Welcome to the first sitting week of 2021! This week started with two emergency debates. On Monday, parliamentarians sat until midnight to debate President Biden’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline. Elizabeth was clear that the real emergency remains the climate emergency, and that Canada should respect the United States’ decision to cancel the pipeline. She also stated that subsidies to the fossil fuel industry must end to facilitate a just transition to a clean-energy economy for workers.

On Tuesday, MPs sat until midnight in another emergency debate on Canada’s vaccine rollout. Elizabeth asked the Minister whether Pfizer’s attempt to negotiate tax cuts would affect access to the vaccine for Canadians. Paul reminded the government that reintroducing publicly funded labs would help Canada face the next public health emergency.

In her question this week, Elizabeth drew attention to the plight of the ground transportation industry, which has been suffering during the pandemic. Coach bus companies such as Wilson’s on Vancouver Island, and Maritime Bus are essential services that are at risk of going under because of predatory banks. She called on the government to prevent banks from requiring immediate payments from these businesses so that they can continue to provide essential services to remote communities. CTV News covered the issue and Elizabeth’s question.

Paul called for more regulation in the housing market to crack down on money laundering and other market distortions. He noted that without strong regulation, rents are increasing, affordable housing is disappearing, and more Canadians than ever are becoming homeless.

Once again, Jenica asked the government to provide direct funding to community mental health organizations and to commit to national mental health standards. Canadians need more from their government than resource websites.

Jenica, Paul and Elizabeth held a press conference this week calling for a question to be allotted to the Green Caucus during Wednesday’s Question Period, when the Prime Minister is in attendance.

Earlier in January, in a vote between all MPs, Elizabeth and Jenica won Most Knowledgeable and Rising Star, respectively, in the Maclean’s magazine Parliamentarians of the Year Award.

Key Moments

• Elizabeth May: Essential ground transportation companies are in crisis
• Elizabeth May: Cancelling Keystone XL is not a crisis compared to the climate crisis
• Elizabeth May: The Emergencies Act could help address the crisis in Long Term Care Homes
• Elizabeth May: Canada must respect President Biden’s choice to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline
• Elizabeth May: Canada must stop subsidizing fossil fuels and transition to a clean energy economy
• Paul Manly: It’s time for a wealth tax in Canada
• Elizabeth May: The government should be wary of Pfizer trying to negotiate tax cuts
• Paul Manly: Should we use the Emergencies Act to prevent deaths in Long Term Care Homes?
• Paul Manly: Reintroduce public labs in Canada so that we can be ready to face the next pandemic
• Elizabeth May: Essential ground transportation services are being pushed into bankruptcy
• Elizabeth May: Banks profit off the pandemic while essential businesses are pushed into bankruptcy
• Elizabeth May: What became of the $200 million invested in antibody treatments for COVID-19?
• Paul Manly: UK TCA is another flawed trade deal

Question Period and Member’s Statements

• Paul Manly: Money laundering and lack of regulation is making Canada’s housing unaffordable
• Elizabeth May reacts to Bill C-14 and pushes the government to do more
• Paul Manly: CRA gave CERB applicants wrong information. The government must own their mistake.
• Paul Manly: Stand up against hate
• Elizabeth May: The ground transportation sector is in imminent danger of going under
• Jenica Atwin: Can the government commit to funding mental health service providers?

Press Conferences and Media Releases

• Press conference: Greens raise concerns with current Question Period allotment – Jan 27, 2021
• Press Conference: Greens join in multi-party press conference to mark the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons coming into force
• Greens go public with objections to anti-democratic actions by the larger parties
• Greens raising alarm on rapid erosion of public transportation across Canada
• Green Party urges focus and collaboration as MPs return to Parliament

In Their Own Words​ 

• Elizabeth May: Good Sunday Morning – January 24
• Paul Manly: Housing and Homelessness: The Crisis in Our Communities

Petitions

• e-3028 Accede to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (closes Feb 6)
• e-3037 Reject CP Logistics Park in Pitt Meadows (closes Feb 14)
• e-3071 Discontinue GDP measurement and shift to a wellbeing economy (closes Feb 27)
• e-3094 Reduce dependency on China (closes March 8)
• e-3058 Ban fracking, transition to renewable energy (closes March 21)
• e-3014 Modernize the complaints review panel of the Canadian Judicial Council (closes May 7)

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Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2021-01-27 18:15 [p.3652]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for this opportunity.

I will start by acknowledging that I am speaking from the traditional territory of the WSÁNEC first nation, the indigenous people of the territory that I am honoured to represent in Parliament.

Today, we are addressing Bill C-14, which, of course, includes the legislative changes that are required as part of the fall economic statement that was tabled November 30. Although our commentary today should be limited to the legislative changes before us, and I know that some of speeches have been quite wide-ranging, I want to reflect briefly on the fall economic statement itself, then turn to the legislation before us, and then to the things that are missing from it and that we wish were there.

The fall economic statement, at over 200 pages, is definitely wide-ranging. It references a lot of hard work, and I want to acknowledge the hard work of our Minister of Finance, indeed, the government as a whole, with a good dose of gratitude.

There is no perfection to be found in the actions of any government around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some do better than others, and some do worse than others. I think we do better as Canadians when we try to work together.

That is the intent of Greens, whether we are elected federally or in the provinces across this country. We prefer collaborative efforts, co-operation and working through consensus. However, in looking at this document, it is extraordinary in detailing ambition around a wide range of issues.

First, on the question of a safe restart, there was about $20 billion put into a safe restart. We know that this was transferring money to the provinces for things as important as personal protective equipment, PPE, and getting the vaccines rolled out, which is a subject we debated until midnight last night with a lot of emotion and different opinions, but we have vaccines. We wish that they were being rolled out more quickly, but it does take federal-provincial co-operation. It also takes dealing with global multinational pharmaceutical companies. We are also looking at day care, so for the safe restart and a number of other aspects, there was $20 billion.

There are priorities in the fall economic statement that are not COVID-related but are high-priority items for Greens, particularly working towards indigenous reconciliation and moving towards pharmacare. I do not know why it is taking so long, but pharmacare is flagged in the fall economic statement.

Specifically, we should start looking at pharmacare in relation to rare diseases. I am part of a caucus, quite an informal caucus, with members of Parliament from every single party in this place, and that is a great place for collaboration. We are working with the CF Foundation and trying to get the life-saving drug Trikafta to patients in the CF community. We work together, and I think we are better when we do so.

On the opioid crisis, again, referenced in the fall economic statement, Greens favour decriminalization. We need to move fast to stop the deaths from opioid addiction, which is an extension of a mental health issue. It is a health issue. It is not a criminal issue.

On climate, which is also referenced in the fall economic statement, Greens are very keen on improving our east-west electricity grid and also improving its potential to reach north. We applaud the focus on interties that we have begun to see out of the Canadian Infrastructure Bank. However, we need more. We need more work on the electricity grid. We need more work on public transit, but it is flagged, as is the importance of electric vehicles.

Many climate-related measures are in the fall economic statement, including nature-based climate solutions. On the commitment to planting two billion trees, which we have heard of many times and look forward to seeing, it is critical that they are trees appropriate to the ecosystems in which they are planted. It is critical that we do the tree planting in ways that enhance carbon sequestration and protect biodiversity, such as along stream banks to help protect our wild Pacific salmon where they have lost so much habitat.

These are measures we support, but they are not enough. We have seen Bill C-12, and they are referenced in the fall economic statement for climate accountability, but without major strengthening, such as a fixed dark target date of 2025 for carbon reductions, it will not be worth supporting.

When we look south of the border we see the steps the new Biden administration is taking, pursuing some of the courses Barack Obama left in place. This is also encouraging. Canada has scope, as is mentioned in the fall economic statement. With carbon and border adjustments, we can move our economies in the same direction and create more jobs while doing so. These are encouraging things.

We support Bill C-14 as far as it goes. The measures are important in order to get more COVID assistance to people to get more relief.

What is missing? There are many sectors that are not just falling through the cracks, but plummeting through a chasm. They need more help. I refer specifically to all the businesses in the tourism sector, particularly restaurants, but also bus services.

The fall economic statement refers to the highly affected sectors having more credit availability, but it is capped at $1 million per piece of assistance. I will specifically mention Wilson’s bus lines, which provides not only charter service but also regularly scheduled service into first nation communities. It is an integral part of our tourism ecosystem here. It is being pressured out of existence by the commercial banks. The banks are demanding repayment. The $1-million capped loan will not be enough to save Wilson’s.

For other parts of our transportation infrastructure, such as regional airports, $1 million in loans is not going to help them. We need to focus on what is needed to save all of our transportation infrastructure that is at risk right now. I think the best way to do that would be for the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister to talk to all the CEOs of the big commercial banks and remind them they are making profits every quarter.

This is the most recent news. If we just scan the headlines of BNN Bloomberg, we see the new quarter, post-2020 into 2021, news. It is a kick off of big bank earnings. They are doing great. They have adjusted fourth-quarter profits above the average analyst estimates. When the banks are doing well, maybe not as well as before the pandemic, but they are not struggling or about to go under, they need to help.

Similarly, we should not be leaning on Canadians who got the CERB in good faith because they thought they made $5,000 in the previous year. The qualifications to say they did not qualify came out later. Come on. Let us fix it in this bill to say that anyone who received CERB who received $5,000 gross income in 2019 is entitled. That would clear up a misunderstanding and remove the cloud over the heads of over 440,000 Canadians who received, and I think this is an Orwellian turn of phrase, an education letter.

The critical issue of long-term care homes is referenced quite a lot in the fall economic statement. It mentions long-term care home workers. One of the more disturbing stories I saw in the last few months was of an outbreak of COVID in an Ottawa shelter for the homeless. It turned out the homeless who were living there were actually workers in long-term care. They were earning so little as long-term care workers, they were living in the Ottawa homeless shelter because they could not afford a roof over their head.

We need to do much more. We need to get into those long-term care homes and make sure our seniors are vaccinated. We need to stop the senicide. We need to make sure we pay our workers adequately, whether they are front-line workers in long-term care or anywhere in our society. We really do need a guaranteed livable income to ensure equity and decency for every single Canadian.

This is just a quick scratching of the surface of what we see as a challenge to us as Canadians. The fall economic statement gives us a good direction, but it needs to be more ambitious. We need to ensure that as we come out of COVID we repair our social safety net so it is not a net full of holes, but an actual place of stability, decency and respect for every single one of our human beings in this society, whether homeless, indigenous, or a woman who cannot figure out how to go back to work. We need to rebuild. We need a society that lives up to our greatest aspirations, including acting on the climate emergency while we still have time.

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“The government’s pledge to provide a wage subsidy to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is a good and necessary idea. But limiting that subsidy to 10 percent of the worker’s wage doesn’t go nearly far enough” , said Paul Manly (MP, Nanaimo-Ladysmith). “A recent survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) paints a bleak picture of the reality facing most Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).”

“Small business owners are having to make agonizing choices. With the majority facing a drastic drop in sales due to enforced closures, how can SMEs retain staff?  We would like to see the government follow the lead of some Western European countries who are offering business wage subsidies of 75 to 90 per cent.”

Mr. Manly said that companies in Denmark that retain employees qualify for a 75 per cent government wage subsidy and supplement the difference.

“The higher subsidy would mean that employers do not have to temporarily lay off the workers, significantly reducing the numbers applying for Employment Insurance (EI). Last week over 500,000 Canadians applied for Ei, a figure that is bound to rise as the COVID-19 emergency continues. In downtown Nanaimo,businesses are being boarded up and I am sure this is happening in other communities across the country.“

The CFIB survey, conducted between March 13 – 16, 2020 concluded that 50 percent of small businesses have experienced a drop in sales, 40 percent of those experiencing a drop of 25 per cent or more. Amongst other findings, the survey showed that the sectors most negatively affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19 are hospitality, tourism, arts/recreation, retail and personal services.

“If we keep adding to the EI applications we will end up with unemployment numbers not seen since the Great Depression ,” said Green Party parliamentary leader Elizabeth May (MP, Saanich-Gulf Islands).  “A robust wage-subsidy program is our best protection against that.”

“The Business Council of Canada said last week that Canada needs to reframe the way we’re thinking about stimulus (into) a job preservation program. If we can support SMEs with robust wage subsidies that allow them to keep employees on payroll, it will also aid in the economic recovery once this pandemic is over.”

“On the East Coast as we head into what would be normally prime tourist season operators are faced not only with lost revenue but also having to lay off the staff they need to maintain their  businesses. Many of these employees have years of experience and without them these small businesses will disappear. A wage subsidy would be a lifeline.” says Interim Green Party Leader, Jo-Ann Roberts

Green Party President and shadow cabinet small business critic Jean-Luc Cooke noted: “This is not 2008, nor comparable to other recent shocks – this is hitting home and it is hitting hard. Any stimulus to small business today will feed directly into the home and the necessities every Canadian needs.”

# # #

For more information or to arrange an interview:

Rosie Emery

Press Secretary

613-562-4916×206

rosie.emery@greenparty.ca

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I want to first make a few comments on the subject of omnibus bills and what we have seen in this one year. We essentially have seen budget 2012 used as an excuse for the tabling of 900 pages of legislation largely unrelated to the budget itself. This exercise is both illegitimate and undemocratic in combining 70 different bills in Bill C-38, allegedly related to budget 2012, and now 60 different bills in Bill C-45.

I have fewer amendments today than I had tabled for Bill C-38 and Canadians might want to know the difference. Bill C-38, while a couple of pages shorter, did far more damage to the fabric of environmental laws in Canada. Bill C-38 took an axe to our Fisheries Act, destroying habitat protections; , repealed the Environmental Assessment Act; and put in place a substitute piece of legislation that would be an embarrassment to a developing country. It was absolutely abominable.

In Bill C-38, we also saw the explicit removal of pipelines as a category of obstruction under the Navigable Waters Protection Act. I would have thought that the Conservative agenda toward pipelines was satisfied with Bill C-38, but we go on to Bill C-45 and see that the attack on environmental laws includes the evisceration of the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

In Bill C-38, I made the case, as members may recall, to ask the Speaker for a ruling that the bill was out of order and not properly put together. I think we need to revisit the rules and to create some rules t around omnibus bills because this is clearly illegitimate.

In Bill C-45, we have proof of how appalling the process was in Bill C-38 in that some of what we are voting on this week are remedies for errors made in the drafting of Bill C-38. These were obvious errors that could have been caught if the normal legislative process had taken place.

Now we are asked, in Bill C-45, to correct drafting errors made in Bill C-38 where the English does not accord with the French, or where, under the Fisheries Act, they forgot to protect certain aspects of navigation through the fisheries corridors where there are weirs and other fishing apparatus. We also have changes to the Environmental Assessment Act because of poor drafting the last time around. Why was the drafting poor? It was because 70 different laws were put together in one piece of legislation and forced through the House without a willingness to accept, in 425 pages of legislation, a single amendment.

This is not proper parliamentary process. No previous Privy Council in the history of this country has ever equated an amendment to a bill between first reading and royal assent as some sort of political defeat that must be avoided at all costs. This is a level of parliamentary partisanship that takes leave of its senses. It is essentially a form of parliamentary insanity for the government to decide that it cannot possibly accept an amendment from first reading to royal assent and then to come back and give us this which finally provides some of the corrections.

I will speak to my amendments relatively quickly. I want to stress that neither Bill C-38 nor Bill C-45 are really about jobs, or growth or the budget. I will highlight the things in Bill C-45 that I hope to amend because they will hurt jobs.

Bill C-45, the omnibus budget bill, would hurt jobs in tourism through this quite extraordinary proposal, which is not a proposal but will be passed into law unless we are able to persuade Conservative members of Parliament that they should vote for what they think is right and not how they are told, ordered and instructed to vote.

When tourism in this country is such an important part of our economy, it makes no sense to pass into law a requirement that tourists from around the world, from countries that do not currently require a visa to come to Canada, regardless of whether they have any aspersions on their character, whether they are considered to be a risk, every tourist to Canada, except those from the United States because of our agreements over a shared border security process, would need to fill out a form to find out if they are allowed to come here for a vacation. This is a terrible change and it would significantly hurt tourism.

Another terrible change is reducing the tax credit, the SR and ED, the scientific research and experimental development tax credit. This is where Canada lags. If we listen to the economists, there is tremendous concern about our competitiveness and productivity, which is directly related to research and development, and to why we need to have the scientific research and experimental development tax credit available to Canadians. We think it would be a big mistake to reduce that.

I will now talk about what I like in Bill C-45. The assumption is that every opposition member hates everything in Bill C-45. That is one of the reasons I object to omnibus bills. There are measures here that I would vote for were they not coupled together with so much destruction. I would vote for the actual budgetary measures that one finds at the beginning of Bill C-45, the tax credits to encourage investment in clean energy and energy efficiency. They are too small but I am certainly not against them. Rather, I am for them.

I would vote for the closing of some of the tax credits to encourage oil and gas development, such as the Atlantic investment tax credit for oil, gas and mining, and for the corporate mineral exploration and development tax credit. I would also vote for the closing of the loopholes in transfer pricing and foreign affiliate dumping that have been used by corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Those are the measures I would vote for.

What deeply disturbs me in this bill, in addition to the measure that I had mentioned to create a new requirement for filling out a form to come to Canada under immigration, is the elimination of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission. My amendments would keep that commission in place.

As well, we could do more with the hiring credit for small business.

The changes to the Fisheries Act are largely to repair mistakes made by the Conservatives to the Fisheries Act that had weakened it. They are now fixing some of what they did not need to weaken so desperately. However, we have suggested an amendment to allow for the definition of “aboriginal fisheries”, on the basis of first nations advice, to ensure that the definition is fully respected and takes into account the constitutional and treaty rights of first nations in any definition of “aboriginal fisheries”.

Before moving on to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, I wish to speak to the Canada Grain Act. My amendments oppose a move to take away the independent bond actors in terms of looking at Canadian grains. The third party inspection that is now being proposed would create a conflict of interest between the private sector and the grain companies. We think that would be a mistake. We have certainly learned from the XL Foods beef scandal that it is important to ensure that inspections are truly independent.

The bulk of my amendments deal with the Navigable Waters Protection Act. The Conservatives have taken three runs at it through three different omnibus bills, the first being in 2009. The objective definition of what is “navigable” was changed to a discretionary definition wherein “navigable” would mean whatever the Minister of Transport says that it means.

In Bill C-38, just this past spring, the Conservatives took another run at the Navigable Waters Protection Act with the specific exclusion of pipelines as works or undertakings. Pipelines are no longer in the Navigable Waters Protection Act. These new amendments are certainly not about pipelines because the Conservatives took care of that in Bill C-38.

What this does is it takes an act that we have had since 1882 that directly comes from the Constitution of this country, that being the federal responsibility for navigation. The Navigable Waters Protection Act, which was brought in by Sir John A. Macdonald, has protected the rights of Canadians to put a canoe or kayak in any body of water and paddle from there to wherever they want to go. As Canadians, we have a right to navigation. This is now being superseded with the false story that there is somehow a burdensome regulatory amount of red tape that offends people in municipalities. Therefore, we need to blow apart the Navigable Waters Protection Act to say that a body of water is only navigable if it can be found in the schedule at the back of the act. Ironically, the 99.5% of Canadian waters that are not listed there are not ones near municipalities, cottages and people who want to build wharfs, but are in our wilderness areas where, without the Navigable Waters Protection Act, nothing stands in the way of obstructions to navigations for Canadians.

The government will tell us that is all right because Canadians have a common law right. If people have a couple of hundred thousand dollars and are prepared to go to the Supreme Court of Canada to defend their right to use a waterway that is not listed, they can do that. However, this is an egregious abdication of responsibility for a federal head of power that no other level of government has the right to step up and fill the void.

I urge my colleagues on all sides of the House to give due consideration to these serious and important amendments.

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The Peninsula News Review hosted its ninth annual Women in Business breakfast on March 20. About 40 women from the Peninsula’s business community had coffee and breakfast at Haro’s restaurant in the Sidney Pier Hotel.

Green Party leader and MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, and a Sidney businesswoman herself, Elizabeth May, spoke to the group about finding creative ways to overcome challenges in business.

The News Review’s publisher Jim Parker and sales rep Adam Somers gave away door prizes, donated by Christine Laurent Jewellers, Haven Spa, Haro’s restaurant, Sweet Talk and Lace Lingerie, and Miss Bliss Boutique.

View the full original article >>

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To start off its study on Bill C-25, Minister of State for Finance Ted Menzies testified and answered questions from MPs on the proposed legislation.  The minister focused on the low administrative and financial burdens PRPP’s impose on small businesses, as well as the fact provincial governments have privately expressed support, as key benefits to the plan. However, opposition members pressed the Minister on why he did not pursue more options with the framework of the Canadian Pension Plan, which would guarantee savings amongst all Canadians.  There was some debate between the government and the opposition as to whether the competitions between financial institutions to offer PRPP’s would drive the administrative costs down below the levels of the CPP.  When the Committee resumes after the coming break week, it will hear from other industry stakeholders regarding Bill C-25.

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