Garnett Genuis

“Fewer Canadians are working now than at any point in almost 30 years. The government is ignoring this jobs crisis and pretending everything is fine.”

“Mr. Speaker, Canada has hit an alarming 29-year low in workforce participation. A smaller proportion of Canadians are in the workforce today than at any point in almost 30 years, but the Liberals shut down debate this morning on the unemployment crisis and continue to claim that everything is fine. How bad does workforce participation have to get before they notice: a 60-year low, a 100-year low?”

“The share of Canadians working is the lowest it has been in 29 years. I want the government to change the policies that are causing people to lose their jobs.”

“Madam Speaker, the government must answer for today’s devastating job numbers. Canada now has the lowest labour force participation in 29 years. A smaller percentage of Canadians are working today than at any point in the last 29 years. On the eve of Thanksgiving, we see that Canadians are not just losing jobs; many are losing hope. Canadians will judge the government by the results, so will the government finally reverse course on policies that are making Canadians poorer and depriving them of opportunity?”

“Our parental leave rules are outdated now that many people work flexible hours from home. Conservatives want three changes. First, parents should be able to pause their leave and restart it later within 18 months. Second, parents should be allowed to take classes while on leave. Third, parents on leave should be able to get paid for watching other people's children without losing their benefits. I want the government to adopt these ideas.”

“Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be able to address the House tonight and highlight the Conservative push for more flexible parental leave. We recognize and celebrate those who are doing the hard work of having and raising children, and also, we note the sad fact that many people report in polls that they would like to have more children than for whatever reason their circumstances have allowed them to have. The self-reported desired number of children in Canada is much higher than the number of children people are actually having, and I think there are a number of factors contributing to that. One of them is that it is so much harder to find a job and afford a home today that young people are hitting some of those milestones associated with starting life in a family much later, which leaves them with less time available to live out some of these personal goals, but also, the parental leave system simply has not kept up with the reality of more people working and also of more flexible work being available. Today it is much more possible for people to, for instance, continue working part time or take more flexible leave from home, because technology allows remote work, flexible work, odd hours work, etc. This is a reality that I see among many people around, including in my own family. My wife is a doctor, she has a medical practice and she sees her patients virtually from our home office at flexible hours that work for our family and that work for her. This is not that unique an example. There are many people doing this, but the parental leave system has simply not kept up. In a constructive spirit, Conservatives have put forward constructive proposals for more flexible parental leave, and we have asked the government to consider adopting these proposals. I am following up on a question I asked about this earlier. So far we have not heard from the government yet on whether it wants to adopt these proposals. Again, we are putting them forward in a positive, hopeful, constructive spirit, in hopes that the government will embrace these good ideas and consider other ones to make parental leave more flexible. We are proposing, first of all, flexible parental leave, allowing parents to pause and then resume their leave, provided that this pausing and resuming stays within an 18-month window. This is similar to the existing model in Quebec. In Quebec, parents are able to pause and then resume their leave, which means potentially that if someone is in more seasonal work, if their spouse is able to take some time off with the children or if they really need that extra money for a period of time, they can return to work, but then resume their leave. This is valuable for individuals, but also can be valuable for employers if they want to offer employees the opportunity to return to work for a period of time when they are very busy. I can think of a lot of different kinds of professions where there are particularly busy seasons. We are calling for that interruptibility, which currently is available in Quebec, to be available in the rest of the country as well. Second, we are calling for learning on leave to be available, so that a person would have the clear ability to take courses and to study. Likely from home or in a flexible way, they would be able to take courses or advance their studies while they are on parental leave. Third is a caregiving exception to EI parental leave benefit clawbacks. This would allow somebody who is on leave watching their own child to also offer paid child care to neighbours, family members, etc. Effectively, if someone is caring for their own children, they could also at the same time care for someone else’s children and be paid to do that without facing the kind of benefit clawbacks that would otherwise apply. These are three reasonable proposals that would have other benefits that would allow people to develop themselves professionally. Increasing the availability of local and flexible child care would create opportunities for more economic vitality, including for self-employed individuals, by allowing that pausing and resuming to respond to the natural cycles that happen within families as well as within work. These are constructive proposals, and we would love to hear if the government is interested in adopting all or some of them going forward.”

In response to a question from Maxime Blanchette-Joncas

“We need project reviews that are simple, fair, and fast. We can listen to people and still have clear time limits. Some people make these reviews too complicated just because they do not want anything built.”

“Madam Speaker, what we need in this country is project reviews that are appropriate, accessible and timely. We should expect and look for simplicity and timeliness. I think we can achieve effective reviews that are meaningful and invite the engagement of those who need to be heard from, within clear, reasonable and defined timelines. I think sometimes there are those who just do not want to build things and who try to create these review processes that are complex enigmas that nobody can ever get through. The goal is to have a fair process that is timely and gets to results.”

In response to a question from Steeve Lavoie

“This bill claims to do things Conservatives have wanted for a long time. But creating more government offices and processes does not mean getting real results. I want our committee to study the bill and make changes to ensure it actually works.”

“Madam Speaker, I think the member was maybe not listening too carefully. He maybe listened to the anecdote at the beginning and then prepared his question before hearing the rest of it. I do acknowledge that the stated aspirations in this bill are, in many cases, aligned with things we have been calling for for a long time. The question will be the results. I look forward to the study that is going to happen on this bill at committee and the constructive work the Conservatives will do to put forward amendments to try to deliver on that promise. However, when I see the government emphasize that we are going to have more offices, councils and more processes, that again seems to be that push toward feverish activity instead of results.”

“This bill creates more government offices instead of actually building things. We need fewer rules and simpler reviews for all projects, not just the ones the government likes. I want to send this bill to a committee so we can fix it and get real results.”

“Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to address the House this evening, as always. When I was growing up, I had four siblings. Members will be shocked to know that, as my desk often is today, my room was very messy growing up. My parents would, from time to time, insist that I clean it and then conduct a thorough inspection to ensure the room had been cleaned. I mastered the technique of cleaning my room. It involved picking up all my stuff and moving it into my sister’s room across the hall. Following the inspection, I would move the items back. I say this to demonstrate to members that I know well the difference between getting something done and feverishly moving things around in order to create the impression of activity and results when nothing is actually changing. That brings me to the bill before the House today, Bill C-39. The government is very fond of describing itself as a new government, of all the same people, more or less. Nonetheless, we are starting to get a bit of a sense of the character of this new government of the same people. Frankly, they are a bit slippery. They pride themselves on their slipperiness. I will give some examples. A year ago, before the House, we had the Build Canada Act, which was supposed to be transformational. It was going to make it so much easier to build things, and it was going to be transformational. It created the Major Projects Office. It did not create major projects, but it created a Major Projects Office. It was so successful that a year later, the Liberals decided they needed a new bill. This is not the Build Canada Act; it is the building Canada strong act. The sequel is always a little worse. The bill would have even more offices. We would have the transportation projects office. We would have a national transportation council. We would have all kinds of new bodies and offices. I hate to imagine what the name of the bill will be this time next year. Maybe all those watching CPAC at home can send their suggestions in to the Prime Minister. Maybe it will be the “build Canada even stronger act” or “the build Canada the strongest yet act”. It will keep going as long as they have a chance, with the proliferation of new offices. However, the reality is that they are calling Bill C-39 the building Canada strong act. It is the building Canada strong act in more ways than one. It is the building Canada strong act instead of the building Canada strong reality, because the government is continually talking about how this is really going to be the big one that actually gets it done. The government is just going to create five or six more offices. It is going to have more councils of different bureaucrats, and that will be the game-changer for now. We can see the political utility of this. It is to constantly be putting in the window this new sense of engaging in feverish activity. The government is putting in place more instruments and more mechanisms. As I hope the anecdote I shared at the beginning established, that feverish activity is not the same as results. Generally speaking, we need fewer offices, not more offices. We need less bureaucratic intervention, not more bureaucratic intervention. We need government to get out of the way so that major projects can move forward. We do not need to add to the number of offices and bureaucrats. We need to simplify the process. We very much support the principle of one project, one review; of having efficient timelines for all projects to move forward. The approach the government takes is cherry-picking: “Okay, this is a major project we like and we are going to give it special treatment.” The approach was better than nothing in the midst of the regulatory pile-on that Canadian companies have dealt with for so long, but we favour an approach that simplifies the approval processes for all companies, large and small, for all kinds of projects, and we favour processes that are focused on results. It is time to have a government that actually focuses on the results instead of the appearance of activity, and that asks to be measured by the results that are produced. Increasingly, what we hear from Canadians is the challenging results in their lives. We are going to see job numbers later this week, but already, even before the escalation of the trade war with the United States, we had a significant increase in job losses. There was another big increase in youth unemployment last month. We continue to hear from people whose businesses are struggling as a result of overtaxation and over-regulation. Again, we need simplified processes. We need policies that actually deliver on the promises of this legislation. Canadians, in general, welcome a certain change in tone that we have seen from the Liberals. At one time in the past, the Liberals were more explicitly antidevelopment. Now they talk in ways that sound like they are more supportive of development, but what really matters are the results. Again, we see the slipperiness of the current government, putting forward big acts with big names and repeatedly doing that year after year, but we are not seeing the results. Canadians will not long be fooled by a slippery government. They will demand a reality in this country that flows from the big claims and the big rhetoric. We saw another demonstration today of the slipperiness of the government, in bizarre and tragic terms. We had a colleague from the Conservative Party put forward an excellent bill to protect Canadians by ending the possibility of MAID for those with mental health challenges. The government, on the one hand, said it agrees with the principle of ending MAID for those with mental health challenges, and then almost universally voted against the bill. The Liberals voted to kill a bill that would have done something that they said they wanted to do, but they said that if they did it, they would do it with their own legislation, which has yet to be drafted and which would be paired with another further expansion of MAID, an expansion that raises all kinds of significant concerns at a time when Canadians are increasingly alarmed by the extreme and dangerous nature of the MAID regime in Canada. The government hears those concerns and is therefore trying to pretend that it is responding to them, while at the same time voting against a bill that would actually address the issue. It is a slippery government that is saying one thing but trying to bury the reality in the midst of what it is saying. Our vision in the Conservative Party is for action that is genuinely pro-development; that unleashes the potential of this country’s economy, of its people and of its natural resources; that creates review processes that are clear and are simple. Our vision does not use these kinds of moments as excuses for the greater proliferation of bureaucracy and administration, but zeroes in on the changes that would actually produce results. There is some of the rhetoric around Bill C-39 and some of the stated objectives that we can certainly get behind, but I will believe it when I see it. We will believe it when we are no longer seeing year after year of bills with nice-sounding names that promise this is going to be the one that does it, and yet we never actually see those results. People want to see major projects and big investments built, and able to move forward in this country as used to happen in the past. They want to see jobs, opportunity and prosperity flow from that. That is what we are going to be fighting for on this side of the House as we move this bill forward, as we study it at committee and we scrutinize the provisions to try to push the government to actually deliver on the promise.”

“The Prime Minister is wrong to say life is affordable. A recent survey shows that over half of Canadians spend everything they make each month. The government should adopt the Conservative economic plan so Canadians can save money.”

“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said that affordability is the best it has been in over a decade. He could not be more out of touch. The latest National Payroll Institute survey shows that more than a quarter of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque and more than half of Canadians are spending all of or more than their net pay every single month. Liberals are just not delivering results for everyday Canadians. Will the Liberals adopt our Conservative economic action plan so Canadians can save money and afford to live again?”

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  “Will the Liberals adopt our plan?”

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In response to a question from Arnold Viersen

“The previous Conservative government signed trade deals with countries making up most of the world economy. This helped Canada depend less on the United States. But the Liberals blocked the building projects we needed to actually use those deals. We have lost 11 years of progress.”

“Mr. Speaker, the member raises a great point in terms of debates that Conservatives have won, which I was talking about in my speech. When Stephen Harper took office, we were very limited in our free trade agreements. We had free trade in North America and were very limited beyond that. Stephen Harper subsequently negotiated trade deals with countries representing over 60% of the world’s GDP with a massive expansion of our trading relations with like-minded democracies in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific. That was a huge step forward in terms of diversification and reducing our dependence on the United States. However, in 11 years of Liberal government, we did not seize on that opportunity because roadblocks were put in the way of infrastructure projects and of other kinds of developments that would have allowed us to seize the opportunities presented by these new trade deals. Diversification in terms of strengthening partnerships with like-minded democracies is a great concept. It is not new. It is just that we have lost 11 years of what could have been progress.”

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In response to a question from Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault

“We should focus on real issues, not election results. Canadians will judge us on results, not speeches or promises. They will ask if they are better or worse off because of government decisions.”

“Mr. Speaker, I will just point out to the member that our job in this House is to have substantive conversations about substantive issues. He may take pride in particular by-election results. In my 11 years in this place, I can say that those are the kinds of results that we see ebbs and flows in. What Canadians will ultimately judge members of Parliament on are the results they see. It will not, in the final analysis, be on the big speeches, the promises, the meetings and the summits. Those things can be steps towards the implementation of concrete policy changes, but in the final analysis, Canadians will ask, am I better off or worse off as a result of the decisions of the government? That is the question.”

In response to a question from Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault

“I support this bill to cut the fuel tax. Conservatives pushed for this tax relief, and the government is finally admitting we were right. But this bill is only a small step. After 11 years of Liberal rule, young people still cannot afford homes or jobs, and the government still controls too much of the economy. We need to lower taxes and cut red tape so anyone can get ahead again.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to address the House tonight. I want to start my remarks by talking about the kind of society we have been and the kind of society I would like us to be. I recall that when I was elected in the 2015 election, which was right on the tail of the Harper years, various indicators showed that our country was doing well. At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had won the election on the promise of “Well, maybe things are good, but we think we can do even better.” At the time, I recall making an argument in the House about the strength of our society being shaped so much by our commitment to equality of opportunity and by the fact of Canada’s combination of the policies we had and being a society where taxes were low, development was encouraged and economic activity could be pursued. It was also a society where there was a baseline of social programs in areas such as health and education that were available to everybody. This combination of a baseline of social supports and an environment in which new ideas, new investments and new businesses could start and grow was the right combination for facilitating a high degree of social mobility. Somebody who came from a less privileged background could still reasonably aspire to be among the most successful in our country. This potential, this hope, could animate the dreams and imaginations of the next generation. This was a source of strength for our country, of prosperity, of opportunity and also of social cohesion. People saw themselves as having a kind of equal opportunity, an equal ability to pursue the Canadian dream, regardless of the background they came from. I believe it is so important that we be, and restore our commitment to being, an opportunity society where people of all backgrounds and of all ages, particularly young Canadians, regardless of the family they came from and regardless of the circumstances, can have big dreams and can make those dreams a reality. However, what I hear today when I talk to young Canadians is a great deal of frustration, loss of hope, and a sense that we have become divided as a society. We have become on the one hand a nation of people who already own their home, and on the other hand a nation of people who have no hope that they will ever own their home. We have become a nation of, in some cases, people who are doing well and who respond to our social media posts about people struggling by saying, “Well, I’m not struggling”, but then there are many Canadians who are struggling and who do not see the hope or the possibility of getting ahead anymore. This is because 11 years of government policy has favoured elites and favoured incumbent holders of power at the expense of the people striving to get ahead. It has also pushed jobs and home ownership out of reach for more and more young people. We have become less of an opportunity society, and as a result, we have become more divided between those who are already at a certain level or position economically and those who struggle to even imagine that they could achieve the basic things that we associate with being able to achieve the Canadian dream. The basic things that a young person seeks from a material perspective starting out are to be able to have a good job and to be able to afford a home. That foundation of job and home is the basis on which people are able to start a family and achieve those not just material but also critical personal goals in terms of having the children they want to have, building the life and setting up the future they want to be able to provide for the next generation. However, more and more young people struggle to find a job, cannot afford a home and are delaying family formation. Now we see that this is leading to a failure, in many cases, for people to achieve the family goals they want. If we look at this statistically, the number of children people say they want on average compared to the number of children people are having on average demonstrates that many young Canadian families are not reaching the goals they have identified as wanting to pursue, which is much more than a material tragedy. It is something much deeper and more profound that is being lost. We see frustration, anger, hopelessness and increasing division as a result of the way we have declined in being an opportunity society. The hope of the Conservative Party is to fight for those who are struggling and give voice to their concerns, but also to propose constructive policies that will restore the sense of hope and opportunity that has defined our country. We are shaped in every region of the country by a certain frontier spirit, a sense that through struggle and striving, an individual should be able to get ahead, have a home, have a job and provide the beautiful and simple things that their family is seeking. While saying that there is so much more to do to restore that opportunity society, I note that the debate tonight highlights some areas in which Conservatives are winning the debate about key issues facing this country. Conservatives have for 10 years made arguments about the need to build nation-building infrastructure and about the destructive implications of the carbon tax, and we have won those debates. It does not mean that our proposals about repealing unjust taxation or building nation-building infrastructure have been fully implemented in government policy. We are still seeing many failures in terms of government action, but it is clear from the conversation, from the things being said back and forth, that we have won those debates. We have also won important cultural debates. It was not that long ago that Liberals were constantly running down our heritage and history, attacking figures like our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. Stephen Harper’s celebration of the Canadian victory in the War of 1812 was criticized by the Liberal establishment as promoting extreme militarism or some nonsense like that. Today, the government is saying more that recognizes the positive legacy of people like Isaac Brock and Sir John A. Macdonald. We can see that on some cultural issues and economic issues, Conservatives have been winning debates and advancing arguments. I welcome that. Sometimes Liberals talk as if it is some big political win that they have conceded major arguments that Conservatives have been making, but I am proud of the fact that on economic and cultural issues, Conservatives have been making the arguments and moving the ball forward. We are doing it on the affordability issue as well. Conservatives have put forward proposals for tax relief for Canadians in terms of gas taxes, and tonight we are debating government legislation through which the government is saying, although not quite directly but by implication, that Conservatives were right. These are the kinds of measures they are putting forward because we have won those debates. Conservatives can take pride in the fact that we are winning these arguments, but also recognize that there is more work to do, because the government, although piecemeal in conceding certain arguments, continues to have a broadly statist agenda when it comes to development. The Liberals continue to think that the big ideas, the big initiatives, the big push to get things done must be controlled through the centralizing power of government, whereas Conservatives believe in unleashing opportunity for everyone. We believe in rebuilding the opportunity society. For instance, we supported the idea of having some exceptional circumstances for major projects to be able to move forward. However, what we proposed as a better path was reforming the impact assessment process in general so that proponents of projects large and small did not have to come cap in hand to government, and anyone with a big idea could see a path to getting it done. While we are seeing some Conservative victories in terms of winning these arguments, there is so much more work that needs to be done to undo 11 years of damage under the Liberal government and to restore the opportunity society that all Canadians, particularly Canadian young people, are seeking.”

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“Canada lost 42,000 jobs in August, and youth unemployment is almost 13%. This happened because of the government's bad policies, not just trade fights. Conservatives have a plan to lower taxes, cut red tape, improve job training, and build more homes. When will the government use our plan to help young people get back to work?”

“Mr. Speaker, the jobs numbers that have just come out reveal 42,000 jobs lost in August. Of course, in the context of the escalating trade conflict, we are expecting to see challenges as a result of tariffs and countertariffs, but the important thing we need to understand about these latest job numbers is that they come from the reference week of August 9 to 15. The job numbers are based on a reference week. That reference week was prior to the breakdown in negotiations, a time when positive public signals were being sent by both the Canadian and American sides. These 42,000 jobs lost in August are from before the escalation we have seen. It underlines that we are seeing job losses in this country, and we are seeing an increase in youth unemployment as a result of domestic policy decisions and a failure of action on the part of government to respond to these challenges. Again, it is simply clear from the timing of these job losses. The increase in the youth unemployment rate to 12.9% was before the latest escalations. Conservatives have taken a very constructive approach on the jobs issue. We presented the government with our Conservative jobs plan last fall, with specific concrete proposals that would address the unemployment crisis, especially that which is acutely facing Canadian young people. Our priorities and proposals were in the areas of unleashing the economy, fixing immigration, fixing training and building homes where the jobs are. With regard to unleashing the economy, there is a lot of discussion about major projects today, and I think major projects are extremely important. This is why Conservatives have long called for, for instance, the repeal of Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. We do not need a piecemeal approach that allows the government to pick a few favoured projects, but a general approach that fixes the systematic problems in the impact assessment process. Moreover, it is not just about the big projects. It is also about the ability of small businesses to exist in an environment with low taxes, low red tape and much shorter permitting timelines, where someone with a big idea can make a go of it without being gummed up by the pressures associated with high taxes and high red tape. We propose specific, concrete proposals around unleashing the economy, such as, for instance, not paying capital gains tax on dollars immediately reinvested in this country. We need to be unleashing the economy, fixing immigration, addressing the misalignment between our immigration system and the needs of our economy, training Canadian young people for the jobs that exist here in Canada, offering relatively more generous grants to students pursuing opportunities in areas where there is labour demand and aligning training with the needs of the labour market. Liberals have gone in the opposite direction by cutting off many colleges’ and non-university vocational institutions’ students from being able to get those dollars. We also need to be building homes where the jobs are, making it easier for people to relocate to areas where the jobs are. This is the constructive content Conservatives have been putting into the discussion, which Liberals have failed to implement, and that is why we continue to see challenges. When will they take our constructive ideas to help young people get back to work?”