SoVote

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

Mr. Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ)

May/21/24 7:46:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke a question. Her riding includes the town of Deep River. The member is also my riding neighbour. We share a small part of the southern Témiscamingue region, and we are both close to the Ottawa River. There is a project to build a nuclear waste disposal facility in Deep River. We know that because there have been nuclear facilities there in the past. I am very concerned about the environmental impact that could have. We know that spills are happening as we speak. However, it is very difficult to get any media coverage of what is happening. It is very difficult to draw attention to this situation, even though it is having a major impact on ecosystems. Since the Government of Canada announced major investments in small modular nuclear reactors in the most recent budget, is my colleague worried that her riding, particularly the town of Deep River, will become a nuclear dumping ground for the rest of Canada and that nuclear waste will be brought there? Is my colleague concerned about that from an environmental perspective? I would like her to comment on that.

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Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

May/21/24 7:47:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the low-level, near-surface waste deposit is very low-level radioactive waste that is coming out. It is not spent fuel rods. It is nothing that is really hot or even medium level. It is gloves, booties and other things that are in everyday use on people so they are kept safe. I received over 100 questions from people on my side of the river in the community as well as from the member's side of the river, and I thought they were really good questions. I found a place in eastern Ontario where there is a similar near-surface waste disposal site, in Cobourg, Ontario. I went there with some scientists and asked them the 100 questions. I will tell the member that for every piercing question, they were able to provide an explanation and assure me so that I can assure my citizens that it is indeed a safe way of disposing of low-level waste.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

May/21/24 7:48:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise tonight to participate in the debate on Bill C-69. The debate has been treated by some speakers as a debate on the whole budget. That is fair enough as it is the budget implementation bill. I certainly appreciated very much the remarks by my colleague, the hon. member for Kitchener Centre, moments ago, who focused on some aspects of Bill C-69 and the budget that I will not be able to address in my remarks. In the time I have available, I want to dive deeply into one part of Bill C-69. For those who are observing tonight's debate, perhaps I can just back up and say that this is what is called an omnibus budget bill. It is exactly the kind of bill that, in the 2015 election platform by the Liberals, they said they would not be using. It is an omnibus budget bill in that it deals with many aspects of things that are in the budget, and particularly a reference in the budget to the court case on impact assessment legislation. What is tucked into a bill that is over 400 pages is, from page 555 to page 581, a section I do not believe should be in there. I will be very clear from the start that it is a rewriting of substantial sections of the Impact Assessment Act. The irony is probably not lost on people who have tracked the debate on environmental assessment in this country that when the Liberals brought in repairs to the environmental assessment legislation that they had promised would be done in the election platform of 2015, that bill was also called Bill C-69. I voted against that bill. I will be voting against this one too. This speech is my effort to try to persuade government members, and particularly the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Justice, to rethink things and to pull what is called part 4, division 28, of Bill C-69 and instead bring in what was promised in 2015, repairing what had happened to our impact assessment legislation, which is usually called environmental assessment legislation in this country. I do not have much time to set this out, so forgive me for taking the time it takes to explain it. In 1975, this country held its first federal environmental assessment, ironically, of the Wreck Cove hydro project in my home province of Nova Scotia, on my home island of Cape Breton Island, and I attended those hearings. The federal government at that time was operating under something called the environmental assessment review process, a guidelines order by order in council to the federal cabinet. It set out basically that when the federal government did something, the federal government reviewed its own actions. There is no question of constitutionality because the federal government was reviewing its own actions. The rule under the guidelines order was that if it was on federal land, involved federal money or permits given under certain kinds of acts, one had to have an environmental assessment. That general formulation went into the drafting in the late 1980s, under the government of the late Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, of an environmental assessment process that again started with the four corners of federal jurisdiction, including whether something is on federal land and involving federal money. It evolved into something called the law list permits, which were given under various acts. The whole scheme worked very well. It evolved. There were many amendments over the years. It had a five-year review process. By the time 2012 rolled around, one could talk to almost anyone in the industry about it and hear the same thing. It was predictable. With the Mining Association of Canada, for instance, I remember the CEO, Pierre Gratton, asking why the Conservatives were trying to wreck the act now. He said that we had just finally made it right and liked the way it worked. A federal environmental assessment act was brought in under Brian Mulroney and enacted under former prime minister Jean Chrétien. It had evolved over the years. In the spring of 2012, in an omnibus budget bill called Bill C-38, the government of former prime minister Stephen Harper set out to destroy the legislation. It was repealed in its entirety and was replaced with something called CEAA, 2012. At the same time, it also went after the pieces of legislation that triggered environmental assessment, the law list sections, the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, and so on. To fast-forward, in the election of 2015, the Liberals promised in the platform to repair and fix what had been done by Harper to environmental assessment, to the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Protection Act. In 2016 and 2017, various ministers went to work. The current Minister of Public Safety, who was the then minister of fisheries, actually did fix the Fisheries Act. He got it back to what it had been before and even improved it. The former minister of transport, our former colleague, the Hon. Marc Garneau, really fixed the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Somehow or other, our former minister of environment, Catherine McKenna, was persuaded, I believe by officials in her department, not to fix it. The single biggest change that was made, besides repealing the Environmental Assessment Act, was to ditch the criteria that tethered environmental assessment to areas of federal jurisdiction if it was on federal land, involved federal money or under a permit given by the federal government. Instead, Stephen Harper's government created something called the “designated projects” list, which could be anything the ministers thought they wanted to put on the list. It was project-based but not decision-based, and it could be anything, at the minister's discretion. That was CEAA 2012. It meant we went from having 5,000 to 6,000 federal projects a year reviewed, and they were mostly paper reviews that went quickly, to fewer than 100 reviewed every year. We can see perhaps the attraction for people in the civil service to not go back to actually reviewing the federal projects every single year and to keep it to fewer than 100. Somehow, the federal government, under former minister Catherine McKenna, put forward Bill C-69 and decided to reject the advice of the expert environmental assessment panel, under the former chair of BAPE Johanne Gélinas. It kept the key elements Stephen Harper had put in place, which was that the Environmental Assessment Agency was no longer responsible for many assessments, and regulatory bodies such as the National Energy Board, now the Canada Energy Regulator, the offshore petroleum boards or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would do their environmental assessments separately. It also got rid of the idea that we are tethered strongly to federal jurisdiction. It remained discretionary. That is why I voted against Bill C-69.. Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney said that this was the anti-pipeline act. I said that it was completely discretionary to the minister in a different government and that it was the pro-pipeline act. Where is the rooting to federal jurisdiction? Where is the commitment to review everything the federal government does to make sure we have considered its environmental impacts? Those were all thrown out the window. I may have been the only one in the pro-environmental assessment community, although I do not think I was the only one, who actually cheered on October 13, 2023, when the Supreme Court of Canada said that the designated projects list was actually ultra vires the federal government. It would just ask a minister to say what project they want on a list, but it was not rooted in federal jurisdiction the way it had been from 1975, under a guidelines order, to 1993, when it became law, right up until 2012 and Bill C-38 when Harper repealed it. Then, for some crazy reason, and I use the word “crazy” advisedly because I do not know the reason and I am not referring to anyone in particular, the Liberals decided to keep the designated project list, which is the part that the reference in the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada said was ultra vires the federal government and now stuffed in an omnibus budget bill that we were told we would never see. We get amendments to the Environmental Assessment Act that keep the designated projects list. I do not think this new version in Bill C-69 is going to get Supreme Court of Canada approval. I know it will not get environmental assessments for projects across this country that need to be assessed. It will not get environmental assessment for Highway 413. It will not get environmental assessment for things that are squarely within federal jurisdiction. What it will do is be a quick and dirty fix that only goes to the finance committee for study. With that, I will close my opening remarks with what I can only describe as disgust.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

May/21/24 7:59:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is well aware that air pollution has been on the rise for several years now. Increased air pollution leads to an increase in health problems, particularly lung problems and, by extension, heart problems and other conditions. This leads to higher health care costs, which are also linked to age, but also to the problems that arise from increased pollution. Despite all this, Canada is not responding to the demands of Quebec and the Canadian provinces when it comes to health transfers. What is more, Canada is adding more funding and tax breaks for the oil and gas industries. Would my colleague say that Canada is a little backward in the way it thinks about its budget and the population's actual needs?

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/21/24 8:00:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more. It is more than just ironic. It is unbelievable that the government continues to give subsidies to fossil fuel industries despite all the promises to cancel subsidies and government support. For example, $34 billion has been invested in building the Trans Mountain pipeline. This flies in the face of our efforts to protect our climate and, as the member said, it flies in the face of public health interests and the need to protect the public from pollution. We can do more, and we can make better and wiser decisions, but not with this bill.

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Mrs. Anna Roberts (King—Vaughan, CPC)

May/21/24 8:01:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague because I have been hearing this a lot in my constituency. After nine years of the Prime Minister, one in 10 people in Toronto has relied on food banks, and more than half are $200 away from missing bills. This crisis is getting worse and worse every day. I spoke to Vishal from Sai Dham Food Bank recently, and his numbers are increasing at a more rapid pace than he can afford to supply for individuals, including seniors. Up to 4,000 baskets are being delivered each and every month to our seniors, who just cannot afford the price of food. The proposed inflationary budget would not help our communities. What does the member think of that situation and the inflationary spending of the wasteful government?

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/21/24 8:02:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend from King—Vaughan and I may not agree on the details of this. There is no question but that Canadians are facing an affordability crisis. We do need, though, to spend the money it takes to alleviate that affordability crisis. What we have seen over the last number of decades is a growing gap between the very wealthy and the poor. A growing number of people who would not have considered themselves poor, and who had been in the middle class with incomes, can no longer fill a grocery cart. I think it is a really important thing to have a school meal program. I think that would help alleviate some of the strain on families. I think we have to recognize that the inflationary impacts of postpandemic life and the breaking of supply chains have affected more than just Canada, so I think we need to address this as an affordability crisis and come up with solutions that really work. The Green Party believes one of those is a basic and livable annual income.

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

May/21/24 8:03:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to that last exchange between my colleague and the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, and she said that she thought it was important to have a national school food program. This budget would provide for that, so obviously she supports that element of it. I did not hear, or I did not quite decipher, whether the Green Party is going to vote in favour of this budget, so my first question is this: Is the Green Party going to vote for it? If the answer is no, how does she justify voting against the budget, given that there are some elements to it that she very much does support, such as the national school food program?

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Ms. Elizabeth May

May/21/24 8:04:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be very clear. Members of the Green Party do not always vote the same way. My colleague from Kitchener Centre and I discuss every issue. We are governed by what we think our constituents would want us to do. However, a budget vote is the ultimate vote of confidence in government. As much as I would like to vote for the elements I like within this budget, and I passionately believe in a school meal program, preferably one with local food that helps our young people know how it is to farm, grow their own food and have it served in a local school, I cannot vote for the budget in good conscience. I cannot vote for a budget that will further wreck our environmental assessment process. I cannot vote for a budget that does not take the climate crisis seriously, and I cannot vote confidence in a government that has put $34 billion into building a pipeline that puts my entire community, and the entire ecoregion around the Salish Sea, at grave risk.

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Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

May/21/24 8:05:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to have an opportunity to speak to the budget today. I would like to start with the positives. I know that my NDP colleagues and I achieved a number of good things in the budget. Certainly, the national school food program is an absolutely historic shift. It is something that the NDP has fought for and that we pushed to make sure was part of the budget. We are ensuring the beginnings of a pharmacare program with access to medication for diabetes and contraception. There is the fact that the Conservatives have voted against it. There are currently more than nine million people of reproductive age in Canada, many of whom lack access to contraception and experience unintentional pregnancies as a result. My colleague from the Conservative Party was talking about fundamental human rights. It is a shame that not only are the Conservatives going to anti-choice rallies and physically invested in violating the fundamental right to protect reproductive health, but they also voted against access to free contraception. This is anti-feminist, anti-women and anti-equality, and it denies women, particularly, the ability to choose how they wish to proceed in their life. I have to say that, even with the Liberals, this is something we had to fight for and something they have often failed to uphold, including being a disappointment in the budget. In spite of the fact that we have abortion clinics either closing or at risk of closing and, in my riding of Winnipeg Centre in Manitoba, the only abortion clinic closing, we still have to fight for the right to access trauma-informed abortion care. In fact, even though it seems to be convenient to use jurisdictional cards on certain matters, it is a shame that the federal government continues to violate women's and gender-diverse folks' right to access safe, trauma-informed abortion care in doing so. Respecting reproductive rights and respecting the right to choose is a so-called pillar of their government, but it is one thing to respect a right and another thing to give access to that right. This is something that I have really pushed in the House but that the current government has failed on. Nobody should have to take a plane across the country or to phone a hotline to get access to safe, trauma-informed abortion care. That is a failure of the Liberal government. Let us not forget the Conservative Party members, who are all listed on anti-choice websites. That is shameful. However, it is good that the NDP fought to get a pharmacare program started, including the access to free contraception and diabetes medication. We need to have this in place, because free contraception is also a matter of personal privacy and confidentiality. People need to be able to access contraception. They should not have to seek approval of a partner or parent, especially if they are in coercive or abusive relationships. We know that many young women and gender-diverse people can only access contraception through the permission of their parents or partner, particularly in cases where they do not have the financial resources to access this care. I am glad, again, that we have a school food program. I am pleased that some people can now benefit from a dental care program. However, the budget falls flat, particularly in regard to the disability benefit. It is a slap in the face to the disability community. Again, $200 a month is something that I know is insignificant. I represent one of the poorest ridings in this country. We can have band-aids for programs or communities, such as food banks, which are absolutely critical. However, if we want to get at the roots of poverty in this country, we need to start looking at and finding solutions for the growing income inequality, where we see the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. That is why I am pleased that the NDP pushed forward an excess profit tax on grocery chains and one of the reasons I pushed forward on my bill, Bill C-223, to put in place a framework for a guaranteed livable basic income. This has been supported by all the members of the NDP caucus, the majority of NDP members and women's organizations that are dealing with gender-based violence. We know it will save taxpayer dollars, because we always neglect to talk about the high costs of poverty. It is also something that the Conservatives turn a blind eye to with their sound bites and rhetoric, with no real solutions to alleviate suffering. The Liberals, again, talk a good game, but when they actually have to do something, there is nothing easier to keep than a broken Liberal promise. My bill is coming up for debate. I hope that all members of Parliament are serious about this. People are talking about an affordability crisis and the fact that there are more and more people unhoused. We have given them a real solution, a real investment in affordable housing with rent geared to income. It would be a real investment in “for indigenous, by indigenous” housing, something that my colleagues, the members for Nunavut and East Vancouver, have led the charge for the NDP to implement. Affordable housing with rent geared to income and a guaranteed livable basic income are things that I, along with the NDP caucus, have supported, as well as a school food program and a national child care program that prioritizes not-for-profit public care. We know that the Conservatives do not support those programs. They voted against pharmacare. They screamed and yelled about the national child care program, but then voted in favour of it, I think for political reasons. They voted against a national school food meal program for kids. Who would vote against kids having food so they do not go to school hungry? That was something that we had to fight the Liberals for, for years and years, and we succeeded. In the fall, my private member's bill should come up for a vote. I will see at that time how serious elected officials in the House of Commons from the Liberals, the Conservatives, the Bloc party and the Green Party are about eradicating poverty once and for all. I hope that my hope is correct and that people really do care about eradicating poverty in this country. I hope I see that all the members in the House of Commons really do care about the affordability crisis that we are being faced with and vote for my bill, Bill C-223, to put in place a guaranteed livable basic income.

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

May/21/24 8:15:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member asked a rhetorical question: Who would vote against putting food into the mouths of children? Who would vote against a national school food program? I will tell her that it is the exact same people who get up every day and talk about the struggles of people and having to go to a food bank; these people talk about the problem but have absolutely no interest in helping to create a solution. The reality is that the Conservatives are almost rooting for the opposite, for failure in government policy. They see that as a political win. Unfortunately, we are at this place in the House where Conservatives do not have an interest in outcomes being successful. They just have an interest in their political opportunity. The member and her colleagues have shown great leadership over the last number of years in their ability to bring forward ideas. What are her thoughts on that?

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Ms. Leah Gazan

May/21/24 8:16:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of those ideas is a guaranteed livable basic income. This has been researched and studied, and it is something that is being facilitated in some of the happiest countries in the world right now. We know that, when we look after people, it is good economics. I hope that my hon. colleague across the way supports good economics, supports ensuring that people can live in human rights and dignity, and supports my bill, Bill C-223.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

May/21/24 8:17:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, who is such a passionate, strong voice in the House of Commons, speaking up for equality for women and gender-diverse peoples, as well as for reproductive health rights. She is an extraordinary advocate for many Canadians. I want to ask her about the guaranteed livable basic income. We know for a fact that the government, like the previous Conservative government, loves to shower money on corporate CEOs, overseas tax havens and banks. However, the guaranteed livable basic income that she proposes would make a fundamental difference in the lives of people who are struggling to make ends meet, put food on the table and keep a roof over their head. Could the member talk about what a difference it would make for so many Canadians to have the bill adopted and to have a guaranteed livable basic income for people in Canada?

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Livable

Ms. Leah Gazan

May/21/24 8:18:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I love working with my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby. He is such a wonderful House leader and colleague. In saying that, he is absolutely right. The Liberals are talking about fairness. They need to go after offshore tax havens and rich CEOs, and they need to take that money and spread it out to those who are being left behind. Every day, I have to sit in the House of Commons and listen to Conservatives and Liberals talk about how people are struggling. However, when a solution is put on the table, they are nowhere to be found. This solution is well-researched, and the Province of P.E.I., for example, wants to pilot it. This would mean that people living in poverty could actually live in dignity. These are the people who are falling through the cracks of the current social safety net, folks that I have to hear the member from Carleton put down and poor bash daily. He talks about people who are poor as being criminal. He fails to talk about the very wealthy, the corporate elite, as being related to the reason so many are poor and very few are rich. This would save lives. This would ensure that people could live in dignity and with human rights.

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Mrs. Anna Roberts (King—Vaughan, CPC)

May/21/24 8:19:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I enjoy working with my colleague from Winnipeg Centre on the status of women committee. I have been listening to her speech, and I can understand how disappointed she is. We are disappointed on this side of the House as well. Very simply, will she vote against the budget, yes or no?

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Ms. Leah Gazan

May/21/24 8:20:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I love working with the member from King—Vaughan. My answer to that is no, I will not vote against the school meal program, dental care, pharmacare and a national child care program. These are things that have been moved along and that the NDP fought for. I will not vote against a red dress alert, something that I got in, along with advocates, with the support of the leadership of the NDP. It is a shame that, in the House of Commons, we talk more about stolen cars than we do about murdered and missing indigenous women and girls. I will absolutely continue to fight. I will not vote against a red dress alert. I will not vote against pharmacare and free contraception. I cannot, particularly as a feminist and as somebody who has fought for much of my life to get something in place for a red dress alert. Along with advocates in the NDP, I have fought for this for a number of years. I cannot in good conscience vote against that.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/21/24 8:21:18 p.m.
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I just want to remind my hon. colleagues to keep their questions and comments as short as possible so everyone gets to participate. I see two more people who would like to ask questions, but we have run out of time. Resuming debate, the hon. member for London West.

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Participate

Ms. Arielle Kayabaga (London West, Lib.)

May/21/24 8:21:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join and participate in today's debate in support of Bill C-69. This legislation would advance many of the government's key priorities in budget 2024, “Fairness for Every Generation”. Budget 2024 is our government's plan to build a Canada that works for every generation, where younger generations can get ahead, where their hard work completely pays off, and where they can buy or rent a home of their own. It is our plan to ensure that everyone has a fair chance at a good, middle-class life. The government is working to implement this bill quickly, because Canadians deserve bold investments in housing, in a stronger social safety net and in economic growth that creates good-paying jobs. Bill C‑69 will have a positive impact across the country, and I am already optimistic about the impact in my riding, London West. With budget 2024 and Bill C‑69, we are taking action to ensure fairness for every generation and to drive the kind of economic growth that will ensure every generation can reach its full potential. We are aiming for nothing less. I would now like to talk about some of the measures we are putting forward to achieve that goal. Our government understands that more needs to be done to build more homes faster and make housing more affordable. I am delighted to see that we are quickly moving forward with the bold measures that are in Bill C-69. For example, we are enhancing the homebuyers' plan to help first-time homebuyers at a time when saving for a down payment is more difficult. More specifically, we are increasing the withdrawal limit from $35,000 to $60,000 and temporarily adding three years to the grace period before homebuyers are required to start making their repayments to an RRSP. We are also cracking down on short-term rentals by denying income tax deductions on income earned from short-term rentals that do not comply with the provincial or local restrictions. By doing so, we are unlocking more homes for Canadians to live in, because that is what Canadian homes should be for. They are for Canadians to live in. Also, to ensure that these homes are available for Canadians to live in and not used as a speculative asset class for foreign investors, we are banning foreign buyers of Canadian homes for an additional two years. This means that the ban will now be extended until January 1, 2027. The government is also taking action to make life more affordable for Canadians. For example, Bill C‑69 amends the Telecommunications Act, making it easier to find better Internet, home phone and cell phone services. We are making amendments that will give Canadians more flexibility to renew or switch plans, with a clear understanding of the choices and services that will best suit their needs. We will also launch a consumer-driven banking framework, also known as open banking or consumer-directed finance, to provide Canadians and small businesses with safe and secure access to a wider range of financial services and products. Another way we are making life more affordable is by giving law enforcement agencies the tools they need to protect Canadians from auto theft. We will also introduce more serious criminal offences related to auto theft as well as new restrictions on the possession and distribution of devices used to steal vehicles. I am also particularly proud of the measure that would benefit many firefighters and search and rescue volunteers. We are going to double the volunteer firefighters tax credit, and the search and rescue volunteers tax credit as well. These credits would go from $3,000 up to $6,000 in recognition of the essential roles and the sacrifices that the volunteers make to keep Canadians safe. These are volunteers who are Canadian heroes and they deserve all the recognition. Budget 2024 is also about growing Canada's economy. In Bill C-69, we are including many measures that would do exactly that. We would grow Canada's economy by further advancing indigenous economic participation through the indigenous loan guarantee program. Thanks to the creation of this program, indigenous communities across Canada would be able to share in Canada's prosperity and benefit from new opportunities ahead. This new loan program, with up to $5 billion in loan guarantees, will unlock access to capital for indigenous communities to create economic opportunities and support their economic development priorities as well. We are moving forward with investment tax credits that are designed to boost investment and secure Canada's competitiveness while supporting our country's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. In budget 2024, the government recently announced the next steps in our plan to attract significant investment to Canada. These investments will help us create good-paying jobs in Canada and accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy and clean technology. More specifically, in Bill C-69, we are also going to deliver two investment tax credits, the up-to-40% clean hydrogen and the 30% clean technology manufacturing investment tax credits. Passing these two tax credits into law means that we are going to secure a cleaner and more prosperous future for Canadians today and tomorrow by securing more private investment in our country. To wrap up, with budget 2024, our government is putting forward a plan to deliver fairness for every generation in Canada. We are introducing measures to give everyone a fair chance at a middle-class life here in Canada. As discussed, we are moving forward in Bill C-69 with measures that are going to make housing more affordable, make our communities safer and continue to grow Canada's economy while creating clean and good jobs. All Canadians will greatly benefit from the measures that are included in Bill C-69. I am already eager to see the multiple benefits that are going to happen for the Londoners of London West. Bill C-69 is a good bill, and I invite all of my colleagues to join me and vote in favour of this important legislation for Canada's future. It is a shame that there are members of the House who have already indicated that they will not be voting for this budget. This means that they are voting against the food program that we have put forward for children, as well as the dental care for seniors and for young children. They are voting against Canadians, basically. It is a shame.

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

May/21/24 8:29:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the speech that was just given by my colleague, but something that she failed to articulate in her speech was the fact that the continual deficits, the massive increases in spending, are contributing to inflation. The government seems to be taking credit for inflation continuing to rise at 2.7%. That is not a decrease but simply a slowing of what has been an exceptional increase. I would like her to comment on that, but also on the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance has announced that the government is increasing the debt ceiling for our country by $495 billion. I am wondering if the member would be able to shed some light onto why such an incredible increase in the national debt ceiling is required, in light of the circumstances that we find ourselves in, especially with the inflationary environment.

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Ms. Arielle Kayabaga

May/21/24 8:30:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, maybe my colleague was not in the House of Commons today when the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance announced that inflation has been reduced to 2.7%, which is the lowest in three years. There was also some good news last Thursday, that our AAA credit rating was again affirmed by Moody's, with a stable outlook, which keeps Canadians' debt payments low. Maybe he can vote for Canadians by supporting the dental care plan, by supporting the child care benefit, and by supporting helping Canadians, helping seniors and making sure that Canadians are set up for a good future.

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