44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 15, 2023 11:00AM
- May/15/23 2:21:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, sometimes with the current government, we do not know whether to laugh or cry when it comes to the way it spends money. The minister said in her fall update that the budget would be balanced in 2028. In her budget, she said it would be balanced never. Weeks before that budget, the minister said that deficit spending fuels inflation and interest rate hikes; then she added $60 billion of that fuel to the inflationary fire, at a cost of $4,200 per family. Why will the minister not get off the backs of hard-working Canadians and get rid of the inflationary taxes and deficits that they have to pay?
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- May/15/23 2:22:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister herself said in the fall that she would balance the budget in 2028, but in this budget, she said that it would never be balanced. Weeks before that budget, the minister said that deficit spending fuels inflation. Then, she added another $60 billion of deficit spending at a cost of $4,200 per Canadian family.
Why do Canadians have to pay for the this minister's flip-flopping and incompetence?
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- May/15/23 2:23:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we can see that the minister and the Prime Minister are totally disconnected from the daily reality of ordinary Canadians. We understand why the minister left the country and has avoided questions since the presentation of her highly unpopular budget. She goes to American universities instead of going to talk to real people here in Canada. In fact, she is the one who said that deficits would fuel inflation and that she would bring in a rule to save one dollar for every dollar spent.
Where is that promise in their budget?
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- May/15/23 2:24:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is really impressive that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister are attending really important meetings in Japan and the United States with really important people around the world. We are talking to the common people right here in Canada who cannot pay their bills. One in five is skipping meals because they cannot afford the inflationary carbon tax on food; 1.5 million are eating at food banks, and some are asking for help with medical assistance in dying because they cannot afford to eat, heat or house themselves. The minister admits deficits caused this inflation, yet she added $60 billion more of them. Why does she keep boosting prices while she travels abroad?
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- May/15/23 2:26:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, no, we just wish he would remember that the real people who pay the bills actually live right here in Canada, the common people here in this land. These are the people Liberals forget about when they are jet-setting around the world. When the Deputy Prime Minister is over in the States giving speeches at fancy American universities, she is forgetting about the people who are paying 12% more for food because of her carbon tax, forgetting that nine in 10 young people cannot afford a home because she has driven up interest rates so much with her deficits, and forgetting the seniors who cannot fill their fridges because food has become too expensive.
Why will she and her Prime Minister not get back on the ground in Canada and stand up for the people who do the work here?
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- May/15/23 2:33:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was up huffing and puffing last week, less than a week ago, about the Stellantis project, and now we find, six days later, that construction on the $5-billion facility has halted because of his incompetence. We see the same thing with the Trans Mountain pipeline, which is now 300% over-budget, many years past due and still not complete.
All the Prime Minister does is wrap our industry in red tape, weigh it down with taxes and engage in total incompetence. Why is it that he can never bring it home when it comes to jobs, paycheques and industry for our country?
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Mr. Speaker, as members know, I am running for Prime Minister to put Canadians back in charge of their lives, and nowhere is this more true than when it comes to our first nations, which have suffered for far too long under a paternalistic and overpowering federal government and a so-called “Indian Act”, which seems determined and designed to prevent first nations from making their own decisions and controlling their own lives. That is why Conservatives have long called for empowering first nations governments to take control of their land, resources, money and decisions.
That is why we are so happy that the government has copycatted one of our central proposals to make that happen with regard to infrastructure. The Liberals have included it in their budget, and we are pleased that they have carved it off the budget and allowed it to pass through the House separately, expedited as we asked for, so that we can get it done.
Let us talk about what this bill would do.
I just got off the phone with the great Manny Jules. He is the head of the First Nations Tax Commission. He and his family were among the architects of allowing first nations to collect their own local property tax revenues. He has fought his entire life to allow first nations governments and decision-makers to take control of the money that would otherwise go to Ottawa and to allow the local first nations to decide for themselves, rather than relying on the incompetence of the bureaucracy and politicians in Ottawa.
In other words, he told me that he is tired and first nations are tired of being the fastest turtles in the room, because that is how the system of infrastructure finance, he says, has worked, or failed to work, under the existing rules that we are about to change. In the past, a first nation that wanted to build something would have to apply for financing from Ottawa. Sometimes, it takes as long as 10 years for the bureaucrats to wrap their heads around the most basic infrastructure project that other communities would take for granted.
Many of my constituents ask why it is that our first nations cannot have clean drinking water systems in their communities. The answer is that none of us would have clean drinking water if we had to live under the same impossible and incompetent rules that the federal government imposes on first nations. Having to apply to a government that is 2,000 miles away and to deal with bureaucrats they have never met and do not know, who have never been to their community, to sign off on every single detail of every infrastructure plan, of course, is going to prevent things from getting done.
What we need to do is stop stopping and start starting, and to do that, we need to get Ottawa out of the way. The bill before us would do that.
It is a common-sense proposal. Here is how it would work: If a first nation wants to build something, instead of just asking for permission from the bureaucrats in Ottawa, it can monetize its future revenues to build long-standing assets. Let us say they are building a bridge that will last 40 years; they would be able to amortize the cost over the 40-year period and use their annual revenue streams to pay that cost. Of course, they would issue debentures, or debt, like any other government would normally do, and they could pool their risk with other, similar first nations that have similarly high financial and infrastructure standards. This would allow them to make their own decisions about projects today using the future revenues that they will inevitably bring in, which they can guarantee and certify.
That is how things get built. It would also allow public-private partnerships. This would, of course, send the New Democrats into a panic, because they do not want any private involvement in any aspect of our lives, but it would allow first nations to team up with the pension funds and other major investors to build projects that are both profitable to investors and also extremely effective for local communities. It would allow them to build schools, hospitals, water systems, bridges, roads and training centres. All manner of things that we take for granted in the rest of Canada could be built through this. It would also allow them to own the projects and use the assets for leverage for future investments.
This is the kind of common-sense infrastructure finance that we would expect if we were living in any other part of the country, so we as Conservatives support this. We want it to happen as quickly as possible, but we also want to go further.
We believe that the government's paternalistic, anti-development laws, like Bill C-69, are a major attack on indigenous rights by blocking first nations from developing projects that they support, preventing paycheques and preventing revenues for programs that would lift people out of poverty. We would repeal Bill C-69 and allow first nations to build projects with their resources. We would work with them on a new model so they can keep more of the money that comes from those projects.
This is an exciting time, when first nations entrepreneurs are leading the way. Let me give one example of this. Vancouver has become a city held back by government gatekeepers. It costs $650,000 in red tape for every new housing unit, because the city hall there is run by gatekeepers and the Prime Minister sends more money for gatekeeping. There is no wonder it is the third most expensive housing market on planet Earth. The Squamish people have their own land within the city of Vancouver but, luckily, they do not have to follow the zoning and permitting rules of city hall. They were able to approve, and are now building, 6,000 units of housing on 10 acres of land; that is 600 units per acre. If they were part of the city of Vancouver, they never would have gotten it done.
We can also look at what the Tsuut'ina Nation is doing near Calgary, building incredible business plazas that would still have been tied up in Calgary city hall bureaucracy if it had had to follow the rules in that jurisdiction. What we are seeing across the country is that first nations communities are, increasingly, far better places to do business than the municipal jurisdictions next to them are. We can imagine what they could do if the federal government in Ottawa would get out of the way and let them get things done.
This bill would do that for traditional infrastructure projects that governments normally run and regulate. Let us imagine allowing for the same with private sector and resource development projects. It would mean more business opportunities for first nations to generate revenues to provide Canada with lower-cost goods and more powerful paycheques for all our people. Now let us imagine further, that, instead of all of the revenue coming from those projects going to Ottawa to be gobbled up by bureaucracy, and forcing first nations to ask for it back, the money stayed in those communities in the first place and they could reinvest it to create a virtuous cycle of more and more opportunity. This is the vision we have: by getting rid of the gatekeepers and getting out of the way of first nations, allowing more local autonomy in decisions about resources, construction, jobs and financial management, we believe that, over the next century, first nations can lead the country in prosperity.
That is the empowering vision that we have, but we have to get back to common sense. It is wonderful that we have one bill, just one bill, with some common sense in it from the government, which proves that even a broken clock is right twice a day. The government should listen to Manny Jules more often, listen to our first nations leaders more often and listen to the people on the ground, the people who know what has happened, the people who have the traditional wisdom. If it did that more often, we would get more bills like this, we would have more paycheques for our people, we would get more built for our country and we would all be better off. It is the common sense of the common people, united for our common home. Now, let us bring it home.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I agree with the member when he says that the two shadow ministers, one of Crown-indigenous relations and the other of indigenous services, for the official opposition, the member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock and the member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, have done a fantastic job in advancing and fighting for first nations across the country.
With respect to the debate on free, prior and informed consent, the Prime Minister does not agree with that. He is against it. We know that because he has cancelled projects where there is unanimous support. Teck's Frontier Project mine, for example, had all 20 first nations around it agreeing with the project, and the Prime Minister walked in and cancelled it. What he likes to do is use first nations as an attempt to block things from going ahead, because that is what he really wanted to do in the first place. It is not because he cares about their well-being, but because it is a rhetorical tool for his ideological, anti-development agenda.
I believe in listening to all first nations, including those that are in favour of projects. That is why we will work with those first nations to get things done and make sure they are the primary beneficiaries and the big winners when they do get done.
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Mr. Speaker, she mentions the Wet'suwet'en. Twenty out of 20 Wet'suwet'en nations along the route of the Coastal GasLink pipeline are in favour. All of the elected first nations support the project, and the NDP goes against all of the elected first nations leaders and imposes the NPD's ideological agenda to try to block those opportunities. I disagree with the NDP when it takes away the land rights of first nations people in order to impose the extremist ideology of the NDP that prevents first nations from having opportunities and keeps them in poverty.
We believe in these projects like LNG Canada, the Coastal GasLink, the Haisla Nation's development of liquefied natural gas, and projects of so many other first nations that want to develop resources but have NDP politicians standing in the way. We stand on the side of first nations that want to get things done, and we do not stand with the NDP and its obstructions.
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- May/15/23 7:26:33 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, eight years ago, the then Liberal leader, now the Prime Minister, promised that he would “make it easier for Canadians to find an affordable place to call home”. At the time, the typical house in Canada cost $452,000. What does it cost today?
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- May/15/23 7:27:14 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, since he is the housing minister, he will know about housing prices. As I said, when the Prime Minister promised lower costs, the typical house was $452,000. How much is it today?
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- May/15/23 7:27:36 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, specifically, I am looking at the housing price index for the entire country provided by CREA. How much?
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- May/15/23 7:27:52 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, that is close, but it is actually a lot higher than the $452,000 when the Prime Minister promised that he was going to bring housing prices down.
Back when he made that promise, the minimum down payment on an average house was $22,000. How much is it today?
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- May/15/23 7:28:17 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want the national number, please.
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- May/15/23 7:28:36 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want just the national number, please.
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- May/15/23 7:28:46 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, one can average the regions to get the number for the nation. That is what averages do. This is the housing minister. Surely he knows the average necessary minimum down payment on an average house.
Could the housing minister please provide that basic housing information?
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- May/15/23 7:29:08 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, no, he has not. If he believes he has, he should do it again.
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- May/15/23 7:29:24 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, he cannot provide the average down payment. I know he does not want to because it shows that since the Prime Minister promised more affordable numbers, the average necessary minimum down payment in Canada has more than doubled, from $22,635 to $47,390. That is a doubling of the necessary down payment.
The minister says regional information is different. Can he name one region where housing is more affordable now than it was when the Prime Minister made that promise?
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- May/15/23 7:30:10 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, he was the one who said that regional data was the most important, so I will ask him this again. Since the Prime Minister promised that housing would be more affordable under his leadership, could he name a single region where it is more affordable?
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- May/15/23 7:30:32 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, that is more than a 70% increase. I asked for a region where it is more affordable, even one region.
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