44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 4, 2024 10:00AM
- Jun/4/24 10:17:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciated my colleague and friend's speech. I do agree that we do need to make sure we are not escalating costs in this country. Those costs are being felt most at the grocery level by the consumer. One of the major impacts, of course, is inflation, and what is causing inflation is the Liberal government's overspending.
Would my colleague join us in actually getting the government back to a balanced budget so we could take out the root cause of inflation that is driving up the cost of everything for Canadians?
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- Jun/4/24 11:21:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives balanced the budget. We had lower taxes. Rent was half of what it is today. Housing prices were half of what they are today, and life was a heck of a lot more affordable than it is now, even after all the pitches and proposals by the NDP and Liberals. I will put a common-sense Conservative record any day of the week, on the table, versus what they have and the record they are going to have to answer for.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to participate in this debate on the NDP motion submitted by the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford in relation to the price of essential foods and the conduct of grocery giants, such as Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys.
The proposed motion is timely, because by voting in favour of Bill C-59 last week, this House approved the latest initiative in the government's comprehensive modernization of the Competition Act. The relevant clauses were approved unanimously, showing the strong consensus here in this chamber on these issues.
The truth of the matter is that the government has been extremely active in promoting competition in all sectors of the economy, including in the grocery retail industry. It begins with resourcing. In budget 2021, the government increased the Competition Bureau's budget by $96 million over five years and $27.5 million ongoing thereafter. The increase in resources was a much needed boost to the bureau's capacity, and in its own words, “These funds enhance our ability to enforce the law and advocate for more competition. They help ensure we have the right tools to deal with Canada’s competition challenges now and in the future.”
Needless to say, law enforcement will not be effective if the enforcers are not able to carry out their tasks, and that is why this extraordinary increase was crucial to the bureau's functioning. The next step had to do with the legal framework under which the bureau operates, the Competition Act, which was aging and falling short compared to our international partners.
Through the 2022 budget bill, Bill C-19, we took the first step in remedying this, correcting some of the obvious issues. This included criminalizing wage-fixing agreements, allowing private parties to seek an order for abuse of a dominant position and raising maximum penalty amounts to be based on the benefits of anti-competitive conduct. This ensures that sanctions would no longer be a mere slap on the wrist for today's largest economic actors.
The government knew, however, that much more remained to be done. Where the solutions were less readily obvious, the minister turned to the public process, launching a comprehensive public consultation on the future of Canada's competition policy. The process ran from November 2022 through March 2023.
In response to a consultation paper released by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, over 500 responses were received. This consisted of over 130 from identified stakeholders like academics, businesses, practitioners and non-government organizations.
While this feedback was being received, government officials also met with stakeholders in round table groups, allowing them to voice their views and to interact with each other as well. Stakeholders were not shy about sharing their opinions with us. They knew what sorts of outcomes they wanted to be delivered.
There was no shortage of proposals made, some highly concrete and detailed, others more directional in nature. What we heard, however, is that Canadians wanted more competition. Across many domains, the desire to strengthen the law, to enable the bureau to act and to align with international counterparts was evident.
Of course, many also expressed reservations about ensuring we get the details right and warned about overcorrection. The government took those to heart as well, taking inspiration from examples in other jurisdictions and recognizing the careful balancing that must be done when developing new legislation.
All told, the results of the consultation can be seen in two pieces of government legislation.
First, Bill C-56, the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, was adopted in December 2023. It took some of the largest issues off the table. It eliminated the “efficiency exception”, which allowed anti-competition mergers to withstand challenge. It revised the law on abuse of dominant position to open up new avenues for a remedial order. It broadened the types of collaboration the bureau can examine, including those that are not formed between direct competitors. It established a framework for the bureau to conduct marketing studies, including the possibility of production orders to compel information. Work on this last amendment is already under way, as the bureau has announced an intention to launch a study into the passenger air travel industry.
Bill C-59, the fall economic statement implementation act, 2023, is the second legislative effort following the consultation. As we know, it is currently before the Senate, and the government looks forward to its quick adoption. The amendments to the Competition Act that it contains are incredibly comprehensive. I will provide some of the highlights.
The bill makes critical amendments to merger notification and review to ensure that the bureau is aware of the most important deals and would be able to take action before it is too late. It significantly revamps the enforcement framework to strengthen provisions dealing with anti-competitive agreements, and it broadens the private enforcement framework so that more people could bring their own cases before the Competition Tribunal for a wider variety of reasons; in some cases, they could even be eligible for a financial award.
Bill C-59 also helps address important government priorities by making it harder to engage in “greenwashing”, which is the questionable or false representation of a product or a business’s environmental benefits. It facilitates useful environmental collaboration that might otherwise have been unlawful. It helps to make repair options more available for consumers by ensuring that refusals to provide the necessary means can be reviewed and remedied as needed.
Finally, overall, Bill C-59 makes a number of critical but often technical updates throughout the law to remove enforcement obstacles and make sure that the entire system runs smoothly.
I cannot overstate how important these measures are. The competition commissioner has referred to this as a “generational” transformation. It is by far the most significant update to the law since the amendments in 2009, following the recommendations of the competition policy review panel; arguably, it is the most comprehensive rewrite of the Competition Act since it first came into effect in 1986. Our world has changed since then, and it became clear that the law needed to keep pace to enable institutions that can oversee fast-changing markets and landscapes.
After the passage of Bill C-59, we can guarantee that our competition law will work for Canadians in markets such as the one under scrutiny here, as well as the many other markets throughout our economy.
I am thankful for having been given the opportunity to share a few words.
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- Jun/4/24 1:05:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government has invested and increased the budget by over $150 million to help northerners. Our government is absolutely committed to ensuring that 100% of the retail subsidy is directly passed on to northerners.
Prices are too high in the north. We have worked, and will continue to work, with territorial governments, indigenous partners and people who live in the north and the Arctic to make more progress.
Progress has been made, but there is a lot more work to be done. We are committed to doing it.
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- Jun/4/24 2:23:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we of course respect the work of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who provides independent analysis to the government. In this instance, however, the Parliamentary Budget Officer admitted that he made a mistake with his carbon pricing reports, using incorrect analysis and modelling, which emphasises what we have been saying all along: that eight out of 10 Canadians get more money back from the Canada carbon rebate while we fight climate change.
The next Canada carbon rebate is actually going to be arriving on July 15 in Canadians' bank accounts right across the country. We will continue to put money in people's pockets and fight climate—
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- Jun/4/24 3:02:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer does important and essential work, and we thank him for the update. Recently, he had an update on his website, saying that the last estimate he had done was based on faulty information, and we thank him for correcting the record. It confirms what we have known all along, what economists and independent organizations across the country have been saying, which is that eight out of 10 Canadians are better off with federal carbon pricing.
The reason the Conservatives are so bent out of shape about this is because it re-emphasizes the fact that carbon pricing both lowers emissions and the Canada carbon rebate supports affordability.
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- Jun/4/24 3:14:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Canada disability benefit is a major milestone in our strong and unwavering commitment to creating a more inclusive and more fair Canada.
Through this budget, we have committed over $6.1 billion as the initial investment for the Canada disability benefit. This is the first-ever federal benefit designed for persons with disabilities. We know there is more to do, but we will continue to work with provinces and territories, first, to make sure that there are no clawbacks and to see what more we can do to support individuals with disabilities, now and into the future.
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- Jun/4/24 11:19:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is justice in this place after all.
I want to thank my colleague for his excellent speech. He talked about legislative mismanagement on behalf of the Liberals. There is a serious case of legislative mismanagement as it pertains to the budget. The Liberals brought in a budget that was going to give Canadians until June 25 to sell their assets so they can lock in at the lower capital gains inclusion rate. Then, when the budget bill came, there was nothing. It was not there. They still have not tabled legislation.
Is this not extremely dangerous and unfair to taxpayers, who are being forced into a situation where they do not know what the rules are?
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