- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Edmonton—Wetaskiwin
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $178,671.82
- Government Page
- May/6/24 9:04:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a question about incompetent Trudeau government overspending. Of course, it raises the ire of members on the other side sometimes when I talk about the Trudeau government of the 1970s and 1980s and the devastating cuts that resulted in the mid-1990s of 32% over two years from 1995 to 1997 for spending on health care, social services and education.
I am wondering if the hon. member shares the same concern about the incompetent Trudeau government overspending of the 1970s and 1980s and also of his own Liberal government as it relates to our ability to fund important social programs in the future.
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- Apr/9/24 12:45:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that question is quite laughable. First of all, there was a lot of disinformation in that question. However, I think the point to be made is that we faced an economic crisis. His party's reaction, by the way, at the time, was to form a coalition with the Bloc and NDP to try and take down the government right after an election. That was the response of the Liberals at the time.
Of course, anyone who was in the House would remember that our government could not spend enough to satisfy the Liberals. Every single question at the time was about why we were not spending more. The biggest difference from then until now is that we immediately laid out a plan to get back to balance by 2015. We followed that plan absolutely, to a T.
The member's government inherited the incredible fiscal situation we had in Canada at that time.
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- Oct/27/23 11:52:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the disastrous Trudeau economic legacy, 14 deficits in 15 years in the 1970s and 1980s, led to untold devastation for Canadian families and massive cuts to Canadian health care spending and critical federal programs for seniors and families. After eight more long years, the family legacy has now resulted in 20 consecutive deficit budgets under former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and his son. The family legacy is definitely not worth the cost.
Some are now saying that we will spend more on interest payments this year than we do on the Canada health transfer. Is that true?
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- Oct/20/23 11:45:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of mind-blowing, unprecedented, previously unfathomable increases in spending, the government's response to every question is to ask why we will not help them spend even more. Again and again, we on this side will stand up against an incompetent Liberal government that is leading us down a path of economic devastation.
Again, my question was reasonable and straightforward and I would appreciate an answer this time. What will the Liberal-NDP government spend on interest on its record debt this year?
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Madam Speaker, like other Liberals, this member just lists off in his speech a long list of new Liberal spending. It is record spending, of course, as everybody knows, not many times more than previous governments but many billions of dollars more than previous governments.
Many of them have talked about the fact that they are subsidizing, through a grocery rebate, 11 million Canadians. Does the hon. member recognize that the fact that the government needs to subsidize groceries for over a quarter of our population is a sign of an absolutely devastatingly bad Liberal economic policy?
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- Jun/5/23 9:21:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can assure the member that, if he carves out that particular element and removes the $60 billion in new spending; if he removes the more than $40 billion in deficit spending, which this country cannot afford right now and which is driving up the cost of everything, and we see the devastating results of that; and if the member wants to go back and say that he thinks they should carve out the 988 suicide prevention hotline, I would be very happy to support it.
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Madam Speaker, I am thankful to get a question from someone other than the member for Winnipeg North today. I will point out that even the question itself highlights the Liberal incompetence on this issue, because what the member praises is basically an increase in spending that corresponds to a 32% increase in the negative effects and violent crime, despite the Liberals' spending and spending. I guarantee members that the answer next year, or whenever the next budget comes, is going to be more Liberal spending with worse results for Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I listened with interest as the hon. member, like all Liberal members of Parliament, talked about more and more spending, adding to the record levels of spending and record levels of debt undertaken by the government already. One thing he did not touch on was that it is Mental Health Week. If we read from the Canadian Mental Health Association's website, it says in a headline, “Budget 2023 out of touch with mental health crisis”, and then says, “The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) is profoundly concerned that Budget 2023 did not include the promised Canada Mental Health Transfer.”
I am wondering if the hon. member will be going to any of the Mental Health Week events this week. If he does, how will he explain to mental health experts and advocates from across the country that his government has once again failed to deliver on the $4.5-billion promise he made to get elected in the 2021 election campaign?
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- Apr/27/23 12:56:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have had a chance to chat with the hon. member about some issues, and I know we are concerned and care about similar issues regarding vulnerable Canadians.
I brought up earlier, as I do many times in the House, one of the things I am concerned about. Looking back, the Liberal government of the late 1990s had to cut $35 billion in transfers to provinces for things such as health care, social services and education, many of the things that most impact the most vulnerable of Canadians. It had to do that because of deficits run up by the Trudeau government in the 1970s.
Is the member at all concerned with these record-breaking deficits, the record-breaking levels of spending that we are seeing right now, and that there might be a similar challenge down the road, in the future, caused by the record levels of spending we are seeing right now?
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- Apr/27/23 12:31:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is astonishing to me to hear the NDP and Liberal members stand up in the House, with the record-shattering levels of debt and spending they are undertaking together, and call for, in the debate today, more spending.
I hearken back to the Trudeau government of the seventies and eighties and the massive debt and deficits they rang up. This resulted in record cuts to social services, like health, education and all of those different things, in the late nineties, by another Liberal government, precipitated by the massive levels of debt taken on by the Trudeau government of the seventies and eighties. I wonder if the hon. member could reflect on what it was like in the late nineties, when we saw $35 billion cut from health, education and social services transfers in this country.
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- Feb/14/23 12:56:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that was quite something. In response to Conservatives saying that the current government, after eight years, is destroying the country, the hon. member corrected us by saying that it has been destroying the country for only seven years and that we should get our facts straight.
In response to our saying that the record levels of spending by the Liberal government are destroying our economy, his answer was to ask why we will not support the government in spending billions more.
One thing he talked about was truth. I have a very specific question. With all of the record levels of spending the government is doing, somehow it has not found enough money to fulfill the promise it made during the election, on page 75 of its platform, costed out at $4.5 billion, for the Canada mental health transfer. Right now the government was supposed to have spent almost a billion dollars. I want a straight answer from the member because he talked a lot about truth. Where is that money? Where is the almost $1 billion that was promised to have been spent by now for the Canada mental health transfer?
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Madam Speaker, I am not familiar with the specific study the member is talking about. I would be glad to talk to him afterward.
I would reiterate that, during our time in government, we cut virtually every tax that Canadians pay, and I think that is a plan that is prudent for this country, as we take a look at responsible spending moving forward.
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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, like so many Liberals, the hon. member was very excited to list off all the spending that the government is doing.
I want to ask a question about the Trudeau legacy. There is a lot of economic disaster in the Trudeau legacy, which gets confusing at times, but back in the 1970s and 1980s—
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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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- Jun/7/22 8:34:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was interesting to hear the hon. member's response to my last question. First of all, I like the hon. member. I like the way he carries himself in the House. I take issue with his characterization of my raising mental health as an issue as “a tantrum”.
The hon. member talked about the priorities the NDP negotiated into the spending of the government. It was one of the highest-spending budgets we have ever seen in this country, and if the mental health of Canadians cannot factor into the highest-spending budget in Canadian history, when will it factor into the list of NDP priorities?
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- Jun/7/22 8:28:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what we saw there was like a WWE fight. That last exchange was not real because, while the hon. member stands and talks about his disappointment in the government, the reality is that the only reason the government is able to do any of the spending he decries is because his party is supporting the government.
I will ask a very specific question in an area that the government is not spending money on as I am curious to hear his thoughts. The Liberals made a promise during the election campaign to fund Canada mental health transfers for $250 million last year and $625 million this year. That was the promise the Liberals made during the election campaign. Since that election campaign, they cut a deal with the NDP. Now, when it comes to the spending of the government, that money is not there.
I am wondering if the hon. member could tell us what the NDP negotiated into the budget in order to get their support and what was traded away against the promised funding for the Canada mental health transfer.
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