44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 10, 2024 11:00AM
- Jun/10/24 8:48:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his advocacy for families and children. It is good to see. I spent my whole career working with non-profits and charities; specifically, I worked on ending food insecurity. However, it is good to hear that Conservatives are finally noticing that food insecurity is a problem in this country. It is too bad they voted against a national school food program that would take 400,000 kids out of food bank lines. I do not know how the Conservatives can maintain a position in which they seem to empathize with individuals standing in food bank lines but will not feed the children of those families.
Supporting families, improving their quality of life, is one thing that our government has set as a priority from day one. We have taken steps to make life more affordable because we believe every Canadian deserves a real and fair chance to succeed.
Let us take one example. The Canada child benefit helps low- and middle-income families with the costs of raising their children. The benefit, which is indexed to inflation, supports over 3.5 million families and over six million children. Thousands of families across my riding of Whitby receive upwards of $91 million a year to support their families, which far outweighs the costs that the member opposite had mentioned in terms of what families are bearing today as their bottom line. That is close to $25 billion, tax-free, in the hands of families each year from the Canada child benefit.
In 2021, the Government of Canada made a transformative investment to create a Canada-wide early learning and child care system, which we knew would give children a strong start in life. Tens of thousands of families and children are already benefiting from reduced child care fees, enabling mothers to rejoin the workforce, which builds family incomes.
Since 2022 and until June 30, families with children under 12 have benefited from the Canada dental benefit. With the new Canadian dental care plan, the Government of Canada would continue to help families access the dental care that they and their children need and deserve.
There is no question that food insecurity affects many Canadians. No child should go to school on an empty stomach, but the rising price of groceries makes it difficult for many families to afford nutritious food. That is why, in budget 2024, our government put in a $1-billion investment over five years to create a national school food program. The program would increase access to school meals for an additional 400,000 schoolchildren a year and help more Canadian children get a better start each day. It would ensure that children can focus on learning rather than being hungry, and it would take some of the pressure off family budgets, helping make life more affordable.
We are also helping deliver relief at the grocery checkout counter in three ways. First, we have amended the Competition Act; this is something our government has done in three rounds of changes. I have been a part of that process and have seen a lot of collaboration with parties opposite. It is great to see us strengthening competition, which will ultimately lower and stabilize prices. Second, we have secured commitments from Canada's five largest grocery chains to help stabilize those prices. That was months ago. Members mocked that initiative, but it certainly had some impact. Third, we have set up a grocery task force to supervise the big grocers' work and investigate unacceptable grocery sector practices, such as shrinkflation.
These are all great examples of government working for Canadians. Since 2015, we have enhanced the Canada workers benefit, increased old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, and implemented a new Canada disability benefit. There are many more examples to come. We are strengthening the social safety net in Canada to ensure all families are taken care of.
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- Jun/10/24 8:52:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member and I have had an exchange before about the Liberals' promises of a national school food program. We are both from the class of 2019. For years, the Liberals have been standing up and promising help. How many children have been fed after nine years under the current Prime Minister? That is not nine days and not nine months, but nine years. Zero children have been fed through the Liberals' national school food program. The only people getting fed are in the growing bureaucracy here in Ottawa; this is not helping families.
We talk about the carbon tax, and the Liberals say, “Oh, it is not punitive; it is not a big deal at all, because there is so much more money going back to Canadians than before. So many families are getting more money in the rebates than they are paying in the carbon tax.” If that were the case, why is food bank use in this country up 79% in the last five years or so? Why are there now two million visits to a food bank per month in this country? Why are a million more people going this year? If things are so great, why are the Liberals' numbers so bad?
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- Jun/10/24 8:53:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, obviously, feeding children in schools through a national school food program, in which there is an investment of $1 billion over five years in this year's budget, is going to roll out in the coming years and months. It has not fed children in the past because it was not in existence in the past.
School food programs exist all across the country, but they have needed an injection of additional funds. We have heard their cries for more funding to help feed more children. That is exactly what we are doing. We have put it in this year's budget. The member opposite does not seem to want to support that. They are voting against a budget that helps feed 400,000 more kids. I cannot understand it. It is so ironic and hypocritical of them to stand here and say that Canadians are not doing well and are standing in food bank lineups. Yes, we empathize with that. That is why we are trying to feed children in this country.
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- Jun/10/24 8:54:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a story that is going to blow the hats right off our heads. I know we are not allowed to have props in the House of Commons, but let us pretend that we have binoculars. I can see the Deputy Speaker. I can see, way over there, the member for Whitby, who is going to get up shortly.
Why does this matter? I cannot see the CN Tower in here. I cannot see the CN Tower in my riding of York—Simcoe, but the Liberal government over here has classified York—Simcoe as part of Toronto when it comes to the carbon tax.
Why does that matter to people in my rural riding? We are not eligible for the 20% rural top-up. Think of that. The Chippewas of Georgina Island are 70 miles from Toronto, in the middle of Lake Simcoe, which one has to take a ferry to. It is the only way one can get home. In the middle of winter, one has to use a Scoot to take kids to school. They are not eligible to receive the 20% rural top-up under the carbon tax we have now.
Think about that. For people in downtown Toronto, as the Deputy Prime Minister said that she can just go out of her house, walk out and get on the subway. She can get on a streetcar. We, in rural Ontario, where my riding is, have none of those options. We do not have a subway. We do not have a streetcar. The closest hospital is a 45-minute drive, and it is over an hour if one wants to take the ferry from the Chippewas of Georgina Island.
When I was coming here tonight, I ran into a gentleman coming up the stairs. He had his hard hat on, and he had his lunch box. He asked me if I worked in Parliament, and I said that I did. He told me that he was just beside himself, making $1,000 a week, $4,000 a month. With his fixed expenses at $3,800 a month, he had $200 to spare. This is the plight of many Canadians now. He said to me that if his fridge breaks or his car breaks down, he would be upside down under water. Again, this is the plight of many Canadians.
In my riding, the millions of dollars, since 2017, which people of York—Simcoe are entitled to under the rural top-up is what we have been denied by the government. That is why I am here tonight. I have talked about this for over two years with the Liberal government.
At my last adjournment proceeding, my hon. colleague's answer was to get up and ask if I had heard about the 20% rural top-up they are giving Canadians in rural Ontario. The point of the matter is that York—Simcoe does not qualify for that 20% rural top-up. Many communities in rural Canada, right across Canada, do not qualify for that top-up. How does one make the government understand this?
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- Jun/10/24 8:58:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government does not shy away from the facts, and the facts are that climate change is real. The Canadian Climate Institute points to how much climate change will cost our economy in the year 2025, which is $25 billion a year and 50% of projected GDP growth in one year. That is the estimated loss in damages due to climate change next year.
I know the member opposite comes from a riding he is very proud of, the soup and salad bowl of Ontario, or of Canada, he calls it. I know the Holland Marsh well. It is a beautiful asset to our province of Ontario. I wonder what he would say to the farmers in that area when the derechos and other climate-related events are happening. I am sure he wants them to have a sustainable future for their farms.
Carbon pricing, obviously, is one essential tool in our government's comprehensive climate action plan. It is estimated by many reputable sources that up to one-third of Canada's carbon emissions reductions will come from the price on pollution. That is a significant amount. Our government is making evidence-based decisions that will serve the health of Canadians, of the planet and of the economy for decades to come.
Why is carbon pricing so important? It is because, of course, it deters certain types of behaviour and promotes other types of behaviour. It is a market-based mechanism that the Parliamentary Budget Officer and over 300 economists have signed a letter saying is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions. When I talk to people, they say that this is actually a small “c” conservative policy. Conservatives ran on a price on pollution in their last election platform, under their previous leader.
I get that they have a new leader now, who denies climate change is real and would do everything to take us backward in time, but honestly, does the member really care so little about the farmers and the people in his riding, and about the children and grandchildren of future generations, that he will literally leave the planet to burn? I do not understand how one can oppose the most cost-effective market-based mechanism for reducing emissions in this country as one of the tools in the tool box to reduce emissions.
Does the member opposite actually believe in climate change, or does he just want to abandon all hope for a sustainable future? I think what he is advocating for is that we not address climate change at all, because he wants to abandon the most cost-effective method for doing so and on which economists around the world and the International Monetary Fund agree. I do not know what the member opposite wants us to do. Whether he wants us take a hiatus just because he does not like it for the moment, I am not sure, but I just do not think that he really takes climate change seriously.
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Mr. Speaker, what I can say to the member opposite is this. I have stood in the House of Commons in hip waders and in Lake Simcoe in hip waders, calling this government out because it cancelled the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund. The Liberal government does not care about common-sense climate change initiatives.
The NDP-Liberal government voted against my bill, Bill C-204, to stop the export of plastic waste to developing countries for final disposal.
I can tell the member right now that I will fight for every nickel that is owed to my constituents in York—Simcoe. With more than two million people going to food banks right now and housing prices and rents doubled, Canadians are out of money and I will fight for every nickel that is owed to them.
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- Jun/10/24 9:03:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I note the member opposite talked about food bank lineups again. It is really a shame that he would not vote in support of feeding hungry children. I do not know how he can say over and again, as his party does every day in question period, that Conservatives care about the people in the food bank lineups, but they are not willing to support a national school food program. I just do not get that.
I understand that the member opposite is ideologically opposed to any action on climate change. Our government takes climate change seriously. Honestly, we have a commitment to addressing climate change because the people of Canada voted us in, in multiple elections, because they want to see climate action. Statistics have shown that the Canadian public cares about addressing climate change.
The member opposite makes it sound like we are trying to make life unaffordable. I have listed many things we have done to make life more affordable for Canadians, to address inflation and to invest in building a sustainable future.
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- Jun/10/24 9:04:27 p.m.
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The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted.
Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 9:04 p.m.)
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