For Your Information
Bills and Government Announcements in the Fall Session
At the outset of the fall session of Parliament, media reported that it would focus on five issues:
-- affordability, including soaring housing and grocery prices, interest rates and inflation;
-- legislation on a framework for a national pharmacare plan, part of the Confidence and Security Agreement with the NDP, along with anti-scab legislation and a foreign interference inquiry;
-- crime prevention, particularly changes to bail eligibility for certain offenders;
-- the government's long promised Online Safety Bill which would "crack down on social media platforms to curb the spread of dangerous content like hate speech and inciting terrorism;" and
-- addressing climate change, including legislation to support workers in the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy and plans to cap emissions from the oil and gas sector.
On September 19, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act, also known by the short title Affordable Housing and Groceries Act. The legislation amends the Excise Tax Act to allow the rebate of GST on construction of new apartment buildings for renters and amends the Competition Act to allow the Minister to direct the Commissioner of Competition to conduct an inquiry into the state of competition in a market or industry. To this end the Finance Minister and Industry Minister convened a meeting of the five major grocery monopolies on September 18 to discuss stabilizing prices without any tangible results. Statistics Canada reported in December that the annualized rate of food inflation in November was 4.7 per cent and the annual Food Price Report predicted that food prices will rise between 2.5 and 4.5 per cent in 2024.
Bill C-50, the Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act, was tabled June 15, 2023, which would mandate the federal government to create five-year plans to transition energy sector workers into green energy jobs. The Bill completed second reading in the House on October 23 and is currently at report stage with no date set for Third Reading.
On October 31, the government announced a $1.5 billion Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund "to support clean energy projects that drive environmental performance while enabling critical minerals development, such as the generation, storage and transmission of non-emitting renewable or alternative energy, as well as grid connectivity; and support transportation projects that will directly enable the development or expansion of critical minerals resources, such as roads, rail and marine transportation. "This was followed by a spate of huge pay-the-rich schemes.
The auto manufacturer Stellantis along with Korean tech cartel LG openly demanded the Canadian government match the pay-the-rich subsidies it gave to Volkswagen to establish battery production in Canada. The public subsidy for German-based Volkswagen was said to match those the U.S. government offered through its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Stellantis and LG demanded similar amounts.
Stellantis is owned by the French PSA Group in a 50-50 partnership with Italian-based Fiat while LG is based in south Korea. These global companies alleged the Canadian and Ontario governments promised to "close the gap" with any U.S. subsidies, which had yet to be announced at the time of their deal for a Windsor battery plant.
While this was going on, U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Cohen delivered the keynote address at the Canadian Club of Ottawa luncheon in which he said that Canada and the U.S. must build up their mining, refining and battery-making capacity quickly to compete with China. This is open propaganda pushing for deeper Canadian integration into the U.S. war economy which needs critical minerals from Canada. He said, "the status quo will not provide the energy security that Canada, the United States, or our democratic friends and allies need for our cleaner energy future." He gave the examples of the U.S.$37.5 million investment given by the U.S. Department of Defense to a Canadian company, and the three Canadian companies -- Enbridge, TC Energy Corp and AltaGas Ltd -- that are benefiting from U.S. funding for developing clean hydrogen. The Globe and Mail reported that "Mr. Cohen celebrated the Canada-U.S. relationship.” According to Cohen, both countries are at the forefront of efforts to support Ukraine and Israel.
On November 9, Minister of Labour Seamus O'Regan Jr. introduced Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canada Industrial Relations Board Regulations, 2012. Second reading discussion on the government's anti-scab legislation in the House continued November 22, 24, 27 and December 14, 2023 and it has not been debated since.
The government's fall economic statement was delivered on November 21 by the Finance Minister. It was used to loudly claim that the Trudeau government is supporting the demand for housing. It was basically a pay-the-rich scheme for developers who are the ones profiting from the housing crisis in the first place. It included $15 billion for low cost loans to developers for housing starting in 2025-26 (for 30,000 new homes), $1 billion toward affordable housing to support non-profit, co-op and public housing providers to build 7,000 new homes by 2028, expanding the removal of GST to include co-op rental housing, cracking down on short-term rentals and tying federal infrastructure dollars to housing action by local governments. The Office of the Federal Housing Advocate released an analysis of Canada's housing supply shortage on November 2, 2023 which estimated that Canada is missing 4.4 million homes that are affordable for people in housing need.
Bill C-57, Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023, passed clause-by-clause consideration at the House International Trade Committee on November 28. With the exception of the Conservatives who objected to the inclusion of a reference to carbon tax, all the other cartel parties supported the Bill which was passed by the House of Commons on February 6 and is now under consideration by the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
On November 24, the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs, Dominic LeBlanc, and the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Arif Virani, launched what they called "additional public consultations on foreign interference." According to them, this new round was "based in part on the feedback received through Public Safety's previous consultations to guide the development of a Foreign Influence Transparency Registry." These alleged public consultations are a fraud from A to Z. (See section on “Measures Strengthen Police Powers Over Polity” below.)
Included in the government's proposals are changes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act. CSIS issued a statement saying that "The launch of the public consultation on the CSIS Act is for Canadians to share their views on how CSIS should continue to protect Canada's national security, while also continuing to protect the rights and freedoms of people in Canada. As pernicious national security threats, including foreign interference, affect all Canadians, we want to hear from you. Canadians are encouraged to participate and share their perspectives through the consultation webpage." The entire presumption that CSIS protects Canada's national security diverts attention from the government refusal to discuss what that even means. Everyone can have their own interpretation and belief while the government and CSIS implement their own derived from nobody knows where.
On December 9, during COP28 in Dubai, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change announced a cap on all greenhouse gas emissions from the oil-and-gas sector. He said this was the first emissions cap from a major oil and gas producing nation in the world. TML will soon devote a supplement to COP28, the aims the peoples of many countries put forward there, and the stands taken by various countries including what lies behind Canada's claim.
National Pharmacare
The framework for a National Pharmacare Plan, a key point of the Liberal-NDP agreement, has yet to materialize. The NDP, which pushed for the framework to be delivered before the end of the year, conciliated with the government and agreed to a delay to March 1, 2024 for the government to introduce legislation. NDP spokesperson Charlie Angus said: "What's very important is that we get it right -- if that takes a little bit more time, then so be it. We think what's more important is [that] we get such a fundamentally important advance in our public health system correct, rather than meet an artificial deadline."
What is obvious to most Canadians is that what the NDP and Liberals think constitutes a public health system and getting it correct pays no heed to the demands of those who work in the health care system. They are not guided by what Canadians need on the health care front and how these needs can be met based on the ample Canadian resources which exist. All the schemes become pay-the-rich schemes for the big players in the health care sector.
Government's Carbon Tax
In a bid to force more exemptions and ultimately the elimination of the government's carbon tax, the final days of the fall sitting saw the Conservative Party present thousands of procedural motions seeking to block the government's economic statement. On December 15, the House adjourned after a marathon session in which the Conservatives forced 135 votes. They say they want the Liberals to lift the carbon tax from all home-heating energy sources, pass a bill to grant carbon tax relief to some farmers and exempt all First Nations from the carbon levy. The Conservatives likewise put forward almost 20,000 amendments to Bill C-50, the Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act in Committee on December 6.
Bills which Received Royal Assent
The following bills received Royal Assent during the fall session of Parliament: Bill C-60, Appropriation Act No. 4, 2023-24 (funding for federal public administration); C-21, An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms); C-56, Affordable Housing and Groceries Act; C-48, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (bail reform); C-42, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts; and S-12, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the International Transfer of Offenders Act.
This article was published
in
Volume 54 Numbers 1-2 - January - February
2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M540015.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca