44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 5, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/5/23 10:56:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as this is the member's maiden speech, would it be acceptable for him to restart his speech from the beginning given the challenges we have had technically?
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Madam Speaker, it is an incredible honour to rise for the first time in debate in the House of Commons since being elected this summer.
While I will certainly get to the substance of Bill C-56, I would first like to take a few moments to express my appreciation to the residents of Portage—Lisgar for placing their trust in me to be their representative in Ottawa. It is a great responsibility to be their voice and I am humbled by the support they have shown me. I, of course, have some very big shoes to fill in succeeding the Hon. Candice Bergen. I appreciate her friendship and her mentorship over the years, and I will do my best to follow in her footsteps in fighting for our riding and our rural way of life.
I need to thank my wife, Cailey, for her unwavering support, her patience and her love. The life we have entered together is not an easy one, as all my colleagues know, but I am lucky to have her by my side. I would also like to thank my parents, Jim and Shauna-Lei Leslie, for their guidance, their encouragement and their unconditional love.
I need to thank many friends and neighbours who supported me in the nomination and in the by-election. I wish I could name them all, but I have only 10 minutes here today. To all those who played a role, big or small, in helping me over the past six months and throughout my entire life, I want them to please know how much I appreciated their help in becoming their member of Parliament. Together we have proven that when individuals come together with a shared vision, unwavering determination and a commitment to change, we can achieve the seemingly impossible.
The chamber is made up of people from diverse regions, experiences and backgrounds, each working to represent their community and our country. As I said many times during the campaign, I am just a farm kid from Portage. I say “just” because far too often, that is what I would hear folks say, folks like my dad and many others who, when asked what they do, say, “I'm just a farmer.” Farmers are so much more than that and should give themselves credit, as should all Canadians. Farmers produce the high-quality, nutritious food that feeds Canadians and people all around the world. They quite literally bet the farm, every single year, while facing countless factors outside of their control and, currently, a government that is making their job harder. They provide for their families. They help their neighbours and they support their communities.
It is not just farmers who fall into this “just” trap. It is not “just a plumber”. I am not “just a construction worker”, “just a welder” or “just a teacher”. People are more than just that. People are the foundation of our country and are our future. People work hard. People play by the rules, give back to their communities and support their families. They should be proud of it.
In the case of my riding, families choose to live a rural way of life. We live with and appreciate nature. We hunt, fish, sled and quad. We know our neighbours because, during a Manitoba blizzard, even a truck can get stuck in the middle of a gravel road on a windy night, and we might need a helping hand. It is also because we want to know our neighbours. We support our churches, our local businesses, our sports teams and our charities. I am proud of my family, my community and my country. I will be a steadfast advocate for our riding, our province and our way of life.
Today, that starts with speaking to Bill C-56. This bill claims to address two very pressing issues: affordable housing and access to affordable groceries. I can tell members, after knocking on thousands of doors throughout the campaign this summer, that these are two issues that were front and centre at the doorsteps.
In the first six years of the Liberal government, housing prices went up 43% in Manitoba, and it has only gotten worse in the last two years. I cannot tell members how heartbreaking it is to walk up to knock on a door and see a family loading up their half-ton truck with a couch in the back, or they open the door and there are some boxes behind them. These people are moving out of their homes because they can no longer afford their mortgage. Worse, they are moving and paying almost as much in rent for much smaller accommodations elsewhere. Countless people, moms and dads, told me they were being forced to stop buying healthy food for their kids because they just cannot afford it and because Kraft Dinner is cheaper. That is not the Canada that I want to be fighting for. People expect government to improve their life, or at least just stay out of it. Instead, after eight years of the Liberal government, they can barely afford to live any more. It is hard to express just how fed up and frustrated people are at the doorsteps.
I found it funny that yesterday, during question period, the Prime Minister confidently stated that he had been speaking with rural Canadians this past summer and that they supported his carbon tax. It was such an absurd statement that I could only shake my head in disbelief, because I can confidently say that my constituents want to scrap the carbon tax. If the Prime Minister had spent time talking to any everyday people in my riding during the by-election, he would have heard that message loud and clear. The common sense of the common people recognizes a tax when it sees it. They know that this costly Liberal-NDP coalition is driving up the cost of everything. It is time to axe the tax.
Recently, the Liberals did begin recognizing that reducing taxes does spur economic growth, and Bill C-56 seeks to remove the GST on new rental housing construction across the country. I am glad to see the Liberals are starting to come around to Conservative ideas. Just a day before the Minister of Finance announced the legislation, our leader introduced Bill C-356, the building homes not bureaucracy act. Its goal is simple: to make life more affordable for Canadians. Bill C-356 would provide a 100% GST rebate on new residential rental properties for which the average rent payable is below market rate. We can talk about actually trying to accomplish affordable housing, but I do suppose that imitation is the highest form of flattery.
However, our leader's legislation would do much more. It would eliminate CMHC executive bonuses if housing targets are not met, and reduce their compensation if funding for new construction is not completed within 60 days. It would create a home completion target and give bonuses to cities that increase the number of new builds completed. It would utilize incentives to build things again in this country and not build bureaucracy. It has to be about results. It is about putting forward policies that get homes built in this country, and it is high time we had a government that focused on outcomes, not process.
Speaking of that, the second component of Bill C-56 is a prime example of process. The Prime Minister promised Canadians that he would somehow magically lower grocery prices by Thanksgiving, and I guess we can chalk that up as another broken promise on the long tally. Canadians are not holding out hope that, by allowing his bloated bureaucracy to conduct another lengthy study, their grocery bills will start to go down any time soon. When we tax the farmer who produces the food, the manufacturer who processes the food, the trucker who ships the food and the grocer who sells the food, how on earth can we honestly expect prices not to go up?
However, there is an easy solution. We can axe the tax. Instead, we have a tired Liberal government touting the legislation before us as a saving grace for Canadians who cannot afford to live anymore. Copying ideas from our Conservative leader is a good start, but the reality is that there is still much more to do.
The Liberal government's inflationary spending has driven up prices, inflation and interest rates, and it has worsened the lives of so many families, seniors and small business owners. While the Liberals will blame international factors for the current mess we find ourselves in, they cannot bring themselves to take any responsibility for their inflationary deficits that have only poured more fuel on the fire. Even Bill Morneau, the former Liberal finance minister, has admitted that fact, and the government has dramatically grown the bureaucracy and created more red tape. It is abundantly clear that more process does not deliver better outcomes. Instead, the Liberals have frustrated businesses, added costs and headaches for municipalities and not-for-profits that are applying for funding, ignored the priorities of stakeholder groups and provided worse service to Canadians.
After eight long years, the Liberal government has run out of ideas. Everything in Canada feels broken, and we know exactly how we got here. It is time for a new Conservative government to come in and fix it. It is time to bring homes that people can afford. It is time to bring home powerful paycheques and lower prices for food, fuel and home heating. It is time to bring home prosperity for Canadians. Let us bring it home.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. colleague across the way for the kind wishes.
In 1972, we built more homes than we did last year. That is the record. That is what we are dealing with.
We may be reading different documents, but I am very confident with the plan that our leader has put forward. It is a plan you thought was so good that you would snatch parts of it to put in your own announcement. I do not think we need to take any lessons from the option across the way on how to get homes built in this country.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the well wishes.
The challenge with the question is that it is, of course, best aimed at the government, but the reality is that the government has set up such poor relationships with our provincial leaders across the country that it comes as no surprise that there are ongoing battles over these sorts of challenges.
The challenge here is to ask what affordable housing is. I think we need to undertake our very best efforts to make sure we are providing all types of new housing builds to make sure that those who are currently homeless or living in housing poverty are able to upgrade their way of life. The easiest way we could do that is by lowering the cost of living for all them, allowing them to keep more of the money that they earn and take home more powerful paycheques so that they can live the high quality of life that all Canadians deserve.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his sincere words. In a past life, I had the pleasure of working with him, and I look forward to working collaboratively with him here.
The legislation the member mentioned is an important piece. There are currently exemptions, but so many costs are passed on to the farmers, who are at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to this. I appreciate his support for Bill C-234, and I would encourage my hon. colleagues in the other place to quickly pass that legislation to expand the carbon tax exemption for farmers across Canada.
The last thing I will point out is that profits are not a bad thing. I think wealth creation is a good thing, and given that we are invested heavily in all of our pensions, we should want Canadian companies to succeed.
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