- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Niagara Falls
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $102,468.80
- Government Page
- Feb/14/23 4:32:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when our Conservative leader first spoke before the fall economic statement was introduced last November, he made two very clear and simple demands on behalf of our Conservative Party.
First, we wanted the Liberal government to stop the taxes. This included cancelling all planned tax hikes and the tripling of the carbon tax. Fast-forward a few months to February, and it is clear that the current Liberal government is on track to do the exact opposite. Taxes went up on Canadians this past January, and this April it is only going to get worse.
Late last year, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation sounded the alarm about five incoming Liberal tax hikes in 2023. These hikes include increases that Canadians will see at the gas pumps, an alcohol escalator tax, increases to the Canada pension plan, hikes to employment insurance contributions and increases to payroll taxes for anyone making $40,000 or more this year.
This April 1, gasoline is set to go up by 14¢ per litre, and alcohol taxes are automatically set to rise by 6.3%. This is no cruel April Fool's joke. This is the damage done by bad Liberal fiscal policy. Locally, across Niagara, these taxes, particularly the alcohol escalator tax, will punish many wineries, craft breweries and distilleries, as well as anyone who enjoys consuming these wonderful Canadian-made products while visiting Niagara, which is the number one leisure tourism destination in all of Canada.
The second demand of our Conservative leader was for the Liberal government to stop the spending. Any new spending by Liberal ministers in the government must be matched by an equivalent savings. The government must cut wasteful spending and stop the inflationary deficits that drive up the cost of everything for Canadians. Again, fast-forward to this month, and the Liberals are failing to make good on this demand.
In fact, as time goes on, more and more wasteful and reckless Liberal spending is being uncovered. In the fall, there was the $6,000 luxurious hotel room that our Prime Minister stayed in for a one-night stay in Europe. Then, there was the $54 million wasted on the disastrous ArriveCAN app. Recently, the Auditor General blasted the CRA for its lack of rigour in trying to identify and recoup a minimum of $27.4 billion in suspected overpayments of emergency aid benefits, including $15.5 billion for the Canada emergency wage subsidy.
In response to the comment from the Auditor General, the government's own CRA commissioner had the gall to inform Canadians that “it wouldn't be worth the effort” to review and try to recover every dollar of the $15.5 billion in CEWS overpayments. That insufficient response from the CRA commissioner did not get by our Parliamentary Budget Officer, who recently said it was “a bit disconcerting when you hear that and the government is faced with a deficit.”
For these reasons and more, Conservatives are asking the House today to call on the Liberal government to cap spending, cut waste, fire high-priced consultants and eliminate inflationary deficits and taxes that have caused a cost-of-living crisis for Canadians.
Simply put, after eight years of the current Liberal government, Canadians pay more today for their goods and services and are getting less. Groceries, gas, home heating and more are getting more expensive by the day because of the reckless Liberal spending habits. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, the cost of groceries is up almost 11%. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, half of Canadians are cutting back on groceries. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, 20% of Canadians are skipping meals.
In Niagara, a recent report found that almost 39,000 people are being assisted by local food banks across the region. Those serving on the front lines are witnessing people struggling who have never struggled before. Under these deteriorating conditions, Canadians work harder to try to get ahead, but they take home less money because of higher costs for the things they need to buy and the higher taxes they will have to pay.
Just yesterday, in fact, we had new data provided by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, which reported that nearly four in 10 Canadians are now borrowing money to pay for groceries, shelter and other daily expenses. According to the report, “many Canadians are facing the biggest financial challenges of their lives. More are borrowing money to cover their day-to-day expenses, including by using high-cost loans.” It is no wonder Canadians feel like everything is broken and they have lost control. Many are falling behind, even as they try hard to get ahead.
It comes as no surprise that the same reckless Liberal spending habits, which have played a big role in driving up inflation, have also caused our national debt to soar. Debt interest payments have become so big under the Liberals that the costs are projected to be larger than what the federal government spends on the budget for the Department of National Defence. We should remember that the next time we have to scramble our outdated and under-equipped CF-18s and watch the Americans shoot down airborne threats over our territory.
It is getting so bad that some former Liberals are finally starting to acknowledge it. One random Liberal is former finance minister Bill Morneau. He has said that the government probably spent too much during COVID. Meanwhile, former Liberal deputy prime minister and finance minister John Manley said that the Liberal Prime Minister's fiscal policy is making it harder to contain inflation.
There are direct consequences to the Liberal government's recklessly spending the cupboards bare. Will the government be able to live up to the expectations it set for its new federal tourism growth strategy? The tourism minister has spent the last several months asking the industry to think big on ideas to expedite economic recovery from the devastating impact of COVID-19, yet fear is now beginning to grow in the tourism community that the Liberal government is once again failing to understand that the industry is still in recovery mode. It appears that, once again, the Liberal government is setting itself up to over-promise and under-deliver. That is a great shame for tourism communities across the country, such as mine in Niagara, which welcomes visitors from around the world.
As well, what is to happen to the wine sector support program, which was put in place because of the Liberal government's ineptitude on trade policy? The two-year, $166-million program has ended, yet the industry has asked for it to be extended, and there have been no updates about its renewal. Last year's budget showed that the government would raise $390 million over five years in new revenue by now applying the excise tax to 100% Canadian-made wines. Where are those funds going?
For months, Conservatives have been warning the government that its out-of-control spending would lead to an increase in interest rates. The government responded by telling Canadians not to worry and to go ahead and take out big loans since interest rates would remain low for a long time and there would not be any negative consequences. Well, after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, 45% of variable rate mortgage holders now say they will have to sell or vacate their homes in less than nine months due to the current interest rate levels.
After eight years of the Liberal government, everything feels broken, and Canadians are having a harder time not only getting by, but simply hoping to try to get ahead. After eight years of this Liberal recklessness, Canadians have to work harder, work longer and even work multiple jobs just to take home less earnings and to get by.
Enough is enough. While Liberals are expecting Canadians to pay for their reckless spending habits, Canadians can count on Conservatives to provide them with the sound financial planning and path ahead when they elect us into government after the next federal election.
Canadians must realize that as the Liberals make more and more promises for a better tomorrow to distract us from the issues of today, none of the problems they have created, which Canadians now face, are getting fixed. Canadians need real solutions to these real problems that they are facing right now, and only a Conservative government can deliver on this for Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in my place today to debate Bill C-31, an act respecting cost of living relief measures related to dental care and rental housing.
When the Liberals introduced this legislation in September, they would have had Canadians believe that it was a bill aimed to partly address the affordability crisis many of us are facing, but we should not be misled or misguided by their political spin. This bill is less about addressing the affordability crisis and the soaring cost of living than it is about the Liberals playing more politics at the expense of our economy and, ultimately, the well-being of Canadians.
The Liberals are only being sustained in power right now through the support of the NDP, and the NDP are only supporting the weak Liberal government to advance items on their political agenda, which they cannot advance alone as they are a party with only 25 seats. One of these items is dental care. In fairness to the NDP, they are calling for the development of a comprehensive national dental care program, and this Liberal program falls far short of that.
What is Bill C-31? It is a temporary measure the Liberals came up with. They are using it to buy time and appease the NDP so they can keep their NDP-Liberal coalition alive and remain in power for the indefinite future. It is a program designed to make the government look like it is doing something when it did very little all summer to address the real concerns Canadians face.
Right now, 70% of Canadians have a dental benefits plan. In my province of Ontario, there are currently dental plans for low-income seniors and for those on social assistance, and programs for children under the age of 17.
At a time when the provinces have been asking for increased health transfers, which they have been asking for three years now, when will the Prime Minister meet with them to address their concerns so they can enhance existing programs and services such as these, which are currently being delivered to Canadians?
After seven years of Liberal governance in Ottawa, Canadians are realizing they are not better off today compared to when the Liberals first took power in 2015. This is especially true when we consider how badly Canadians are hurting today on matters of life necessities, such has housing, food and energy. Costs have skyrocketed on all three essential life necessities. These costs are largely being driven by federal government policies that are focused on excessive spending, increasing taxes and creating new taxes to pay for these bad spending habits from a bloated and growing government bureaucracy.
When it comes to housing, young Canadians have done everything they were supposed to do to achieve success and live the Canadian dream. They earned a degree and they are working hard, yet many are still living in their parents' basements or in a small, 400-square-foot apartment because the price of housing has doubled since the Prime Minister took office. Our housing bubble is the second largest in the world. Recently, we learned that the percentage of Canadians who own their own home is at its lowest level in over 30 years.
When the Prime Minister took office, Canadians were paying 32% of their income, on average, to maintain a mid-sized home. Now the average family has to pay 50% of their income just to keep their home. A one-time payment of $500 will do nothing to address the real issues of housing affordability many Canadians face. In fact, more than six out of 10 renters will not qualify for the Liberal's inflationary spending cheques.
Many of the inflationary issues and concerns we face are of the government's own making. We have pointed out for months that the Liberals out-of-control spending would lead to an increase in interest rates. The government has responded by telling Canadians not to worry, to go ahead and take out big loans, since interest rates would remain low for a long time and there would never be any negative consequences. Now we are seeing interest rates rise 300 basis points, or 3% in simple terms.
In terms of food and food production, the Liberal government has increased farmers' taxes. That increases the cost of fertilizer and energy needed to produce food. Now it wants to limit the use of fertilizer. That will require farming more land to produce the same quantity of food. Tractors and other equipment will have to cover a larger area, burning more diesel and other fuels. More food will have to be imported. Bringing this food from other countries to Canada will again require using more energy.
For Niagara agriculture, this means it will cost more to grow grapes and local produce like peaches and cherries, and make our local Canadian-made wine even more expensive. In terms of food consumption, these higher production costs get passed along to us, the consumers, when we go to the grocery store or local farmers' markets to buy our food to feed our families.
Food price increases are already hurting many Canadians. For example, here are some of the headlines reported by the media that indicate this growing problem: “Child hunger a major concern in Canada amid skyrocketing food prices”; “Niagara Falls families straining under the weight of soaring prices”; “Food Banks facing unprecedented demand in Niagara”; “GTA food banks say they're facing the highest demand in their history”; “Nearly 6 million people in Canada experienced food insecurity in 2021, U of T study says”. The list of these troubling headlines goes on.
This does not sound like the developed and strong country our parents and grandparents fought through two world wars for and built throughout their lives with their hard work and labour. After seven years of Liberal governance, the Prime Minister and his government have eroded and undermined our collective and individual wealth, massively indebted future generations and repeatedly blocked and suppressed economic and financial opportunities for Canadian workers, businesses and industries in all regions of our country.
Since 2015, the Liberal government has become big and bloated. It has grown too large. Its reach has become too wide, and its actions are becoming far too intrusive into the private lives of Canadians. It picks winners and losers based on its political priorities, and its bad spending habits are entrenched. That is why it is desperate to increase taxes and create new taxes against hard-working Canadians. It is so it can continue feeding its reckless big-spending appetite.
The bottom line is that Bill C-31 is just another big-spending Liberal plan that only serves to keep the NDP-Liberal coalition alive. Of course, it masks it using affordability language, but in reality, it does nothing to bring down the costs of necessities such as housing, food and energy, including fuel and heating. The Conservative leader said it best in his speech when he said, “That is our role, here in Parliament, to turn pain into hope. Canadians need hope.”
As I am about to conclude, I wanted to share the comments of one of my constituents, Jessica, who had some real concerns about Bill C-31. In her recent note to me, she wrote, “The $600 benefit should not be going towards dental billing directly. As a low-income parent, for myself and my son, I have looked into some quotes for the bundle of dental, pharmacy and medical care, and I have seen quotes, at least for myself, at about $100 per month (unaffordable though compelling).
“In other words, I am expressing that having a benefit to get started up on my family's medical and dental insurance is the help our family needs and should be getting from the government, rather than having the funds wasted on one or two dental visits when myself and my son could both get coverage, receive the $600 (even half annually) and have more medical benefits to keep us healthy. This is important to me as well as I approach middle age.”
I am proud to support my new leader in his mission to make a real difference in Canadians' lives through supporting policy measures that will actually make life more affordable. Bill C-31 would not do that. It is not a bill that would actually help Canadians. It is a bill designed to keep the NDP happy so that the NDP-Liberal coalition can continue.
We need to give Canadians back control of their lives in the freest country in the world, where the dollar keeps its value, so our citizens can have the life they work so hard to build.
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- Sep/23/22 11:49:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, because of the current government's actions, the workers in my riding have been left suffering with an affordability crisis. If three years of COVID were not bad enough, Liberal policies have only added to their pain: from the disastrous ArriveCAN app driving down tourism visits to new taxes and higher spending driving up inflation. The hard-working residents of Niagara are now earning less when they deserve so much more.
When will the government finally realize the error of its ways and end its planned tax increases on Canadians' hard-earned paycheques?
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