- Member of Parliament
- Caucus Chair
- NDP
- Cowichan—Malahat—Langford
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 62%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,733.69
- Government Page
- Jun/10/24 1:48:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will agree with my colleague that it is a challenge. We have an existing statute coming up with parliamentary privilege, but that should not preclude his leader from getting the briefing necessary.
As I said in my speech, I was speaking with the director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, David Vigneault, at committee last week. He said that it was the opinion of the intelligence community that all leaders get briefed on this very serious issue.
We may not be able to speak about it, but there are actions that party leaders can take within their own caucuses. Eventually we are going to find a path forward where we get to know these names, but I do not believe that the Conservatives' current arguments precluding their leader from getting this briefing holds much water. I would urge the member to speak to his leader on getting the briefing. We need to rise above partisanship right now and get to the bottom of this, and that starts with every leader getting the briefing necessary to get the names.
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- Jun/10/24 1:45:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is true that since the report landed with the force of a bomb last week, it has let a cloud of suspicion hang over this entire place.
I did note that there is a wide gulf between intelligence and evidence, so it may not always be possible to satisfy evidence that someone was directly implicated in a court of law. However, there are extrajudicial methods that we can take, which is why it is very important that party leaders get briefed on this to find out if there are compromised members in their caucus.
However, what I am really worried about is that, one way or another, these names are going to be leaked anyway. It is really important for this Parliament and, indeed, the government to stay on top of that file and ensure that we agree on a process where we can ensure that those members are getting the punishment they are due for conspiring to work on behalf of a foreign power, but also that Canadians can be sure they will no longer show up on a ballot in the next federal election.
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- Jun/10/24 1:43:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in the early part of my speech, on May 30, 2023, it was the NDP that put forward the motion that expressed our distrust with the special rapporteur because of his close ties with the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party of Canada. It was that very same motion that established the need for a public inquiry. We actually achieved both those things, because the week after our motion was passed, no thanks to the Liberals but thanks to the Bloc Québécois for its support, David Johnston stepped down as the special rapporteur, and on September 7, 2023, we had the public inquiry set up. Therefore, we have been using our influence with the government, because we did achieve two notable things.
However, I am very much looking forward to the fact that our leader is going to receive the briefing necessary to understand which MPs are implicated in this mess. All party leaders in this place need to have that briefing. They need to understand if members of their own caucus are compromised so that they can take the appropriate actions to ensure that those individuals do not show up on a ballot come the next election.
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Madam Speaker, “I...do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.” I have uttered those words three times now: once in 2015, once in 2019 and again in 2021. Of course now our allegiance lies with His Majesty King Charles II.
It is important to note we are not giving our oath to the person. It is really given to the embodiment of the Crown as an institution, which is, of course, a symbol of the Canadian state, a ship that continues to sail on despite the occasional changing of its captain.
I never thought I would arrive at a moment in time when I had to seriously doubt the sincerity of that affirmation or oath from fellow members of Parliament, but given the astounding report we received last week from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, that is the moment we have all arrived at.
I do want to note that I am incredibly proud to be a member of a caucus that has consistently led the way on trying to get results on the file we are considering. I take members back to just over a year ago, when, on May 30, 2023, my hon. colleague, the member for Vancouver East, used our opposition day in the House of Commons to make sure we debated a motion calling for a public inquiry.
As members will recall, at that time, the government had set up a special rapporteur, the right hon. David Johnston, but it was quite clear the faith in Mr. Johnston's abilities had become compromised because of his close relationship with the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party. That is why we felt at the time, as New Democrats, it was necessary for the House to call on Mr. Johnston to step aside in his role and for the government to finally get serious about the matter of foreign interference and urgently establish a public commission of inquiry.
I am pleased to report that, thanks to all of the opposition parties, the motion brought in by my party passed by a vote of 174 to 150; unfortunately, the Liberals were the ones who voted against it. It did have results, because Mr. Johnston resigned the following week. He understood at that moment in time that it was simply untenable for him to continue in his role while not enjoying the full confidence of the House of Commons. As well, we know that finally the foreign interference commission was set up on September 7, 2023.
I am a member of a caucus that has seen its leader, the NDP leader, the member for Burnaby South, being directly impacted by foreign interference. We know that my colleague, the member for Vancouver East, has also suffered the same. In our small, close-knit NDP caucus, we know all too well how pernicious foreign interference is, because we have seen it directly implicate, constrain and negatively affect two of our members. It is very personal for our caucus.
That brings me to the motion the Bloc Québécois has brought forward on its opposition day for the House to consider and eventually vote on. I want to break up my speech into several parts, looking at the various components of the motion.
Let us take a look at the first part of the motion, “that the House take note of the Special Report on Foreign Interference in Canada’s Democratic Processes and Institutions of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.” Let us take note of the report. First of all, I want to note that in the opening paragraphs, the following appears: “the Committee noted the intelligence community’s consistent assessment that threat actors continue to consider Canada a permissive environment, viewing interference activities as a low-risk, high reward way to pursue strategic interests.”
At the end of the report, there is a litany of scathing conclusions against the Liberal government, complaining that the delays in developing policy demonstrated a lack of urgency commensurate with the gravity of threat, that delays in actions undermined the government's operational responses to the threat, and that a slow response to a known threat was a serious failure and one from which Canada may feel the consequences for years to come. Let that sink in, “for years to come”.
We are very much behind the eight ball on this issue. The warnings have been there, our country has been slow to act and those are the findings of NSICOP. Furthermore, we know now too that the Liberal government is withholding more than 1,000 pages of documents from the committee, just as it has withheld documents from the public inquiry. Those are hardly the actions of a government that is dedicated to transparency. I would argue that at this moment in time, what we need is transparency, we need to rebuild trust and we need accountability. This is an issue that rises above any one political party. This comes to the foundations of our democratic system itself. That is not full of hyperbole; that is the actual truth.
There is a real deficit in trust in the Canadian public right now and underpinning all of that is trust that we have faith that our democracy will continue through the turbulent times, that we can have faith that the people we elect to this place are doing their job honourably, on behalf of their constituents and in the best interests of the country we call Canada. It is clear that we have arrived at a moment where we must forcefully push back against hostile foreign powers that seek to undermine our democracy.
Let us go to the second part of the motion, which states that the House “express concern that certain elected officials may be wittingly or unwittingly working in the interests of foreign powers”. The NSICOP report landed with the force of a bomb last week. Its allegations that sitting members of Parliament are working on behalf of foreign interests is an incredibly serious issue that this House must be seized with. For example, paragraph 55 in the report talks about “Some elected officials...wittingly assisting foreign state actors soon after their election.” The paragraph was heavily redacted, but the description of the redacted elements make mention of “members of Parliament who worked to influence their colleagues on India’s behalf and proactively provided confidential information to Indian officials.”
Paragraph 56 talks about a foreign state, and it does not mention which one, supporting a witting politician. Again, it is heavily redacted. Paragraph 57 talks about the People's Republic of China establishing a quid pro quo relationship with MPs where it would mobilize its network in Canada in the members' favour in return for positive engagement with the PRC. On and on it goes, detailing clandestine networks influencing the political process, the use of proxies, covertly buying influence with candidates and elected officials, etc.
I want to take a moment to ask a question that I think is on a lot of Canadians' minds, and it is certainly on my mind. What is going on with the leader of the Conservative Party's ongoing refusal to get the clearance necessary for a top secret briefing on this matter? The NDP leader already has the clearance and is going to get the briefing on who these compromised politicians are. For the life of me, I cannot understand why there is ongoing refusal on the part of the leader of the Conservative Party. The only thing I can derive from that fact is it seems he would rather talk about things he does not know rather than know things that he cannot talk about. The report, specifically paragraphs 72 and 73, talks about where the People's Republic of China allegedly interfered in the leadership races of the Conservative Party of Canada and India allegedly interfered in the Conservative Party's leadership.
That is a five-alarm fire. That is something that all parties need to take seriously. We know, of course, of the allegations that exist out there with the Liberal Party. It has already impacted one of their sitting MPs, who is now sitting as an independent. Again, this is an issue that I think every single leader in this place needs to get up to speed on. I will tell us why.
Last week, as a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, we were doing a thorough review of Bill C-70, which I will talk about later, which is designed to deal with foreign interference. One of our witnesses was David Vigneault, who is the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I asked him about this, about whether it is in the intelligence community's interest that key members of Parliament, i.e., leaders of parties, get briefed on this information. He said yes, that it is in their interest to make sure that as many key members of Parliament, of the whole Parliament of Canada, are briefed on this.
Again, I understand that there is a wide gulf between intelligence and evidence but there are other mechanisms that party leaders can make use of within their own caucuses, so that if a party leader learns the identity of a compromised MP, there are actions that leader can take within their caucus to make sure that the Canadian people do not have a compromised person on the ballot in the next election. That is one avenue that can be taken.
It is shameful, I think, that, so many times, there is a deliberate choice to play partisan games rather than become informed. In my opinion, that is simply not leadership. There is a veil of ignorance on the Conservative side, but on the Liberal side, their continued reliance on judicial process and the RCMP investigating is also a cover, because, again, there is that gulf between intelligence and evidence. The intelligence does not always meet the high standard that is necessary in a court of law. Often, intelligence agencies are very loathe to share that intelligence because it could compromise their sources that gathered the information in the first place. Again, to the CSIS director's point at committee, there are actions that party leaders can take, but they can only take them if they make the conscious choice to become properly informed. We have yet to see that from the Conservative Party leader.
The final part of the motion from the Bloc Québécois is asking that the terms of reference for the foreign interference commission, known as the Hogue commission, be expanded to investigate Canada's federal democratic institutions, including members of the House of Commons elected in the 43rd and 44th Parliaments, as well as senators.
I have listened to some of the debate thus far, and some members believe that the existing terms of reference already cover this. I would say that given the heightened attention and interest that there is on this issue and the very real concern that Canadians have with it, if there is any way we could ask the government to give more specificity and direction to what the terms of reference should be to the commission, then I, for one, would be in favour of it. I do think it is reasonable to ask for that because, again, we need to make sure that the inquiry has full access to all of the classified material. We cannot have cabinet confidences blocking the inquiry's search for the truth. That is very much a fact, and I think most Canadians would very much agree with that.
I think we are all very well aware of how serious this issue is and the attention that we need to pay to it from this point forward. The next question is: where do we go from here? I love reviewing Canadian statutes, and the statute, of course, that is most at play in these circumstances is the Security of Information Act. Anyone, under that act, who is permanently bound to secrecy commits an offence when they intentionally and without authority communicate or confirm special operational information.
In this case, that would be the names of these MPs. We are in a conundrum here. On one hand, we have the Security of Information Act, SOIA, with very stiff penalties. If one committed an offence under the SOIA, one could be found guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not more than 14 years. That is a serious punishment for breaching these conditions in the act. Again, members of NSICOP are members of Parliament, but, looking at the act that created that committee under section 12, no member of that committee can “claim immunity based on parliamentary privilege”. They have waived their parliamentary privilege to be a part of that committee. As a result, they are also bound by secrecy. They cannot utter the names because they would be found liable to imprisonment as well.
I must return to the rights of the House of Commons itself, because I think we are setting up a battle here between the rights of the House versus existing statutes. We all know that two of the most powerful mechanisms that the House of Commons has are the regulation of its own internal affairs and the power to discipline. Those are the dominant rights and powers, among a few others, that the House of Commons has. I would submit to colleagues that breaking the oath of allegiance or the affirmation that we all made to have the privilege of sitting in this place is probably the most serious offence that I can think of. It is something that I think the House would be well-versed to seize itself with and to find the appropriate punishment. I am not sure where this battle is going to go, again, because we have rights as members of Parliament in that anything we say here on the floor of the House is protected by parliamentary privilege. We literally cannot be held liable for the things that we say on the floor of the House, because there can be no impediment to an MP doing their job. Members of Parliament cannot fear prosecution to be able to do their job. We have to find a way where this information becomes known. The ultimate goal I want is for no Canadian to face a possibility where there is a compromised politician on the ballot who may be working on behalf of a foreign power, rather than the interests of the community they represent or to our country as a whole.
In this last two minutes I have, I do want to mention that, in terms of where we go from here, Bill C-70 is going to go through clause-by-clause this afternoon. I am going to be there, at committee, reviewing every single one of those clauses. It is going to be reported back to the House, hopefully by Wednesday. I think there are some substantive measures in that bill. We are certainly happy to be supporting it. I think it is important that we set up a registry. I think it is important that the CSIS Act gets updated so that it can work in a digital world. I also think it is important that the Security of Information Act gets important updates so that for clandestine interference, we have appropriate punishments for people who are engaging in those kinds of activities.
However, let me say this. With every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I think that foreign governments need to hear the message that their meddling in our internal affairs is now clearly on our radar and we are going to act. This is an item that the country is seized with, that this Parliament is seized with, and we are now prepared to take measures to make sure we root this problem out and get the perpetrators the justice that they so clearly deserve. The allegations that MPs knowingly received help from a foreign government are deeply disturbing. No one with those interests in mind should be sitting in this House of Commons. They should not be welcome in the Parliament of Canada. Canadians ultimately do deserve to know who these MPs are, who they are in undermining our democracy, and the government must find a way forward with this. All parliamentarians have an obligation to do everything they can to address foreign interference.
With that I will conclude by saying that we will support this motion. We will always be on the side of supporting efforts to get to the bottom of this issue and treating it with the seriousness that it deserves.
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Mr. Speaker, here we go again with Bill C-234. It does not seem to want to go to the Governor General just yet.
As previous colleagues have said, this is a bill I am intimately familiar with. We did see a previous version of the bill in the 43rd Parliament, and of course, now that we are here at the beginning of 2024, the bill has had an approximately two-year journey to go through both houses of this Parliament, only to end up back in the House because the Senate has decided to amend it.
I want to remind hon. colleagues and all Canadians who are watching this debate of something, because I know a lot of the agricultural sector is probably tuning in right now, and members of the Agriculture Carbon Alliance have a very real interest in this bill and want to see us pass it in the same form it was passed by the House at third reading. What I want to remind everyone of is that the third reading vote is quite remarkable. The bill passed by a vote of 176 to 146. Just so everyone realizes this, that Conservative bill would not have made it to the Senate if it had not been for the support of the New Democratic caucus, the Bloc Québécois caucus, two Green Party members and a handful of Liberals.
We tend to try to bring a narrative in the House that it is just one party doing all of the work. The beauty of a minority Parliament is that sometimes the opposition can come together on an idea that has its merits and can use its combined majority vote to pass legislation the government may not agree with. It is a far better experience for members of the opposition than I ever had during my first four years in this place, when I was facing a majority government. It is a lot more worthwhile to members on this side of the House because we are able to work in a collaborative environment and to actually get things done when they may be in opposition to official government policy.
It was a notable vote, and that vote was the result of a lot of deliberation not only in the House of Commons but also at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, of which I have been a proud member since 2018. We have heard quite definitively from many witnesses with intimate knowledge of the agricultural sector that these exemptions are necessary.
I was here in 2018 when the original Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act was brought in. I believe, if memory serves me well, it was part of a budget implementation act at the time. If we look at the original legislation, the existing statute of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, we can see that when the Liberal government at the time drafted the legislation, it included significant exemptions for farming activities. There is a list of eligible farming activities, fuels and equipment, because the government realized that agriculture is in a unique position and that sometimes farmers do not actually have an option to switch to a different kind of fuel source. Many sectors in agriculture are still reliant on fossil fuels to conduct their operations, and that is going to be a fact for the foreseeable future, hence the exemptions that were put in the original act.
When I look at Bill C-234, I think the language in the bill that was passed by the House at third reading is in line with the spirit and intent of the original statute, which is why I gave it my support. It is why I will continue to give my support for the version of the bill that was passed by the House at third reading.
The basic premise behind carbon pricing is to incentivize a change of behaviour to a less polluting fuel source. However, we heard very clearly from many people who are involved in the agriculture sector that there are not commercially viable alternatives for the farming activities referenced in this bill. If we cannot use this tool to incentivize a change of behaviour, it is not going to be very worthwhile. This is why, when we look at the text of the bill and how the agriculture committee amended the bill, we recognized some technologies may be coming online and showing signs of early promise but are not in any shape or form ready for commercial viability.
We also wanted to signal to the sector that we are putting a short time frame on this. That is why we see referenced in the language of the bill the fact that there is an eight-year sunset clause, so the provisions that originally existed in the statute will come back into force after eight years, giving the industry a break for a short amount of time and giving it the signal that we expect change in the coming decade.
With respect to the carbon tax debate in this place, I am filled with a lot of remorse at the state of debate. I do not think it actually does great service to the complexities and dangers that climate change is presenting to Canada and many countries around the world. I regret very much that the state of debate around the carbon tax is that it has been reduced to a rhyme on a bumper sticker. That is a great disservice to the very clear and present danger that climate change presents to our agricultural sector.
If we want to look at one of the key reasons food price inflation is so high, we need only look to the state of California, which has been going through unprecedented drought-like conditions because of a changing climate. Since California acts as a breadbasket for much of Canada, when farmers are unable to produce as much as they did in years previous, that, of course, means there is going to be a supply shortage and increased prices.
I am very worried about what the upcoming summer is going to be like. Look at the summer we went through in 2023, with fires burning out of control in so many different provinces, levelling a clear and present danger to many agricultural operations. We can see the snowpacks that are in such a reduced state in the Rocky Mountains right now. They feed all of the major river systems in the Prairies. What are we going to do when farmers start running out of water in our prairie provinces? That is going to be a monumental crisis, and I do not think the debate around the carbon tax gives enough attention to the significance of that.
I also do not think we give enough conversation to the fact that farmers are dealing with massive input costs. There are gross farm revenues, but the farmer gets only a small portion of that at the end of the day because of the input costs: fuel, fertilizer, transport and so on. Farmers have enormously high input costs, and one of the best ways we can serve our farmers is to put in effective policy dealing with those input costs, helping them change the way they farm and putting in strategies to help them reduce fertilizer use, because it is possible to do that and also maintain the same kinds of yields.
As well, we need to talk a lot more about the power imbalance that exists with the corporate-controlled grocery sector. That is why farmers have been on the front lines of asking parliamentarians to put in a grocery code of conduct.
Last but not least, if we are not going to talk about the ridiculous oil and gas profits, we are doing an extreme disservice to everyone who is listening to this debate. We can go on and on about the carbon tax and its costs for Canadians, but if we are not going to talk about the fact that since 2019, the oil and gas sector has seen over a 1,000% increase in net profits, that is a disservice to the debate. I keep asking my Conservative colleagues to confront the elephant in the room, which is that the real reason people are paying through the nose for so many goods and services is that oil and gas companies are milking Canadian families for all they are worth. High profits mean someone is paying. It is Canadian families from coast to coast to coast that are lining the bank accounts of a very profitable oil and gas sector.
I will conclude by saying that with respect to Bill C-234, New Democrats are going to honour the third reading vote that we presented to the House last year, part of the 176 votes to 146 votes. Therefore, we support a message to the Senate rejecting their amendments and honouring the bill in its form at third reading in the House.
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Mr. Speaker, I am in favour of keeping the bill in the same form that passed the House at third reading.
I have been on the agriculture committee for a long time, and I hear the Conservatives talk a lot about the carbon tax. However, I would like to hear from my hon. colleague about the other costs. I do not think that is talked about as much in this place.
How does the Conservative caucus propose to deal with the immense costs that are being foisted on farmers from the effects of climate change? We know the summer coming up is going to be particularly bad for farmers in Alberta. What about the high input costs? What is the policy in dealing with those? Also, when are the Conservatives going to speak up to address the outrageous profits in oil and gas? Those, by themselves, completely obliterate any effect the carbon tax would have. Oil and gas profits have increased by over 1,000% since 2019. When are the Conservatives going to address that incredible cost on the backs of farmers and Canadians from coast to coast to coast?
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- Nov/23/23 6:41:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will tell my colleague how bad it was. It was so bad that the Conservatives fell to third place in the 2015 election. My riding is not known to be a Liberal stronghold, but they actually got second place because of how bad the Conservative government was.
Do members know that the current leader of the Conservative Party really motivated me to run for office because he was Harper's spokesperson. He was there front and centre, putting in the policies that wreaked such havoc in my community, and I am glad to say that we are finally in a place, in a minority Parliament, where I have the opportunity, as my community's representative, to bring in some concrete fixes.
We are only just getting started. We have a lot more to do, but I am glad to serve with a 25-member caucus that, every single day, is coming to this place to make the lives of Canadians better from coast to coast to coast.
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- Apr/27/23 3:29:17 p.m.
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I appreciate that, Madam Speaker.
As I was saying, one of the proudest accomplishments my NDP colleagues and I have is expanding dental care to low-income Canadians, who have never had the opportunity to afford to go to a dentist. That program is now going to expand to seniors and to persons with disabilities. These are the people who live on the margins of our society and need this.
I hope my hon. colleague from the Conservatives will recognize that good oral health care is a part of health care. Will she commit, along with her caucus, to keeping that program? Will she at least see the benefits it has for her constituents?
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- Mar/4/22 10:34:56 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate to be able to rise today and contribute to the House's debate of the Liberal government's bill, Bill C-8, which has been faithfully reported back to the House by the Standing Committee on Finance.
The committee did consider one amendment to that, and of course today we are dealing with the report stage amendments brought forward by my Conservative colleagues. I very much appreciate the work done by committee members in examining this bill. I especially want to thank my colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, who is the finance critic for my caucus and has been shouldering a lot of work at that committee.
Bill C-8 is an act that would implement certain provisions presented to the House in the fall economic statement. It would be a gross understatement to say that the country, and indeed much of the world, have changed since mid-December. I know, from the feedback from people in my riding and people I work with here in the chamber, that the pace of change over the last two months has really left our heads spinning. We seem, as a country, to be lurching from crisis to crisis these days, and it is not giving people much of a breather to accept their changed reality. I am hearing a lot of accounts of the mental health stress this has put on people.
It was back in mid-December that we were just, at the House, beginning to get a glimpse of how bad the omicron wave was really going to be. I remember the news reports in early December that there was some hope that the variant, which first emerged and was detected in South Africa, did not seem to have as much lethality to it, but of course that was blown out of the water by the concerns of how rapidly it spread. Even if a smaller percentage of people ended up going to the hospital, that small percentage, when we had the variant passing through our population so rapidly, did give rise to very considerable fears that our hospital system would be overwhelmed.
Of course we had a change in leadership with one of our political parties in the House. We had the protests descend on Ottawa and many cities across Canada, which turned into an illegal occupation and blockades at our border, further putting strains on our relationship with the United States. Then, of course, beginning just a few short days after that ended, we now have a fully modern conflict raging in Ukraine, where unprovoked Russian aggression is now putting the lives of 40 million Ukrainians at risk.
Here we are. The world has changed quite a bit. I do want to acknowledge that it is a frustrating time for so many people, especially in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. They are, like many Canadians, dealing with the inflationary pressures. They see the results in the price of food at the grocery store and the cost every time they fill up their vehicles.
What people have also witnessed over the last two years is the fact that so many of the wealthy in Canada, and indeed many of our most profitable corporations, have seen their profits soar during this time. Many of those companies actually took pandemic benefits and were guilty of paying out dividends to their shareholders.
It seems the hard-working families in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford are working twice as hard as their parents but for less money. These pressures are putting families at the breaking point. That is why I have always been proud to be part of a party that stands for trying to ease that inequality in Canada and making sure the very rich in our country do pay their fair share. If they do not, that burden ends up falling on working families.
In my riding, in the space of one year, depending on what part of the riding someone is in, we saw housing prices increase anywhere in the neighbourhood of 30% to 40%. That is in one year. With those stratospheric record levels of housing costs, of course many people were trying to sell their homes during that time to take advantage of the high prices. All of that selling in the Cowichan Valley also caused a huge crisis on rental availability, because when people are putting their house up for sale, usually the tenants are evicted as it is not really known if the new owner wants to inherit tenants or not.
We also have the worst record in the G7 when it comes to combatting climate change. In my province of British Columbia, we saw a record heat wave in June. We saw wildfires consume so many communities right across the province, and then just a few short months later, we saw catastrophic floods that effectively cut off the Port of Vancouver, our busiest port, from the rest of the country.
A smart government would be looking at this and looking at the evidence that these climate change natural disasters will keep piling up if we do not address them. A smart government would look at the economic toll this will place on our ability to raise revenue in the future.
As for my Conservative colleagues, who like to proclaim themselves as fiscally responsible, they should not ignore the damage this is going to do to future tax revenue and our ability to help communities from coastal inundation, protect them from wildfire danger and stand up for our hard-working men and women in agriculture, who seem to be dealing with flooding and droughts at a much more precipitous pace.
I know, from my time at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, of which I have been a proud member for four years now, that all farmers will tell us they are on the front lines of climate change. They need to have some recognition of the good work they are doing. They also need a partner in Ottawa who is going to help them take advantage and thrive through these very uncertain times.
It is all about choices. With Bill C-8, I think there is a sense of regret. For me, it is a sense of regret for what could have been and what should have been. That being said, if through these measure, we are going to propose things like allowing small businesses to acquire equipment that will improve the quality of their indoor air, I think that is a solid investment. Just because we are starting to see some very hopeful signs of us getting out of this latest variant of COVID-19 does not mean there will not be future airborne illnesses. We want make indoor air quality much better, and we would if we were to make these targeted investments.
I also like the idea of allowing for an increase in the school supplies tax credit and allowing us to expand that eligibility criteria to include the electronic devices that educators benefit from. A lot of people are struggling to make sure they can get by on those family budgets, so little measures like that, for many families, can actually go quite a long way.
I am also interested in the proposal here in Bill C-8 about the refundable tax credit for the return of fuel levy proceeds to agricultural businesses. This has been an issue we have been seized with at the Standing Committee on Agriculture, because, especially when it comes to activities such as grain drying or even heating a barn, I am all for giving farmers an alternative that is not based on fossil fuels.
However, what we heard, very clearly, at the agriculture committee was that the technologies that are free of fossil fuels are not yet commercially viable, and they will not be so for another 10 years. Therefore, if we are going to make sure we are trying to give that price incentive, we still have to ensure that a viable alternative exists for our farmers, which is why I am in favour of giving them these very specific and targeted breaks, so they can make it through with their bottom line.
Part 2 of Bill C-8 would basically establish a 1% annual tax on the value of vacant or underutilized residential property. This would only be when the direct and indirect owners are non-residents or non-Canadians. Again, on housing, there are so many more ways that the government could have tackled this very big issue. I would say this is a good first start, but there is much more that needs to be done. I know the government likes to pat itself on the back with all of the things it has done with housing, but the proof is in the pudding. If we still see housing prices rise to these stratospheric heights, we have to measure the effectiveness of the policy against that reality.
I will conclude here by saying that we do have a federal budget coming in the next number of months. I sincerely hope the government realizes that this is the time for bold policy action, to really make sure Canada comes through these uncertain and very challenging times.
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- Feb/20/22 6:09:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am completely astounded by how far the Conservatives, as the self-proclaimed party of law and order, have actually fallen. Some members of that caucus are openly peddling conspiracy theories and turning a blind eye to extremists in their midst.
The Ottawa Police Service said that the Emergencies Act was necessary for it to take action, and Conservative Premier Doug Ford urged that the Emergencies Act be invoked. Does the Conservative Party of Canada disagree with those two institutions?
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