SoVote

May/7/24 4:35:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister and our cabinet are willing to work directly with municipalities to do the important work they need to do. The Prime Minister is engaged in communicating with premiers, even those with whom he quite often does not see eye to eye politically. On the other hand, we have the Leader of the Opposition, who is literally going out and insulting mayors of major cities in this country, hanging out with Diagolon and far-right extremists who support some radical views. That is the reality of what we are dealing with here. We are set up to have a choice, just like the United States, between a far-right person like Donald Trump and Joe Biden. We are going to have the exact same thing here, and people can make their choice.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/7/24 4:36:54 p.m.
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Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Peace River—Westlock, Carbon Pricing; the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Public Services and Procurement; the hon. member for Calgary Centre, Carbon Pricing.

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

May/7/24 4:37:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Barrie-Innisfil. After nine years, the Prime Minister still does not get it. There are many things he does not understood. He does not understand that budgets do not balance themselves. He does not understand that Canadians cannot live on their credit cards forever. He does not understand that leading a country means much more than just smiling for the cameras. After nine years, he clearly does not understand that Canadians are tired of paying for his and his government's incompetence. I say incompetence because, after nine years, too many families have seen their quality of life go down as a result of his inflationary policies. Everything costs more, including food, rent, gas, taxes, mortgage payments, everything people have to buy on credit, restaurant meals and recreational activities. The list goes on. Absolutely everything costs more. The Liberal Prime Minister has made the public service so big it is literally bursting at the seams, which leads me to say that the government, too, costs a lot more after nine years of this Prime Minister. The Liberal government hired no less than an additional 100,000 public servants. With so many new government employees, one would expect services to improve, at least proportionately. One might think that waiting for a passport was a thing of the past, that immigrants who are waiting for a family member are now all very happy with the family reunification and immigration processes, and that it is now easy to talk to a CRA or an EI agent. One hundred thousand more public servants means 200,000 more hands to work on finding solutions to people's problems. That would make sense, but no. That is not what happened, despite the additional billions of dollars that this government spent on expanding the public service. The Prime Minister and this government's ministers created so much chaos that even 100,000 more public servants have been unable to correct nine years of complacency. Take, for example, passports, the people who are waiting for EI payments and the thousands of Canadians who have to pay back billions of dollars to the government because the Liberals' pandemic measures were a failure. Let us talk about immigration and the former immigration minister, who not only created the worst management crisis ever at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, but also lost track of one million people. That minister is now in charge of fixing the country's housing crisis. I wonder what that minister has to say to Cédric Dussault, the spokesperson for the Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec, a renters' rights group, who said, “We hear from tenants who intend to commit suicide. This is more than just despair. They do not see a way out, and they want it to be over. That is what it has come to”. That is what it has come to in Canada after nine years of this Prime Minister. This is just a glimpse of Liberal incompetence. In addition to hiring tens of thousands of public servants, this Liberal government has literally doubled the cost of hiring outside consultants. Many of those expenses were unjustified. Here is just one example: ArriveCAN. The government spent $60 million of taxpayers' money on an app developed in a basement by two people with no computer skills. That app was supposed to cost $80,000. Let us do the math. The cost ballooned from $80,000 to $60 million. That is how this government manages public finances. As I said earlier, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost of his government, which has skyrocketed over the past nine years. Let us look back at 2015, when this same Prime Minister promised Canadians that he would run small deficits of $10 billion and balance the budget in four years. Since then, he has not only failed to keep his promise, but he has also become the spendiest prime minister in Canadian history. He single-handedly put Canada further into debt than all previous prime ministers. I am not talking about him spending more than any previous prime minister. I am talking about the debts of all prime ministers combined. This Prime Minister has managed to spend more than all the previous prime ministers combined. He has increased Canadians' debt from $700 billion to $1.3 trillion in just nine years. I never thought I would use the word “trillion” in the House, but that just shows how out of control this government's spending is. That means that today, just to pay the interest on this massive debt, Canadians have to fork over more than $57 billion a year. How much is $57 billion? People wonder, because it is impossible to grasp the scale of a number that big. It is more than what the federal government transfers to the provinces for health care every year. It is the equivalent of all the goods and services tax, or GST, that is collected when people buy goods and services. In other words, every time we pay GST somewhere, it does not go toward improving the environment, national defence or social housing; it goes to pay the interest on this Prime Minister's debt. This Prime Minister has inflated the debt to the point that he no longer sees what effect this spending is having on Canadians. It is contributing to inflation, driving up the price of everything and forcing the Bank of Canada to keep interest rates high. That is what nine budgets from this Prime Minister has done. This ninth budget is no exception. Time and again, we see new spending, stagnating services, rising prices and daily revelations of corruption. This is the perfect example of an incompetent Prime Minister who is not worth the cost. I also wanted to take this opportunity to talk about something that has been a concern of mine for the 25 years that I have been in politics. This theme has only reinforced my decision to be a Conservative in Quebec over the years. I want to talk about the mindset that, no matter what the Liberals do, no matter what the left proposes, whether it is the NDP, the Bloc Québécois or the Liberal Party, just one group suffers as a result of all their good ideas. That group is average Canadians. It is the Quebecker who works hard to support his family. It is the Quebecker who struggles to pay rent, to give her children a decent education, to be a good citizen by volunteering to help those in need. That is a fact. I talk to people in their homes. The only people paying for all this spending are not the Prime Minister, nor his ministers, nor the Liberal government, but the hard-working people at home. Who pays more for gas when someone decides one day that it would be a good idea for gas to be more expensive so that people will use less? Who pays more for electricity because it is bad to waste electricity and because, if the price is raised, people will realize that it is too expensive and then use less? If they need it, they will have to pay either way. The Prime Minister said so himself when he was invited to comment on the rising price of gas before the carbon tax even came into effect. He said that that was exactly what they wanted, for Canadians to pay more. Worse yet, left-wing parties like the Bloc Québécois are not shy about saying that it is not enough. The Bloc says that the carbon tax — they probably also want to talk about the carbon pricing that applies in Quebec — should be radically increased. It is the public that pays every time these people say that they have a good idea. Who pays for these taxes, these bags, these services, these user fees, this big government that is supposed to solve all the problems? It is Canadians. It was Canadians before, it is Canadians now, and it will be Canadians as long as we have a Liberal government. That is why the Conservatives have a common-sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. The “Liberal Bloc” does not want us to keep saying it, but it is a common-sense plan that will ensure that we can give Canadians back a little pride, so that Canadians realize that things were not like this before the Liberals took office and that it will certainly not be like this once they are no longer in power.

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

May/7/24 4:47:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have heard Conservative or Reform members, or however one might want to address members opposite, say that the federal government does not have a role to play in health care. We heard them say that they do not support a pharmacare program, yet a vast majority of Canadians want a Canada health system that reflects the Canada Health Act and see the value of a pharmacare program. Can the member clearly indicate why he and the Reform Party or the Conservative Party do not believe that the federal government has a role to play when it comes to a national health care system?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

May/7/24 4:48:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is the leftist party or, pardon me, the Liberal Party of Canada. I will take no lessons from the Liberal Party. Why? It is because every day when we pick up the newspapers and turn on the television, we see moving accounts of mothers who cannot find housing for July 1. In Quebec, July 1 is an extremely important date. Those mothers will have to find a place to live and are resigned to the idea of having to live in their minivans. Business owners are going bankrupt because the cost of paying down their debt and input costs is now more than they can afford. Quebec has seen a 130% increase in small business bankruptcies over the past three years. That is unacceptable. I always wonder why the Liberals avoid talking about these issues that affect Canadians and Quebeckers every day.

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Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquière, BQ)

May/7/24 4:49:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to know that Quebeckers are suffering because of with the costly Conservative-Liberal coalition that panders to the Canadian oil monarchy. Some $47 million is being spent on the Governor General every year. What do the Conservatives do? They sing God Save the King. By 2035, it is going to cost us a collective $83 billion to prop up the greedy oil industry. That cost is $18 billion for 2023 alone. In the last four years, $65 billion has gone to rich oil and gas tycoons. The Conservatives are being taken for fools. They applaud. They want more. It is pretty simple: What is costing the people of Quebec so dearly is voting Conservative.

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Mr. Luc Berthold

May/7/24 4:50:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, hypocrisy abounds. It was the Bloc Québécois that voted for this government's $500 billion in additional spending. As a result, everything costs more now. It was the Bloc Québécois that voted for additional funding to build a pipeline. They are not about to shout it from the rooftops, but they voted in favour of additional funds to build the pipeline. The Bloc Québécois members are the ones telling Canadians and Quebeckers who use their cars to get around every day that they still do not pay enough taxes. The Bloc Québécois would like to see gasoline taxes radically increased in order to encourage people to use less gas, since it costs more. Once again, they are making citizens pay for ideologies. That is what I call the hypocrisy of the Bloc Québécois.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP)

May/7/24 4:51:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing that I admit I have concerns about in the budget is the lack of funding for first nations languages. We have heard clearly from the First Peoples' Cultural Council that this is a significant concern. For me, I think about the many communities that are working with North Island College in my region to set up classes to teach language. I think about ‘Namgis, which has a facility where they nest young people to learn the language, and Tla'amin, which is doing something very similar. Does the member share my concern around first nations languages in the budget?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

May/7/24 4:51:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I share my colleague's concerns regarding the first nations. Even though my riding does not have all that many first nations representatives, I am very proud to see that Chief Billy Morin has just joined the Conservative Party. He will be a candidate for us in the next election. We are very proud to have people of that calibre working with us to improve everyday life for first nations across Canada.

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Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

May/7/24 4:52:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand up on behalf of the people of Barrie—Innisfil in the House of Commons and, in this case, in particular, to discuss the budget implementation act. If one listens to the Liberals, and I have been in the House for most of today, one would almost get the sense that Canadians have never had it so good as what they have right now. The member for Ajax stood up before, and I recall asking him a question about Canada's productivity. We are seeing declines in productivity, investment and capital investment, other than government investment; it is at a point where our productivity is heading into developing nation status right now. It is obvious that the ability of Canadians to have some sort of lifestyle or provide for a quality of life for themselves is clearly diminishing after nine years of the current NDP-Liberal government. There is not one day that I am in my Barrie—Innisfil office, not one phone call and not one email that is telling me that their life is better after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government. In fact, I would say that we spend most of our time, and my staff's time, in my Barrie—Innisfil office walking people in off the ledge, because they are so concerned about their economic future. I recall that, a couple of months ago, I had a senior come into my office. Fortunately, he had a mortgage, but he had to renew it. With the new interest rates, mortgage renewal rates, the way they are, he was only going to be left with $600 at the end of the month to pay his property taxes, to pay his heat, to pay his hydro and to buy groceries. That is an indictment of nine years of failed economic policy, and it is having a severe impact on Canadians right across the country. The budget does nothing to address that. In fact, I will subscribe to the idea that it actually makes things worse for Canadians, especially in the younger generation. In 2015, younger Canadians voted for the Prime Minister; he was talking about providing them with hope over fear and all the other things he was talking about. He said that things were going to be better for the next generation; in fact, things have gotten worse. Young people right now do not just feel as though they have been lied to and let down. Rather, they feel as though they have been left behind after nine years of the Liberal-NDP government. I will go one step further. Any young person whom I talk to right now does not just feel that. Young people are despondent right now, because they do not feel as though they are going to have the same opportunities as their parents had. They have done everything right. They have gone to university. They have gotten educated. In some cases, some of them are working three or four jobs just to get by. However, because of the economic policies of the government, they still cannot afford to come up with the down payment to buy a home. Those who have bought a home are now facing a mortgage renewal crisis that this country has not seen in generations. Moms are being kept up at night, trying to figure out how they are going to pay for their mortgages, because mortgage rates have tripled as a result of the failed economic policies of the Liberal government. When one listens to the Liberal government, it is almost as though Liberals do not realize that they have been in government for nine years and that they have created the mess we are in right now through failed economic policies. When one injects as much liquidity into the system and one creates as much debt and deficit as we are dealing with right now, what does one think is going to happen? The Leader of the Opposition was predicting three or four years ago that we were going to see interest rates increase as a result. The only lever that the Bank of Canada has to curb inflation is to raise interest rates. We have heard from former Liberal finance ministers and from former Bank of Canada governors, who keep saying the same thing: It is almost as if the Bank of Canada is pressing on the brakes while the Liberal government is pouring more fuel on the inflationary fires. There is no greater example of that than what is within the budget: There is $40 billion in additional spending and $56.1 in interest costs, just to service the debt. The debt has been doubled by the Prime Minister; his insatiable appetite to spend is putting at risk the economic prosperity of millions of young Canadians, including my kids. That $56.1 billion is more than we spend in health care transfers to the provinces, and it is almost an equal amount to what we take in on the GST. It was the former NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair, who said just shortly after the budget that the GST is designed to pay for many of the services Canadians rely on. Every time somebody goes out and fills up their car with gas, goes out for dinner or buys a ticket to something, they pay the GST. They pay it knowing that it is designed to go towards providing for the social safety net that Canadians rely on in this country. However, right now, almost every single penny of the GST is going toward servicing the cost of the debt accumulated by the Prime Minister and the failed NDP-Liberal experiment. As Tom Mulcair said, “It is no longer the GST. It is the DST, the debt service tax”. He could not have been more correct. The government is hiding behind generational fairness, but the generational mess it has created for younger Canadians is not going to be fixed by the budget. It is going to be fixed by a government that lives within its means and that focuses on the revenue side of the ledger rather than solely the expense side. By that, I mean not attacking income-producing sectors of our economy that have historically created great wealth for our nation, such as our natural resource sector and agriculture sectors. Those sectors have contributed greatly to not just providing for that social safety net but also to being able to provide for Canadians. In the natural resource sector, we have a big role to play in providing clean Canadian energy to the rest of the world, and there is no greater example of that than when the President of Germany came to Canada, begging for LNG. Energy security is the number one issue that Europe is facing right now. He came to Canada, and our Prime Minister shooed him away as though there was no business case for that. Two weeks later, the same German president signed a $27-billion deal with Qatar, which has fewer environmental, labour and human rights standards. That $27 billion could have come to Canada to be used to improve health care, education and the quality of life of not just the next generation but also future generations to come. We have seen an increase in housing costs. We have seen rent and house prices double. We are seeing mortgage rates that, in some cases, have tripled. Hundreds of thousands of homes are now due for mortgage renewal, and these next couple of months and the budget would do nothing to allay the fears that moms have when they go to renew their mortgage, already facing an increasing affordability crisis and a housing attainability crisis. The last thing I want to focus on is the fact that the government has raised the carbon tax again by 23%, and that is not the end of it. We are at $80 a tonne right now, and we are heading up to $170. After the 2019 election, the government said the price would never go up past $50 a tonne. We are already past that point, and it is expected to double, which is going to increase the cost of everything, such as the necessities of life, as well as housing costs, the cost of groceries and the cost of transporting goods. Everything will become more expensive in this country, and as our productivity continues to decline, so too will the quality of life of Canadians. I am going to vote against the budget because it would do nothing to improve the quality of life for future generations or this generation today.

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

May/7/24 5:02:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let us think of the improvement in the quality of life for the thousands of young people who are going to have the opportunity to gain employment through companies like the VW plant, Canada's largest manufacturing plant; 200 football fields could fit into it. That is not to mention the Honda plant. We are not alone. Not only does the Liberal government see that, but so does the Progressive Conservative Government of Ontario, because it is also supporting these two initiatives. We are supporting industries, and, yes, it does cost money. Can the member from the Reform Party tell us why it is that they oppose this type of investment, when we see Progressive Conservatives getting behind it?

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Mr. John Brassard

May/7/24 5:03:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thought I made a pretty substantive argument as to why, in some cases, the budget was not going to work for Canadians. If the hon. member wants to sit here and hurl insults, it is his prerogative to do so. The fact is that we do not know. In the absence of seeing any of the contracts that have been signed, either through Stellantis or Volkswagen, the only thing we know is that there are billions of dollars' worth of government subsidies being applied to these plants, on the credit card, by the way, because, again, we are at $1.4 trillion in debt. Just last week, the finance minister announced that she wanted to increase that debt ceiling by another $295 billion to $2.1 trillion. Why does the government not provide confidence for Canadians and show just where the work is going to come from? All we are hearing right now is that there are a lot of temporary foreign workers, non-Canadians, who are going to be working in the plants. Show us the proof; that is all we ask.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

May/7/24 5:04:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there was a time when people who voted Conservative in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada could be sure that the autonomy of their government would be respected and that the interference would stop. However, the Conservative Party voted against our motion calling for an end to interference and for the right to opt out with compensation for the provinces that did not want to implement certain programs that they already manage. It is a matter of not duplicating bills. Can my colleague explain this disconnect? In future, what will they do to avoid this?

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Mr. John Brassard

May/7/24 5:05:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I fundamentally believe that here in Ottawa, the federal government has a role to play in assisting the provinces. However, provincial jurisdiction must be respected. Our leader respects provincial jurisdiction and will work with the premiers of every province in order to ensure that we have a confederation that is functioning and united, not divided. The Prime Minister has a tendency to divide us along regional lines, race lines, faith lines, gender lines and the house status of our neighbour, and now, by creating a new class war, he has another reason to divide people. I believe that if we are going to have a functioning confederacy, we need a prime minister who not only respects provincial jurisdiction but also works with the provinces and provincial leaders.

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Confederation

Mr. Taylor Bachrach (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP)

May/7/24 5:06:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the federal budget includes a commitment to start a procurement process to replace Via Rail's long-distance fleet, some of the oldest rolling stock used by passenger trains in the whole world, built in the 1960s and sorely in need of replacement. I wonder what the Conservative Party's position is on replacing the long-distance passenger trains that are used by Via Rail.

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Mr. John Brassard

May/7/24 5:06:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, clearly the country is in desperate need of infrastructure replacement, and not just from a rail standpoint. The difficulty I have with the budget, frankly, is that it does not necessarily focus all of its attention on that. I see a lot of debt and a lot of deficit. I see problems for future generations that are going to be caught up in many of the issues that the budget faces, not the least of which is the ability for young people to have hope for their future. They are being weighed down in mountains of debt and deficit as well. We need to control spending.

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Mr. Sean Casey (Charlottetown, Lib.)

May/7/24 5:07:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the budget implementation act and how budget 2024 impacts the good people of Charlottetown, whom I am proud to represent. I would like to start by congratulating the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister for her hard work in judiciously addressing the most pressing priorities of Canadians while being mindful of spending. We have heard lots of discourse in recent weeks on the budget deficit, but not nearly enough on the importance of investing to meet the needs of those people who need it most. Canadians deserve a government that can invest in the supports they need to live safe, healthy lives, while managing spending over the longer term. Far and away the most important issue for Islanders is, consistently, health care. The budget reaffirms the government's commitment to allocate $200 billion over 10 years to strengthen universal public health care. Through bilateral agreements signed by the federal government with all provinces and territories, the budget continues to work collaboratively to deliver good-quality public health care for all Canadians. Budget 2024 also commits $1.5 billion over five years into the first national pharmacare plan. This includes free contraception, which allows every woman to choose the method of contraception that works for her and covers diabetes medication, improving the lives of 3.7 million Canadians living with diabetes. In Prince Edward Island, the 2023 pilot program improving access to affordable prescription drugs had previously reduced copays to five dollars for eligible medications used for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and mental health. The program also substantially grew the size of the formulary in Prince Edward Island to bring it on par with the other Atlantic provinces. The national pharmacare program further expands on increasing accessibility of life-saving drugs for Canadians. In my home province of Prince Edward Island, one in three Islanders lives with diabetes or prediabetes. This investment will go a long way toward supporting them and preventing further complications by reducing the cost barrier to finding appropriate medication. Finally, budget 2024 introduces the Canadian dental care program. Over the next year, more than nine million Canadians who are currently without health insurance will have access to the dental health care they need. I would like to underline here that I understand the apprehensions of dentists and other oral care providers in signing on to the program. The Minister of Health has been remarkably proactive in hearing these concerns and working to address them. We are already seeing progress. I am confident that providers will do the right thing and work with the federal government to address their concerns and to work in the interest of 400,000 seniors who have already signed up to the program from coast to coast. I had the opportunity to meet in my office with a group of dentists, including the president of the Dental Association of Prince Edward Island. They went through the list of preoccupations they had with the program, but they ended on a very positive note, which is that, to a person, every single dentist and oral health care provider is there for their patients, acting in their best interests. The demand and the need for the program have been manifest by the number of people who have signed up. I am confident that health care providers will, at the end of the day, act in the best interests of their patients to help ensure the success of the program. I firmly believe that, and I have faith in them to do that. I also have faith in the minister to ensure that their concerns will be met. The second priority I would like to talk about is housing. There are several commendable measures in the budget, too many to list, but I would like to touch on a few of them. The first is the additional $400-million investment in the housing accelerator fund, which has been fast-tracking the construction of 750,000 new homes over the next decade, since its launch. In my province, the housing accelerator fund agreements with municipalities will lead to 895 new homes over the next three years across the province, 300 of which will be in the capital city of Charlottetown. It is a program that works. It is a program that is sought after by municipalities. It is a program that is exceptionally popular. It is a program that will continue to deliver the affordable, sustainable housing that Canadians need. Another initiative I would like to speak to is the removal of GST on student residences in post-secondary institutions. Prince Edward Island is home to over 8,000 students. The initiative will help institutions provide safe housing for students on campus. It is something that is a preoccupation of university presidents. I have had conversations with them. It is a welcome initiative from the government, recognizing an important need both on P.E.I. and across the country. The budget, in fact, significantly invests in post-secondary education and in the future of millennial and gen Z youth as they navigate the educational landscape. Indeed, with investments in new strategic research infrastructure and federal research support, core research grants, and increases to the Canada student grants and Canada student loans, budget 2024 sets students up for success by ensuring that anyone can have access to world-class post-secondary education without cost barriers. This will also ensure that Canada remains at the forefront of innovative research and technology in a rapidly changing global environment. Not only does the budget work for post-secondary students, but it also establishes a national school food program, providing nutritious meals to 400,000 children from K to 12 every year. While schools remain under provincial jurisdiction, the $10-a-day child care bilateral agreements from coast to coast show that our government is more than capable of collaborating with progressive provinces and territories to support those people who need it most. Much like the Quebec early learning and child care infrastructure informed $10-a-day child care, the Prince Edward Island school food program can serve as a successful template on which to model a national program. I was pleased to have the minister responsible tour and see the Prince Edward Island program in broad light in the last three or four months. The program launched in 2020. It served 600,000 meals in 2023 and will serve an estimated 800,000 meals this year. There is much to learn from the structure and impacts of the program, and it can certainly be scaled up to meet national needs. The government has worked hard to lift children out of poverty, and the school food program will continue to do so, ensuring that they have access to the nutrition they need now to prepare them for tomorrow. I would like to speak about some measures that will positively impact Prince Edward Island in particular. In budget 2024, the government proposes extending five more weeks of employment insurance payouts to seasonal workers for another two years. While this does fall short of returning Prince Edward Island to one EI zone, it does extend much-needed relief to the almost 3,000 seasonal workers on P.E.I. Another measure in the budget is freezing the Confederation Bridge tolls and maintaining ferry fees to Nova Scotia until 2026. These measures are important in keeping travel from P.E.I. to the rest of the country affordable. It will benefit Islanders who regularly travel for work, to see their loved ones, or to access health care. I was also pleased to see the establishment of the new Pituamkek national park reserve on the north coast of Prince Edward Island. Not only does this area have ecological significance due to its low contact with humans, but it is also important in understanding and preserving Mi’kmaq culture and settlement patterns. It is thus an important initiative that will help us interpret the past, while protecting biodiversity into the future. Through these measures and more, budget 2024 delivers a sound plan for Canadians that I am proud to support. It solidifies the economy, supports the middle class and those working hard to join it, and truly delivers fairness for every generation.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

May/7/24 5:17:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is the chair at the Standing Committee on Health, and I really want to commend him for the important work he does there. It is a difficult committee to be running these days, especially with the toxic drug crisis study we are doing. My colleague is also a coastal MP and he knows how important the ghost gear fund is to coastal people for removing polystyrene or plastic pollution. Ghost gear is about 70% of the plastics we find in our oceans. We have the longest coastline in the world. We just hosted the INC-4 and what do we do in this budget? The government removed the funding for the ghost gear fund. Will my colleague be going back to the minister and demanding that the government reinstate this world-class program?

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Fund

Mr. Sean Casey

May/7/24 5:18:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can assure my colleague that the health committee is more manageable in part because of his presence. With regard to his question on ghost gear, this problem has dramatically increased in our part of the world thanks to hurricane Fiona, so the short answer to his question is yes. This is not the time to be cutting funding for programs to retrieve ghost gear, certainly not on the east coast. The fact he is raising it means that is probably also the case on the west coast. I would be happy to work with him to advocate for the reinstatement or an increase in funding on this issue.

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Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC)

May/7/24 5:19:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as the chair of the health committee, someone who should have their finger on the pulse of the health care crisis we are facing in just about every province and territory across this country, how can he possibly go back to his constituents or any Canadian and explain that, as a result of this budget, we are paying $54.1 billion in taxpayer money just to manage the debt the Liberal government is placing on Canadians? That is more than the funding the government is transferring to the provinces and territories to cover health care. How does he go back to his constituents and explain the government is spending more on managing the debt than it actually is helping provinces with health care?

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