- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Sarnia—Lambton
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $118,419.33
- Government Page
- May/7/24 11:31:36 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for each of the flawed programs that have been introduced in this budget, the government seems to not understand the reality.
Let us talk about the dental care program, for which the government will cover 70%. For people who cannot afford dental care, and let us say they need one crown, that means the government pays $1,000 of taxpayer money and individuals have to pay $300. People who cannot afford dental care do not have that $300.
Not only that, but the government has picked Canada Life as the monopoly that will deal with this situation. It will reimburse dentists, who were never consulted. Therefore, not enough dentists have subscribed. Once again, we see the government getting into provincial jurisdiction with skills it does not have in a program that does not understand the basic needs of the people who want to use it.
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- Feb/13/24 2:54:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians have been forced to pay through the nose for everything after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government. Not only did the government give contractors $20 million for doing no work on the arrive scam app, but the Auditor General also said that the $80,000 app cost over $60 million of taxpayer money. Now the government is increasing the carbon tax on April 1.
Why should Canadians have to foot the bill for the government's corrupt overspending?
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- Oct/26/23 12:59:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak about the Canada Infrastructure Bank. At the outset, it is important to reflect upon how this bank got started and what promises were made when it was put together.
Thirty-five billion dollars that had been earmarked for infrastructure in municipalities was taken back by the federal government to create this bank. This is money that municipalities needed to build their roads and sewers and upgrade their bridges and everything else. The government took that money and put it in this Infrastructure Bank. The story at the time was that the government was going to attract private investors and was going to leverage taxpayer money probably 11 times.
Here we are now, seven years later. I am sure members thought I was going to say “after eight long years”, but from 2016 to 2023, it is seven years. No projects have been built, and there have been lots of comments about the projects that are on the way to being built. However, as an engineer who worked in building and construction, I would say that if I had been given $35 billion seven years ago, I certainly would have built something by now, instead of just paying large salaries to executives, as we heard my colleague talk about.
In comparison, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper had multiple kinds of infrastructure funds. They spent $53 billion and did 43,000 infrastructure projects in 10 years. Compare that to seven years and zero projects completed, or compare it to some of the other infrastructure projects taken over by the Liberal government.
The Liberals took a pipeline that Kinder Morgan was going to build for $4.5 billion, paid $7 billion for it, and now it has cost $30 billion and it is not finished yet. That is the reason the committee members, when they talked about the Infrastructure Bank, listened to witnesses who were involved in it and invited the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and at the end of the day, the committee had one recommendation. That recommendation was to abolish the bank, because it clearly was not coming anywhere near achieving the goals.
With respect to the money leveraging that was supposed to happen, we can go to the government web page. The government started with $35 billion and now we see that it is $38 billion. The $3 billion extra that came as this great leveraged money is really, over that period of time, a 1.7% increase. It would have been better to put the money in the bank and invest it. The government would have made more money that it has leveraged in this existing Infrastructure Bank.
If we listen to the people who are talking about the good things the Infrastructure Bank could do, it is not that Canada does not have a need for infrastructure. We do not build anything. Under the Liberal government, 18 LNG facilities were cancelled.
Let us talk about broadband. Broadband is something everyone needs. The government has been repeatedly called on to increase the amount of broadband, but again, zero projects have come out of this particular fund.
We need nuclear facilities. We know that to meet the existing electrical demands and to grow, we do not have enough electricity in the grid, and we do not have enough infrastructure in the grid. In my riding of Sarnia—Lambton, we are having a number of new plants built, but we do not have enough electricity or infrastructure there. These are projects that Canada needs to build as a nation.
We hear demands from other places across the country where they need rail infrastructure, places that need airport infrastructure and of course there is the need for pipelines to get our products to one coast or the other.
I am not here to say that we do not need infrastructure. I am just saying the government does not seem to be able to build anything.
We have had much discussion in the House of Commons about the housing crisis in this country, that we have the most land but we have built the fewest houses. In fact, the Liberal government built the same number of houses that were built in 1972, this after recognizing that we are five and a half million spaces short. One would think that if they do not know what to do with the $35 billion in the Infrastructure Bank and there is a huge housing crisis in the country, maybe that is a place to start to funnel that money to municipalities that have plans.
My riding of Sarnia—Lambton has a great plan. It has put $38 million over 10 years into affordable housing and $40 million into maintaining and upgrading existing housing. It also has five projects over five years that will create 2,000 spaces. We are trying to close an affordable housing gap of about 6,500.
Many municipalities have plans, and their plans are different. They could use this money back that is in the Infrastructure Bank, which is busy paying off bonuses to executives and not finishing projects. That is something that should be considered.
We also have a lot of infrastructure needs related to climate change. Shoreline erosion is the first one I would raise. In my riding, we need $150 million to address the shoreline erosion. The member for Cumberland—Colchester was talking to me about the one way of transiting to access the land, which is being eroded, and it would cut off the Atlantic provinces if it were to collapse. It really needs work.
There are needs for infrastructure. We should not be giving all of our money away to build infrastructure in other places, such as to the Asian infrastructure bank, which the Liberals gave $250 million to in order to build pipelines. They are building the piplelines they will not build here in other places.
I always try to bring some positive ideas when I speak in the House. One of the ideas the Liberals might want to try is something being done in my riding, where postwar houses were built structurally to take another level on top. Private mortgagers are giving mortgages to first-time homebuyers to redo the house with an apartment above and an apartment below. This would support the mortgage and triple the amount of housing. Something like that would be a great thing to do with the amount of money that was put in the Infrastructure Bank. Instead, it is a failed initiative.
The one recommendation from committee was to abolish the bank, and I support that.
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- Apr/18/23 3:03:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, maybe the minister should do something because he has never met an emissions target.
Another day and another billionaire island boondoggle. This time, the Prime Minister jets off to Jamaica and costs the Canadian taxpayers over $160,000. Of course, he stays with a friend who has donated to the Trudeau Foundation because he is so independent from that foundation. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Canadians cannot afford a vacation. They cannot afford to eat and heat.
Will the Prime Minister end this double standard of living and axe the carbon tax?
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