44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 6, 2024 11:00AM
- May/6/24 11:59:43 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just to clarify, the Conservatives said no to the unanimous consent motion?
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- May/6/24 12:00:15 p.m.
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I cannot clarify that at all. There was not unanimous consent given by the House.
On a point of order, the hon. member for Perth—Wellington.
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- May/6/24 12:00:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to clarify, the NDP is trying to bring time allocation to a bill using a point of order.
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- May/6/24 12:00:53 p.m.
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That sounds very close to debate, but I thank the hon. member for the point.
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moved that Bill C-69, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 16, 2024, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
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Mr. Speaker, what a pleasure it is to rise to start the debate on Bill C-69.
Governments have an opportunity every year to set down in legislation initiatives that could have a wonderful impact. I look at Bill C-69 as a budget implementation bill that would really make a difference in the lives of Canadians. I would like to think that all members of the House would get behind the legislation and the budget for the many positive initiatives the budget would put in place for the benefit of all Canadians, no matter what region of the country they are in.
I personally think there is a theme to be taken from the budget, which I hear many of my colleagues talk about, whether it is the Prime Minister or members of caucus, and that is a sense of fairness. We need to think about generation X and the millennials, and how the government can ensure there is a higher sense of fairness. We saw a good example of that in 2015-16 when we brought in our first budget. Taxation policy is important. Through the legislation and the budget, we will see there is a higher sense of fairness as we are look to the wealthiest in the country to pay a fairer share.
This is not the first time. In fact in 2015-16, we put a special increase on the tax on Canada's wealthiest 1%. Today it is even a smaller percentage. We recognize there is a need for us to provide the good-quality programming the government has had over the last number of years, much of it being enhanced in the budget and legislation. Some of the programs we are seeing for the first time, and others are a continuation. What it really means at the end of day is that we have a government that very much cares about the well-being of Canadians and wants to support them in a fair fashion.
If we look at overall government policies over the last eight-plus years, we will see that, in comparison to other countries in the world, Canada is doing relatively well. I will highlight a few of them. However, before I do that, I want to talk about the last few times the Prime Minister came to Manitoba. In my opinion, they highlight three areas Canadians understand and the fact that they very much appreciate the government's making them a high priority.
Last year, the Prime Minister visited Stanley Knowles School in Manitoba, which is pretty close to the heart of Winnipeg North, to highlight child care. He visited a child care facility at Stanley Knowles School, and the reception was exceptionally positive as people understood what the Government of Canada was doing. For the first time, we have a national child care program that ensures $10-a-day day care. It has had a profoundly positive impact in the province of Manitoba and, indeed, in all of Canada.
The Province of Quebec instituted it many years ago. We took the idea and turned it into a national program. As a direct result, not only are we making child care more affordable for Canadians but we are also enabling more women than ever, on a percentage basis, to get engaged in the workforce. It is no real surprise, as we anticipated that would happen. There are many benefits, as we have seen, of the $10-a-day child care program, the first ever by the national government. Every province and territory has now signed on, recognizing the true value.
For the second visit from the Prime Minister, I was able to participate in a press conference. The single greatest issue I have seen over the last 30-plus years as a parliamentarian, in my constituency and, I would argue, across Canada, is the issue of health care. We love our health care system. We are passionate about it. In fact, when I talk to many people and ask them what makes them feel good about being a Canadian, our health care system is often what comes up as the thing that helps us identify as and feel good about being Canadian.
As members know, working with all the different provinces, the federal government came up with a generational commitment of $198 billion, not million, over 10 years. That would enable long-term financial planning in an area that Canadians are genuinely concerned about. At that particular press conference, we had not only the Prime Minister but also the national Minister of Health, the Premier of Manitoba, the provincial minister of health and the most important people, the health care workers there to witness the announcement for the Province of Manitoba.
What took place in Manitoba is taking place across the country because, for the first time in over a generation, we have a Prime Minister who is committed to ensuring that we have a world-class health care system that deals with the issues we are hearing about at the doors from people. There are concerns about family doctors; concerns about health care workers; concerns about how we are going to be able to get things, such as credentials, recognized; concerns about how we can ensure that health care workers are being valued; and concerns about how we can bring additional health care workers and support staff into the system so that we are able to meet the expectations Canadians have.
We are looking at ways in which we can expand into mental health like we have never done in the past. This is a government that cares about health care and is looking at the Canada Health Act and the benefits it provides every Canadian in every region.
I made reference to child care and gave credit to the province of Quebec. For health care, a great deal of credit goes to the province of Saskatchewan, where it originated. More recently, we had the Prime Minister come to Winnipeg, and this time we were involved in a press conference that included not only the national Minister of Housing but also the premier of the province, provincial ministers and the mayor of Winnipeg. At that particular press conference, we dealt with the issue of housing.
We are very much aware of the needs for housing. I have stood in this chamber on numerous occasions to talk about the importance of the issue of housing. It is somewhat hypocritical of the official opposition to stand in its place and criticize the federal government for not doing enough on housing. I compare what the Conservatives did when they were in government, and in particular the current leader of the Conservative Party, who I think built six non-profit housing units in total. He spent hundreds of millions and was able to get six built, but I did not necessarily want to get to that. It is a bit off track.
The point is that we had a wonderful press conference with different stakeholders out in Transcona, where we had great participation from a wonderful housing complex, and we had the opportunity to talk about some of the things the federal government is doing. Working with the different levels of government, we are going to have an optimum impact on dealing with an issue that is so critically important to all Canadians.
What is providing a great deal of comfort is the fact that it is something we have been talking about for months now, even longer. I would not be surprised if we went back a couple of years, when members might have heard me talking about the issue of housing and how the best way to deal with housing issues in Canada is to have all three levels of government, and other stakeholders, engaged. That is the only way. It is not one level of government that cures all. It is going to take all levels of government working together, as well as the non-profit organizations.
I often talk about Habitat for Humanity. Habitat is a wonderful organization. It has likely done more in building affordable housing than any other non-profit organization, at least that I am personally aware of. In the province of Manitoba, we are talking about hundreds of homes over the years. I believe we are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 600 homes built, all of which are affordable. These homes were provided to individuals who never would have had the opportunity to have housing.
We had the stakeholders, the premier, the mayor and the Prime Minister in Winnipeg talking about things such as accelerating funding, providing supports to the City of Winnipeg so it can speed up its process, working with the province to ensure there is going to be more non-profit housing units built and that the province would be at the table, both in a financial fashion and with other forms of resources. This is to complement other budgetary measures, which dealt with, for example, the GST removal on purpose-built rentals for the country. These are initiatives for which Ottawa is not only taking upon itself and demonstrating leadership on but also working with the different levels of government. We are talking somewhere in the neighbourhood, through this budget, of just over four million new homes as a target in the coming years. That cannot be done by the federal government alone, and we have demonstrated our willingness to work with the different stakeholders, including our partners.
There is also our commitment to indigenous housing and working within indigenous communities. In Winnipeg, indigenous communities stepped up and worked with the Hudson's Bay Company to develop housing in downtown Winnipeg. There is also what is taking place in rural communities across the country.
The budget shows how important it is that we not only have a higher sense of fairness but also that we move forward with a healthy, stronger economy, which is in the best interest of all.
One of the things I took away from the budget, which the Deputy Prime Minister made reference to, is something I want to highlight because, to me, it really does matter. It puts things into perspective. No matter how much the Conservatives want to spread misinformation, the reality is that, in comparison to other countries around the world, Canada is doing exceptionally well.
I will give an example from the Deputy Prime Minister's speech and the stats on foreign direct investment. People and companies around the world looking at where to invest their hundreds of millions and billions of dollars will often look at Canada. Not only will they look at Canada, but they will also invest here. With direct foreign investment, on a per capita basis, Canada is number one out of the G7 countries. That is number one in direct foreign investment.
Throughout the world, per capita, Canada is number three. I would suggest that people, businesses and corporations around the world that are taking a look at where to invest are looking at Canada, and that is not an accident.
Let me elaborate on that. No government in Canada's history has signed off on more trade agreements than this government, under this Prime Minister, has. No government in the history of Canada has signed off on more trade agreements than this government has. Canada is a trading nation. We need trade. All of us benefit from it. That is one of the reasons why, I would argue, people around the world are not only looking at Canada but also investing in Canada. They are doing that because they see the stability that is here, along with a myriad of other positive attributes.
Members can take a look at the investments. The Conservatives have been critical. They do not like the fact that we are helping Volkswagen, for example—
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- May/6/24 12:18:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There appears to be so little interest in this budget on the Liberal side of the House that we do not have quorum.
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- May/6/24 12:18:29 p.m.
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I will ask the clerk to count the members present.
And the count having been taken:
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- May/6/24 12:18:29 p.m.
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We now have a quorum, and the debate will continue with the hon. parliamentary secretary.
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- May/6/24 12:18:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not how many times, when I was sitting on the opposition benches and Stephen Harper was the then prime minister, I could have called for a quorum count because there were no Conservatives in the chamber. I am talking about nine years ago when the Conservatives had a majority government.
I will stay away from the games that the member opposite wants to play because I know he is a little sensitive about the issue of just how well Canada is doing in comparison to countries around the world, contrary to what the Conservatives say. The Conservatives have been going around the country with misinformation. They want to say that Canada is broken. If they really and truly believe that Canada is broken, what does that say about the world, when Canada is doing so much better in so many ways than the rest of the world? The bottom line is that the Conservatives are like a dark cloud, going all over the place to spread nothing but bad, sad news, which is often, consistently, based on misinformation.
Where was I? I was talking about investments in Volkswagen. On the one hand, there are the far right Conservative Party members saying that they do not support the Volkswagen investment. Members can imagine a manufacturing plant that would take up the size of 200 football fields. It is going to be the largest manufacturing plant in Canada, in terms of land usage, and they are all to be green jobs. Doug Ford, the Progressive Conservative Premier of Ontario, is also putting up substantial financial support. At least he recognizes the value there. Just the other day, Honda made another huge investment in Canada. I believe it is Honda's largest investment ever in North America, and it deals with the electrification of vehicles.
The government sees that green jobs are good jobs. We are investing in them in a very real and tangible way. We are going to see thousands of direct and indirect jobs. This is a government that understands the value of a healthy economy. Since being elected, we have generated well over two million jobs. In the same amount of time, we have had more than double the number of jobs that were created under Stephen Harper. We understand the benefits of a strong, healthy economy and of supporting Canadians.
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- May/6/24 12:22:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the current Prime Minister has put more debt on Canadians' heads than has every single prime minister before him, combined. That led to doubling of the national debt and gave Canadians 40-year highs in inflation with the most rapid interest rate hikes, not seen in Canadian history. Now we see students living under bridges. We see that people like nurses and teachers, with well-paying jobs, are now having to live in their cars. There are food bank lineups, with two million people going to a food bank in a single month. With this budget, $54.1 billion will go to servicing just the interest on the debt that the Prime Minister accumulated, when it should be going to doctors, nurses and our health care. More is going to bankers, bondholders and the finance minister's Bay Street buddies than to health care transfers. Why?
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- May/6/24 12:23:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was not that long ago when we had a worldwide pandemic. We literally spent billions and billions of dollars to support Canadians. Through CERB, we supported more than nine million Canadians. We supported hundreds of thousands of businesses, both directly and indirectly, again, costing billions and billions of dollars. The Conservative Party voted in favour of those expenditures. Therefore, with respect to much of the debt that the Conservatives criticize today, they actually voted in favour of our spending that money. It is like giving a kid a candy bar and then criticizing the kid for eating it. Really? The Conservative Party knows no bounds when it comes to hypocrisy and shame. Canada's debt is very much under control—
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- May/6/24 12:24:02 p.m.
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Questions and comments, the hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.
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- May/6/24 12:24:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague just talked at length about housing in his speech. In 2017, the Liberal federal government launched its major national housing strategy, which would span a decade and cost $82 billion. It should have addressed all the housing needs of Canadians. Today, the latest CMHC reports say we need to build 5.8 million homes in Canada by 2030.
Over the three weeks leading up to the budget, the Liberal government made daily housing announcements. Across Canada, the Liberals announced new programs and new spending. However, we noted substantial interference in provincial jurisdictions, to the tune of some 50 pages in the budget on housing—which we welcome. Does the fact the budget contains 50 pages on housing not constitute an admission of failure with respect to the $82-billion decade-long national housing strategy?
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- May/6/24 12:25:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think of the commitment in terms of working with the different stakeholders, provinces and territories building a stronger and healthier Canada. This is the big difference between me and members of the Bloc: I do not see the federal government strictly as an ATM; I believe that the federal government has a role to play, for example in things like a national pharmacare program and a national school food program. We have the Canada disability benefit, which I would love to have been able to expand on. We have the Canada dental program. There are so many things in which, as a progressive government, we are supporting Canadians in a very real and tangible way. That means working with people and working with different jurisdictions in order to have that profoundly positive impact, and I am very proud of that.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to refer to the part in this bill that would double the volunteer firefighter tax credit and the search and rescue tax credit. The hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni has really been pushing on this issue. He introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-310. He has introduced countless petitions, and I have tabled a few of them. We have spoken to volunteer firefighter and search and rescue organizations right across the country, and this is a really meaningful impact that the NDP successfully pushed the Liberals to adopt.
Can the hon. member just talk about what the doubling of this tax credit and the NDP pressure to do so would mean for volunteer firefighters and search and rescue personnel who, in many rural communities, including mine in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, do all that important work? What would it mean for them to be able to continue to serve our communities in the honourable way that they do?
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- May/6/24 12:27:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question, but I can honestly say that the strongest advocate I have ever seen with respect to firefighters is my friend the former deputy House leader, now parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Emergency Preparedness.
What I like about the budget is that it is a true reflection of what Canadians have been advocating for to parliamentarians, both opposition and government members. I truly believe that. Therefore, when we look at the budget, what we see is a reflection of the values and thoughts of Canadians with respect to the type of budget they want to see. That is why, in my previous response, I made reference to things such as pharmacare, the national school food program and other types of social programs, along with economic policies that are going to help build a stronger and healthier economy.
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- May/6/24 12:28:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate that the member for Winnipeg North, the parliamentary secretary, recognizes that we are in a housing crisis.
Back in budget 2022, there was a funding stream called the rapid housing initiative. It allocated $750 million a year over two years so that non-profits could apply to build non-market housing. Obviously, it was not enough. As a result of the crisis we are in, we need to see the government go further and faster.
Non-profits in my community, from the YWCA to the House of Friendship and The Working Centre, are looking to this budget expecting dollars for them to build non-market housing. What do we see in budget 2024? It is down to $195 million a year, from $750 million. The $750 million was not enough, and this year's budget cuts it dramatically.
Why does the parliamentary secretary think this is going to be enough to address the housing crisis we are in?
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- May/6/24 12:29:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is important that we look at it from a holistic approach. At the end of the day, as a national government over the last seven or eight years, we can say that no government in Canada's history has invested more into housing, and we have done it in different ways. In this budget, we continue to amplify the need to get homes built as quickly as possible. That means, for example, working with the municipalities. I referred to the city of Winnipeg. I think it was around $192 million back in December, when we had a major announcement to try to speed up the processing of permits and so forth.
Sometimes the money that is allocated benefits not only for-profit, but also not-for-profit organizations. I know that I, for one, continue to want to promote and encourage more development in the whole housing co-op area.
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- May/6/24 12:30:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this week is Emergency Preparedness Week. With that, I would like to ask the member, my good friend from Winnipeg North, to talk a bit about the investments in budget 2024, not only with respect to the $800,000 for the International Association of Fire Fighters to help train wildland firefighters, but also with respect to first nations communities, to help build resilience. We are also funding our defence system. Can my colleague explain a bit more about what we are doing in terms of preparedness for Emergency Preparedness Week?
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