Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Madawaska—Restigouche. I wanted to start today by giving my best regards to Albertans who are standing up for the “Fight Back Now” day of action that is taking place across Alberta today. It is being organized by the Alberta Federation of Labour. I really wish I could be there today. I want to congratulate the workers, union members, indigenous leaders, community organizers, students, health care advocates and every ordinary Albertan who is coming together to raise their voices for fairness, for dignity and for a better future for our province and for our country. At a time when separatist rhetoric is being fuelled by Danielle Smith and the UCP government, at a time when workers’ rights, public health care, public education, indigenous rights and human rights of many Albertans are under attack, these Albertans are standing up for the values that built my province: solidarity, public service, good jobs and looking out for one another. Their message is clear. Albertans are tired of governments that prioritize corporate profits and political division, while families struggle to afford housing, access health care and make ends meet. Today’s day of action is a reminder that democracy is not passive. Change happens because people organize, speak out and demand better. Albertans, today, are demanding better. I want to start by talking a little bit about Alberta. The frustrations that Albertans feel are real. When we talk about the budget implementation act and the spring economic statement, we have to acknowledge the moment we find ourselves in. People in Alberta feel economically insecure and politically alienated. We are seeing problems on both sides of this House in response to that. We know that the Conservatives are fuelling division and rage, exploiting that anger in Alberta with the UCP government. We know that the Liberals think dangling a pipeline in front of Albertans will in fact fix the separation issue. That is not the way this works. Appeasing separatists with symbolic concessions is like appeasing Donald Trump. It never works because the goalposts change. It never works because they will move the goalposts further down the line. Canadians, including Albertans, need economic security. They need strong public services and national unity that is based on fairness. National unity cannot be bought with a pipeline announcement, while people cannot afford rent, cannot find a doctor and feel abandoned by the governments that represent them. This economic statement did not help any of that. Budgets reveal priorities and values. Canadians are struggling with affordability, access to health care and a health care system in Alberta that is at the point of collapse. We have housing insecurity and global instability. This moment we find ourselves in right now calls for courage and it calls for transformational leadership. Instead what we saw from this spring economic statement was the protection of corporate interests, while asking ordinary Canadians to settle for less. At a time when Canadians needed bold action, the Liberal government delivered corporate subsidies and broken promises. The reality is Canadians cannot afford their groceries, rent, insurance, utilities or medication. The cost of all of it is continuing to rise. People are working full-time and they cannot get ahead. Young people feel locked out of home ownership and stability entirely. Seniors are skipping meals and prescription medication. Disability supports remain wildly inadequate. While I will congratulate the government on tinkering on the edges and making the application process somewhat easier, the amount that we are giving to some of the most vulnerable people in our community does not meet the needs that those members of our community face. Temporary rebates and boutique programs do not solve structural affordability problems. The government refuses to confront corporate profiteering. There is no serious excess profit tax on grocery giants or oil companies, and the government continues to provide corporate subsidies while families in this country are struggling. There is a progressive alternative. We could tax excess profits. We could build market housing at the scale needed to deal with the national housing crisis we are facing in this country right now. We could strengthen public services instead of privatizing them. We could invest directly in people, not in shareholders. We do not need more corporate press releases disguised as affordability policy. Canadians need governments that are willing to take on concentrated wealth and corporate greed. Now I would like to spend a few minutes talking about the health care crisis we are facing. I know Alberta is ground zero for this, but I also know it is happening across the country. The institution of public health care, universally delivered, publicly delivered health care, is under attack in this country. Canadians cannot access family doctors. Emergency waiting rooms are closing. The wait times are in the hours, if not days. Hallway medicine has become normalized. Health care workers across the country are being left burnt-out and discouraged, and they are leaving the profession. In Alberta, Danielle Smith is dismantling public health care, and the federal government is refusing to stand up for the law in this country, the Canada Health Act. In the budget implementation act, the government could have stood up. It could have stood up and invested in mental health care. It could have recommitted the dollars and support for a pharmacare program that it has been promising for decades. The vast majority of Canadians still do not have access to pharmacare, including in my province of Alberta. That is not the principle of the Canada Health Act. The principle of universality says every Canadian, regardless of where they live, should access the same level of care. There is the dental care program that the New Democrats fought so hard for and has helped so many Canadians across this country. The government is failing to invest in it. The government is failing to support it. Canadians deserve a government looking after them, and they deserve a government that believes in the Canada Health Act and is willing to fight to enforce it. The hypocrisy of claiming to defend public health care while allowing privatization to spread and the hypocrisy of saying they support the Canada Health Act and then refusing to enforce it are not what Canadians need. We need universal pharmacare. We need mental health care fully integrated into the public system. We need to defend and expand dental care. We need to train and retain health care workers. We need to enforce the Canada Health Act aggressively. I want to finish by spending a few moments on international development and peacekeeping. Canada’s role in the world has diminished. Canada once played a respected role in peacekeeping, diplomacy and international development, but the budget would continue a retreat from that leadership with a $2.7-billion cut to international development. This comes at a time when around the world, global insecurity is fuelling economic collapse and causing people to suffer everywhere. On the back of Donald Trump shutting down U.S. aid, Canada had an obligation to stand up. Canada had an obligation to be that country that so many of us believe we can be. Instead, the government has chosen to retreat once again from human rights. The budget is about choices, and the choices the government has made are very disappointing.
