44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 11, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, another point the member did not talk about when he talked about how much they would love to get rid of the price on pollution is the rebate. The rebate ensures that over 80% of people get more money back than they pay in with regard to the price on pollution. Could the member be very clear on whether he supports Canadians getting the environmental rebate?
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Madam Speaker, yes, members I have talked to are all looking forward to the rebate when we axe the tax and get rid of all the tax they are paying. Canadians know when they go to the grocery store now that they are seeing the increase because the farmers and the manufacturers and the truckers have all incurred increases and are passing them on. Why are food prices the highest they have ever been in the history of Canada? It is because of the carbon tax. Canadians want that tax off. Let us axe the tax.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for sharing his time with me.
After eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, inflation has reached its highest level in 40 years. I can say that I would not want to be in the shoes of the Liberal government right now.
Salaries of middle-class Canadians no longer cover even housing, which has doubled, and groceries, which are predicted to rise even more this year. Increasing numbers of people rely on food banks, and children have almost nothing in their school lunch boxes, which is a crying shame.
The effects of drug legislation are being felt. The increase in addiction rates is harming families and our sense of security. This is where we have landed, thanks to the wildly reckless spending of this Prime Minister and his spendthrift government, which attempts to buy votes with wishful thinking. He wants people to forget the disaster he has caused to those who can no longer make ends meet.
Let us not mince words. We will all pay for this Liberal government's disastrous policies over the next 25 or 30 years. Let us be frank in the House. We now find ourselves with a failed Prime Minister, a failed government, public spending in the red, and a society that is being unwittingly bankrupted, and no longer knows how it is going to pay its grocery bills.
I would like to be reassuring, but how can we continue to have faith given the scale of the challenges before us each day and the financial threat that looms over so many households? As the Prime Minister says, we will continue doing this, that or the other. Well, empty words no longer work.
This is truly scandalous, without a doubt. In eight years of governing, only the Liberals could think of this and pull off such a thing. Since 2006, I have proudly represented the people of Lévis—Lotbinière. The previous Conservative government was responsible and had a vision for our young people, our future and our economy.
The sad reality is that this bill resolves absolutely nothing while increasing public spending and taxes. Years ago the Liberal government should have put in place new housing measures and certain measures to reduce the cost of groceries. Homelessness is now a reality for hard-working people who, not so long ago, could afford housing. Faced with $20 billion in new costly spending, we were quickly walked through this mini-budget in the fall. Prices are going up, rents are going up, the debt is going up, and taxes are going up. What about the price of groceries? That is going up too. More than $20 billion in new inflationary spending will keep inflation and interest rates at a higher level than Canadians can afford to pay.
The end of the year is approaching, and the honeymoon with this Liberal government is definitely over. I wonder what the Prime Minister will be thinking on his next trip while he is lying on the beach in the sun. We hope that this time the trip will be at his own expense. What will he think of the sad reality of people who have trouble affording a turkey for Christmas, putting presents under the tree, if there is one, heating their homes, or putting gas in their vehicles? Many Canadians and Quebeckers will find that 2024 is going to be as harsh as this winter, especially since the government is proposing to raise taxes on the backs of the middle class. Ironically, there is a lot to be stressed about: Next year this Prime Minister will spend more money on servicing the debt than on paying for Canadians' health care.
As for balancing the budget, maybe that will happen in 30 years, because it has become a mirage. Members may recall that the Liberal government told Canadians they would balance the budget by 2028. Since the Minister of Finance announced that pious wish, she has announced $100 billion in new expenses. Even though we need millions of new housing units by 2030, the government, which has been scrimping on important issues since it came to power, announced this fall it would spend $15 billion on a fund that will support the construction of barely 1,500 housing units a year. I would like to remind the government that 2030 is only six years away. That is not very long, except for the people who have to sleep outside or those who have been paying double for housing since the Liberal ice age.
Now more than ever, it is clear that this bill does nothing to help ordinary Canadians. Even worse, Canadians are becoming even poorer.
We have seen what this Liberal government has gotten wrong. Here are a few facts to help convince my colleagues. There were a record two million visits to the food bank in a single month. The cost of housing has doubled. Mortgage payments are 150% higher now than when this government came to power. Violent crime has increased by 39%. There are tent cities in almost every major city in Canada, and a lot of the people who live there are people we know. More than half of Canadians are $200 away from not being able to pay their bills. Canadians who renew their mortgage at the current rate will see an increase of 2% to 6% or more. The IMF says that Canada is the G7 country most likely to experience a mortgage default crisis. Worse yet, the business bankruptcy rate increased by 37% this year.
While Canadians are up to their necks in debt and there is no foreseeable miracle forthcoming from the Liberal-Bloc-NDP coalition, we are trying to find a way back to a common-sense solution, a way of really being heard to mitigate the daily suffering of people across the country. I said I have been a legislator since 2006. I can say that I am not the only one to long for a government that knows how to count and invest every one of Canadian taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. A lot of people were deceived by the siren song of the Liberals’ promises, and we are all paying the price now. This also proves that voting for the Bloc is costly.
They can say anything they want across the aisle and talk about the horrors of going backwards, but this country needs a Conservative government to put it back on track. We need to understand that our country was doing well, very well, actually, before this Liberal government came to power. Let us remember the interest and inflation rates before this Prime Minister. They were low. Taxes dropped faster than at any other time in our country’s history. We had a balanced budget. Crime was down 25%. Our borders were secure. Housing cost half of what it does today. Net wages increased by 10% after inflation and income tax. What are we seeing now? It is a disaster. Many Canadians will have to wait up to 25 years to save enough money to buy their first house and, for many of them, home ownership is an impossible dream.
The legacy the Liberals are leaving us is a world upside down. Come the next election, voters will have two options. The first is a costly Liberal-Bloc-NDP coalition that will take taxpayers' money, raise taxes, and enable more crime. The second option is a common-sense Conservative government that will enable people to earn a bigger paycheque to buy groceries, gas and a home in a safe community. The choice is obvious. Let us just hope that our country can hold on until then.
With last fall's mini-budget, we are going to pay more taxes, because the government raised the carbon tax across the country. It is going to quadruple. That does not make any sense, and it is truly outrageous. Bill C-234 would give Canadian taxpayers a little breathing room by eliminating the carbon tax for Canadian farmers. That would bring down food prices in Canada. When the government taxes the farmers who grow food and the truckers who transport it, Canadians have to pay more to put food on the table. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change promised to resign if this bill were passed. He is not thinking about those who are struggling to make ends meet at the end of every week.
Will the Prime Minister choose to save his environment minister or to feed Canadians by lowering the cost of food through Bill C-234, which must be passed but is stuck in the Senate because of the Prime Minister's machinations? The choice is easy and obvious. Let us help our farmers and all Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, as an FYI to the member, this bill is not about what he talked about. What he needs to recognize is that one of the big initiatives in this legislation would exempt purpose-built rentals from GST, a good, sound policy. I suspect that the Conservatives might vote in favour of that. After all, we have now seen provinces get on board. A number of provinces are doing likewise for the PST.
The federal government is leading on the housing issue, and I am wondering if my Conservative friend can explain why we as a national government today lead on housing-related issues, whereas the Conservatives in the past, under their current leader, did absolutely nothing when it came to housing in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, let me remind the government that what little it has fixed when it comes to housing in Canada is only a drop in the ocean.
The government promised $15 billion in loans and to possibly build 1,500 more housing units per year when millions more are needed. With the Liberals, it will take 2,500 years to get to where we want to be. We will need between 4 and 5 million more housing units by 2030. With the Liberal government, that is an unattainable target.
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Madam Speaker, when it comes to housing, the Conservatives made cuts too and did not invest enough in social and community housing, which is what is needed.
That said, how does my colleague from Quebec deal with the fact that his Conservative colleague was shown on Infoman to have taken some liberties with the truth—to keep things parliamentary—on the carbon tax, according to independent journalists?
This morning, we learned that independent economists raised red flags regarding the Conservative leader's so-called documentary. They said that his viral video—again, I am trying to keep things parliamentary—lacked in correctness and used arguments that are much too simplistic for such a serious crisis.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to talk about actual facts.
I have five children. Around 10 years ago, my oldest daughter bought a house for about $150,000. Seven years ago, my second daughter bought a house. It cost an additional $100,000. Three years ago, my son bought a house that cost an extra $100,000 on top of that. It cost him $350,000. My two youngest are barely able to rent a place because house prices have shot up past $450,000, $550,000 and $650,000 in the space of half a generation.
When the Conservatives were in government, young people could buy and build a home. Today, in the Liberal era, it is impossible to even rent a home. Imagine that. These are the facts and this is reality. My family has lived it. This is what every Canadian family is experiencing today.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals in the House have been crowing about removing the GST on housing construction. I find it ironic, and would ask my colleague to comment on this, that they talk about making life more affordable by removing GST on housing yet the government has refused to remove the carbon tax on groceries, on everything we produce in this country and on gasoline.
I would ask my colleague to comment on the apparent contradiction between the Liberal government's intent to make life more affordable by removing the GST on housing and the fact that it will not axe the tax.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. The carbon tax is a totally hypocritical tax for all Canadians. It increases the price of everything, everything that is transported. All of our goods and services are transported all over Canada several times, and everyone keeps a cut. That is how we end up with two-by-fours going from $3 each to $12 each, and fruits and vegetables going from maybe 35¢ a pound to $1.50 a pound.
This is never going to end. We need to get rid of the carbon tax, because that will lower the cost of everything.
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Madam Speaker, this is the first time in two years that I have gotten the unanimous consent of the House, and I am proud of it. Before beginning my speech, I would like to make one thing clear. This is not a case of the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberal Party standing together. It is the Conservatives that stand alone. That is not the same thing.
Today we will be discussing Bill C-56, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act. I will be talking mostly about that last part of the bill, in terms of both its technical points and its rationale. Before we begin, though, we always need to establish what we are talking about. What is competition? It means coming together and converging on the same point. That is what competition is. It is not necessarily a bad thing. However, what is the motivation for coming together? What is the purpose? Is it good or bad? As members of Parliament, our objective must be commendable, because we obviously have the public interest at heart.
In one amendment, the bill would increase the maximum monetary penalty for abuse of a dominant position to $25 million for the first offence and $35 million for subsequent offences. The aim is to give the law teeth, to make sure that it will not be taken lightly, that people will not think that they can get away with a slap on the wrist. This provision also makes Canadian law more comparable to U.S. law, of course.
The second important amendment in the part on competition would allow the Competition Bureau to conduct market study inquiries if the minister responsible for the act or the commissioner of competition so recommends, and would require the minister to consult the commissioner before doing so.
The Competition Bureau already has significant powers, but it cannot demand certain things from the people it is investigating. It cannot request a search unless there is a clear offence. It cannot request a search just to look around. It cannot make assumptions. All of us here know that groceries are expensive and that we pay the highest cellphone fees in the OECD. It does not take a genius to realize that the commissioner might want to investigate these things.
When it conducts a study, the bureau will have to determine whether there is adequate competition in a market or industry. Right now, it does not have that power in every industry. What the Competition Bureau can do at present is all right, but it is not necessarily the best thing right now. It may have been sufficient at the time, but now it needs to be enhanced.
In its report on the state of competition in the grocery sector, published in June, the bureau noted that the grocery chains did not really co-operate with its study. I like that euphemism: “did not really co-operate”. They said no, which is not the same thing, and the Competition Bureau, with its current powers, could not make them say yes. They refused to provide the documents the bureau asked for, and they refused to answer certain questions. My colleagues will no doubt agree that there are many shades of meaning between “did not really co-operate” and “refused to answer”. The aim of Bill C-56 is to solve this problem by granting the Competition Bureau the power to conduct inquiries where applicable.
Lastly, the bill would revise the legal test for abuse of a dominant position prohibition order to be sufficiently met if the tribunal finds that a dominant player has engaged in either a practice of anti-competitive acts or conduct that is having or is likely to have the effect of preventing competition. That is the technical part of the bill. However, when someone drafts a bill, they need to think about why they are doing it, what they are trying to accomplish.
The purpose of the Competition Act is to ensure that Quebec and Canadian consumers have freedom of choice. We sometimes talk about monopolies. What is a monopoly? It is an exclusive right. What does “exclusive” mean? It means doing everything possible to keep others out. It means restricting, refusing, blocking, rejecting. Exclusivity means limiting access. It is almost like a secret agreement.
The bill also seeks to prevent stakeholders from abusing a dominant market position. To dominate means to master, to control. In the past minute, I have talked about refusing, blocking, mastering, controlling, exclusive rights. All of this goes against the free market that this country promises, that it says it has, but that is sometimes, in reality, only an illusion.
Essentially, the drafters of the bill wanted the Competition Bureau to have more power, the power to provide us with freedom of choice, the power to investigate where appropriate until it is satisfied that it can make this possible.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, competition means getting together and converging on the same point. If that is not possible, if certain players dominating a market prevent that from happening, we are being deprived of our freedom of choice. It is a sort of manipulation. It is a sort of lie.
Without calling anyone a liar, we can still talk about what a lie is, here in the House of Commons. A lie from someone in a dominant position may prevent someone else from doing something they would have done had they known the truth. Lies imply secrecy. Monopolies imply secrecy. It is this secrecy that this bill seeks to eliminate so that everyone can exercise freedom.
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Madam Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean.
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- Dec/11/23 12:52:14 p.m.
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One second, I need to seek unanimous consent.
Is it agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciated the comments about the bureau and how when we think of competition and enhancing competition, making changes to the act would, in fact, take away the efficiency argument.
Therefore, I believe, at the end of the day, it would be healthier for Canadians because it would ensure there is more competition. The member made reference to cellphones. Whether it is cellphones or groceries, taking away the efficiency argument within this legislation, I believe, would help address that going forward.
Can he expand on why it was good to see changes to the legislation affecting the bureau?
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Madam Speaker, those who hold monopolies or exclusive rights do not need to be good at what they do. They just have to be there. At the end of the day, they can charge whatever they want, with whatever conditions they want, to whoever they want. They do not have to sell to everyone if they do not want to.
The law will need to improve the efficiency of service providers, because they will not have the luxury of serving a passive and captive clientele.
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Madam Speaker, all the legislation in the world and all the regulations in the world will not help us make our environment and economy more competitive if we do not have a government that has the backbone to say no to anti-competitive mergers. There have been a lot of mergers over the last eight years that the Liberal government has approved, and those mergers have reduced competition in the marketplace here in Canada.
Has the Bloc supported those mergers or does it support a more cautious approach to making sure Canadians have full competition, so the price of groceries and the price of housing go down in this country?
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Madam Speaker, competition is for oil companies too. Funny how the price of gas never goes down, only up.
Regulation is not always a cure-all, but it is the right solution in this case because the players are not trustworthy. If they were, we might be inclined to let them self-regulate, but they have shown that that was not good enough, particularly when they refused to answer questions from the Competition Bureau.
I think that the proposed legislation seeks to restore consumer confidence in the bureau's services. I do not believe that there will be a loss of efficiency. I think that we will see increased efficiency, because the players will have no other choice.
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Madam Speaker, as I have pointed out previously, another aspect of the legislation is to increase the number of purpose-built rentals to increase housing supply. What we have witnessed, and I mentioned earlier, is provinces adopting the same policies where they are incorporating sales tax relief to encourage more construction. I am not too sure what the Province of Quebec has done.
Does the member know what the Province of Quebec has done with respect to the GST being forgiven for purpose-built rentals?
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Madam Speaker, I will respond candidly and honestly: I simply do not know.
If my colleague so desires, I can look into it and get back to him later. At this point, I could not say.
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Madam Speaker, on many occasions I had the fortune or the misfortune to observe that when a member of the Bloc Québécois uses the old expression “it is about time” in the House, most of the time, unfortunately, it is a euphemism. Unsurprisingly, that old saying “it is about time” applies well to the bill before us today.
Currently, when the Competition Bureau studies the competitive environment in a given sector, it cannot compel anyone to testify or order the production of documents. That is not very convenient. However, with the passage of the Bill C‑56, it will be able to do so. When I say it is about time, that is because the Bloc has been calling for this measure for a good 20 years.
On the other hand, I would be lying if I said that Bill C‑56 did not lack teeth. I will spoil the surprise right away: I will vote in favour of Bill C‑56 like my Bloc Québécois colleagues. Here are the reasons why. This bill contains some good measures. Most of all, it does not contain any that are outright harmful. Let us just say that I expected more. For me, this is just a drop in an ocean of needs. Now I will explain my thoughts in greater detail.
Part 1 of Bill C‑56 modifies the Excise Tax Act. It extends a GST rebate, 5% of the sales tax, to builders of rental housing. The rebate will occur at the moment of sale or alleged sale if the builder becomes the owner. The rebate does not apply when the purchaser is already entirely or partially exempt. For example, this is the case for government organizations, municipalities, not-for-profit organizations or housing co-ops. That means that Bill C‑56 will have no impact on the cost of social or community housing projects because it concerns only private housing.
Part 2 makes three amendments to the Competition Act. The first, as I said earlier, gives real investigative powers to the commissioner of competition. The second broadens the range of anti-competitive practices prohibited by law. At present, competitors cannot agree to push another player out of the market. Bill C‑56 will prohibit agreements even with non-market players aimed at reducing competition. For example, when a grocer rents space in a shopping centre, it is common for the lease to contain clauses prohibiting the landlord from renting to another grocer. Such practices that effectively limit competition will be prohibited under Bill C‑56.
The third amendment to the Competition Act will make mergers and acquisitions more difficult. Today, when a business wants to buy a competitor, for example the Royal Bank's proposed acquisition of HSBC, the act states that the Competition Bureau should allow the merger if it can be proven that the purchase will result in a gain in efficiency, even if the merger will reduce competition. This provision, which appears to favour concentration, will be repealed by Bill C‑56. The Bloc Québécois and my colleague, the member from Terrebonne, have been asking for this measure for some time now.
As I said at the start of my speech, Bill C‑56 contains a number of good measures and, more importantly, none that are outright harmful. However, I also said I believe it is but a drop in an ocean of needs.
In housing, there is real urgency. However, nothing indicates Bill C‑56 will do anything to reduce rents. It would be astonishing if a landlord dropped rents just because they no longer had to pay the GST on a new property, especially since interest rates alone are driving up mortgage costs. This increase will greatly exceed the GST exemption on new rental units. When landlords renew their mortgage, who will they pass the increase on to? The question is rhetorical. We can expect prices will keep rising, with or without Bill C‑56. At best, by removing the tax on rental buildings, Bill C‑56 might entice some developers to build rentals instead of condos. It might simply become more profitable for them. Again, this is just speculation.
Although Bill C‑56 will not directly affect rents, it could help alleviate the housing shortage in some small measure. If Bill C‑56 increases the percentage of new rental housing construction even a little, it will be a good thing. However, we would still be light years away from meeting needs.
I repeat: There are some good things in this bill, such as the amendments to the Competition Act. The Bloc Québécois fully endorses those. On the other hand, we consider it misleading to claim that the bill will help lower the cost of groceries, as the government suggests.
Giving the commissioner of competition real investigative powers when carrying out a study should enable him to get to the bottom of things when it comes to the competitive environment in a given sector. That is very true. Now, learning more about an issue is a good thing, but it does not increase competition and it certainly does not bring down grocery costs.
Since 1986, the vast majority of grocery chains have disappeared, after being bought out by competitors. Steinberg disappeared. A&P disappeared. Provigo was bought by Loblaws. IGA was bought by Sobeys. Marché Adonis was bought by Metro. Of the 13 grocery chains that existed in 1986, only three remain. If we include the two American big box stores that also sell groceries, Costco and Walmart, that means that five players control 80% of the market.
While it is true that a number of factors are contributing to the increase in food prices, it is important not to lose sight of the grocers' profit margins. When prices go up, profits go up. However, according to the Competition Bureau study published last June, grocers did not just maintain their profit margin, they increased it.
When a merchant can raise prices at will, it is a blatant sign of a lack of competition. The amendments to the Competition Act found in Bill C‑56 will certainly prevent the situation from worsening, and they will make mergers and acquisitions harder to do in the future. However, they do not resolve the situation. The damage is done and, unfortunately, Bill C‑56 will do nothing to fix it.
In short, even though Bill C‑56 does put forward some good measures, this cannot possibly be the government's one and only response to the skyrocketing cost of housing and groceries. When it comes to housing, the government needs to review and improve the national housing strategy, which, let us face it, has failed.
In terms of competition, they need to review the notion of abuse to prevent the big players from endlessly profiting from their disproportionate market share. Those two initiatives must be undertaken, and we are just starting both, whether Bill C‑56 passes or not.
To end my speech, I would like to say the following. The Bloc Québécois's support for Bill C‑56 is certainly not a motion to congratulate the government, quite the contrary. However, we do see it as a step in the right direction. The Bloc Québécois's support today is like a pat on the back. It is like a nod of the head, but coupled with a “what comes next?”.
I suspect that I may have to wait awhile before the government actually takes any further action, but I hope I will not have to wait too long.
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Madam Speaker, I listened carefully as the member described the steps we are taking as a federal government to try and alleviate some of the pressure in the rental market. The rental market is generally under provincial jurisdiction, which I know the Bloc watches very carefully.
Removing the GST in a time of high interest rates is to try and stimulate construction, create conditions where there are more units to rent and introduce competition in the rental market and, therefore, drive down prices. That is the move we are trying to make as a federal government.
Could the hon. member comment on how creating the right conditions in the market might actually help the people of Quebec?
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