- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Lakeland
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $115,261.63
- Government Page
- Apr/27/23 5:16:43 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, for eight years, Conservatives warned that the cost of this NDP-Liberal government would fuel inflation, hike interest rates and drive up the cost of living for all Canadians. The Liberals are spending more than ever before, while everyday Canadians are struggling more than ever before. That is the consequence of the costly coalition’s agenda to tax and spend recklessly.
Budget 2023’s $70 billion in new spending will have to be covered by $4,300 from every Canadian family in the taxes they pay. Since 2019 alone, the Liberals have increased spending by $120 billion, and most of it was not related to COVID. The Liberal deficit is now over $40 billion a year, and the debt will hit $1.3 trillion in only five years from now.
This Prime Minister has added more debt than every other prime minister before combined. His own finance minister confirms that debt interest has increased 80% in the last three years. That is $43.9 billion a year, or 10% of all government spending. These are shocking numbers that are hard to conceive of. In reality, they mean that, if a Canadian paid taxes this year, they paid $1,400 dollars just to service the Liberals’ debt, not even to pay it down. So much for the Prime Minister’s 2015 promise of three years of $10-billion annual deficits.
What the Liberals have done is exactly what Conservatives warned about. This budget will up the debt, up how much Canadians pay for it and up the cost of everything in daily life. This is all while Liberals drive away private sector investment, businesses and jobs in key sectors, such as natural resources, which make outsized investments and pay outsized taxes compared to all other sectors for the public services and programs that Canadians' value.
Liberal meddling makes life more expensive for people in Lakeland and across Canada. The January 2023 Liberal tax hikes already cost Canadians over $300 more this year, when half of Canadians are already $200 away from bankruptcy.
The Liberal carbon tax will cost Canadians in Lakeland nearly $3,000 dollars a year only seven years from now, and it will immediately take another $700, which they do not have, from them this year alone. While the Liberals may claim otherwise, the independent PBO is clear that their carbon tax increases the cost of literally everything, which is why Canadians pay more than they will ever get back from these Liberals.
Across all provinces where the Liberals have imposed their carbon tax, four in five Canadians will pay more than they get back, which is the truth, while nearly half of Canadians are forced to borrow for basics and have no emergency savings. More than ever before, 1.5 million Canadians have to go to food banks to make ends meet, and 69% of seniors have to work longer than planned now because NDP-Liberal spending-driven inflation has killed the purchasing power of their retirement savings.
What is the Liberals’ response? It is to increase taxes and increase spending to wipe out any savings Canadians have been able to keep, and then have the gall to ask struggling Canadians to be grateful when the few who meet complicated criteria get a one-off cheque for a couple hundred dollars in the mail, which does not come close to covering the costs most Canadians face because of these Liberals. They are so out of touch, and Canadians are out of money.
The truth is that lower taxes and attractive business conditions always result in more revenue for governments. The Liberals do this backwards. Under the former Conservative government, foreign investment averaged $55.6 billion annually in Canada while major projects flourished. Under these Liberals, there has been a big drop to $39 billion a year.
There are big problems with the Liberals’ plans for natural resources in budget 2023. The Liberals should not aim to match the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act’s $394 billion in subsidies, which is more than Canada’s total annual revenue. The Liberals did try, with billions in badly targeted subsidies, but the tax credit incentives will not actually incentivize and expand energy transformation in Canada as well as they could, and I will explain why.
The U.S. IRA has technology-neutral production tax credits for low-emissions electricity or parts manufacturing, which means established and multipronged, profitable energy companies can keep investing in these technologies. However, in Canada, the Liberals cut out every oil and gas company from eligibility for the clean technology investment tax credit, the very companies who currently fund 75% of Canadian clean tech investment in this country overall. The Liberals' tax credit encourages them to put those investments in the U.S. and other countries, where it would be welcomed and rewarded.
Meanwhile, labour conditions on the Liberals’ tax credits, which will infringe on negotiated agreements, are likely to harm exclusive solar and wind companies’ ability to access the credits since their workers are often unskilled labourers and the companies just cannot meet the Liberals' targets. The Liberals obviously make bad investments with tax dollars, with a third of the budget, $35 billion, now being sent to the Canada growth fund. Canadians probably remember the very expensive $35-billion Canada Infrastructure Bank, which has not actually built a single thing after eight years. It is so bad that Parliament’s transport committee even says it should be abolished.
Now the Liberals are putting billions into the Canada growth fund, run by the board which, as alleged by Hong Kong Watch late last year, invested Canadians’ pension funds in companies helping the Communist Party’s Uyghur labour camps. Liberals pick a couple of winners and make lots of losers when they put Canadian tax dollars into big government slush funds, where they seem to disappear and do not actually benefit Canadians.
Conservatives have a better idea. It is to cut taxes and scrap the anti-energy, anti-private sector agenda that drives money and businesses away, so Canada can be a world leader in energy and environment technology development and exports without a single taxpayer dime, instead of pumping billions into broken programs and ineffective, poorly targeted tax incentives.
Under Conservatives, the private sector built three pipelines and reversed a fourth for western oil to feed eastern Canadian refineries, as well as attracted proposals for export pipelines in both directions. In contrast, after eight years, the Liberals have killed five pipelines that would have increased Canadian export capacity, and then they even bought TMX because they refused to give the legal and political certainty for the proponent to get it built after approval. In the least surprising, and most brutal, news ever, its cost has ballooned over 350%, from $6.8 billion in the private sector to $30.9 billion today. It should have been in service four years ago, and it is not even built.
The whole NDP-Liberal agenda is designed to hinder Canadian oil and gas, the leading export and private sector investor in the economy, but they are just fine with oil imported from the U.S. and from regimes with lower environmental and human rights standards, while landlocking Canadian resources and innovation, and gatekeeping our ability to help lower emissions globally. Instead of attracting foreign investment to Canada, Liberals choose to pay tens of billions of tax dollars to major foreign companies just to get them to do business here.
Canada used to have competitive advantages to attract investment, but instead, in a recent announcement, the Liberals are paying $4.3 million tax dollars per job to get a company to expand. That is because they have added layers of new red tape and taxes that drive away the private sector investment and tax revenue that comes from these projects, while they made government less efficient. Maybe the worst part is that their anti-energy policies do not even do what they claim. Their record on emissions reduction is that, after eight years, every year emissions have increased, except for one year, which was 2020, when governments locked Canadians down.
They also promised to plant two billion trees, but the Auditor General says they will not even get 4% of that done by the 2030 deadline. They cannot even claim to know their policies work because the Auditor General also said, “Environment and Climate Change Canada did not measure or report on the contributions of each selected greenhouse gas regulation”, but the Liberals are doubling down with their fuel regulations, a second carbon tax that will cost Canadians another $1,300 dollars more a year and a 13¢-a-litre increase to gas. Their own research shows it would “increase energy prices” and “disproportionately affect lower- and middle-income households”, as we have always warned.
The Liberals plan more mandates, more standards and more regulations to come, which will hike costs for everyday Canadians and businesses. On top of imposing these extra costs, which producers in competing countries do not face, their permitting system for natural resource development is broken. Canada is second last in OECD countries and 64th in the world for building permits.
The Liberals are talking a big game about critical minerals around the world, but it takes 30 years, and they have made no changes. They talk about sending out LNG, but they have allowed 18 proposals under their watch to be abandoned, and they leave Canada behind. It is a travesty. Conservatives would cut taxes, cut red tape, reward people who are hard working and unleash Canadian private sector investment and innovation to help lower global emissions and get our economy back on track while protecting taxpayers.
1642 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/5/22 2:33:51 p.m.
- Watch
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?
88 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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—
1308 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/3/22 2:59:52 p.m.
- Watch
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?
108 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/3/22 2:58:47 p.m.
- Watch
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?
100 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/2/22 3:14:27 p.m.
- Watch
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?
95 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Sep/29/22 12:19:01 p.m.
- Watch
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.
149 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/21/22 2:34:36 p.m.
- Watch
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?
107 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
