Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, global inflation caused by a number of factors. Supply chain bottlenecks, climate change and the war in Ukraine are having significant impacts on the household budgets of Canadians. While Canada's rate of inflation is below average when compared to the Euro area, the U.S. and the OECD, we are continuing to focus on economic growth and making life more affordable for Canadians. Our mea…
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Mr. Speaker, we understand rising gas prices have had a negative impact on the household budgets of Canadians, but we also know that the increase is a global phenomenon, in part resulting from the war in Ukraine. If we implement a tax holiday on oil and gas, energy companies could actually pocket the difference in costs. There is no guarantee that the savings would be passed on to Canadian consume…
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Madam Speaker, we know that a price on pollution is the best way to fight climate change, and that inflation is a global phenomenon. We also know that the federal price on pollution is 11¢ per litre, and that it is the only fee collected on gas that is refunded to consumers, with eight of 10 families actually getting more money back. Why is it the Conservatives oppose all of our affordability meas…
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Madam Speaker, small businesses are the backbone of the Canadian economy. Before the pandemic, we cut their taxes from 11% to 9%. During the pandemic, we had their backs: We supported 450,000 businesses and 5.3 million Canadian workers. Now we are going even further by targeting a new small business tax. We are working on reducing credit card fees. This is good news for small business and great ne…
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Madam Speaker, to make sure that we have the resources needed to invest in Canadians and help our economy continue to recover from the pandemic, we are ensuring that the wealthiest pay their fair share. Our government is introducing a luxury tax that would apply on the sale of new luxury cars and aircraft with a retail price over $100,000 and new boats over $250,000. We are currently studying this…
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to thank our firefighters in Burnaby and in the District of North Vancouver. Not only do they work hard to keep our community safe, but they regularly go beyond the call of duty. On April 23, Burnaby firefighters hosted their gala ball, which raises money for charitable organizations and programs like the firefighter society's nutritional snack program, which helps feed…
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Madam Speaker, before the pandemic, it took only two Conservative governments to accrue more than 70% of Canada's prepandemic debt. That is because their fiscal ideology is to cut taxes for the wealthy and to cut services for everyone else. In stark contrast, our last Liberal government paid down our national debt significantly. We have demonstrated that one can be a good fiscal manager while inve…
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Madam Speaker, global inflation is having a significant impact on household budgets. While Canada's rate of inflation is below that of the U.S., Europe, the G7 and the OECD, we are continuing to focus on making life more affordable. We are indexing important programs, such as the Canada child benefit, OAS and GIS, to the cost of living. We are implementing an economic growth plan that creates job,…
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Madam Speaker, the leader of the Conservative Party herself has already admitted that the extraordinary investments that were made over the course of the pandemic were necessary to protect Canadian families and Canadian workers. Our plan has worked. In fact, we have maintained the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7 while growing the economy and recovering 115% of jobs lost due to COVID-19. Can…
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Madam Speaker, we just recently had an election where the Conservatives committed to spending more than what we proposed. They pretend to be good fiscal managers, but this is impossible if they are not committed to evidence-based decision-making. Our government will lower our debt-to-GDP ratio every single year for the next five years. Unlike the Conservatives, we will do this while fighting clima…
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Madam Speaker, budget 2022 is entitled, “A Plan to Grow Our Economy and Make Life More Affordable”. This budget lowers our debt-to-GDP ratio and seeks solutions for the labour shortage because our jobs-based recovery strategy has successfully lowered Canada's unemployment rate to all-time historic lows. The budget addresses some of Canada's greatest challenges, including child care, affordability,…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to clarify the government's position for my opposition colleague for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. I also heard him inquiring about Bill S-216 during the budget debate today, and I am very happy to have this opportunity to address the issue directly. Let me begin by pointing out that budget 2022 proposes to amend the Income Tax Act to allow a charity t…
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Mr. Speaker, as I have noted, our government supports the spirit of Bill S-216. I appreciate the member's comments about reducing red tape. I also look forward to the delivery in this house of the budget implementation act and am hopeful to be able to commence that work very soon. The changes proposed in budget 2022 reflect the spirit of this bill by removing barriers to charities working in partn…
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Mr. Speaker, budget 2022 is entitled “A Plan to Grow Our Economy and Make Life More Affordable”. It is a plan that invests in people, and it is a plan that will help build a Canada where no one gets left behind. The budget addresses some of Canada's greatest challenges, including housing affordability, climate change, economic growth and indigenous reconciliation. Everyone in the House has a duty …
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Mr. Speaker, affordable housing is not just good social policy; it is a powerful economic policy as well. Our government will increase housing supply by doubling residential construction across Canada over the next 10 years. We will ensure that homes are treated as a place for families to live instead of as an investment vehicle. We will build new pathways for first-time homebuyers. In Canada, eve…
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Mr. Speaker, Canada has the strongest labour market recovery in the G7, having recouped 115% of the jobs lost during the pandemic. This includes 73,000 jobs in March, which has pushed Canada's unemployment rate to 5.3%. That is the lowest unemployment rate that Canada has seen in more than 50 years. Budget 2022 builds on this success by unwinding Canada's pandemic deficits and continuing to reduce…
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Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Conservative Party has already admitted that the extraordinary investments made over the course of the pandemic were necessary to protect Canadian families and Canadian workers. Our plan has worked. In fact, we have maintained the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, while growing the economy and recovering 115% of jobs lost due to COVID-19. Canada was able to do …
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Mr. Speaker, before the pandemic, it took only two Conservative governments to accrue more than 70% of Canada's prepandemic debt. That is because their fiscal ideology is to cut taxes for the wealthy and cut services for everyone else. In stark contrast, our last Liberal government paid down our national debt significantly. We have demonstrated that we can be good fiscal managers while investing i…
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Mr. Speaker, we understand that global inflation is having a significant impact on the household budgets of Canadian families. That is why we are focused on affordability in budget 2022. Let me give three quick examples. We are providing dental care for Canadian families that have incomes of less than $90,000 per year. We will reduce child care costs by 50% this year and to $10 a day over time. We…
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Mr. Speaker, global inflation is having a significant impact on household budgets, so it is good news that affordability is referenced 119 times in budget 2022. We are increasing the federal minimum wage to $15.55 per hour. We are indexing important programs, like the Canada child benefit, OAS and GIS, to inflation. We are implementing an economic growth plan that creates jobs and grows our econom…
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Mr. Speaker, in addition to our middle-class tax cuts, budget 2022 proposes additional measures that would make Canada's tax system more fair while promoting economic growth. This includes a permanent 1.5% corporate tax increase on profits over $100 million for banks and life insurance companies, new measures to prevent the use of foreign corporations to avoid Canadian tax, and a tax cut for small…
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Madam Speaker, we understand all too well that Canadians are being impacted by high inflation. However, these price increases are global and Canada's rate is still lower than the United States or the average of the OECD, the G7 or even the G20. Understanding this fact, our government will continue to move forward with measures to help Canadians make ends meet while also remaining fiscally responsi…
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to have this opportunity to address our government's fiscal position, as well as the many ways that we are improving affordability for Canadians. In 2015, we promised to invest in the future of Canada by incurring small deficits while targeting investments in economic growth. In our first four years we made significant investments in housing, transportation and indig…
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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 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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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 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 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 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, 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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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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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…
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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, 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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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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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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