44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 27, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, today is a good day for the cause of human rights in Canada. Bill C-281, the international human rights act, has passed in the foreign affairs committee.
Bill C-281 would help hold human rights violators accountable, raise awareness of prisoners of conscience, prevent genocidal regimes from broadcasting their propaganda on our airwaves, and it would help eliminate the vile cluster munitions from the face of the earth.
I would like to thank the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his friendship, his support and his leadership on this important legislation, and all members who worked collaboratively to get this back to the House.
However, our job is far from done. We are in a minority Parliament and there are no guarantees in a minority Parliament. That is why I call on all members of the House to work as hard as possible to get this important legislation passed as soon as possible.
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- Apr/27/23 9:09:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech, and it was great. Also, I must say that his mother is a very good cook, so a shout-out to Helen out there.
We have the GST rebate, which the Liberals call, in a gimmicky way, the “grocery rebate”, but is not the real solution to making life more affordable getting control of this government's out-of-control spending, because the more this government spends, the more life gets unaffordable for Canadians?
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- Apr/27/23 9:53:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to build on the previous question, if I could. I am going to give a secret away to the Canadian people. Those folks on the other side do not have any money, not a penny. That is taxpayer money. In order to give something, something has to be taken away from someone. The Liberals are taking credit for taking other people's money. That is not cool. Does the member agree?
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure and honour to rise in this House. Of course, today we are speaking about the budget implementation act, Bill C-47.
Before discussing the substance of this act and why I, and I believe most Canadians, must oppose it, I have to explain the broader economic context in which it falls. I will endeavour to explain the challenges that our country is facing. Those challenges are significant and numerous. From there, I will discuss why the BIA is flawed and why it should be defeated, and finally, I will discuss a new path, a better path, one that leads to prosperity.
I hope that with this speech, I will not only engage Conservatives but engage members and supporters of independent parties, of the Liberal Party, of the New Democratic Party, of the Green Party and of the Bloc Québécois, because Canada's problems are really quite serious. I am not exaggerating. We have significant challenges. Quite frankly, we are going to need everyone, Liberals, New Democrats, Green Party members and members of the Bloc Québécois, to pull together to fix this country.
It starts with acceptance. We have to face the facts. All is not well in our great country. In fact, it is far from it. Over the past eight years, we have seen a Liberal government that is perhaps not bereft of good intentions and in fact may well be full of good intentions. However, what it has failed to deliver is results for Canadians.
Announcements have been frequent. They have been grand. Many a fine word has come from the Prime Minister's mouth and from members of the Liberal Party. However, the reality is that Canada is in economic decline, and that is not just me saying that. It is world economists, the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF and economists from coast to coast. The failed leadership and policies of the Liberal government have risen to such a level that they have put its very competence in question.
Let us go through some of those issues and describe the picture.
Our country has been ravaged by the impacts of high inflation. Not all inflation is equal. Things like energy prices are sometimes beyond the control of a particular country, but there are key core elements that are basic and national in nature. One of them is food, which is a critical element, and we have seen 10 months of double-digit food inflation. That has translated into a real impact on Canadians. Quite frankly, it is shameful that 1.5 million Canadians have visited food banks, and it is a sign of a country that is unfortunately in economic decline.
The high price of houses has had a significant impact on Canadians. There are far too many 30-year-olds still in their parents' basements desperately dreaming of the day they can own a home. Mortgage payments have doubled to over $3,000 a month. Rent has increased to over $2,000 a month, doubling over the past eight years. What is even more sad than the 30-year-olds dreaming of moving out of the basement is that nine out of 10 young people have given up the dream of home ownership, which once again is a sign of the failed policies that are putting our country on a path of economic decline.
We have more structural problems that the government has exacerbated over the past eight years. We have among the lowest capital investment rates. In fact, the OECD predicts that over the next 20 years, we will be last with respect to capital investments out of the entire OECD. We also have low innovation scores, and our number of patents is below that of most of our peer countries.
Our productivity numbers are once again near the bottom of the OECD. The productivity of a nation, or, in other words, what a country makes in terms of goods or delivers in services, is the very engine that drives the economy. When productivity is not right, the economy cannot be right, and that puts the whole economy in decline.
We can print as much money as we want, and the government certainly printed enough during COVID and post-COVID, but ultimately it is about the production of goods and what dollars buy. We can have as many dollars as we want; it does not increase the prosperity of a nation. What increases the prosperity of a nation is the ability to produce goods more effectively and efficiently than its peer countries, and we are falling behind.
We have tremendous challenges when it comes to productivity. It is amazing to me that this can happen, because we have what I believe is the best workforce in the world here in Canada. We have great post-secondary education, and we have a highly educated, highly motivated, hard-working population. However, somehow the government is squandering that opportunity and having us produce lower and lower results. This is not the fault of the Canadian people; it is the fault of the Liberal government.
Our inability to produce not only affects us but affects our allies as well. We left our allies literally out in the cold this winter, even though we have the energy not only to make ourselves independent but to supply other countries. We force countries such as Germany, Poland and France to depend on dictator oil, on Vladimir Putin's natural gas, when we have the ability to export liquefied natural gas from our very own coast. Our allies were literally begging us for our resources, but we could not get out of our own way. Once again, the fault does not lie with the great Canadian people; it falls to the Liberal government and its failure to get out of the way of the great people of Canada.
There can be no doubt that we in Canada are facing perilous economic times, and the Liberal government is responsible for many of those challenges. One might expect this after eight years of failed policies and continued poor results. Once again, this is not me saying this and it is not the Conservatives saying it. It is the OECD saying that we are one of the lower-ranked countries among our peers with respect to productivity, with respect to innovation and with respect to capital investment, over and over again. The government is too boxed in by its own ideology to acknowledge the realities going on out there in the world.
Ultimately, the driver of an economy is not the government. The government does not create value. It can certainly share value, and there is an important role for government to do that. It can also protect value through the military and through the police. However, it does not create or generate value; that is for the private sector. However, when we burden the private sector with overtaxation and over-regulation, we limit and inhibit the ability of that engine to drive the type of prosperity we need.
This is not a case of multi-billionaires getting away. The Liberals have let enough of their multi-billionaires get away through the Panama papers. However, who are they taxing? Do members know that many Canadians who earn less than $50,000 a year pay a marginal tax rate of over 50%? That means for every dollar people who earn less than $50,000 earn, between clawbacks and income tax they will be paying back to the government 50¢. Do members think it might be a barrier to having someone work when they know they will only be able to keep 50¢ of every dollar? Let us keep in mind that rent is now $24,000 a year on average or more, maybe $30,000 a year, and that food prices have increased. Then the government thanks them very much for going to work, and they have an annual salary of $50,000. I do not think anyone in this place is going to call that rich, and they are paying over 50¢ per dollar.
The challenge is clear, and this budget is not even close to getting it done. However, I believe we can change things, that Canada has a tremendous opportunity and that together we can build a Canada where opportunity abounds, where freedom is ever-present, where achievement is celebrated and where prosperity and not poverty is the norm. Canadians want to leave these eight years of despair, of stigmatization and of division behind. They want to start a new chapter filled with unity, prosperity and achievement. That is why I must vote against this budget, and that is why the voters of Canada will decide to go in a different direction in the next election.
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- Apr/27/23 10:37:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am disappointed in that member. I would direct him to the C.D. Howe Institute. You can look at the reports, and they will show the numbers. Does the member know what the clawback is for the GIS? It is 50¢ on the dollar. That is just the GIS alone, sir. You are so far off, it is ridiculous—
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- Apr/27/23 10:38:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, he is so far ridiculous. I will walk him over today, and I will show him my calculations on the Ernst and Young calculator that shows, with clawbacks and with the income tax, that many Canadians are paying over 50¢ on the dollar. The fact that he does not know that shows how out of touch the government is and why we need a new direction and a government that will make life easier for Canadians.
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- Apr/27/23 10:39:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the challenge is that those benefits do not come from air; they come from taxpayers, and my constituents are tired of paying the bills for the government. Not all that money comes back to Northumberland. There are sticky fingers here in Ottawa that keep a large portion of that money. That money is better to keep in the pockets. I believe that a Canadian can spend the money better on themselves than any bureaucrat in Ottawa.
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- Apr/27/23 10:40:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Tiff Macklem, in response to my question, wrote to the finance committee and said that half a percentage point of inflation was directly related to the carbon tax. That means that if we want to reduce inflation by 20% today, we can get rid of the carbon tax.
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- Apr/27/23 10:41:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was an absolute pleasure to work with that member on the rail caucus. I think we are doing great work there. I can tell members that because of those last eight years, just listening to several experts from Transport Action Canada, the rail system with Via and otherwise is in a state of disrepair because of the government's inability to get anything done.
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