Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying hi to my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands. I appreciate her indigenous acknowledgement. I also appreciate her agreement on revenue neutrality for carbon pricing. With regard to military procurements, that is not necessarily the topic of debate that I prepared for this morning. When the budget is launched on Thursday next week, we will have four days of budget…
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Mr. Speaker, before we took office in 2015, the federal government had been absent on the housing file for more than 30 years. In the last six years, our government has made safe, affordable and accessible housing a top priority. Our $72-billion housing strategy is working with the provinces and municipalities to tackle the issue of affordable housing and housing affordability. We have started to …
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Mr. Speaker, I have similar circumstances in my riding, and all members deal with issues like this every single day. Because the Speaker acknowledged that there would be a relatively short period for a question and answer, I will not list all the things we are doing for affordability. However, I will say that one of the biggest helps that will come to that particular family, depending on the age o…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for raising the issue of tax fairness. Certainly, we want to make sure that we have a system of tax fairness where individuals can, of course, be entrepreneurial, succeed, grow companies, create value, hire employees and create jobs, but at the same provide a fair distribution of the tax base so we can provide the supports that other Canadians might need. I thi…
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Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the question from the member opposite. I think the more time we can spend working together on solutions for solving the housing crisis, the better off Canadians will be. We believe that all Canadians deserve a place to call home. That is why after 30 years of the federal government being essentially absent from the housing file, we created an unprecedented $72-billi…
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to inform Joanne and this member that in fact our government has introduced a strong anti-poverty strategy. That strategy actually reduced poverty rates before the pandemic to all-time historic lows. In fact, it lifted 1.3 million Canadians out of poverty through programs such as the Canada child benefit and through more generous investments in the OAS and the GIS, for exam…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to take part in today's debate. It is also great see you in the chair. I appreciated our time together on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. I also want to thank the member for Abbotsford for presenting today's opposition motion, which gives us this opportunity to further exchange ideas on important issues such as making life more affordable f…
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Madam Speaker, we understand that while inflation in Canada is concerning at 5.7%, we are taking actions to increase affordability. We know that we are under the U.S. average of 7.9% and the OECD average of 7.2%, but we are also doing what it takes to be there for businesses. I am proud that Canadians, through their resilience during the pandemic, have actually created more businesses today than t…
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Madam Speaker, while we understand that rising energy costs are impacting Canadians, I think we all need to recognize that the carbon price itself accounts for about 8.8¢ per litre and is revenue-neutral, which means eight out of 10 families in Canada actually get more money back than what that costs them. With regard to the opposition motion, I gave a 15-minute speech about all of the affordabili…
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Mr. Speaker, it is true. There is an immediacy to this crisis and we need to make sure that we are tackling inflationary pressures right away. Certainly we had economists come and speak at the finance committee who talked about making sure that expected inflation is not anchored into the economy. We have taken concrete measures that have helped with affordability and are going to help Canadians de…
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Mr. Speaker, this is one of the most important challenges that we as a government have to tackle. When it comes to our most vulnerable seniors, we needed to make sure that every Canadian retires in dignity and that is why our government moved to reverse the Conservative change that increased the age of eligibility for retirement to 67 years. We lowered that back down to age 65, which gives thousan…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for raising the issue of Canadians with disabilities. I have members of my own family who are in that situation and there are many families in my constituency of Burnaby North—Seymour who are also in that situation. The member opposite is correct that we need to do more to make sure that individuals with disabilities have the supports they need, not just the financi…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to take part in today's debate. I have not had an opportunity to congratulate the member for Abbotsford on his new role in the House. I would like to do that now. Of course, this is a return to a role he held previously, and I am always excited to work with a fellow British Columbian on policy. The motion under consideration before us today brings to mind …
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Mr. Speaker, certainly I do not think anyone in this House on any side or any aisle would dispute the impact of the illegal war in Ukraine on energy prices. That, of course, is putting further pressure on a global inflationary environment that has seen pressures from supply-chain bottlenecks, that has seen pressures from climate change, that has seen pressures from increased demand on hard goods a…
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Madam Speaker, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to take part in today's debate. I actually believe today's motion is an important example of how parliamentarians can overcome partisan divisions to deliver positive results for Canadians on their highest priorities. I would like to thank my neighbour, the member for Burnaby South, for bringing this motion to the floor today, and the member for E…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for this very important question and for his and his party's commitment to fighting wealth inequality. With regard to going further on measures that make housing more affordable, absolutely our government is committed to that. Not only have we introduced a $72-billion national housing strategy and not only are we introducing the measure we are discus…
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Mr. Speaker, our government has been focused on affordability issues and issues around inflation. Since taking office, in fact, it was our government that implemented a thorough poverty strategy that lifted 1.3 million Canadians out of poverty. We are investing in programs like child care, which is going to lower the cost of child care in B.C. by 50% by the end of this year. We are investing in th…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the member opposite that the federal carbon price is revenue-neutral. In fact, with the climate action incentive, families in the Prairies will get close to $1,000 back. As the Governor of the Bank of Canada reminded us at the finance committee just this week, climate change itself is also causing inflation, something the Conservative Party should not ignore.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to remind the member again that the federal carbon price is revenue-neutral. I am also happy to remind the member that while our government is concerned about inflation, we also understand that this is a global phenomenon. We know that Canada's rate of inflation is lower than that of the United States and the U.K., and lower than the G7, G20 and OECD average. At the same ti…
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Mr. Speaker, we care deeply about the issues of affordability, and we also want to make sure that organizations pay their fair share. We have made commitments as such. With regard to affordability, I will remind the member that we lowered taxes on the middle class while increasing them on the top 1%. We created the CCB, which lifted 435,000 children out of poverty. In fact, we implemented a compre…
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Mr. Speaker, our government is committed to the success of small businesses. I will remind that member that carbon pricing is revenue neutral federally. I will also remind that member that our government has had business owners' backs throughout the greatest economic shut-off that we have had since the Second World War. That is why there are actually more businesses operating today than there were…
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Mr. Speaker, we take supporting small businesses seriously. I would remind the member opposite that it was our government that lowered small business taxes from 11% to 9%. We have listened closely to businesses during the pandemic to make sure we had a suite of measures in place. In fact, we focused on a health-based recovery. That has actually helped us have an economic-based recovery. Even thoug…
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives often accuse us of over-investing in Canadians, but I will remind the member opposite that in the last election the Conservatives actually promised to spend more than what our government is actually investing. At the same time, their promised policies were assessed by experts and were noted to under-deliver on housing, under-deliver on climate change and under-delive…
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Mr. Speaker, the member knows that inflation is in fact a global phenomenon, and anything that affects affordability is important to our government. We know that while inflation in Canada is at 5.1%, it is lower than the U.K.'s, lower than the U.S.'s and lower than the G7 average, as well as that of the G20 and the OECD. Our government is taking measures to make life more affordable. That includes…
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Mr. Speaker, inflation is a problem, and our government is focused on making life more affordable for Canadians. With regard to that particular question, I must remind that member that the carbon price is revenue-neutral. We have rolled out the climate action incentive, and the fact is that climate change also causes inflation. We need to make sure that we continue to make life more affordable but…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I think I maybe gave eight examples of targeted relief to targeted Canadians, and that member's party voted against all of them. Canadians make contributions to the CPP based on their annual earnings, up to a maximum amount. The amount in 2022 was $64,900, up from $61,600 in 2021. It is important to note that anyone earning less than $61,600 in 2022 will not see their total contribu…
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Madam Speaker, we know the pandemic continues to affect the daily lives of Canadians, and I am hoping to give some real answers for that member opposite so he can get back to his constituents. Canada's economy has made significant progress since the worst part of the pandemic. We all know that challenges remain. Elevated inflation is one of those challenges. This particular challenge is a global p…
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Mr. Speaker, our government is focusing on making sure that Canadians and Canadian workers have the measures they need to be supported during this pandemic crisis. It is unfortunate that with the wave of omicron, the Conservative Party voted against Bill C-2, which brought in measures that are currently supporting Canadians. We are going to be there for Canadians. We made a promise to do whatever …
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Mr. Speaker, the data released today shows that Canadian workers and businesses were impacted by omicron. That is precisely why we have supports in place to support them, supports that, by the way, the Conservative Party voted against. The fact remains that our economy has strong fundamentals and is recovering well from the COVID recession. Jobs have recovered 101% from prepandemic levels, while t…
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Mr. Speaker, we know that Canadians are concerned about issues of affordability. We also know that inflation is a global phenomenon. We take protecting Canada's most vulnerable people very seriously. We are the government that introduced the CCB and the GIS, which are both indexed for inflation, and which lifted almost 300,000 Canadians out of poverty. In fact, by 2019 our government lifted 1.3 mi…
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Mr. Speaker, when COVID first hit, businesses had to close their doors to keep Canadians safe. Today we have more active businesses than we did before COVID, and we are seeing that bankruptcies and insolvencies are below normal levels. Thanks to our government's decisive economic policies, we have avoided the economic scarring that followed the 2008 economic crisis.
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Mr. Speaker, we understand how important the issue of affordability is. We also understand that inflation is a global phenomenon. Interestingly enough, Conservatives often accuse us of over-investing in Canadians. However, in the last election, Conservatives promised to spend more than what our government is currently investing. At the same time, their promised policies were assessed by experts, a…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I will try to provide as fulsome an answer as I can in response to my hon. colleague who just rose. Canadians can rest assured that our government takes the rising cost of living seriously, and has been very focused on addressing issues surrounding affordability for Canadian families. Canadians know all too well that the global pandemic continues to impact our everyday lives in a va…
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Madam Speaker, by delivering significant fiscal policy support to Canadians during the pandemic and avoiding harmful austerity policies, we have seen a rapid and resilient recovery so far. In short, our government's economic plan is working. Canada has exceeded its goal of creating a million jobs well ahead of schedule and ahead of expectations. In fact, Canada's job recovery is among the stronges…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, the member was my first critic when we were first both elected in 2015. We got to know each other quite well. Our government has focused on lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio every single year that we have been in government. That put us in a position where we were able to take on the extraordinary costs that were incurred by the pandemic, which was the right thing to do. It is because …
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my friend, the hon. member for Surrey Centre. I am thrilled to be back in our nation's capital to address the Speech from the Throne. Canadians have shown great resilience and ingenuity over these last two years. Our government has worked rapidly and diligently to provide the tools and resources required by families, businesses and other levels of go…
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Madam Speaker, more than almost any member in this House, I have been very clear about my work on the Trans Mountain pipeline. I have also been very clear about the historic work this government has done to fight climate change. We are a leader in the world. We have one of the most articulate and world-leading plans to fight and address climate change. Canada needs to continue to be a leader, and …
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Madam Speaker, I used to work with the member for Courtenay—Alberni on the fisheries committee, and we have a lot of shared interests, especially around oceans and marine ecosystems. Our government believes in the polluter-pay system. We have been changing our laws to make sure that is reflected. We changed the Oceans Act. We changed the Fisheries Act. In fact, I worked with this member to do just…
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the member opposite that seniors are a priority and must be a priority. In fact, seniors have been a priority of this government since we took office. I will remind the member that during COVID there was a $500 one-time payment to make sure the most vulnerable seniors had the resources they needed when they needed them. We are also the government that increased the OAS …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, it is with tremendous pleasure that I rise today to address my constituents at home and my colleagues in this place. I must start by thanking the people of Burnaby and North Vancouver for putting their trust in me for a third term. I also want to give a big thanks to my entire campaign team and to my campaign manager Tyler Norman, in particular. He not only ran a great campaign, he ac…
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