Official Hansard
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and address a very important aspect of the government’s agenda. What we have seen over the last year and a half is a Prime Minister and a government that have been focused on how we are going to build a stronger and healthier economy, an economy that works for all Canadians. I am going to go into some detail with respect to that, but it is really important that we recognize that as much as that is a priority, whether for the Prime Minister or any member of the Liberal caucus, the issue of affordability is right in our faces and needs to be addressed. We continue to work on that particular file. The Conservatives will talk about plagiarism. When Canadians elected this Prime Minister just over a year ago, along with 70-plus new Liberal members of Parliament, we saw a commitment to affordability on a multitude of different fronts. In fact, the very first action the Prime Minister took was to get rid of the carbon tax on fuel. That put money directly into the pockets of Canadians in a very real and tangible way. That was not an initiative driven by the Conservative Party. That was an initiative driven by Canadians, because prior to making that commitment, our Prime Minister was talking with thousands of Canadians. That is what drove that policy. Not all political parties in the chamber supported it at the time, but as a government, we got behind our Prime Minister in recognizing the priority of affordability. It did not stop there. We can look at one of the first pieces of legislation introduced under Canada’s new Prime Minister a matter of weeks after the election. It was a middle class-plus tax break, and 22 million Canadians benefited by that break. That is a significant way to deal with the issue of affordability. Again, money was put back into the pockets of Canadians because we recognize the impact of affordability. Then if we advance a little further in the term, all within the last year, we see one of my favourite programs, the groceries and essentials benefit program, which is a conversion of the GST rebate. Substantial dollars were added, again targeted to helping millions of Canadians in dealing with groceries and essentials. That is a payment Canadians are receiving on a regular basis. Those are the types of initiatives the Prime Minister and this government have taken, all in the last year. It does not end there. If we take a look at the spring economic plan or the budget, however we might want to frame it, one of the highlights in there was to give an gas excise tax break to Canadians in support of the issue of affordability. It was a substantial commitment by the government, a break of 10¢ a litre for those who are driving, whether they are a business or an individual driving a child to school, whatever it might be. It is a significant amount of money. That was a suspension that took us to Labour Day, but as Canadians are aware, we have the United States to the south of us, and there was an issuance of new tariffs. That does not help our economy. The concern from the government caucus and the Prime Minister was how we can provide support. One of the things we looked at was extending the break on the tax on gas through Bill C-38, the legislation we have before us, which was just introduced. Background work was done in order to recognize that there would be great benefit to seeing this legislation pass. This is why, in one of the questions, I commented in regard to the issue of collaboration. This legislation, Bill C-38, is going to pass today not only as a direct result of the Prime Minister’s desire to see it put into place, which is important, but because we have collaboration on the floor of the House of Commons. I am grateful to and thank all members of the House for recognizing how important Bill C-38 is on the issue of affordability, because by us passing it, what we are really doing is saying to our constituents that they are going to continue to get that 10¢ a litre gas break until the end of January. What we also know because of this legislation is that the gas break is going to continue at half the amount, in other words five cents a litre, all the way to the end of March. To me, what we are seeing is a House of Commons that has been inspired, at least in part, by a policy initiative that the Prime Minister has been talking about since becoming the Prime Minister of Canada on an issue that is so important to all Canadians: the issue of affordability. Because of that, we are going to get it passed. It will pass tonight at second reading, and it is nice to see that the legislation has been programmed. I would appeal to the Senate, because the bill will go to the Senate, and ask that the Senate take a look at how the House of Commons is dealing with the legislation so we can hopefully see its quick passage and it can ultimately receive royal assent. Those are direct ways in which the government has been supporting Canadians on the issue of affordability. There are many different other examples over the last year of actions that the government has taken in order to support Canadians, and I would like to give a couple of examples of that. I could talk about the expansion of the child benefit program, which helps our families in a time of need. The one I like to talk about is the dental program. The dental program helps millions of Canadians. I am thinking in particular of seniors who are on fixed incomes. There are others, but I would focus my attention on the seniors all of us represent. Every one of us as parliamentarians has constituents who have benefited directly from that program. That is a program for which I am still waiting to see unanimous support from the House of Commons. I would like, for example, to see the Conservatives change their position on the dental program. It would send a very clear message, not about collaboration but about the idea of it as a public policy. A national dental care program would be there into the future. Another program that we provide a great deal of support towards is the national school food program, which feeds 400,000 children across Canada in a very real and tangible way. Again, I would look to my Conservative colleagues across the way, who have opposed that particular program. Unfortunately, we have had members say, “Well, it does not exist.” We have had members across the way say that it is a garbage program. It is a tangible program. It is feeding children in need, and it helps in terms of their education. Back in the day when I was inside the Manitoba legislature in 1988, there were individuals like Sharon Carstairs, the leader of the Liberal Party, who said that we cannot educate a child on an empty stomach. This has been a generational problem. Children were unable to be fed in schools, and that was causing a problem. It was not for all children, but there was definitely a large percentage of children who needed this back in the 1980s. We have a Prime Minister who, a few months after being elected, came out saying that not only does he support the program, but we are going to make it a permanent program, while some in the chamber call it a garbage program. At the end of the day, this is a program that I hope the Conservative Party will recognize and see the value of. Again, if not directly then indirectly it helps with regard to the issue of affordability. I can talk about the reinforcement of and support for the pharmacare program, which is relatively new. We have the federal government supporting certain aspects. Hopefully, into the future it will grow, but at the very least we must try to do our best to maintain it. I would love to see it take on the issue of shingles in Canada, for example. At the very least, there is a pharmacare program helping tens of thousands of Canadians deal with issues like dialysis. If the program is not there, the disposable income for individuals receiving dialysis is that much smaller. Those are only some of the programs that are meant, through this government and the leadership of the Prime Minister, to support Canadians with respect to the issue of affordability, but there are a lot more. I suspect that because we will probably end up sitting until midnight, throughout this debate we will hear about more of those different types of programs. I know that my time to speak is limited, but I want to highlight that what helps Canadians is a stronger and healthier economy. Again, I am going to go back to the last election and what the government, through the leadership of our Prime Minister, has been able to accomplish on the world scene, because appealing to the world is making a difference. We need to recognize that the U.S. tariffs are designed, in part, to hurt and divide Canadians. We need to look at ways we can conduct trade and commerce that go beyond the United States. We need to focus attention on Canadian sovereignty. Once again, members will find that we are aggressively pursuing that agenda. I would argue that we have the right person sitting in the prime minister’s chair at the right time in Canadian history. I believe that is going to show years from now. With the connections and the ability to communicate along with the relationships that have been established by, in particular, our Prime Minister, but by others too, doors around the world have opened. We have been talking a great deal about the investment summit that took place in Toronto. In the lead-up to that investment summit, a sense of excitement was building. I talked about this last year, and I would argue that the Prime Minister is a fantastic ambassador for trade, opportunities and investment to be brought into Canada, which is why it is important that we have the Prime Minister or the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Trade, the Minister of International Trade or the Minister of Foreign Affairs out and about, talking about how Canada has what the world needs. By doing that, we are building that stronger economy. If members want to get a good sense of just how effective it has been, they can take a look at what happened in Toronto earlier this month. Never before in the history of Canada has there been a half a trillion dollars of investment-type commitments. We are talking about billions in different projects. We had investment bankers, companies, pension funds, all involved and engaged. Toronto welcomed the world as our Prime Minister and government hosted what I would classify as one of the most successful economic summits that Canada has ever witnessed. As a direct result, there is close to half a trillion dollars of commitments. Every region of our country will benefit by that. A stronger and healthier Canadian economy through these investments and expanded trade opportunities is going to help on the issue of affordability as it will generate the types of middle-class jobs that Canadians want to see. Yes, there are going to be some difficult times. Some months will be difficult because we will see a drop in employment. However, even at a time when we have pressures coming from the United States, the tariff issue and the trade uncertainty, through the actions, in good part, that this government has taken in working collaboratively with many different stakeholders, including provinces, we have been able to accomplish a net gain of tens of thousands of jobs since this Prime Minister has taken office. I believe it is a net gain of over 150,000 jobs. We cannot control Donald Trump, nor would I want to per se. Having said that, there are things we can do, and we are doing them.
