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Business of Supply

This was a Business of Supply debate taking place during consideration of the government’s recent economic update legislation. Conservatives pressed the Finance Minister on deficit spending, asking when the budget would be balanced, how many homes are being built, the costs of a planned sovereign wealth fund, and details of specific spending items such as a spaceport lease, while repeatedly saying the minister was not answering their questions. Liberals defended the government’s record, saying the economy is strong, the deficit is lower than expected, and housing prices and rents have come down. The Bloc Québécois asked about the exemption of American companies from the global minimum tax in Bill C-31 and about wage subsidies for workers affected by tariffs, and the NDP asked why the government is not taxing oil company excess profits or banning surveillance pricing. Some members also raised local matters such as support for regional media.Written by AI from the debate. Updated .

Official text

366 statements

Don Davies

NDP
“The Liberals promised to build 500,000 homes a year, but the budget officer says their main program will only build 26,000 homes by 2030. I want the minister to explain this gap.”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, in the last election the Liberals pledged to double Canada’s rate of residential construction to 500,000 homes per year over the next decade, but according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the government will produce only 26,000 homes by 2030 through its flagship Build Canada Homes. Can the Minister explain this massive gap between what was promised and what is being delivered with respect to affordable housing?

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“We are spending about $56 billion over the next few years to build the homes Canadians need.”

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Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, we have made generational investments in housing. In fact, if we look at the cost of housing measures from 2026 through to 2030‑31, we are looking at about $56 billion in investments to make sure that we build the homes that Canadians need in this country.

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Don Davies

NDP
“The government plans to spend five percent of our economy on the military by 2035. That will cost 159 billion dollars a year. How does the government plan to pay for this?”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, the government plans to spend 5% of Canada’s GDP on defence by 2035. That is a greater share of our economy than the U.S. currently spends on its military. The PBO estimates that meeting this target will require $159 billion a year in core defence spending. How does the government intend to pay for this dramatic increase?

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“We must protect our land, our northern areas, and our communities. Canada is doing its part in NATO, and we are spending record amounts of money to defend our country.”

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Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, I think Canadians understand the world is changing and that we as Canadians need to ensure the sovereignty of our territory. We need to protect our north. We need to protect our communities. Canada as a NATO member is willing to do its part, and we have made record investments to protect our country.

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Don Davies

NDP
“The government is cutting 60 billion dollars across federal programs, including two billion from Indigenous programs. I want to know how these cuts will affect Indigenous communities that already need better services and infrastructure.”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, the government is slashing $60 billion across federal departments and programs. With over $2 billion in cuts to indigenous programs alone, what impact will these reductions have on communities already facing significant infrastructure and service gaps?

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“We found $60 billion in savings when we reviewed government spending. We made sure to protect funding for departments like Indigenous services.”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, my colleague will remember that when we did the comprehensive expenditure review, we identified $60 billion in savings. We were very careful in doing that to protect a number of departments, including those that relate to indigenous services.

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Don Davies

NDP
“Why is the government letting companies use people's personal data to charge them higher prices instead of banning it?”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, why are the Liberals allowing companies to use surveillance pricing to harvest Canadians’ personal data in order to charge them higher prices, instead of banning this new form of price gouging in an affordability crisis?

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“When I was the industry minister, we gave more money and power to the Competition Bureau so it can protect Canadians.”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, the member will remember that when I was the industry minister we made historic investments to increase the resources and the enforcement capabilities of the Competition Bureau of Canada. I know that it will do its work to protect—

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Elizabeth May

Green

Linked statement

“The world is moving away from fossil fuels to clean energy. I want to know if the government checked the financial risks before spending money and giving tax credits to oil and gas.”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, I wish the hon. minister a good evening. I will watch my time closely and try to give him adequate time to respond because I hope to have a conversation more than a grilling. I note that the hon. minister referred frequently to the International Energy Agency as authoritative. I wonder if he noted that last month the executive director, Fatih Birol, said that based on the global experience of the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran and the geopolitical instability around fossil fuels, the days of fossil fuels are numbered, that the world is shifting more quickly to renewables and electrifying, and that there would be a steep decline in any demand for oil in the future. I wonder if the various investments that are described as subsidies and investment tax credits in budget 2025 and in the spring economic update have been subjected to a risk assessment of what the Prime Minister once referred to as what happens when we have unburnable carbon and there is no market for it. Have we seen in the finance department a real assessment of the risks of assuming that investing in fossil fuels is a good bet for this country?

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“The world is changing how it gets energy, and other countries want to work with Canada because we are stable. Canada is a leader in traditional, renewable, and nuclear energy. Our tax credits help make us one of the best countries for investing in clean energy.”

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Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, my colleague is a very close colleague in the House, and I am delighted and honoured that she is staying so late to participate in this debate. I did, in fact, meet with Fatih Birol. I had dinner with him when he came here to receive a prize. In fact, what he said to us and also to the G7, and I will give members a preview, is that the world energy infrastructure is being redesigned and that countries are looking at countries like Canada, which offer stability, predictability and opportunity over the long term. That is why we said that Canada is an energy superpower. We can play a big role in conventional, renewable and also nuclear energy. I think more and more we will see countries wanting Canada to be their partner of choice, whether in Asia or in Europe. However, I want to reassure her that with respect to the investment tax credit, I think Canada stands out as one of the countries among the G7 that support more investment into renewable energy.

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Elizabeth May

Green
“Canada has a major problem with low economic productivity. Big companies control too much of our telecom, banking, and grocery industries, which hurts competition. We also export too many raw materials instead of finished goods. I want the minister to explain how the government plans to fix this.”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, I thank the minister for his very kind comments. I want to turn to a perennial challenge for Canada’s economy and ask where the minister sees his government’s efforts to deal with the productivity crisis going. We are not making any headway since back when David Dodge first declared that we had a crisis in productivity. This is my analysis, and I could be dead wrong on this. Certainly in countries and sectors that are dominated by oligopolies, we have a problem where there is a relatively small number of firms dominating an entire sector. It is pretty well known that Canada’s telecommunications sector, banking sector and the large grocery store chains lack the kind of competitiveness that would lead to better productivity. However, a multifactorial issue for productivity occurs when we export a relatively large proportion as raw material without value added. I wonder if the minister has any thoughts on how Canada can improve productivity or can point to any measures in the existing financial documents of the last year that actually would make a difference in improving our productivity.

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“We made changes to help business competition and lower prices, like giving our competition watchdog more legal power. We also gave tax breaks to small and medium businesses so they can quickly write off costs when they invest in new buildings, technology, and research to grow.”

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Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, I can hear, from my colleague’s question, the depth of analysis that she has made. That is why it is always a pleasure to engage with her in this House. She is right on competition. We know that competition is key to providing more choices and better prices for consumers. That is why, when I was the industry minister, we put more tools in the tool box of the Competition Bureau. She will remember, for example, that I gave it subpoena power. At the time it was asking for information and people voluntarily could decide whether to give it. Now it has more enforcement power. When it comes to productivity and innovation, the member would see that the productivity superdeduction is one of the tools that we have made in order to allow small and medium-sized businesses to make more investment, because they can immediately expense their expenses. They have immediate expensing of what they invest in capital, R and D, buildings, innovation and AI. We wanted to help companies with tax measures to make sure that they could make these capital investments that would help them to grow their businesses. The member may have seen the publication from the OECD or the International Monetary Fund that identified the productivity superdeduction, one of the tools in the tool box, as one of the best practices in the G7. Canada has been very much incentivizing small and medium-sized businesses to make these capital investments to become more productive.

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Elizabeth May

Green
“Past efforts to get Canadian businesses to invest in research and development have failed. Will the government create policies to process our raw materials here at home instead of shipping them out raw?”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, I ask the hon. minister if he would not agree with me that we have seen a steady stream of efforts to get Canadians corporations to invest in themselves and reinvest in R and D, and it is a string of failures, as David Dodge pointed out. The tools that we have tried just have not worked, and then people tend to turn on the corporate sector, which it does not appreciate. They say that the sector is not investing in itself and it is its fault. I am just hoping that we can learn lessons from the past and decide that it is time to ensure that we actually use Canadian workers in Canada to further process our raw materials and not ship them out raw. Might the government be thinking of putting in some measures that would encourage that?

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“We plan to help train up to 100,000 young people to get into skilled trades. We need these young workers to help build the country, so we are working with unions and businesses to support them.”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, my colleague is so right. We want to do more transformation, and I think she will be happy with team Canada strong. The fact is that we say we are going to train and help 80,000 to 100,000 young people with their Red Seal and to get into the trades, because if we want to build this country, we need young people. We need young people to get into the trades. This is going to help provide more opportunities for young people in this country to participate in building this country at a speed and scale we have not seen in generations. We are very much focused on the youth. We are very much focused on helping workers. We are very much focused on working with unions as well. They do great work in training workers. We want to build together, because we want to build a Canada for all. That is why we are focusing on workers, on young people and on small and medium-sized businesses to help us build this country.

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Elizabeth May

Green
“We are borrowing $25 billion to start a new fund. At the same time, our national pension plan has almost $800 billion, but it invests most of that money outside Canada.”
Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, we are here borrowing $25 billion to start a sovereign wealth fund, but we have $793 billion in assets in the Canada pension plan, managed by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Most of those investments go to the United States. The vast majority of them go to countries other than Canada. We have had some—

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“I am answering the question as required. People around the world see Canada's investment fund as one of the best.”

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Official Hansard

I am bound by the rules of the House, and the Chair is asking me to respond. Mr. Chair, I got maybe the beginning of the question, and I would say that people are seeing the investment fund in Canada as best in class in the world. I would think the Canada Strong fund that—

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Kyle Seeback

Conservative
“I want the minister to answer my questions. The government said it ended the rule requiring electric car sales. Does that rule still exist in Canada or not?”

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Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, I am having a very hard time understanding what the Liberal EV and auto strategy is. I have a series of questions for the minister, and I hope he will actually try to answer the questions I am asking. Minister, your government announced the end of the zero-emission vehicle mandate. Is it your position that there is still no zero-emission vehicle mandate in Canada for automobiles?

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“I support our investments in electric cars. Building electric vehicles is the right goal, even though some factories and car sales have been delayed here and in other countries.”

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Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, I think the question was around the auto strategy. Since I was the industry minister at the time, yes, I think the investments we have made and the attraction of investment was the right thing. I believe that electrification is our north star. I am mindful that there have been delays in some plants and some adoption. This is not unique to Canada. We have seen that in a number of G7 countries—

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Kyle Seeback

Conservative
“I want the minister to admit that the government's rules are an electric vehicle mandate. By 2035, only fully electric vehicles will meet the rules.”
Official Hansard

Yes, Mr. Chair, I am splitting my time. I asked the minister about a zero-emission vehicle mandate, and he did not answer. I am assuming it is because the minister did not know the answer. In fact, the regulations that the government has put forward actually mean that only a fully electric vehicle will meet the tailpipe emissions target by 2035. Will he agree with me that this is a zero-emission vehicle mandate?

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François-Philippe Champagne

Liberal
“We are supporting the car industry and bringing in investments. People are buying electric cars more slowly than expected. We are setting policies to help the industry and protect workers.”

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Official Hansard

Mr. Chair, as the member will have seen, we have been supporting the industry. We have been making sure that we can attract investments and that we understand the reality of the world today. When it comes to electric vehicles, there have been delays in adoption, and we need to adopt policies that would favour investment in the auto sector to support our workers and the industry. That is what we are doing.

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More from sitting 122

All 46 items ·
  1. Government Orders Business of Supply 64 statements
  2. Government Orders Business of Supply 45 statements
  3. Oral Questions Indigenous Affairs 4 statements
  4. Oral Questions Taxation 4 statements
  5. Oral Questions The Economy 4 statements
  6. Oral Questions Justice 6 statements
  7. Oral Questions The Economy 16 statements
  8. Oral Questions The Environment 4 statements
  9. Oral Questions Finance 6 statements
  10. Oral Questions Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship 10 statements
  11. Oral Questions Public Safety 8 statements
  12. Oral Questions Women and Gender Equality 2 statements
  13. Oral Questions Indigenous Affairs 6 statements
  14. Oral Questions Natural Resources 2 statements
  15. Oral Questions Fisheries and Oceans 2 statements
  16. Oral Questions Labour 2 statements
  17. Oral Questions The Environment 2 statements
  18. Oral Questions Business of the House 2 statements
  19. Government Orders Government Orders 2 statements
  20. Oral Questions Taxation 4 statements
  21. Oral Questions Emergency Management 3 statements
  22. Government Orders Business of Supply 15 statements
  23. Government Orders Business of Supply 15 statements
  24. Government Orders Business of Supply 27 statements
  25. Private Members' Business An Act to repeal certain restrictions on shipping 12 statements
  26. Adjournment Proceedings Adjournment Proceedings 4 statements
  27. Government Orders Business of Supply 366 statements
  28. Adjournment Proceedings Adjournment Proceedings 4 statements