- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $135,225.85
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise here in the House and have many of my colleagues join to listen as I contribute some points to the debate we are having here tonight, particularly on our Conservative amendment. Many would argue it would be common sense. I look forward to getting into that tonight a little bit more.
However, Mr. Speaker, you are from Nova Scotia. The legislation here impacts that province. It also impacts the great people of Newfoundland and Labrador. I had the honour to visit, a couple of weeks ago, the province. I had some great visits, travelling many miles, all the way from St. John's and Mount Pearl in the Avalon region, all the way across to Clarenville, Grand Falls, Windsor, Corner Brook, Deer Lake, Stephenville, Kippens, and all points in between. I think the debate here is timely tonight, as we talk about what the priorities are for the good people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
However, I want to give some breaking news here in the House tonight, if I could; breaking news that is fresh, hot off the press of some by-elections, a by-election that just took place in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Liberals love intruding into provincial jurisdiction on issues, although they should not. They get struck down by courts and we have these prolonged problems. I am going to bring in provincial jurisdiction here because in Newfoundland and Labrador, in that by-election tonight, in the riding of Baie Verte-Green Bay, the votes are in. It was a carbon tax by-election.
After nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, here is an interesting thing. Both of the PC and the Liberal candidates endorsed the Leader of the Opposition in Ottawa. The Prime Minister has become so toxic, even Liberals in Newfoundland and Labrador want nothing to do with him. The results are in tonight and it was very conclusive. The voter turnout in the by-election tonight in central Newfoundland was 57%. It was 15 points higher than it was in the last general election in that riding. It was a close riding in 2021. The Liberals got about 52%, the PCs got 47%. Tonight, the Conservative candidate who opposes the carbon tax got 80% of the vote.
Congratulations to Lin Paddock from Ottawa. I am thankful to him for fighting the carbon tax, fighting and standing up against the punitive measures that the Prime Minister and the NDP are imposing on his province.
That by-election followed, in Newfoundland and Labrador, a by-election that just took place about a month ago. Again, it was the same thing around central Newfoundland. There was a historically high voter turnout in that riding. It took a long-time Liberal riding and flipped it to the PCs; again, a carbon tax by-election. They are just building the momentum. If we go to Nova Scotia, in Pictou West, the minister of housing's own riding, right in that region, the PCs not only held that riding, but they drastically increased their vote share and the turnout there was very solid for a by-election.
There was another example, absolutely, in Preston only a short while ago. For the first time, in a long-time Liberal or NDP back-and-forth riding for the most part, there was a Conservative victory there as well, another carbon tax by-election.
I raise this point tonight because there is a theme developing in Atlantic Canada. It is going from Liberal to common-sense Conservative. Here is the thing that is interesting. It is building the momentum. The Prime Minister and the NDP and Liberals know they are extremely unpopular. They know that their plan for this country is more and more unpopular, the more Canadians learn about it. The priorities that they try to address are out of touch with the realities on the ground.
After giving colleagues these updates of these carbon tax by-elections in those respective provinces, I cannot wait for our carbon tax election here to take place all across Canada. Canadians are going to have their say. I think the turnout and the blue wave are going to be equal in every part of this country.
I want to talk about Bill C-49 here tonight. I do listen to what the member for Kingston and the Islands says, believe it or not. I have to because both he and the member for Winnipeg North speak quite a bit here in the chamber.
Just a few minutes ago, the member for Kingston and the Islands was trying to make this argument about the Constitution and how the Liberals listen to the Constitution, respect it and talking about their actions when it comes to their legislation and bills. This bill here, or more specifically, our Conservative amendment, actually just call it out for what it is, hypocrisy. It is saying one thing and doing the absolute opposite.
He goes on about how they do all this. Well, Bill C-49 has a lot of very similar provisions to Bill C-69, which has garnered a lot of attention when it comes to developing our natural resources and realizing our economic potential. It has done a lot of damage in every part of the country. It has turned away, turned down and cancelled investments by the hundreds of millions of dollars in this country. The thing about Bill C-69 was that, for months and for years, Liberal ministers would go out and say, “There is nothing wrong. The bill is constitutional. It is going to be upheld.” Well, the Supreme Court had its say, and guess what. It did not uphold it. The bill was struck down.
Now, moving forward, we have Bill C-49. Our Conservative amendment tonight is saying that we need to take this back to committee. There are serious flaws with what the government is trying to do because many of the same provisions that were struck down in Bill C-69 are embedded and repeated here in Bill C-49.
Mark my words. I am going to put it right here, in Hansard, in the blues and on video here tonight: This piece of legislation is going to be dithered and delayed for years. It is going to be challenged. Look at what happened with respect to Bill C-69. Liberals and then the New Democrats said, “Oh, it is all fine. Do not worry about it. The Conservatives are just talking negative about it.” The government ignored it, and guess what happened. It is the chaos coming around Bill C-69. The uncertainty, the lack of answers from that side and the lack of fixing the problem the Liberals were warned about in the first place are challenging the economic environment in our country. It is turning away investment. It is turning away projects that could be completed here at home, creating great Canadian paycheques. The Liberals are doing the exact same thing. Members could look and see that there are now the same inefficiencies that are here in the Impact Assessment Act, in sections 61, 62, 169 and 170. The list goes on about how they are constantly dithering and delaying.
If members do not want to take my word for it here with what I have said so far, let us just look at the number of projects already stalled under the Liberal-NDP government. The Liberals are blocking projects with red tape left, right and centre. Bill C-49 would only make it worse. There is Beaver Dam gold mine in Nova Scotia. It has been nine years, and it is still not done. Fifteen Mile Stream gold project is going to be a massive $123 million investment. After six years, that project, 95 kilometres northeast of Halifax, is still being delayed, and with three years extension, it is still not done. Then we have the Joyce Lake direct shipping iron ore project, which would be a $270-million investment in Newfoundland and Labrador. After 11 years, it is still waiting and not approved. There is Cape Ray gold and silver mine in Newfoundland and Labrador. It has been eight years, and it is still waiting and not going through. The list goes on and on. It is the definition of insanity.
I have said it before about the budget, and I will say the same thing about the Liberals' efforts to remove red tape and unleash the economic potential of this country. We have so many natural resources. We have so many jobs that could be created in this country, and what the Liberals have done time and time again, and what they are doing with Bill C-49, is causing legal nightmares. They are going to cause red tape nightmares for years to come, and it is Canadian workers in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia who are going to be hurt.
We are putting this amendment forward. We are opposing the constant red tape of the Liberals. After nine years, Canadians have had enough, and I do not blame them.
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- Mar/19/24 10:32:33 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has done a great job in the last little while of uniting the country. There is a great Canadian tax revolt against him and the constant never-ending tax increases that are coming. After eight years, Canadians know they have had enough. They cannot afford the cost of the Prime Minister any longer. He is uniting the country against him and the constant tax increases Canadians are facing.
Seventy per cent of Canadians are opposed to the latest spike in the carbon tax, which is a cruel April Fool's Day joke coming on April 1 that is going to see a 23% increase in the carbon tax at a time when millions of Canadians are struggling to make ends meet. The punishment and the never-ending tax increases under the Prime Minister, which are fully propped up by the NDP every step of the way, are all part of the plan to quadruple the carbon tax in the coming years.
Seventy per cent of Canadians and seven premiers from every part of this country are united against this latest tax hike. It has become so bad that the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador has called out the Prime Minister and demanded a stop to this latest increase. Even provincial Liberal parties in New Brunswick and Kathleen Wynne's party in Ontario are against this. The Ontario Liberal Party is now so tired of the Prime Minister. He is so toxic now and so unpopular that he is uniting the country against him, including the Ontario Liberal Party, which is now coming out and not just saying it wants to spike the hike but even saying it is going to axe the tax entirely. When the party of Kathleen Wynne will not even support the carbon tax anymore, one knows Liberals are on the wrong track. The great Canadian tax revolt is well under way.
The numbers speak for themselves. I am going to talk about a few numbers of fact about the struggle Canadians are going through. Seven hundred dollars is how much more a family of four in Canada is going to pay on their grocery bill in 2024. That does not even factor the increase of the carbon into it. This latest increase, a 23% hike, is going to drive up the cost of food, heating and filling one's car even more.
It is getting worse. Sadly, we have have seen food bank reports over and over again these past few years talking about a surge in the number of visits in this country. The Liberals and the NDP say all the time that they have a plan and that their plan is working and helping. It is not. A recent food charity report said that food banks in this country are bracing after record usage in 2023. They are bracing for one million more visits by Canadians to food banks this year. This is insanity.
The Prime Minister and the NDP are absolutely tone deaf to keep doubling down, or quadrupling down, frankly, on the carbon tax and think this is not going to get even worse. It has become so bad for charities that 36% of charities last year had to turn people away because they were running out of resources. The Liberals and the NDP, this costly coalition, are about the only ones left in this country, and there are the very few, who are not getting with the program.
Canadians are tired of the tax hikes. They cannot afford 61¢ a litre on the price of gas in the coming years. It is driving up the cost of living. It is driving up the cost of groceries and the cost of doing business and is taking business away from this country. Even with the abundance of great agricultural land in this country, we are now seeing companies and grocery stores importing food from around the world rather than having it grown here close to home when Liberals are nailing greenhouses with the carbon tax and farmers with an astronomical amount in carbon tax. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars for one grain-drying operation in my riding, and they're on their way to quadrupling it. Enough is enough.
We know the Liberal math and their promises never add up. That is why the budget just does not balance itself. It is because their math never makes sense.
It makes sense to the average Canadian, who knows that it is driving up the cost of their household budget. It is driving up their mortgage now. It is driving up groceries. It is driving up heating. It is driving up having a car and taking one's kids to hockey or to go out and about like Canadians do.
The Liberals promised $50 a tonne. That is as far as they were going to go with the carbon tax. They broke that promise and they tripled that to about $170 a tonne, after promising it would not go above $50. They promised rebates for businesses. For all of the carbon tax that small businesses and businesses pay in this country, they give them zero rebates, let alone the rebates they give to households, which we know, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer says, do not cover the carbon tax costs that families pay. Businesses get nothing.
Liberals broke their promise, and now they are trying to get us to believe in their talking points and their little chart, saying that Canadians are better off with the rebates they get.
It is nonsense. Nobody believes it and neither does the Parliamentary Budget Officer. In his report, the facts are clear. The average family of four in a Canadian province that is projected to get a certain amount back on the rebate are out hundreds of dollars, regardless of which province they live in. If one is in Ontario, one is out, on average, in 2024 and 2025, $627. For Alberta families, it's $911, and it's $502 in Manitoba. The list goes on and on. The more they increase this carbon tax, the bigger the difference, debt and struggle Canadian families are going to face.
One of the important things is to read the fine print when it comes to these Liberals and their NDP coalition partners. They never just give a straight answer. Watch question period any day. They will never give a straight answer.
The carbon tax in the coming years is going to quadruple. Here is how. They do not just do it with one carbon tax. They have two carbon taxes. There is the first carbon tax, which is going to total 37¢ a litre on the price of gas in the coming years. The rebates, as I have just confirmed, do not even cover that. They now have a second carbon tax coming in every part of the country. They “word salad” these things. They changed the name, a “clean fuel standard”. It is a second carbon tax with zero rebates for anybody. That is going to be 17¢ a litre on the price of gas in the coming years.
If that is not bad enough, what really triggers and infuriates Canadians is the fact that the Liberals and the NDP do not have only one carbon tax. They have a second carbon tax and then they tax the tax. They put the GST and HST on carbon tax one and carbon tax two, for a total of 61¢ a litre. They are out of touch.
Here is the thing that, I think, puts the cherry on top of just how out of touch and aloof, after eight years of the Prime Minister, the Liberals and the NDP are. Over the last year, Canadians are united, as I mentioned, more than ever before against the carbon tax and against this latest April 1 increase. The PMO put out talking points last week. The title is “Is the carbon tax suffering from a failure to communicate?”
I am sorry. That was not the PMO. It was the CBC that wrote that article. I am sorry. I think it was probably provided by the PMO to the CBC to write, where they try to defend. Again, the entire argument, for the last year, from the Liberals is that it is just a communication problem, that they are just not explaining themselves enough.
Canadians know themselves. They cannot afford the Prime Minister. They cannot afford this carbon tax. They cannot afford a 23% increase on it on April 1, on its way to quadrupling in the coming years. If this was a communication problem, it would have been solved, because the Prime Minister loves photo ops. He loves all of these news conferences and these flashy word salads.
In the last year, as a million more food bank visits are expected this year, more people than ever before are using food banks. There are mortgage defaults. The economic news gets worse. The only thing the Prime Minister has done in the last couple of months is rename the carbon tax. That is how out of touch Liberals are.
This carbon tax and the cruel, latest increase, the never-ending increases, are not a communication problem. They are a tax problem. Canadians have finally realized. They have had enough. It is time.
Spike the hike. Axe the tax, and finally give Canadians some relief.
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