SoVote

Mr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC)

May/7/24 11:50:26 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. I will inform the House that I will be splitting my time with the incredible member of Parliament for Prince Albert. I have been around this place long enough to see a clear pattern of what a Liberal budget is. What exactly is the pattern of a Liberal budget? We have to go back to 2015 for a moment. What happened back in 2015? The Liberal Prime Minister promised three years of modest deficit-spending budgets before he made a cast in stone promise to return to a balanced budget in 2019. What happened to that promise? In each of those three years, the Prime Minister spent much more than he had promised. In 2019, he did not even try to keep his cast in stone promise about returning Canada to a balanced budget. In other words, this Liberal Prime Minister did not even try to do what he had promised. Why even promise to return Canada to a balanced budget when he had no intention of ever doing so? Of course, we all know the answer. The Prime Minister is willing to say literally anything if he thinks it will get him votes and help him gain voters' confidence. That is the real problem with what has become the trend in the libertarian budgets tabled by the Liberals and the Prime Minister, because Canadians have lost confidence in this Liberal government. Let me provide yet another example of this. To do this, we have to go back to the 2022 Liberal budget. Back in 2022, following the pandemic, the Prime Minister and his finance minister introduced what his Liberal government called the return to fiscal responsibility budget. That begs the question of what fiscally responsible spending was, according to the Liberal government in 2022. The answer is that the Liberals' 2022 budget proposed total federal government spending of $434 billion. This is an interesting amount of money because it represented a $90-billion spending increase over the Liberals' very own prepandemic spending in the 2019-20 fiscal year, which had a budget of $338 billion. Now, here we are with the latest Liberal 2024 budget, which proposes total spending of $535 billion for the 2024-25 fiscal year. Let us pause for a moment to recap. The 2022 return to fiscal responsibility budget was $434 billion. Now, here we are in 2024 with the current budget, and the proposed spending is $535 billion. This means that the latest Liberal budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year proposes to spend $100 billion more than what the Liberals themselves labelled a return to fiscal responsibility budget just a short time ago. Let us look at the bigger picture for a moment. Before the pandemic began, in 2019-20, the Liberals were spending $338 billion. Today, the Liberals now propose to spend $535 billion. That is an increase of almost $200 billion a year in annual spending, and let us not kid ourselves. Everyone knows the Liberals will spend more than the $535 billion they are proposing in this budget. If anyone is in doubt of that, I will recall what the finance minister told us in April of last year during her 2023 budget. In that 2023 budget, the Liberals told us that projected total spending would be $497 billion in 2023-24. That self-same Liberal budget projected spending would reach $556 billion in 2027-28. Now, here we are in 2024-25, and already the Liberals are proposing to spend $535 billion. Can we all not see the clear pattern here? Every year, what we are told will happen never actually happens. The forecasts, the promises and everything the Liberals promise us end up being completely false. They do not even try to live within the fiscal limits they propose for themselves. This particular Liberal budget follows the pattern that once again demonstrates that every commitment of a so-called fiscal guardrail made in previous Liberal budgets was a sham. Most offensive of all is that the Prime Minister's Office has the audacity to label this budget as the “Fairness for Every Generation” budget. I am literally aghast by this. The 2024 “Fairness for Every Generation” budget proposes a $40-billion deficit for this fiscal year alone. This is noteworthy because the Liberals' previous debt forecast was $35 billion for 2024-25 and $27 billion for 2025-26. In the Liberals' mini budget last fall, their fiscal update increased the deficits projected for 2024-25 and 2025-26 to $38 billion and $38 billion respectively. Now, why is this new debt significant? Given the current interest rates, the cost of servicing on the national debt has now exceeded federal spending on health care, and this problem only gets worse. There is an entire generation of young Canadians who are now entirely left out despite all the Liberal spending, and this is today. Literally, this problem is so bad that even the Prime Minister himself now openly admits that young people now feel like they cannot get ahead in the same way their parents or their grandparents could. However, it is much worse than that. The Prime Minister is leaving future generations of Canadians with record levels of debt and no plan whatsoever to return to a balanced budget, ever. The Prime Minister has failed in every single budget to do what he promised he would do in the budget the year previous, and I have established that with several examples in my comments today. Let us ask the Prime Minister, who thinks he is pretty awesome, if, in the past nine years he has massively and completely failed to even come close to balancing the budget, what is he expecting future generations of Canadians to do because they are the ones who will be inheriting all of this Liberal debt? What Canadians see is a desperate Prime Minister's Office trying to shovel as much money out the door as quickly and as recklessly as they can as they are hoping that something, anything, will stick as they try desperately to buy their way to remain in power because power is the one thing that the Prime Minister and his group of insiders really care about. I would submit that they will and, in fact, they are, willing to spend any amount of money in their quest to retain power. I believe the way they see it in the Prime Minister's Office is that this ends in one of two different ways for them. Either they will be successful and remain in power or, if they are unsuccessful, well, they do not care about the fiscal mess they will leave behind because it will be future generations of Canadians, but more importantly not them, who will have to clean the mess up and pay for it. I submit that this is really what is occurring here. Members can imagine leaving our kids behind a prepaid Visa, but in reality, that prepaid Visa card has a negative balance of $10,000 owing on it. The joke is on them. In the real world, no one would actually do that, but the Prime Minister is doing exactly that, and he has the audacity to pretend to call it fairness for every generation. There is nothing fair about racking up huge debts in an attempt to buy votes and leaving future Canadians to foot the bill. It is the most unfair thing that the government can do to young Canadians, but that is precisely what the Liberal government is doing. Rather than accept and respect the fact that many Canadians see and oppose what the government is doing, the Prime Minister's Office is doubling down and proposing more of the same. This is a budget, yes, but it follows a dangerous pattern. The Liberals continue to say whatever it takes to stay in power. They have no intention of following through on their promises. They do not care. They just care about power. That is not good enough for this chamber. It is definitely not good enough for Canadians, and I will not be going along with this plan to again spend whatever it takes, to throw that money at the wall, to see how long they can stay in power.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

May/7/24 12:00:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, those are interesting comments coming from the member across the way, in the sense that, as a government, we do recognize there is a need to be able to spend money, as has Doug Ford. For example, we talk about the hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, in terms of landing the VW battery plant. It is going to generate thousands of jobs. It is being supported in good part by both the Ontario government and the Canadian government. It will have a long-term positive impact, as it will be one of the reasons why Canada is going to be ranked so high in the world in production of electric batteries. Let us think about it: greener jobs into the future. Why does the Conservative Party not support that particular initiative?

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Mr. Dan Albas

May/7/24 12:01:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not support any initiative of the Liberal government, because the government will do whatever it takes to stay in power. If the member is so confident that particular deal is going to be so great for every Canadian, why has the government not brought up the business case? Why has it not shown us the contracts? The latest Liberal budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year proposes to spend $100 billion more than what the Liberals themselves labelled as a return to fiscal responsibility just a short time ago. The member and the Liberal government will say whatever they need to say to stay in power. He needs to admit that to himself.

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Ms. Lisa Marie Barron (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP)

May/7/24 12:02:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one thing I was reflecting on while we were talking about the budget today is the national school food program that is being implemented in the budget. I was a school board trustee and also worked in the school district. I am a single parent with two children. An issue that came up over and over again was that schools need the support to be able to ensure that all children who arrive at school have the nutritious healthy foods they need to learn and grow. There are many wins in the budget. There are also areas like the national disability benefit that need to see an increase in the amount. If the member were in the position of power that he is saying the Liberals are striving to maintain, what would he cut that Canadians need so desperately, at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet?

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Mr. Dan Albas

May/7/24 12:03:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a synergy between the Liberal Party and the NDP, where they are constantly trying to outbid each other for who can be more relevant. The problem is that they are constantly asking for a new national priority, when the federal government has zero experience in doing something. In my area of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, when I was the United Way chair, there was a great program called “Success By 6”. It made sure that children who needed those supports at Queen's Park Elementary got them. Unfortunately, if the member were to read Paul Wells' Substack on this, she would see that the government actually cannot tell us which children would receive the support. It just says that 400,000 children are going to receive it. The government has no idea who these children are. It has no idea who the different players are in different school districts right across the country. As I said, it is all about paper. The NDP enables this. It keeps saying, “More, more, more”, and we just get more paper, more promises and more bureaucracy, not the help that Canadians want or need.

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Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC)

May/7/24 12:04:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that was a great speech. I know that the member comes from British Columbia, and I know that in British Columbia addiction has become a huge issue over the last eight years. Could the member give the House a bit of a report on what has changed in his riding and what in the budget would actually address the problem? Can he explain to us why the government is so committed to not fixing the problem?

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Mr. Dan Albas

May/7/24 12:04:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a great question. In many rural parts of my riding, from places such as Merritt, B.C., which we all know is still trying to rebuild from some of the floods that happened a few years ago, to places like Hedley, I continue to get reports about the so-called drug legalization program, where people are allowed to consume hard drugs, crack, heroin, etc. on the streets. There are drug houses that the RCMP has said it cannot shut down because of the laws. The government can say all sorts of things, like that it is going to work with British Columbia, but the problem is that it is not working with the RCMP. It is not giving the RCMP the tools it needs to make our communities, particularly the rural ones, safer. The member is correct; the government, again, is always about promises but never about delivering.

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Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC)

May/7/24 12:05:52 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-379

Madam Speaker, it is great to be here. The member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola gave such a great speech. His comments are surely appreciated in the House. His knowledge and his wisdom are a benefit to all Canadians, and I want to thank him for being here today. He did a wonderful job. I want to talk about the great riding of Prince Albert. It has been home to three prime ministers, believe it or not. It has a great history and great people. I am from a combination of the agriculture sector, which is strong, vibrant and growing, and the forestry sector, in which we hope to see a rejuvenation and a rebirth, bringing along first nations and first nations involvement. There are some great opportunities that will be happening in and around Prince Albert and in the district itself. When I look at the budget and look back at the needs and wants, and the questions I get, in my riding, the budget is a failure. It did not listen to what Canadians want. It did not listen to what Canadians require. It talks about a lot of things and throws a lot of things at the wall, but there is not anything to really address affordability. There is nothing really there to address crime, including rural crime. There is nothing there, really, to address the day-to-day costs of living. I am going to talk a little about that today and about what residents are saying to me in the riding of Prince Albert. While many of my colleagues have raised various serious problems with the budget today, I am going to focus on a variety of areas that directly impact communities, families, poverty and, of course, crime. I am also going to add addictions and mental health to that list. After nine years, the NDP-Liberal coalition has had every opportunity to address these issues and effect real change for Canadians, yet its policies have done nothing but make things worse. For families, the tax-and-spend approach continues to make life more unaffordable, as they feel the real-life impacts of the Liberal inflationary policies. According to the Prime Minister, after nine years of his leadership, one in four children goes to school without food every day. Again, I come from a riding with agriculture. We grow food. We raise beef. There is no reason for kids to go to school hungry, but when one's parents cannot afford the basic necessities, when they have to choose between making the rent payment or the mortgage payment and buying good, nourishing meals, that is a shame. That is what the government has created. After nine years of the Prime Minister, roughly 64% of one's average monthly income is needed to pay the monthly costs associated with housing. When I grew up, housing was a dream that was achievable. We dreamt of owning a house. Actually, I was lucky to own a house relatively young in life and able to own a house right through. I own a house today. I look at kids and people's grandkids, and that dream has become a fantasy. It is something they actually look at and very realistically say, “If I am going to own a house, I will have nothing else. I will be house poor. The cost of owning a house is so unachievable; it is not an option for me.” That dream has left Canadians. It is crazy. There is no reason not to have that dream. There is no reason not to work toward owning a house. There is no reason not to have a house, a safe place to raise one's family, one's kids, especially in Canada. After nine years, this is no longer an option. After nine years of the Prime Minister, food banks received a record two million visits in a single month last year. Two million Canadians are going to the food bank. Why is the government not listening when it hears stats like that? These are stats, hard, hard figures, talking about what is actually going on in this country. There are two million Canadians going to the food bank just so they can feed their family. Does the government not think this is a problem? Should it not address it in the budget? Should the government not say, “Wait a minute. Maybe we need to change course. Obviously what we have been trying is not working”? One would think that there would be serious reflection on what has been done, but there is nothing. The NDP-Liberal coalition talks about caring for families. What it has done is the exact opposite. Under its watch, its failed policies have contributed to the worsening situation we see across our country. The budget is nothing more than a continuation of failed policies. There is no reflection, no second sober thought, just continuing on and barging ahead with the failed policies. With nearly $40 billion in new inflationary spending, it is no wonder Canadians cannot get ahead. As Canadians try to take one step forward, the Liberal government keeps pulling them back two steps at a time. The Liberals are hurting people. They do not understand it, but they really are hurting Canadians. Let us look at housing, for example. Nine years after the Prime Minister promised to lower the price of housing, of rents and mortgages in Canada, they have doubled, and Canadians are forced to live in tent encampments in nearly every city across Canada. It is cold here. It is -30°C or -40°C in the wintertime and they are stuck living in tents. How shameful that is. Under the Prime Minister, Canada is building fewer homes than we did in 1970 when we had half the population, and housing is more expensive for everyone. We are not building houses. What policies has the government put in place that have actually disincentivized Canadians to build houses? Liberals should reflect on that and maybe change course. From speaking to the members of my community, I know that parents are worried about the life that their children will have. Before the current Prime Minister, Canadian households earning the median income could cover the cost of owning a house. Roughly 39% of their pay went to housing. According to RBC, that number has now risen, and Canadians now need to spend 64% to 69% of a median income just put a roof over their head. That does not leave a lot of money to take the kids to soccer. It does not leave a lot of money for buying hockey equipment. It does not leave a lot of money for kids to take their mothers to a Mother's Day brunch on Sunday. The moms out there should not be mad at their kids if they do not invite them out for brunch this year. They really would like to, but they just cannot afford to because they have spent so much on housing and everything else. Moms are tremendous people. They did not foresee raising kids in a country where they would not be able to fulfill the dream of owning a house. That falls upon the government, the NDP-Liberal coalition. We need a government and a budget that are focused on addressing the affordability challenges Canadians face. The government has caused those challenges and only gives a facade of caring when it is down 20% in the polls. The Liberals are not doing it for Canadians; they are doing it to maintain power. Let us look at the crime wave across Canada, an issue that is plaguing our streets and making life less safe for Canadians. Auto theft and violent crime are on the rise under the Prime Minister. Canadians are tired of the Liberals' catch-and-release programs that have led to higher insurance costs, higher security costs and a higher human cost. There is nothing but talk, platitudes and photo ops. There is no real concrete action. I recently put forward a private member's bill, Bill C-379, an act to amend the Criminal Code for motor vehicle thefts, which would lock up for three years those who have stolen a third car. It would not include a newcomer or somebody who went for a joyride and did something stupid; it would be for the third offence. If someone has been convicted three times, the individual should at least get three years. It is common sense. It would show action and that we are moving forward. I also proposed that judges and prosecutors take into consideration that a crime was committed to benefit organized crime. For this, people would receive a stronger sentence. If someone is stealing a vehicle for third time, they are not a petty criminal. However, the NDP-Liberal coalition has indicated that it is going to vote against the bill. This is an example of making photo ops and not taking action, but again they do not listen. They are not reacting to what Canadians need; they are doing what they think their failed policies are filling in, and they are continuing with failed policies. All the Liberals have done is photo ops and more photo ops. It is real people, whose cars are being stolen and who are victims of violent crime and extortion, who are feeling the impact. The budget fails to treat the crime wave as the epidemic it really is across this country. It is one thing to host a summit, but it is another thing to implement meaningful legislation, which the budget would not. I would like to talk about the $61 billion in new inflationary spending that will end up costing every Canadian an extra $3,687 a year. Both the Bank of Canada and former Liberal finance minister John Manley told the Prime Minister that he was pressing on the inflationary gas pedal with his spending that balloons interest rates, but the Prime Minister did not listen. It is not a surprise. Even the former Liberal governor of the Bank of Canada, David Dodge, warned the Liberals that their spending is making it harder to bring down interest rates, but again the Prime Minister did not listen. As a result, the Bank of Canada went on the most aggressive interest rate hike campaign in its history. As the millions of Canadians renewing their mortgages know, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost, and struggling families cannot afford the higher taxes that come with him, so when it comes to this budget, I will not be voting for it. This budget missed the mark in so many ways. The Liberals had a huge opportunity to get things right, and for the ninth time in a row, they failed.

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Mr. Chris Bittle (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, Lib.)

May/7/24 12:16:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was listening to the hon. member's speech when he was talking about auto thefts, which was interesting as the hon. member voted against increased penalties for auto theft back in the 42nd Parliament. The member and a lot of Conservatives mention mandatory minimums time after time. It is a very American-style justice. Can the member point to any jurisdiction in the United States that uses that type of policy? Is that jurisdiction safer than it is here in Canada?

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Mr. Randy Hoback

May/7/24 12:17:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that the Liberals seem to be more interested in American-style politics than in listening to constituents, like the constituents in the riding of Prince Albert. My constituents tell me that they do not want those repeat offenders back out on the streets. They want to see concrete action. They also say that the judicial system is not doing its job, putting these people behind bars. That is why the constituents are asking for mandatory minimums. That is why they have instructed me to come to Ottawa on their behalf and to put something in place that does something concrete to stop this problem. What does the Liberal government do? It looks to the U.S. Do not look at the U.S.; Liberal members should talk to their constituents and should ask them what they want. The Liberal members will be surprised. The constituents will say that they do not want their car stolen for the third time. They do not want to be threatened in their homes. They do not want to leave their keys in the ashtray by the door because the current government will do nothing to stop it.

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Ms. Lori Idlout (Nunavut, NDP)

May/7/24 12:17:54 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, I am quite fascinated by the dramatics of the member's intervention and by just how much disinformation is shared in the Conservative interventions I have heard since I have been elected. What I heard from the MP is about the privilege he has always had in his life and about the privilege he continues to push forward, especially when he was talking about housing. He spoke about how they have always had housing and about how housing was always available to them, compared to what my constituents are forced to endure. For them, housing is very much a privilege, and it is a benefit of employment. It is not something that is very easy to come by. I think the reality is that everyone in the House has power. The Conservatives saying that only the Liberals or the NDP have power is such disinformation. Will the member commit to using his power, beyond just slogans, so that the policies we pass in the House actually make a difference for all Canadians?

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Privilege

Mr. Randy Hoback

May/7/24 12:19:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a good, sincere question. We are privileged to live in Canada. We are. We are privileged to own a house. We are privileged to represent Canadians, in Canada, in a democracy, here in the House, to take advantage of that democracy and to bring their views to the House of Commons. We have the right to choose whether we are going to vote against or for the budget, based on the directions from our constituents. If the member went back to her riding right now, would her constituents endorse this budget? Would they tell the NDP to vote with the Liberal government, at all costs, to keep it in power? I do not think so. If she were to go back to her riding, with the privilege she has to represent them, and if she were to ask them what she should do, they would say to vote against this budget. The Liberals have done nothing for housing in the north. They have done nothing to deal with addictions in the north. They have done nothing to deal with the cost of food in the north. What have they delivered to the north? They have delivered nothing, and the member recognizes that. I would like to help the member see a better way forward, but I cannot do it in opposition. I can only do it under a government led by the Conservative Party of Canada because we have the policies to deal with those issues. If she is really representing her riding, she would break ranks with the NDP and would vote this budget down.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC)

May/7/24 12:20:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Governor of the Bank of Canada has said that pouring more deficit spending is like pouring more gas on the inflationary fire, but this budget pours another $40 billion on. Could the member describe the impacts of that to people across the country?

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Mr. Randy Hoback

May/7/24 12:21:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is such a big issue. I will use a very simple example. Interest rates go up. Mortgage rates go up. For their mortgage now, people pay more interest costs. Therefore, instead of paying, let us say, $3,000 or $2,000 a month, now they are paying $3,000 or $4,000 a month. That is after-tax dollars taken out of their pockets just for interest costs. That is because of the inflation policy.

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Mrs. Marilène Gill (Manicouagan, BQ)

May/7/24 12:21:34 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-69

Madam Speaker, I have the dubious pleasure of addressing Bill C-69 and the implementation of the budget. No one will be surprised to hear that I was quite astonished when I read the budget. I am a member of the Bloc Québécois, a member who believes in Quebec independence, and yet the sheer amount of government interference in provincial areas of jurisdiction managed to exceed even my expectations. The budget shows how shameless the government is about spending money in areas under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. It is so shameless that I felt ashamed just reading it, because it demonstrated what I have said many times over the years—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/7/24 12:22:32 p.m.
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The hon. member for Jonquière on a point of order.

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Jonqui

Mr. Mario Simard

May/7/24 12:22:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am certainly not ashamed to say that I think the member will be sharing her time with me.

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Sharing

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/7/24 12:22:43 p.m.
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The hon. member for Manicouagan.

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Manicouagan

Mrs. Marilène Gill

May/7/24 12:22:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I surely mentioned it at some point, perhaps at the end of my speech. I will be sharing my time with the member for Jonquière. I could have shared it with the member for Winnipeg North, but I decided to go with the member for Jonquière. I was talking about something that I have mentioned here in the House on many occasions in recent years: The government's lack of vision, which makes the government feel obligated to work in areas that do not fall under its own jurisdiction and to neglect its own duties in favour of other things. That is having an impact on the ground. As members of Parliament, we talk with people in our ridings. These are often very informal discussions. People ask us questions in good faith, as sometimes happens in the House. They ask us what the legacy of this government, which has been in office for three consecutive terms, will be. They often mention 2017 and the Cannabis Act. Apart from that, I want to more formally ask this question: What kind of legacy will the Liberals leave after all those years in office or even with this budget? For me, that is what is still missing from this budget. Obviously, the budget contains several measures. There are 650 pages of measures. That is a lot of measures. At the same time, as many have said, we get the impression that the budget is all over the place. Let me get back to the thrust of the budget. Is there anything in there that provides direction, some orientation? It talks about the future and vision. The fact is that the future presupposes a vision and vice versa. There is nothing like that in the budget. There is also the issue of government responsibilities. I would like to point out that it is the same thing when we discuss certain bills in the House, for example defence bills. We do not talk about that often. We could also mention fisheries and oceans and international trade. They too are absent. There is little to no trace of these issues in the speeches and bills in the House. In short, everything under federal jurisdiction is missing. I said I was surprised, but I was actually shocked. I said that the government went further than it usually goes. The government can spend because it collects more money than it needs to fulfill its responsibilities. If it is not working on its own areas of responsibility, maybe that is because it has too much money. As a result, it spends in Quebec and provincial jurisdictions. This time there is no unconditional opting out. There are conditions. For example, Quebec will not be able to get money from the federal government to manage its own areas of jurisdiction. The Prime Minister even criticized the provinces, Quebec and elected municipal officials. He is playing king. The analogy may be shaky, but it is still an analogy. The Prime Minister decides for everyone. He is the only one with sound judgment and good ideas. He can do the job of everyone working at their own level of government. Everyone knows that I would rather have only two levels, the municipal and Quebec. I am truly shocked. Obviously, I will be voting against the budget implementation bill. I would also like to comment on the budget’s title. I mentioned earlier that the budget’s measures are all over the place. The budget’s title mentions fairness for every generation. That is one way of putting together measures that are neither cohesive nor coherent. It does not stand up. However, we in the Bloc continue to hammer home that we oppose discrimination against seniors. It would have been easy to include a provision in the budget stipulating that all seniors, even those under the age of 75, would receive the same old age security increase. That is not the case right now. They talk about fairness. I agree, it is a praiseworthy concept. To be sure, we want every generation to have pretty much the same opportunities, but this is phony. It is phony because I believe that what seniors in my region want is to no longer be discriminated against. What is being proposed still discriminates against them. Therefore, in my view, the objective of abolishing all intergenerational inequities is not being met. This point is very important for the Bloc Québécois and for seniors. We are speaking up for our people. The same goes for young people when it comes to fossil fuels. Who will bear the brunt of climate change and rising temperatures? That would be our young people, including those who live in my region. I could speak for my riding, and I know young people well—I have several at home, as a matter of fact. As for climate change, young people think it makes no sense at all to buy a pipeline and spend billions of dollars on a form of energy that we should have replaced yesterday, never mind today. I do not want to be told about equality of opportunity. The industrial development of the past two centuries has brought us to an absolutely untenable place. What the government is doing makes no sense at all. They are speeding up rather than applying the brakes. There is no equity here. I would also talk about regional equity. Yes, there is a generational element, but there are disparities throughout the territory. There are some members here, even from other parties, who spoke about it a bit earlier. For example, my colleague from Nunavut spoke about the north. I represent a rural riding rich in natural resources. Most of the time, I am unable to travel home. I have to drive 10, 15, 20 or even 30 hours to get somewhere where I get on a snowmobile or some other form of transportation to get home. It is nearly impossible to get there. These are northern regions and we are not really talking about fishing. I am talking about a resource-rich region, of course. We have the mining sector, which is very rich, but fishery workers are often people who struggle to make ends meet. There are many examples. I mentioned six, I believe. There is also the issue of nutrition north Canada. There were discussions about food. There were already problems with costs. It is all well and good to talk about inflation or food banks, but when it comes to the Lower North Shore, when it comes to Shefferville, that is a whole different story. That too needs improvement. I could give many, many examples like that. As for employment insurance, it is the same thing. If we are talking about equity, we should think about what that means for the regions as well. I heard the parliamentary secretary talk about the whole issue of rural regions, but that is not going to cut it. What the government is offering does not correspond to what the people in my riding want. I think it is unfortunate when parties decide to govern based not on their duties, but on their interests, particularly their electoral interests. There are several measures in this budget that are not ready to be implemented. These are really measures that will be implemented after 2025, in other words, after the next election. Again, I will be voting against the bill. Maybe I do have something in common with the government after all, because I too would like one government to be responsible for every jurisdiction, but I want it to be the government of an independent Quebec.

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Mr. Brad Vis (Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, CPC)

May/7/24 12:31:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am increasingly concerned that the Bloc Québécois is continuing to work hand in hand with the government. We are increasingly seeing the Bloc Québécois become more centralized and more willing to prop up the federal government. My question is this. Will the Bloc Québécois, which is working with the government, respect British Columbia's provincial areas of jurisdiction?

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