- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Lakeland
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $115,261.63
- Government Page
- Dec/5/22 2:35:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, most Canadians can hardly afford to make ends meet. Even the Bank of Canada's governor says that this record inflation is a made-in-Canada problem caused by NDP-Liberal out-of-control spending.
Taxes, because of the Liberals, now cost Canadians 10% more than food, shelter and clothing combined. Half of Canadians would go broke over a sudden $1,000 expense, but the NDP-Liberals are going to take even more away.
They are out of touch, and Canadians are out of money. When will the Liberals axe their failed carbon tax?
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- Dec/5/22 2:33:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP-Liberals' record inflation means that Canadians cannot afford to eat. Half of Canadians are already forced to cut back on healthy food, and 1.5 million Canadians had to visit a food bank in a single month. Families will have to spend over $1,000 more on food next year.
The Liberals' out-of-control spending and their ever-increasing carbon tax make everything more expensive. When will the Liberals give Canadians a break and stop forcing their failed carbon tax on struggling Canadians?
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- Nov/15/22 2:55:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, so it is clear from that answer that even though the Liberals have actually created this cost of living crisis, they are just going to make it even worse.
The finance minister actually said that Canadians should cut Disney+ to make ends meet. She bragged that she lived in downtown Toronto and did not have to drive anywhere. Even while she is chauffeured around in limos and private jets at taxpayers' expense, she scoffs while my neighbours have to drive to get around and have to choose between eating or heating their homes, barns and shops this week at -28°.
The Liberals are out of touch and Canadians are out of money. Why will they not axe their cruel carbon tax?
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- Nov/15/22 2:54:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians cannot afford this costly coalition. The more the NDP-Liberals spend, the more expensive everything gets. Gas and diesel is over three bucks a litre. Families have to find over $2,000 more for groceries this year; home heating will double this winter; and on food bank users, one third are Canadians with jobs who cannot afford to eat.
When will the Liberals give Canadians a break and cancel their plan to triple their tax hike on gas, groceries and home heating?
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- Nov/3/22 2:59:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in fact, Canadians' paycheques and savings go up in flames as the Liberals fuel the inflation fire that they set.
The Bank of Canada says that inflation is due to what is happening in Canada. BMO says that sending cheques as inflation support is inflationary. Even Liberal Mark Carney says that inflation is “a domestic story”. Canadians are using food banks at record levels, half are almost bankrupt and a million cannot afford home heating.
The Liberals are fine with spending the average Canadians' yearly rent on a single hotel room, but will they actually give Canadians a break, cut taxes and cap spending?
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- Nov/3/22 2:58:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the more the Liberals tax and spend, the more expensive life gets for struggling Canadians. The Prime Minister racked up more debt than all other primer ministers before him combined, and he claimed it was so Canadians would not have to. However, today, Canadians cannot make ends meet, while government contracts are up 74%, $14.6 billion a year, going to insiders, former Liberal MPs, anti-Semites and foreign consultants, and hundreds of millions of dollars the Liberals will not account for at all.
When will the NDP-Liberal costly coalition stop its tax hikes and wasteful spending?
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- Nov/2/22 3:14:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the Liberals’ out-of-control spending makes life more expensive for all Canadians. Half cannot put aside savings. Home heating costs will double this winter. More Canadians already had to use food banks in one single month than ever before in Canadian history. For years, our new Conservative leader has warned that the NDP-Liberal costly coalition’s inflationary deficits would force Canadians to have to pay the bill.
Tomorrow, will the Prime Minister finally give Canadians a break and stop his tax hikes and reckless spending?
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- Oct/17/22 2:35:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is these Liberals who are making life more expensive for every single Canadian. They are so out of touch. Healthy groceries are up 15%. Home heating costs will double for most Canadians this winter, and they will triple, up to 300%, for some. Almost a million Canadians cannot heat their homes already. Gas bills have increased 50% since last year, and diesel spiked a record 13¢ this weekend, but these NDP and Liberals are going to make everything more expensive and hike taxes on all essential goods. Will they cancel their plans to triple their cruel carbon tax?
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- Oct/17/22 2:34:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government should be concerned about Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet. Canada has shot up rapidly on a global list for being the 25th most expensive country to live in out of 195.
Even though a year ago the governor of the Bank of Canada talked about deflation, he now admits Canada's 40-year-high inflation is increasingly self-inflicted by the government. Canadians cannot afford to eat, heat or drive under the NDP-Liberal costly coalition, so will it cancel its plans to triple its taxes on everything?
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- Sep/29/22 12:20:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is another area where it is very striking to see the gap between the words of members of other parties, their actions and the actual outcomes of their policy agenda. The reality is this. The high taxing, high spending, high deficit policies of both the NDP and the Liberals disproportionately harm low-income Canadians; people on fixed incomes, seniors; the working poor; and the most disadvantaged people right across the country. Their policy agenda hurts them the most. The Conservatives are the ones offering a real solution to provide—
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- Sep/29/22 12:19:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the reality is this. The Prime Minister has spent more than every other prime minister combined in Canadian history. That is a consequence of the government's out-of-control spending through budget after budget. It is not just a consequence of the last two years, frankly.
I think Canadians want to see their elected representatives take responsibility for the government's policy agenda, which is making life too expensive and unaffordable, causing Canadians to struggle to make ends meet and causing great anxiety and fear about their futures. It just is mind boggling to me to hear elected representatives from other parties acknowledging the cost-of-living crisis, but taking no responsibility whatsoever and refusing to vote in favour of what is an obvious and immediate tangible measure that could provide relief to every single struggling working and everyday Canadian in every part of the country.
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- Sep/29/22 12:17:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is striking that the government has been in power for seven years, and has a deal to stay up to 10 years, and the consequence so far has been almost never seen before skyrocketing prices on all basic essential necessities on literally everything.
Members of the government stand in the House of Commons and offer their thoughts, prayers, hope and compassion to Canadians facing the cost-of-living crisis, which they admit, yet the member wants to talk about everything and anything other than their own record and the cost-of-living crisis that they have created.
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- Sep/29/22 12:06:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will split my time with the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.
Canadians cannot afford the current Liberal government. The NDP-Liberals have made the cost of living so expensive that people are being forced to choose between heating their homes, putting gas in their cars and feeding their families. That is why the Conservative motion today calls on the government to immediately stop new taxes on gas, groceries, heating and paycheques. That would mean cancelling its planned carbon tax increase and their planned tax hikes on paycheques, which are all defined on the Liberal government's own website as taxes.
The numbers are stark. A Canadian making $60,000 a year went from paying $3,400 a year in taxes under the previous Conservative government to $4,169 in taxes today. The average Canadian family now spends more of their income on taxes than they do on food, clothing and shelter combined, and this share is going to keep escalating under the current Liberal government. That is morally wrong, and it is all a consequence of bad policy.
The cost of everything is skyrocketing. Families are spending $1,200 more a year to put food on the table. Housing prices have spiralled out of control, and rising interest rates mean that half of young Canadians, 56%, who are looking to buy their first home have put their plans on pause or given up altogether.
Rent for a one-bedroom home in Toronto is over $2,300 a month, and post-secondary students are living in homeless shelters. One in six small businesses are considering closing permanently, while almost two-thirds are still carrying debt from the last two years, in large part because of decisions made by governments. Of course, there is also the ever-increasing carbon tax that the Liberals promised would stay at a certain level, but it is going to blow way past that and way past what they claimed.
The Liberals keep saying this tax gives Canadians more back than they spend on it, but of course, the Parliamentary Budget Officer completely debunked that claim. The reality is that 60% of Canadians will not get back more than they put into it, and of course, courtesy of this particular Liberal government, Albertans are the hardest hit, paying $2,282 more than they get back.
However, the carbon tax rebate is effectively the Liberal government using working-class Canadians as a 0%-interest loan. Proceeds are not returned, and it costs Canadians the exact cost of inflation for every month that they do not have their money, plus the cost of lost potential investment income.
For example, using what we all now know is actually a conservative inflation number of 3.4%, which was inflation in 2021 and has more than doubled this year, plus a conservative 2% rate of return on investments, and adding that to the average 2021 carbon tax cost for an Albertan of $1,585, it is almost $86 that has just disappeared, money that these Canadians will never get back and money these Canadians could have used to pay for their grocery bill that week or fill up their gas tanks. The Liberals are going to make these losses worse and keep taking more and more away from Canadians.
Conservatives are focused on Canadians who are struggling with this Liberal-manufactured cost of living crisis.
Coralea from Elk Point wrote to me. Her son has ADD and several other learning difficulties. To deal with these challenges, she sent him to a school about half an hour away from where her family lives. They were able to carpool with other families, and her husband had a well-paying job in the oil patch, but the Liberals’ war on the oil and gas sector changed all of that.
Drilling rigs shut down, companies closed, investment dried up and projects were cancelled, all because of the risk and uncertainty created by the Liberal government, and unfortunately, like tens of thousands of other workers directly employed by the energy sector, Coralea’s husband lost his job. He did find another job local to their home, but it paid him a third of what he was making. Coralea started a housekeeping business so their family could make ends meet, but that business was wiped out during the last two years.
A few months ago, Coralea's son’s school called with a plan for the next four years that would actually see her son graduate with a diploma and his first-year apprenticeship, but she had to tell them that her son is not returning next year, because the skyrocketing cost of gas to drive an hour back and forth twice a day, is no longer feasible on their reduced income.
Coralea is not a Canadian who can afford to buy a fancy $60,000 Tesla. She cannot even afford to rewire her home to accommodate the charge. She cannot afford to have an electric car that does not work in the snowstorms and in -40°C weather that people in Lakeland often experience. She cannot afford the taxes the Liberal government keeps imposing and hiking on Canadians.
Another constituent, Steve, who is a senior living in Vermilion, told me he received both CPP and OAS, both payments are indexed to inflation. The Liberals will tell us that seniors living on these programs are protected from cost of living increases and inflationary pressures, but that is just not the case. Under half of Steve’s monthly gas bill is for the actual gas he uses. A full quarter of his bill goes to taxes, over $50 a month.
For the first two quarters of the year, single adults received just over $250 in carbon tax rebates. Steve would pay $300 in taxes on his gas bill alone at the same time. He pays carbon taxes on his electricity bill, carbon taxes on his groceries and carbon taxes on the fuel he needs to fill up his truck. Steve is going to be taxed out of his retirement at this rate. He told me, “This carbon tax is killing me””, and asked me to keep fighting against this “nonsensical and needless taxation.”
Then there is 25-year-old Austin from Vegreville, who should have a bright future ahead of him. He should be ready to start his life, buy a home and plan a family if he wants. Instead, he has to decide on what bills he pays every month and whether he can afford groceries at the same time. His car ran into some issues, costing him $850, $850 that he cannot afford when gas prices have doubled and his gas and electricity bills are costing him $400 a month. Austin works two jobs, at Walmart and at a local indoor arena. His girlfriend is 21 and works in early learning and child care. He is really worried about their future and he stood up. He told me to, “Scrap the carbon tax...Stop the spending, soften the blow of inflation, and actually make the middle class pay less tax and actually help us get ahead, not send us backwards.”
We could all go on about this from our constituents: from Jason, who runs a small public golf course in New Brunswick, who paid an extra $6,000 in fuel from 2020 to 2021 and is anticipating another $7,500 increase this year; to Linda, a widowed senior, who is still working as a school bus driver because she cannot afford to heat her home and put gas in her car; to Fred, who told me of a young family he sits beside every week at hockey practice that now has to choose which of their kids can play this coming season because the cost of travelling to games has become too much.
The cost of living crisis imposed by the Liberals is not “transitory”, it is not “Vladimir Putin’s inflation” and it is not “a supply chain issue.” It is inflation created because the government has consistently spent well beyond its means and ignored all Conservative warnings that its out-of-control spending would lead to higher prices of basic necessities for all Canadians.
The cost of living crisis driven by the government’s spending and tax increases on gas, groceries, home heating and paycheques is forcing the Canadians who I represent to choose between heating and eating, to choose which of their kids can go into sports or if they can at all, to choose whether they can afford to see their grandchildren, to jeopardize their children’s future because they cannot afford the costs anymore. This has to stop. The government’s reckless spending, its attacks on working Canadians and its continued tax hikes are ruining lives. That is why the motion today is so important. Canadians literally cannot afford the Liberals anymore.
As our new leader, the member for Carleton, has urged them for years, the Liberals must reverse course, find savings in government spending and balance the budget so all that debt is not passed on to future generations with nothing to show for it. It needs to stop fining, demonizing and firing Canadians whose personal medical decisions were not acceptable to the Prime Minister; stop destroying lives and livelihoods of Canadians by driving away investment, handcuffing the development of Canada’s natural resources in agriculture sectors, anchors to our economy, with its anti-business, anti-private sector, high-taxing red tape agenda; and commit today to no new taxes on gas, groceries, home heating and paycheques.
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- Jun/21/22 2:35:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals racked up more debt than every other government before it, combined. That puts all Canadians on the hook and they are worried whether they can make it. Scotiabank says the Liberals “are doing nothing of any significance to slow inflation at the moment” and “missed their chance to nip it in the bud”, the inflation they caused. RBC and BMO predict tomorrow’s inflation to be 7.4%, over double from May last year. Liberal spending caused this skyrocketing inflation and is forcing Canadians to choose between heating and eating.
Why do the NDP-Liberals always make things so much worse for working everyday Canadians?
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- Jun/21/22 2:34:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the current NDP-Liberal budget spending is the most outside of a crisis in three decades. It is driving runaway costs of living and rising inflation. Food is up 9.7% since last year, the biggest jump since the eighties. Gas is a record high, over $2 a litre across Canada. It is almost $3 a litre in big cities like Vancouver and Montreal. It is hard in rural areas too. Since last year, fertilizer is up 44%, feed is up 8% and farm fuel is up 32%.
Why do the Liberals not care that Canadians are really struggling right now just to get by?
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