44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I share the member's concern about the opioid crisis, as does everyone in this Parliament. I was pleased that he did not repeat some of the misguided falsehoods that his leader has been putting out there in the media when it comes to safe supply in the province. I am sure, as a British Columbian, he is familiar with the words of the chief coroner and the provincial health officer who have said there is no evidential basis for linking an increase in opioid deaths to the safe supply that we are seeing.
Where the member and I really strongly agree is the need for treatment programs, that one of the pillars of responding to the opioid and toxic drug crisis is having free treatment on demand. Would he support a federal fund directed to establishing those kinds of treatment centres in our province?
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Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. We would support treatment on demand and that is one area where we see some collaboration between two parties in the House of Commons.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals pat themselves on the back for their 2023 budget, but they should not. It is a budget that, at the end of the day, will hurt Canadians, it is short-sighted, irresponsible and ultimately incompetent.
Members do not have to take my word for it. The former finance minister, Bill Morneau, said the Liberals' fiscal policy was about “scoring political points” over good policies, specifically financial ones. He said the Ministry of Finance recommendations were disregarded in “winning a popularity contest”. Policies were made “on the fly”. Some things do not seem to be changing. That is to be expected from a Prime Minister who told reporters that he did not concern himself with fiscal policy because budgets balance themselves. It is incomprehensible.
Can members imagine what would happen to a small business or a family where there is no concern about how much is spent and how much is made? It would lead to hard times for them. They would go deeper into debt, and possible foreclosure and bankruptcy. The Liberals do not seem to care. They have doubled down on national debt. The Liberals and the Prime Minister have more than doubled the national debt since coming into power.
Canadians might ask what difference it makes. It very much affects the lives of all Canadians. We can look to how much everything costs and how much smaller the packages are. Everything has gone up. A family of four will spend $1,000 more after tax dollars on food alone. Even for those receiving rebates, they will spend many hundreds more on bread, fruit, vegetables and everything else.
The Liberals, when they saw the inflationary numbers and how they are impacting Canadians, said this was not good for them politically, so they raised interest rates by over 1,000% to cool things down.
What has that accomplished? Let us ask those who have been renewing their mortgages. It is thousands of dollars more per year just on mortgages because the interest rates were increased. I live in the greater Vancouver area. Homes cost $1 million, $2 million and up, and mortgages over $600,000 are just the standard. The fiscal policies of the Liberals are putting a squeeze on taxpayers.
The standard of living for Canadians is deteriorating. Canada has been sliding in the rankings as far as wealth is concerned. In 2019, we were in 10th place. In the past three years, we have gone down to 14th and are sliding. If we compare that to Taiwan, Israel and Ireland that are equal to us or have surpassed us in their per capita incomes, they do not even have the resources we have. We are a wealthy nation, but our fiscal policy is destroying us.
The government is more interested in the redistribution of wealth, making us dependent on government and killing wealth creation through taxation and regulation. There is a word for that and it is socialism. The regulations, red tape and bureaucracy are killing us. It is fiscal foolishness.
I have a couple of examples. One is the TransCanada pipeline. Kinder Morgan projected it to cost $6.7 billion. The Liberals got involved and the new cost for Canadian taxpayers is approaching $40 billion. It is like the Liberals have written a blank cheque. There is no fiscal responsibility.
A local example in my riding is the Harris Road underpass. It is an agreement between the CPR, Transport Canada and the port authority. It was projected four years ago, with an agreement, to make this underpass for $63 million. It has skyrocketed to $200 million and the project is on the verge of collapsing because of cost increases. Less than half of that cost is for actual construction. The rest is for management, enabling and management contingency. The bureaucracy is killing us.
There is one thing where the prices have been driven down, and that is the cost of street drugs with Liberal drug policies by both the Liberals and the NDP. It is killing lives. The price of hard drugs has gone down 70% to 95%. People are getting addicted and they are dying.
We need a change of government to get some fiscal sanity.
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- Jun/6/23 8:51:39 p.m.
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It being 8:52 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.
The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion will also apply to Motion No. 2.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Jun/6/23 8:52:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we request a recorded vote please.
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The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 3. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 4 to 14.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Jun/6/23 8:53:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, again, we would request a recorded vote.
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The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 15. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 16 to 111.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Jun/6/23 8:54:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we request a recorded vote please.
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The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 112. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion Nos. 113 to 121.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Jun/6/23 8:54:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, again, I would request a recorded vote please.
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The recorded division on Motion No. 112 stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 122. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 123 to 125.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Jun/6/23 8:55:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, again I request a recorded vote please.
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The recorded division on Motion No. 122 stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 126. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion Nos. 127 to 232.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Jun/6/23 8:56:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, no surprise, I request a recorded vote.
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The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 233. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 234 to 440.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Jun/6/23 8:57:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote.
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The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 441. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 442 to 455, 684 to 689 and 691 to 729.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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- Jun/6/23 8:57:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote.
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The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 730. A vote on the motion also applies to Motions Nos. 731 to 749 and 751 to 904.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
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