'It’s our idea': NDP MP says Liberals dragged heels over their GST break plan

Blake Desjarlais, NDP MP for Edmonton Griesbach, speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the temporary GST pause and Randy Boissonnault resigning from cabinet over claims of Indigenous heritage.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: Let's start on the on this GST holiday, what's your party's perspective?

Blake Desjarlais: This is something we've actually tried to table before. Last year, we even tried to force a motion to get GST removed off of home heating. The two major parties voted against this.

We've tried many times, even Jack Layton, this is how old the promise of NDP parties trying to get tax relief for regular people is. We believe in tax fairness, we believe deeply that regular Albertans, regular Canadians, are taking on a larger tax burden than those at the very top in our country.

Those who are the very wealthiest are paying less and the history shows that ever since the 1980s we've seen those at the very, very top, I'm not talking millionaires, I’m talking billionaires, are paying less and less, and everyone else is paying more.

So we've been really strong about this issue for a long time. The Conservatives, funny to see that they're finally trying to look at GST as a real issue of tax measure relief, but you've seen today, all of a sudden, they're in favor of taxes for people.

MH: The GST holiday is going to cost the Treasury $1.6 billion. $4.6 billion for cutting $250 checks? How can that be seen as anything but a pre-election giveaway?

BD: Oh, it is. That's exactly what it is. They're looking and scrambling right now. The Liberals are down in the polls.

MH: But your party is supporting it though.

BD: Because it's our idea. We're going to support our ideas. I've always said that if we're going to go to Parliament, I'm not just going to go to oppose and spend tax payers money going on flights, sitting there doing nothing, like a lot of my Conservative colleagues.

I'm going to present not just good opposition, like we've seen this week when I was very strong in my taking on of Randy Boissonnault, a former minister, and he finally resigned. You can do a good job in opposition, opposing the bad things, but you also have to do the good job of proposing solutions.

I propose a tax-free solution for people here in Alberta, the Liberals finally caved, and they did it, and that's huge, but you've got to be really careful about the Liberals. They always do things in half measures in order just to get enough, you can't say no.

It's huge, what we're talking about in terms of accessing, finally, a conversation of getting GST off of essentials. We're willing to have that conversation to show Canadians that we're serious about providing relief.

MH: How do you get this through the house because there is a procedural stalemate right now? It's going to take your party to step in and help the Liberals get this through.

BD: We're only going to give them a break for one day. One day is what it's going to cost in the House of Commons in order for us to get this done. One day and then we're going to go right back to what we support, which is the release of the Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) documents.

I'm one of the chief officials on the Public Accounts Committee. I just left that committee in a new appointment, but at that time, I was part and parcel of investigating some of the country's most serious allegations of fraud that we were able to finally prove in many instances. ArriveCan, SDTC, Mr. Boissonnault, these were things I was all engaged in as a matter of an opposition member, and it's really important that we do that work, which is why we only are going to give them one day to get this done with our support.

If they can't get the NDP solution to get tax relief for Canadians, then we're going to have to see how serious the Liberals actually are on trying to make certain that we get this relief before a budget.

MH: You mentioned Mr. Boissonnault a couple of times already, he departed cabinet this week under a cloud of controversy over Indigenous ancestry claims and questions around his former business that he co-owned as an MP of Cree and Métis heritage. What kind of window does this open for dialogue?

BD: I think what's important in this discussion is understanding that there's two issues here, but they're being conflated with one another. There are people legitimately going after, or doing the work of trying to reconnect with their family, reconnect with their ancestors, and be part of the nation, but they don't do that and apply for a federal contract at the same time.

What makes this so severe, which is why he must resign from cabinet, and he did, and I think that's welcome news for Indigenous people, was the fact that he, for over a decade, was race-shifting. The Liberal caucus themselves has said he was Indigenous.

The opportunity that's for Canadians right now is to know that when we speak about Indigeneity in this country, when we think about the huge challenges to reconciliation, we have to understand that the programs and services that are out there for Indigenous people, are for them to overcome barriers of trauma, overcome barriers of being excluded from our economy, to overcome barriers so they can become full partners in what is the economic prosperity of our country. Every Canadian wants that.

I know many good Canadians who are committed to reconciliation, and they're always focused on the fact that we need to get Indigenous people in the economic driver's seat so that we can solve the solutions on our own. More housing, more clean water, good municipal services, First Nations maintaining. We can do that ourselves, we don't need Ottawa to do that, but what we need is for our country and for Ottawa to make certain that Indigenous people, when they pick themselves back up, that they're not going to be slammed by a rigged system like we’re seeing in Ottawa, and Mr. Boissonnault is part and parcel of that very unfortunate reality.

MH: Mr. Boissonnault sat in that very chair one week ago, just as the scrutiny around this really began to accelerate. When asked about it, his response was an apology. What do you feel Randy Boissonnault needs to do to clear his name?

BD: I think that the apology is really important, but we need to go much further than that. We run the risk, if we do not clamp down on pretending in Canada, of allowing and sending this clear signal to those who would seek to abuse a system designed for Indigenous people, that it's OK. A little slap on the wrist, you can defraud the government if you want.

We need to make certain that we clamp down hard on those who attempt to take money out of the hands of Indigenous people. We've seen in Nunavut, for example, a very important case where two girls were abusing the system, taking education funding away from legitimate Inuit kids. They were charged for three years in prison for that kind of fraud.

Indigenous people have been silently suffering this for a long time. Canadian taxpayers have been silently suffering this a long time. It's time that we see a united solution to this.

It's actually, I think, a matter of reconciliation. If we can create clarity and certainty for Canadians that they know that when their program dollars go to Indigenous people, it's actually going there. It's not just going to people like Mr. Boissonnault.