- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Lakeland
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $115,261.63
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, Canadians are out of money and the fall economic statement shows that the Liberals are out of touch. Almost half of Canadians are $200 or less away from bankruptcy, cannot cover their living expenses this year, cannot save for the future and are cutting back on healthy food. A quarter of Canadian households cannot cover monthly bills and debt repayment.
It is appalling that the Prime Minister doubled Canada’s debt and said that the government “took on debt so Canadians wouldn't have to.” Canadians are now paying the staggering price for his reckless decisions, and he has added more debt than all previous prime ministers in Canadian history combined.
He claims that all the new spending was because of COVID, but over $200 billion of it had nothing to do with COVID. All that spending has created record-high inflation that is driving up the cost of everything, and essentials such as gas, groceries and home heating are almost out of reach. The fall statement does nothing to alleviate these burdens on struggling Canadians. With record debt, record inflation and, as it turns out, record taxes, Canadians pay more taxes now than ever before, and actually pay more in taxes than for food, clothing and shelter combined.
The fall statement shows that the Liberals are going to make things worse and will keep racking up debt to fuel their spending. Of course, they plan to triple the carbon tax too. The fall economic statement is an insult to hard-working Canadians struggling just to get by, never mind trying to actually get ahead.
The Conservatives asked the Liberals to commit to tackling inflation and the skyrocketing cost of living by ensuring they would bring in no new taxes and no new spending. They ignored both and will only fuel the skyrocketing cost of living fire they set.
As is the government's pattern, the fall statement undermines Canada's natural resources sector, which bolsters the entire economy and is a leading contributor to GDP, jobs, government revenue and closing the gap between the wealthy and poor in Canada. While the Prime Minister recently said Russia's attack on Ukraine has accelerated his government's effort to phase out oil and gas, the finance minister recently claimed that Canada is ready to “support our allies with energy security”. She claims it will be easier for businesses to invest in major projects in Canada, but the reality is that the Liberal record is one of deliberate policy uncertainty, unpredictability and added red tape and costs that drive businesses, jobs and money out of Canada.
Oil and gas is Canada’s biggest private sector investor and lead export, even now. However, the NDP-Liberals’ anti-energy agenda has already had stark consequences: 300,000 jobs lost, over $150 billion in energy projects and indigenous partnerships cancelled and four pipelines dead. They would have enabled Canadian energy security and self-sufficiency and would have exported more Canadian energy to the world.
Shockingly, under the Liberals, 25 LNG export projects have been stalled or abandoned, risking 100,000 jobs and $500 billion in new investment. In the same time, the U.S. built seven and approved 20 more, while only one in Canada, with the biggest private sector investment in Canadian history and approved under the former Conservative government, has shovels in the ground. In Germany, a major LNG import facility was just permitted and built in 194 days. They wanted Canadian LNG but cannot get it because of the Liberals. How many times was LNG cited in the fall economic statement? It was zero.
The finance minister talks about accelerating project approvals, but her government has actually done everything it can to slow them down or destroy them completely. She even said that Canada must and will fast-track “the energy and mining projects our allies need to heat their homes and to manufacture electric vehicles.” However, this fall statement actually eliminates incentives for small-scale energy start-ups, picks winners and losers in resource development and would make energy in Canada for Canadians more and more expensive.
The fall statement outlines an incoming 2% tax on buybacks of a company’s own stock. That would harm Canadian investment because it is double the rate of the U.S. It would cause Canadian businesses and investments to continue to move south.
The NDP-Liberals will also get rid of flow-through shares, which are a major source of start-up capital for many oil, gas, and predominantly mining projects. Cancelling them only for oil and gas would hurt small businesses, especially those investing in alternative energy and emissions-reduction technology, because 93% of oil and gas companies in Canada have under 100 employees. They face high costs, high uncertainty, high risk and domestic political hostility, so private investment is already a challenge.
Get this. In 2020, the then natural resources minister expanded flow-through shares to help small companies build stronger supply chains, including for critical minerals. However, this fall economic statement cuts them, so by their own admission, it is jeopardizing supply chains that are already severely compromised.
Liberal claims and policies are incoherent, contradictory and hypocritical. The finance minister's delivery of the fall statement mentioned “critical minerals” five times and she claims they are a priority. They should be a key pillar of Canada's resource future, but so far there is only talk. In reality, critical minerals in Canada such as nickel, lithium and uranium will stay in the ground because mining approvals take several years, duplicate provincial and municipal reviews and can be paused or get new conditions at any time. Canada currently produces no phosphate, a key component in electric car batteries. The Liberals say they want all new vehicle sales to be zero emissions by 2035, but phosphate is not even on Canada’s critical minerals list.
The gap between words and actions is not surprising, though. It is the Liberals' modus operandi on almost everything. Instead of actually fixing the regulatory mess they created, the Liberals drive Canada deeper into debt and announce more tax dollars to fund their broken programs. The fall statement seems to admit it because the Liberals plan to pour $1.28 billion into the various resource regulators.
The Liberals should be ashamed that this is necessary, since Canada was consistently world renowned for decades as the most responsible resource producer with the highest standards and performance and a best-in-class regulatory system by all measures. It was literally the best in the world out of the top ten resource-producing jurisdictions on the planet before the Liberals broke it. The only way the Liberals seem to get companies to pursue new major projects is by bankrolling them with tax dollars. Layers of red tape and duplication and an unclear and arbitrary review process cause investors to seek opportunities outside of Canada.
Unlike the Liberals, the Conservatives would remove unnecessary roadblocks and duplication, attract investment and accelerate approvals for resource projects that are crucial to economic and national security, while maintaining the highest global standards. The Conservatives would ensure things can actually get built in this country.
A Conservative government would axe the carbon tax, repeal the anti-energy, anti-business and anti-export bills and get more of Canada’s world-leading environmentally and socially responsible oil, gas and minerals to the world to displace these products from countries with lower environmental, human rights, labour and governance standards.
The Conservatives will put the people first. Instead of government creating cash and making everything more expensive, the Conservatives will make sure Canada creates more of what cash buys: more homes, more gas, more food and more resources here at home—
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- Oct/20/22 4:50:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my deputy leader for her fiery and steadfast advocacy, not only for people who are struggling to make ends meet but also for the oil and gas industry. That is important to the Canadian economy and everyone in every region.
In December 2019, the Prime Minister broke his promise and announced that he would increase his carbon tax 566% over the level at the time. The Liberals applauded while Conservatives said what it was, which is a tax plan. It is not an environmental one, and it would inevitably cost Canadian families more to heat their homes, get to work and buy groceries. It would literally make everything more expensive for everyone.
Experts such as former Liberal MP Dan McTeague warned, “the price of the carbon tax on natural gas for home heating will now cost more than the price of the natural gas itself” and that it would “add an increase...of $900/year to an average residential natural gas bill. This will effectively double most homeowners home heating costs.”
A CBC column even cited the former parliamentary budget office Kevin Page's prediction that the Liberals' irresponsible big spending would create pressure to hike the carbon tax even higher because, of course, it goes into general revenue.
Incredibly, the Liberals have claimed that they will not raise taxes or the cost of living for Canadians. Only two years ago, the Prime Minister was asked if he would raises taxes, and he said, “we are not going to be saddling Canadians with extra costs”.
In 2019, when asked if the Liberals would increase the carbon tax, the then environment minister said, “The plan is not to increase the price post-2022.” Well, it is 2022, and it is clear that these were all empty words, since they are going to triple their carbon tax on everything.
It was not too long ago that the Prime Minister also said, “Whatever approach is chosen, this policy would be revenue-neutral for the federal government. All revenues generated under this system would stay in the province or territory where they are generated.” The problem with that claim is that this is not true either.
GST is charged on top of the carbon tax and the government's own balance sheet shows that revenue is almost a quarter of a billion dollars. As Conservatives warned repeatedly, as it did with inflation, the carbon tax is not revenue-neutral, since the government pockets hundreds of millions of dollars at the expense of Canadians.
Most Canadians actually do not get back more than what they pay in federal carbon tax. Rebates do not and will never cover the direct and indirect cost hikes on everything caused by the carbon tax. For families in Ontario, Manitoba, Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nunavut, the fuel charge backstop costs them more than they get back. That is the truth. After it is all said and done, the carbon tax costs households more than $1,100 in Manitoba, almost $1,500 in Ontario and Saskatchewan, and more than $2,000 in Alberta.
Of course, the carbon tax, as we have always warned, has a disproportionate impact on rural, remote and low-income Canadians. Whereas farmers get the same rebates as urban Canadians, they also pay tens of thousands of dollars a year more in additional carbon tax costs.
Grain Farmers of Ontario, for example, says that it will cost more than $36,000 a year on the average 800-acre farm, not including the costs of heating their homes and their barns, which, of course, already costs rural and remote Canadians more in the first place. A second carbon tax is coming too. Energy and industrial policy experts report that it will cost every Canadian almost $1,300 more, and it will hike household energy costs by 2.2% to 6.5% with the Liberal fuel standard.
Conservatives have heard loud and clear from Canadians the disastrous toll of the Liberal carbon tax on their ability to afford to make ends meet and to purchase basic necessities such as gas, groceries and home heating. This Conservative motion asks for real, tangible and immediate action. It is asking for a way to ease the government-imposed burden on Canadians right now, to cancel the carbon tax on all home heating fuels.
Why? As Conservatives have had to say over and over, home heating is not a luxury in Canada. It is just ridiculous to have to remind the NDP-Liberal costly coalition that Canada gets really cold during the winter. The average temperature in Atlantic Canada is always below zero. In Nunavut, it ranges from -15°C to -40°C.
On my farm in Lakeland, it is an average -15°C, but let me tell the members, we sure learned last December that we better calve later in the spring when, for about three weeks, the temperature hovered around -50°C, and it was lower at night. It is not an exaggeration to say that Canadians will literally freeze if they cannot afford the cost of home heating, yet the Liberals just keep driving it up.
In eastern Canada, people have to rely on heating oil, with 63% of Prince Edward Islanders and 47% of Nova Scotians using it to heat their homes.
Those Atlantic Canadians who have to use oil for home heating will face an average loss of $900 more a year because of the carbon tax. They also will be disproportionately impacted by the carbon tax 2.0, the Liberal fuel standard. The added costs are enormous. Furnace oil in Newfoundland and Labrador has already increased 54% compared to last year. It is just cruel that the Liberals tried to justify making that even worse and are ignoring the pleas from the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Around 47% of Canadians use natural gas to heat their homes. In Alberta, the average household pays $312 in carbon tax alone on natural gas. That will go up to more than $1,200 because of the Liberals' carbon tax hikes.
Ontarians currently pay $235 in carbon tax on their gas bill. That will triple to $745. We already know that gas bills have already increased across the country to almost $1,500 a year and these guys are just going to go ahead and make it worse anyway.
Propane is is used disproportionately by low-income and rural Canadians. It will cost almost $700 a year more to fill up propane tanks because of the Liberals' costly carbon tax hikes. All these costs are, of course, more intense during colder months. Home heating will double, on average, for Canadians this winter and some will face a 300% increase in their bill.
None of this is a surprise. In 2015, a Senate committee received a submission which clearly outlined the cost of home heating increases that Canadians would pay even at that current carbon tax rate. It predicted more than $300 a year for Alberta families. It is even more than that today. It predicted $231 for Ontario families. Today it is $235.
Canadians are at a breaking point. That is why Conservatives are pushing the Liberals to cancel their plan to triple, triple, triple the carbon tax. The Canadians I represent cannot afford more taxes. Tracy from Vermilion emailed me that over a quarter of her gas bill was carbon tax. She said, “This is gross and unattainable for most Canadians” and it is “completely avoidable and unnecessary.” She asked me to fight against this tax that is crippling her family and all Canadians.
Like many of my Conservative colleagues, I have spoken many times about how the Liberal carbon tax is hurting everyone in Lakeland, from young people just getting started to seniors on fixed incomes, but the Liberals have turned a deaf ear to every single one of them. Of course, it is also part of the Prime Minister’s anti-Canadian energy agenda, designed deliberately to make oil and gas more expensive to develop and use in Canada.
As the new Conservative leader, the member for Carleton, said recently that while the Prime Minister punishes Canadians for trying to heat their homes and aims to shut down Canada’s own world-class, responsible, innovative and transparent energy development, he is obviously just fine with oil and gas, as long as it is not created in Canada and as long as it comes from dirty dictatorships.
Instead of prioritizing Canadian businesses, jobs and paycheques, the Prime Minister killed energy infrastructure that would have ensured Canadian self-sufficiency and energy security, and would have boosted Canadian energy exports to the world. His approach actually supports despotic regimes that do not come anywhere close to Canada’s environmental standards and forces Canada to import more than, for example, 70,000 barrels per day of oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries where energy development benefits only an elite wealthy few and is rife with corruption, environmental devastation and horrible working conditions.
While Canadians are freezing in their homes this winter, their tax dollars, because of the Prime Minister, will fund dictator holidays and Putin’s war against Ukraine.
Other countries get it. Australia had a carbon tax and then scrapped it because of the detrimental impact on its economy and natural resources. It has a similar economy to Canada, but it is smaller geographically with warmer weather. It is less costly to develop its resources. It is not going back. The biggest oil and gas consumer and producer in the world is the United States. No president has imposed a carbon tax there, but it has actually achieved meaningful emissions reductions, unlike the Liberal government which has missed every single target it has ever set.
The reality is that Canada is in the midst of a full-blown cost of living crisis caused by the Liberal government. From my northern Alberta riding to Vancouver, to the riding that my friend from Thornhill represents, to Newfoundland, to the north, home heating is not a luxury. It is not a choice; it is a basic necessity. All MPs should support this measure to give relief or I would suggest they turn off the heating in their offices and homes until the summer.
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- Sep/20/22 3:08:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is the fifth largest natural gas producer, but does not export any LNG. The world wants Canadian LNG, but the Liberal gatekeepers killed 16 projects, 100,000 jobs and forced Canada to import. What is worse is that after the Prime Minister's snub, Germany may do a deal with Saudi Arabia instead.
Canada could be the sixth largest LNG exporter if all the projects were built and replace all Russian LNG to Europe, Japan and South Korea.
Why do the Liberals always export Canadian paycheques and projects to foreign dictators?
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