44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2023 10:00AM
- Feb/14/23 2:35:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the reality is that after eight years of the Prime Minister, one in four Canadians cannot afford a $500 unexpected expense. Nearly half of Canadians are concerned about affording their rent and their mortgage payments, which have doubled under the current Prime Minister, and too many Canadians are concerned about heating their homes, because it has become so expensive under the current Prime Minister.
Now, on top of that, the Liberals are going to triple, triple, triple the carbon tax. Will they help Canadians out by keeping the heat on and taking the tax off?
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- Feb/14/23 2:36:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what we voted against was putting more fuel on the fire. We cannot spend our way out of inflation.
The fact is that the Liberals' carbon tax plan is a failed plan that has not met any target that they have set. Even the Bank of Canada governor has admitted that the carbon tax is contributing to inflation, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that households will pay more in carbon tax than they will get back in rebates.
Will the Liberals help Canadians out by keeping the heat on and taking the tax off?
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- Feb/14/23 4:47:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been in power, has been in that chair, for eight years. For millions of Canadians, things have never been worse than they are right now.
For eight long years, Canadians from coast to coast to coast have been left behind by the Liberal government. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, inflation is at a 40-year high. After eight years, the cost of groceries has sky rocketed.
After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, half of Canadians are cutting back on the groceries they buy. After eight years of the Prime Minister, 20% of Canadians are skipping meals. It is unbelievable that this happens in a country like Canada.
After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment across Canada's 10 biggest cities is over $2,000, compared to only $1,100 per month in 2015. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, 45% of variable rate mortgage holders say that they will have to sell or vacate their homes in less than nine months due to the current interest rate levels.
After eight years of the Prime Minister, average monthly mortgage costs have more than doubled, and now Canadians are paying over $3,000 a month. After eight long years of the Prime Minister, everyone seems to be aware of the damage the Liberal government has done, except for the Liberals themselves.
The Governor of the Bank of Canada has said that “inflation in Canada increasingly reflects what's happening in Canada.” The former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney said, “inflation is principally a domestic story.” According to bank CEOs, tens of thousands of Canadians could default on mortgages due to these rising rates.
Former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau has said that the government probably spent too much during COVID. Former Liberal deputy prime minister and finance minister John Manley said that the Liberal Prime Minister's “fiscal policy is making it harder...to contain inflation.”
It is clear that this is a homemade problem. Everyone seems to get it. Canadians, themselves, get it. The experts get it. Even those random Liberals get it, except for the Prime Minister himself. He does not seem to get it.
Our Conservative motion today calls on the government to cap spending, cut waste, fire high-priced consultants and eliminate inflationary deficits and taxes that have caused this cost of living crisis for Canadians. Inflation is at the highest its been in 40 years. Interest rates are the highest in a generation, and home prices and rent are the highest they have ever been.
After eight years of the Liberal government, Canadians are struggling to keep up with the rate at which the government prints and spends money. It has spent more dollars chasing fewer goods. It has created a dire situation, and it is one it will not be able to spend its way out of.
Over half of Canadians are uncertain if they will be able to afford to retire. A recent study by the Bank of Montreal found that Canadians will need $1.7 million to retire, which is up 20% from 2020. Now, someone has to be a millionaire in Canada to retire.
The Liberals' wealthy friends, who they are very fond of handing off lucrative contracts to using Canadian taxpayers dollars, might have no problem with this, but for everyday, hard-working Canadians, this is simply not realistic.
Each day, I receive letters from hard-working Canadians in my riding who feel that many aspects of life in Canada are broken. More Canadians visit food banks just to get by. Half of Canadians are cutting back on their groceries, and one out of five are skipping meals.
A recent poll showed that 60% of Canadians think that the country is broken, and 73% of them feel this way in my home province of Alberta. This is heartbreaking.
We must turn things around instead of making things worse for Canadians. We could start by getting rid of the carbon tax. I have been hearing from Canadians right across the country who are spending hundreds of dollars a month, large portions of their income, just to keep up with this punitive Liberal carbon tax.
I recently heard from a senior who is struggling to afford to heat her home. She now has to pay an additional $73 a month on her bill just for the carbon tax. This is an elderly person on a fixed income whom the government has left behind. She is now considering selling her home because she cannot afford to heat it. This is tragic and unacceptable. Canadians should not be punished for heating their homes or for driving to work. They are already struggling enough as it is.
However, the Liberal insiders have never had it so good. The thousands-of-dollars-a-day consultants at McKinsey are very happy with the Liberals. In fact, the consulting contracts have gone up 100% in the eight years since the Prime Minister has been in power. The lobbyists, whose contracts have also increased by 100%, are also very pleased. It is Canadians who pay for these outrageously expensive contracts with their hard-earned tax dollars whom the government continues to leave behind.
We call on the government to cap spending, cut waste, fire high-priced consultants and eliminate inflationary deficits and taxes that have caused this cost-of-living crisis. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister refuses to take any responsibility for the hurt he has caused so many Canadians.
As Canadians struggle to afford home heating and groceries, the Prime Minister treated himself to a $6,000-a-night hotel room. He then had the officials try to cover it up by redacting relevant information in internal correspondence related to this scandal. The government is out of touch and Canadians cannot afford to pay for the Prime Minister's luxuries.
After eight long years of wasteful spending, the Prime Minister is still finding new, creative ways to spend Canadian tax dollars. His latest inflation plan is to hire more pollsters to poll Canadians for buzzwords on the budget. This madness needs to end.
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- Feb/14/23 4:55:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that inflation has continued to grow under the government. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has said that the government's inflationary policies have contributed to what is happening in Canada. Inflation continuously goes up and almost every day we stand up in this House to ask the government to help Canadians keep the heat on and take the tax off. We have asked it to take the carbon tax off. Instead, what the government is planning to do is triple the carbon tax and add more burden on Canadians. This will cause more inflation, so it actually is the government's policies and actions that are hurting Canadians and making things much worse for them.
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- Feb/14/23 4:56:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague makes a very good point, that it was actually the actions of the Liberal government, its inflationary policies and the fact that it spent so much money it really did not have, that caused the inflation we have. The Bank of Canada had no choice and was forced to increase the rates to what we see today. The result of that is that Canadians are paying for it. Mortgage payments have doubled for many Canadians. This is forcing Canadians to consider selling their house. Many Canadians are now saying they will have to sell their house within the next nine months because of how high these rates have gone. These rates are that high today, at record levels today, because of the 40-year inflation the Liberal government has caused. Its inflationary policies have put Canadians in the position they are in today.
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- Feb/14/23 4:58:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the answer to more revenue, especially in the energy sector, is not always more money. The government does not necessarily need to be spending more money in the energy sector. What the government needs to do is have good, proper regulation and have an environment where the industry can produce and do what it does best, which is create energy. It is environmentally friendly energy, much more so than that of many other countries. It is ethical energy and is much better than that of many other countries.
I would suggest to the government that it should be creating an environment where our energy sector can grow and where it can hire more Canadians and Albertans to do the job they do best. That is the best way not only to support Alberta jobs, but to help support Canadians right across the country. Sometimes the best thing is for the government to back off and allow business to do what it does best.
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- Feb/14/23 5:00:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as a government, it is important to support Canadians, and the Conservatives will be there for Canadians to ensure that health care is funded properly and that Canadians have that support. What we will also do is save money in other places where there is wasteful spending. That is what we are asking for the government to do. We did not say to cut all spending. What we said was to cut wasteful spending.
The Infrastructure Bank was not something we needed. Contracts for Liberal insiders should be cut and consultants should be fired. The government's gun buyback program is not needed. The Liberals are going after law-abiding Canadian citizens when they could be spending that money at the border where the real problems are. There is also the ArriveCAN app.
There are so many examples of where the government could be cutting funding. That is what the Conservatives would do.
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