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May/9/24 11:17:56 p.m.
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I am certain that all members can agree that his daughter is indeed adorable. The hon. member for London North Centre.

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May/9/24 11:18:05 p.m.
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She gets all her looks from her mother, actually, Mr. Speaker, but I appreciate those kind remarks. I have talked about the importance of modular home construction. I think it is fundamental to dealing with the housing crisis that is at hand. I have said that. The minister has said that. Advocates across the country have said that. I applaud the member for meeting with advocates, along with firefighters, in the work they are doing in union advocacy. Certainly, the Conservatives would not sit down with unions, or maybe they would but it would not be serious. Regardless, there is a national building code that ensures certain standards of safety are maintained. On my end, I will continue to work with those advocates who want to ensure that. There are many provisions in our national building code, which, of course, is interpreted at the provincial level by governments as well, to ensure safety in the way that the member advocates. I think that she and I are on the same page in that regard. Let us move forward on these things together.

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Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

May/9/24 11:19:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting conversation about modular homes. They are being built in a way right now that far exceeds any normal building standards. They are an option for the housing crisis in this country. The challenge with modular home builders right now is that, although they could scale up and actually build two or three times more than what they are building right now, they have a problem with cash flow. Oftentimes, they are required to pay out the development, which causes problems in terms of their ability to put these modular homes on developed spaces. I just visited a modular home builder and cash flow is critical, so finding some way of advancing or eliminating the cash flow crisis that exists can actually help build these homes and scale them up in a much greater capacity. However, this budget does not address that.

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Mr. Peter Fragiskatos

May/9/24 11:20:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have enormous respect for my hon. colleague, because I know he cares about his community. We may have certain fundamental disagreements on matters of policy, but I know he cares about his community. I have heard how passionately over the years he has raised the issues facing his community. While modular homes are not the focus of the fall economic statement, they certainly have been given attention in the recent budget of 2024. If the member wants to see businesses, perhaps in his community, receive loan support, which is in budget 2024, among other supports, I would advise him to get behind budget 2024, read it and support it, along with the housing accelerator fund, which the Conservative Party has voted against. The member talked about lifting certain restrictions at local levels. I think it is fundamental that Conservatives get onside with a better way of doing things.

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Mr. Ryan Turnbull (Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Lib.)

May/9/24 11:21:24 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-59

Mr. Speaker, every day, Conservatives stand up in the House and cite food bank lineups, as if they care. They are also clear that they are going to vote against the national school food program. One of the other measures that we have taken, of course, in Bill C-59 is competition reform. I wonder if my colleague could speak to the importance of having more competition.

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Mr. Peter Fragiskatos

May/9/24 11:21:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we do need more competition. In fact, I was very encouraged to hear the Minister of Industry confirm that he is looking at making sure that we have more competition in the grocery sector. It is something I have advocated for, for a very long time locally in London. This is something that we need to see across the country. Whether it is the measures my colleague talked about specifically in terms of the Competition Act, or looking beyond our borders to bring in more competition, this would be a great thing.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC)

May/9/24 11:22:20 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-234

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise, as always, to speak in the House. Tonight, we are talking about the fall economic statement. Yes, members heard me right. We are talking about the economic statement from fall 2023. It is worth pointing out that the Liberals have an arrangement with the NDP to support them, so they actually have a majority. How badly does one have to mismanage the House schedule to not have finished passing the fall economic statement by the time one actually has introduced a new budget in 2024? It is what it is. The reality is that it does not matter which budget or economic statement the Liberals bring forward, because their elements are all the same. The first thing that one will see in every budget or economic statement that comes from the Liberals is huge government overspending, a huge deficit. The fall economic statement did not disappoint in that respect. We see, again, that they continue to pour deficit spending on the inflationary fire. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has said that this makes it very difficult for him to lower interest rates, something that is hurting Canadians. We know that affordability is an issue, and this large deficit spending is just not helpful. The second feature and benefit that one can always see in an economic statement or a budget from the Liberals is increased taxes. Once again, we see that they are increasing taxes in the bill. The other thing one can count on is that there will be all kinds of programs, but the execution of the programs will not actually benefit anybody in the country. Those are really the main elements in the fall economic statement. Interestingly, I have a new intern in my office. She is 20. She is very interested in getting involved in the political process. I gave her an exercise to go and write a speech about the budget. Without any of the usual talking points or anything, this is what she wrote, and I think it applies, to illustrate my point, equally well to the fall economic statement. She wrote, “After nine years of this Prime Minister and this Liberal-NDP government, Canadians are worse off than ever. Housing costs have doubled, interest rates have skyrocketed, and food banks can't keep up with the demand. Instead of helping Canadians, this new budget proposes billions of dollars in inflationary spending...which will only increase the cost of living and make life harder for Canadians! “To briefly outline some of the main aspects of the budget, this coalition government promises to create economic prosperity within Canada, as well as building more homes and making them affordable. However, these promises are not new. Rather, they are almost identical to the promises made over the past nine years, promises that the Liberals failed to deliver time and time again. It seems this Liberal government believes that if they try the same thing over and over, it will lead to different results. That's the definition of insanity.” That is what a 20-year-old thinks about the budgets and the economic statements that the Liberals are bringing forward. It is no wonder, because, in 2015, when I got elected, the Liberals promised to make housing more affordable. They have promised it and promised it; here we are, nine years up the road, and they are still promising to make housing more affordable. The reality is that housing costs, mortgages, rents and down payments have doubled; the average Canadian is now spending 61% of their disposable income on housing. The Liberals have not made housing more affordable, and I do not see anything in the economic statement that is going to do the trick. In fact, what I would say is that some of the ideas in here are unbelievable. They talk about leveraging the Infrastructure Bank to build housing. The Infrastructure Bank took $35 billion from municipalities, money that was supposed to build infrastructure in those municipalities, and put it into this bank with the idea that they would be able to attract private investment and leverage money to build projects. They loaded up with all the Liberal insider friends to run the thing and never built any projects. Here we are, five years up the road, and now they think they are going to use that bank, which attracted no private investment, to build houses. It is ludicrous. It is not going to happen. What I would say is that the Liberals have taken some of our Conservative leader's good ideas and they have put them in here. Taking the GST off new houses is one, which is a great idea, and there are a couple of other ideas that our Conservative colleagues had. I see a number of ideas from private members' bills that talked about maternity benefits and adoptive parent benefits, things like that, which were adopted in here, so it is good that the Liberals could learn from the good ideas that Conservatives have. Using federal lands and freeing up federal lands to build housing on is another great idea from the Conservatives. Those are the highlights of the economic update, but one of the titles in the economic update is “Making Life More Affordable”. I already talked about the housing part of it. Let us talk about the rest of it. The Liberals have jacked up the carbon tax, and the carbon tax has driven the cost of everything up. It has added 17¢ a litre to gasoline. It is a multiplier on the increased cost of food. If I think about the Parliamentary Budget Officer, he was saying that every year food prices have increased. The average person is paying $1,400 more for food than they used to pay. I add that to the carbon tax, which, depending on the province one is in could be $1,800 a year, and then I will talk about some of the other things. I have a staffer who just got her insurance premium update, and it went up $1,000 a year. They said the reason that it was going up was inflation and car theft. Again, it is these Liberal policies that are driving inflation and not addressing the catch and release of criminals who are stealing vehicles. It is unbelievable. Before the pandemic, 50% of Canadians were within $200 of not being able to pay their bills. With all the things I just quoted, if I add those up, it is an extra $500 a month. Everybody is in the red. The Liberals have taken the middle class and they have turned it into the poor hoping to join back to the middle class. It is unacceptable. We see that the Liberals, at the same time, have piled on with increased CPP and EI premium taxes, tax increases at a time when Canadians can least afford it, and they intend to quadruple the carbon tax. They also have increased the tax on alcohol and beer. This is something that is an every-year measure without any parliamentary oversight. It was put in a budget a few years ago, and Canadians are feeling the pinch. Another title in the budget is “Making Groceries More Affordable”. Have the the Liberals been to the grocery store and seen how expensive it is? It is ridiculous. They offer support for Canadians in their energy bills. In addition to the carbon tax, we have brought forward some great ideas like Bill C-234 to take the carbon tax off farmers to make food more affordable, but the government is keeping that from going forward. It has done nothing to help keep food more affordable. What about supporting small businesses? The government would not let them extend their CEBA loan repayments, even with the hard-pressed small business environment from the pandemic, and now they are getting squeezed with a capital gains tax, even though these small business owners were told that this is how they would accumulate money for their retirement because they do not have pensions as they are entrepreneurs. Now the government has changed the rules, and it has changed them retroactively. Instead of saying going forward it is going to change them, now it is punishing small business owners. There are all these programs, and I do not have enough time to go into all of them, but the school food program has no food in it. It is provincial jurisdiction, so that is a waste of time. The dental program has no dentists signed up in most of the provinces. In P.E.I., Northwest Territories and Yukon there are none there. If I look, it is 25% or less in some of the other provinces, and people are left with the impression it is going to be free. It is not free. The government only covers 70%. People who cannot afford dental care cannot pay that other 30%, so it failed. That is my conclusion

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

May/9/24 11:32:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I certainly got a lot out of that— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Speaker

May/9/24 11:32:30 p.m.
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I know it is late at night. People are tired, and perhaps they do not have as much restraint as they normally do. I will ask all members to let us take it on in. There are only about 28 minutes left in this debate, so let us try to keep it together. The hon. member from Kingston and the Islands.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

May/9/24 11:32:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would be lying if I said that I do not have a bit of FOMO for not being invited to the party in the back room. In any event, I found it very interesting when the member said that the Liberals took all the Conservatives' great ideas and put them into the fall economic statement, yet she still will not vote for it. What is going on here? Does she not like the initiatives that she claims the Liberals took from the Conservatives?

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu

May/9/24 11:33:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the problem is not the great ideas the Liberals took from the Conservatives, but the huge, overspending deficits and the ballooning taxes that are going to hurt and punish Canadians, and are going to increase the misery that the Liberals have already caused.

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Ms. Niki Ashton (Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, NDP)

May/9/24 11:33:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker I will say, right off the bat, that it is troubling to hear the dismissal of the dental care program, the importance of the school food program and the infrastructure investments that we have seen, and much of that is the result of the push by the NDP. My question to the member is this. Her party claims to defend working people and to want fairness for working people. We know that working people are paying more than their fair share when it comes to taxes, but who is not paying their fair share are the rich. I am wonder why the Conservatives are not coming out in support of the increase in the capital gains tax, recognizing it is a way of getting the richest in our country to pay more than what they are paying now, which is not quite their fair share. That would be revenue that could be reinvested in the needs that Canadians have across the country.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu

May/9/24 11:34:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would say if the member really cares about the working class, she would quit propping up the Liberal government to increase the carbon tax on people, increase their CPP and EI premiums, increase the cost of groceries and all the things that are being propped up by the NDP's support of the Liberal government.

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Mr. Warren Steinley (Regina—Lewvan, CPC)

May/9/24 11:35:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question for my colleague. Did she ever think that Canada would pay more in debt-servicing than it does in health care transfers to the provinces? That is something I never thought I would see, $54.1 billion in debt repayment, which is more than what we are going to give to the provinces for health care. What do you have to say about that, and what do you think your constituents would say about that?

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The Speaker

May/9/24 11:35:46 p.m.
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I am certain that question was through the Chair to the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu

May/9/24 11:35:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, health care is super important to Canadians. Our health care system is ailing. We do not have enough doctors as it is. What drives me crazy is not just that we are going to pay $56 billion of interest on the debt, but also the fact that we have turned down $59 billion for LNG from Germany, $59 billion of revenue from Japan for LNG, another $60 billion from the Netherlands for LNG. Those are all things the Liberal government has turned down. That money could help pay off the debt and help our health care system.

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Mr. Randeep Sarai (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, Lib.)

May/9/24 11:36:37 p.m.
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Through you, Mr. Speaker, I just want to ask this. The member opposite was blaming the insurance premium going up on, I believe, her staffer or somebody at her house. I wonder if it was from a car accident or repairs or if it was from a flood to a house or whatnot. How can the government be responsible for insurance premiums? I would really like to know how the budget was responsible for the insurance premium hike of $1,000.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu

May/9/24 11:37:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, absolutely, I can be very concise, because the insurance company told my staffer that the reason for the $1,000 increase in premiums was inflation and car theft. The Liberal government, with Bill C-75, made car theft go up 100% across the country, and it is driving inflation by pouring deficits on the inflationary fire.

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Mr. Randeep Sarai (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, Lib.)

May/9/24 11:37:39 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-59 Bill C-56

Mr. Speaker, last November, the government introduced Bill C-59, the fall economic statement implementation act of 2023. Among other measures, Bill C-59 proposed significant amendments to our Competition Act. I am proud to share that the Standing Committee on Finance has recently completed its review of the bill and has made several amendments to further strengthen existing proposals. For many years, Canada's markets have been described as overly concentrated and not competitive enough. In fact, the landmark Competition Bureau study last year, based on Statistics Canada data and analysis from a University of Toronto professor, made critical findings in this respect, showing that competitive intensity has been on the decline over the past two decades, which is reflected in a number of important indicators. These trends have been exacerbated by the inflationary pressures our country is facing following a global pandemic and increasing geopolitical uncertainty. Bill C-59 was introduced to help build a stronger domestic economy through more competition and contestable markets to bring lower prices, more choice and better product quality for consumers across all sectors. The proposed amendments to the Competition Act in Bill C-59 arose out of a comprehensive public consultation conducted from November 2022 to March 2023. Having heard from stakeholders, the government introduced Bill C-56, the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, which was ultimately passed by this Parliament in December 2023. Completing its response to the consultation, the government then presented a more extensive set of reforms by way of Bill C-59. The measures in this bill include strengthening provisions with respect to merger review, enhancing protections for consumers, workers and the environment, and broadening opportunities for private enforcement. We should not underestimate just how critical these reforms are for modernizing our laws and promoting competitive markets. The commissioner of competition has stated on multiple occasions that the amendments in Bill C-56 and Bill C-59 are “generational.” I would therefore like to highlight some important reforms that have been proposed. To begin with, anti-competitive collaborations between competitors would be under increased scrutiny as the bureau would be able to examine and, if necessary, seek penalties against coordinated conduct that lessens competition. Up until now, at worst the participants would be told to stop what they are doing. The expansion of private enforcement and the ability of the Competition Tribunal to issue monetary payment orders in cases initiated by private parties are also significant changes to our existing enforcement approach. By relaxing the requirements to bring a case and providing an incentive to bring matters directly to the Competition Tribunal, there would be greater accountability throughout the marketplace and more action on cases that the Competition Bureau may not be able to take. More competition is always beneficial to consumers, but the bill also takes some direct approaches to protect consumers. These include strengthening provisions on deceptive marketing, such as applying requirements more broadly so vendors must present the full cost of a product or service up front without holding back mandatory fees, known as “drip pricing.” The law is further being refined to make it easier to ensure that advertised rebates are authentic when compared to a vendor's past prices. Businesses making environmental claims about their products would be required to have undertaken adequate and proper testing before advertising their benefits. Together, these changes would ensure that consumers have accurate and complete information about products and services in order to make informed purchasing decisions. I would also like to highlight barriers to repair, which have been an issue of great importance in recent years. Where manufacturers refuse to provide the means of diagnosis or repair in a way that harms competition, remedial orders would be available to require them to furnish what is necessary. This could help a wider variety of service providers offer more options to consumers when choosing where to repair their products. On top of everything I have mentioned so far, anti-reprisal provisions would also ensure that the system can function. These are included to ensure that workers and small businesses are protected from potential retaliation when they work with the authorities to address anti-competitive behaviour and violations of the act by other parties. These reforms, along with various administrative changes, aimed at facilitating efficient enforcement of the act, are crucial to ensuring that Canadian markets remain competitive and in line with international practices. It has been acknowledged by all members of the House that our competition framework requires reform. My colleagues have engaged in thoughtful discussion on ways to modernize the existing marketplace framework. Nothing exemplifies this better than the enthusiasm shown by members of all parties to strengthen these provisions of Bill C-59 once it reaches the Standing Committee on Finance, especially in light of recommendations made by the commissioner of competition. The amendments adopted in committee notably relate to merger review, deceptive marketing, and refusal to repair. The committee members were quite interested in enhancing protections for consumers and the environment, and these are the ones that I would like to draw attention to now. First, clarifications were made to ensure that in the Competition Act's various provisions on drip pricing, the only amounts that could be excluded from the upfront price are those imposed by law directly on the purchaser of the product, such as sales tax. Next, with the committee's amendment, sellers advertising reduced prices would now be required to be able to prove that regular price is authentic in order to publicize their discounts. On the topic of doubtful environmental claims, or so-called greenwashing, the law would also require that those who make environmental claims about their businesses or business activities, not only specific products, must have adequate and proper substantiation in hand to support such claims. On refusal to repair, the committee added some helpful clarifications to ensure that the scope of provision was broad enough. In sum, amidst the period of inflation and growing affordability concerns, it is crucial that our markets remain resilient and open to competition. Bill C-59 would reform Canada's competitive landscape, encourage greater innovation, and improve affordability for Canadians. Therefore, I would like to urge my colleagues from all sides of the House to work together to expeditiously pass this crucial piece of legislation.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC)

May/9/24 11:45:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member opposite talked about the importance of increasing competition, and I do agree with that. However, it does not seem consistent with the actions of the government that approved the Shaw merger with Rogers and the acquisition of the HSBC bank by RBC. These things are definitely not increasing competition. Could the member explain how that is consistent with the Liberal government's direction?

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