Madam Speaker, I appreciate the short time I have to speak on Bill C-14. I do want to address a couple of things.

First, Parliament still reigns supreme in the approval of spending powers. It has been that way since Parliament existed, and it is still that way today, for now. What is important about that, and the reason I bring it up is that we have seen over the course of this pandemic, and it has been a heck of a year, certain plays made by the government to try to seize control and seize power.

We saw it at the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, when the Liberals introduced a piece of legislation that would have given them unfettered control over the Treasury, and the ability to tax and spend up until 2022. If it were not for that push-back from the opposition, all opposition parties, and particularly Canadians, I would hate to see what type of position we would have been in today.

The other thing we saw, and it really speaks to the cynicism we have in some cases dealing with the government and what it is trying to push forward in legislation, particularly spending legislation, is that last fall we effectively had four hours to approve a $54-billion spending bill after the government put a time allocation on it.

I know the previous speaker, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, spoke about this, but we have all played our part in ensuring that Canadians get the benefits as a result of this pandemic. We have all been there, Conservatives, NDP, Greens and Liberals, as well as the Bloc, to make sure that Canadians have the supports they need.

When it became clear that this was an increasing public health crisis and that public health advice needed to be followed, it meant that many businesses had to be shut down, and this affected not just businesses but also the people they employed. All of those things had to happen. Those supports were needed.

In many cases, as members will recall, those supports fell way short of what was needed. It should be no surprise to anybody in this House, and no surprise to anybody who is watching, that there are a lot of regional differences that exist in this country. There is a differing of opinions. It is still okay to have that.

Much of what I was bringing to this House and what I was bringing to ministers at the time was precisely what I was hearing from my constituents, whether it was from the business community or individuals, of just how short some of these programs were. There is the case of Tony and Anna Gillespie, for example, who own a tae kwon do studio in my riding. They just started their business last year. Even up to this point, they have not been able to access some of those benefits.

The Canada emergency wage subsidy is an example. When the government introduced that as legislation, it came in at 10%. It was the opposition parties, and I emphasize the plural because it was not just the Conservatives, and individual MPs who were telling the government that that 10% was woefully inadequate. We saw that subsequently bumped up to 75% as a result.

What I am speaking to more broadly is that many of these programs were either too restrictive or too prescriptive at the time. It was important for us to make sure that the government was aware of that. In many cases it moved, and in some cases, as is the case with Tony and Anne Gillespie, the government has not moved far enough.

John Brassard

$478,972.00