It is affordable housing that is different than apartments. In a housing co-op, people are residents and co-owners, compared to an apartment. Apartments are also being beefed up with purpose-built rentals—

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The Deputy Speaker

Nov/21/23 5:29:36 p.m.
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The hon. member for Joliette.

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Joliette

Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie

Nov/21/23 5:29:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, inflation is affecting everyone, particularly the most vulnerable members of our society. It is really worrisome. There is nothing in the fall economic statement to counter inflation. There is nothing to deal with it. The Liberals are just whistling past the graveyard. The hon. member spoke about housing. Yes, the government should do more about housing. However, this year, it is making $37 million in cuts to housing. We see that on page 31 of the English version of the economic statement. It shows $37 million being subtracted. The member is talking about funding for co-operative housing. He does not need to explain to me or any member of the Bloc Québécois what co-operative housing is. There is plenty of it in Quebec. We believe in the co-op model. We are always telling the government to do more in the way of social housing, including co-operatives. How much money is the government putting into housing co-operatives this year, in 2023-24? Zero dollars. However, the situation is urgent. How much money is the government putting into housing co-operatives next year, in 2024-25? Again, zero dollars. The situation is urgent. The situation was urgent this summer and last spring. We need to act now. Today, the government should not be making statements and commitments in principle about what it is going to do two, three, four, five or six years down the road. The situation is urgent now. This government is truly out of touch with people's urgent needs.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Nov/21/23 5:31:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP shares my colleague's disappointment about the Canada emergency business account. That was our position, and in letters and in conversations with the government, we repeatedly asked it to extend the deadline for repayment of the emergency account. What I do not understand is how the federal government can expect to receive more money by forcing companies to repay their loans when they are not currently in a position to do so. We know this will cause bankruptcies. Would my colleague care to comment on that?

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie

Nov/21/23 5:31:53 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-56

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Standing Committee on Finance. We just spent the last week touring western Canada. We visited every region to hear from people. All the organizations, the chambers of commerce, the organizations representing SMEs are asking for the deadline to be extended by one year. It is the same in Quebec. We hear it everywhere. When we speak with the ministers individually, most of them agree with this call. Most of them do not understand the Minister of Finance's reaction. That is what is throwing a wrench in the works. The Minister of Finance and senior civil servants are saying that it is going to be expensive. We have been leading the charge for quite some time. We just want to be the voice of the SMEs we represent. We were ready to negotiate with the government. For example, if the government wants Bill C‑56 to pass, in exchange, we would like the government to extend the deadline by a year. With all due respect, we wish the NDP had followed our lead. I hope they keep this example in mind so that, in future negotiations, they can ask for this in exchange. It would be a big win for SMEs. It would mean 20% fewer bankruptcies, according to figures from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. It would make a big difference.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Nov/21/23 5:33:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me start by thanking my Bloc colleagues for their work on behalf of small and medium-sized businesses. It is so important for all MPs to stand up for SMEs, so, again, I thank them. My question is about the fact that Parliament passed the Canada disability benefit almost six months ago. Yet again, there is nothing in this economic statement for people with disabilities across the country, including in Quebec, who continue to live in legislated poverty. Are the member for Joliette and the rest of the Bloc caucus as disappointed as I am about this omission?

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie

Nov/21/23 5:34:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that excellent question and his kind words. It is always a pleasure to see that we can collaborate in the House. The purpose of an economic statement is to respond to emergencies. The hon. member, whom I congratulate on his excellent French, just raised an urgent matter. This measure was adopted six months ago and needs to be implemented. People living with a disability, especially in the inflationary context we are experiencing, need to receive the help that was promised. This has to be done and the economic statement was the place to implement this measure. The statement is there to respond to emergencies and this is another emergency that has been raised. The government had the opportunity to do this, but it did not take it. The government is disconnected from the public and does not respond to any emergency. The hon. member just raised another good example.

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Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ)

Nov/21/23 5:35:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, approximately 220,000 businesses are having cash flow problems that are preventing them from repaying the emergency loan. What I understood was that the government was unable to put a figure on the additional amount this would add to the budget. Personally, like many of my colleagues here, I believe that money paid to businesses that are struggling to survive is an investment. I would like my colleague to comment on the calculations that seem to have been done, or not done, regarding the fact that if people are given extra time to repay their loans, there will be fewer bankruptcies and therefore more repayments. It may not even be an expense. I would like my colleague to comment on that.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie

Nov/21/23 5:35:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my House leader for making this point again. This is basic economics. Are there any economists in the Liberal Party? Do they understand these notions? The government often gives the impression of nickel-and-diming, but by trying to save the grant part of the loan, it could cause so many bankruptcies and have such a wide-ranging impact that it could end up being more detrimental to society and the government's finances. When we discuss this informally with ministers, most of them agree with us. The problem is with the Minister of Finance. In that regard, I want to highlight the great work by my colleague from Terrebonne, who wrote the finance minister to make her aware of this. She also reminded her that the Quebec National Assembly unanimously demanded a one-year extension of the loan repayment deadline on September 26, well before this November economic statement that the minister just presented. Why are elected officials of all stripes in Quebec City asking for this? It is because they are just that little bit more connected to their community. They talk to their SMEs, they meet with them and they are worried about them. Like us, they are able to do the math and come to the conclusion that, even if the aim is to save a little money, there is a risk of losing a lot more in the end. Moreover, it will destabilize the economy. Really, the economic statement was the place for this kind of announcement. This is another missed opportunity, another disappointment. It is more proof that this government has grown out of touch, very out of touch, with the people and with SMEs.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Nov/21/23 5:37:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and address the fall economic statement. We have certainly heard a lot of things in the chamber today, including some rhetorical flights of partisan fancy, the kind we have come to expect from the Conservative leader, with some very well-rehearsed chanting by the Conservatives at the end. However, I would like to be a little more serious than that in my remarks, because I recognize that Canadians are going through a very difficult time. We have heard about it a lot. We have talked a lot about it in this chamber, and today was an opportunity for the government to show that it is not out of touch, to show that it is prepared to address the serious issues of our time with the sense of urgency that they deserve. I do not want to spoil anything for anyone, but I have to say it is a real disappointment. I am going to talk about some of the ways in which I think this is a very disappointing document. I will also have occasion to mention some of the things that I think the government has talked about here that are not bad things, but I think the overriding theme has to be one of disappointment. What are the crises that we are facing? Well, we are certainly facing a global climate crisis. That much is very clear for anyone who has been paying attention to the news. Unfortunately, one does not have to pay attention to the news if one's house is on fire to know how severe climate change is getting and the important personal and economic consequences that it is having for Canadians in addition to what it is doing to the environment. We are facing a housing crisis. Again, we do not have to watch the news; we just have to walk out into our neighbourhood and odds are, no matter what neighbourhood one lives in, more and more neighbourhoods are finding that they have people, friends, neighbours and family members who have lived in those neighbourhoods their whole life who can no longer afford to live there. They do not know where to go. They are setting up camp in the park across the street, because they do not know where else to go, and they cannot afford to put a roof over their head. These are the kinds of challenges we are facing as a country. It took a long time to get here. It took a long time to get here with respect to the climate crisis. My father mentioned the climate crisis in the parlance of the time in the early 1980s in this place and said that we needed to do things now. Members can imagine how cheap it would have been to address the climate crisis in the 1980s instead of waiting until now. I also know that in the 1990s, when the Liberals cancelled the national housing strategy, the federal NDP caucus was talking about the crisis it would create in housing. I cannot, from where I sit, pretend in this place that these are new problems or that it was the Conservative leader who, two years ago, foresaw the housing crisis. The NDP saw this coming in the 1990s. It is why we said that we needed to continue to invest in co-op housing. It is why we said that the federal government had to show up and continue building social housing. We have been sounding the alarm for over 30 years that Canada was going to find itself in this situation. Why were we doing that? We did that because we knew we could not fix a housing crisis overnight. It is the kind of thing that needs continued, predictable investment year over year to continue to meet demand. Now we have found ourselves here in part because of the government that the Conservative leader was a part of, but not just that. It was the Liberal government in the 1990s and then the Harper government and now this government, which has had eight years to address this problem, but it has only gotten worse under the Liberals. These problems have been a long time in the making, and Canadians are beginning to really feel the hurt. What did we hear today from the finance minister? We heard from the finance minister that Canada has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. We heard from the finance minister that rating agencies are renewing Canada's AAA credit rating. We heard from the finance minister that Canada has the lowest deficit in the G7. What did we hear about the Liberals' trumpeted new investment in housing? It is not coming until 2025. How is it that Canada could be in the best fiscal position in the G7 and not afford to begin investing right now in the housing that we need for Canadians, for vulnerable Canadians for sure, who do not have the means to pay rent in this economy, for working Canadians who do not have the means to pay rent or afford a mortgage in this economy? Also, businesses are telling us that the major barrier they face to growing their business is that they cannot find a place to house their workers, that the people they would like to have come work for them do not have a place to live and so they cannot come to the community where their business is. How can Canada have a Deputy Prime Minister and finance minister with the gall to get up and brag about Canada's fiscal position in comparison to everyone else in the world, but then say the cupboard is bare when it comes to addressing some of the most important crises of our time? I am quite familiar with the announcements she made in respect of housing, like the replenishment of the co-investment fund, because I have stood in this very place and called for them. I have sat across the table from Liberals and demanded that they make investments in social housing. I did not demand that they make those investments in 2025. We demanded that they make them right now. It is the same with the replenishment of the RCFI, the rental construction financing initiative, which is a mouthful. It just means low-interest loans for people who want to build housing, whether they are building market housing or non-profit housing. What we expect in the future and have been advocating for is for post-secondary institutions, such as universities and colleges, to have access to that funding. The folks who want to build housing for seniors should be able to access that funding too. This low-interest financing should be made far more widely available so that it is not just a honeypot for developers but a place for proven organizations across Canada, including non-profit organizations building housing for the vulnerable, to access funding to ensure there will be more housing and housing on more accessible terms. It is a huge disappointment that it did not come now. These are not my words, but I talked about what the finance minister and the Deputy Prime Minister herself had to say, which was about Canada's strong fiscal position. The question still is, how do we pay for it? How would we find the money? We already have a deficit, albeit the lowest deficit in the G7. Well, a one-point increase in the corporate tax rate in Canada, which I would remind members was 28% in the year 2000 and is only 15% today, would generate over $3 billion a year. The Liberals want to recapitalize the co-investment fund to the tune of $1 billion and not start it for two years, but we could triple the recapitalization and do it every year in perpetuity with a 1% increase. A 1% increase in the corporate tax rate is not a bad deal for corporations that say they cannot find enough workers to keep making money because there is no housing. Let us ask them to help build the housing that will help them grow their businesses while we employ Canadians and make sure they have roofs over their heads. That is a fair deal. What is not a fair deal is to cut the corporate tax rate from 28% in the year 2000 to 15% today and not allow Canadians to find a home. That is not fair. That is not good policy. Let us not pretend that Canada cannot afford to move and move with urgency this year on significantly increasing the number of social and affordable housing builds the federal government is going to directly finance in whole or in part. It is simply not true, and it is irresponsible of the Liberals to cave to the demands of the Conservative Party and multinational corporations that do not care what happens to Canadian housing as long as they are able to pay bigger dividends to their shareholders and larger salaries to their CEOs. That is the real coalition in Parliament, and it has been in power for far too long. How else could we pay for housing? We have heard reports this year about tens of billions of dollars being paid to consulting firms like KPMG and others. Why are we paying through the nose for high-priced consultants when we have some of the best civil servants in the world who can do the work we need them to do, instead of paying high-class consultants big profits to tell us how to cut taxes and put more people out of a home? That does not make a lot of sense. We saw that the Liberals are quite prepared to spend money on scandals like ArriveCAN. Why can they not spend it on housing instead? It is because their friends are already housed and they are looking to make a buck. However, that is not a good excuse for Canadians who are living on the street and wondering not when Canada is going to do something unprecedented or when Canada is going to do something new, but when Canada is going to start doing what it did for decades following the Second World War. We must simply do it again. If Canadians in the 1950s could figure out how to build a home for everybody, surely in the 21st century, with all the wealth and prosperity that Canada has enjoyed over the last 70 years, we can figure out how to do it now. That is just the deficiencies of what they have announced. Never mind the fact that when we look to B.C., there is an NDP government that has taken it upon itself to start a non-profit acquisition fund. Why do we need a non-profit acquisition fund? We need it because, in Canada today, for every one unit of affordable housing we are building, we are losing 15. Why are we losing those units? This comes back to the question that I had for the leader of the Conservative Party, which was why, when he was in cabinet, and in the time that he says he was minister of housing, the Harper government cut the operating grants to co-op housing and other non-profit organizations that run housing that made rents affordable. Why did they do that? The reason that we have lost hundreds of thousands of affordable units over the last number of years is that the operators could no longer afford to operate with the subsidized rent that they used to operate with. It is because the leader of the Conservative Party, when he sat at the cabinet table and was minister of housing, refused to renew the federal operating grants. Now what we have are companies that come in and buy those buildings because the current operators cannot afford to operate them anymore with the tenants who are there. The corporate landlords do not mind; they kick out the tenants, renovate the suites, jack up the rent and invite Canadians with higher salaries to come in to rent those spaces. Therefore, who has the backs of the people who cannot afford to rent a luxury apartment in today's market? The NDP has their backs; that is for sure. What is becoming more and more apparent is that the current government, after eight years of trying, simply does not. Even if the Liberals had the good intentions, which one could reasonably call into question, the competence clearly is not there to deliver on a national housing strategy that could build enough units to ensure that the housing crisis does not stretch into my grandchildren's lifetime. Part of that is just a fascination and a fixation with only market solutions, which is another thing that is shared between the Liberals and Conservatives in their coalition. As I said, there was a time when the Canadian government built a lot of units. It did not build all the units; Canada has always had mostly a market for housing. However, we used to build enough non-market housing that the people who could not afford to pay in the market could still get a home, and they were not sacrificing their food or their prescription drugs to try to get into a housing market that they could not really afford while paying for all the necessities of life. The issue is that we are not doing that anymore and we have to be doing it. If only it were not for the actions of the leader of the Conservative Party and his government, or if the current government had made good on its promise to renew the operating grants. This is what I mean when I talk about the real coalition in the House of Commons. It is Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The one party says, when it is not in power, that what the other is doing is so bad, really terrible, and that it is going to fix it when it gets in. Then it gets in and, lo and behold, it carries on the policies of the previous government, so Canadians never know how to get a break. Tommy Douglas used to tell the story of Mouseland, which puts this point very well. I encourage anyone watching, when they are done listening to this speech, to look that up on YouTube or elsewhere, and it will pain them to see how very relevant that very old story truly is. We also think that it is high time the real estate investment trusts stopped getting the sweetheart tax deal they have had since the 1990s, because they have been part of the renoviction problem as well. When the Liberals indicate notionally in the fall economic statement that they are excited to get the Canada Infrastructure Bank involved, all we can do is cringe. The Infrastructure Bank has hardly delivered a successful project even where it has tried. Even within its mandate, it has struggled to deliver a project. Telling Canadians that it is good news that the Infrastructure Bank is getting involved is so out of touch that I do not even know where to begin. It raises an important spectre, which is the public infrastructure that is required in order to build more housing. Whether that is bigger sewer pipes, better waste water management or all the things that are needed in order to support a number of units, it raises the spectre that the current government is not interested in seeing municipalities own that infrastructure as they properly should, but is instead interested in using federal public dollars to finance the takeover of municipal infrastructure by private investors who are going to be interested in seeking a profit on that. We know, from many examples of P3s across the country, that when one gets the private sector involved in what should be public infrastructure, one pays more to get less. That is by no means a hopeful thing for Canadians, who want to see the kind of infrastructure development we need to expand our housing stock. When we talk about municipalities and housing, I think this is important. I was at breakfast with the Association of Manitoba Municipalities today. What are they talking about? They are talking about their very sincere and real desire to get more housing in their communities because it is a barrier to investment. They have businesses that want to invest, that want to build new facilities, but, as I said earlier, cannot do it because they know that there is not enough housing for the workforce that they want for their business. Are these municipal politicians celebrating this? Are they shouting for joy and saying, “This is great. We are keeping the investment out by not having enough housing”? They are absolutely not. It is strange that one should have to say such a thing, but with the leader of the Conservative Party spending so much time in here pretending that municipal politicians do not care about being able to get more housing in their communities or are not interested in attracting that investment to their communities, I think it is high time somebody set the record straight. I can tell members that, for a community that is already so cash-strapped it cannot build enough housing to bring in the kind of investment that it wants to see their local economy prosper, slashing its resources is not going to help it build more units the next year. It is only going to compound the problem. It has got to be one of the dumbest ideas on offer in Canadian politics today. We talk about investment and Canadian businesses, and there are a whole bunch of businesses that started up when the Canada greener homes initiative got started because they wanted to become the folks that do the evaluation of how well insulated a house is or they wanted to be the person who came in and installed the heat pump or the person who helped Canadians save on their energy bills and reduce their emissions. We do not see in here a commitment to renew that program. We do hear outside of this place that there are a lot of businesses that are concerned because they thought the Liberal government had a long-term commitment to reducing emissions. They thought it was not a gimmick. They should be forgiven for thinking that. It is not too late for the Liberals to do the right thing and commit to renewing this program, not only so that Canadians can continue to have access to the funds they need to renovate their homes, reduce our emissions and save money on their heating bill, but also to save the businesses that have invested, in good faith, in the skills and equipment they need to be the people to drive that forward. What else could we do for businesses that is not done in this fall economic statement? An extension of the Canada emergency business account, the CEBA loans, for the repayable period would make a huge difference not only to those businesses that are in serious distress and are deserving of having that credit extended but also to the government that presumably would like to be paid again. I do not know how a government could think that forcing businesses that they have loans with into bankruptcy is a way to get the money back. Who would benefit? Workers lose their jobs. Owners lose their business, and the government does not get the money. This is a win situation for nobody, and it is confounding that the government has not put that together. I think it owes us all a much better explanation. Of course, when those workers are put out of a job, what are they going to need? They will need employment insurance. Where is the government on employment insurance? It is adopting another boutique change to the program that is good for the people that it affects. New Democrats have supported an adoption benefit under the EI program, but we want an adoption benefit under a new modernized EI program, the kind that the Liberals have been promising for over eight years now, so that the whole program serves workers better instead of just adding more things onto a system that the Liberals admit is broken. It does not make sense. Better than employment insurance is a job. We have supported investments in battery manufacturing plants across the country, but now we hear that those jobs may not be for people already in Canada after all. That is a serious problem because it speaks to the government not having done its due diligence with these companies in ensuring that they are going to be hiring Canadians who are looking for work to do these jobs. It also bears mentioning that a lot of those workers are not necessarily coming through the TFW program. They are coming under the auspices of labour mobility sections in trade agreements negotiated by Liberals and Conservatives alike, in this case, the South Korean trade agreement that was negotiated when the Harper government was in power and the Leader of the Opposition was at the cabinet table. I want to mention the Canada disability benefit, because no folks in Canada are more hard hit by the current economic circumstances than are Canadians living with disabilities. They were promised a new benefit, and the government has not delivered.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Nov/21/23 5:58:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been a parliamentarian for a good number of years, and during the early 1990s, I was the housing critic in the Province of Manitoba. At that point in time, the coalition was the NDP, the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives, who all said that the federal government had no role in housing. It was a sad time. It was a time when I debated, for the riding of Winnipeg North, against the NDP, saying, yes, it should have a role to play. When the member talks about the lack of interest in housing, I can assure him that, in the last 50 or 60-plus years, no government has invested more money in housing than this government has in the last five years. In this fall economic statement, there is a tangible commitment, for example, for non-profit housing, including housing co-ops. Would the member not acknowledge the fact that there is substantial money going toward non-profit housing co-ops in Canada in the fall economic statement?

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Nov/21/23 6:00:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am trying to figure out how the Liberal government is so ineffective at delivering new housing. I think it may be that it is spending all its time thinking about Manitoba provincial politics in the early 1990s. I do not know. I was seven or eight at the time. I would encourage Liberals to pay attention to the economy today. Yes, there has been a lot of fanfare and announcements, but I would say to the member for Winnipeg North that when they look at the details of the program, such as, for instance, the announcement made today that they will be out trumpeting, they should look at the details and the table. The table very clearly says this money is not coming for another two years. It should be now, and there should be more of it.

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Ms. Andréanne Larouche (Shefford, BQ)

Nov/21/23 6:01:06 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-319

Mr. Speaker, we can agree today that the word urgent does not come to mind after this economic statement. The situation for our local media is urgent. Last week in my riding I went to Sherbrooke, where the media were gathered and calling on the government to take action. There is nothing. The homelessness situation is urgent. This week, Granby is organizing a forum on social housing. These people do not need to be dumped on or for the government to interfere in their jurisdiction. They will come up with solutions. The government should have contributed its share of the effort for housing within its own jurisdiction. The Canada emergency business account repayment situation is urgent. I am getting ready to go out with the Haute‑Yamaska chamber of commerce and industry. The NDP said that it also wanted this measure to help our businesses get through next year to prevent 20% to 30% of bankruptcies. The situation for seniors is also urgent. The NDP voted in favour of my Bill C‑319, which called on the government to do something in this inflationary context where seniors on a fixed income are especially affected. They needed help. Every senior 65 and over should be getting a higher pension. My NDP colleague supported my last two points. Where in the fiscal update are the CEBA repayment issue and the seniors issue, if the NDP managed to negotiate something with the government?

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Nov/21/23 6:02:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her private member's bill, which I was very happy to support. I think it is pretty clear. There are plenty of things the NDP would like to see a federal government do that the Liberals are not prepared to do. We are asking them for things they are not prepared to do. Negotiation involves finding a way forward that enables us to get results for Canadians despite the fact that the Liberals are not prepared to do many of the things they should do. If the Bloc Québécois wants to try negotiating, that is up to the Bloc. I am very proud of the fact that, even though we cannot get everything we want, our negotiations can still produce results for Canadians.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)

Nov/21/23 6:03:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, for his excellent analysis of the fall economic statement. I want to be very clear in saying to the Liberals that I want them to turn their minds to page 31 of the fall economic statement. In terms of more financing for apartment construction, for 2023-24 and 2024-25, there is zero in both of those columns. In terms of building more affordable housing, there is zero in both columns. Then we turn to the co-op housing piece: For strengthening the co-operative housing development program, there is zero in both columns. The big joke is that the Liberals actually announced $309 million for co-ops. That was a promise back in 2022, which they have slow-walked and not delivered on. They are now announcing it as though it were new money, and it will not even roll out until 2024. The other thing that is missing here is this: Why is the government not stopping corporate landlords from renovicting people, buying up low-cost housing and displacing people, by saying no to them?

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Nov/21/23 6:04:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Vancouver East for all the excellent work that she does on the housing file. There is no way that Canada can meet the deficit of affordable and social housing that we have if we are going to lose 15 for every one that we build. That is why it is imperative for the government to find a way to stop big corporations from acquiring buildings and kicking out the tenants. It could be done by a moratorium. The way the government should have done it eight years ago was by renewing the operating grants. The fact that those operating grants were allowed to expire is what put so many affordable units back on the market. The Liberals promised to undo that measure of the Harper government, but they completely failed Canadians. We have seen hundreds of thousands of units pass from the hands of non-profit and co-op operators, who were offering affordable rents, to those of giant corporate landlords, which are more interested in paying big dividends to their shareholders. We cannot continue like this. It is why we are seeing so many people on the streets in all our communities across the country. It has to stop, or the problem will continue to get worse and the tent cities will continue to grow. The Conservative leader likes to talk about tent cities, but he does not like to talk about the things that have to be done in order to properly close them and make sure the people there have a place to go. The policies of the government he was a part of built those cities. It is going to take an NDP government to take them down in the right way.

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Mr. Larry Maguire (Brandon—Souris, CPC)

Nov/21/23 6:06:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I really wanted to recognize that there was no spending in the housing budget for the next two years in those particular areas. I am very concerned about the fact— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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