Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I am very happy that I have an opportunity today to talk about the opposition day motion on affordability. I want to bring up the point that affordability is not just about prices or lowering the cost of living. It is also about whether people have enough income security and bargaining power to afford a decent life. Right now, Canadians cannot afford life. They cannot afford their life when wages and income are not keeping up with the cost of living. The reality is that people in my community of Edmonton Strathcona and across this country are struggling with the cost of groceries, rent, mortgage, utilities and transportation, those basic necessities that all Canadians need in order to survive. We often talk about making this or that cheaper. These are important discussions that parliamentarians should be having, but for me, the bigger impact is the discrepancy between the cost of living and wages, as well as the support that workers have been getting from both the current government and previous administrations. The National Advisory Council on Poverty heard directly from Canadians that wages and government benefits have not kept pace with inflation and that people working full-time are still struggling to meet their basic needs. Let us talk a bit today about wages. Let us talk about whether a person who works hard can afford a home, raise a family, retire with dignity and weather an emergency if that happens in their life. This is why affordability policy has to also be about good, strong union jobs, with workers having the power to negotiate better wages. Affordability is not just about what things cost. It is also about whether or not working people can afford to purchase them. Good union jobs is an affordability policy. It is one of the most effective affordability measures we can put in place. The difference between people simply having a job and having a job they can build a life around is important to recognize. Permanent union jobs with good wages, pension, benefits and collective bargaining give workers economic security. Unions provide those benefits not just for workers in their unions. Unions also allow for those benefits to be across the entire sectors so working conditions across the economy improve and working wages improve. Therefore, it is vital that governments do more to support the right to organize. We have been speaking a lot in the House about Bill C-39, which would take away the ability of workers to strike. It would hurt the ability of workers to have collective bargaining. I am bringing forward a private member’s bill for a vote very shortly, Bill C-259, the fair representation act, which would make sure that unions represent only the workers they are supposed to represent, not corporations, business or other interests. We need to make it easier to join a union. We need to stop employers from using precarious work to undermine wages. We need to protect Canadian industrial capacity. We need to use investment to create not just jobs but good jobs. If we want to make life more affordable, we need to make good jobs more available. I am going to bring up an example of this. Stelco is the perfect example of what happens when we allow good Canadian jobs and industrial capacity to be treated as disposable. Cleveland-Cliffs announced the indefinite idling of Stelco’s Hamilton steel plant, which will affect 350 members of United Steelworkers, with another 40 layoffs expected at Lake Erie Works in Nanticoke. It is appalling that these workers are going to lose their jobs and that the company is blaming trade disruptions, weak demands and tariffs. However, here is the contradiction: Cleveland-Cliff’s CEO has publicly supported U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel. USW has pointed out that the company cannot champion those tariffs and then use the resulting trade environment as a justification for walking away from Canadian workers. Marty Warren, the national director of United Steelworkers, said, “Cleveland-Cliffs cannot champion those tariffs and then invoke them to walk away from commitments to Canadian workers”. What is in the Investment Canada Act agreement? Why are we not defending that? This is not an abstract economic debate either. We throw things around in this place, but these are people. These are people with mortgages and families, people with pensions, and they have invested decades into their communities. I was happy to see the Minister of Industry write to Stelco steel, but it was too late. It was too late. Those layoff notices went out today. Those workers are getting laid off this week. We needed the minister to advocate for those workers. Canada approved the Cleveland-Cliffs acquisition of Stelco in 2024 under the Investment Canada Act, and the approval came with commitments around maintaining unionized employment. Now that workers are already being laid off, now the minister is threatening legal action. It is too late. Once people are laid off, it is so much harder. We needed a government that was standing up sooner. Workers should not have to lose their jobs before the government decides to enforce the conditions attached to a foreign takeover. The government should be asking why the Investment Canada Act commitments were not enforced earlier, what penalties Cleveland-Cliffs will face, how the government will ensure that production stays in Canada and what immediate supports will keep workers attached to their jobs. USW is explicitly calling for emergency worker retention and wage supports and for stronger protection of Canada’s steel market. Again, I will go back to the premise of this speech. We cannot have affordability or affordable communities without a productive economy that provides well-paid jobs. Steel is not just one plant. It feeds automotive, machinery, construction, appliance and other manufacturing. Experts have warned about the domino effects of tariffs through supply chains, with impacts extending well beyond the directly affected steelworkers. USW has argued that this crisis reflects decades of trade policy that has left Canadian producers vulnerable to unfair trade excesses. Canadian jobs should always come with conditions attached. If the government wants public support, there should be strings attached so jobs are protected. Those jobs should be protected throughout, not once the layoffs have started and people have already been let go. We need to also have domestic capacity. We need to develop a national steel strategy. Affordability and industrial policy are connected. That is important. I am going to talk very quickly about another issue that is important when we talk about affordability in our communities, and this has been raised in the House this afternoon. Seniors in our communities are dealing with a cost of living crisis as well. Seniors who have spent their lives working should not be forced to choose between groceries, rent, medication and keeping the heat on. The national advisory council on poverty reports that unattached seniors had a poverty rate of 11.5% in 2023. The amount that seniors receive in OAS has not been changed to reflect inflation. The GIS has not been changed to reflect the increase in the cost of living. Seniors in our communities are struggling. For too long, affordability has been treated by the government as a communication problem, but it is not. It is an economic problem. It is a wage problem. It is a housing problem. It is a retirement security problem. It is a disability income problem. It is a workers’ rights problem. Liberals like to talk about affordability, while workers lose good union jobs, companies receive approvals and make commitments, and workers are left behind. As we sit in the House and talk about affordability today, I would really like us to remember the other side of that, which is the protection of workers’ rights and workers’ wages.
