:
I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 97 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, June 8, 2023, the committee is meeting to discuss the impact of inflation and interest rates on mortgages in Canada.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.
I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.
Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. There is interpretation for those on Zoom. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair.
For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as well as we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.
Just as a housekeeping item here, we did distribute a budget before this meeting. I hope all members received that. I'd like to just see if we could adopt that budget before we get going. It was for $7,350. Could I just see a thumbs-up?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: That's great. It's adopted.
Now I'd like to welcome our witnesses. With us today from the Department of Finance, we have Matthew Emde, senior director, demand and labour analysis, economic analysis and forecasting division, economic policy branch. We have Rachel Grasham, senior director, housing finance, financial stability and capital markets division, financial sector policy branch; and Robert Sample, director general, financial stability and capital markets division, financial sector policy branch. We also have Julie Turcotte with us, who is the acting assistant deputy minister, economic policy branch.
My understanding is that Mr. Sample will give some opening introductory remarks for the group, and then we will get to members' questions.
Mr. Sample, go ahead.
We are pleased to be here to speak with you today. I have a couple of opening remarks on behalf of the department and my colleagues Julie, Rachel and Matt.
We're here to help you with your study on the impacts of inflation and increased interest rates on mortgages in Canada, particularly with respect to variable rate mortgages. These are important issues from a consumer and housing affordability perspective and also from an economic resiliency, prudential and financial stability perspective.
The department is actively monitoring this issue as well as broader housing market developments. We are working with federal financial sector agencies that have a role in housing finance and consumer, prudential and financial stability issues. This includes the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, or OSFI, as the independent prudential banking regulator; the Bank of Canada, which includes its responsibility for monetary policy and financial stability; the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, or the FCAC, from a consumer protection perspective; and also the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or the CMHC, given its role as a mortgage insurer and its broader responsibility vis-à-vis housing affordability in Canada.
There are a number of recent public documents I will point the committee's attention to that are germane to your study. First, OSFI recently undertook a public consultation on its mortgage underwriting guideline B-20. Next, the FCAC recently concluded consultations on a new guideline on mortgage hardship. Also, the Bank of Canada recently issued its financial system review, which it does annually, on current vulnerabilities, including with respect to households and the housing market.
I understand that our federal partners and Canadian financial institutions have been asked to appear before this committee and will be able to provide you with more detailed information with respect to their areas of interest and accountability. I can, however, offer some context on the mortgage underwriting framework to help frame our discussion and some issues that I understand are of interest to this committee.
First, there are different roles, regulation and oversight between our insured and uninsured mortgage markets. For the the insured mortgage market, under the Bank Act, mortgages originated by a federally regulated financial institution with less than 20% down payment are required to have mortgage default insurance. The Minister of Finance sets the minimum amount underwriting rules for mortgage default insurance eligibility. These include the minimum qualifying rate, minimum down payment, minimum credit score and maximum debt service ratio and amortization limits. These requirements are set out in regulations.
Mortgage default insurance is guaranteed by the Government of Canada. This support allows borrowers to purchase a house with a lower down payment and typically at a lower interest rates. The maximum amortization period for an insured mortgage is currently 25 years.
For uninsured mortgages, OSFI's guideline B-20 sets out expectations for prudent residential mortgage underwriting. Guideline B-20 is applicable to all federally regulated financial institutions engaged in residential mortgage underwriting and/or the acquisition of residential mortgage loan assets in Canada. As noted, OSFI is currently reviewing the guideline B-20.
I would like to draw to your attention that there are other prudential rules overseen by OSFI that also play a role, including bank capital requirements and the OSFI supervision approach with the institutions it oversees. One specific rule I should highlight is that borrowers applying for either an insured mortgage, a rule made by the Minister of Finance, or an uninsured mortgage, a rule under the bailiwick of the superintendent of financial institutions, must qualify under the minimum qualifying rate. Currently, that is the greater of the borrower's contract rate plus 200 basis points, or a minimum floor rate of 5.25%.
The minimum qualifying rate increases borrower resiliency and reduces vulnerabilities associated with high household debt and risk to financial stability by better positioning borrowers to be able to make their mortgage payments as interest or other expenses rise or if there is a loss of income due to personal circumstances.
Going one step further with respect to the committee's study, with respect to variable rate mortgages, since the increase in interest rates from March 2022, lender and borrower risks associated with variable rate mortgage products and renewals have increased.
While the majority of Canadians still opt for a five-year fixed rate mortgage, the number of Canadians taking on a variable rate mortgage increased as interest rates were rising. This has now abated at current interest rates.
There are two types of variable rate mortgages: an adjustable-rate mortgage and a fixed-payment variable rate mortgage. I will give you just a bit of background here for your study.
With an adjustable-rate mortgage, the borrower's payment automatically increases or decreases as interest rates rise or fall. With a fixed-payment variable rate mortgage, the borrower's payment remains constant, but the portion going to interest versus principal varies as interest rates change. With fixed-payment variable rate mortgages, if the interest rate rises during the borrower's term, the amortization period can be extended to keep the monthly payment fixed. Financial institutions have policies that guide this.
Another and a final point of emphasis in my opening remarks is that our current understanding is that many homeowners are in a financial position to manage rising interest rates and are increasing monthly payments. However, for some borrowers, lenders may need to explore flexibility depending on borrowers' circumstances and the degree of hardship. Our understanding is that lenders have been proactively reaching out to customers on this matter to present options to help manage the situation on a case-by-case basis.
Thank you very much. My colleagues and I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have or point you to the appropriate stakeholder who could answer your questions.
Thank you.
First of all, I want to apologize sincerely to Ms. Dzerowicz. I was sitting close to the witnesses and chatting with Mr. Blaikie while listening to what was being said. I'm really sorry, and I assure you I will pay closer attention in future.
Mr. Emde, since I have only two and a half minutes of speaking time, I'm going to ask you some questions in quick succession.
Given rising interest rates, do you anticipate a drop in real estate prices, in the purchase of housing units, for example, including houses and condos, among other things? If so, how will that break down. What kinds of models do you expect?
Do you have an estimate of the number of personal bankruptcies that might result from rising mortgage costs and inflation.
Thank you.
My apologies once again, Ms. Dzerowicz.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
With the time I have presently, I would like to move a motion that I gave notice of last day, the second part of which reads:
That Vice-Chair Hallan no longer has the confidence of the Standing Committee on Finance and, as a result, that we proceed immediately to the election of a new Vice-Chair from the Official Opposition.
I just want to give a little bit of context for this.
Members may not know and Canadians watching may not know that vice-chairs of committees receive an extra $6,600 a year for the work they're meant to do for the sake of a committee. Members around this table will know that the finance committee has been meeting a lot over the last number of weeks. We had over 40 hours of filibuster on the .
What I found remarkable about that process, among other things—and I have given my thoughts on the record before about the nature and the reasons for the filibuster—was the absence of the vice-chair during those proceedings. Of course he was here for some of the time but not for all of the time.
The principal formal duty of a vice-chair is to be available in the event that the chair can't chair. Sometimes that's when a chair can't come to the meeting. Sometimes it's because the chair has to excuse him or herself at various times for various reasons. The principal duty that a vice-chair performs for the committee is to be present and to be available in order to relieve the chair in case that's required.
There are also informal roles that vice-chairs play in terms of talking to other members of the committee and talking to other recognized parties on the committee to try to find a way forward, particularly when there is an impasse, as there most definitely was in the case of the study of the . Not all of the minutes of those meetings and all of the blues for those meetings are currently available because there were a lot of meetings, and House staff need time, even as they continue to support our committee and others, to be able to put that information up online, so not all the time stamps are there.
I think, Mr. Chair, that you'll get an idea of the extent of Mr. Hallan's participation in that study just by comparing, first of all, the substitution list and the number of interventions. When you look at comparable members like the other vice-chair for this committee, Monsieur Ste-Marie, you'll see that, during the course of the study, he had two substitutions. Monsieur and subbed at various times for Monsieur Ste-Marie, who nevertheless had about 115 interventions during the course of the study.
I had two substitutions during the course of the study because it is the case that MPs from time to time have other legitimate parliamentary commitments that don't allow them to be at the table. and substituted for me. I still managed to have about 169 interventions in the course of the study.
Mr. Lawrence, did a lot of work for the Conservatives during the course of the study, including—I would say—the informal role of vice-chair that he played. He talked to other committee members. He was part and parcel of negotiating those moments where we were able to make some happy progress in the study of the .
Mr. Lawrence had four substitutions. , , and all substituted for Mr. Lawrence at some point. He managed to have 290 interventions in the study, which gives you a sense of just how present Mr. Lawrence was and the work he was doing in trying to provide some leadership to the Conservative side.
In the case of Mr. Hallan, we saw that he had 10 different substitutions. These were , , , , , , , and . Anyone who was listening to the proceedings will know that, while I listed Rick Perkins as one name in a list of 10, it was a very outsized contribution that Mr. Perkins made, at least in respect of time devoted to the proceedings of the committee.
Throughout the entire study, Mr. Hallan had about 29 interventions. That's almost exactly 10% of the interventions that Mr. Lawrence had.
Again, I respect that MPs have a lot of things to do. I respect that MPs can't always be at the committee table, and I myself have sometimes not been at the committee table, but I don't get paid $6,600 extra dollars a year to be here at the committee table to be able to relieve the chair. I haven't undertaken that responsibility.
Conservatives themselves have recognized, in the context of this Parliament, that sometimes their finance critic can't meet the obligations of a vice-chair and, therefore, does not deserve the pay. For instance, when was finance critic for the Conservative Party and sat at this committee table, the vice-chair was , and when was finance critic for the Conservative Party, the vice-chair was because at that time it was recognized that the person who's going to do the job of vice-chair should be, in the main, here.
If they had a finance critic who was too busy doing other things, like trying to improve upon a lackluster question period performance, undermining the sitting leader or whatever it is that they're doing when they're not at this table—different ones have committed that time to different things—they didn't accept the $6,600 for being the vice-chair of the committee.
That's fair enough. I'm not here to dispute that MPs are busy people. I'm not here to dispute that we're all trying to juggle a lot of different jobs. However, I notice that in the past, when their finance critic was too busy to do the job at this table, Conservatives have asked somebody else to be vice-chair. I think that is actually the right and proper way of doing that. I think that, when you look at the statistics of interventions and substitutions over the course of the , it's clear that Mr. Hallan is too busy to be doing the job of vice-chair with other things. I don't begrudge him those other things. It takes time to prepare a hagiographic podcast, for instance. I know that he needs hours in the day. That's fine.
However, when I look at Mr. Lawrence and the amount he invests around this committee table—even though it's not recognized by his leader—in trying to talk to other people and have a sense of a path forward for the committee, I think it's more befitting that Mr. Lawrence be the vice-chair of this committee and receive the $6,600 because he's putting in the time and work. I think it's important that when people accept additional salary they do the additional work.
By and large, that is the work of presence, particularly if you're going to do that job for a party that is going to cause a lot of extra meetings and time. We spent a lot of time listening to the interventions of Conservative members, including on the east coast fishery. So be it. I respect the right of members to filibuster, but I find it passing strange that Mr. Hallan would be part and parcel of triggering some long non sequiturs here at this committee and then decide that those aren't worth his time but make the decision for the rest of us at this table that those interventions were worth our time. I think it would have been an important act of leadership on his part to be here for the speeches that he argued were an important part of the study.
I may very well argue differently. In fact I have, on the record, in other places.
It's his contention that those were important speeches for us to listen to. He ought to have been here to listen along with us. I think the fact base clearly shows that he did not provide that leadership but that Mr. Lawrence was here for those things, and that Mr. Lawrence was accomplishing the role that Mr. Hallan ought to have been accomplishing.
I think that we're not here as a committee to judge Mr. Hallan's role as finance critic. We're not here to judge his role as an MP. We're not here to judge how he spends his time, but we are in a position to judge whether he's doing us a proper service as a vice-chair in fulfilling those roles. I think we would be better served by the situation that Conservatives have put in place before, where their finance critic is not the vice-chair.
There is someone here who's doing the work of the vice-chair. That person has made it a priority to be here. I don't doubt that Mr. Lawrence is busy with other things and that he has obligations to his riding and to his party that he has to fulfill outside of the context of this table, but he's nevertheless made it a priority at least to be here, if nothing else. I think that is an important component of being the vice-chair. It's why I think this is an important item of committee business.
I recognize that we're getting ready to rise for the summer. I think it's important that we deal with this before we do. That's why I'm bringing it forward at this time before there is no more time, in order to address this question before rising for the summer.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to say a few things and if I get to the end of this, perhaps we can retest Sophie's idea, but I do want to say just a few things first. I do acknowledge that there is a planning meeting on Tuesday. I want us to get to a place where everyone is in a good situation so we can go into that hoping to improve that situation.
Let me just say a few things. I've had various conversations with our own members and with opposition members from all parties. The default filibuster obstruction stance of the version of the Conservatives is actively and obviously hurting the work of this committee. This motion is a direct result of that.
Even members of the Conservative Party, I think, admit that we've seen an escalation of obstruction under the new . It's plain to see. It's evidenced by—and I'm not going to go into all of it, because I already gave a 20-minute speech on that—the unwillingness, on multiple occasions, to negotiate in good faith, the desire to obstruct the work of the committee and the will of the majority of the committee, as well as the actions that have played out over the last number of months.
Negotiations with the Bloc and NDP always go reasonably well. They never go perfectly. There's miscommunication. There's back and forth, but it would be exceptionally rare that, once those discussions have happened and there was an agreement, the positions would change. It took less than an hour to find a consensus between government members and the opposition members outside of the Conservatives once everyone put all their concerns on the table, whereas the Conservatives spent weeks specifically making sure we would never agree on terms.
Jas himself has stated multiple times that it's been only one filibuster and we shouldn't set this precedent. I can already think of three times there have been filibusters since Jas has been the critic. There might be more that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. There's no doubt it's been worse under this leadership. That evidence could be gathered and would be indisputable by any objective measure.
The fact that the vice-chair has caused some of these issues or has contributed to them and isn't necessarily aware of all the impacts of them or of how many times this has happened is kind of the point of Mr. Blaikie's motion. While I was initially surprised by the motion, I, upon reflection, do understand where it's coming from.
I would also suggest to my colleague Mr. Hallan, who, I believe, is actually a reasonable person and who, I believe, wants to work hard for his constituents, that there are a number of ways in which he could demonstrate and that the Conservative Party could demonstrate they are willing to engage this committee in a professional way that would allow the committee to do its work while not giving up the ability to play a strong role as the critic for the official opposition.
I think finding a way to get dates scheduled for meetings on the pre-budget consultations would be a good step. I think assuring that travel actually happens, even though it's been cancelled for the last two years, would be a good step. I think providing real terms for working on the fall economic statement and the budget—important fiscal documents—would be a good step. I think all of us could agree. The start of this meeting is proof that we need to spend less time debating the work we're going to do and how we're going to do it and instead spend more time actually doing the work.
Daniel said that a few times, and I think that sentiment is shared by all of us at some level. Listen, I know that there are things that are outside of our members' control. There are discussions and decisions that happen outside of this committee, whether they be based in the Standing Orders, in the chamber itself or in whips' offices or the House leaders' offices, but certainly the 's office shouldn't have to be consulted for every single decision on every single negotiation. We should be able to have a responsible discussion because, after all, this is an independent committee of MPs or it's supposed to be.
As members of Parliament—and I truly believe this—we have a duty to work together on legislation to make it better.
There is good work that could be done here. Some of that good work was actually already happening today with regard to the mortgage study. By continuously filibustering legislation for no purpose other than to obstruct it, you actually hurt constituents. You hurt the legislation. You hurt the country, and you hurt our ability to do more studies like the one we're discussing today.
The would have been better if you had contributed your ideas. If you choose not to participate, that's fine, but you should allow the other opposition parties to contribute and debate their ideas as well. The quality of the decisions made at this table and in Parliament is directly correlated to the quality of the debate, and you do everyone a disservice by choosing not to engage in that debate. You do damage to our democracy by taking that right away from other members around this table.
I've served on many committees before the finance committee, and I've been happy to work with members to incorporate amendments from all parties, including the Conservatives, the Bloc, the NDP and the Green Party, and I was happy to incorporate those amendments into legislation drafted by the government, because they were good amendments and they were good ideas.
Last I will say that I think there is a path forward, a positive path that can lead to a better place for all members of this committee, no matter which side of the House they sit on, but I also note that I'm not certain at this point that this motion will have a constructive impact on improving our working relationship, especially given the fact that I'm not sure how blame should be distributed among individual members of the committee versus being assigned to the actual .
I would also note that we have witnesses here for a study we all agreed to spend the day working on. I was not willing to support unanimous consent for them to be removed, because I still feel as though we could get back to that work today.
I know there are members around the table. I was hoping to adjourn debate on this and go back to the witness study, to be honest, with everybody here. I still support doing that, but I do not want to take away the right of my colleagues to say what they want to say about this motion.
I'll put on the record that I'm in favour of adjourning debate on this and going back to the mortgage study today, but I want to make sure everybody has the time to say their piece, as I've had my time to say my piece.
Thank you.
:
Thank you. While not a point of order, that's very much appreciated from Mr. Beech.
I will just very briefly put a couple of remarks on the order and then hand it over to my Liberal colleagues, as long as they are brief, because we have only 24 minutes or so left and, as I said, this is an impending crisis, a ticking time bomb with respect to the mortgage market, as an article I'm looking at right now says. It's sad that we have to put up with these childish games.
If there is anyone who needs to be removed from their post, it's the . She has disregarded multiple invitations from this finance committee. Her sole job is to manage the finances and to report back to the Canadian people. We are the Canadian people's tool for her to express herself. It's not the media. It's Parliament. That's why the Magna Carta was drafted 800-plus years ago. That is why Parliament exists.
However, she has flagrantly disregarded the invitations from this finance committee. If anyone needs to be replaced desperately, it's the . She has presided over the worst economy since the Great Depression, and all the Canadian people were asking for was for her to come and testify for two hours, but it was too much for her to climb down from her ivory white tower and talk to the Canadian people, the common people.
Instead, while we have an economy in which, in the chair's riding, one in 20 is using the food bank, we have an obstructionist who will not appear in front of this committee, but who finally did to get her legislation brought forward and then only showed up for an hour and a half even though she was invited for two hours.
Conservatives worked hard to have professional decorum and to improve the legislation, but we are not going to be bystanders as the worst economy since the Great Depression is presided over by this Liberal failure economy. Do you know what? It might be shocking to the other parties, but the Conservatives work as a team. We know right now that Liberals are probably vying for their cabinet positions. Perhaps they don't work as a team and some are happy in the backbenches, but as they have pushed and shoved along for the inevitable cabinet shuffle, we have seen this absolute failure in government. We saw in a recent poll that 80% of Canadians want a new government. Eighty per cent is a huge number, especially considering something like 30% of Canadians consider themselves Liberals. Nearly a majority of Liberal supporters want a new government.
I see Mr. Blaikie posing with this Liberal government for pictures and during photo ops. Perhaps he too wants to ingratiate himself with the new government, so it's no wonder these childish games are happening. When the economy is falling apart and when their party is falling apart, perhaps they are lashing out like small children. It's very disappointing. We have a crisis coming, and you know what? Way to destroy and poison the well. You couldn't have done it any better, guys. Congratulations there.
Do you know what? The reason we don't support this budget has nothing to do with . It has nothing to do with him. It has to do with the Canadian people. We have the worst economy since the Great Depression, guys. We have a mortgage time bomb. We have officials here who want to talk, but instead we have to play childish political games. It's pathetic. It's sad. It's disappointing, and it is just an absolute embarrassment for this finance committee. I am embarrassed to be a part of this committee. If anyone should be removed, it's the chair here, the chair who has presided over complete dysfunction. It couldn't get any worse.
Daniel, if you want to remove someone, remove Peter. Remove the , who won't come for two hours despite multiple invitations here.
With that, I'll let you guys have your piece.
I'd like to start by thanking Daniel for bringing this forward. I think it's really important that we have this discussion. I want to thank MP Beech for making sure that all the members who want to speak have a chance to have their voices heard in this discussion.
I'm not going to repeat it for the sake of time, but I want to say that I agree with the vast majority of what Mr. Blaikie said in his opening. I also want to say that I was an elected official for three and a half years federally and four years as a member of the Ontario provincial parliament where I sat on a finance committee. I've debated with members of all parties on a range of issues. I've disagreed with folks on a lot of things. I've seen a range of arguments and a range of tactics used, but I've never seen something like this before.
I think it's in all our interests, no matter which side of the aisle we're on, for it to stop. I think it is.
I remember when I came to this committee. One of the first people to say hello was Mr. Ste-Marie.
[Translation]
He said hello. We worked together, and we said something very positive and optimistic about this joint effort, which I very much appreciated.
I don't always agree with Mr. Ste-Marie, but I think he makes a very constructive contribution to this committee, and I'm glad of that.
[English]
Something very similar happened with Mr. Blaikie early on in that first meeting when I came to this committee. What I said about Mr. Ste-Marie I would say about Mr. Blaikie as well, and his contribution to this committee. We don't always agree on everything, contrary to what the Conservatives would like people to believe, but I'm okay with that. I don't harbour resentment that we disagree with each other.
I've had a chance to have conversations with our friends from the Conservatives. Those conversations were very similar as well: “I look forward to working with you. I look forward to getting things done.”
I remember having conversations off-line with Conservative committee members over the course of the time that I've been here, with Mr. Hallan and Mr. Chambers and Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Morantz. I remember Mr. Hallan telling me about—I won't talk about that on the record—his background, his work in his community over the course of years and what led him to run for office. I found that really poignant and memorable. Mr. Lawrence has shared similar comments with me.
I've found Mr. Chambers to be someone who is capable of conciliation and compromise and productive work across the aisle. I think he's capable of that in a way that many members are not. I think there are others around this table who are capable of that as well, but I think Mr. Chambers has done that over the course of the last number of months.
I share that to say, whether you think the minister should appear for 20 minutes or two hours or 10 hours, whether you think the economy is doing well or not doing well, whether delinquencies are too high or they're not too high, whether we're doing enough to support Canadians, no matter what your views are, you're entitled to them because you are here to do a job on behalf of your constituents, to represent them. How you do that and what their views are, I don't harbour resentment for any of that.
What disappoints me the most is that, when we see behaviour, tactics, personal attacks and disruption for the sake of disruption that have nothing to do with the substance of the matter before us.
It's not about whether the economy is performing well. It's not about whether interest rates are hurting people, and frankly it's not consistent with what the members in the Conservative caucus I've spoken to told me when I met them, when I got to know them, when they told me why they came to this place and why they ran for office to represent their constituents.
I don't want to use this intervention to beat up on anybody. That's not why I wanted to speak. I think we all know what those things are, what happened in this committee. We were there. I know we all get pressure from our respective leaders' offices. We all get it. Let's be frank. That's the system of government we're in.
Mr. Hallan, I appeal to you. I ask you to remember that conversation you shared with me on why you ran for office and on some of the work you've done in your community.
I think what upset me the most about what happened here over the past few weeks.... There were lots of reasons I was disappointed. It wasn't even about the time we wasted. It wasn't about taking it to a new level. It wasn't about the rhetoric, although that was very upsetting. What upset me the most was that it wasn't consistent with what I heard in those initial conversations about why we're here. I didn't recognize the members I thought I knew.
I'm not here to beat up on people. What I'm here to say is that anybody who wants to know what happened in this committee can go back to the record and they can listen and they can watch, but, folks, I don't care if you're in opposition or in government or second party or third party or fourth. It doesn't matter. Guys, folks, it hurts all of us when what happened over the past few weeks happens.
I guess I would say I have great concerns about the tactics the Conservatives used. I do. Mr. Hallan is the leader of the Conservative team here, as Mr. Blaikie pointed out, as the vice-chair and as the finance critic. I would ask us all to take this moment and just reflect on why we're here, and I would ask us to just show respect for each other and for this place. When we go after each other personally and we disrespect each other—whether it's the chair or other members, it doesn't matter—then we harm our ability to do our job, we harm our ability to serve our constituents and we harm this place. We harm this institution's ability to serve our constituents.
It may feel good in the short run to score a hit or to score a punch or to get a sound bite or whatever it is or to appeal to a leader's office that's asking someone to do something they probably shouldn't, but in the long run it's hurting all of us and it's hurting our constituents, no matter what you think about how long the minister should be at committee or how well or badly the economy is doing or what the issues of the day are or what the solutions to those problems are.
I would just ask all of us to ask ourselves why we're here and how we make the most of this opportunity.
Thanks.
:
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I want to start off by saying I agree with the comments of my colleagues, Sophie, Terry and Yvan. I also want to say thanks to Mr. Blaikie for putting forward this motion, because I, too, feel that I largely agree with many of the points he mentioned, but I also think it's important for us to discuss what's happened over the last few weeks in the hopes that we can get to a better place. I, too, found that what happened was unacceptable. It was a waste of time for you. It was a waste of time for me, for us, and it was a waste of money for Canadians.
We have made a mockery of the work that this committee is meant to do. We've made a mockery of what the House of Commons stands for and the work it's supposed to do, and we did not honour what Canadians have elected us to do, which is to work together, to address the issues of the day and to create a better country.
To be honest, I asked my colleagues how many hours the filibuster was. We have no clue. It's anywhere between 40 and 60 hours. In any case, it was a colossal waste of time.
The main crux of the initial part of the filibuster was about having the come. Even after she had agreed to come, even after she was on record to come and she was scheduled to come, the filibuster still continued.
There was incorrect information that kept on being portrayed that she had not come before no matter how many times we had invited her. She had already come three times before, and her coming that time for this made it a fourth time. There is no minister who comes every single time a committee asks. It doesn't matter whether it's the finance minister or any minister.
Then the filibuster continued in order to have witnesses come, but the filibuster took so long that it literally eliminated all opportunities for witnesses to actually come before us to talk to us about the —what was good, what was bad and what could be improved—so that did not make it possible.
I would also like to suggest that we have to stop with the performance politics, which we see is very prevalent and, I would say, most specifically from our Conservative colleagues. We saw it two minutes ago.
There is a lot of invention that goes on. There is a mortgage time bomb apparently, which is not the case. We heard very clearly today that the delinquency rate for mortgages remains very low. It's below what we saw prepandemic. It's at 0.12%.
We heard that household finances are relatively healthy. We heard that all the tools are in place that protect Canadians, including the mortgage stress test that was put into place in February 2020. We've heard that a big portion of the high level of debt that Canadians have is mortgage debt, so it is a complete invention that there is a mortgage time bomb.
It is also complete invention that we are in the worst economy. There is literally no economist in the world who would agree with that. We consistently are among the top in terms of growth rates. We are consistently in the top in terms of debt-to-GDP ratio, in terms of employment rates, in terms of outlook and in terms of projections moving forward, so it's complete nonsense.
I'm going to end by saying let's do better. Let's find a way to work together to do what it is that Canadians have asked us to do.
With that, Mr. Chair, I move that the debate be now adjourned.
First, I want to emphasize that I'm not opposed to the motion to adjourn now because there are few people left on the speakers list, and most of the members have spoken. When Mr. Blaikie's motion was first introduced, I thought I would have preferred that we put our questions to the witnesses rather than debate it. However, since everyone is speaking, I would consider it unfair to interrupt debate without resolving the matter. Furthermore, that motion would have enabled us to discuss the frustration in this committee.
First I want to say, from the bottom of my heart, that I have the greatest respect for every one of the members of this committee, by which I mean the chair and all the members of every party.
I have profound respect for you. You do a remarkable job. Together we can have true, constructive discussions where that's possible. Consequently, there's nothing in what I'm going to say that is aimed at any member personally. I bear no grudge against anyone. I very much appreciate the committee, even though there are moments when we quarrel, as we have recently seen.
That brings me to the topic of the filibuster. I understand Mr. Blaikie, and I understand Ms. Chatel and my Liberal colleagues and why they are so frustrated with these many hours of filibustering, during which we could have studied this mammoth 500- or 600-page bill and really improved it. Instead, we heard talk about baby eels on numerous occasions. I was frustrated with that too.
It is frustrating, but I want to remind my colleagues that the filibuster is a tool that, as far as I know, is used in all the parliaments of democratic countries. That tool may come in different forms, but it's used and there's a reason for that.
I understand that it's frustrating. The purpose of dilatory measures and filibustering is to annoy others. It's to tell the government and the other parties that, if we aren't respected, we'll wreck the machine. That's its purpose. So it's normal for it to be unpleasant and cause this much frustration.
I don't know a lot about the history of the Parliament of Canada or the parliaments of other anglophone countries, but, to my knowledge, all the parties engage in filibustering when they're in opposition. The Liberals did it from 2011 and 2015, and even the NDP too. Mr. Julian often boasts about it. It was very unpleasant for the government of the time. The Liberals are also capable of doing it when they're in opposition.
I'm frustrated when I experience filibustering, I don't like it, and I feel we could be doing something else. Despite that fact, I respect the filibuster because I believe that's the way to challenge and slow down parliamentary business; It's the way to annoy the government and others. If it weren't possible to do it that way, I wonder how it would be done. Would we come to blows? What would happen then? So it's the way to express one's opposition in a defined and standardized manner.
During the filibuster a moment ago, when I was really angry, a member who had come to replace another member took out his telephone and played the parliamentary television feed into the microphone. I thought that showed a disregard for the rules established to protect the interpreters, who can suffer hearing injuries. That made me very angry. As for everything else, I think that filibustering, in all parliaments and by all opposition parties, is a tool that will be used.
There are always two sides to the same coin. The Conservatives said they wanted to have the minister for two hours. Was that justified or not? Personally, when she came to visit us, I wasn't satisfied with her answers, and I didn't feel she had a very good grasp of her enormous bill. I was disappointed. Personally, I would've filibustered for half an hour, more or less. However, I nevertheless congratulate Daniel for getting that additional time.
I don't think every member or every party should tell other members and parties what to do or how to conduct themselves. That's the meaning of democracy. We're accountable to our fellow citizens. If people in Joliette tell me that I filibustered too much and then vote me out in the next election, that'll be the effect of democracy. My work is to represent those people.
What do I, someone from Joliette, have in common with the member from Calgary? We have common points, but we represent very different realities. We will often vote against each other on many bills, but I have great respect for him because I know he represents his people and that he's voting accordingly. When he filibusters, I know that he's being accountable to his people, not to his committee colleagues.
So that's what I had to say about the filibuster. It's frustrating, and that's it's purpose. All parties use it when they're in opposition. If we manage to find a way to work together, so much the better. Otherwise there are the standing orders of the House of Commons.
So that brings me to the standing orders of the House of Commons. As far as I know, it is customary for the official opposition party to decide who will be the first vice-chair. If the members of the other parties now want to tell that party how to make its choice, that will set a dangerous precedent that I would prefer to prevent. I understand that, given the frustration it may arise, people might think that it would encourage debate and that it might be positive. If the clerk told us that this had never been done and that no such decision had ever been made, that would set a precedent. However, precedents trouble me greatly.
For example, currently in the House, we are debating a motion to amend the standing orders on which there is no consensus. It would result in profound changes to the rules of the House of Commons, and this is one of the first times when it will not be done on a consensual basis. That really troubles me because I think that, when a future government wants to make new changes, it will be able to do so.
The next time, when another party is in the majority on the committee and wants to gag the opposition, I'm afraid it will want to change vice-chairs, among other things. So I fear these precedents, and I wouldn't really want the rules changed in that regard here.
I have two final points to make. I'll try to be brief.
As I said, we're in the process of changing the rules in the House of Commons in a non-consensual way. This is a dangerous precedent. If this motion were adopted, it would be a first, as the clerk has said. It would also set a precedent that very much troubles me. I understand that we can have a substantive discussion on how to operate here, but I wouldn't want us to set a precedent.
I also want to mention that Mr. Fonseca is doing a superb job. He is never replaced; he is always here. I haven't yet chaired the committee one single time. He once called to tell me to be ready to do so, if ever a problem arose when Mr. Singh Hallan replaced him. He had planned everything. Mr. Singh Hallan did a remarkable job on the occasion when he chaired a meeting. I understand that it's fair game to play political games and say that he's less present than he should be, and so on. However, it's important that the Conservatives, who constitute the official opposition, continue to appoint the person who occupies the vice-chair.
I will conclude with an extremely uncomfortable point. Mr. Blaikie, for whom I have the greatest respect, recalled who the vice-chairs are.
I look at us all around the table here, and I see only one racialized person. However, that's the person who is concerned here. That makes me very uncomfortable.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would just weigh in to say that I appreciate folks sounding off about the filibuster and the nature of it. As I say, during that process, I commented on what I thought about the objectives of the filibuster and in fact agreed with some of them.
That's not what this is about. What this is about is the role of vice-chair on committee and the fact that we went through a long process, and the person who is paid $6,600 every year to be here to relieve the chair—and I think also performs some other important informal duties—left it to somebody else to do those informal duties and wasn't present during those proceedings. That's really what is at issue. I shared some information about that.
I do think that, when we talk about larger context, we have an official opposition right now whose leader has held a number of press conferences to say that he wants to make how much MPs show up to work an issue, that he wants Parliament to sit through the summer and that he wants committees to sit through the summer, yet his right-hand man on the finance committee isn't showing up in the regular season. It's the who has made this such a relevant issue by insisting on the idea that MPs, instead of doing the work that we all have to do during the summer in our ridings, should be showing up here in Ottawa to do more kinds of work here, although we've seen that sometimes that work can end up actually just meaning listening to Conservatives sound off.
If the relevant political issue of the day, as per the , is MPs showing up to work, and we just went through an over 40-hour study of the , where his main person on the file, despite having a paid obligation to the committee, wasn't coming, how serious should we really take those things? I'm hearing from the committee that there's a lot of goodwill around the table and a willingness to put this debate aside, I think, but I want Conservatives to know that, if they want to continue to make issues like this an issue, a number of us are going to have a lot to say and they're not going to like everything that they have to hear, or, rather, they're not going to like to hear everything that I have to say, certainly, and that others may.
There are different ways of going about our business here, but if the Conservatives want to have their cake and eat it too—to accuse folks of not showing up to work while they themselves are not doing that and accepting a paycheque for it—then we're going to have words about it. If we want to conduct our business otherwise, in a more understanding way, with parties trying to figure that out and not playing the politics of calling out, so be it, but I'm tired of being the reasonable person in the room and having that be taken advantage of for people to try to score political points against me as I watch them do the very thing that they themselves criticize.
I'm not prepared to tolerate that kind of hypocrisy anymore. That's a warning for folks who want to continue to carry on in that way themselves: If we want to have a race to the bottom, we will get there. That's not the way I prefer to do politics. I think I've demonstrated that many times around this table, but I think that if that's the way it's going to go, then that's where I'll end up along with everybody else.
Why don't we find a different way of doing things? In order to do that, we need some leadership, and that should come from the people who are paid to do that job of leadership on this committee.
Thank you.
Since this motion is about me, I thought it would be fair for me to get my own thoughts on the record as well. We talk about things not being personal, but I don't see anyone else's name on the motion. I'd just like to say my piece.
I'll start off by saying first that there are no hard feelings after this whole thing. I think we all understand the business. We understand that we can move forward after this. There will be no hard feelings, especially on my end, after this whole ordeal comes to an end.
I did want to touch on a few points that Mr. Blaikie brought up. Maybe I'll start off with some of the points that Mr. Baker brought up first about why I'm here.
Someone with my past should, honestly, not even be in this position today. I didn't come here to this country knowing that I would be here in this position today. With the way that I grew up, this is not something that I even would have had a chance to do, especially in my riding. I get to represent a lot of people who are low income, a lot of new immigrants who try to live that Canadian dream, which is what my parents came here to do—a better future for me—but it wasn't easy.
I look around the room, and I don't see anyone who looks like me. This position that I was given the responsibility of is not an opportunity many people get. For me that's a big deal. When I'm travelling the country, which obviously I'm doing a lot—we're doing a lot of outreach—I do hear from different ethnic communities that there's a sense of pride to see someone who doesn't normally fit the description of a politician in this role. People take that as a sense of pride.
I recently was in Brampton, talking to those international students, trying to stop their deportations. I put myself in their shoes. We were successful in helping to stop those deportations. That is another part of my role. I represent not just my own community. I represent many different communities. There are almost 108 languages spoken in my riding alone. When I come to this job, when I wake up, I remember who I represent every single day, whether I'm here or travelling the country.
One thing I did learn growing up was the importance of a team and leadership. What I want to address to Mr. Blaikie straight, looking at you right now, is that what I learned was that the best form of leadership is to empower people. We work as a team on this side. I didn't give up my obligations. Rather, I split them up because I love to see other people in a leadership role. Those are the values I learned growing up.
I was very fortunate. I grew up as an at-risk youth myself. Growing up, I was fortunate enough with the opportunities this country gave me and my family, and with the blessings of God, to be able to help other at-risk youth.
We opened up an after-school program for at-risk youth. There, especially for the young women who came to us, we would hold sports tournaments every month, whether it was basketball, dodge ball, volleyball, whatever the sport. The whole point of running those wasn't to raise money. It's not hard for a couple of us to get together and raise $5,000 for a charity. That wasn't the point. The whole point of those tournaments was to put those young women, who may not have had the opportunity otherwise, into leadership roles, to put encouragement inside of them and to build the confidence inside of them that it's not just us who can do this job. They can do it too.
I carry that same principle when I come to this Parliament and outside. I want others to know that, if I can do this, anyone can do this. Your background doesn't matter. The thing that really bothers me—and this is something that I don't think Conservatives would ever do—is to equate someone's work ethic with how much they're being paid. I don't find that particularly....
Putting politics aside, to accuse someone of not being able to earn their paycheque, we wouldn't do that normally outside. It's not something we do in business. It's none of our business, actually, because there are other roles we play and other responsibilities.
I'll give you an example of what happens on my end. I do casework and not just in my own community of Calgary Forest Lawn. Eighty per cent of my casework is from outside of my community. It's from outside of my riding. I do it with a smile on my face.
I want to thank my team, which steps up every single day and never asks, “Where are you from? You should go to that MP.” We say, “Okay, we'll do it.” When the whole process started with the , we had a huge lineup of people from our team who said, “We want to get on the record and represent our constituents.” I was the first one to say, “You can take my spot.” That was the whole point.
I think we're setting a really bad precedent in here. You want to get rid of me, and I'm sure there are a lot of people in Parliament who want to get rid of me, and I'm fine with that. I'm not here to make friends. I'm not here to be that nice guy.
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I'm going to wrap up quickly. I don't want this to drag on.
I just want to make sure that I get on record saying that we all know we have more than the responsibility of just being on this hill. I want to see more people like me and others who come to this country doing this. For me to be handed this role—and obviously we know that our leader was known for this role—was a big deal for me, for my family and for many people across the country, because that's what I hear about.
Honestly, I come from a family that was neither political nor even successful. We lived through poverty. I remember standing in line in my riding for low-income bus passes. I remember, when I was growing up, the first bout of racism—and I'm not going to say that's what this is about, but I want to put on record how important being here is for me. My first experience of racism was when I was on a bus with my mom and my brother. She was spat on because she covered her head. There were many other incidents as well, whether they were when I was going through school, playing sports or even being in business. I would look around the table and there would be exactly the same dynamic: I would be the person who looked very different from everybody else, but I knew I had a role to play.
I'm not going to play the victim card. This isn't about racism. I'm just saying that when I travel, people of other ethnicities tell me how proud they are that I get to be in this position. I don't take it lightly, but the precedent I think this is setting is that if you come here and you do your job, whether you do it well or not is very subjective. It depends on the person looking at it. At the end of the day, it just goes to show that you can be your best and try your best, but there will always be someone who wants to get rid of you.
That's the precedent I'm afraid we're setting here when we go down this line.
That's my heartfelt plea to the committee. There are no bad feelings after this.
I just wish, Daniel, that instead of bringing it onto this floor, you would have had the decency to maybe have this conversation once, at least, outside of here. I'm not hard to get a hold of. People call me all the time.
Going forward, however the committee wants to do this, I'm game, but I don't think I'll back down from doing the job that I was sent here to do. I don't think that would be the point of my being here.
I just want to thank the committee. Thank you for everyone's input. I'll leave my piece there.
Thank you.