SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 323 - Jun/3/24

Mr. Peter Julian

Jun/3/24 8:54:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is simply not true.

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True
Simply

The Speaker

Jun/3/24 8:54:14 p.m.
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That would not be considered a point of order. The hon. member from Kingston and the Islands.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Jun/3/24 8:54:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do want to go back to the serious part of this. I did hear the member talking about the excess profit tax after World War II. I do not necessarily disagree with it, but I did not understand correctly whether that was in an industry that had monopoly-type practices like the one we are talking about right now, the grocery sector. Implementing a tax like that on a sector that does not have any kind of monopolistic practices associated with it and is operating in a more free market would not necessarily produce the same results. That, I guess, would be my concern. I do think that we would have to be careful. It is easy to say that if they increase the prices, we will just increase the tax more, but where does that end? It could turn into a revolving cycle of just continually seeing prices going up, taxes going up and prices going up again. At the end of the day, there needs to be enough competition. I do not even hold it against the individual CEOs. They are doing what our capitalist market is intending them to do. When government needs to step in is when there is not free supply and demand, depending on how the prices are being met. That is when the government needs to be there, and I think that is a very important consideration.

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Mr. Tako Van Popta (Langley—Aldergrove, CPC)

Jun/3/24 8:55:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in all of the debate about excess profits for large grocery stores, I am really puzzled by this one fundamental question. That is, in the supply chain, there are costs added everywhere, with input costs added at every stage. Everybody along the supply chain is making money somewhere along the line. Why pick on the very last person in the supply chain? Why not look at all the others as well?

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Jun/3/24 8:56:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, I do not think that the vast majority of the profits are being made lower down on the supply chain. I think that what we are seeing, which is indicative of a market that has only a few players in it, is that it is the few players that are going to jack up their prices, because they can. If, farther down the supply chain there is a supplier of something, or there are 10 suppliers of something, because there are so many of them, they are going to be incentivized to ensure that they are being competitive. It is not the same scenario when there are only a few grocery retailers, which is what we have.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity, Lib.)

Jun/3/24 8:57:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is nice to join the debate this evening on an issue that is affecting so many Canadians, I would say every Canadian, because everybody needs to eat. Our groceries just cost too much these days. Everybody is frustrated, and I understand why. Food is an essential item. It is not as though people can just decide to take a couple of weeks off. Groceries are probably the third or fourth-most expensive thing that a household has to purchase every month, after paying rent or a mortgage and after paying for a vehicle. Food is expensive, and there are a lot of reasons for the fact that food is expensive. This evening, I was hoping I could unpack a few of those root causes a little and could get to some questions. With some colleagues, the art of thoughtful conversation and a little debate sometimes feels like it has lost its touch around here. What can we do as a government? People ask us all the time. We knock on their doors or we answer the phone at the office, and people say, “Lettuce is $3.50 again. What the heck?” I do not blame people for being frustrated. I am frustrated too. One of the chief complaints I hear is that people are frustrated because they hear that grocery executives are being paid millions of dollars and that the people who work in those stores are still earning minimum wage. It does not seem fair, and it is not, quite frankly. However, it is clear to me that regardless of who works for lobbying firms, and I will not argue about who works where; everybody deserves honest work. The reality is that these big companies can afford lobbyists and that they can afford lobbyists because they make a lot of money. Whether we are talking about private utility companies, oil and gas companies, grocery chains or big banks, for that matter, those companies can afford to spend a lot of that money on government relations and on PR. Those who cannot are Food Banks Canada, teachers, nurses, parents and people who are struggling to pay their bills. There is no public lobbyist who says that their neighbours are really struggling. In fact, that is us. We need to have our ears to the ground. We need to be there for our neighbours. We need to listen to their issues, and then do a little bit of research. I often talk, probably not enough in this place, about the Library of Parliament, which is such a wonderful resource that we all have access to. They do great work. They do excellent research. It is completely non-partisan, and it is extraordinary. The people who work over there, the researchers, the clerks and the librarians, are amazing. I am going to commit to work with the Library of Parliament for the remainder of this session to try to dive into precisely why some grocery prices are so high. I have done a little research, which was very preliminary. I will say it is not research because when we Google something, that is not research. Research is actually meant to have some rigour, and a Google search does not. It is just a little reading. I have done some light reading on why grocery prices are expensive. Climate change is the number one reason. Disruptions, extreme weather, floods and droughts, all of those things are costing food production and farmers a lot of money. That needs to be addressed, and we know that we cannot just switch climate change on or off like a light switch, despite the Conservatives talking about carbon pricing. They ask if we pay a carbon price, will it stop a hurricane or will it stop a wildfire? It is absurd. It is an absolutely absurd question or statement, but it does not stop the Conservatives from making that sort of comparison; if we pay the price on pollution, then it will just stop the crazy weather. That is not the way it works. The crazy weather that we are experiencing is a result of an excessive amount of greenhouse gases in our environment and in our atmosphere. Just like a greenhouse that has a lot of CO2 inside because there are a lot of plants in there, it heats up. Our planet has been heating up, not in a uniform way, but one that contributes to a lot of extreme weather, and it disrupts agriculture. Another significant cause of disruption of the agriculture sector is conflict. We know that around the world, there is a lot of fighting. Some of those countries that are fighting produce a heck of a lot of food. When they are at war, they are not able to ship their raw goods, and that increases the cost of food. Then there are some more localized issues here at home. I remember, probably a decade ago, getting a weird little $25 gift card in the mail, which was unmarked. It was because the price of bread was fixed by some of the largest grocery chains. They were colluding with each other. It was due to unfair practices and really bad corporate behaviour. They settled out of court, and asked if they sent $25 to everybody who asked for it, would that be enough? Somebody, in their infinite wisdom, said that it ought to do. I do not think any laws were changed. An ombudsman was not put in place to make sure that grocery prices did not just fly off the shelf, literally. That continues to happen. There has to be a way, with a little more scrutiny. My community members, over the month of May, decided not to shop at Loblaws stores, and there was a big boycott. I do not know if it was across Ontario or Canada, but I saw a lot of people online talking about how they were not shopping at Loblaws. One does not need to do research, but just a cursory Google search on all the stores that the Loblaw company owns, to see that it is a lot of places. It is actually hard in many communities to avoid shopping at Loblaws. Something I have noticed is that Loblaws owns Shoppers Drug Mart and, not that recently, Shoppers Drug Mart started to sell more and more produce and fresh food in addition to shelved items, like cereal and canned soups. My example is about canned soup, because when I go to that aisle in Shoppers Drug Mart, I can find a can of tomato soup priced at $2.49, $2.69, $2.79, but if I go to No Frills, which is owned by the exact same company, I will see exactly the same soup in a can for 99¢ or $1.29. The issue I have with that is not so much that we can say that Shoppers is maybe a little more of a convenience store, but that people who live close to a Shoppers oftentimes do not have a car. The stores are in strip malls, and the one on Main Street in Milton is right next to a bunch of apartment buildings where people do not all have vehicles, which means they cannot drive to No Frills. It means that there is an environmental barrier to shopping at lower prices. That is an unfair practice that I strongly believe an excess profits tax on grocery stores would penalize, but not necessarily fix. I will say that I am in favour of an excess profits tax on groceries, because I think the behaviour is bad. We are seeing inflated grocery prices between stores where there ought not to be. However, I also think that there needs to be some scrutiny, and an ombudsperson in the grocery sector could achieve that. I would like to address the issue of excess profits, not just tax the people who are applying them on customers. The other thing that I think could achieve that is a grocery code of conduct. We have seen it spoken about a lot since last September. I will not say that it was a coincidence, but the same month that Loblaws was being boycotted by so many members of my community, Loblaws said it was willing to sign the grocery code of conduct, as long as some of its competition did, and I think they said Metro and Walmart. The other issue is that there are only five or six big grocery companies in Canada, just like there are only four or five big oil and gas companies, and there are also only four or five banks in Canada, which means that the market is kind of closed. There is a little bit of an oligopoly, not quite a monopoly but something similar to that, and it is also clear that a lot of these companies kind of keep an eye on each other's prices, whether it is a service fee or a can of tomato soup. They like making money and, hey, we live in a capitalist environment, where everybody wants to make money, whether one is a lobbyist for a grocery store or the CEO of a big multinational company. Their job is to make money. However, in this House, our job is to promote fairness, and I believe that budget 2024 does find fairness in the market, and it does demand better from big grocery and big oil and gas. It does ask those companies to find a way to have fairer practices so that they do not get caught up in a situation like they did 10 years ago when they had to mail hundreds of thousands of Canadian households a funny little blank $25 gift card to make up for the fact that they cheated them. I will say it again: Food is an essential item. It is not as though Canadians can just choose not to go to the grocery store. Certainly, they can choose to go to a less expensive one, or they can choose to shop local or at the farmers' market, but that does not fix the problem. Fixing the problem is going to take a combination of solutions. I am in support of an excess profit tax on grocery stores, and also oil and gas, I would add, but that does not necessarily address the issue that they are allowed to get away with it. I would like to see fairness built into the system and an ombudsperson who oversees a lot of these prices so that we can see more fairness, and I know that competition will also achieve that.

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Mr. Brad Vis (Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, CPC)

Jun/3/24 9:07:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the debate tonight is on excess profits. Would my colleague from Milton be able to define what exactly would be an excess profit? For example, what would be an appropriate margin of profit for a grocery company that he has referred to this evening?

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden

Jun/3/24 9:07:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be totally frank: I am no expert on what thresholds of corporate profit should be deemed reasonable. I would leave that up to experts to determine. I would like some public input on that. I think everybody would agree that companies ought to be able to earn a profit. I grew up in non-profit housing, so nobody made any money when my mom paid the rent. I would like to see that same system applied more broadly across our economy, because with essentials, whether it is shelter, medicine or food, there should be a way to pay a farmer directly for their work and not be facilitating the enormous profits of billionaire grocery execs. However, that is tough to find. There are stores called co-ops out there, a chain of stores, which I am not sure who owns, but I do not think they are actually co-operatives and non-profits. I would love to see more non-profit-style shopping in the grocery space. While I am on this topic, I also know that a lot of seniors, particularly single seniors, shop for previously prepared items. They might get spaghetti and meatballs or a soup, which is not in a can and might be in a jar or a takeaway container, and HST is applied to that food. That is something that is not in our control, but I would consider looking at taking off the HST on prepared food at grocery stores. This would not be at a convenience store or for a sandwich at Subway or something like that. I am not suggesting there should not be HST on that food, but finding ways to meet Canadians where they are and lower their food costs would be a priority for me. Any good idea that somebody comes forward with is worthy of consideration and debate.

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

Jun/3/24 9:09:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Milton mentioned some of the very real drivers of food price inflation, such as crop failures because of extreme weather, supply chain disruptions and international conflict. However, what we have seen is that, after some of those issues have resolved, after the supply chain starts moving again or the extreme weather subsides and the crops start growing again, the prices do not go down. They are quick to rise and very slow to fall. In fact, they do not fall at all. Does he agree that we need to see grocery chains lower their prices rather than what his leader, the Prime Minister, has called for, which is simply for them to stabilize? Does he agree we are at a place where Canadians cannot bear the current prices? We understand food price inflation has slowed, and that is certainly a positive trend, but Canadians are feeling the result of months of extreme inflation that has resulted in high prices that are not subsiding.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden

Jun/3/24 9:10:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my hon. colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley. I tend to agree with him whether we are on committee or just going for a walk down Wellington. We are both very pressed with the issue of trying to find solutions to affordability in Canada. I have noticed the same thing. For months now, a head of lettuce has been $3.49 where I shop, and I do not think it is as a result of a drought. It is because the price went up, people became used to it and the prices just kind of sat there; stores said that people were now used to paying $3.50 for lettuce. That is too expensive, and there needs to be a little more accountability. If a price shock occurs because of any number of factors, then we understand that people need to be made whole. We can choose something else in many cases. I feel the same way about shopping seasonally. There was a big thing on Facebook a couple of weeks ago about watermelon, and everybody was freaking out about the price of watermelon, but watermelon was wildly out of season at the time. It is also appropriate that we consider the time of year when we are shopping for certain items. I enjoy the convenience of having watermelon all year, but it is also true that we can shop seasonally to save a bit of money. The other thing I wanted to discuss is something I am not sure will come up. Most people in the House are my age, a little older or close to it. I am 42 years old. In my first job, I was working for about eight dollars an hour. These days, that is absolutely not okay, and nobody works for eight dollars an hour in Canada; however, one of the reasons things have become more expensive is that we are starting to pay people closer to a minimum livable income. I am not saying we are there just yet. People who are working in grocery stores now are not being paid enough, but perhaps they are being paid $16 or $17 an hour; that is almost nine dollars more than we were paid 15 years or 20 years back. This is another concern that we need to feed into the system. I believe in a living wage being paid to the people who are ringing our groceries through and stocking the shelves. If that could normalize a little and balance out against the billion-dollar CEO profits and bonuses we are seeing, that would also be fair.

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The Speaker

Jun/3/24 9:13:13 p.m.
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It being 9:13 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion are deemed put and a recorded division deemed demanded. Pursuant to Standing Order 66, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, June 5, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

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Mr. Brad Vis (Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, CPC)

Jun/3/24 9:14:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on May 9, I rose in this chamber to ask the Minister of Finance when the Liberal government would stop sitting on the $2.5 billion in promised carbon tax rebates while business insolvencies skyrocket and small businesses suffer under higher taxes and inflation. Indeed, this promise was originally made in 2019. In the budget, I will admit, the government did announce that carbon tax rebates would be forthcoming. However, it did take five years and this is a tax that 80% of small businesses want eliminated. This spring, however, the Liberals announced that they will reduce the amount of financial relief businesses will receive from carbon tax revenue in 2024 from 9% to 5%. Small businesses, as a result of the government's economic failure and incompetence, are drowning in debt and are struggling to stay afloat. Skyrocketing commercial rent, payroll and carbon tax increases, and Liberal red tape have created an impossible economic situation for many businesses across Canada. The latest report from the superintendent of bankruptcy revealed a 58.6% increase, year-over-year, in business insolvencies across Canada for the period ending April 30, 2024. Statistics Canada reported that in February, more businesses closed their doors than opened. The largest declines were seen in transportation and warehousing, construction, so we think of home building, accommodation and food services. The labour force survey each month continues to highlight the massive gap in public sector job growth and private sector job growth. The growth in size of the public service is greatly outpacing private sector job growth. Quality of life is also continuing to decline in our country and our economy is underperforming the American economy by the widest margin since 1965. Among our G7 peers, only Italy has seen a greater decline in labour productivity compared to the United States. In 1984, Canada produced 88% of the value generated by the U.S. economy per hour. By 2022, that figure had fallen to 71%. Again, only Italy performed worse over the same period. If the government truly had the back of small businesses, as I have heard in this House during QP, the situation would, in fact, look very different. Rather than taxing Canadians into oblivion and offering a woefully insufficient rebate, far less than was originally promised, the government could start controlling its spending and stop driving up inflation and create a competitive economy for our small businesses to thrive. Indeed, the statistics I outlined do not lie. If this government truly “urgently” wants to return the proceeds from the carbon tax, then I will ask: why did it take five years for this government to make an announcement? On what day will small businesses start receiving this rebate? Secondly, why did the government reduce the amount given to small businesses from 9% to 5%?

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity, Lib.)

Jun/3/24 9:17:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always nice to be in the House in the evening with my colleague from Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. I thank him for the opportunity for an adjournment debate on this important issue. Small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of the Canadian economy, and over the last four or five years, business owners have had a really challenging environment to operate in. Depending on what sector and where they are located, the pandemic has had an outsized impact on a lot of small businesses. However, throughout that tumultuous period, our government was there for small business owners. We paid much of their salaries, and we paid a lot of that rent. We kicked in wherever we could. We provided CEBA loans, and we kept the Canadian economy afloat. We took on some debt so that the business owners would not have to and the result is that, over the last two years, the recession that so many economists, pundits and op-ed writers indicated was on the horizon in Canada has been avoided. It is really worth pointing out that, despite all the gloomy talk of the Conservative Party of Canada, Canada's economy is doing very well compared to our colleagues in the G7 or our partner countries. It is always easy to find a statistic to point out that it is bad here or it is bad there, but overall, Canada's wage growth has caught up to inflation, which is excellent news for workers. We have seen more than one million, the last figure being 1.3 million, new jobs compared to before the pandemic. The member was talking about inflation and accusing this government of contributing to that inflation. He does not really give our government or the institution across the road, the Bank of Canada, too much credit for that inflation coming down. In the last 20 months consecutively, it has come down to a more reasonable rate of somewhere between 2.3% and 2.7%, which is getting really close to the Bank of Canada's target rate of 2%. We are getting there as a country. I am not taking credit, as a member of this side. I want to give credit to Canadian workers, to Canadian innovators, to Canadian small business owners and to people who worked so hard during the pandemic and who took advantage of some of those government programs, which they were entitled to. They have continued to fight through the headwinds. The reason we are not in a recession now, in June 2024, is because of their hard work and ingenuity. As the member rightly pointed out, budget 2024 proposes to invest $2.5 billion to support 600,000 businesses across Canada. For context, the CEBA loans supported Canadian businesses with upward of $45 billion or $50 billion. Our government has been there for small and medium-sized businesses. As we fight climate change and innovate to lower our emissions together, we will continue to serve Canadians, employ Canadians and make sure that Canadians have all of the opportunities they deserve. In the future, we will be there. We will have their backs, and we know that they will continue to do their great work in driving our economy forward to a green future.

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Mr. Brad Vis

Jun/3/24 9:20:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will point out that, in respect to the carbon tax rebate, that money was collected from small business owners and redistributed back to small business owners. It is, in fact, not an investment. It is a wealth-distribution scheme put forward by the government. It is not the Conservative Party of Canada, the loyal opposition, but Bank of Canada officials who outlined that we have a productivity crisis in Canada. It is the Bank of Canada that is outlining that the GDP per worker in this country is falling precipitously. That means workers are getting less on average than they did in the past. In other words, people are working harder and taking home less every month. That is what Conservatives want to fix, and that is why we continually say, “more powerful paycheques”. We want Canadians to be able to keep more for their hard work. We also want to see policies from government that give Canadian business a foundation of success moving forward.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden

Jun/3/24 9:22:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it sounds like we have the same goal. We both want to help Canadian business owners. However, we put forth ideas and actual policies, not just three-word slogans and rhyming couplets that look good on bumper stickers and hoodies. It requires some intellect to come to this place with policies and recommendations that would actually support the economy, support Canadians and, at the same time, lower our emissions and drive innovation forward. Unfortunately, what we have seen from the Conservative Party is just constant sloganeering. “Powerful paycheques” sounds really good. However, what does that mean? They need to put forth a policy that suggests that paycheques would actually grow as a result of it. Carbon pricing has been in place in that member's province for well over a decade. In fact, some of his colleagues on the Conservative side contributed to that policy, and it has been a great success. Emissions per capita have come down in British Columbia, and they continue to do so. We will continue to support evidence-based policies just like that one.

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Mr. Tako Van Popta (Langley—Aldergrove, CPC)

Jun/3/24 9:23:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on May 3 in question period, I asked a question about the failed drug legalization pilot project in British Columbia. I say it was a failed project because we were about one year into a three-year pilot project. The evidence was clear that it was failing, with 2,500 toxic drug deaths in the first year of the project, a 7% increase over the previous year. There was crime and chaos on the streets, and there were many reports from many different communities, including mine, about abuse on the streets. British Columbians were not happy with all of the negativity, and the provincial government was feeling the heat. It knew it had to do something, and in fact, it did. It introduced provincial legislation, the restricting consumption of illegal substances act, to put some restrictions in place on the open use of drugs in parks, playgrounds, hospitals, transit etc., and to give the police some extra authority. An organization called the Harm Reduction Nurses Association challenged the legislation in the B.C. Supreme Court and convinced the judge to impose a temporary injunction preventing the B.C. government from actually bringing the new law into effect. According to the judge, prohibiting people from using drugs in public places was an infringement of their constitutional right under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “the right to life, liberty and security of the person”. I was stunned by that, as I am sure many Canadians were. Is that what section 7 is all about? Is it about a constitutionally protected right to use drugs in public places? When there were no exemptions at all to the federal legislation, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, no decriminalization of drugs for personal use, and no public experiments with hard drugs, as had been the case for all of Canadian history up until a year ago, there were never any arguments about whether people had a constitutional right to use drugs in public places. Once the federal government opened that door just a bit, it also opened the door to new and novel arguments to expand charter rights to include open drug use in public places. I have to ask myself some questions. What happened to the big vision of a just society that inspired the original drafters of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? What happened to giving people hope for a better life? What happened to health and treatment? I know that the Liberals claim to be the party of the charter, and they often demonize the Conservative Party by suggesting we are going to gut the charter, but I do not think we have any lessons to learn from the Liberal Party on this. What we have seen with the Liberal government's ill-conceived ideas is that they are far removed from what the original drafters of the charter thought about a just society for all Canadians. Will the Liberal government put a complete end to the disastrous, failed drug-use experiment altogether and instead give people hope for a better future?

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Mrs. Élisabeth Brière (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, Lib.)

Jun/3/24 9:26:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, from the outset, I would like to assure everyone that we are deeply concerned about the overdose crisis and its consequences on the lives of so many people in the country. Every loss of life is tragic and we must do everything in our power to help people and save lives. Substance use and addictions are health issues first and foremost and should be treated as such. People need health care, not jail. The war on drugs did not work decades ago, and it still does not work today. This crisis is constantly evolving, so we need to change our course of action, take innovative action, monitor those actions closely and track the data to figure out what is working. Our approach is responsive and adaptable. We owe it to Canadians to do everything in our power to keep them alive and help them. Liberals are committed to continuing to work with and support provinces and territories to find solutions to meet their specific needs in order for them to offer timely services to their population. That is why we are continuing to work closely with the Province of British Columbia and to support its comprehensive response to the overdose crisis. Let us talk about what this exemption does and does not do. This exemption does not legalize drugs and never has. Under B.C.'s exemption, the sale, production and distribution of regulated substances remains illegal. What the exemption actually does is enable the province to focus on a health-based response, where people are encouraged to seek out health and social services, rather than being arrested and charged with personal possession of small amounts of illegal substances. The stigma associated with criminal prosecution is still a barrier to care. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this crisis. A complex health and social issue requires a multi-faceted response. That is why we continue to support the provinces and territories in strengthening health care services so that they are available when and where people need them. In the 2024 budget, we announced $150 million over three years for an emergency treatment fund to help municipalities and indigenous communities quickly access funds so they can mobilize efforts and meet their urgent needs in order to save lives now. Our actions are comprehensive, equitable, collaborative and compassionate, and are guided by our federal Canadian drugs and substances strategy. This all-of-government approach includes access to a full range of strategies to help people access prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery services, and the supports they need when and where they need them. We will continue to work closely with our partners on a range of actions to prevent substance use, reduce harm, support people in their treatment journey and keep communities safe. What we have been hearing from the Conservatives' side is dehumanizing. They are basically saying that we need to clean up the streets because these people are a bother. On this side of the House, we are here to help people who use drugs. Becoming addicted was not their choice. They did not wake up one morning and decide that they were going to start using drugs. The important thing is to give them a range of options so that they can find their way forward and resolve their problem, which is not a criminal justice issue, but a mental health issue.

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Mr. Tako Van Popta

Jun/3/24 9:30:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her thoughtful comments, although I do have to take exception to them. She said that Conservatives just want to criminalize all sorts of behaviour and get the streets cleaned up and that the very saintly Liberals want to help people. Their programs are failing. That is the whole point of this. They have taken one step down a very risky path, experimenting with hard drug usage, even in public places, which has proven to be a disaster. Now they are backpedalling on that, and rightly so, because it was a failed program. The deep failure, and this is what I was getting to on what has happened to the big picture of justice in this nation, is that what people really need is help beyond that. The member said that the Liberals are doing this and that, and making announcements about it, but they are not getting very much done. I am reading from The Globe and Mail today a headline that reads, “Detox beds in B.C. routinely sit empty because of staff shortages”. That is the problem. Why is the help not there that is really needed?

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Mrs. Élisabeth Brière

Jun/3/24 9:32:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, clearly, we have to do everything in our power to save lives and reduce risks, while keeping communities safe and fighting drug trafficking and organized crime. Our government is focused on supporting a full range of services and supports to address the diverse needs of people who use drugs, as well as enforcement efforts to protect our communities. We are in the midst of a crisis where people are dying. This is not the time to be pitting harm reduction against treatment. We need both at the same time, and the evidence clearly demonstrates that. People who need and are ready for treatment must have access to it when and where they need it. Those who are not ready or cannot access treatment need harm reduction options to stay alive. Without harm reduction services, more people will die.

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Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP)

Jun/3/24 9:33:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last year's summer was the hottest on record and the most devastating for wildfires. Smoke from wildfires forced kids to spend their days indoors, and Canadians across the country were evacuated from their homes because of the wildfires. Our kids are breathing in harmful toxins, and when I think about the summer to come, it is only going to get worse with this year's wildfire season. However, we have the Liberals, who keep acting like it is business as usual. They are breaking their climate promises, handing out billions of dollars to Canada's biggest polluters and watering down key climate policies, like the emissions cap. The Conservatives, though, cannot even agree that climate change is real. Canadians should not have to choose between deny and delay, but it is not only wildfire smoke that is contributing to air pollution and making people sick. This past year, we saw increased deaths due to air pollution because of the wildfires, but on average, in Canada, 15,000 Canadians die each year because of air pollution. We also know that petrochemical plants are making people sick. In Ontario, the Aamjiwnaang First Nation issued a state of emergency declaration last month due to excessive discharge of benzene from an industry factory. Several people had fallen ill with headaches, nausea and dizziness, and it is all too common that these impacts disproportionately affect indigenous communities. This is unacceptable, and the government must do more to regulate industry pollution. It also needs to do more to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving up emissions, that are threatening the future for our children and our grandchildren and that are polluting our air, so much so that a child in Edmonton said that it felt like an elephant was standing on their chest. This is in Canada. I continue to be disappointed by the Liberal government's refusal to address environmental dangers, to address environmental racism and to protect Canadians. Will the Liberals stop putting the interests of the biggest polluters over the health and safety of Canadians?

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