- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- North Island—Powell River
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 62%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $145,542.18
- Government Page
- Jan/30/24 2:48:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, no one should miss a meal.
However, seniors in Canada cannot afford sky-high grocery prices. While big grocery CEOs rake in record profits, seniors are making difficult decisions at the grocery store. It does not stop there. Loblaws even tried to cut discounts on nearly expired food. Corporate greed has no limit.
While the Liberals continue to let it happen, the Conservative opposition wants to let those big companies get even more of a payout. Why are the Liberals allowing CEOs to gouge Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured every day to stand up in the House. Today, we are talking about the fall economic statement. Before I talk about that, I just want to take a moment at the beginning of my speech to recognize that the bodies of indigenous women have been found in Winnipeg and an alleged Winnipeg serial killer has been identified.
I think collectively in the House, and hopefully across all of Canada, we are sitting with the deep horror of that reality and what that means for all of us. It is shameful that we live in a country that still does not value indigenous women and girls and our LGBT community. We see it demonstrated repeatedly. I hope all of us are carrying this in our hearts and that we continue to carry it in our hearts and our minds every day until this stops.
Coming back to the fall economic statement, I want to talk about some of the concerns I have around this economic statement. We are all hearing from constituents who are struggling every day to afford the basic necessities in their lives. We hear about the increasing use of food banks. We also hear from so many families who are eating substantially less. Parents are acting like good parents and are not eating as much so their children can go to bed with full bellies. That is something that we should all be listening to.
We know that inflation is certainly a part of the problem. However, we also know that greed is a huge part of the problem as well. In my community, I hear from a lot of indigenous elders and they consistently tell me that greed is an illness. They have a lot of traditional ways of dealing with greed, because it is seen as a sickness that will hurt our communities at large. I wish that, in this place, we could also see it as a sickness that needs moderation. It needs systems in place to stop it.
We know that Loblaws has seen record profits. It is profit like it has not seen in well over five years. It is profit that is so substantial that we hear it is making $1 million extra a day. That concerns me greatly. As we are having this discussion, it is important that we recognize that this fall economic statement does not really substantively address that issue and I hope that it will soon.
We know that the Canadians for Tax Fairness have said that the costs from inflation are more than what is passed on to consumers. That means that inflation is passed on to consumers but more is added. In my opinion, that is simply greed. We need to address that issue so that we hold the people who sell us our food accountable.
I remember a constituent once told me, “Rachel, we are not consumers; we are Canadians.” Every day when I am in the House, I really try to remind myself of that as we look at our systems and recognize some of the challenges in them.
I also did not see a substantial enough increase for housing. I know that on November 25 in my riding in Campbell River, there was a conversation on housing. Many representatives from communities throughout my region were participating. I heard again and again, like I do so often, that housing is simply a crisis. If someone has a fixed income or a low income, it is getting harder to find a place to live. A lot of people are living outside. There is a lot of snow in my area, which is fairly rare, but it is having a huge impact.
We also know that a lot of seniors are couch surfing. When I get calls from people in their eighties who are moving from friend's house to friend's house and sleeping on couches, it just means there is something substantively wrong in this country. I want to remind Canadians that the federal government really has not been part of the housing strategy in this country since 1992. I appreciate that the government has put some money into it, but if we leave a wound festering like that for so long, it is really hard to fix it. That is what we are seeing here.
I want to thank the Campbell River Community Foundation and the Campbell River and District Coalition to End Homelessness for all of their work on this particular file. We heard from small communities and indigenous communities. They are left out. The federal funding is not working. Indigenous communities are not getting the supports they need from the government and it needs to be better.
I also have concerns that we are not talking about GST on home heating. We know that this would help. It is not the biggest help, but put together with a lot of things, it would help hard-working people across this country be able to pay for their heat when we hit the cold season.
We still have not seen a meaningful windfall tax. That is such a gap. We need to have more structures in place. Again we will hear from the government on this, but it has not fixed the problem. It has done a few tweaks, but it has not taken that comprehensive look at the fact that people are making a lot of profit off the labour of Canadians and they are not paying their fair share. Ultrawealthy people are hiring accountants who can help them pay very little, but everyday people are paying all of their taxes. That is wrong and we have to fix it.
There are a few things that I am very much in support of in this bill as well. I was excited to read about the Canada recovery dividend. This is something that the NDP has been asking for. It is temporary and maybe we do not want temporary, but it is there. It is a one-time tax of 15% of taxable income over $1 billion, so it is getting at some of those profits. The other thing we know is that in this country a lot of corporations, after the pandemic, have done extremely well very quickly. In fact, many of them are making more profit than before the pandemic. We need to question that, we need to understand it and we need to make sure that they pay their fair share.
This dividend would also increase corporate income tax on banks and life insurance groups by 1.5%. That is getting some of that windfall tax and putting it back into the coffers. It is making sure that people in our communities get things like appropriate housing, dental care and a bit of support to help with their rent when they pay way more than 30% of their income on rent.
Those things will make a difference, but we also know that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been very clear that if this Canada recovery dividend were put on big box stores and the oil and gas sector, we would see an increase of revenue to Canada of about $4.3 billion. We need to question this. Again, I keep coming back to this and the NDP will continue to keep coming back. When we see groups of people and big corporations making significant profits when other people cannot even feed their families and other people are living on the streets, Canada has an obligation to address this issue. Therefore, these are some steps in the right direction, but we still need to see more.
There is another thing that I am in support of and I am looking forward to seeing finally implemented. I know the NDP has been fighting and talking about this for many years. It is the removal of the federal portion of interest on student loans. We spend a lot of time in the House talking about young people and about the fact that they do not have enough to buy a house and that they are struggling, sometimes with several jobs in a very changing economy, to address the needs that they have and to have a future that they can believe in.
This is one step. It is not the only step that should be taken on behalf of young people. The federal government has to do more, but it is something that really would support a lot of young people and allow them not to have that burden. They go to school so that they can contribute to their community and to their country. If they have to spend all of their time trying to find a way to pay off their loans, then they do not get to do the things that will make all of us as Canadians a lot more substantive and healthy.
In closing, I want to say that I will be supporting this bill. I believe fundamentally in the fact that people need dental care, and I am really excited to see that come out the door. We know that we still have work. I am really excited to see next year that seniors finally get dental care. I do not know about the rest of the MPs in this place, but I have had a lot of seniors come to my door and talk about the fact that they cannot afford basic dental care and what the impact of that is in terms of their health and well-being.
I look forward to answering any questions.
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- Oct/6/22 1:07:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski.
Before I start my speech on this very important motion today, I want to apologize to the amazing interpreters of this place. I was just in a committee where we were having some conversations with interpreters and some of their representations on the work they do here and the impacts that hybrid Parliament have had on them. I hope that all of us are mindful, as we go through this process, of how precious our interpreters are to the work we do. We should honour and respect them the best that we can.
Today, we are here to talk about fairness. I have talked about it in this place before, and I will never stop talking about it until I leave. It is the idea of having a bar of a dignity in our country, a bar of dignity that we do not let anyone fall below, that we hold one another to account. Whether as individuals, as corporations or as part of a big family or a small family, regardless of where we are from or our age, we need to commit, collectively, to having a bar of dignity that will allow people to live the best lives they can.
Today's motion talks specifically about that bar of dignity. We know that so many people across this country are falling behind. We know they do not have enough food to eat. We know they are unable to find somewhere safe to live. I am still saddened, disgusted and shocked by how many seniors from across the country are calling my office and talking about how close they are to losing their homes, how some of them, even as old as people in their 80s, are couch-surfing from one family friend to another, because they simply have nowhere safe to live.
Parents from across my constituency have told me that they do not have enough money to make ends meet, that they have made hard choices about what they will feed their children and whether they can make the basic necessities of their life happen.
I do not know about the other members, but I have lived through very hard financial times and, as a parent, one of the hardest things was saying no to my kids on things that I would regularly ensure they had. That is what is happening in our country.
We are talking about this bar of dignity, because we know that people are worried about whether they will be able to feed themselves. I have talked to parents who are not eating their last meal of the day so their kids have enough to eat for the whole day.
At the same time this is happening, CEOs and grocery stores are seeing huge returns. People in the oil and gas industry, at the top echelon of it, are making more profit than they have seen in over 30 years, while the most vulnerable, the most hard-working of them, the everyday people who are doing their jobs, going to work every day and coming home, who are doing nothing wrong, are paying the price of inflation and they are paying the price of the wealthy becoming wealthier.
The CEO of Sobeys has been awarded a total compensation package of $8.6 million in 2022, which is over 15% from the previous year. I do not know about the rest of the members in this place, but the constituents who I have talked to have not seen their wages increase by 15%. They are not seeing that return on the hard work they are often doing so wealthy people can get these huge extra payments. That is shameful in a country like ours.
I keep hearing discussions on the Conservative side about whether we should be giving people this bit of money to help with their dental care, the one-time payment of $500 to help get them through this next period of time. I think it is absolutely essential.
What is so sad is that both the Conservatives and Liberals are not talking about addressing the issue of ensuring the very ultrarich are paying their fair share. We hear from the government side, but we do not see action. What we do see are reports, like I saw the other day, of $30 billion that could have been brought to Canada to help with key important things like non-market housing, housing that seniors, with their very limited fixed incomes, could afford to live in, or people who are struggling one day to the next with different challenges would have a place to stay, a place to call home.
This is happening because of tax loopholes. I bet a lot of people across the country right now are working very hard and paying their taxes. They do it during tax time. I talked to seniors who have a little extra and pay their taxes. I talked to working families that pay their taxes. Why do we have a system that builds in these loopholes that allow the very wealthy, who can afford to pay people who understand these systems, to get away with paying less? Why should hard-working Canadians pay more, in terms of share, than those who make so very much?
CEOs are walking away with huge bonuses, getting incredible raises of 15%, having millions of dollars in annual income, while 24% of people are cutting back on how much basic food they buy. These are real people in our communities who are having to make these hard decisions, and it is not fair. We need voices in this place fighting for fairness, that are saying that it is not right that there is this big disparity and it is growing every year. Everyday Canadians are staying at one level and the ultra-wealthy are rising and rising.
I hope that everybody in this place is going to support the motion, because this is about saying we are going to hold those making excess profits accountable and ensuring that they finally are going to pay their fair share, so the bar of dignity is there for all.
Not too long ago, there was an incident in one of my communities where some young people were addressing unhoused people in a manner that was less than profoundly kind. This tell me that if we are not fighting this lack of fairness, we will be allowing for things to happen in our society of which we will have to live the long-term consequences. It is hard for people who are unhoused. It is hard for their loved ones and for businesses. It is hard for everyone, but we do not have a government that is taking it seriously, in a profound way, and it is not taking action to address fairness.
It is really sad that we are now living in a country where eating without worry is becoming less and less of a reality. Eating without worry is now becoming a privileged place to be. That is absolutely shameful and we need to do better.
There are things we can do and this motion would provide them. We can strengthen the Competition Act. We know that in European countries the competition laws can fine people substantively, so we need to do that. We need to ensure there is no price gouging. They have used it to ensure that pharmaceutical companies are not increasing medication costs, especially, for example, cancer drugs.
Right now, competition law in Canada has no teeth; it has no way of addressing this. This motion is about accountability to fairness and to the hard-working people of Canada. It is time we put it in place, and I hope every member in the House supports this.
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- May/16/22 2:29:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, gas prices are reaching record highs across the country, and costs are only expected to increase in the summer. Canadians are frustrated. After years of the pandemic, many had plans to travel across Canada to visit loved ones, but the high cost of gas is ending that dream. While Canadians are getting gouged at the pumps, big oil and gas are making record profits, and the Liberals are handing over more public money to support that profit. How about the Liberals be accountable to Canadians? When will the government make big oil and gas pay their fair share?
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- Mar/21/22 4:25:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the amazing member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
We are here today to talk about an NDP motion that really addresses the key issue of where the bar of dignity is in this country we all belong to. What we are seeing across this country is more and more people falling below it. Members may ask what I mean by the bar of dignity. To me, it means that one has the ability to look after themselves, to have a roof over their head, to be able to feed themselves, to be able to afford the medication they need and to be able to access those basic things that we all deserve to be a part of because we are all Canadians and because we live in a wealthy country that should be looking after all the people who live in it. Right now, we are in another government, another federal government, which passes hands between the Liberals and Conservatives, that continues to take that bar of dignity and lower it and lower it.
We have heard from some of our Liberal friends here today that there are some great economic outcomes. There are more jobs and there are more opportunities. However, when we talk to everyday people who are living through that experience right now, what we see very clearly is that a lot of those folks are working three or four of those jobs trying to make ends meet. We are talking about families who do not get to spend time together as a family because both working parents have to juggle all of those factors. We need to look at this in what we are seeing people do and see where their needs are.
I cannot help but touch on housing. In my riding of North Island—Powell River, we have seen a huge increase in the cost of living. That is largely based around a housing market that has exploded. Parts of my riding, some of the most rural and remote communities, have seen the cost of housing go up between 60% and 80%. That means that people who are living within those communities cannot afford to purchase within their own community.
It has also had a huge impact on people who were renting homes. With the market exploding this way, we are seeing a lot of people who own houses that they usually rent out are selling those houses because they are making a lot of money in doing so. This means more and more people are unhoused.
Just the other day, we had a gentleman walk into our office. My staff were quick to tell me when I came back. It was a gentleman who lives on disability. He has been living in his apartment for many, many years and has just been told that he has to leave because a new person bought the home that has the rental unit he lives in. His reality, and it is the truth because I have heard it from so many people across my riding, is there is nowhere else for him to go. There is no affordable unit for him.
When I hear that the government is giving money to private corporations that are charging rents that are 30% to 120% higher than the market rate, it just tells us this is not a project or program that the government is taking seriously. It is not about making sure the people who are unhoused, who are struggling, who do not know how they are going to live from day to day are going to be able to have an affordable home to live in. It is about priorities, and that is what this motion is about in this House. It is about saying that the people who work hard every day deserve to be treated with dignity.
I think about these challenges. I have talked to a lot of professionals who have lost their rental units simply because they have been sold from underneath them. They are now living in trailers hoping that trailer parks will not just stay open during the normal summer, spring and fall months, but that they will stay open the whole year, just so they have somewhere safe to live.
I also think about the many seniors who had the GIS clawed back. They were contacting our office. They are very grateful they are seeing those dollars come back to them, but in a lot of cases, they have already lost their home and have already lost where they live. Now, because the cost of living is going up so much and because the cost of rentals are going up so much, they have nowhere to live.
Just the other day I was at Kwesa Place, which is a place in Campbell River that provides showers and laundry facilities for those who are unhoused. When I was there, I met a lot of folks who are just struggling to get by, who are really challenged for multiple reasons.
One of the things that was most startling to me was that inside that space they have a project they are working on. They are building wooden structures that people would be able to pull, either on their own or with a bike, that they can live in, because there is nowhere else for them to live.
I really respect solutions. I really respect when communities come together, look at some of these issues and create solutions, but this tells me we are still not seeing a federal government that sees the right to housing as a basic human right. The government is saying that it is okay for people to scrounge around to make a few thousand dollars and build a wooden box to live in, so they do not get cold in a rainstorm.
As such, I appreciate what Kwesa Place is doing. I really appreciate the warmth it brings and how it helps people be able to wash their laundry, but I want the bar of dignity in this country to be higher. That is what this motion is about.
I have also had some conversation with food banks in my riding. We have talked about the huge numbers of people who are coming through and continue to come through. They are people who have never had to use the food bank before. People who are working hard every day and making a decent income are having to come to the food banks because they cannot afford not to. Why is the government continuing to allow the bar of dignity for Canadians to go so far down?
What I find the most frustrating is that often in these big moments of discussion about how to make the world a better place, I see people fighting one another and people mad because one group of people has one right and another group of people has another right. I think it is important for all of us, as Canadians, to come together and ask what the real issue is here. The real issue here is that wealth is being held by very few in this country, and every year we are seeing their piece of the pie grow larger and everybody else's grow smaller, so I really encourage Canadians to stop fighting about their small piece of the pie and other people's small pieces of the pie.
Let us start talking about what really needs to happen, which is leadership from the federal government to say that, if someone is going to make enormous profits, they need to step up and pay their fair share. I can tell members that the people in my riding, whether they work in the fishing industry, the logging industry, or in education or tourism, are paying their fair share every single day. They care about their communities every single day, but there are those in this country who are not paying their fair share.
I just want to let my constituents know that in 2021, Scotiabank had a net profit of over $10 billion. It paid $4.3 billion of those billions of dollars in dividends to the shareholders, and at the same time it increased its customers' banking fees. Then we saw that BMO made a net profit of $7.7 billion and paid out over $2.7 billion in dividends, while increasing the fees for its customers' bank accounts.
We can look at Loblaws, owned by the very wealthy Weston family, which made a net profit of $1.9 billion. They paid $484 million in dividends to their shareholders. However, they refused to increase the wages of their workers. They refused to supplement those frontline workers who have been working on the front line during this pandemic and who continue to work on the front line. They are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19.
Really, today we are here to talk about fairness, to take up that space and make this country a little fairer. Let us look at this motion. It would direct the Liberals to fulfill their campaign promise. This is perhaps a bit of a new thing for them, but something I am really hopeful they will follow through with. They said they would implement a 3% surtax on banks and insurance companies with net profits over $1 billion.
We also want to see it extended to oil companies and large grocery chains with net profits over $1 billion because it is time for a government in this country to finally stand up, stop protecting excess corporate profits and start saying the bar of dignity in this country needs to be higher.
We should not have seniors at the bottom grovelling for the things they need, when they built this country. We should not be asking families to put groceries back on the shelves because they cannot afford them. Hopefully we will see some action on this.
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