- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Niagara Falls
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 69%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $102,468.80
- Government Page
- Apr/15/24 2:05:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is powered by tourism. That is the theme of this year's National Tourism Week. In my riding, the communities of Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie are definitely powered by tourism.
Niagara Falls alone is Canada's top leisure tourism destination, and the overall visitor experience is enhanced by the beautiful vineyards and wineries in Niagara-on-the-Lake and the rich cultural history, shopping experiences and trail systems found throughout all three communities.
However, Canadian tourism has not fully recovered. Tourism workers and operators can blame the Liberal government's high taxes and out-of-control spending for driving up inflation and the cost of travelling throughout Canada. As a result, recovery is slow and uneven, and Canada is losing its competitive edge.
Canada is powered by tourism, but tourism can be further powered by axing the tax so our tourism workers can once again bring home powerful paycheques and our tourism operators can once again thrive by welcoming the world to our magnificent destinations. Let us bring it home.
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- Jun/2/23 11:53:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is an interesting response. Surely our tourism minister knows that travel is a discretionary activity. Adding 41¢ a litre to gas through the first carbon tax will not help. A second Liberal carbon tax of 17¢ will hurt as well. If we add GST to that, we have a tax on a tax on a tax. Canadians need tax relief, not another tax.
When will the Liberal government axe the tax and help the tourism sector recovery fully this year?
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- Jun/2/23 11:52:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canada's tourism sector, and Canadians who enjoy travelling, are under attack by the Liberal government's out-of-control spending and tax hikes.
A recent Ipsos report found that six in 10 Canadians are now planning to scale back on their summer vacation plans, yet the Liberal government continues to hike taxes, like adding a second carbon tax to the price of gas, which will add 17¢ per litre.
Does the government not realize its taxes add up and will ultimately hurt Canada's tourism industry and our chances of achieving a full tourism recovery?
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- May/1/23 3:04:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada's tourism industry and Canadians who enjoy travelling are under attack by the current Liberal government's out-of-control spending and taxes. A recent report found that six in 10 Canadians are scaling back their summer vacation plans, while a quarter say they cannot even afford a vacation. While Canadians struggle with affordability, the Liberal government continues to raise taxes, like the carbon tax, which costs Canadians more than they get back. As the PM jet sets across the globe, hard-working Canadians also deserve a chance to enjoy a vacation.
Will the Prime Minister end his punishing carbon tax?
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- Apr/25/23 2:09:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is powered by tourism. That is the theme of this year's National Tourism Week. In my community of Niagara, some 2,800 tourism-related businesses employ 40,000 residents who rely on tourism for their paycheques.
In 2019, Niagara welcomed more than 13 million visitors, generating $2.4 billion in receipts. We are Canada's largest tourism leisure destination. However, Canadian tourism has yet to fully recover. Big Liberal tax hikes, like the carbon tax and the escalator clause, are hindering our once competitive advantage.
More troubling is the fact that while the Prime Minister was vacationing at a $9,000-a-night resort in Jamaica, six in 10 Canadians are now saying they are scaling back their vacation plans due to the higher costs being driven by the Liberal government. This needs to change.
A Conservative government would lower Liberal taxes and slash the costs harming our tourism industry and workers. It is time we create the conditions where our tourism businesses flourish so the world once again knows Canada is open for business.
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- Mar/22/23 8:24:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when my colleague talks about the jobs that the government has created, he fails to recognize the impact of COVID on tourism and hospitality communities such as Niagara. During COVID, 40,000 people almost immediately lost their jobs. The sector is still struggling to recover, and regressive tax policies such as the escalator tax are preventing people from getting their full employment back. The impacts on restaurants are staggering, preventing restaurant owners from hiring those people back.
How would he comment on that?
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- Nov/15/22 2:12:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this morning I was pleased to meet with members from the Hotel Association of Canada who travelled to Ottawa this week as part of their annual day of advocacy.
The contributions of the hotel sector to our tourism economy are significant, and I saw first-hand how badly this sector was devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic in my tourism community. This was unnecessarily prolonged by the government's disastrous ArriveCAN app. The required use of this app at our borders and airports could have been lifted this past spring or earlier. Instead, the federal government delayed its end and cost the tourism industry its chance at a recovery for the 2022 summer season.
The economic recovery of Canada's hotel sector is key to the rebound in growth of the Canadian tourism industry. Today, let us celebrate the Canadian hotel sector for the resilience it has demonstrated through the past two and a half years, and for the bright future it has ahead.
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- Oct/24/22 2:01:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support my new Conservative leader and the results he is getting for Canadians.
Less than one month after the election, the federal Liberals threw in the towel and gave up on defending the disastrous ArriveCAN app. For many months, medical experts have told MPs that ArriveCAN could have been scraped as early as this past spring. Instead, the Liberals held on and continued its mandatory use through summer of 2022, crushing any chance for an economic recovery for our hardest-hit tourism sector. Not only did this useless app cost Canadians tens of millions of wasted taxpayer dollars, it also cost our economy untold billions of dollars in lost tourism revenue.
Before the pandemic, the Canadian tourism industry was valued at $105 billion. Today, it is down to $80 billion largely because of failed Liberal pandemic policies, like the mandatory use of ArriveCAN.
At a time when many economists are predicting rough waters ahead for the Canadian economy, the Liberals continue to waste precious taxpayer money on this useless app—
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- Oct/20/22 2:08:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this morning I had the pleasure to meet with members from the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. Tourism matters. It enables economic development and job creation. My community of Niagara Falls is the number one leisure tourism destination in all of Canada, generating some $2.4 billion in receipts. More importantly, it employs almost 40,000 workers.
The recovery of Canada's visitor economy is key to Canada's overall economic growth, and I encourage all members of the House to meet with representatives of TIAC to discuss the impact tourism has, not only on this country but also in each of our communities. As they say, all politics is local, and so too is tourism.
As the newly appointed shadow minister for tourism, I am committed to working with our Canadian travel and tourism stakeholders, including members of TIAC, to find creative and innovative ideas to expedite and support the recovery of our tourism sector across Canada, including in my home communities of Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie.
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Madam Speaker, yesterday we had an opportunity to meet with representatives from the Frontier Duty Free Association. Two of the three representatives at that meeting were from my riding.
They told us that during the pandemic the revenues generated by these duty-free operations were down 90% to 95%. They approached governments for support, and at every turn they were rebuffed in trying to get support to continue their operations. Now that things are beginning to open, after the first two long weekends in both Canada and the United States, they are still 50% down.
Again, we are tying the hands of our tourism sector behind its back. We need to allow them to do what they do best and let them welcome visitors from throughout the world. In my community alone, 23% of the visitor base is American, but they generate over 50% of the revenues. When they go home, they have an opportunity to visit a duty-free store, make purchases and then export that back into the United States. We are not allowing them to do that. It is time we make changes so we improve the tourism and hospitality sector.
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Madam Speaker, to my colleague's point, during the pre-budget consultation period, all the tourism stakeholders came forward to the government and indicated some of the programs they needed to continue moving forward going into the 2022 tourism year, including the extension of CEBA and the tourism and hospitality relief fund. However, what happened was they all ended. The government committed $1 billion to the tourism sector, but that was in the last budget for the tourism sector. That was last year.
This year, it has all ended. If the government is going to tie the hands of the tourism sector behind its back, it should allow them to do what it is they do best, and that is to welcome tourists from throughout the world. One way it could that is by getting rid of the disastrous ArriveCAN app. That is one thing the government could do, and it could do it right now.
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- Jun/7/22 11:01:14 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary spoke to a number of issues. Unfortunately, none of them touched upon tourism and the impact that the cost-of-living crisis is having on the tourism and travel sector.
Perhaps she should have spoken to two of her colleagues, who are in the House today, both former Ontario ministers of tourism. They know that tourism and travel are discretionary activities and that the cost-of-living crisis will impact them. Over the next four months, the tourism industry will generate 75% of its revenues, but the government has done nothing to help the tourism sector. In fact, all support programs have now ended. The best thing the Liberals can do is get out of the way and allow the tourism sector to do what it does best: welcome people from around the world.
Does the member not agree that cutting gas taxes will assist with this? For the rubber tire market, for example, it means discretionary spending. If Canadians do not have those dollars, they are not going to visit our communities, and that would be one thing to assist them. Also, we need to end the mandates. We need to return to prepandemic travel—
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- Jun/2/22 3:08:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, budget 2022 allocates $25 million to the continued mandatory use of the ArriveCAN app, yet it failed to extend important tourism recovery programs for businesses that still needed the help. The government has been warned that the ArriveCAN app is impacting travel to Canada.
What is more important to the Liberal-NDP government: funding ArriveCAN, which clogs up our borders and deters visits, or scraping this app to help achieve tourism recovery in Niagara and throughout Canada?
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- May/19/22 12:40:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am here today to speak on behalf of my constituents: the 40,000 people who work in the tourism sector. Situations like ArriveCAN are harming the tourism industry. There is no need for the tourism sector to continue to arrive at situations that disincentivize travel.
The federal government has ended all support programs for the tourism sector, and this past budget contained no support for the tourism sector. It has tied the tourism sector's hands behind its back. It should allow it to do what it does best, which is to welcome people from throughout the world to enjoy all that Niagara has to offer. It is time to do so.
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- May/19/22 12:39:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, during this pandemic we have asked the current government to share the data and to share the science. It has continued to refuse to do so over two years.
Going back to just this February, Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease physician at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton and an associate professor at McMaster University, said that singling out travel for COVID‑19 testing “does not make any sense” since it is no riskier than any other activities. These are other stakeholders. The Canadian Tourism and Travel Roundtable has said that it is time to end and move back these harmful restrictions. They are hurting tourism. They are hurting the 40,000 people in my riding who depend on it.
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- May/5/22 2:49:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, recently I received a very concerning email from the general manager of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority. He warned that the continued use of the ArriveCAN app would result in much longer processing times and lengthy border wait times as we approach the summer tourism season. Further, these border delays will discourage cross-border travel, and will continue to adversely impact the hard-hit tourism sector in Niagara.
When will the federal government help the tourism sector in Niagara and in Canada by ending the use of the ArriveCAN app?
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- Mar/25/22 12:03:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my riding of Niagara is the number one leisure tourism destination in the country, yet since April 2020 there has been zero representation from Niagara on Destination Canada's board of directors. This means that, through the whole pandemic, which has hit our national tourism sector the hardest, Niagara has been without a voice at the table, despite there being two vacancies right now in need of appointment.
Does no one in this NDP-Liberal government understand the significance of Niagara to Canada's tourism economy? When will they reappoint someone from Niagara to Destination—
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- Mar/24/22 4:15:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to say the member's riding is just as wonderful and beautiful as mine from a tourism perspective, but mine is the number one tourism destination in all of Canada. Let us not forget that.
I would like to reiterate that the government has taken vaccines from that COVAX program, and that is something that is abhorrent. What we need to be doing is supporting those countries in order to prevent variants from coming forward again, so people can get vaccinated and so we can prevent the spread of COVID-19. What the government did was deny that from happening. That is my response to that question.
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- Mar/24/22 4:13:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have asked consistently. Last year, we had a motion before the House asking for a plan to be put forward to end the restrictions and the mandates. We have done so again, and we continue to be told no by the government and its supporters in its coalition.
We need a plan to get out of COVID. The people of Niagara Falls, those tourism workers, simply want to go back to work. They want to get back to their jobs. They want to welcome those millions of visitors who come to our community and make it the vibrant tourism community that it is. That is being denied by COVID, and we need to get back to those days.
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