- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $135,225.85
- Government Page
- Nov/7/23 11:33:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, all businesses should pay their fair share of taxes, but I will say again that it is hypocritical and contradictory of the Bloc Québécois members to talk about taxes. The irony of the Bloc Québécois, a separatist party in the House of Commons, is that it voted multiple times on a second carbon tax that goes not to Quebec but to Ottawa, 100% of which is being added to the original carbon tax as a second carbon tax. The Bloc Québécois needs to have a caucus meeting and figure out exactly where it stands on tax issues, because folks back home in the province of Quebec are not impressed with the second carbon tax and the Bloc's all-over-the-map approach.
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- Nov/7/23 11:31:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, New Democrats continue to contradict themselves. Just yesterday, they voted for our Conservative motion to take the tax off all forms of home heating for all Canadians. In their motion today, they are talking about only the GST portion.
Let me make it clear again. New Democrats tabled this motion, but what will happen when the next budgetary measure comes forward? The Liberal plan is still in place, and they will vote for it at the end of the day. They talk a big game in every part of this country, but when it comes to their voting record, they will prop up the government. After eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, they cannot afford it, and Canadians know they are going to prop up the same failed plan of the Liberals and the NDP once again.
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- Nov/7/23 11:30:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I love that comment because the member for Kingston and the Islands has the same desperation the Prime Minister has. Liberals are in full panic mode.
The folks in Kingston and the rest of Ontario are saying that Conservatives acknowledge that those who heat with propane and natural gas are hurting. The carbon tax is causing pain. There are tens of thousands of Canadians residing in the member's riding who do not get the same deal. The Prime Minister is dividing people by giving exemptions only on certain forms of home heating. Conservatives acknowledge the pain that anybody in this country heating with natural gas and propane is suffering. We acknowledge that the Liberals' plan is going to quadruple the carbon tax. The member is the one who is dividing.
Conservatives are saying we need to take the tax off all forms of home heating for all Canadians and stop pitting regions and certain types of home heating against each other.
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- Nov/7/23 11:19:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House again to keep the pressure on our common-sense Conservative plan. Sadly, yesterday, the Liberals rejected fairness for all Canadians in our Conservative motion to take the tax off so Canadians could keep the heat on. I am honoured to be sharing my time today with the hon. member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition.
There is one party in the House of Commons that is fighting every single day to lower taxes for all Canadians. After eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, Canadians are hurting badly in every part of this country, whether it is housing, where housing costs have doubled, whether it is inflation that is hitting the pocketbooks of every family in Canada, or whether it is food inflation that is still stubbornly way too high, with an average family in this country paying $1,000 more this year on their grocery bills than they did just last year alone.
After eight years, it is time to stop taxing every part of this country and instead provide some much-needed relief. Heating a home in this country, our cold Canada that we live in, is not a luxury. It is a necessity. Again, the problem we hear over and over again in every single part of this country is that Canadians are struggling to pay the bills. They are having to choose between heating and eating. It is heartbreaking, and we continue to see an NDP-Liberal coalition vote, time and time again, to make matters worse.
What we have here now, and why I think this debate has exploded in the last couple of weeks, is Conservatives talking about axing the tax entirely, not just on home heating but the carbon tax entirely. It is not an environmental plan. It is a tax plan.
Breaking news this morning, the independent environment commissioner and the Office of the Auditor General, and the work that they do on the audits, confirmed once again that the carbon tax is a tax plan, not an environmental plan. The government is not even going to meet the very targets it is claiming a carbon tax would solve. It is failing by every measure possible.
What has really amplified this conversation and provided an opportunity for our Conservative motion that was sadly defeated yesterday and the one from the NDP today is the Prime Minister's desperation. He made a desperate, last-minute, panicked announcement a floor above here. He scrambled on a Thursday afternoon when his itinerary was updated and grabbed all of his Atlantic caucus members, because they were in full revolt as a caucus. They were hearing what the Leader of the Opposition was doing in Nova Scotia, in a long-time Liberal riding, where an electric rally of 1,000-plus people in the riding of Kings—Hants was about to get under way.
Atlantic Canadian MPs panicked and basically forced the Prime Minister to carve out a deal for 3% of Canadians. What the Prime Minister announced has backfired. The NDP and Liberal MPs and their costly coalition know it. What the Prime Minister is doing is what he does best, and that is not leading, it is dividing. He is pitting one region against the other. He is only carving out certain exemptions for certain types of home heating that impact certain parts of the country. If the Prime Minister was not divisive enough in that announcement and in how hasty it was, it was the Liberal rural economic development minister from Newfoundland who came out and said that if other regions wanted to get the benefit and get some sort of pause from the pain of the carbon tax, they should have voted in more Liberals.
An hon. member: Shameful.
Mr. Eric Duncan: Madam Speaker, shameful is absolutely right. Tone-deaf and out of touch.
In the last few months, I have had the honour and privilege of travelling to many parts of this country, including Atlantic Canada, to hear about the pain the carbon tax is causing.
The food bank in Fredericton, New Brunswick, has seen a 35% increase in usage in the last year. We heard in Nova Scotia from the president of the Nova Scotia Community College, who said that they have students who are granted admission and they are calling the school to ask if they can live in their pickup trucks on campus because they cannot afford to live, rent, heat and eat.
We are hearing that, in Newfoundland and Labrador, trucking companies are saying it is adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to their transportation bills to get groceries and reefer trucks from across the country to that province.
We talk about the Prime Minister, the Liberals, the NDP and their budgetary plan that the NDP will prop up and go along with, like they always do. Let us think about northern Ontario. In eastern Ontario, which is my neck of my woods as well as that of the member for Carleton, the leader of our party, they deserve that same pause from the pain as anybody else in the country.
People on natural gas and propane heating are hurting too. They are struggling to pay the bills just as badly as anybody else and anywhere else in the country, but I am thinking of northern Ontario where I have had the honour of travelling and hearing directly from Canadians there, in North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins and Thunder Bay. Let me tell colleagues that the landscape there is changing. After eight years of NDP and Liberal government, they have had enough. They are behind our plan for tax fairness. They are disgusted. They are furious with the fact that the government will not treat them with the same respect it is offering other Canadians.
The Prime Minister admitted that his carbon tax was punishing families and their budgets at home. It was causing a burden on them being able to heat their homes and pay the bills, yet what do we have here now? Time and time again, they ignored the concern. Every single Liberal MP yesterday voted against the same pause on the pain of the carbon tax that some of the other colleagues got in other regions. The situation is just as bad. In Thunder Bay, the regional food bank said their usage is skyrocketing. They cannot keep up with the number of people looking for assistance with their groceries. There are 12,000 people in Thunder Bay and the region and they have had to sadly admit they cannot even service far north communities anymore because they do not have the funds and they do not have the food. What we have at the end of the day is the same division.
The NDP proposed their motion here today. One thing to note that is a little curious, as it is absent from their motion, is that the NDP have talked about removing the GST from all forms of home heating. Maybe that is a clerical error. Maybe they could take the opportunity to fix this. They just voted yesterday with us to take all taxes off all forms of home heating for all Canadians. That is the right approach to what they need to do. Here we are, not even 24 hours later, and they are only saying we should take the GST off.
Here is the thing about the NDP. They can propose any motion they want here on their opposition day motion. The Liberals will not go for it. What the NDP will go for, like they have done every single time in their coalition deal is to talk a big game. They will talk tough. They will ask those questions, but when the time comes to vote on the actual budget, they prop up the Liberals every single step of the way and they are going to continue to do that. The reality is that at the end of the day, the NDP are going to continue their plan. The Prime Minister is putting a pause on until the next election. Bring it on. Conservatives will axe the tax. The Prime Minister and the leader of the NDP will quadruple the carbon tax in the coming years after the next election. Their plan is still in place. It will cause great pain to this country and to millions and millions of families and small businesses struggling to survive. The carbon tax is going to be 61¢ a litre on the price of fuel.
This country is struggling. Canadians are struggling. They need relief. What I think they need is for the NDP to finally stand up against their costly coalition, and take all taxes off all forms of home heating for all Canadians in this country.
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- 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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