Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, it is difficult to take lessons from the prepared lines of a member who seems content to read his question off a piece of paper in front of him in the chamber. It is not a prepared line that we stepped up to be there for nine million Canadians with CERB. It is not a prepared line that four and a half million workers still have their jobs because of the wage subsidy. It is not a prep…
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Madam Speaker, the short-sightedness of the member opposite is absolutely astounding. With great respect, if we wanted to have a short-term uptick in employment rates, we could talk to the premiers and tell them not to put in place public health measures that are designed to protect the lives and well-being of the people who live in our communities, but we know that short-term gain would do immeas…
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Madam Speaker, it is curious to me that the hon. member would suggest Canada's spending more to be there for businesses and households is a bad thing. We knew at the beginning of this pandemic that we had the choice to either let households and businesses bear the cost of the economic shutdowns associated with COVID-19, or to be there so that we could ensure that families could keep a roof over th…
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Madam Speaker, with respect to the job numbers, I would point out to the member opposite that there is a global pandemic that is impacting different parts of the country and different parts of the world. I notice that the recent jobs losses were concentrated in provinces that have been hit very hard by the second wave. The good news is that projections from private sector economists continue to su…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Surrey Centre for his continued advocacy for small businesses in his riding and across Canada. Our government knows that businesses are still struggling very much under the second wave of COVID-19. This is why we have made our program application deadlines carry through until 2021. The emergency business account, which has provided support to more tha…
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Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her work to help develop some of the economic measures in response to the COVID-19 emergency. One of the faults that folks like us who are involved in politics fall into is that we often discuss trade in a way that does not resonate with people who live in our communities. When we talk about GDP growth or export vol…
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Madam Speaker, before I get to my question on the issue of government expenditures, I will point out many of the investments we have made, though they are expensive, will actually reduce the overall cost to government, because the cost of not supporting households and businesses to get through this pandemic is far greater than the cost of making sure they can survive and preventing that economic s…
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Mr. Speaker, the COVID-19 pandemic is a public health and economic emergency the likes of which we have not seen in a century, certainly not in my lifetime, and if I get my way, we never will again. Through the first wave, we saw a virus the world had never seen or heard of before. It absolutely punished communities across Canada and around the world. Although we have been spared the worst of the …
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Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member would like to discuss increased investments to ensure that provincial health care systems can provide family doctors' improved mental health and improve the quality of long-term care, that is a very valuable discussion to have, but we cannot abdicate the responsibility to deal with this pandemic. Frankly, the jurisdictional division of powers outlined in the Constit…
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Mr. Speaker, I wish the hon. member well and a happy new year. I look forward to seeing him at the finance committee as well. There are two buckets of issues that he has raised in his question. One is the nature of supports extended to business and through the banks. I think the key words that he used were “liquidity supports” when it comes to the banks. We have to think about what would have happ…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his remarks. I respect him as an individual, though I disagree wholeheartedly with the substance of his speech. He has criticized the government's response on the basis that this legislation is a do-over, and I will let him know that I would do over the supports we have extended to families and businesses 100 times out of 100. The member has complained about the…
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