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Government Orders

Government Business No. 12—Proceedings on Bill C-30

2026-06-15 Sitting 136 Showing 1–11 of 11

A sweeping bill to change tax laws and extend various federal programs. Among other things, it increases tax deductions for tradespeople, extends a tax exemption for selling businesses to employees, temporarily eliminates excise taxes on fuel, and changes Employment Insurance for seasonal workers. In debate, Conservatives criticized excessive spending while Bloc focused on Canadian sovereignty. Some Liberal speakers accused the opposition of filibustering.

Official Hansard ↗

Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 6:50 p.m.

“I want to put the Conservative Party on the spot. Do they support spending billions more on military defence to meet our 2% target? Canadians deserve to know their stance. The previous Conservative speaker dodged my question.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I posed a question to the previous speaker from the Conservative Party about military defence and how much money we are investing in the military. We are talking about an addition of billions of dollars. By doing that, Canada would meet its 2% target. That is something that is very important for us as a government. When I asked the previous Conservative member whether she supports that, she completely sidestepped the question. I do believe that Canadians have a right to know this: Does the Conservative Party support the financial addition of the billions of dollars that we would invest, over and above? Does the Conservative Party support it, or does it believe we should cut that back? Do the Conservatives support making it 2% of the GDP?

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Carlos Leitão

Liberal 6:55 p.m.

“I want to complain about the other party's tactics. I think this bill is very important. I'm going to talk a lot about spending money on defense and trade. Then I'll say the economy is fine. I won't talk about spending limits.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time. It is my turn to speak to Bill C-30, which seeks to implement the economic update. I want to address several issues, but, first, I want to talk about why we are doing things a bit differently here today. Last week, at the Standing Committee on Finance, on which I serve, the Conservative members used some pretty intense filibustering tactics during the study of C-30. What I found especially shocking was that the Conservatives themselves admitted that this filibustering had nothing to do with any specific concerns about this bill but everything to do with winning concessions on another bill, Bill C-22. They said so themselves. They made it very clear. To get concessions on Bill C-22, they were prepared to filibuster, change everything and take as long as necessary to achieve that goal. This filibuster was clearly deliberate, especially given how much of the committee's time was spent on a single clause and on an amendment moved by the Conservatives themselves. They then moved subamendment after subamendment. They used a very clear tactic: These subamendments were drafted in English only. We had to wait for them to be translated before work could resume. We can see the mechanism at play. Also, the Conservatives' discussions on these subamendments involved a lot of repetition and many digressions that had very little to do with the matter at hand. That also contributed to delays. In any event, we spent hours and hours on it. It quickly became clear that no progress was going to be made at all. That is a big problem because Bill C-30 is so important. It concerns the April 28 economic update, which contains a number of very useful and very important measures for our economy. I suspect I may run out of time, but before I talk about those measures, I want to address a few problems that have been mentioned today in the conversations and in the debates that we have had here so far. For example, as of the end of the fiscal year, March 31, Canada had met the target of 2% of GDP for spending and investments in national defence. That was confirmed by NATO itself, and it is something that Canada had not done in a very long time. Liberal and Conservative governments kept national defence spending at 1% or 1.5% of GDP. We very quickly and practically reached the 2% target, and we committed to allocating 5% of GDP to national defence by 2035. That is a very significant commitment. We are making this commitment because the world is a different place now. Today, our situation is very delicate. Our biggest trade and economic partner is also our neighbour: the United States. It is a partner that has very plainly and clearly told us that it does not need what Canada has to offer. We could discuss that at great length. It does not need anything except our energy, our aluminum and other resources. The Americans imposed a number of sector-based tariffs, which is not entirely consistent with CUSMA requirements, but they did it anyway to put the Canadian government under a lot of pressure. They really want to put a lot of pressure on the economy to force us into making all sorts of concessions, to the point where our own sovereignty is at risk. That is why we are investing heavily in defence. It is also why we are going to keep strengthening ties with reliable, dependable and predictable partners. That said, it is also clear that 70% of our exports go to the United States. Our neighbour will always be our neighbour. We cannot change geography. We still have good relationships with American businesses and the American people. We are going to maintain those relationships. We have also committed to doubling our non-U.S. exports. Let us look at the reasoning behind that. Even if we can double the 30% of our exports going to non-U.S. countries, and I think we will get there, 40% to 50% of our exports will still be going to the United States. It will still be important to maintain our trade relationship with the United States. That is why we are still committed to updating CUSMA. That work continues, despite the obstacles the administration sometimes puts in our way. We remain focused on that, but we need to have a broader perspective on all of this. It is important to point out one other thing that is very clear in the economic update. Our colleagues opposite keep saying that we are running huge deficits, that we are heading straight for a wall and that things are not working. Our colleagues sometimes paint a rather apocalyptic picture. Let us review some basic facts. Our deficit stands at 2.1% of GDP, which is entirely manageable. Canada's public debt is equally manageable. In fact, that is why our AAA credit rating is being maintained. If Canada were truly a country on the brink of ruin, how could we still have a AAA credit rating? I will conclude on this point. How is it that long-term bond yields, for example 10-year yields, are around 3.5%? That is roughly 100 basis points, or one percentage point, lower than in the United States. If we are as broke as our colleagues opposite claim, why are interest rates on the financial markets still so favourable in Canada? We are on the right track. We are going to diversify our economy and continue to sign trade agreements.

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Carlos Leitão

Liberal 7:05 p.m.

“Government should keep borrowing. Canada can borrow more. Canada will not hit the limit soon. More borrowing is good. Borrowing can help the economy.”

Carlos Leitão

Liberal 7:10 p.m.

“We won't compromise on our issues. We didn't sign a deal because it was bad. We're standing our ground.”

Hon. Greg Fergus

Liberal 7:10 p.m.

“You're saying the opposition dragged their feet and proposed English-only amendments?”

Carlos Leitão

Liberal 7:10 p.m.

“The Conservatives made us wait for translations. I'm blaming them for slowing us down.”

Carlos Leitão

Liberal 7:10 p.m.

“I want taxpayers to spend more money on many programs at once. More money for businesses, more money for workers, more new expensive ideas, and more money to transform the economy.”

John-Paul Danko

Liberal 7:20 p.m.

“I'm flinging around praise from conservatives to make the other guy look bad if he doesn't go along.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear from the member opposite and to see him back here in Ottawa. Our government is working collaboratively with the Province of Ontario to cut the HST on new homes and cut development charges. We are working with Premier Ford, municipalities and affordable housing providers. There has been a very favourable response from the homebuilding industry. Premier Ford said, “Our government will continue to deliver on our plan to protect Ontario in partnership with the federal government and municipalities by lowering the cost of building, getting shovels in the ground faster, cutting red tape and investing in workers.” Would the member opposite agree with Premier Ford?

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Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 7:25 p.m.

“I want to stop the opposition from delaying our bill. I will say they play games to make them look bad.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I would disagree with the leader of the Green Party in her overall assessment, not to mention the member who just spoke. How selective they are in not recognizing that if we were to listen to either one of the members, the legislative process would grind to a halt and nothing would pass. The leader of the Green Party knows that. She can say what she wants, but at the end of the day, there have been many games over the last number of months that clearly demonstrate that. All one needs to do is look at the games that were played just last week, when we had the official opposition, the Conservative Party, agree to sit late and, literally a couple of hours later, vote to adjourn. The silliness we see from across the way prevents legislation. This government is saying we are going to serve Canadians by passing legislation, whether the Conservatives like it or not.

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Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 7:50 p.m.

“You play games too. That's why we always run out the clock on every bill, even ones everyone agrees on.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of his speech, the hon. member was critical of the parliamentary secretary. He was suggesting that the parliamentary secretary was inaccurate when he said that Conservatives are just filibustering everything. He tried to make the offer that Conservatives come here in good faith. We can look at Bill C-25, the strong and free elections act. The reality is that it is a bill that passed the House unanimously, passed committee unanimously and ultimately passed the House unanimously, yet we still had to move time allocation on it. Even with a bill they completely and fully supported, the Conservatives would not let it go through the House. It is a little bit much for the member to stand up and suggest that we are the ones accusing them of games, when, in reality, he knows full well that Conservatives are playing games on every bill, including the bills they support.

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Hon. Kevin Lamoureux

Liberal 7:55 p.m.

“I'm filling time with kind words and saying nothing anyone could pin down later.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am actually happy to speak. I am sure my Conservative friends do not mind. Just over a year ago, Canada elected a new prime minister and a new government. With respect to what we have done, I actually ran out of time to expand on it. I would like to amplify a few things we have been able to accomplish in just over a year since Canadians made the decision to elect our current Prime Minister. The very first action taken by the government was actually getting rid of the carbon tax. The second action was to provide a tax break for Canadians. Twenty‑two million Canadians benefited from that tax break. Let us also take a look at one of our social programs the Prime Minister and the government made permanent: the school food program, with 400,000 young children being able to be fed a meal on the school premises. We can also talk about the groceries and essentials benefit changeover, in which we gave a substantive increase to deal with the issue of affordability. The first payment went out just yesterday. We have things such as the break on the gas excise tax, a 10¢‑a‑litre reduction. When we combine that with the carbon tax, we are talking about 25¢ a litre. These are the types of things the government has done, recognizing the importance of affordability and working towards giving a break to Canadians. Let us take a look at some of the economic measures we have been able to put into place. I am thinking of the one Canadian economy, which is something I was able to expand on during my previous intervention. Then we can take a look at the major projects. What I did not highlight about the major projects is that, if we think of it in terms of the amount of money, investment in capital, in infrastructure in every region of our great nation, we will see that we are going into well in excess of $120 billion. It is happening in every region. When we take a look at it from our perspective, we are establishing a goal of five years and $1 trillion of overall capital investment into Canada's economic trading opportunities and so forth. We are also investing in the Canadian military and recognizing the importance of establishing a sovereignty fund. These are part of what we have been able to accomplish in a relatively short period of time. There is a lot more to come as the Prime Minister and government move forward.

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