- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Peterborough—Kawartha
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $106,196.43
- Government Page
- Dec/5/23 5:18:44 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is always a true honour to stand in the House of Commons to speak on behalf of the best community in Canada, Peterborough—Kawartha.
After eight years of a Prime Minister who has recklessly spent taxpayer money, we have a cost of living crisis. If the economy does not work, then nothing works. Charities and social programs suffer, and everything we need to take care of our most vulnerable is no longer available.
Why are there tent cities across this country? Why are full-time employed nurses living in their cars? Why are seniors forced back to work? Why do we have the highest rate of food bank usage in history? Why are Canadians getting poorer? Why do we have the lowest GDP per capita growth rate since the Great Depression? It is because we have a Prime Minister who does not care about monetary policy. Those are his words, not mine.
This is basic Budgeting 101. Most kids can tell us that if we spend more money than we make, we are going to have a major problem. That is exactly what the Prime Minister has done. He did not understand what would happen if he borrowed gobs of money. He was warned many times, but, as we have seen over and over again, the Prime Minister refuses to listen to the people. He doubles down on policy that creates chaos and suffering. The Prime Minister promised everyone that interest rates would stay low for a long time.
Who remembers the exchange on CTV in 2020 with the Prime Minister? CTV's Glen McGregor said, “Future governments are going to have to carry that debt. The servicing costs on that are going to be very high.” The Prime Minister replied, “Sorry?” Glen McGregor responded, “The servicing cost on that debt that you are going to have to carry, that you're adding to right now. Right?” The Prime Minister said, “Interest rates are at historic lows, Glen.” Three years later, we are in a very serious situation.
The current housing minister is also on record telling Canadians that interest rates will stay low for a long time and not to worry. Surprise, just as Conservatives predicted, they did not; now we have chaos and suffering.
In order to understand how we got here, we need to understand why. What is the motivation of the Liberal-NDP government? It believes that government knows best and that it will take care of the people, that the people are not capable. Let us take the Liberals' favourite talking point, for example: child care. This is a classic example of a program that has created more losers than winners. The Liberals drove up inflation by overspending and borrowing gobs of money, which drove up the cost of living. What happened? That promised money to make child care more affordable became less valuable, because this is the cycle of overspending. Child care centres now need more and more money, because money is worth less. It is a vicious cycle, and we will never get out of debt. We will go further and further into debt.
Do members know that, right now, we are spending more on servicing our debt than we are on health care transfers in this country? It is wild that a government in charge of fiscal responsibility has not seen what it has been doing. It does not understand that when one spends more than one makes, one accrues debt. The government does not have money. It has Canadian taxpayers' money, and it can only make money by taxing people. That is what we have seen in this country. People's paycheques have decreased over and over again.
Because I am the critic for families, children and social development, I want to read an open letter by ADCO, which is the Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario. It really explains the ideology behind the government and why it is so important to understand this. The letter says, “The framers of the program,” referring to the $10-a-day child care, “seem to have a strong preference for building a government-run child care system, even if it means parents with young children have to work more hours so that they can pay higher taxes to cover the costs. The assumption seems to be that all children are better off in government-managed institutionalized care and that all parents can and should be employed full-time.”
This out-of-control spending has caused chaos in every sector of our country. As I have said, when the economy does not work, nothing works. However, we have a finance minister and Prime Minister who continually gaslight Canadians and tell them that they have never had it so good. Canadians are not stupid, but they are miserable.
I want to read some messages that have come through to me:
Hi, Michelle...I'm a single mom of a 19 YO in college and a 15 YO in high school with no child support. I'm paying almost $1600 rent plus approx $1000 for utilities, car payment and insurances for a 3 bedroom townhouse in the “ghetto of Burlington”. As tenants move out, they are gutting the units, adding central air, stainless appliances and raising rents to over $2500. I work in healthcare and live basically cheque to cheque. I only buy groceries that are on sale or in the reduced bin. Thankfully I was gifted a large freezer and buy fresh items on sale and am able to freeze. I make a decent wage. I do not know how others do it making less than I do. Something needs to be done.
There is also this one:
We bought our house six years ago and we have a variable mortgage, so we are already feeling the effects of the higher interest rates. Over the last year and a half, our mortgage has gone from $3400 a month to $5000. My husband and I both work full-time and we have two young kids. We have had to rent our basement in order to afford our mortgage increase. If even one single month goes by that we don't get the rent income, we will not make our mortgage. If our mortgage continues to rise, even with the rent income, we won't make our mortgage. It is extremely scary. Every time the interest rate rises, I wait for the letter in the mail to tell me how much higher my mortgage is going to be. It's terrifying and quite literally taking away from the quality of life that I can offer to my children.
That is the message I cannot say loud enough in this House: Our children are feeling the consequences of this.
I recently gave a talk about basic politics to grade 5 students. They are 10 years old. We did a mock House of Commons. It was very fun to get these kids engaged in politics. I said, “Okay, we get to decide what issue you guys want to debate. We will take a vote and do the majority.”
Six kids raised their hand. Do members know what the number one issue was for every one of them? It was that everything is too pricey. They said their parents cannot afford gas, cannot afford food and cannot afford the mortgage.
This is the burden we put on our children when we do not put fiscal responsibility first and when we do not care about monetary policy. That is exactly what the Liberal Prime Minister has done, and it is hurting our most vulnerable. We can read any headline. Charities cannot make it happen anymore. Today is International Volunteer Day, but people cannot find volunteers because they cannot afford the gas to drive to volunteer. That is the reality of what we are living in this country.
We have put forth lots of solutions. I will be brief in what the solutions are, but the real solution has to come down to the fact that the government cannot tax the farmer who makes the food. Farmer Brown from Ontario phoned me this week. He said that he wanted me to tell the Prime Minister that the carbon tax will make everything cost more, that everything must go up in price. Whatever they spend to make the product, they have to get back when they sell it. Whatever amount the carbon tax is increased by, the price will have to go up that amount. They have to get that money back, and the only way to do that is to raise prices.
Farmer Brown gets it. Why does the Prime Minister not get it? We are long overdue for common sense, and Conservatives will bring it.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague across the way for his intervention. It was enjoyable to hear him speak. With his experience and knowing what he knows, right off the top he talked about how the Liberals lost their way with that fiscal anchor. We have a debt so high right now that people are using food banks, as he mentioned.
However, the point I want to hone in on is child care. As the critic for child care, I think he brought up a very interesting point we are working on at committee right now, which is access.
This budget does not address the fact that thousands of families cannot access affordable child care. This is hurting women everywhere. They cannot go back to work because they cannot find child care. What are his thoughts on the budget and how they are allocating money to child care?
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- Oct/28/22 11:33:37 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's attempt to answer the question, but that is not an answer for why we have a trillion-dollar debt. It is not an answer when we have an increasing carbon tax and four million Canadians rely on propane and oil to heat their homes. This is not a luxury; this is a necessity. The average family is going to pay $7,000 to heat their home this winter. They have to choose between heating and eating.
Again, will the Liberals finally show leadership, fiscal responsibility and compassion and stop the tripling of their carbon tax?
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- Oct/20/22 8:48:36 p.m.
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Madam Chair, what we do on this side of the House is make sure money is spent well. We know where money should go. When we have an app that should have cost less than $250,000 and it cost $54 million and the government does not even know where it is, that is what we are talking about when we talk about fiscal constraint.
There is so much wasted money, and money is a sliver of the piece of the pie. One needs political will, a strategy and a plan. It is absolutely insulting for the member to say that when there is so much wasteful spending. That is not what we are talking about. There is a promised budget of $4.5 billion from the Liberal government and we have not seen it.
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Madam Speaker, my question comes from a place of ideology, fiscal responsibility and the overall big picture of where the Liberal government sees the future of Canadians and of helping those who are suffering most and those who definitely need relief.
How does the member across the way feel about the difference between investing in relief and investing in development, and about the sustainability of giving people an opportunity or a hand-up rather than a handout?
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