Madam Chair, you're absolutely right. It scares the you-know-what out of me. I walked in, got my coffee, looked at that and shook my head, scared.
Then we have Premier Ford doing a press conference, I guess a virtual whatever-you-call-it. He's obviously isolating right now. He was talking about his challenges and what's going on in Ontario. Again, it's horrifying to see what's happening in Ontario. You go from that and see the numbers in Quebec and then Alberta, and then we obviously have concerns here, too, now in Atlantic Canada. Our numbers are low. Thank God our numbers are low.
The variants are here; they're growing. The reason I'm bringing all this up is that we are in a—I don't want to say once-in-a-lifetime but—once-in-a-generation crisis. That's where we are right now, all of us. I know that everybody at PROC today is inundated with calls from constituents, from people who are scared, people who are concerned about what the future holds for them. That is what we should be seized with as parliamentarians. We have work to do, important work as government, and there's important work to be done as opposition. All of us, every one of us, needs to be pulling in the same direction.
Of course, as government we need to be challenged and we need to sometimes maybe readjust and think about some of our policies or what have you with unintended consequences and so on and so forth, but they're the kinds of things that we can be doing together. They're the kinds of things that this committee can be doing together, making sure that, even though we have disagreements, we will do the right things for Canadians.
For us to be literally stuck.... Let's just call a spade a spade. That's where we are right now. We're stuck. We're not moving forward. I've talked about the movies I've seen—Inception or Friday the 13th or the one I would mention today would be Groundhog Day. This is just the same thing again and again and again.
I won't pretend to be anywhere in the same ballpark as MP Simms and what he brings to the table with respect to his thoughts, but I do have a lot of thoughts. There's a lot I want to say. This is just a bit of a preamble before I get going, but I have a lot to say, and I can say it again, and I can say it again if I have to, because we need to find a way forward.
I think MP Turnbull's amendment to MP Vecchio's motion is extremely valid. MP Vecchio's motion—I won't read it—is an invitation to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and the Minister of Diversity.... Okay, that's in the amendment. Renew the invitation to Bill Morneau is in the amendment to the motion.
The issue that got all of us, if I can be so blunt, is the wide scope of the initial motion: Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, former minister Morneau, Katie Telford, Marc Kielburger, Craig Kielburger, Farah and Martin Perelmuter from Speakers' Spotlight, documents, PMO, PCO, production of records, communications, WE Charity.... It casts a net so wide, it's almost like putting something out there. With the greatest respect, and I have a ton of respect for Ms. Vecchio, it's almost like throwing that motion out: “There's no way they're going to accept that motion, but let's get it out there, so we can make them say they won't accept it. Let's make them propose an amendment,” and we did. We proposed an amendment, a good and fair amendment.
It states to renew invitations issued to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland. I'm so proud of her leadership. I'm so proud of the ceilings she's shattering, the barriers she's breaking down. She is the first female Minister of Finance to deliver a budget. I look at Minister Freeland and I'm inspired by her leadership, but it's not just her leadership. It's her style, delivery and authenticity. That's what we need as a minister of finance, somebody with that vision and leadership. Obviously, she delivered a wonderful budget 2021, which was delivered a couple of days ago. It was just an unbelievable budget.
There are those points in a country's history where you can drive that stake in the ground and say that this is a turning a point. This is a turning point not for our party, but it's a turning point for the country. It's a shift for us to finally come forth with a solid commitment to child care. I'm so very proud to be part of this government, and all of us will look back at a later date and say, “I was there when we moved forward with day care.”
Look at the plan and look at how ambitious it is. I don't know if Mr. Blaikie is still on the screen here. He might have needed to take a break. I don't see him. Correct me if I'm wrong and hopefully, I get this right, but the leader of the NDP called the plan bull.
He called the plan bull: to reduce day care costs by 50% in 2022. Within the next several years, the goal is to provide day care for $10 a day. That could save, give or take, the average family in my riding about $500 a month. It's transformational, absolutely transformational.
We are raising the OAS for those over 74 years of age, 75 and up, by 10%, because they are the most vulnerable seniors. They have increased costs. We ran on that. That was in our platform. That's not a surprise to anybody. We ran on that, so for us to fulfill that and for us to replenish the trade corridors fund, to replenish the housing money and to come up with new green initiatives and a massive investment in green technology and infrastructure....
One thing that flew under the radar, I believe, was the support for students and student loans and to continue with doubling the student grants. The other one that flew underneath the radar was the repayment of student loans, and the threshold of $25,000 is now up to $40,000. That's huge. It's unbelievably huge. Instead of 20% of gross income now, it's 10%. That's huge. It can shave off your payment per month from about $400 to $90. It's an incredibly important piece of legislation for students—unbelievable.
Look, I won't go on about everything in the budget, because obviously that's not on topic. Thank you for not calling me out on that. I thought it was important to talk about that. Then I'll dig back up a bit with respect to Minister Chrystia Freeland, who delivered that budget that will change Canadians' lives. Then I'll talk about the amendment to the motion that calls for renewed invitations to be issued to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, Minister Chagger, to appear separately before the committee.
Even MP Turnbull was suggesting that. Again, just very quickly, it says:
by replacing paragraph (b) with the following, “(b) renew the invitations issued to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, each to appear separately before the committee for at least 90 minutes;”
Also, very quickly, it says:
by replacing paragraph (c) with the following: “(b) renew the invitations issued to the Honourable Bill Morneau, Craig Kielburger and Marc Kielburger, each to appear separately before the committee....
It's a good amendment.
It's a good amendment, and I appeal to members to consider the amendment. I'm not so bold to just ask for a show of hands, but accepting that amendment moves us forward. As I've said earlier, the Prime Minister has testified. The Prime Minister has appeared before a committee—just keeping it real, like MP Simms does.
Do we really expect, honestly, that we're going to hear anything different from what has already been said? Does anyone really believe that? I don't. He has already testified. He has already talked about it.
I know there are times when I get accused—I get accused of it all the time—of getting up there in that Ottawa bubble and thinking everybody cares about everything. It's like they're right. Some of my friends joke with me about that. They say, “You're in the Ottawa bubble; you don't really know what's going on, blah, blah, blah.” In this case, it's like we need to step back.
I won't do it now, but we need to reread MP Turnbull's amendment. I get the art of, call it what it is, negotiation. There needs to be win-win. There needs to be give and take. Both parties need to feel that they didn't get everything they wanted but they got enough.
Look, who am I? I'm a guy who loves his riding, who loves his country and who wants to represent his constituents. That's who I am. What you see is what you get. I know the art of negotiation from my time with the Saint John Sea Dogs. We had to negotiate contracts with players, with billets, with our landlord Harbour Station and the City of Saint John. There were times when we thought it wasn't really everything we wanted; we wanted a little more. However, there were also times when I would step back with my organization and say, “Look, it's enough,” because then we can turn the page and move forward and actually start to do things that matter, that mean something to Canadians.
I know that with this, I don't want to say “mass...”, but prorogation, the WE Charity thing is kind of in there. I know what we need to do to move forward as a group, and I know we need to be united facing what I think, or not think but know, is one of the greatest challenges this country has faced since World War II. It's probably the greatest challenge. It's one of the greatest challenges this country has ever faced and we need to face it together.
We need to show Canadians that we can work across the aisle, work in a bipartisan way to represent Canadians. I know, because I dealt with it this morning, how—“needy” is not the right word—but how much in need Canadians are of our support, how much in need businesses and industries are of our support and how appreciative Canadians are of the initiatives and programs we're moving forward.
Out of the budget I could pick the wage subsidy. We're extending the wage subsidy through to—and I may be off a day here—September 25. Then there's the rent support. We're extending it. What a lifeline that is, allowing businesses in our ridings to survive. We have also extended the EI sickness benefits. We're offering other programs too, like the recovery benefit and the caregiver benefit. These programs are needed.
Minister Freeland said it best. We're going to be there as a government to get us through COVID. I believe she said “punch” through, but there's a reason I hesitate with the word “punch”. I do a bit of boxing, believe it or not, at my age. I've actually had the opportunity to spar with the Prime Minister a few times. I don't know if that's a—