SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 324

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 4, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24
Mr. Ryan Williams
  • Jun/4/24 11:33:11 a.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, carbon tax is included in interprovincial travel, so the member might be surprised to learn that carbon tax is added to those fuel bills. However, we agree on the fact that to tackle these monopolies and oligopolies we need more competition. Do I believe we should have big, massive corporations with big CEOs making massive dollars in groceries? Absolutely not. We have been on the record consistently saying we want more competition, which means we have more companies and the wealth is spread out. How to do that is to have more companies. The problem with our remote areas in Canada is that it is going to take a lot more innovation and sometimes a bit of help to get that to happen, because we do have large companies that dominate the landscapes. The only way out of that is to make sure we are involved in rural areas to help those areas get better, as well as to make sure there is more competition in general in urban areas.
172 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24
Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)
  • Jun/4/24 11:34:17 a.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, the CEOs of five big oil companies are coming to the environment committee on Thursday. We know these companies are keeping the prices high, earning excess profits and not reinvesting those profits. Does the member think those companies should be broken up into lots of little companies? Would he vote for something like that, or does he take his marching orders from the gas tax-hiking Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith?
73 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24
Mr. Dave Epp (Chatham-Kent—Leamington, CPC)
  • Jun/4/24 12:35:47 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question. If all of the corporate profits were eliminated, set at zero voluntarily or by legislation, if the grocery CEOs received zero compensation and both of those factors were removed from the price of food, would the hon. member across the way deem food to be affordable and priced appropriately?
57 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24
Ms. Laurel Collins
  • Jun/4/24 12:36:15 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, I feel as if this is the kind of stock definition of a “straw man” argument. No one has said the corporations would maybe be making zero profit. No one has said that the CEOs would be making zero dollars. We are saying that maybe at a time when the biggest corporations are making billions of dollars, when they are raking in record profits and Canadians are going to food banks, just maybe, we deserve a government that will take on corporate greed and lower the prices of everyday essentials for Canadians while they are struggling.
100 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24
Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)
  • Jun/4/24 4:00:12 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, the bread-pricing scandal was really an eye-opener, when $6 billion were stolen from Canadians. The Competition Bureau and our powerless laws need to be updated. At committee, we had the CEOs of all the major grocery stores on the very same day as workers received pandemic pay or hero pay. That type of collusion still exists.
60 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24
Mr. Ben Carr
  • Jun/4/24 4:15:40 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we did hear on the study on food price stabilization that was undertaken at the agriculture and agri-food committee was that it was not entirely clear where some of the profits were being derived from. The margins on food, we heard, were not all that large, but a lot of the profits came from some non-food-related items. For example, that could be things like pharmaceuticals and other everyday items. I would be interested in looking at that report and understanding a little more, but I do not disagree that there is a pretty significant amount that CEOs are earning. I do appreciate, as well, when the member talked about the oil and gas industry, that so much of the conversation that has been attacking a price on pollution has been talking about the increase at the pump. However, so much of the increase that we are seeing at the pump is coming from the oil and gas industry. I am always open to learning more. I am not sure I would agree fully with my colleague about the excess windfall tax, but there are some points there I certainly do take.
201 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border