SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 314 - May/21/24

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/21/24 6:44:37 p.m.
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The additional information is duly noted and will be taken under consideration. The honourable member for Battle River—Crowfoot is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Damien Kurek (Battle River—Crowfoot, CPC)

May/21/24 6:44:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on that question of privilege, I would note that this is not a one-off instance, and the member tried to suggest that somehow privileges were not being violated. However, if we look back on a series of Order Paper questions that have been asked, the government has been required to provide supplementary answers when there was inaccurate information that was provided to the House, which it had to correct, and it is very clear that this has become a trend. Therefore, when that member, who was speaking on behalf of the government, suggests that somehow members' privileges were not violated, I think it speaks to a very troubling trend we are seeing from this government, which is that it feels it is unnecessary to provide fulsome, accurate and appropriate information, as Canadians would certainly expect. As parliamentarians, we should be able to use the processes that are provided to this place and to all members to be able to have and to expect accurate information. My suggestion, which I hope would be taken under serious consideration, is that this continual trend where inaccurate or incomplete information is provided, and then we have to use mechanisms like a question of privilege in order to force the government to actually provide that information, is in fact a violation of a member's privilege, which is so important to the appropriate functioning of this place and, ultimately, to the ability for Canadians to get information from their government.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/21/24 6:46:32 p.m.
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I want to thank the hon. member for the additional information. I do not have the actual question that was posed before me, so I am not sure if the hon. member was deviating a bit, but no matter what, the information has been noted and will be taken into consideration. I do wish to advise the hon. member that a decision will be rendered soon. On another point of order, the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

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Mr. Damien Kurek

May/21/24 6:47:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just to clarify, as I hope was made clear in my remarks for when this is reviewed further later, this is not the first time that a question of privilege has been related—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/21/24 6:47:16 p.m.
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That information was provided, as I have already indicated, and now it is becoming more of a point of debate.

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Mr. Chris Bittle (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, Lib.)

May/21/24 6:47:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here today to discuss the budget implementation act. I was listening to the previous Conservative member. Unfortunately, we seem to be, and it is not surprising to anyone here, falling into the same pattern, which is just a verb the noun slogan after slogan, but not really saying anything. It is shocking that the community of the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, who spoke before me, experienced one of the worst environmental disasters in Canadian history a couple of years ago, with significant damage to his community. It is still struggling to deal with it years later, and the only answer he has is to make pollution free again. It is the only answer Conservatives have on that side. I have said before that the only plank in the Conservative environmental agenda is recycled slogans. However, this is a real crisis. To have that member see his own community go through what it went through and to still come here and repeat an empty slogan that he knows will not have any impact, it just speaks to the modern Conservative movement. There is no seriousness on climate change, no seriousness on getting homes built and no seriousness on building our economy. It is just verb the noun. That is all Conservatives have. They can say it over and over again, but they do not have a plan. I was at an announcement last week in Niagara. It was a great announcement from governments that have a plan and that invest in workers and in their communities. It was based on a partnership with Honda and the major Honda announcement that happened in Alliston. Asahi Kasei, a Japanese company that produces battery separators, announced it is going to invest $1.6 billion in developing a factory in Niagara, which will be transformational. It was great to see the Premier of Ontario there, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Innovation. These are governments that are looking to invest in Canadians, in the future and in the economy of the future. Conservatives, again, verb the noun, have no plan for any of this because of items like putting a price on pollution. It is about investing in critical minerals so that Canada is poised to be a leader in EV manufacturing and the jobs of the future. Conservatives will stick their heads in the sand and say that it is the same old thing, that they do not need to do anything and that they will make it free to pollute. They are not going to get the results. From the investments in Honda, we are going to see thousands of manufacturing jobs in Ontario. It was unfortunate that when the previous Conservative government was around we saw thousands of manufacturing jobs leave Ontario, one after the other. We could go through a tour of factories in the Niagara region that closed under that government's watch, and it did not care. It did not have a plan for the future. Here we have an opportunity to be a leader in the EV space, enough that a Conservative premier and government in the Province of Ontario know it is important and step up to invest in workers. The Conservative leader would tell us that he would not invest in these types of factories we have seen in Niagara, in the London area, in Windsor and in Alliston. We are creating an infrastructure, and international companies, some of the largest in the world, are eager to invest. That shows actual work on the ground to get things done, to plan for economic growth and for the economy of the future. There is a change happening. Again, we can stick our heads in the sand, and I know Conservatives like to do that frequently, but these changes are happening, and we need to be at the forefront of that. Also, I am happy to report that, last week, a controversial housing development in the city of St. Catharines, the municipality I represent, which may not seem large to certain members from the GTA as it is a 500-unit development, was approved. It is good news, seeing more and more housing approved and the mayor and city council taking the charge on housing. I had the opportunity to speak with one of the owners of the property after the development was approved. She told me that the federal government's investments are going to ensure that approximately half of the units being built would be rental units. We have seen across the country, especially in southern Ontario, the very low vacancy rates that exist and the acknowledgement that we need more rentals. It was a big step to remove the GST from purpose-built rentals. The changing of the capital cost allowance, from approximately 4% of mortgage costs to 10%, is making the math work, and that is what we have heard from developers. We have heard that, with interest rates, labour costs and other items, it is becoming a challenge to get those shovels in the ground. We can all agree, I hope, on all sides of the House that we need to see more rental housing built, and this is just one item. We are seeing announcements like that across the country. We are seeing partnerships with municipalities that have bold plans to build more housing. Again, not to boast, but the City of St. Catharines was a recipient of the housing accelerator fund because it does have a bold plan for housing. I am happy to see that the current budget would top up the housing accelerator fund, so we would see more municipalities join the list, eliminate red tape when it comes to permitting, and increase the density of lots. Four units as a right is something that we want to see and something that would get more housing built. The house that I currently live in is on the plot of what was an old farmhouse on a very large lot. Development had happened all around it decades before, and the house was taken down and four units of housing were built, a couple of semi-detached homes. Now, there are four families living on this property rather than one. Changes through the housing accelerator fund will make that easier. We will make it so that we can speed up the process and get construction started quicker. There is no magic bullet for solving the housing crisis, but I think we can solve the housing crisis. Canadians have solved it before, and we can do it again. We estimate it will take about 3.87 million homes being built, but it is something that we can do. It is something that can be done, whether we use new ways of building houses or old ways. If we look back to what we did after the Second World War, there was a housing catalogue. Someone could just pick a house, and it could get built and speed up those processes. We can do that. We can ensure that there is a housing catalogue. The developers can just pick the house, or a family can pick the house they want, get it built and not go through the process of getting that permit approved, which speeds up the construction of that house. That is an old idea, but it can work in a modern setting, especially with larger density projects. We can use new materials. We can use factory-built housing. We can encourage that. Also exciting, and it may not be the most fun announcement in terms of housing-related infrastructure, is that something the budget is keenly about, and something that we need to be part of, is ensuring that water and waste water are there to make sure that the housing gets built. The Conservatives, as I was starting to talk about, talk about the slogan. They are against all of these actual proposals to get housing built. It is unfortunate to see that their actions do not match their slogans.

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Mr. Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ)

May/21/24 6:57:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a question for my colleague about Témiscamingue, a region not far from yours, Madam Speaker. Témiscamingue got some bad news today. The Foire gourmande de l'Abitibi-Témiscamingue et du Nord-Est ontarien, a gourmet food fair in my region and northeastern Ontario, is facing an uncertain fate. Témiscamingue has gotten a lot of bad news lately. For example, three forestry-related processing facilities have closed their doors, agriculture and public safety are under threat, and funding for a new pool in Témiscamingue, a project led by Complexe des Eaux profondes, has not materialized. The federal government has not stepped up for any of this. As the MP for Abitibi—Témiscamingue and Témiscamingue in particular, I expect the federal government, which collects half of our sales and income taxes, to be there to meet people's needs, but the federal government is not there at all. Can my colleague tell me what purpose the federal government serves these days?

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Miscamingue

Mr. Chris Bittle

May/21/24 6:58:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always look forward to the Bloc seeking more federal investment and more federal participation in municipal infrastructure projects. We work very closely with the Government of Quebec. On the housing file, the Minister of Housing entered into a partnership with Quebec, and Quebec stepped up and matched the funding, unlike any other province. I look forward to getting the budget passed and seeing this infrastructure money in place. I know Quebec will do the same thing it has done before, which is to step up, be there to invest and be partners to help the people of Témiscamingue. Hopefully this could address many of the issues the member talked about.

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Mrs. Anna Roberts (King—Vaughan, CPC)

May/21/24 6:59:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is great to have this plan to build houses, but we have a 25% shortage of labour workers. How is he going to concentrate on hiring more people or attracting more people to come to Canada to help build the homes that are so desperately needed?

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Mr. Chris Bittle

May/21/24 6:59:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member made sure to get in the slogan, and that was great. We have to be looking at alternative ways to build housing. As I said in my speech, we need to be looking at factory-built housing. We need to be looking at innovative ways. The member is right that it is a serious situation now. It is getting worse as skilled trades workers are getting older. We can do it through immigration, education at the provincial level, working with our provincial counterparts, and new and innovative ways. The construction industry oftentimes falls behind other industries in being more innovative. However, I know it can. This budget is going to invest in that, and we are going to be ready to build the homes of tomorrow.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

May/21/24 7:00:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about his environmental concerns, which I share, and the fact that the Conservatives refuse to have a price on pollution; that is not a plan to help us or help our communities. However, at the same time, his government is spending $34 billion to buy a pipeline that will triple the production of the dirtiest oil in the world. Is that not contradictory? He is talking out of both sides of his mouth.

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Mr. Chris Bittle

May/21/24 7:00:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not believe it is a contradiction. It is ensuring that the amount of oil we are producing gets to tidewater so we can have supply. The world needs oil right now. We do have to transition away, which is why we are investing in the jobs of tomorrow and in EV technology. Canada can be a leader in battery production and be the energy leader of the future.

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

May/21/24 7:01:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, would the parliamentary secretary agree with me that, if Conservatives spent more attention on making lives better for Canadians instead of on what Tim Hortons coffee cups lids are made out of or on the plant-based options Häagen-Dazs is offering, if they had the kind of passion they show toward those issues for actually solving problems for Canadians, we would be a lot further ahead?

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Mr. Chris Bittle

May/21/24 7:01:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think an hon. member went to the grocery store and picked up the wrong ice cream, and instead of telling his family he made a mistake, he decided to do a social media post about it. The Conservatives never step up when it comes to delivering results for Canadians. They vote against things such as the Canada child benefit. They vote against things such as affordable child care. They vote against taking care of the environment. They vote against every affordability measure the House has in front of them. They are not serious. They do not have a plan. They only have slogans.

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Slogans
Plan

Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

May/21/24 7:02:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is a privilege to speak in the House on these decisions. We are talking about the implementation of the budget. I will be a good sport and highlight the positive elements of the budget. Everyone is in favour of doubling the tax credit for volunteer firefighters and search and rescue volunteers. Extending the family allowance by six months for parents whose child has died, that is just being compassionate. We support that. Raising the ceiling on eligible expenses for newsroom staff and increasing the tax credit, we are in favour of that. Yes, we agree when it comes to supporting clean technology, but we have to be careful. We need to be very vigilant about the interference we see into Hydro-Québec's pricing. The increase in the amounts available for the home buyers' plan is also a good thing. So far, so good. We agree with capping the excise duty on beer, wine and spirits at 2%. We also agree on halving the excise duty rate on the first 15,000 hectolitres of beer brewed in Canada for two years. This is one of our rare requests that have been granted. We agree. As for the school food program, we agree, but we need to be vigilant. We have always said so. As one of my colleagues mentioned earlier, half of our taxes are here, in Ottawa. We need that money to help our people. We want the money, but we want it distributed to organizations that are already working in Quebec. There is a worthwhile measure on underused housing. It would eliminate filing requirements, reduce the penalty for failing to file a return and create an exemption for residential properties held as a place of residence or lodging for employees. I think that could be a good thing for the agricultural industry in particular. The budget talks a lot about grocery prices. The government is saying that it is going to control them. We know what to do. We need to increase competition and stop authorizing mergers that do not make sense and that take place even after the Competition Bureau advises against them. The budget also very briefly mentions that the government will do something to help cattle producers. We do not really know what the government will do. The Bloc Québécois has some ideas. All the government has to do is ask us about them. For example, could the government give $100 per hectare to maintain grasslands? That would have a positive impact on the environment and on greenhouse gas emissions, and it would give our farmers a potentially worthwhile source of additional income. What is in this budget for the future of agriculture and agri-food? There was talk of the advance payments program. We know that the government lowered the limit to $100,000, which is completely ridiculous, given current prices. Farmers were asking for $350,000. It was set at $250,000. It might be disappointing, but at least they got something. Sadly enough, that is how the farming community thinks now. They are so used to being disappointed that they tell themselves that at least they got something. The big problem I see is that it is only for this year. The government is offering $250,000, but only for this year. What does that mean? It means that, next year, farmers will have to come crawling back to the government to ask that it maintain the same limit for the advance payments program and not reduce it once again to the ridiculous amount of $100,000. However, if the government really wanted to show good will and respect for agricultural producers, it would have increased it to $350,000 on an ongoing basis. Farmers have better things to do than come here begging. They have crops to tend to, they have animals to care for. There do not seem to be many people here who understand that. There is much more money for the local food infrastructure fund, the LFIF. I think that is great. The amount doubled. Will it be enough? We will see. Some sad things happened in the ridings, as members know. Several of my colleagues told me about people submitting a grant application only to be told that the rules had been changed because there was so little money in the program and that only small producers were being accepted. Producers that were no longer eligible for the program were told, “Sorry you spent two weeks completing your application and maybe hiring an accountant or experts to help, but it was all for naught. Better luck next time”. That is not professional. The government needs to take things seriously. Even so, I applaud the LFIF budget increase and the capital gains increase for intergenerational transfers. It is not enough for me, but, in any case, it has gone up. Then there is innovation, like the $10‑million exemption for capital gains realized on the sale of a farm business to an employee ownership trust. That is a good measure, but it got no attention. Hardly anyone talked about it. I fail to understand why members of the government do not put good initiatives like that one front and centre. It seems like they are too busy stammering over their mistakes to remember their successes. However, a few things were missing that should have been included. Take the excise tax on berry- and maple-based alcohol. An exemption was recently created for mead. It would be easy to include these products in the exemption too. It would make sense. They are made by very small businesses that need the money. What is the government waiting for? Earlier on, I spoke about making the $350,000 increase under the advance payments program permanent. What is the government waiting for? It would cost next to nothing. It is just interest. Let us talk about the emergency on-farm support fund. Members will recall how devastating the 2023 season was for southern Quebec, where extremely heavy rains drove many market gardeners to ruin. Northern Quebec had the opposite problem: Terrible droughts forced cattle farmers to sell off part of their herds, not because they wanted to sell, but because they did not have enough hay to feed them. Farmers are in a bad way when they get to that point, and no one is getting the picture. These people cannot receive compensation from a program because, since they sold cattle, they made more money this year than last. Their financial position does not look bad on paper, but once in a while, we have to look up from the paperwork and go see for ourselves. It takes something important, but these people are important. That is why we need an emergency fund that is agile, permanent and fast. I know this is a complicated topic and it may sound dry, but if I may summarize, there are a bunch of agricultural programs that do not work. However, there is one that has been set up as a last resort if nothing else works. This program is supposed to be triggered quickly. It is an emergency program called AgriRecovery. I am still waiting for more information. Everyone is waiting to hear more. The provinces and Quebec have to apply to the federal government. Quebec applied in November. Today is May 21. They call that an emergency program? Far from it. I do not want to be unreasonable. I know there are complex calculations involved in these claims and that people are going to be compensated for things that are new to us, but could someone at least start working on those calculations? As far as I am concerned, if it takes from November to the end of May, someone, somewhere, is taking their sweet time. That is the only explanation. I really liked what a witness told me in committee last week. I asked Mr. Forest if there was anything he wanted to emphasize. We had 30 seconds left. He looked me straight in the eyes and said that, on a farm, we have to be efficient, and when something happens, we have to act quickly and figure things out. He said that farmers need programs that are as responsive as they are. The government needs to get going on this. He added that people are not participating in the current programs because they are not working anymore. When programs stop working, they need to be changed. It is as simple as that. We expect something to happen, like an investment in agri-food. Agri-food is the largest employer in the country. Not too many people talk about that around here. This is a critical sector not only in terms of the number of jobs, but also in terms of what we eat three times a day. Where is the program to help this sector modernize, to invest in innovation and to improve the productivity of our businesses? I would really like to see an investment in this sector, which is often neglected. Farmland is undervalued. The Liberals have grand plans to plant trees. Could they at least spend the same amount not on planting trees, but on restoring land for cultivation, especially land that has a lot of potential? Improved and accelerated capital cost allowances for agricultural equipment are simple requests that would not cost the government very much. I find the budget extremely disappointing in that regard. We in the Bloc Québécois hope that the government will show some vision at some point. If people on the government side want to speak with us, we will gladly go out for a beer and explain it to them.

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Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services, Lib.)

May/21/24 7:13:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it may have been an omission on my colleague's part, but there are lots of measures for indigenous people in the budget. One in particular that matters to me is the indigenous loan guarantee program, because there are infrastructure gaps. We know that needs have exceeded investments, but this measure has the potential to be transformative. What are my colleague's thoughts on that?

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Mr. Yves Perron

May/21/24 7:13:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a very important question, one we discuss regularly at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. One of the things we have looked at is food prices. A bottle of Pepsi costs quite a bit more in northern Quebec than it does in Montreal. I am inclined to use unparliamentary language here, because allowing that kind of thing to happen makes no sense. Government members tell me they are going to do great things. I do not want to be mean to my esteemed colleague, but I cannot sugarcoat this: Some indigenous communities still do not have access to clean drinking water even though this is 2024. I am in favour of investment programs for indigenous communities. I am also in favour of giving them more autonomy. Maybe greenhouses can even be set up in northern Quebec and northern Canada, but can we start with the basics and make sure people have access to safe drinking water? That promise from 2015 still has not been kept.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

May/21/24 7:14:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know that my colleague and I have different visions for dental care. We in the NDP pushed for a dental care program that is in fact a bill paying program. An individual can go to the dentist and then get reimbursed 80% of the bill directly from the federal government. There are no federal dentists. There are no federal dental clinics either. This program allows four million Quebeckers who do not have dental coverage to gain access to care they did not have before because dental care costs too much. I am sure that people in my colleague's riding have already benefited from the program. Seniors have already been able to sign up for it this year. Does my colleague know anyone who was able to get reimbursed for dental care and who is pleased with this new program?

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Mr. Yves Perron

May/21/24 7:15:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting that my colleague brings this up because I do indeed know people who signed up. I also received phone calls from people who told me that their dentist did not want to participate in this program because it was a botched program that the federal government implemented when it has no business in this sector. In fact, I have the same concern as my colleague. He says that we do not share the same vision. Essentially, however, our vision is the same. When I first came here as a parliamentarian, my biggest disappointment was the realization that I was not disagreeing with members of the NDP more often. Unfortunately, the NDP believes that the provinces should always be bypassed. Quebec already had a dental care plan. It was limited and far from perfect, I agree, but it was public. Now the program is being administered by private insurance companies. Once again there will be bribes paid through some kind of middleman. We know what will happen. In the end, the money will be spent and people will receive fewer services than if provincial jurisdictions had been respected. The government could have transferred the same amount of money to the Government of Quebec to have it deliver dental care under a public plan.

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Quebec

Mr. Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ)

May/21/24 7:16:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I heard my colleague talk about the “Agri” programs and the fact that the money was not ending up in farmers' pockets. Last year was a catastrophe, especially in Abitibi West. Because of the winter we had and the lack of snow, there was less water but also less protection and insulation for crops. I am very concerned about this situation. If the program did not work last year and there is nothing in the budget for next year, what does that mean for the future of agriculture in Abitibi-Témiscamingue?

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