- Member of Parliament
- Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
- Liberal
- Winnipeg North
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $110,821.77
- Government Page
- May/30/24 1:40:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, could my colleague address the issue of hypocrisy when the Alberta Conservative government increases its gas tax by four cents a litre and then the national Reform Party proposes that we get rid of the gas tax? Does he have a thought on that?
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- Feb/26/24 6:00:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have always enjoyed having exchanges with the leader of the Green Party. I know she gives a great deal of thought to her presentations and, ultimately, her questions. I think some questions are a little easier to answer than others.
We have a Prime Minister and through the Prime Minister a Minister of Finance, our Deputy Prime Minister, who have taken the issue very seriously. I do not need to tell the House, because everyone knows, of the ethnic heritage of our Minister of Finance and how she really does have an appreciation of what is taking place in Ukraine today and the impact that oil is having in supporting Russia.
I do agree with the leader of the Green Party when she talks about the misconception of the price on pollution as being the sole source of the exorbitant prices that people are having to pay for gas. It is something that is not necessarily new. She put a great deal of emphasis on, today in particular, the war. There is no doubt that it has had a significant impact.
I would suggest that excess profits is something that has been ongoing. Governments in the past have tried to deal with it, both at the federal level and at the provincial level. We have seen regulations in different provinces, both in Atlantic Canada and out west, where there have been attempts to deal with some of the excess profits. At the national level, standing committees have attempted to deal with it.
I understand that the leader of the Green Party is saying to just have an excess profits tax imposed. I do not fully understand how that works, to be honest. What I do know is that the Minister of Finance has been very open in terms of listening to arguments, in particular those that have come out of the pandemic, with regard to the huge amount of profits in different sectors.
I am thinking of the financial area, where we have put in some specific taxes on companies where there was extreme wealth. I do not know to what degree there is a willingness to do something today on that front. I do believe that there is a great deal of discussion taking place. I think that we also have to factor in other elements of the debates. At the end of the day, I do not think anything is off the table, per se. Some might take a little longer to move forward.
The cost of fossil fuels, as I indicated, has been a frustration of mine for many years. In fact, shortly after getting elected in 2010, I had a presser that talked about the price of gas and the collusion that was taking place that led to excess profits. Maybe one of the ways we can deal with that is to enhance competition or boycott one particular station until it lowers the price of a litre of gasoline to a certain level. I think that consumers are frustrated. I am really encouraged that in Winnipeg we have a new gas company, 204 Fuel's, which has provided a great deal of competition. I can say that where that gas station exists, the price of gas has actually been going down; its price is consistently lower than everyone else's.
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- Nov/7/23 10:29:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my question is on how the NDP sees the GST as something that is going to be applied for, let us say, such things as hydro versus gas versus propane. Is it going to be spread across all things that are classified as heating?
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- Jun/7/22 12:49:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting that a number of years ago, the Conservatives were criticizing the government, saying that because of the Government of Canada, the price of oil was too low, when gas was being sold for 88¢ a litre, and now they are criticizing the government because the price of gas is too high, at over $2 a litre. Obviously, the Government of Canada is concerned, but to try to give a false impression that the war that is taking place in Europe today is not influencing the price of oil and gas is dangerously close to misleading.
Does the member believe that the world price of oil has anything to do with what people are paying at the pump?
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Madam Speaker, it was not that long ago, a few years back, when we could get a litre of gasoline at 88¢. At that time, the government was being criticized by the Conservative Party, which was saying that Alberta was collapsing and everything was going so bad because the price of gas was so low. Today, we are being criticized because the price of gas is so high. I wonder if the member can provide her thoughts with respect to the whole concept of the world pricing of oil and to what degree Canada really has an impact on the world price of oil.
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- Mar/22/22 12:31:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Davenport.
I want to take this opportunity to share some thoughts with members on my basic understanding. I can honestly say that the issue of the price on gas has always been of interest to me, since I was a 12-year-old young man pumping gas at Turbo for 51¢ a gallon. Members can do the math to figure out the cost per litre; it would have been a whole lot cheaper.
Ever since then, and this goes back to the 1970s, it has been about supply and demand. I can recall being at the station and there would be lineups of cars because of the fear that the earth was running out of fossil fuels. At least, that was one of the conspiracies that were talked about back then, when I was but a 12-year-old young man. Today we are again talking about the price of fuel. We have seen dramatic increases in fuel prices.
It is fair to say that we have to put it in the context of time. With respect to what is happening in Europe and the horrors that are taking place in Ukraine today, and we have to just turn on the news to get a very good sense of some of the horrors I am talking about, this House has unanimously recognized that what is happening in Ukraine is wrong. We have recongnized how offensive the Russian government, in particular President Putin, has been. At the end of the day, there has been a cost. We are starting to see that cost first-hand at our pumps as the world demand for oil is somewhat in turmoil today.
We have seen the government, in particular the minister of industry, come forward to talk about the Competition Bureau. The Competition Bureau has been notified in the strongest way to monitor the price of fuel and to act wherever it can on the whole issue of collusion and how oil companies might be jacking up the prices, which would affect all of our constituents. We are very much aware of the issue.
The Conservative Party, through an opposition motion, has taken it to another level and another step. The Conservatives are saying, let us reduce the tax on the price of a litre of gasoline. I have a bit of a problem with that. I understand the value of general revenues overall to our national governments and provincial governments. They are what enable us to provide the many different social programs that we have been providing throughout the years. The Conservative Party are saying to do this on a temporary basis. The Conservatives have not given any explanation of what they mean by temporary.
However, I posed a question earlier. We have Progressive Conservative or Conservative governments in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. I asked which one of those Conservative governments has actually reduced the price of a litre of gas by reducing their tax on gasoline. To the best of my knowledge, that has not taken place. It has not taken place because, at the end of the day, I suspect the concern is the overall pricing of gasoline and what we can do to ensure gouging is not taking place at our pumps. The different levels of government do have a role to play. As I pointed out, for us it is through the Competition Bureau, which is monitoring the situation.
Inflation is something we take very seriously. If we look at the Liberal Party of Canada's agenda on the issue of inflation, from the 2015 election all the way to today, we will see that from day one we have been very progressive in our thinking and in being there to support Canadians.
In yesterday's debate I made reference to the tax breaks for Canada's middle class and pointed out how the Conservative Party voted against those tax breaks. However, for the first number of years, the focus of our government was on Canada's middle class and how we could expand the middle class. The results of the policy measures we had in those first few years had a profoundly positive impact. Canada's economy was doing exceptionally well in comparison to other countries around the word, in particular in comparison with the United States and European Union countries.
Then we hit the pandemic, and we saw Canadians come together once again to take on something that was happening around the world. The impact it had on our economy was quite severe. If we look at what we were able to accomplish by working with Canadians and the different types of support programs we brought in to support Canadians, whether it was the CERB or programs for direct support for seniors, people with disabilities, students and just vulnerable people in general, we were there and we had the backs of Canadians through that difficult time. It paid off, just like our first four years of dealing with the middle class did when we generated over a million jobs in those four years up to the pandemic.
If we compare Canada to other countries around the world, whether the U.S. or G20 countries, we did exceptionally well in comparison. Well over 100% of the jobs have returned from prepandemic times. I like to believe it had a lot to do with the government programs that were rolled out. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80% to 85% of all new money spent on pandemic relief came from Ottawa to again support Canadians.
Inflation is something that has come up as a major issue over the last couple of years and the government continues to give more attention to it. With respect to making comparisons, we have to put that into perspective with what else is taking place in the world. The speaker before me said we should compare it to the United States. In Canada, our inflation rate is at 5.7% compared to the U.S., which is 7.5%. Then we were criticized as to why we were only comparing it to the U.S.
Let us look at the G20 countries. If we average out the inflation rate of the G20 countries in the world, it is over 6%, which is higher than Canada. For a government, that does not mean there is no room for improvement. There are things we have put in place and have taken action on to ensure we are contributing as much as possible in a positive way to our economy and the growth of our economy. We are trying to minimize some of the negative impacts of inflation. For the Conservative Party to give the impression that there is a huge black cloud over Canada because of inflation is somewhat misleading.
At the end of the day, the government policies we have put in place have done exceptionally well, especially if we compare ourselves to other countries in the world. That does not mean there is not more work to be done. There is a lot more work to be done, such as the presentation of the 2022-23 budget, which I know will be a true reflection of what Canadians believe is the right thing for this time and age.
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