- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Edmonton—Wetaskiwin
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $178,671.82
- Government Page
- Apr/9/24 12:48:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know what is going on today. It might be an effect of the eclipse yesterday or whatever, but I wonder if the hon. member knows that we are in the Canadian House of Commons here, talking about what the federal government is doing. We are both members of opposition parties, but only one of us is actually taking our role seriously to oppose the government. The member votes for the government every single time he has an opportunity.
I will hearken back to the days of Stephen Harper and take a look at this New York Times article, which states that “middle-class incomes in Canada—substantially behind in 2000—now appear to be higher than in the United States.” That is from 2014. The article talks about an income survey. It reads, “But other income surveys conducted by government agencies suggest that since 2010”, which was the time of the global economic meltdown, “pay in Canada has risen faster than pay in the United States and is now most likely higher.” That was in 2014. We are in a completely different circumstance now because of the member's party supporting the government.
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- Jun/5/23 9:23:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me say first that, soon enough, the member will be able to refer to us as the Conservative government and she will not be spreading misinformation.
I have heard the New Democrats talk about the Harper era during the whole debate tonight, and here are a couple of things from the Harper era. The member was wrong on most of her facts, but the reality is that, during the Harper era, there were a few things we did promise and deliver. We promised regular increases. In fact, almost every single year, we increased spending on the Canada health transfer by six per cent. Members would not know that by listening to Liberal talking points.
Something that clearly differentiates the current Liberal government's approach from ours is that when we dealt with a global economic meltdown, a part of that, every step of the way, was a road map to get back to a balanced budget, which we delivered in 2015. We have not seen one since.
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- Jun/5/23 8:15:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as you know, and as the hon. member has been around long enough to know, it is against the rules of the House to mislead the House, and he just completely misinformed the House in regard to the Harper record.
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- May/8/23 11:24:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am being heckled that if the end result is that the Liberals won three elections, I guess it is all good. The member's heckle was that they won three elections, so it does not matter.
One other common thread in the debate today has been the Liberals going back eight years. I know that the member for Winnipeg North takes issue with anybody rounding up to eight. He says they have only been destroying the country for seven years, but it is into the eighth year right now, and they seem continuously obsessed with Stephen Harper.
The Prime Minister, who was not prime minister at the time, in his answer to the question, “which nation's administration do you most admire”, went on to say, “I mean there is a flexibility that I know Stephen Harper must dream about, of having a dictatorship that he can do everything he wanted”. Even back then, Liberals were obsessed with Stephen Harper.
In referencing this, I wanted to make sure I got the quotes right, so I went back and watched the video of this and the video of a news story at the time. First of all, I wanted to make sure I had the words right, but, secondly, it gave me a bit of an idea of the tone of the day.
It was interesting to read the comments because the comments in this CBC article from 2013 could be comments that are made today as Canadians are watching the debate, as they are watching the actions of the government, as they are questioning the judgment of the Prime Minister. There were several Chinese Canadians who commented in this article in 2013 directly on the Prime Minister's use of words, who was not the prime minister at the time but the then leader of the Liberal Party, in his choice of China as the basic dictatorship that he admires the most. One commented, “Can I use the word 'foolish'?” I think there are a lot of people that this would resonate with today.
There was another comment, which we could hear in every riding in the country: “A Chinese Canadian would say every one of us is the victim of the Chinese dictatorship.” That was said in response to that conversation from 2013. A quote from a man identified as having been imprisoned and tortured was: “My case was only the tip of the iceberg.” These are not new issues. These are issues that go back a long time. These are issues that most of us would be aware of, although it is fair to say that we are more aware of them today. Then there is a final comment I wrote down by someone based on that interview. This could probably apply to all of us in this place. Maybe not all of us, but most of us in this place. The quote is, “It seems to be that he's not well-informed.”
That was the summary of the comments back in 2013 after the Prime Minister made the comment that the nation's administration he most admired was China because its basic dictatorship is allowing it to actually turn its economy around on a dime.
That is the context we come here today with. We are debating late into the night tonight. I believe the House is going to pick this up tomorrow and members of Parliament will have the opportunity to debate the issue tomorrow. I hope that as members debate, they will be able to express their opinions, their thoughts, the thoughts of their constituents and contemplate where we ought to go from here without having a constant parade of Liberals standing up on bogus points of order, as we have seen today. I hope we will be able to move forward and have that conversation.
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- Feb/14/23 10:56:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe it is against the rules of the House to mislead the House. The Harper government did not cut transfers. It raised transfers—
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Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments. First of all, during the Harper era, we increased health transfers by about 6% per year for almost every year that we were in government.
In the plan that our leader has laid out, he has simply said that, after a 70% increase in program spending over the last eight years, and an endless succession of spending plans and massive deficits, we would have a sensible plan that, for every dollar spent, we would find a dollar of savings.
We did that when we were in government. I sat on a cabinet committee charged with looking at ways we could find efficiencies so we could get back to balance in 2015, and that is a sensible way for a government to approach fiscal planning.
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Madam Speaker, I get as equally excited as they do talking about the Harper record.
When the world dealt with the global economic meltdown, we laid out a seven-year plan, we followed that plan to a tee, and by 2015, we balanced the budget. In contrast, as this government faced a significant global challenge, what it did was bring out the chequebook and responded by just cutting cheques with no eye toward and no signal in any way that we would ever talk about getting back to balance. In fact, the Prime Minister talked about it being an opportunity, and the Liberals have experimented with all sorts of new things that they never ran on as we went through that.
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Madam Speaker, I love the opportunity to stand up and talk about the Harper legacy, if we want to talk about that.
First of all, we cut virtually every tax Canadians could pay. I think over 60 different taxes were cut under our government. We dealt with a global economic meltdown in a world-leading way—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Sep/29/22 2:47:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister answers every question with mock bewilderment that we dare question her record levels of spending and the increasing taxes to pay for them. She seems obsessed with Stephen Harper, whose record is clear: In 2015, just seven years after a global economic meltdown, the Liberals inherited a balanced budget.
Our Conservative government had lowered virtually every tax that Canadians could pay and Canada's middle class had become the richest in the world. How things have changed.
Could the minister tell us if Canada's growing affordability crisis is due to just inflation or is it just incompetence?
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