44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 21, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/21/22 2:31:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has continually gotten inflation wrong.
First she said deflation was the concern. Then she said inflation was transitory—wrong and wronger. Now she says she is considering cutting taxes at the pumps. Good. When Alberta did this, it reduced its inflation rate as higher energy prices drive inflation.
Every G7 country is doing something on gas prices. When will she start fighting inflation and give Canadians a break at the pumps, or is she that content to be the wrongest person in the room at the next G7?
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- Jun/21/22 3:12:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government says that housing is a human right, but in my riding of Edmonton Griesbach, the lack of housing is an emergency. In the last three years alone, 453 people have died on the streets of Edmonton because they did not have shelter, many of whom were indigenous.
Under the Liberal government, the issue is getting worse. The Liberals are more interested in big developers' profits than putting a roof over people's heads. People in Alberta Avenue and across my community are not seeing results. When is the government going to drop the talking points and build homes for people who cannot afford them?
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Mr. Speaker, although I share my colleague from Peace River—Westlock's curiosity about why this would take priority at a time when there are so many important issues facing our country, I want to ask a question more broadly about the need for democratic reform in this country.
Alberta is significantly under-represented, both in this place and in Canada's Senate. I am wondering if the member would agree that this is an inequity that needs to be addressed. Although the most recent redistribution does take a small step in the right direction, the current inequity is not wholly addressed. Would the member agree that it needs to be?
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Mr. Speaker, I want to add my voice to this debate on changing the riding name.
Given that we are talking about riding names, I often talk about my riding and the beautiful riding that it is. Peace River—Westlock is the name of the riding. Although the name includes two of the towns in my riding, it does not necessarily do it justice, in the sense that I represent over a sixth of the province of Alberta in terms of land mass.
I usually tell people that the land mass my riding represents is the size of a mid-sized European country. I also always tell all my colleagues in this place I represent the promised land. Most of my colleague members of Parliament are usually quite certain that they represent the best part of Canada. That might be true, but I represent the promised land.
In order to prove that, I have evidence. I point out I represent the honey capital of Canada and I also represent 7,500 dairy animals, so the riding is literally flowing with milk and honey. That is my first point for the fact that my riding is the promised land.
The second point is that I represent the municipal districts of Peace and Opportunity, and that is a promising name as well. I also represent an area that was settled on a promise called Treaty No. 8. If those are not enough arguments for my riding to be known as the promised land, I do not know what is. That is northern Alberta.
I have put in recommendations to change my riding name to the “Promised Land” in previous Parliaments when we had a bill to update the names. I also would have liked the name “Peace and Opportunity”, which are two municipal districts in my riding, as I said, and being the member of Parliament for Peace and Opportunity would be great as well. If that were not enough, I also have the opportunity to perhaps rename the riding to “Northern Sunrise”, as there is a municipal district called that. It would be a great riding name, and it would be fantastic to be the member of Parliament for Northern Sunrise.
Mr. Speaker, I did not start my clock. How much time do I have left?
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Mr. Speaker, the other thing I would like to talk about in my riding in particular is this. Where I come from, we do basically three things, forestry, farming and fracking, the three Fs, as I like to call them. They are exciting things that happen in northern Alberta. It is a very diverse part of the province, with extremely fertile farmland, the boreal forest that covers the majority of the riding, and the oil sands, with conventional oil and coal mining, just on the edge of the riding as well. Bringing energy, food and shelter to the world is what we do, so the prevention of poverty starts out in northern Alberta and in my riding of Peace River—Westlock.
The opportunity to speak about my riding in particular, and riding names and what they symbolize, does not come up often, so I am very excited about this debate today.
One of the other things we have in Peace River—Westlock is the largest lake in Alberta. Slave Lake is located right dead centre in the middle of the riding. It is one of the lakes in the country where, in the past, commercial fishing has thrived. We hope one day it will be rejuvenated in Slave Lake, as a number of years back it nearly ran out of water. Over the last 10 years though, it has been raining so much that the lake is full of water again. It is so full in fact that many people are complaining about their beaches. As the water in the lake went down, of course their beaches got larger. They developed them and built fancy pergolas, gazebos and things like that out on the beach. As the water came back, those things ended up in the water, so there are some complaints about the fact the water level is so high. Nonetheless, it is the biggest lake in Alberta.
A lot of people do not realize this, but the centre of Alberta is not Red Deer but actually where I live, near a little community called Fort Assiniboine. The geographical centre of Alberta is in fact in the riding of Peace River—Westlock. I always tell the folks in my riding that they in fact live in central Alberta. No matter what the people from Red Deer say, we live in central Alberta. I can see the member for Battle River—Crowfoot shaking his head at me, but I can assure him that my riding is the true centre of Alberta, “the promised land”, as I like to call it.
I am not sure if members are aware of this, but there is one bill that comes up at the beginning of a parliament after the redistribution, where all of the naming opportunities for all of the ridings come into play and there is a negotiation that happens between all of the parties as to which names go forward and which do not. I remember the member for Winnipeg Centre put forward the name “the heart of Canada” for his riding, which, as the member of Parliament for the centre of Alberta, I could commensurate with that renaming opportunity for sure.
I think mine being “the promised land” and his being “the heart of Canada” were the two that were negotiated against each other and in the end neither went forward, which was too bad. The member for Winnipeg North may have been the one who negotiated to get rid of those names, because I think that would have been right next door to where he is at and perhaps he was concerned about all of the excitement there would be for this new riding called “the heart of Canada”. Nonetheless, I digress.
I am not sure if the actual geographical centre of Canada is Winnipeg, as I am not sure exactly where it is. I do know that the centre of Alberta is in Peace River—Westlock and the centre of the country is not Toronto. That is for sure.
An hon. member: It is Provencher.
Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Speaker, the member behind me says that the centre of Canada is Provencher. I can be certain that it is not, because I think that from Provencher someone could spit and hit the American border. Given the fact that my riding, Peace River—Westlock, is in northern Alberta and the centre of Alberta is a seven-hour drive from the American border, I can assure colleagues that the geographical centre of Canada is definitely not in Provencher.
That said, I have very much enjoyed speaking about the promised land, Peace River—Westlock, as I like to call it, but there are a host of other things that we could be discussing in this place as well.
The member for Edmonton West did speak about some of these things already, but I wanted to highlight some of the other private member's bills that have come forward from folks in our caucus, particularly Bill C-228, from the member for Sarnia—Lambton, which amends the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to ensure that folks are able to collect their pension funds over time. I want to reference Bill C-240, from the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, which amends the Income Tax Act to ensure that capital gains exemptions are granted to those whose estate goes to a charity. The member for Essex also has an amendment to the Income Tax Act to allow trades persons to deduct amounts for travelling.
That is some of the amazing work that our caucus is doing and I just wanted to highlight some of that.
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