- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $88,640.78
- Government Page
- Mar/31/22 12:51:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians, including my constituents, are under a lot of pressure. They are in the clutches of skyrocketing inflation, which is currently at 5.7%.
Our fathers, mothers, sisters and children are struggling to make ends meet. Young people cannot buy a home. Seniors are unsure of what they can afford and why they have to choose between food and medications. That is what we are talking about today.
We are calling on the Liberal government to be careful and reasonable in its upcoming NDP‑Liberal budget and to be mindful of spending too much. That is what the Conservatives are saying today.
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- Mar/31/22 12:49:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us leave former prime ministers and the leadership race out of this debate.
The Conservatives have moved a clear and simple motion calling on the current NDP‑Liberal alliance to present a credible, reasonable plan to balance the budget with well-defined measures for government spending. Every expenditure must correspond to revenue. That is what we are saying today.
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- Mar/31/22 12:47:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not saying that we should not work with all other parliamentarians and other parties. Having been a parliamentarian and a minister, I know what it means to negotiate with other parliamentarians and reach a compromise. That is very normal and that is why we are here. That is why we have committees: to improve bills and arrive at the best possible solution.
However, what we are talking about today is an agreement reached behind closed doors to keep this government in power until 2025 in exchange for implementing the NDP platform. Canadians never voted for that.
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- Mar/31/22 12:36:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has announced that she will table a NDP-Liberal budget on April 7. We are very worried. We have serious concerns. We moved a motion, which I will read, because that is what we are debating today.
That, given that,
(i) excessive government spending has increased the deficit, the national debt, and fuelled inflation to its highest level in 31 years,
(ii) taxes on Canadians continue to increase, from the carbon tax to escalator taxes to Canada Pension Plan premiums,
(iii) the government refuses to provide relief to Canadians by temporarily reducing the Goods and Services Tax on gasoline and diesel,
the House call on the government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance, and a meaningful fiscal anchor.
I rise today to try to make the government listen to reason. This government listens only to itself and prefers to focus its efforts on making deals behind closed doors with the NDP. As we know, the NDP is a party that pushes for very expensive plans. The Liberal Party of Canada is now the NDP-Liberal party. Take a hard left, everyone.
Times are tough for Canadians, Quebeckers and the people in my riding. Inflation is at 5.7%, the highest it has been in 30 years. This runaway inflation is crippling our families, who are struggling to pay for groceries, which will cost them $1,000 more this year. They are struggling to pay for fuel. This morning, in my riding, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, gas was going for $1.75 a litre. Seniors are wondering what they should pay for first among the essentials that they need.
As for real estate, young people are unable to achieve their dream of owning their first home because of skyrocketing real estate costs. On March 15, the Canadian Real Estate Association released the highest real estate inflation numbers ever recorded. In fact, house prices have increased by 3.5% over the past month alone and by nearly 30%—29.2% to be precise—over the past year. It is crazy.
House prices have doubled since the Liberals came to power in 2015, when the average house price was $434,500. That same house now costs $868,400. How is a young couple supposed to buy their first home? This makes the dream of home ownership impossible for families and young people all across the country.
Even better, recently released documents show that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, paid more than $48 million in bonuses over the past two years, while four in five Canadian families were forced to cut spending and tighten their budgets. The CMHC's only purpose is to make housing more affordable for all Canadians, yet it is rewarding its own employees with exorbitant bonuses when the real estate sector has become untenable.
That is a snapshot of the Liberals' management style, which is reckless, illogical and indulgent.
Our regional economies are under pressure as well, because businesses cannot find the workers they need.
Add to that huge issues with processing foreign workers' applications, and it makes for the perfect storm.
My colleague from Beauce could talk about immigration issues, a perennial headache for the people working in our riding offices. We have asked the government countless questions about this, but we have never received an answer, even though it is a very serious problem that affects our regions.
Last August, Chaudière‑Appalaches elected officials and business community representatives carried out a study documenting the impact of the labour shortage on the economy of this very productive and very large region of Quebec.
According to the study, the 309 manufacturers surveyed have 3,300 vacancies. The labour shortage is responsible for $2 billion in losses due to low productivity in the Chaudière‑Appalaches region alone. Because of the labour shortage, production drops and businesses have to turn down contracts and miss out on all kinds of opportunities. It also means less money in government coffers. Here again, as usual, the government is a very bad manager.
This government has been spending recklessly ever since it came to power. The Parliamentary Budget Officer even said that it was time to stop spending so much. The debt is out of control, and this government is like a rudderless ship, adrift on the ocean, with no plan for balancing the budget. The Liberal government's objective is to stay in power by forming dubious alliances with the NDP rather than working to balance the budget through rigorous management of public funds, and yet that is what Canadians expect of us.
Our constituents want a serious government that properly manages public funds, the money they work hard to earn every day. Doing so requires courage and political will. This government has been running a deficit since 2015 and has not delivered a single balanced budget since it came to power. It has been plunging us into deficit for six years, and that has to change. It is long overdue.
Since 2015, deficits have been building up and the debt has been growing exponentially. It is now at $1.234 billion. I have said it before, but I do not even know how many zeros come after that number. It is alarming. As it drafts its budget, the government is selling its soul to stay in power. In exchange, the Liberal Party is bringing in measures from the NDP's election platform, a platform that Canadians did not want. Our constituents did not vote for the NDP, and that party does not even have 10% of the seats in the House. What a mess. What an affront to democracy.
This will only breed public cynicism.
As if it were not enough to call an election that no one wanted at a cost of $620 million and that produced the same result, now the Liberal government is not respecting the will of the people. That is too bad. It is pathetic, really. The Liberals clinched their agreement with the NDP just before presenting the budget, and that is no coincidence because it has been all planned since the beginning of this Parliament. What can we say about the arrogance of this new government led by two centralists who will have both hands, or should I say all four hands, in provincial jurisdictions?
They have been warned. The provinces are keeping an eye on them.
Instead of spending its time thinking about how to remain in power and concocting secret agreements with another party, the government should do its job and listen to Canadians, consider their concerns and come up with solutions.
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