44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 22, 2023 02:00PM
- Nov/22/23 2:37:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday we tabled our fall economic statement, which shows the very solid foundations of our economy.
I would like to come back to what the Conservative leader himself is proposing. The Conservatives' austerity plan does not resonate with either Quebeckers or Canadians. I would like to know why he refuses to say what he will cut. Will he cut help for seniors? Will he cut support measures for families and children? Will he cut dental care? That is what Canadians want to know.
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- Nov/22/23 2:38:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister was doubling our national debt, adding more debt than all previous 22 prime ministers combined, he claimed there would be no cost because interest rates, he said, were low, but those low interest rates are gone and the debt is still here. Yesterday, we learned that interest on the debt has gone up by over 100%, to $52.4 billion. That is more than the $52.1 billion we spend on health care and double what we spend on the military.
Why is the Prime Minister taking money from nurses and soldiers and giving it to bankers and bondholders?
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- Nov/22/23 2:39:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday we tabled the fall economic update, which shows the solid foundations of our fiscal frame and shows that we were able to maintain fiscal responsibility while being compassionate and being there for Canadians.
We are building more homes and we are building them faster. We are changing competition laws in order to stabilize prices in this country. What the Conservatives are proposing are cuts and austerity. They want to claw back supports to families and claw back supports to our seniors. That is not what Canadians need and that is not what Canadians deserve.
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Mr. Speaker, fear and falsehoods are the only things the Liberals can use to distract from their disastrous record. They are the ones clawing back from seniors and families with their quadrupling of the carbon tax. It is the first time in Canadian history we have seven million people who are skipping meals because they cannot afford to eat, and two million people, a record-smashing number, are now eating at food banks.
There is a common-sense solution, which is Conservative Bill C-234 to take taxes off the farmers who feed us. Will the Prime Minister back down again, stop fighting this common-sense bill and stop taxing our farmers so that our people can afford to eat?
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- Nov/22/23 2:40:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are the government that decided the retirement age should go back to the age of 65 from the age of 67, which was a decision that side of the House made when its leader was in Davos, Switzerland, but let us stay in Europe for a second to talk about the appalling decision of these so-called Conservatives to turn down a free trade agreement with a beacon of democracy such as Ukraine.
What is up with that party? That is what Canadians want to know, and no one is buying this carbon tax excuse. What is up?
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- Nov/22/23 2:41:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the pathological obsession these Liberals have with carbon taxes has now reached a level that is sick. This is how sick they are on the carbon tax. They would use Ukraine's vulnerability in the middle of the war to impose their destructive carbon tax on the people of Ukraine and make it harder for them to rebuild after the war. We already know that the Prime Minister was used as a tool for Russian propaganda when he brought a Nazi into the House of Commons.
Why is he trying to damage the Ukrainian economy with a destructive carbon tax in this terrible deal?
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- Nov/22/23 2:42:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the only ones who are not supporting Ukraine are the Conservatives. Let us be clear. The Canada-Ukraine free trade deal does not impose a price on pollution on Ukraine. Why is that? It is because Ukraine already has a price on pollution. It has had it since—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Hon. Mary Ng: Ukraine can fight the war and fight climate change. We are here to support it because the Conservatives are not.
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- Nov/22/23 2:43:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if it were already there, they would not have needed to put it in the deal. We negotiated the free trade deal with Ukraine. We support free trade with Ukraine. We are the only party that supports a real trade agreement with Ukraine that would include supplying it with Canadian-made defence equipment, which they voted against yesterday. They voted against supplying Ukraine with clean Canadian energy that would repower their economy.
Let us get this straight. They are against selling Canadian munitions to fight the Russian attackers, but they are in favour of imposing a carbon tax on Ukrainians. That is nuts.
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- Nov/22/23 2:44:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is bad enough that that party is the only party in the House that does not believe in climate change. It does not believe in fighting the good fight against climate change, but on top of that, when Ukrainians are dying, literally, on behalf of freedom-loving people of the world, fighting fascism, totalitarianism and an illegal invasion, at this critical moment, what have Conservatives chosen to do? They have chosen to abandon Ukrainians in their hour of need. Canadians will remember this moment, and we will never forget that shameful party.
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- Nov/22/23 2:45:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it really is a pathological obsession for a party to look at its starving people, the two million people in Canada who have to go to food banks every month and the seven million people who are hungry in Canada, and then say that the misery from its carbon tax is not enough here in Canada and that they need to export it by imposing it in a pre-existing trade agreement.
When I am Prime Minister, we will have a real free trade agreement with Ukraine that would help it win and rebuild, but would have no carbon tax. We will axe the tax here and make sure anyone in the world who wants to axe the tax has the freedom to do so.
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- Nov/22/23 2:46:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, when the vote was happening on the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement, I was sitting with the ambassador of Ukraine and Ukraine's prosecutor general. We were talking about the pressing needs of the Ukrainian people, and how we could address those pressing needs and their concerns in their hour of need.
For the past 18 months, I have been pleased to say that we had a multipartisan approach to addressing Ukraine. Unfortunately, that evaporated into a puff of smoke with the very decided and methodological vote taken by the Conservatives.
On this side, when we say that we stand with Ukraine, we mean it, and when we say Slava Ukraini, we mean it even more.
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- Nov/22/23 2:47:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is fascinating. I asked a question about yesterday's economic statement, and the answer I got had to do with an announcement that was made two years ago. That in itself is proof that there is nothing in the economic statement. Why did the government present an economic statement, then? When I was young, I was told, “if you have nothing to say, then say nothing”.
We are talking about serious issues here. What is the government saying to seniors who are struggling to buy groceries and to the municipalities that are struggling to house people? Is the government saying that it is going to create another more expensive, more complicated department with a longer name?
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- Nov/22/23 2:48:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the economic statement that we presented yesterday, we are investing more in housing co-operatives in Quebec and across Canada.
We are doubling down on the fight against rental properties like Airbnbs, because we know that Quebec has very strong local regulations, and we want to support that. We also know that there are families that are still struggling to make ends meet. That is why we are going to amend our competition laws. That is real action.
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- Nov/22/23 2:48:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we did not need an economic statement to tell us this kind of information, especially considering that in 2026, when the money becomes available, there is no reason to believe that the Liberals will still be sitting on that side of the House anyway. A lot will happen between now and then, and other budgets will get made.
What was the point of this whole business except to waste our time? The distress felt by people, businesses, seniors and the homeless is no less today than it was yesterday. Why waste Parliament's time?
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- Nov/22/23 2:49:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague is having a hard time understanding the purpose of an economic statement. It is not a budget; it is an economic statement. We tabled it to be transparent with Canadians and to show them how far along we are with our plan. Yesterday, we also announced that we would be removing the GST from psychotherapy. We announced that we would be cracking down on international roaming fees. Our economic statement contains measures that will also help Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, we have lineups at our food banks that, if we were to put the images in black and white, we would assume they were images from the Great Depression. We have never seen two million people going to a food bank in a month. We never had seven million people eating less than is healthy, but that is the starvation we have as a result of eight years of the Prime Minister.
There is a common-sense Conservative bill, Bill C-234, that has passed through the Senate. The Prime Minister's ministers are panicking and begging senators to block it. Will the Prime Minister tell his senators that they have go-ahead to pass this common-sense Conservative bill so that our farmers can feed our people?
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- Nov/22/23 2:50:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we would think that after two decades in this place, the member opposite might know that the Senate is independent of this place.
However, there was a time when Canadians could look to Conservatives for a little bit of leadership on fighting climate change. Brian Mulroney was—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Nov/22/23 2:51:27 p.m.
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Colleagues, I am having trouble hearing the hon. member. I will ask the hon. member to start again from the top so that I can hear.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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- Nov/22/23 2:51:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we would think that after two decades working here, having had no other job before that, I might add, the member opposite, the leader of the Conservative Party, would know that the Senate is independent of this place.
There was a time when Canadians could look to the Conservatives for leadership on climate action, back when Brian Mulroney led the fight against climate change and when my neighbour, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, staked his entire leadership campaign on a carbon price. Now, the leader of the Conservative Party is using climate action as a wedge to justify its shameful vote against the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement.
Ukraine already prices carbon, and the Conservatives are out of air.
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- Nov/22/23 2:52:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member's comedy routine will not make up for the fact that Canadians cannot afford to feed themselves.
The Prime Minister is in a bind again. He was already bullied by his Atlantic caucus into panicking and bringing in a temporary pause on home heating taxes, but only for some. Now his environment minister is threatening to resign if there are any more carbon tax carve-outs.
Will the Prime Minister stop allowing himself to be bullied and threatened by his radical environment minister and axe the tax on our farmers so that Canadians can afford to eat?
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