- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $88,640.78
- Government Page
- Feb/14/23 3:30:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House are romantics, so I too wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day.
I am pleased to share my time with my colleague from Prince Albert.
I am very happy to speak today about this important motion introduced by my colleague from Calgary Forest Lawn. I congratulate him on it. I think he has done an outstanding job.
Unfortunately, the Bloc member for Longueuil—Saint‑Hubert is criticizing us for speaking often and extensively about the cost of living. In my opinion, it is our duty as members of Parliament to discuss these things. These concerns and issues worry and trouble the lives of our constituents, Canadians and especially Quebeckers.
I will read part of the motion, because it contains extremely important elements that can never be repeated too often to get the government to see reason. It reads as follows:
(i) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, inflation is at a 40-year high, (ii) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, the cost of groceries is up 11%, (iii) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, half of Canadians are cutting back on groceries, (iv) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, 20% of Canadians are skipping meals, (v) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment across Canada’s 10 biggest cities is $2,213 per month, compared to $1,171 per month in 2015...
I would like to remind the House that 2015 is the year the Liberals came to power with the current Prime Minister.
...(vi) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, 45% of variable rate mortgage holders say they will have to sell or vacate their homes in less than nine months due to current interest rate levels, (vii) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, average monthly mortgage costs have more than doubled and now cost Canadians over $3,000 per month...
I will keep it short because there may be more information to be shared from our colleague's very important motion. What we are ultimately asking the government to do is stop spending recklessly so that our economy can get back on track.
I am going to address some very specific elements of the cost of living, ones that affect different sectors, whether it is housing, groceries, or other aspects of people's daily lives.
On the overall economic front, I would like to remind the House that the Prime Minister of this Liberal government is the one who has single-handedly run up more deficits than all previous prime ministers of Canada. That is a lot of money. Somebody, somewhere, has to pay for that. We must also remember that the federal debt has doubled since the Liberal government took office.
I would also like to remind the House that this Liberal government has never managed to table a balanced budget. It repeatedly told us that there would be just small deficits for a time, not for all time. In the end, that has not been the case.
Experts have issued a warning to the government. It will have to rein in its spending if it wants to avoid adding further inflationary pressures. I am not the one saying this, but rather the experts. Still, we know that this Prime Minister almost never listens to anyone. In a report published in January, the Business Council of Canada and the firm Bennett Jones said that the forecasts in the last budget were overly optimistic. Not only do the Liberals not know how to count, but they are throwing money around like it grows on trees.
Let us talk about the state of mind of Quebeckers. I am a Quebecker, so I would like to talk about what is going on in Quebec. I should mention that their state of mind is at its worst. According to a Leger survey, Quebeckers are going into 2023 with a high level of stress, and their number one concern is the impact of rising consumer prices.
The Bloc Québécois has the nerve to stand up in the House and tell us that we are repeating ourselves and that we need to stop talking about this, when this is the number one concern of Quebeckers right now.
Furthermore, over 20% of respondents are worried about not having enough money and said that increased interest rates are problematic.
I want to quote a worker at the Association coopérative d'économie familiale de la Rive-Sud de Québec, a well-known organization in Quebec that helps Quebeckers ensure that they have a budget that they can stick to. The worker said this, and I quote: “People are very stressed about this. Before, they used to ask us how they would get by. Now they are telling us that they are not getting by anymore”.
Let us talk now about businesses. The results of a recent study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business were released this week. According to that study, 73% of Quebec's small businesses, about three-quarters, said that they will have to raise their prices to deal with inflation.
If businesses raise their prices, Canadian and Quebec consumers who need to purchase goods and services are the ones who will be affected in their everyday lives. Quebec businesses are now telling us that things are so bad that they will be forced to raise prices for consumers once again. Obviously, this will have a major impact on Quebeckers' wallets.
The study also found that just over half of companies, nearly 60%, plan to work longer hours to reduce labour costs. This really bothers many businesses.
There is a lot of information in this survey, and one statistic that was really troubling to me was this: 43% of SMEs plan to temporarily reduce their profit margins in order to remain competitive, and 32% of SMEs are going to reduce their investments and growth forecasts. What does this mean in concrete terms?
The vitality of a society is also measured by the vitality of its businesses. If businesses do not have confidence in the future, but rather fear it, they stop investing. It is not hard to see what this means. When a business stops investing, it is because it does not have confidence in the future. A lack of confidence disrupts society's economic balance.
Do I have to remind the House that Canada is in the middle of a major housing crisis? Young adults are sleeping in their parents' basement because they cannot afford a house. What are the consequences of that? It puts pressure on the rental market and drives rents up.
House prices have doubled in the past eight years. If I remember correctly, prices have gone up 21% in and around Quebec City. If we cannot house our people, we have a real problem. The cost of housing has gone up way too much, and now people, young families, cannot afford a house. Not only are they living in their parents' basement, but some students resort to shelters because they have nowhere else to go and not enough money for decent housing.
In closing, I want to touch on the environment. The government loves to crow about its environmental record. Not to rain on its parade, but I would like to see it set a more ambitious agenda in that department.
After eight years of Liberal rule, Canada is ranked 58th out of 63 countries in the fight against climate change, according to the UN. The government must carry out a full review of all the bad decisions it has made and its entire vision, because it is the wrong one and is getting us nowhere.
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- Feb/7/23 3:04:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, inflation is through the roof. Housing costs have doubled; families will pay $1,065 more for food this year, and 1.5 million Canadians are visiting food banks. That is where eight years of the Prime Minister's government has gotten us.
What is his government doing? It is giving over $100 million in contracts to a single firm, ignoring all the expertise of the public service.
Can the Prime Minister clearly explain how this spending will help Canadians?
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- Feb/1/23 2:59:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we do not need to spend more, we need to spend better.
According to the Food Price Report, an average family of four will have to pay $1,065 more for groceries in 2023. Canadian families are already struggling to get by. In 2023, more and more families simply will not make it.
Can the government that has been in power for eight years, as I like to keep saying, look Canadians in the eye and tell them they have nothing to complain about?
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Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer tabled a study on the estimated cost of implementing Bill C‑13 on official languages.
Treasury Board, Canadian Heritage and IRCC refused to provide the PBO with their planned expenditures for implementing this bill.
This is public money. It is money given to us by our citizens. This is a question of transparency and integrity.
What are they trying to hide?
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