- Member of Parliament
- House leader of the New Democratic Party
Member of the Board of Internal Economy
- NDP
- New Westminster—Burnaby
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 63%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $138,331.47
- Government Page
- Jun/18/24 7:54:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I like my colleague, but he said that he has never seen a budget with such a negative response. I remember the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad Harper budget of 2012, and my colleague should too. It gutted veteran services, gutted health care, forced seniors to work years longer in their lives and gave tens of billions of dollars in handouts to banks, billionaires, and oil and gas CEOs. Conservative financial management is an oxymoron.
I like my colleague a lot, but how could he possibly not apologize for that extraordinarily bad budget and the terrible financial management of the Harper years?
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- Jun/4/24 10:37:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative Harper government was a terrible financial manager. In fact, Conservative financial management is an oxymoron. The Conservatives are simply incapable of managing the public purse.
My colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, is absolutely right. We saw massive loopholes open. We saw sweetheart deals, like the $116-billion liquidity support gift to Canada's big banks, as if they needed it, and, of course, the infamous Harper tax haven treaties, $30 billion a year, according to the Parliamentary Budgetary Officer.
What did the Conservatives do once they splurged and used a firehose to shower money on corporate CEOs? They cut money to seniors and forced them to work longer. They cut money in health care and slashed services to our nation's veterans, who put their lives on the line for their country and who were subject to the most immense disrespect from the Harper government. It was a toxic government, it was an incompetent government and it was a corrupt government. That is why the Conservatives were thrown out of office in 2015.
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- Apr/11/24 4:54:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is not on the same point of order, but I am glad the government is making amends. The member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford submitted those questions in good faith, and I am glad we will be getting the information Canadians require. I thank the parliamentary secretary for doing the right thing, making amends and apologizing for the lack of information around subsidies going to Loblaws and some of the other grocery chains that have been guilty of food price gouging.
I am actually rising on another point of order, and that is the matter of privilege brought forward by the member for La Prairie concerning the convention of budgetary secrecy. The principle of budgetary secrecy is an important one, as leaks and premature disclosure sometimes have unintended and, in some cases, market-moving impacts.
Despite this, we know that governments of all stripes, both Conservative and Liberal, have been known to use selected and targeted pre-budget leaks to their advantage as a way to control the narrative leading up to the budget. They love to point fingers at each other, but they both do this. There is no doubt that this is done for their political advantage; otherwise, they would not do it.
While a number of Speaker's rulings have found no breach and, to date, no Speaker has wanted to put an end to this practice, the fact that it has been raised as a matter continuously for many years means that it merits review on the Speaker's behalf.
Let us not forget the time former Conservative finance minister Jim Flaherty decided to give a fiscal update not to the House of Commons but to a private audience of financial professionals. The House of Commons is the purview of elected members, who have been chosen by Canadians to represent them; however, he did not present the update here.
The Speaker of the House at the time was the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who found in favour of the government. In his ruling, he cited as precedent a decision by Speaker Milliken, which was also made as a consequence of the Conservative finance minister's actions. The example at that time was the government's decision to release a report on the economic action plan at a media event in Saint John rather than here in Parliament.
The Speaker's ruling of October 5, 2009, included the following:
It is very difficult for the Chair to intervene in a situation where a minister has chosen to have a press conference or a briefing or a meeting and release material when the Speaker has nothing to do with the organization of that [event].
Speaker Milliken was also asked to judge an incident where specific information about the main estimates was published in a newspaper article, as well as a blog and Twitter. On March 22, 2011, he ruled:
The member argued that the Speaker had ruled on a number of occasions that the House had an absolute right to expect the government to provide information, whether on a bill or on the estimates, to the House before it was disclosed elsewhere.
For him, it was a matter of being able to respond, as a member of Parliament, to enquiries in a meaningful and intelligent way.
In his response, the President of the Treasury Board admitted that the untimely release of the material in question was improper and not in keeping with past procedures and practices of this House. Furthermore, he committed to taking steps to prevent it from happening again. The minister went on to cite House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, at page 894, thus quite rightly pointing out that, in the past, similar matters, namely of budget secrecy, have been treated more as matters of parliamentary convention rather than matters of privilege.
The member for Windsor—Tecumseh is certainly not misguided in his expectation that members of the House, individually and collectively, must receive from the government particular types of information required for the fulfillment of their parliamentary duties before it is shared elsewhere.
However, in such instances when there is a transgression of this well-established practice, the Chair must ascertain whether, as a result, the member was impeded in the performance of parliamentary duties.
Simply put, I agree with the member for La Prairie. These practices that we saw under the Conservatives and are now seeing under the Liberals have to change. This practice of disclosing all the budget information must change. We should align these budget practices more and more with House of Commons procedure and privilege.
I hope that my intervention will help the Chair make a ruling on the intervention of the member for La Prairie.
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- Oct/17/23 5:39:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague, but I know that during the Harper years, the Conservatives brought in a system of tax havens that now cost us $30 billion a year, according to the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
My question is simple. How can we believe the Conservatives when their approach of imposing fiscal discipline was such a dismal failure in the past?
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to talk about what the NDP can add to the budget. As we know, the Liberals have been in power for years. They are doing the same thing that the former Conservative government did. They refuse to take action to help people.
This time, the NDP leader, the member for Burnaby South, and the entire NDP caucus, including the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, were able to work to ensure that we do not have to settle for the same budgets we have seen in the past, budgets that do nothing for ordinary Canadians, but instead give a big boost to the banks and big corporations, just as the Conservatives did. We can see in this budget and in Bill C‑47, which the NDP supports, that dental care has finally been added to the health care system for people across the country. We are talking about $13 billion over five years.
The reality is that, in every riding, no matter where it is located in the country, there are some 30,000 people without access to dental care. Thanks to pressure from the NDP, in a minority Parliament, we were able to ensure that in every riding, those 30,000 people—families, seniors, people with disabilities and young people—can have access to dental care. This is extremely important, and we are quite pleased. Canadians who understand the changes the NDP has made to the budget are also quite pleased because they will finally have the opportunity to have dental care.
That is not all. We exerted pressure on the government to double the GST credit. That is extremely important. Like the member for Burnaby South, I know that people are struggling right now and that they need help. The fact that 11 million families across the country will be able to receive double the GST credit to pay for groceries is going to help a lot because people are having a really hard time.
The NDP is also calling on the government to change our economy and to work harder to have a clean economy, particularly in light of all the challenges posed by climate change. Things clearly need to change. The NDP once again exerted pressure in a minority Parliament to invest in clean energy and for those investments to go toward unionized jobs that come with a pension plan and social benefits. That way, the government will help the whole community by investing in clean energy. The NDP believes that, when it comes time to invest, the investments must help the community. Unfortunately, that is not what we are seeing with the Liberal approach or what we saw with the approach of the former Harper government, as I mentioned earlier.
We also need, and this is important, to change the situation that exists in first nations communities across the country. The member for Nunavut has spoken about this at length. It is important to make investments there immediately. Last year, we were able to force the government to make these investments, but now we need to build this housing as soon as possible. The government tends to announce programs and then do nothing afterward. This is urgent. The member for Nunavut has told us this several times. We need to take action to bring in these investments and build housing as soon as possible.
There is another thing that I find disappointing, despite the fact that the government is finally closing a tax loophole that cost $600 million a year.
This is something the NDP has been calling for from day one. We obliged the government, forced them to do it. Nonetheless, as I said earlier, most of the loopholes remain in place for the ultra-rich, the wealthy, but also the corporations that benefit from these loopholes. I will come back to that.
The NDP has made a difference in this budget, there is no doubt. I have to speak of somebody I will call Joanne. After I was elected as a member of Parliament, she came to me. She works in the service industry for minimum wage. Her teeth were literally rotting out of her mouth. She was in tremendous pain.
There were no programs I could point to to help her, as is the case with so many Canadians, millions of Canadians across the country, who do not have access to basic dental care. When we look at the average, there are about 30,000 Canadians in each and every riding right across the country.
This constituent, one of my bosses, Joanne, simply had nowhere to turn. She was in great pain. As we know, so many Canadians have to go to emergency wards across the country. The estimated cost in Ontario alone is $1 billion for Canadians going to emergency wards for dental emergencies that they cannot receive treatment for.
The reality of having a dental care program in place, which children and their families, youth, people with disabilities and seniors could all access, in a few months' time would be an extraordinary improvement to our health care system. Tommy Douglas always said that the health care system needs to cover people from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet. The member for Burnaby South, the national leader of the NDP, also believes this. That is why he has been pushing so hard for the dental care program to be put into place.
How could any member of Parliament vote against a dental care program that would help 30,000 of their constituents? I cannot understand where they are coming from, that they would choose partisanship and ideology over the important primary role we have as members of Parliament, in the House, to work to help the people we represent.
That is just one of a number of things that the NDP forced the Liberal government, in a minority Parliament, to deliver to Canadians. We have also forced a doubling of the GST rebate, the grocery rebate, to help Canadians who are struggling to put food on the table at this difficult time.
We pushed the government to invest in a clean energy economy that would create good, well-paying union jobs. The ability to organize makes a big difference, as we know. Whether we are talking about the private sector or the public sector, workers who are organized generally have a higher return, better benefits and normally, as well, access to pensions. That makes a difference not only in their lives, but also in their communities, as unions make a difference in communities across the country.
When members of Parliament stand in the House to say that they do not believe in unionized, organized labour, they are saying to their communities that they do not believe in money staying within the community. Unionized workers have better pay and benefits, and a right to a pension, which means more benefits circulating in the local economy. There are some members of Parliament who would say that they want money to instead go to wealthy corporations offshore, and that they want that money to go to high-priced consultants who would take that money offshore.
New Democrats understand that a local economy is built from the ground up. It starts with good wages. It starts with jobs that actually make a difference in the community. Those people who live in the community shop in the community and spend in the community. That benefits everybody in the community. That is a fundamental difference between us and some of the other parties in the House.
The final point I want to make before I start to talk about the elephant in the room is the issue of housing, particularly in indigenous communities. The member for Nunavut has been a strong and powerful voice in this regard, as have the member for Winnipeg Centre and the member for Edmonton Griesbach. The first nations, Métis and Inuit in Canada have been deprived of the right to housing, the right to have that roof over their head.
The government is moving far too slowly to provide the affordable housing that is fundamentally important for the future of our country. We push, and we add our voices to the voices of the members of Parliament for Nunavut, Winnipeg Centre and Edmonton Griesbach to say that we need to build that housing now.
The money that was pledged last year has not rolled out, and it needs to roll out now. The money that the government is promising in a couple of years needs to be moved up, and it needs to be treated with the sense of emergency that is certainly felt in indigenous communities right across this country.
I am now going to come to the elephant in the room, which is the similarity between Liberals and Conservatives. They have a brand coalition of wanting to conserve a privilege that deprives so many Canadians of the investments that are critical for their future. The Parliamentary Budget Officer told us, just before the COVID pandemic hit, that over $30 billion a year goes to overseas tax havens from profitable corporations and the ultrarich. Members will recall that the Harper regime put that secret network in place to really ensure that as much money as possible could be taken offshore, and it is $30 billion a year, which the PBO said was a conservative estimate.
Now, at $30 billion, it means that over the last decade, $300 billion of tax money was taken offshore. This was put in place by the Harper regime and has been maintained by the current government. This is a coalition of the financially irresponsible, who are depriving Canadians of so many things.
That elephant in the room is something that needs to be dealt with. We have a Liberal government, and a Conservative government before it, refusing to ensure that every Canadian pay their fair share, including Canada's wealthiest corporations and Canada's richest citizens. They should pay their fair share of income tax. It is as simple as that.
A fair share of taxes should go throughout the spectrum and ensure that every Canadian pays their fair share. This would allow us the wherewithal to fund a whole range of things that are not funded now, whether we talk about the dental care plan, which the NDP has brought forward, or pharmacare, which we know would save $4 billion a year for Canadians generally.
The reality is that pharmacare, like our universal health care system and like dental care, makes a difference not only for the individuals and the families involved, their quality of life and their bottom line, but also for Canadian businesses. Our universal health care system has a competitive advantage of about $3,000 per employee for a Canadian business compared to an American business hiring that same employee, because in the United States, if they want to keep that employee, they are going to have to invest in a health care plan. In Canada, those businesses do not have to pay for health care, which is so important for their employees. Dental care makes a difference of hundreds of dollars. Pharmacare would be a difference of about $600 per person. Making that investment in pharmacare is not just smart for the families involved.
We hear the horrific stories from across the country, and the Canadian Nurses Association is telling us that hundreds of Canadians die every year because they do not have the wherewithal to pay for the medication that will keep them alive. I have a constituent family who is paying $1,000 a month in heart medication. We cannot tell them that universal pharmacare would not make a big difference in their lives. They are having that tough choice every month of whether they are going to keep a roof over their heads or pay for their medication, and that is the case for hundreds of thousands of Canadians across the country. Universal pharmacare would make a difference.
How do we ensure that the federal government can do that? Well, we have to start ensuring that we close the massive loopholes that lead to $30 billion every—
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Madam Speaker, over the last couple of months we have seen a total blocking of important legislation by the Conservatives.
Teachers and farmers were basically being stopped from getting the important measures that were in Bill C-8, and that continued on for months. Now we have the budget implementation bill, which does a number of things that the NDP has pushed the government to put into place, including the first stage of national dental care. Thousands of people in the official opposition House leader's riding, Barrie—Innisfil, would benefit from that, and yet the Conservatives do not want to let it go through.
We have not seen any real, substantive action by the federal government on affordable housing for decades, and now, finally, in the budget implementation bill and in the budget this year, because of the confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, we are seeing tens of thousands of affordable housing units that could be built, including in Barrie—Innisfil. Right across the country people could benefit.
Why does my colleague, the government House leader, feel the Conservatives have been blocking everything? Why have the Conservatives disrupted every single Routine Proceedings now for almost two weeks, and why are they being so stubborn about refusing to allow important legislation to get through the House, legislation that would help people?
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