44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 3, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/3/22 11:55:23 a.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my great colleague, the member for Kelowna—Lake Country.
I am very proud to speak on Bill C-8 today on behalf of my constituents of Miramichi—Grand Lake. This is yet another bill that enacts tax and spending by the Liberal government.
Unlike some of the members opposite, I understand that if the Speaker delivers a ruling, as an hon. member in this House I am going to be respectful to the Speaker of the House. I am going to tell a little story about what happened just before Christmas before I speak directly to the bill, but the story goes to the spirit of the bill.
The last bill I spoke on was Bill C-2. After about 25 or 30 hours of the finance committee discussing the bill, the Minister of Finance for our country said it would cost $7.4 billion in spending. Then the House adjourned and the committee adjourned, and the minister then visited the Senate committee. It was at that moment that I and other members of the committee and members of the House ascertained that it would not cost $7.4 billion, but $11.9 billion. The members of that team and the other members from the Bloc and the NDP who sat on that committee for somewhere close to 30 hours discussing a $7.4-billion bill realized that the Christmas present left by the Liberal government to the consumers and taxpayers of our country was not a $7.4-billion bill but an $11.9-billion bill. In that, we learned a valuable lesson not only about committees but about what happens when meetings adjourn. The sitting government changed the numbers and informed us and the rest of the country that there was, oops, a little typo and that it was actually going to cost Canadians over $4 billion more.
I wanted to make that point today, because I think it is pertinent to this argument.
It is very important to me to be able to rise in these hallowed halls and bring a truly Canadian perspective, a rural perspective and a Miramichi—Grand Lake perspective.
The current state of affairs is in complete disarray. I am here to talk about more proposed spending of public funds. The traditional tax-and-spend Liberal government is whaling away on the public's money, spending it like there is no tomorrow. This is money that Canadians have no choice but to hand over. It is money they trusted us with. Elected officials are trusted to be the voice and good stewards of the public trust and public spending, but with the government members on the other side of the floor, we have seen money being spent and the bill is going down the road. I have four children and I cannot imagine them paying for the sins of today when not one of them is over the age of 15 right now.
When I read Bill C-8, I saw fuel prices rising to almost $2 a litre in Miramichi—Grand Lake. Bacon is rising more than 20%. Beef is rising more than 20% year over year in Alberta. Bread in Quebec is up 10%. Natural gas bills are up 30% in Ontario alone. We cannot keep printing money and expect different results, because that is inflation. In this House it has become known as Justinflation, but it is all inflation. Do members know who pays for it? It is the taxpayers of this country.
I am going to bring to the attention of the House something I find most interesting. I hope the people in Miramichi—Grand Lake and around the country are listening, because I think it is worth listening to.
We have the third-largest oil reserves in the country in Alberta. The government is fixated on what it used to call ozone layer problems, then global warming and then climate change. Now it is calling it a climate crisis, because if there is a crisis, it has to act now. As a result, what it is doing is destroying the very foundation of the Canadian economy.
I am also going to tell the House what it is doing for the taxpayers of this country. We are buying oil that emits more pollution, because it contains higher levels of carbons and has caused a 300% increase of shipments on the sea. We are bringing in oil from the Middle East, from warlord nations, and the Canadian people are paying three times as much for that oil, even though we have oil in our own country. People would have a cheaper oil bill if the Liberals had the common sense to see the error of their ways. There is nothing wrong with having environmental standards. We have the best standards in the world in our energy sector. We are the gold standard of the energy sector, but the Liberals' climate crisis agenda is costing people too much money.
We are here every day and talk about affordability, the cost of living, inflation and the housing balloon. We talk about this every day, but nothing is getting better for Canadians because they continue to pay for the sins of the current government. Let us think about this. We are bringing oil from halfway across the world that emits more carbon than our own. Then we put it on a ship and there are 300% increases to ship it because of the state of the world right now. We are still doing that in this country when we have our own oil. It is shameful that the Prime Minister would do that and try to continue with this global elitist agenda that does not completely apply to the Canadian people. It is dangerous.
Does this make us independent? Does it help create jobs? Do we get any additional revenue? The answer to every one of those questions is no. What do we get? We get a bill: a more expensive bill, a more unaffordable bill, a bill that the Canadian people and the people in my constituency of Miramichi—Grand Lake are having a hard time paying for.
I am going to let the House in on a little secret that those in Miramichi—Grand Lake are well aware of: Canadians are sick and tired of picking up the tab for the government. On one side of the Liberals' mouth, they say we are at a prepandemic level when it comes to jobs and the economy, but on the other side of that same mouth, they are adding $70 billion of new inflationary spending. I do not have to tell members what that is going to do to the pockets of Canadians and to young families who are priced out of the housing market. They cannot get a home. I am 43 years old. People who are 10 or 12 years younger than me who are trying desperately to get a home are having a really hard time getting into new houses because the cost is so high that it is not affordable. Since the start of the pandemic, Canadians have been misled on where the money is coming from and where the money is going.
Last week, during my time on the Standing Committee on Finance, I had the opportunity to ask key questions. Canadians wanted to know from the Parliamentary Budget Officer whether the government, which spent over half a trillion dollars in brand new spending, has misled the rest of us. That was the question. Roughly one-third of this new spending had nothing to do with COVID. It is $178 billion of new printed money for non-COVID-related expenditures.
The Conservatives are opposed to Bill C-8. The economic and fiscal update adds $70 billion of new inflationary fuel right to the fire. The delay in the government's release of its audited financial statements has undermined parliamentarians' ability to meaningfully scrutinize proposed government spending. The Parliamentary Budget Officer report shows that since the start of the pandemic, the government has spent or plans to spend $541.9 billion in new measures, almost one-third of which is not COVID-related.
We are not in support of Bill C-8 because it is another classic tax-and-spend Liberal measure that will only cripple Canadians with more debt and more inflation. The Canadian public is worth more than that, and that is why the Conservative Party of Canada is going to protect their interests regarding public money.
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- Feb/3/22 12:05:46 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I would like to see the bill debated. I would like to see hon. members from every party stand in the House and speak directly to Canadians about the new expenditures and about economic stimulus.
Economists all over are saying that right now we can bounce back. COVID will be over and we can bounce back, but what are the Liberals doing? They are finding an excuse to cripple Canadians with more debt and more inflation. In my riding, people cannot afford to pay any more. They cannot do it.
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- Feb/3/22 12:07:10 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, what the Conservative Party of Canada is saying right now is that if economists around the world are telling the government not to spend any more money, not to continue the housing balloon and not to cripple Canadians with mounting debt, the Conservative Party of Canada has a responsibility to protect Canadians by trying to hold the government to account so that it does not spend $541 billion extra, some of it with no measures. What I would like to see is lower taxes and incentives for companies, not massive and monstrous public spending by the Liberal government.
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- Feb/3/22 12:08:46 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I was hoping I would get this question.
The Conservatives believe in the free market and free market enterprise. No matter how much money the Liberal government continues to spend, rural Internet in my constituency does not improve. The reason is that private companies own the infrastructure, the federal government regulates it and the lines and cables in my riding are attached to public telephone poles. The public owns the poles, the companies own the fibre cable, regulations come from the federal government and the equipment is owned by private companies. This creates monopolies. It puts government in the bad position of being forced to spend its own money, and people do not get a better source of Internet. What I want is top-of-the-line Internet for everyone in my constituency, and if the government is going to spend $540 billion every day I come here, we should have it by now.
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- Feb/3/22 12:10:23 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, with the COVID-19 measures, the government has continued to lock down. With testing, the rollout of vaccinations and PCR tests, a lot of things were late and a lot of things were in short supply. The N95 masks, which were supposed to be the best masks, were in short supply. Yes, I think the government could have managed COVID a lot better in terms of our health care system.
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