So V ote

Context: House Hansard - 162 - Feb/16/23

Feb/16/23 2:36:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I find interesting is that the members opposite continuously, when they are asked about the carbon tax, talk about the incentives that are being given out in a monetary fashion from the government, but they are not able to talk about any difference that is being made with regard to the environment. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, Canadians can no longer afford to eat, or heat or house themselves. Life is expensive. Canadians are feeling the pain. A Conservative government would keep the heat on and take the tax off. Will the Prime Minister do the same?

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Feb/16/23 2:35:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the current Liberal government, life is so expensive that Canadians, 20% of the them, are skipping meals in order to make ends meet. It is about to get even worse because the Liberal government is about to triple the carbon tax. Will the Prime Minister do the right thing and axe the tax, or at least get out of the way so we can fix what he broke?

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Dec/8/22 4:16:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am baffled as to why members of the NDP are consistently supportive of the Liberals. It is really interesting to watch, actually, because on one side of their face, they support the Liberals and all they do, and on the other side, they go after them. What is going on here? They should just make up their minds. I would invite the member to truly be an opposition member and hold the government to account.

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Dec/8/22 4:15:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I fail to see the relevance. I recognize that to the member, that was an important question with regard to health care transfers. However, the topic of conversation today is the carbon tax and the government's mismanagement of the economy. It also has to do with the cost to Canadians. Where I would perhaps find some commonality with the member is in the notion that indeed Canadians are in a really tight spot right now in trying to make ends meet, and they certainly need to be helped. One of the best ways to help them is by removing the carbon tax and other penalizing policies, including the printing of money, and by helping to put faith back in the Canadian people.

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Dec/8/22 4:13:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, indeed, the member is an honourable one, so we can call him that. The member is asking a very good question and is making my point exactly. It seems rather ridiculous to be applying a carbon tax to something that people must use. In Canada, we do not really have a choice as to whether to heat our homes, so we do, but we get penalized with a carbon tax. Many of us do not really have a choice in this vast country as to whether we need a car to get to work. Why are those individuals being penalized for making a living? The member opposite is a member of Parliament. He takes a plane here to represent his constituents. Why is that being penalized? These are very good questions, and I encourage him to ask his government.

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Context: House Hansard - 140 - Dec/2/22

Dec/8/22 4:01:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Beauce. When I was first elected to this place, after about a year’s time, I was approached by a member of the Liberal Party. He came to me and he was trying to make chit-chat. He took an interest in my riding and asked me where I was from. I said Alberta, and more formally Lethbridge. He asked if that was a rural riding. I said, yes, it was mixed with a small urban centre. He asked if there were farms. I said, yes, we have farms. He asked what we produced, so I gave him the list: chicken, eggs, beef, pork, buffalo, grain, cereals, pulses and dairy. I am proud of this. He turned to me with an inquisitive look and he said, grain is produced there. I said, yes. Then he said that it was not really produce for food though. It was just for fuel. I said excuse me, because I did not think I had understood him. He said that it was just for fuel. I explained to this member that some of it was, but mostly it was for silage, for animal food or for human consumption, which was the vast majority. He was a bit dumbfounded. He shrugged his shoulders and said, that was weird, because he thought most Canadians just got their food at the grocery store. I will let this member remain nameless for his sake, but I share this story for a reason. It highlights how out of touch the Liberal government is when it comes to Canadians, when it comes to their way of life and when it comes to this big, beautiful, vast country we call Canada and all of the many incredible things that are done here. It shows the lack of knowledge that exists when it comes to rural areas and how hard-working, innovative, creative and entrepreneurial farmers are. Meanwhile, the government likes to exercise its ego, engage in theatrics and virtue-signal, which is primarily what the carbon tax is all about. The government talks about the carbon tax as if it is a price on pollution. I am going to get to that in just a moment because I find it to be an interesting term. What I wish to highlight here is that the Liberals have put this in place, but they have not met a single climate target. That would mean that it cannot be a solution. It is simply signalling a virtue. I would say it is a failed experiment. What is interesting to me is that even in signalling a virtue, it is a virtue that applies to all others, but not actually to the Liberal Party or the government. I will tell members why. We are talking about multiple Liberal members who will get on jets and fly halfway around the world, multiple times over, to go to climate conferences. We are talking about a Prime Minister who has no problem getting on his private jet and going to places for frivolous reasons, like surfing, perhaps on important days. We are talking about a Prime Minister who has no problem living in one residence, having his food prepared for him in another, and then being driven in a vehicle that uses fossil fuels on a daily basis. It is interesting. This virtue that is being signalled, which is to care for the environment, applies to everybody else but not the Liberal members. It is incredibly disingenuous. It is incredibly hypocritical, and it is harming Canadians because it is driving up the cost of everything. The Liberals' prescribed solution is simply therapy for their guilty conscience, but not something that is creating real change. It is shameful. It is punitive toward Canadians and it is just to help the Liberals sleep better at night while accomplishing nothing. Let us talk about those farmers. Let us talk about what they really do. Contrary to some of the Liberals' beliefs, they do not just grow crops for fuel. They happen to feed not only our country but the world. Let us talk about them. Let us talk about those hard-working individuals. In 1978, a radio broadcaster by the name of Paul Harvey gave a speech entitled “So God Made a Farmer.” In it, he outlined the incredible characteristics that a farmer had to hold to be a fit caretaker of the land and the animals. He reflected that it is someone hard working and tough enough to bear the weight and struggle of adversity, yet gentle enough to care for the animals in a beautiful way. In his speech, he hypothesized: God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from ‘tractor back,’ put in another seventy-two hours.” So God made a farmer. In this simple yet powerful tribute, he really does capture those who work night and day and who often overcome challenge and tribulation to care for the needs of not only our population but also the population of the world. It is remarkable. We are talking about individuals who are pioneers in looking after the environment. These folks look after the land, the soil, the air and the water like nobody else, yet the government insists that they too need to be penalized with a carbon tax. We are talking about folks who heat their barns to care for their animals, dry their grain so they can get it to market, irrigate so they can have crops and transport livestock so we can pick it up in the freezer section. That is what we are talking about. Of course, that cost gets passed down from the farmer to Canadians, and unfortunately we have seen grocery costs skyrocket due to poor Liberal management and terrible policies, such as the carbon tax. Some 20% of individuals are skipping meals. Food banks are serving people at an astronomical rate, more than ever. Canadians are finding it difficult to make their way to the end of the month while still being able to feed their families. They can expect in 2023 that their grocery bills will go up by another $1,100 thanks to the Liberal government, the carbon tax, the mismanagement of the overall economy and out-of-control spending. However, that is not where the Liberals want to stop. They also want to go after fertilizer use. Of course, we are talking about farmers who are already trying to run a business and are using fertilizer with great care, making sure their input costs are minimal by not using very much. Fertilizer is expensive, in case the folks across the way did not know, so farmers want to use as little as possible to get the greatest yield possible. The Liberal government feels they need to be punished for that. How dare farmers want to feed the country. How dare they want to feed the world. How dare they want to increase their yield. However, the Liberal government goes after fertilizer use and penalizes the farmers for it. Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to increase. Canadians continue to pay the price. Farmers continue to be demonized instead of celebrated as the incredible people they are. Today, the motion before us calls on the government to dare to lean in and understand the act of farming, to dare to understand the impact of their policies on the Canadian people and to give them a break for the sake of families, for the sake of seniors, for the sake of those living with a disability and for the sake of each and every woman, child and man across this country. They deserve a break.

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Context: House Hansard - 140 - Dec/2/22

Dec/2/22 11:36:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, here is the problem with that. Since the Liberals took power and imposed the carbon tax, emissions have actually gone up, not down. I do not know how those constituents are being helped by this, aside from paying a whole lot of money to get a whole lot of nothing. A tax is not the answer. Canadians are the answer. They are the innovators. They are the problem-solvers. They are the solution makers. They are the ones who will get us out of this Liberal-made mess. Canadians are the ones we believe in. Finally, when will you scrap your failed Liberal experiment, and give Canadians back control of their lives?

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Context: House Hansard - 121 - Oct/31/22

Dec/2/22 11:35:28 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, despite being absolutely useless, the government insists on tripling the carbon tax. When taxes go up, the money in bank accounts of Canadians actually goes down. It is basic math and logic. Welcome, folks. In order to try to make ends meet, moms are actually watering down baby formula, seniors are turning their thermostats down to 17°C and Canadian families are accessing food banks like they have never done before. Canadians are struggling. When will the Liberals show some compassion and axe the tax?

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Context: House Hansard - 105 - Sep/29/22

Oct/31/22 5:17:36 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-5

Madam Speaker, the bill we have in front of us today, Bill S-5, has to do with environmental protection. It has to do with updating important documentation having to do with how we define toxins, which is long overdue. We know that; it has been mentioned here in the House before. It has been true since the 1990s. Unfortunately, though, the government across the way will claim that it wants to get the bill through quickly and that the Conservatives are stalling it, when the fact of the matter is that the Liberals have had five years to work on legislation and get it through the House. They have not taken that seriously. They have been slow. Further to that, in the middle of those five years there were several elections, one of them called completely unnecessarily. Of course, that was in the fall of 2021 in the middle of a pandemic, when individuals were concerned for their health, safety and well-being. Interestingly enough, part of the bill has to do with health, which I will get to in just a moment, yet the Liberals decided that would be a good time to call an election. Of course, elections have a way of stalling things. They have a way of putting aside legislation and making it so that it is no longer standing. It has to be called back once Parliament resumes, so here we are talking about Bill S-5. Again, it is something that has been in process for about five years. It did not need to be that way, but it was. Nevertheless, let us jump into the bill and discuss it. There are a couple of things I want to draw attention to. Certainly there would be some new definitions brought about through this legislation, and I think overall my colleagues and I can agree to that. We see where there is some simplification achieved and we can get behind it. That said, there were many amendments made in the Senate before the bill came this way, which is the opposite of how things normally work, and we have some issues with those amendments. We will be looking to create some change around them to make sure Canadians are better advocated for going forward, but of course that will come at a later stage. For today, I wish to speak to a part in the preamble of the bill. The preamble of the bill says that it is committed to prioritizing a healthy environment and that this is a right Canadians should have guaranteed for them. Here is the thing. First off, instead of putting this in the preamble, it should have been in the body of the legislation if it is going to have teeth, because we know that when it comes to courts of law, a judge does not make a decision based on a preamble; a judge makes a decision based on what is in the actual bill. If the current government is looking to truly be held accountable in making sure Canadians enjoy a healthy environment, it should have the courage to put this into the main component of the bill rather than in the preamble. Putting it in the preamble is simply another nicety, another platitude. Speaking of that, we already have many examples. Let us look at the carbon tax, for example. With the carbon tax, there is a lot of fluffy language with regard to how the it is somehow making a difference or will make a difference, yet when we look at the actual facts, we see carbon emissions have not been reduced in our country. Actually, they have increased, so we have to ask this question: Why is there a carbon tax? We do not know, yet it continues to be in place. In fact, it is not just to be maintained but is actually increasing year over year every single April 1. That is April Fool's Day, but no one is really laughing because it is expensive to pay the carbon tax. Canadians are reasonable people, and I think they can get behind something, even if it penalizes them a bit, if they know it is going to make a measurable or meaningful difference for them. However, the fact of the matter is that we have a report from the commissioner of the environment that says the current government has been given a failing grade on its environmental goals or objectives. It has not met any of them. This is coming out of reports that are at arm's length. I did not make this up. Here is the government using platitudes, niceties and language that appears to do something but actually does nothing. Therefore, here we are again. We have this piece of legislation and in the preamble is this commitment to a healthy environment. However, the courage is lacking to give it teeth and to ensure that it happens. Let us talk about that. If we were to truly define this vague term “healthy environment”, what might that look like in Canada? What might Canadians be able to anticipate if we were to create a healthy environment? Perhaps it would mean that we take a look not only at the thing but also at the context. For example, with plastics, those opposite me would like to put out language, and have put out language, that demonizes plastics. However, to consider plastics in context, let us look at plastics in the way that they were used during the pandemic. During the pandemic, they were used to cover instruments in hospitals. Today they are used to cover instruments in hospitals. They are used for equipment in hospitals. They are used in daily practice to ensure that people are kept healthy. In a hospital are they toxic? Further, during the pandemic when people were given plastic forks or plastic spoons because they could not eat in a restaurant but still needed to consume food, was that toxic? Perhaps it is, but maybe there needs to be a further conversation around context. Perhaps it is not adequate to demonize something altogether without considering time and place. Furthermore, let us talk about a healthy environment and LNG or liquefied natural gas. Let us talk about, if we were to move entirely over to LNG and off of coal, the incredible difference it would make in terms of creating a healthy, vibrant Canada. However, the members opposite do not want to talk about that because to them oil and gas is bad. We would rather turn a blind eye to the truth that we continue to use coal because to talk about that is inconvenient. We do not want to talk about that. We want to talk about all this greenism over here, all these plans over here and all this nice language that we have over here. Look over here at the shiny item. However, we do not actually want to acknowledge the truth, which is to say we have something incredible called LNG. We could use it to get off coal, clean up the environment and contribute to health. Here is another one. The government wants to impose a carbon tax and it is tripling by 2030. That will have a huge impact on Canadians. The government has said that this is going to make a meaningful difference. We have already discovered that it has not and it will not. Meanwhile, if we were to develop oil and gas in our country, to get pipelines into the ground and to get product to market, that would be a huge help in creating a healthy environment. Do members want to know how? The growing demand would then be met domestically, rather than having to bring it in from Saudi Arabia or Russia. Let us talk about Saudi Arabia or Russia for a moment. There are no environmental standards. There are no human rights standards. Instead, the current government is deciding to ship in blood oil because the demand for fossil fuels is not going anywhere. It only continues to grow. Is that contributing to a healthy environment? We will just bring all the blood oil over from Saudi Arabia. Let us continue to fund Putin and his war machine against Ukraine. Is that a healthy environment? I look forward to the government giving a definition to what it means by the right to a healthy environment. It certainly should be a lot broader than the niceties or the platitudes that it uses to describe its carbon tax.

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Context: House Hansard - 47 - Mar/28/22

Sep/29/22 4:45:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the motion on the table here today concerns increased taxation and the way that influences Canadians. As Conservatives, we are asking that we halt any further increases to taxation because we want to allow Canadians to keep more of the money they work hard to earn. I do not think that is too much to ask. Canadians are hurting in this country right now because the cost of living is being driven through the roof due to the current government's reckless decisions. Its members continue to be heartless in the policies they are implementing and in their refusal to back down from the increase of taxes. It is shameful.

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