44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 7, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/7/22 3:02:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my office has been flooded with meetings, calls and emails about Immigration Canada and the buildup of almost two million applications that have not been processed. This has led to processing times of more than two years, and the applicants are running out of time. These delays are costly and highly stressful not only for the people applying but for many workplaces too.
We had a great reputation as a country for international students and those seeking citizenship and permanent residency. What is this government doing right now to stop victimizing some of the world's most vulnerable?
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- Feb/7/22 5:35:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was the former chair of the access to information, privacy and ethics committee. One thing we learned there is that privacy is a big deal. Most of us in Canada believe that. However, apparently the member across the way does not think it is a big deal. He is saying it is no big deal and telling folks not to worry about it.
With the new quantum computing capacity, de-identified information can potentially be reidentified. This depends on who gets access to the information. My concern with the member across the way is that I wish he would respect our Privacy Commissioner and all the work he has done in the past and all the work we have done with the International Grand Committee involving half a billion people concerned about Canadians' privacy. I wish he shared my concerns, and the concerns of the opposition, that this is a big deal.
When is the government going to treat the privacy of Canadians with the effort it deserves?
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- Feb/7/22 6:04:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank our opposition members who are very concerned about privacy. Again, as a former member of that committee, we did a lot of work around the world. Somebody mentioned Shoshana Zuboff and many of our other colleagues globally who care about this issue. This simple, nonchalant approach the government has with people's privacy and data is illustrated in the decisions it is making and not making. We talk about Huawei. We are calling over here to have a pause on Huawei in Canada, but the Liberals are just saying not to worry about it and that it is okay. It is a big deal for us.
Is the member confident that the government takes Canadians' privacy seriously?
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- Feb/7/22 6:20:21 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, tonight we are debating Bill C-8 and another tax-and-spend bill by the current Liberal government, which does not seem to understand a lot of things. The Liberals do not seem to care about people's privacy. They do not seem to care that there is record inflation in our country. We hear the Deputy Prime Minister go on about it not being a big deal, and that it is not the government's fault. Blaming the world and blaming COVID is the typical go-to. The Liberals are blaming COVID for everything, but it is far more than that. We have an out-of-control-spending government.
We are at $1.2 trillion in debt, and it is growing. A lot of Canadians may not know that a big part of the reason why we have that inflation is in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's fiscal update. Everybody out there would presume, based on the Liberals, that it is all COVID spending.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that over a period of seven years, from 2019-2027, the Liberals plan to spend $541.9 billion. That is a lot of money. Of that, $176.6 billion is not even COVID-related. Here we are, at a time when we are being hit with inflation, when Canadians are already being hit with massive increases in food prices, which I will give some examples of in a minute, and the Liberals are trying to say it is all COVID. Meanwhile, they are padding a whole bunch of projects and doing a bunch of things that are completely unrelated.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that we have the Peace River Bridge in my neck of the woods. It is the main artery on the Alaska Highway, and it is hugely at risk. It has been failing for the last 20 years and it has to be repaired. Workers are welding on it almost nightly. It needs to be replaced, but sadly we do not see any plans to replace such an important piece of infrastructure in this spending. However, we see spending going into a whole bunch of mysterious places. I guess we will find out more about that after we understand what was spent on COVID.
What I should do is illustrate some of the costs. We have heard that 4.8% is the number for inflation, but it really is a deceptive number because there are many things for which inflation is a lot higher than 4.8%.
An article from CTV says, “The biggest single increase was gasoline, rising 38.4 per cent over July of 2020.” In one year, it had gone up by 38.4%. It was not the only double-digit increase that Canadian consumers faced either. The article states:
“There's always a lot of moving parts to the electricity market,” said Rob Roach, deputy chief economist with ATB Financial. “But there certainly has been a lot of demand over the summer, and that just naturally pushes up prices.”
Even electricity is affected, and this is in an age when we want electrification to happen, with electric cars and all the rest. The article continues:
Electricity is up 21.1 per cent, with natural gas up 30.9 per cent. The hot summer has been at least a partial driver of the increase, Roach said.
I have even seen that. I buy the odd groceries, such as bread and different things like that, and I have noticed quite a spike in prices. They have gone up quite dramatically. I have four adult children and a daughter who is just about to graduate, and this is hitting them broadside. They realize that by the end of the month the money has run out. They even have decent jobs. My daughter works at Dairy Queen. Normally the money lasts, but it is not lasting anymore. She has a vehicle that she has to buy gas for and buys food the odd time.
This is what is catching a lot of Canadians off-guard. They wonder why they are running out of money. What it comes down to is that a government that is as much of a spendthrift as the Liberals are drives up inflation, which makes that dollar last less than it used to.
Another example of the increases in food prices is from a CBC article from a month ago:
Kendra Sozinho, a manager at the Fiesta Farms grocery store in Toronto, says costs from suppliers are going up faster than she's ever seen.
This is while the minister across the way says that it is no big deal. It is not the Liberals. The article continues:
“We're seeing almost every single supplier increasing their pricing which then increases our pricing,” [Kendra] told CBC News in an interview. “I've been here for 20 years and I've never seen a jump like this.”
Here we go. We are seeing record amounts of inflation. I would say that our economy is at risk. People ask me if we are beyond the point of no return and I say, “No, we have hope in Canada.”
In my neck of the woods, we develop our natural resources. We develop natural gas. A big part of the natural gas will make it to the coast through a well-known pipeline from my riding. We have oil, forestry, agriculture and mining. We have so many things. If we started actually appreciating the natural resource sector in this country, really started developing those resources and fostering trade like we used to from 2011 to 2015, when is when I was here with the previous majority government, the revenue would come with it. Let us hope we get there again.
There is typical thinking that the Conservatives have to clean up all the Liberal misspending over the past number of decades. We will do it again, though, and it is possible. To say that the Liberal government is not going to take credit for that is just wrong.
This is what another colleague of mine, the member for Carleton, said, according to the same CBC article:
Conservative finance critic...placed the blame for high inflation squarely at the foot of the federal government, noting that as a country with abundant energy and food resources, Canada should have a built-in advantage when it comes to keeping a lid on prices.
He is right. Internally, we should be doing fine, but we have seen the spike in natural gas prices. We produce the stuff, and we do it the best in the world. In the article, my colleague from Carleton continued:
“The biggest increases for consumer products have been those that we source right here at home, not those that depend on foreign supply chains,” he told reporters in Ottawa.
“Home price inflation is a home-grown problem,” he went on, arguing that record government spending under...[the Prime Minister] is to blame for inflation. “The more he spends, the more things cost”...[he] said.
That is the long and the short of it. Despite what the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister try to say, the credit completely lands in their lap about inflation and where we are today as a country.
The Prime Minister has been the prime minister for the last six-plus years. If we continue to have a prime minister like this, who seems to have no end when it comes to spending, it becomes very concerning. I look at the future of our children, given that our national debt has doubled in just under eight years.
I will finish with something that I talk to my constituents about a lot. The debt obligations are already $20 billion per year. That is just paying off the debt obligations, interest and the like to service the national debt. Those obligations will double within the next five years to $40 billion. That seems to be a mystery. It is a big number.
The average Canadian wonders how it will impact them, but the way the government pays its bills is through taxes. The concern that we have, especially on this side of the House, is that the credit card bill the Prime Minister is racking up will end up in all of our mailboxes. They are talking about things like home equity taxes and taxing the sale of homes now. They will deny it, but I have seen where it is actually being talked about with the CMHC.
One thing with Ottawa is that usually, when rumours are floating around, there is usually some truth to them. My concern, anyway, is that the government is out of control. It does not know how to control its spending. Again, we see the evidence in the $176 billion that is not related to COVID. It cannot just be placed at the lap of COVID.
We need a responsible government once again that manages its spending wisely. That will be a future Conservative government.
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