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House Hansard - 204

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 1, 2023 10:00AM
  • Jun/1/23 1:15:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to be splitting my time with my amazing colleague and good friend, the member for Sarnia—Lambton. It was a scam all along. It was never sold as advertised. This carbon tax scam, in 2015, was sold to Canadians as a scam that the Conservatives called out all along the way. First Liberals said it was a levy. They said it was a levy for one's Chevy, that they wanted to charge us for driving our Chevys around rural Canada to get from job site to job site and job site to home. They said that it would make Canadians better off. That was the other scam they sold with carbon tax scam 1.0. They said that Canadians would get more into their pockets than what they paid. That was the scam. Thank God we have a public budgeting officer. Who should we believe? Should we believe the public budgeting officer the Liberals appointed themselves or should we believe a drama teacher, the Prime Minister, who has the most scandals of any prime minister in Canada's history? Should we believe the public budgeting officer, whose job is to tell the truth and expose any scandal or any mistruths being told in any type of reporting or should we believe an environment minister, who is the only one in this House I know of who has been in an orange jumpsuit? Should we believe the public budgeting officer or should we believe a finance minister who said she would not fuel the flames of inflation and who just months ago took a big $63-billion jerry can of inflation of fuel and threw it on the inflationary fire she started herself? Who should we believe? The misinformation continues from the Liberal-NDP costly coalition, which continuously says Canadians get more into their pockets and are much better off. The reality is that after eight years, the carbon tax scam 1.0 is still a scam. It will cost on average every single Canadian household, every struggling Canadian household, around $1,500 each. This is at a time when we see inflation out of control because the Liberal-NDP government spent out of control and spent more money than all governments before it combined, making inflation out of control. We see rents out of control and mortgages unaffordable, going up by the day, because it could not stop spending Canadians' money. Then the Liberals sold this other scam that it would magically fix the environment and that the weather would start getting better, the more they charged Canadians for this scam. They said that they would be fix all the problems we see around the world with climate. The reality is that was a scam all along too, because Canada ranks 58th out of 63 countries in its climate plan. This is behind China, of all countries, the same country the Prime Minister admires because he admires that basic dictatorship. Although Canada produces much less emissions than China, we are still behind it. That just goes to show how big a scam this was from day one. Let us now talk about the realities of what Canadians are going through today. As I said, we see inflation out of control. Food inflation is out of control. We see mortgages have doubled since the Liberal-NDP government has taken over. We see rents that are out of control. There is not enough housing. One in five Canadians are skipping meals today because they cannot afford to eat and heat their homes. There are 1.5 million Canadians visiting a food bank in a single month in this country. I could not have imagined when my family and I moved to this country that this would be what Canada is today, a country where one can have two or three jobs and still not be able to afford eating and heating one's home. Not only has the Liberal-NDP government caused the price of food to go up, it added to that price, because of the carbon tax scam, which has made it more expensive for farmers to grow food, to transport it and to store it at the grocery store. At the end of the day, Canadians are having to pay those costs, at a time when one in four Canadians are saying they have to borrow money to meet their basic necessities. This is not the Canada my family and I moved to so many years ago. Like other immigrants who came here, we were looking for hope, hope for a better future and a government that wanted to support them, not continue to kick them down and take more from them while giving less back. This carbon tax scam is hurting Canadians and Canadian households. It takes more out of their pockets, leaving them with even less. We see parents and single moms having to choose between being able to afford tutors for their children or feed them nutritious food three times a day at minimum. They are making choices they have never had to make before. What did the Liberal government do? It added a second carbon tax scam on top of it, one without any phony rebates. Now, on average, every single Canadian household in this country is going to spend $2,000 on these carbon tax 1.0 and 2.0 scams combined. This is the Liberal-NDP solution to a problem it created for struggling Canadian households. Canada is in a dire situation. I will quote some statistics from a representative of the Daily Bread Food Bank who came to the finance committee on May 17. Before the pandemic it saw 60,000 clients a month, during the pandemic it saw 120,000, but in March 2023 it spiked to 270,000 visits. I will quote Neil Hetherington, from the Daily Bread Food Bank, who stated: The underlying reasons for this are complex, but I can summarize them in one sentence: People do not have enough income to afford the rapidly rising cost of living. The Liberal-NDP government not only made housing impossible to find in this country, but its out-of-control spending made mortgages and rents go up. Now it wants to take even more from Canadians who are struggling. It is impossible for anyone to be able to survive today. I have spoken with newcomers who have said that they find it impossible to stay in this country when they came here looking for hope. Hope is on the horizon. We are going to get rid of these carbon tax 1.0 and 2.0 scams. We are going to make sure we build more green, clean projects in this country to bring down the cost of our energy. We are going to make sure we are supporting families, not taking more from them. We will leave more in their pockets. We are going to bring home more powerful paycheques by lowering prices and making sure we get rid of the carbon tax scam. We need to make sure our immigrants, newcomers and young people can all see the hope of a better future in this country, and we will see that hope when the member for Carleton becomes the Prime Minister of this country.
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  • Jun/1/23 1:25:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the only thing bending about that member's statement is the truth. The Liberals are talking about lower emissions during a lockdown. It is absolutely ridiculous to think that we can take this member seriously when they are bragging about a lockdown that brought down emissions. Actually, what they did do was make sure that we have the worst growth in all of the OECD developed countries. Canada will be performing the absolute worst, and yet their solution to all of this is to tax Canadians even more and make sure there are going to be more people going to food banks and borrowing more money just to meet their necessities. This is the out-of-touch policy—
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  • Jun/1/23 1:26:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, does the Conservative Party believe that climate change is happening? Yes, to answer his question. However, do we believe that taxes are the way? Well, the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP are proof that charging more to Canadians for a carbon tax scam is not working when emissions go up. They have not met a single emission target that they set for themselves. It is these failed policies that continue to not help the environment, the economy or Canadians. We are going to turn that all around and we are going to bring hope over this hurt that this collective has brought on Canadians.
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  • Jun/1/23 1:27:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, since it is my NDP colleague who asked the question, I want to take this time to congratulate the people of Alberta who rejected the failed smear-and-fear tactics of the NDP government. Albertans overwhelming rejected the Liberal-NDP government that was once in power from 2015 to 2019 once again. I want to remind the House that, in 2019, when the UCP formed government, the number one bill that Albertans overwhelmingly put the party into power with was to get rid of this carbon tax scam. I want to congratulate Albertans on the great job and huge victory by Danielle Smith and her government. We are looking forward to working with them when we have a Conservative government at the federal level and the provincial level, and we are going to have a strong confederation.
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