44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 6, 2023 11:00AM
- Nov/6/23 2:44:19 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are watching for today's vote on our common-sense Conservative motion to take the tax off all forms of home heating for all Canadians.
The Liberal rural economic development minister said that if people want a pause on the tax, they should have elected more Liberals in the region. Thunder Bay did elect two Liberal MPs, and yet folks there are not getting any pause. Instead, the Prime Minister plans to quadruple the tax on heat, gas and groceries, rather than treating them fairly.
The question is, will the Prime Minister allow these two Liberal MPs from Thunder Bay to vote freely to take the tax off so people can keep the heat on?
118 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/6/23 2:45:53 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, here is just how out of touch and tone-deaf the Liberals are. When asked if she would support giving the same pause on home heating back home, their own minister, right from Thunder Bay—Superior North, said that they do not have the same challenges in northern Ontario that we see in Atlantic Canada.
I visited Thunder Bay last week, and let me say that it gets very cold there, too, just like in Atlantic Canada.
After eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, the cost of living crisis there is so bad that the regional food bank cannot keep up with the surging demand, now at 12,000 people.
Will the Prime Minister let his Thunder Bay MPs vote to give residents fair treatment and take the tax off, so they can keep the heat on?
141 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House, as always, and add my voice to the debate we are having here about Bill C-34. When we say “Bill C-34”, most Canadians who are watching or hearing the debate here would know exactly what that means.
I would remind members that today, we have heard several points of order from members on the Liberal side of the aisle who do not like the topics we are covering regarding this legislation. However, Bill C-34 is an act to amend the Investment Canada Act, modernizing ways in which the federal government could attract more investment in this country. This line is very important, because it was the Prime Minister who instructed the industry minister to “Contribute to broader efforts to promote economic security and combat foreign interference by reviewing and modernizing the Investment Canada Act”.
I am going to take the time I have on the floor here today, and hopefully not get “point of ordered” too many times from the other side, to say this: Actions speak a lot louder than words. What we have, after eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, is an economic situation in this country that is not very good. After the vote today, for example, a big contributor to the frustration of millions of Canadians is the punitive and damaging carbon tax that the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois are imposing on this country. The carbon tax is bad for our economy, for business, for investment and for Canadian households.
In talking about investing in Canada and competition from other countries around the world, the example I am going to cite is one that the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Carleton, has raised from our neck of the woods in eastern Ontario.
We talk about the government's economic record, its actions and not just its words in a mundane piece of legislation. The Liberals are continuing to endorse the carbon tax, and they voted today against taking the carbon tax off all forms of home heating for all Canadians. If that is not out of touch, then the way we have greenhouses taxed, and the lack of competition, or frankly, taxing them out of business in this country in too many cases, is a perfect example of how the Liberals' policies are failing.
I think of SunTech Greenhouses in Manotick, in Carleton County just north of my riding in eastern Ontario. For years, it has been struggling to compete. It is based in Manotick, here in eastern Ontario, and it is struggling to compete on cost with tomatoes that come from as far away as Mexico, or even farther south than that. Why is that? It is because the greenhouse in eastern Ontario is being nailed with the carbon tax. The irony of all that is the fact that the CO2 it creates does not go into the atmosphere; it goes into the greenhouses and into the plants that are being grown here locally. It is local food, a local economy and local investment, yet it is getting nailed with the carbon tax, which is the height of irony. It is struggling to compete with tomatoes shipped from Mexico, coming up on a ship and then by truck, and those countries are paying no carbon tax whatsoever.
What we are seeing is our potential in agriculture in this country being hurt badly. We are seeing farmers being taxed for growing food, truckers being taxed to ship the food and grocers being taxed to sell the food. It is adding to a competition problem in this country, and it is adding to, not taking away from, the cost of living crisis in every single part of this country.
I think about two areas I have had the opportunity to visit in recent months. Let's say someone runs a business in northern Ontario and is trying to compete for investment into Canada and actually taking the investments here and maybe exporting around the world. Timmins is hundreds of kilometres away from southern Ontario and the United States, our largest trading partner.
Let us just think about it for a second. There are zero rebates for businesses in Timmins when it comes to these carbon taxes that they are being nailed with. This is only just beginning. They are going to be quadrupling in the coming years. If they are trying to compete with a business in, say, Michigan or even the other way around, if a business in Michigan is competing with somebody at the soup and salad bowl, Simcoe County in Ontario, if a business is trying to take the 600 or 700 kilometres up to Timmins to provide groceries and fresh food, they are being nailed with the carbon tax on the Canadian side.
One of the things I think is really important in this debate is what I will say again: actions speak louder than words. We have a modernization effort here in this bill, long past due. We have tried to add to and strengthen the bill in many ways with no success from the Liberal government.
We talk about priorities and we talk about legislation coming forward. There are so many ways to combat the problems we are facing. Axing the carbon tax is a very high priority for a growing number of Canadians. It is not an environmental plan. It is a tax plan and it is punitive to competition and to investment in Canada, as we can see by recent stagnant numbers, which we are continuing to see in economic indicators on inflation, on housing and on our growth as an economy. We are going in the wrong direction.
The other half I want to highlight is when we talk about efforts to combat foreign interference, we will not look at the words. We will look at the actions of the Liberal government the past couple of years.
We have seen multiple efforts by the Prime Minister and the NDP and Liberals voting together multiple times to ignore, brush aside or try to sweep under the carpet the seriousness and magnitude of foreign interference in our country. In response to the bombshell allegations that were leaked by journalists and courageous whistle-blowers who had to come forward to give the information, we found out that there were numerous members of Parliament who were under surveillance, under threat. It was not until these leaked reports and these whistle-blowers came forward and they were published on the front pages of The Globe and Mail and other national publications that the government finally attempted to address the issue.
Look at the Rosenberg report by Morris Rosenberg after the 2021 election. That was an absolute whitewash attempt to cover up the severity and the depths to which the Communist Party in China attempted to interfere in our democratic process. They did not even bother to interview members of the official opposition from the Conservative Party on their experiences and evidence of serious wrongdoing in the 2021 election. They said that report would be good enough and tried to move on.
Second, whenever further allegations came and they were under further pressure, their actions spoke louder than their words. They appointed a special rapporteur. Most people had to google what rapporteur even meant. For months they went on a charade in a process that resulted in the resignation of David Johnston after he lost a lot of credibility—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Eric Duncan: I hear the heckling.
1277 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I would be uncomfortable if I were the Liberals too, called out for their failed record on combatting foreign interference.
We had a resignation from David Johnston. We had 24 hours of filibustering at a committee because Liberals did not want the Prime Minister's chief of staff to testify. Let us not forget the Winnipeg lab documents where the House of Commons ordered the production of those documents, but the Prime Minister and Liberal government took the Speaker of the House of Commons to court in an attempt to cover up information that Canadians deserved to know.
As we talk about issues of combatting foreign interference, if we talk about issues of strengthening investment in Canada, there are many failings after eight years of the Prime Minister and NDP government that leave a lot to be desired. Bill C-34 is just scratching at the surface of what truly needs to be done.
156 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, what I am calling out is the Liberals' continued failed attempts to get to the bottom of foreign interference in this country. They appointed a rapporteur who had many conflicts of interest. They created more questions than answers around the process. They set up a process to try to cover up the truth. They did not want a public inquiry and they did everything they possibly could to avoid it.
The Liberals set up the Rosenberg report, they set up the rapporteur and they avoided, like the plague, a public inquiry. It was only pressure from Conservatives that they finally caved and got a public inquiry going in this country.
112 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I will echo what many of my colleagues on this side have raised. Members who are on the industry committee will know, when this bill was at committee and amendments were being considered, we put forward 14 different amendments to try to add a more rigorous review process of acquisitions and investments from foreign-state enterprises entering Canada. Just to understand how seriously the Liberals take this issue, of the 14 amendments that would strengthen the process even further, only four of them passed.
I would say to the member from the NDP who voted for time allocation and voted for all this to proceed that they are going along with the Liberals and only passing, for example, four of 14 amendments that would further strengthen the bill.
130 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, a lot of time with legislation, what happens is that the details, what the government is going to be doing through regulation afterward and the process will be very key. I know of many incidents and examples, by colleagues at committee, of trying to understand what protocol, processes and resources would be provided for this year. There needs to be a time frame for review for when a decision will be made, and making it as clear and as quick as possible in order to continue with investments that are worthwhile and are not of a national security concern or threat. We need to address those in an expedited or reasonable time frame.
There were not a lot of assurances from the other side of the number of employees, the number of regulations, the time frame and the processes. Again, we are going to have to wait and see the actions of the government in the coming years. If it is based on other pieces of legislation, we do not need a ton more bureaucracy and cost to the taxpayer.
182 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
