- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $135,225.85
- Government Page
- Nov/6/23 2:45:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, here is just how out of touch and tone-deaf the Liberals are. When asked if she would support giving the same pause on home heating back home, their own minister, right from Thunder Bay—Superior North, said that they do not have the same challenges in northern Ontario that we see in Atlantic Canada.
I visited Thunder Bay last week, and let me say that it gets very cold there, too, just like in Atlantic Canada.
After eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, the cost of living crisis there is so bad that the regional food bank cannot keep up with the surging demand, now at 12,000 people.
Will the Prime Minister let his Thunder Bay MPs vote to give residents fair treatment and take the tax off, so they can keep the heat on?
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- Nov/6/23 2:44:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are watching for today's vote on our common-sense Conservative motion to take the tax off all forms of home heating for all Canadians.
The Liberal rural economic development minister said that if people want a pause on the tax, they should have elected more Liberals in the region. Thunder Bay did elect two Liberal MPs, and yet folks there are not getting any pause. Instead, the Prime Minister plans to quadruple the tax on heat, gas and groceries, rather than treating them fairly.
The question is, will the Prime Minister allow these two Liberal MPs from Thunder Bay to vote freely to take the tax off so people can keep the heat on?
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- Oct/30/23 2:17:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as the saying goes, desperate people do desperate things, and after eight years, this is exactly what we saw from the Prime Minister last week with his last-minute, desperate announcement on the carbon tax. In a typical Liberal fashion, his own minister admitted the exemption was not granted to all Canadians across the country because they did not vote Liberal. It begs the question of just how ineffective and out of touch the Liberal MPs are in Nickel Belt, Sudbury, North Bay and Thunder Bay that they could not get the same deal back home. Winters are pretty cold in northern Ontario too, and they should be treated the same way as everybody else.
Here is our common-sense Conservative plan: Take the carbon tax off all home heating for all Canadians. Let us be clear that the Prime Minister did not try this because Canadians are hurting. He only did this because he is hurting. After eight years, Canadians know he is just not worth the cost, and now with his latest plan, even he knows it too.
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Madam Speaker, no, the Conservatives do not believe that the failed carbon tax is working. If we look at the metrics that the Green Party has itself, we have a carbon tax that has been increasing every year since it came into effect. We were told that emissions would drop when the carbon tax came in. Emissions have gone up every year and they will continue to do so. The government still has not tabled a plan to meet any of the targets it has set.
We can make progress on lowering emissions through removing gatekeepers and by enabling technology, not taxes, to be the solution. There is a lot—
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Madam Speaker, I will not apologize, but I will stand up proudly and say that Canadians across the country understand the damage and inefficiency of the carbon tax. Not only do they believe it should not increase, but it should not triple.
If we want to talk about broken promises under the Liberal government tabling legislation, former environment minister, Catherine McKenna, who is no longer a member of the House, promised Canadians, under the Prime Minister, that the carbon tax would not go above $50 a tonne. The Liberals have broken their promise and will triple it to over $170 a tonne.
The government should be apologizing for breaking its promise and raising the cost of living on Canadians. The Conservatives are standing on the right side of the issue and we are seeing that in the momentum we are getting across the country with this message.
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moved:
That Bill C-32 be amended by deleting the short title.
He said: Madam Speaker, normally if a Canadian wanted to know what was happening with their federal government and what the federal government was doing for them, one would think it would be natural to look at the fall economic statement or a federal budget. My advice to Canadians is, if they want to know what is really going on in this country, they should not read the budget put out by the Liberal-NDP alliance. What they instead need to look at is not what has been said and talked about, but the realities of what is actually getting done. In many cases, the government did not follow through on what it said it would do.
Canadians need to read more than the budget to know what is going on. They need to read the reports of the Auditor General of Canada. They need to read the reports of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who audits and calls out far too many times, sadly, the number of failures the government has had when it comes to operating the federal government and its programs efficiently. In the budget document, one reads: “we will”, “proposes” or that they want to do certain things. There are a lot of word salads, platitudes and generalities.
After reading the dozens of pages, one would think one never had it so good in this country. One would think the government is going to solve, and is about to solve, every single problem that we face with wording like, “the billions of dollars” in new proposed spending and the paragraphs of promises that would affect everything this country is facing. However, the truth, when it comes to the economic record of the government and its coalition alliance with the NDP, is that the Liberals will talk about solving the problem by spending more money than ever before. They are going to spend a billion here and a billion there, yet they never follow through on delivering better results. Sadly, we have seen billions of dollars being spent, while little progress has been made. The situation is actually getting worse.
In all fairness, someone might say that I am a bit biased about the performance of the government. I would tell Canadians not to take my word for it. Take the Auditor General of Canada's word, an independent officer of Parliament who is very busy calling out the government for its numerous failures these days.
Back in June, in my interaction at the public accounts committee with the Auditor General, she said that the government is spending more money and getting fewer results for it. Karen Hogan, the Auditor General of Canada, said, “it's not about spending more money but about spending it in a more intelligent or creative way that actually targets the barriers.” In her words, not mine, we are spending more money and getting fewer results. We are seeing that.
Conservatives are standing up to call this out. The government is spending more money. Things are now costing more. In many cases the situation is getting worse and the government is making the situation worse. Look no further than the fact that the government cannot even deliver a passport in a reasonable period of time. My constituency office has heard from numerous frustrated Canadians who, after waiting months and months, are trying to get a basic service such as a new or renewed passport.
The list from the Auditor General of Canada goes on. With respect to Indigenous Services Canada, the audit came in about drinking water in rural and remote indigenous communities, and the government failed to keep its promise to eliminate all of those issues. It now has no plan or timeline of how it is actually going to complete that promise. That was called out by the Auditor General.
When it comes to housing, a recent report indicated that the Liberals have spent an extra $1 billion specifically on homelessness, but they cannot keep track of how many homeless people there are in Canada. They have no idea what the results are after spending all of that money. On top of that, through the transparency we advocated for, we were able to call out the fact that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which is responsible for affordable housing in this country, gave their staff $40 million in bonuses as housing prices have doubled and, as the audit confirmed, the service levels at that organization left something to be desired.
Regarding the environment, the Auditor General, on the greening government strategy, says, “government decision makers, parliamentarians, and Canadians do not...know...whether the government will meet its...target”. The tripling of the carbon tax is coming ahead, and the government cannot even see if its plan is going to meet its targets.
We can look back in history and see, for every single target the Liberals have set for themselves for environmental emissions and standards, they have failed to meet it, and they have not even come remotely close. It continues. We should not take a look at the budget, with all its aspirational sayings. We should look at the records of all this.
As we talk about the fall economic statement, the financial plan of the government, here is the reality that is hitting home for millions of Canadians watching the news these past few days. When it comes to veterans' service levels, the Auditor General of the country says:
[Veterans Affairs'] actions did not reduce overall wait times for eligible veterans. The department was still a long way from meeting its service standard. Implementation of initiatives was slow. Data to measure improvements was lacking. Both the funding and almost half of the employees on the team responsible for processing applications were temporary. As a result, veterans waited too long to receive benefits to support their physical and mental health and their families’ overall well-being.
I would not know that if I had read the Liberals' budget, but when I read the Auditor General of Canada, who is actually calling out not only intentions and words, but also actions and results, it certainly leaves something to be desired from the Liberal-NDP alliance.
I want to spend some time talking about the carbon tax. The last time I rose in the House to speak to the carbon tax, it was on an environmental bill, Bill S-5. I was shouted down and interrupted with points of order in the House of Commons, while I was talking about environmental legislation, by members saying the carbon tax was not relevant to a debate on the government's environmental priorities, and I now want to apologize to the government. I was wrong, and I should not have talked about the carbon tax during an environmental debate because the carbon tax plan the government has is not an environmental plan. It is a tax plan.
Now, I am here. I cannot be interrupted by a point of order, and I cannot be stopped from talking about the carbon tax, because it is a tax plan, and I am happy to spend some time on that. I can acknowledge my faults and shortcomings, and I will in this case.
Let us talk about it. Let me take the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer's analysis of the carbon tax's impact on families:
Most households under the backstop will see a net loss resulting from federal carbon pricing under the HEHE plan in 2030-31.
Household carbon costs...exceed the rebate and the induced reduction in personal income taxes arising from the loss in income.
Here is the thing that the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party fail to understand about the carbon tax: taxpayers do not even get back in the rebate what they pay into it directly. I want to talk about who does not get a rebate at all in this country when it comes to the increasing and punitive carbon tax. It is small businesses and farmers.
They get nailed with the full bill each and every time. What happens is that when our favourite restaurant, bakery or retail store gets hit with its utility bill, and just as a senior gets a utility bill with a GST, HST and carbon tax portion, every business gets those same utility bills. They are seeing their gas bills go up. They are seeing their cost of transportation go up, and they do not get any sort of subsidy or break.
What do they do at that restaurant? With no pun intended, they bake it into the price of one's favourite pizza or favourite food. That price is then passed on to the restaurant customer and to the grocery store customer. It is not a line item of a tax they are charged on top of that, per se, but it is added in to the inflationary prices we are seeing in this country.
The Liberals, the New Democrats and other parties consistently advocate the budget document, which confirms they want to triple the carbon tax in the coming years, and all that is doing is adding to the inflationary pressure. Food price listings for 2023 have risen. They are expected to go up in many cases by double digits again. Enough is enough.
The carbon tax is driving up the price and the cost of living in our country. One thing we need to call out is that it was supposed to lower emissions. Every year since the Liberals and NDP put the carbon tax in, it has gone up. Enough is enough. The Conservatives are proud to stand and say that we will not take it anymore.
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- Oct/31/22 6:21:42 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, what I will say to the NDP on this front is that the last thing we need is an escalation and a tripling of the carbon tax for families, including those in the city of London and across the province of Ontario.
The record that we hold up on Bill S-5 is that the NDP keeps falling for Liberal promises when they do not deliver. It is time for them to stop backing them up. It is time for them to start holding Liberals to account on the environment and everything else.
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- Oct/31/22 6:19:47 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I will respectfully completely disagree with the premise and principle of what the Bloc is saying. At the end of the day, it is using the carbon tax as a tax to add to the price of doing business, whether it be in the oil and gas sector or any other sector.
What we have seen is the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Green Party support carbon taxes over the course of the last several years. We have not seen emissions go down in any meaningful way in the right direction. What we have seen is the cost of living, groceries and home heating rise and a cost of living crisis in this country. When we talk about emissions reductions, we are talking about that coming from technology, carbon capture and storage, small nuclear modular reactors and so forth, which can be in our energy sector. That is a good way to keep the cost of living down and keep our emissions down as well.
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- Oct/31/22 6:18:06 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I thank my Liberal colleague for raising the carbon tax during this debate and giving me the opportunity to respond. I really appreciate it, because when he talks about 80 euros over in Europe and only $50 here, it gives me the perfect opportunity to remind the Liberal benches and the NDP that they are going to triple the carbon tax in the coming years to $170.
It gives me the opportunity to raise the Parliamentary Budget Officer report that says, “most households will see a net loss resulting from federal carbon pricing” and household costs “exceed the rebate and the induced reduction in personal income taxes arising from the loss in income.”
It gives me the opportunity to remind the Liberal government that, on every single environmental target and promise it has made when it comes to emissions reduction, it has failed. All it is doing is raising the cost of living on people at a time when they need it the least.
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- Oct/31/22 6:05:10 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I want to start my speech tonight with an example from the real world. Let us say that Bob, for lack of a better name, was hired by a company to specifically develop targets to meet the goals of that business, and they wanted Bob to set not only the goals and the targets for that business but also the plan to achieve them. If I said that Bob had been working there for seven years, had presented numbers and targets that he was going to do for the company multiple times and failed every single time, most Canadians would rightfully think that Bob does not deserve a seventh chance. Bob deserves to be fired. The company may want to take a different approach to how they meet the goals and targets they set for themselves.
We have watched the exact same thing happen here in Ottawa for the past seven years. For seven years, we have had our own Bob on the Liberal benches. We have had numerous ministers stand time and time again, who always have nice backdrops and use every buzzword, platitude and virtue signal possible, to talk about what they are going to do for the environment on issue A or B, how they are going to set a new target and how they will meet it. Every single time, they have not met any of the targets they set when it came to emissions reductions. One would think maybe they came close a couple of times. They did not come close even once.
During the pandemic there was a drop in emissions when we were locked down, businesses were shut down and people were at home. As we have opened up in the past couple of years, we have returned to the same failed results that the Liberal and NDP coalition have come together on: higher emissions and the absolute opposite of what their plans and targets were.
Tonight, we are on the floor of the House of Commons talking about environmental issues and, specifically, the confidence the House has in the Liberals and NDP over the course of the next couple of years, however long that arrangement may last, and the faith and confidence that Canadians do not have in them to follow through on anything they have to say when it comes to the environment.
In this country after seven years of a Liberal government, we have an emissions crisis, according to its own numbers that we need to reduce, which are going up every single year. It has a record of setting targets, never following through and breaking every single promise it has ever made on it. It also promised to cap it at $50 a tonne. That will triple in the coming years.
Not only do we have an environmental crisis, according to the government's own targets, but we have an economic one created here too. We spend a lot of time on the floor of House of Commons talking about inflation, talking about the cost of living and, more than ever before, talking about how more Canadians are struggling to make ends meet while the environmental promises that were made, with all the right words, at the end of the day achieve very few results. It is actually the opposite. Again, they are not even coming close to what has been said and promised to Canadians.
A key piece of that plank of the Liberals' environmental platform, we argue, is not actually an environmental plan. It is a tax plan when it comes to the carbon tax. The carbon tax is driving up the price of everything, and it is now creating an economic crisis in our country when it comes to gas, transportation, home heating, groceries, rent, construction or whatever else.
We have the opportunity. When the Liberals propose and bring forward a bill on anything to do with the environment, after several years, numerous broken promises and the number of times the Liberals promised something they did not actually have the ability to deliver and follow through on, when they seek forgiveness afterward and ask for that fourth, fifth or sixth chance to say that this time they mean it and this time they have a plan to actually do what they say they are going to do, Canadians, rightfully, do not buy it anymore.
When we look at a specific piece of legislation, Bill S-5, and what the government would be tasked with doing in the coming years when it comes to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Canadians rightfully have watched public accounts, read the environment commissioner's reports and read the Auditor General's reports, which say the government is saying one thing and has a complete lack of ability to do the other.
We have talked about a different approach to environmental issues. We believe, and our new leader has said this several times, which is resonating with more and more parts of this country, that technology and the evolution and development of it here at home are much better than the carbon tax plan that is being supported by the Liberals, the NDP and members of the Green Party.
The reality is that everything that the government touches these days makes the situation worse and it makes it more expensive. What we need to do is not increase taxes during these challenging times.
The other side has had the opportunity, through their environmental priorities, to raise taxes in the name of a carbon tax, saying that their solution would solve this problem. They said to just trust them and they will deliver on it. The cost of living and inflation has been driven up. Emissions are going up. Still, despite setting new targets and new plans and using all of the platitudes and all the buzzwords over and over again, they are not achieving. They are failing.
We are proposing a different path. It is time not to triple the carbon tax in the coming years. It is time to actually get rid of it—
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Madam Speaker, we know the expression “read the fine print”, and I say that tonight to start my comments off on this particular piece of legislation because it is something that I find very applicable in a lot of the Liberals' initiatives and attempts over the past few months or so.
I want to give an example. Going all the way back to April, something the Liberal-NDP group has been doing the last several months to try to paint a brighter picture than what they truly have in this country, there was a headline from the industry minister that read, “Government of Canada announces affordable high-speed Internet to help connect low-income families and seniors.”
For $20 a month people could sign up, no problem. The details and the fine print were the important part. After clicking through the link two or three times to get to the details that matter, we found that only a fraction of the demographic who needs support, help or affordability even qualified for the program. It was only for those who receive the maximum GIS or the maximum child tax benefit. There were hundreds of thousands who read a headline thinking that the Liberal government was solving problem x, but the reality is that the impact is far less substantial than it wanted people to believe.
I give that example tonight in the chamber to fast forward to the bill we are dealing with. There is a measure specifically in it, and we have heard in question period, in questions and comments or in the Liberals' speeches tonight that it is going to help alleviate the housing crunch and the rental crunch that Canadians are facing. The fine print is important and the context is key, too.
The average rent per month in this country is $2,000. We are in the midst of a rental crisis, on the pricing and supply, and we are seeing little in the forecasts showing that anything the Liberal government is doing would change that in the short, medium or long term. It is simply an attempt for the Liberals to say, “We are helping alleviate rental housing prices.” They cite it as an attempt of arguing what they are trying to do.
Let us do the math. The average rent is $2,000. Let us not get started about Toronto or Vancouver or larger urban centres. The one-time top-up payment of $500 is what the Liberals are offering. I had a resident in Cornwall say two things to me when they learned of the amount. First, that literally, on average, equals one week of rent. What are they going to do for the other 51 weeks of the year to help with this crisis? Second, they were further upset and disappointed when they read the fine print and realized that six in 10 renters in this country are not even going to qualify for it. Read the fine print with the Liberal government is a key theme that we could echo here in the House over and over again.
We talk about the rental housing crisis in every part of this country. We should have a bill specifically dealing with getting more supply built, a federal jurisdiction that could make a meaningful difference. For example, I want to give credit to my colleague from Parry Sound—Muskoka for fighting in committee to look at exactly this. Back in my municipal days, we had to work to end exclusionary zoning policies. We could show national leadership on this and get that done.
I always laugh when I am reminded of my time in municipal politics about the three bad acronyms that we have in this country that need to stop if we are going to get serious about real, meaningful affordable housing being built in a decent time frame, if at all. We know the acronym NIMBY, not in my backyard, but there are two others that Canadians need to know and that need to end. They are CAVE, citizens against virtually everything, and BANANA, build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.
We have gatekeepers in Ottawa who are refusing to show leadership to end exclusionary zoning, to end the crisis of building supply, and instead the Liberals and the NDP are going back to their communities saying, “We are not addressing any of that and we do not want to talk about it. Here is a payment that will help for one week of rent, on average, but for the other 51 weeks of the year, we are not sure what will happen.”
We can and we must do better on this. Look at the new dental plan. Actually, it is not a dental plan in the one sense. It is a typical failed bureaucratic Ottawa-knows-best program created in massive haste. I kind of laugh at this. The reason this program was created and this bill is in effect is that the Liberals promised this to the NDP in the deal they signed. I have to be careful the way I word it because I will trigger some people with the words I use to describe the relationship between the Liberals and the NDP, so I will be cautious on that.
I laugh because the New Democrats were stunned when news came out this summer that the Liberals were going to break their promise and could not create this program like they said. Here we are with this piece of legislation, Ottawa-knows-best legislation, that literally creates a duplicate layer of bureaucracy in Ottawa to manage programs, add bureaucracy and everything else when provincial governments already have these programs in nearly every part of the country.
In my home province of Ontario, there is the healthy smiles program for children and in recent years, under a Conservative government, there was the creation of the Ontario seniors dental care program. What we have with this bill to try to satisfy the partnership between the Liberals and NDP is millions and millions of dollars in bureaucracy in an Ottawa structure to administer a whole other program on top of the provincial ones that already exist. I do not mean to be harsh, but my confidence is very low in the government's ability to create a program.
Has anybody tried to get a passport lately? People have not been able to get one. It is taking three to four months to offer a basic service six months after the government said it was going to fix the mess. I can confirm through my constituency office that it is just as bad and chaotic as it was six months ago. Canadians have little faith when they hear Liberals say they have the solution of creating a brand new federal bureaucracy to administer a brand new program on top of the provincial ones that already exist. It is an absolute waste of administration and spending by Ottawa.
What is not addressed in the bills that the Liberals present is what provinces are asking for. Provinces did not ask for Ottawa to create this program and bureaucracy. There are not the promised funds they had on mental health. There are not the promised increases that they asked for and are begging for when it comes to our health care system and Canada health transfers. Long-term care is feeling left behind as well. There is little in the record of the Liberal government to make anybody have confidence in a new program being created.
I will use the last portion of my time in the chamber tonight to reiterate what the Conservative cost-of-living relief plan is. There is an absolute clear contrast with the Liberals and the NDP, who have caused this, through debt, deficit and increased spending. Eight years of that track record and they want to double down on that same approach again.
We have seen great momentum for the Conservative Party and the new leader because we have been talking with a very clear message these past few weeks. There is 40-year high inflation, a problem driven by Liberal and NDP overspending, debt and deficits. I will point out that in this legislation, every single dollar of new spending is not paid for. It is added debt and deficit in new money printing. However, Conservatives have a plan and a contrast that goes the other way.
The carbon tax is scheduled to increase again. It is scheduled to triple. It is scheduled to take more money out of people's pockets on April 1 next year. Our Conservative plan talks about exempting taxes on home heating this winter as people are facing 100% increases in their energy bills. We are asking for the government to show some compassion and not increase taxes on an already burdened Canadian economy and middle class in this country.
The contrast is clear on what we could do for cost-of-living relief in this country. We could allow people to keep more of their hard-earned money to pay for things like groceries, the cost of living, rentals and so forth, or we could double down on the failed approach that has given us 40-year high inflation. We have no confidence in the government's ability to create and manage effectively any new Ottawa program. We could help small businesses. We could help families. We could help control inflation and finally get this economy and cost of living crisis under control.
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Madam Speaker, one of the big issues we talk about in the budget, as I am hearing, is gas prices. The member's riding is just on the other side of the provincial border, across from mine in eastern Ontario, and I know that commuters are having a very difficult time with rising gas prices.
Can the member confirm that the budget reaffirms the commitment to a carbon tax that adds to the cost of fuel every single year for the foreseeable future? Would he not agree with me that perhaps a gas tax relief holiday on the GST and the carbon tax would keep more money in people's pockets? As the cost of living, groceries and everything goes up, would that not be the better way to help the constituents in his riding?
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- Apr/4/22 12:08:51 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saskatchewan for her speech. In her riding, like mine, the carbon tax is an issue that many Canadians are talking about in terms of affordability and the cost of living.
One of the things I would like the member to comment on when we talk about the government's economic record and its fiscal plan, albeit from this fall looking ahead perhaps to the budget even this Thursday, is the Parliamentary Budget Officer saying that this tax disproportionately impacts rural residents more. It has cost them out of pocket and it is costing families and businesses, and that ripple effect is adding to an already difficult cost-of-living issue here. Could the member take this opportunity to perhaps share the context in her part of the country? Whether in my riding in eastern Ontario in the city of Cornwall or in some of the more rural parts, what I think I am going to hear is that we have very similar challenges and similar frustration on the part of many Canadians.
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- Mar/28/22 12:23:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure, as always, to rise in the House to represent what I feel are the views in my riding of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, in eastern Ontario, in response to the government's economic plan. Since it tabled this legislation, which we have been debating over the last couple months, last week's circumstance of the surprise but unsurprising deal between the NDP and the Liberals blew up the fiscal framework, several parts of which are in the bill and are going to be in subsequent budgets over the course of the next couple of years.
This specific piece of legislation has $70 billion in new inflationary spending. One thing I say to constituents very often when we are talking about support for and the funding of various programs is that it is very easy to say that we are going to fund programs A, B, C and D. That is the motherhood and apple pie of our job. The difficult part, which I believe Canadians are paying more attention to, is the financial situation and stability that our country faces.
Every single dollar in this bill, if not every single part of it, is new debt and deficit to our Canadian treasury. Canadians hear the statistic, as confirmed in the bill, that our national debt is now $1.2 trillion and growing, and one of the things we hear about is ideas. Parliament is for proposing ideas, and we are all here to make life better for Canadians. However, like in many of these bills, discussions and debates, putting the paid-for aspects on the Canadian credit card, for lack of a better term, is not talked about by the NDP and Liberal deal.
I have to laugh as I say that. As an aside, we ask if it is a coalition, an agreement, a friendship, a pact or a Kumbaya. Whatever it is, there is a framework and deal when it comes to the fiscal policy of this country over the course of the next few years. I would argue that from a technical perspective, the parties have a right in Parliament to come up with this agreement. I will not deny that. However, I think there is an ethical challenge here in terms of the openness and transparency of it. Millions of people voted for the NDP and did not vote to give the Liberal government, when it comes to committee or other measures, a free pass. Alternatively, there are many people who voted for Liberal candidates across the country who did not agree, on top of already having a deficit, to billions and billions of dollars of additional money.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer, who does great work, has had a couple of great reports that I think show a few things when it comes to the fiscal framework proposed by the government and NDP team. When it comes to the proposed stimulus spending, the PBO said, “It appears to me that the rationale for the additional spending initially set aside as ‘stimulus’ no longer exists.” He also said, “Yes, they can” in response to being asked if government deficits can contribute to inflation.
Given the bigger picture here when we look at the economic situation and this economic bill, there is a clear contrast between us on the opposition side as Conservatives and this proposed bill from the Liberals and the NDP. There are a few things I want to talk about in my comments today that provide the contrast. Other ideas are better solutions for moving this country forward, getting back to normalcy, getting our fiscal house in order and addressing many of the growing challenges and situations I am hearing about in my riding and beyond.
Housing is an example. I have spoken nearly every time I have risen in the House for the past couple of months about the growing crisis, not only in the housing market but in the rental market in the city of Cornwall, the united counties of SDG and parts of Akwesasne as well. That is a microcosm of what is happening nationally.
What is in this legislation is not a ban on foreign buyers, which was promised. We believe they should be banned for two years. That could help cool the market, particularly in larger cities.
One of the other things we talked about, and a new motion coming up is proposing ideas on it, is the government's proposed fiscal policy when it comes to housing and the first-time homebuyer shared equity program. It has been an abject failure, number one because of the participation numbers in it. The idea that the government would help give shared equity to Canadians to buy their homes may be admirable at face value to some, but all that is going to do is further inflate an already expensive housing market.
If we provide an extra $100,000 or $200,000 to help people afford a home, all that will do is to let sellers know, when there are 13 or 14 people bidding on a house in the city of Cornwall, that they have an extra $100,000 or $200,000 more in leverage to inflate the market. This is more government debt and more government printing. It is not actually lowering prices and making home ownership more affordable. It is increasing debt and increasing prices and not addressing the fundamental aspect.
I have to call out another slap to Canadians, which is the bonuses that were given at the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which were released a few weeks ago. CMHC is an organization that has a literal mandate to make sure Canadians have housing affordability. I do not need to summarize where we are with that in this country. Housing prices, nationally, have doubled. In our riding, housing prices are over $400,000. That has doubled in the past five years of this housing crisis.
The very benchmark of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation is to make housing affordable. The absolute opposite has happened. For more people, the dream of home ownership and affordability is out the window, but CMHC, the Liberal minister responsible for housing and the Liberal government gave $40 million in bonuses to employees at the organization. That is a slap in the face to the 30-year-old who is living in their parent's basement because they cannot afford their dream of home ownership and who cannot afford rent because we do not have supply. I do not know what shows more of the contrast in what we are doing.
The cost of living and inflation is at a 30-year high, the highest in nearly my entire lifetime of 34 years. At the rate we are going, when we get there, we will set another record in the coming months.
When we talk about contrast, I say each time that our job as opposition is to hold the government to account on what they have proposed but also to put our money where our mouth is. If we were on the other side of the aisle, since this is Parliament and we can propose ideas, what would we do?
I have to say, I have been very proud of my Conservative colleagues over the course of the last couple of weeks. They have highlighted a few issues that, I believe, provide a direct contrast with the plans proposed by the Liberals and the NDP.
First of all, we need to get opened back up. We need to end federal mandates, vaccine mandates and travel requirements. We have heard from employers, and we have heard from the travel and tourism industry, that they are very nervous about the year ahead. Based on where the science is at, not where it was two years ago, but here today at the end of March 2022, we can lift those mandates and get our country opened up. We can be back for business. We can be welcoming international visitors safely and smartly and get our economic engine firing at 100% again.
We lost that battle. We proposed that idea and, again, the Liberal and NDP coalition, friendship, team, pack or whatever we call them, did not agree with that.
Last week in our opposition day motion, which was one of the days last week, when we had the debate and then the vote right afterwards, was something we tried to put on record and did get on record. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful, again because of the other parties, but we talked about the high price of gas and many other goods in the country.
There are two things here. Number one is that we asked for a break on GST on fuel. I came into Ottawa last night from the riding. I stopped in Monkland to fill up with gas. It was over $1.70 a litre. I know there are a lot of people in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry who have to drive to work. There is not a subway or LRT option in Monkland or Iroquois or Crysler. I do not think there is one coming anytime soon. Driving a car to get to work or to go to hockey practice is essential when living in a rural area.
We called for a gas tax break. It was voted down. It would not solve the affordability problem, but it could have given some tax relief at a time when Canadians truly need it.
The other problem we have to confront, which the government is not doing through their economic policies, is that the carbon tax is set to increase again later this week. We are saying that, if we are not going to give a break to Canadians at the pumps when prices are high, at least do not increase taxes on everybody on April 1. That was declined.
In a democracy, there are going to be contrasts. Our contrast is quite clear. We understand the cost of living. We understand the need for relief for Canadians. When it comes to housing, we have a fundamentally different approach.
For those reasons, again, I do not support the economic and fiscal update tabled by the government. I have a feeling that with the new deal between the Liberals and the NDP, I do not see ourselves doing so in the coming years either. We will see, here on the floor of the House of Commons, further constructive ideas from Conservatives.
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