- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $143,434.52
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I seldom rise in the House, and so I hope that you will listen to me, as my colleagues obviously will.
The Conservative Party proposed very concrete solutions to address inflation and the cost of gas, food and housing. Yesterday, our interim leader moved an opposition motion that was debated and voted on. The motion called for the implementation of simple, sensible and concrete solutions. It was a motion full of empathy and compassion, which demonstrated our support for Canadian families, workers, youth, families and seniors.
The motion would have given farmers some breathing room and allowed the tourism sector to grow after two years of misery. Unfortunately, all these solutions were rejected outright by the Liberal-NDP coalition. I would like to come back to these matters today and show how arrogant, out of touch and petty the Prime Minister is.
In the past, Canada has gone through periods of high inflation that often resulted in recessions. At present, we are clearly in a period of inflation, and red flags are being raised. Has the government learned from the past, and will it do everything in its power to prevent history from repeating itself? I am not so sure.
There are currently huge wait times for passports. It is insane. Canadians want answers about the services they are getting.
Then there is the skyrocketing price of gas. In Rivière‑du‑Loup, in my riding, gas is currently around $2.24 to $2.30 a litre. That is the highest price in a year, or ever. We have never seen gas prices so high.
Summer is almost here, and people are planning vacations. We need to put ourselves in the shoes of an average Canadian who wants to leave home after two years of the pandemic. They want to visit regions all across Canada, especially Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, of course, and drive through all of our magnificent scenery.
How can they plan a family vacation when they cannot even make ends meet? They were thinking of travelling 700, 800, 1,000 or 2,000 kilometres, but they now have to reconsider since that is nearly impossible, considering the cost of gas. When it costs $100 to fill the tank, it makes a person think twice about taking a road trip.
When we ask the government about this, it blames international circumstances and the war in Ukraine. The budget should be providing solutions, but it has none to offer. We in the Conservative Party put ourselves in the shoes of our constituents and share their fears. That is why we proposed concrete solutions. We asked the government to drop the GST on fuel as a priority to give Canadians a break, just as several countries have done. We called for a pause on the carbon tax hike that took effect on April 1. The government refused our requests.
Let us talk about food. The cost of groceries has risen at an unprecedented rate, the highest in 40 years. Some families have already paid over $1,000 more for groceries since the beginning of the year. Other families have to make an agonizing choice between buying groceries, paying the rent and filling up their car to get to work. I myself have employees who are asking if they can work remotely because it costs too much to go to work. This is not a joke.
Food banks are now providing food to people who have full-time jobs, not just disadvantaged, penniless folks. These are people, families, couples who are working, but who are still being forced to turn to food banks in order to eat.
The government has no short-term solutions in its budget, only crumbs, to help these people, and it voted against the motion we put forward. The Conservatives argued for solutions to the supply chain issues and for farm taxes to be eliminated to help bring down food prices.
Let us now talk about housing prices. Since the Prime Minister came to power, housing prices have doubled in Canada. Young families are watching their dream of home ownership drift further and further out of reach. The budget mentions a $1,500 tax credit, but that will not even pay the lawyer's fees. This amount is nothing when the average price of a home in Canada is about $800,000.
In my riding, some sellers are getting four or five offers on their homes, which has never happened before. Houses are obviously less expensive in my riding than in Toronto or Vancouver, but sellers are receiving multiple offers, pushing the selling price above the asking price.
The government had six years to solve the affordability problem, but it did nothing. It left the real estate market in the hands of foreign buyers and unscrupulous speculators, who drove up the price of housing. We proposed an amendment to budget 2022, demanding that an inquiry into money laundering be launched immediately in order to curb speculation. Surprise, surprise, that amendment was rejected too.
Concerning the tourism sector, I am pleased to be part of the shadow cabinet on tourism together with my colleague from Peterborough—Kawartha, who is not here.
In a region as picturesque as mine, tourism plays an important role in economic development. This is particularly important to me. As members know, the pandemic devastated the tourism sector, especially during the two years of recession when many restaurants had to close their doors and performance venues sat empty. These are incredibly sad stories.
There was some emergency assistance, and the Conservatives supported a number of government measures. We even helped find solutions in some cases, because the assistance was not all that well adapted to many businesses or economic sectors. We therefore helped the government.
The government stubbornly insists on maintaining the COVID‑19 measures at airports, leading to very lengthy lines. Many people have had their entire vacations cancelled. That is completely ridiculous. There are some important things to be done about this, as well.
The luxury tax imposed by the Liberals is another measure in the budget that has an impact on this sector. The owner of a flying school in my riding buys 25-, 30- or 40-year-old aircraft secondhand for teaching purposes. Planes are not toys. They can be quite expensive. Because the planes are worth more than $100,000, this man will be forced to pay a luxury tax, which means that he will have to charge all of his students more. There are some measures in this budget that make no sense. I sincerely believe that this threshold needs to be reviewed. We have proposed amendments to the legislation.
Agriculture is essential to my riding. The price of gas and fuel is one thing, but the price of fertilizer has also gone through the roof in the past few months. It is unbelievable that none of the measures in the budget provide assistance for these sectors.
I could go on for another 12 pages.
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- May/19/22 2:53:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the price of houses in Canada has jumped from $434,000 to $868,000. That is basically double.
Young families who hope to one day buy a reasonably priced home close to work and near schools to raise their children find themselves in a completely impossible situation. The dream of home ownership is being shattered by the exorbitant cost of housing.
However, the government keeps repeating the same line: This is a global problem. It is the same old story. Can the minister explain why families have to pay for their failures?
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- Apr/25/22 1:01:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss what disappoints us the most, as Conservatives, in the wake of the tabling of what could be described as a very bad budget on the Thursday before Easter break. I remember a time when the Conservatives were accused of acting in bad faith for tabling bills or budgets just before a long break. The transparency of this Liberal government leaves something to be desired.
We are disappointed because this is a document that shows once again that the government sees Canada's finances through rose coloured glasses. Instead of focusing on returning to a balanced budget, it is offering a host a new spending to fund new programs in order to buy—indeed, buy—the NDP's support.
We knew long before the pandemic that a budget does not balance itself. The Liberal government was running a deficit long before the pandemic. It had to add to the deficit during the pandemic, a necessary move that we agree with. However, the economy is now firing on all cylinders and government revenues have drastically increased, in large part because of inflation and the increased cost of energy products such as oil and gas.
The Liberals have posted another deficit and plan to keep us in a deficit for five years, which is absolutely ridiculous. The government will claim that the deficit will help stimulate the economy and that the additional revenue generated by inflation will cancel out the deficit and reduce the debt. It will once again trot out the infamous debt-to-GDP ratio it loves to talk about every chance it gets.
However, there are big differences between the current deficit and past deficits in response to economic crises, such as the Great Depression, the Second World War or even the 2008-09 financial crisis, which was comparable to the crisis in the 1930s.
A lot of money went towards building sustainable infrastructure during and after the war. The governments at the time had the foresight to spend when unemployment was high and construction costs were much lower. This money was recovered over time, and much of the infrastructure built then is still used today, such as the many bridges that cross rivers all across the country.
The previous Conservative government made similar expenditures through its recovery plan, which helped build some now-essential infrastructure in our communities, in particular in rural areas. I was there from 2009 to 2011. People today are benefiting from the Harper governments' investment in our communities' infrastructure, as will future generations.
Fundamentally though, all the new spending in the current Minister of Finance's budget will go to new government programs, programs the NDP clearly demanded.
As if the Liberals did not already have enough on their plate, now they are getting involved in areas under provincial jurisdiction, such as childcare, dental care and so on. These are things under provincial jurisdiction, but the government will be investing billions more and imposing conditions, and the Canadian provinces are really not happy about it.
Here is the difference: Infrastructure is built once and its cost is amortized over a long period, with the relative weight of the expense diminishing over time. In contrast, a new program means annual funding that will vary and not shrink over time, as we have seen lately.
These costs can only go up, and there is no doubt they will rise with inflation. Plus, does anyone truly believe that early childhood educators and dentists will not eventually demand wage and fee increases, with inflation at 6.7%? Of course they will.
This budget has not even been approved yet, and spending estimates are already out of date. Interest rates are going up too; the Bank of Canada now has no choice but to raise them to fight inflation. Well over a year ago, we asked the government to make sure interest rates were appropriate. Who would have believed that, in the space of just a few months, the key interest rate would rise from 0.25% to 1%? Hold on tight, because it is expected to hit 2% in the coming months.
New programs are being created that are not funded by current taxes, but by deficits. It is borrowed money that will have to be paid back later. Inevitably, there are costs associated with this. The interest costs are projected to be staggering for the federal government now and in the future. Furthermore, the interest costs are equivalent to the increase that the provinces are asking for in health transfers every year. Imagine that.
Of course, surveys are being done. The media conducts surveys, all the political parties conduct surveys and the government conducts surveys. What comes up most often? The cost of living, the cost of living, and the cost of living.
That is what we are experiencing right now. A visit to the dentist is expensive. That costs a few hundred dollars, but there is nothing as expensive as the cost of housing for the young and the not-so-young who do not already have a house in their name.
The government may well claim that the staggering price increases experienced in recent years are a global and inevitable phenomenon. The Minister of Finance's defeatist attitude was evident in her budget speech in the House on the Thursday before Easter, as well as in the media interviews in the hours that followed.
Because the federal Liberals have been mismanaging the economy since 2015, real estate has become the only attractive economic sector for investors. It has come to the point where between 30% and 40% of homes in Canada are not owned by people who actually want to live in them themselves, but rather by individuals who already have a home and want them as investment properties.
I just got back from a trip to western Canada, to Jasper and Banff, an area where there are a lot of construction workers, especially for the Trans Mountain pipeline. These workers are given extra money for housing, because it costs $3,500 a month just to rent a room in someone's basement. It is completely ridiculous. It is crazy. This is out of control.
Budgets do not seem to acknowledge how absurd this situation has become. The average price of a house in Canada is now over $850,000. That is the average price. It is not uncommon to see houses in some places, even quite modest houses, priced at between $1.5 million and $2 million. I am not talking about posh neighbourhoods in London, New York or Singapore. I am talking about the suburbs of Toronto.
Many young people from generation Y and generation Z have no hope of owning a home. Time is of the essence if they even hope to have place to call their own, to pay off a mortgage and then diversify their savings so that they can retire at age 65. Contrary to popular belief, a home is not a retirement plan. The walls are not edible. Selling a home does not guarantee that there is something cheaper out there to live in. Using a reverse mortgage essentially means the home you worked for your entire life goes directly to the banks instead of to your children when you die.
There seems to be no sense of urgency on the Liberal side, and even less so on the part of the NDP who support them, to address this problem. In some cases, they even try to normalize the situation. That is clear when we look at the ceiling for the new FHSA to help individuals access home ownership. By saving $8,000 a year for five years, they can reach $40,000. Imagine what saving $40,000 means for young people who earn on average $50,000 a year. We can agree that it is very hard to save $8,000 with the current cost of living. That represents a 5% down payment on an $800,000 home.
Does the government think it is normal and acceptable that a young person or a couple today is starting out $760,000 in the red because homes cost $800,000 on average? The government estimates that it takes five years to save up a 5% down payment. How can it expect these people to repay the remaining 95% within 25 years?
All financial planners agree that an acceptable price for a house is about three times the buyer's salary. According to Statistics Canada, the average salary in Canada in 2019 was $51,740. Multiply that by three and we get roughly $155,000. Try to find a $155,000 house in Canada. There are not many left. There are some in my riding, but I will say that they are not very big houses.
I have not finished my speech, but unfortunately my time is up. I hope I will be able to answer my colleagues' questions. The government has totally mortgaged the future of today's young people. It is appalling. All the debt that the government has racked up over the past seven years is going to have an impact on young people's lives and future.
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- Apr/1/22 11:23:52 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it might be April 1, but the tax increases taking effect today are no joke.
This morning, Canadians woke up to higher taxes on their gas, groceries and heating as the result of a 25% increase in the carbon tax. Everything that gets delivered by truck is going to go up. It is inevitable, and the consumers are the ones who will pay.
Why does the Liberal-NDP government think it is acceptable to punish Canadians at the worst possible time, when they cannot afford it?
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- Mar/21/22 12:58:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to oppose this motion put forward by the NDP, the content of which borders on the ridiculous: It sounds like it was written by a 4th-grade student.
We certainly agree that we are experiencing a cost of living crisis. There is no mistaking that. In fact, the Conservatives were the first to speak out against the skyrocketing prices Canadians have been and still are facing, whether it is the price of gasoline, groceries or other consumer goods.
However, the NDP seems oblivious to what caused these price increases. In my opinion, the remedies it is proposing will only exacerbate the inflation we are currently seeing. It seems to think that everything is going to be magically solved with this 3% surtax on banks and insurance companies proposed by the Liberals. It wants to extend the surtax to the New Democratic Party's arch-enemies, the oil companies, and to big box stores. I do not know why it is targeting these two economic sectors in particular, since many other economic sectors could be taxed.
The first sector they are targeting provides jobs for hundreds of thousands of Canadians across the country. It makes a significant contribution to Canada's economic development and the social services funded by the huge tax dollars it already pays. I am talking about the oil sector, which fortunately meets a major share of Canada's and the United States' energy needs at a time of multiple conflicts around the world and in an era where alternatives to this energy source will take us years to access.
We find the NDP's decision to target big box stores even more perplexing because they are kind of the saving grace of the middle and working classes. These people and their buying power depend on the impressive supply chains that deliver essential goods across Canada.
I will not sing the praises of major chains because I am from a region where people have to do whatever they can to promote buying local. However, these chains are one option for the things we need to buy. Over the past two years, local markets have been hit hard by COVID‑19. That is why chambers of commerce have worked so hard to encourage buying local as a way to help our small businesses, which have had such a tough time, stay alive.
The fact is that big corporate chains play an important role in everyday life by offering products that are as affordable as possible to a clientele that does not necessarily have the financial means or the time to visit small specialty shops.
We are under no illusions. Merchants are very much affected by increases in the cost of living and supply chain challenges. CP Rail employees are on strike at this very moment, for goodness' sake. Once again, we are talking about a major hurdle that will further increase the cost of living. As we know very well, basic commodities like western Canadian wheat and barley will not be able to leave Canada, inevitably preventing them from getting to processors.
Retail prices are not the only ones that have gone up. Wholesale prices have risen, too. Farmers are having to spend more money on soaring energy costs. Processors are being forced to increase wages to attract and retain staff. Goodness knows I can speak to this from my own personal experience with my business. Trucking companies are struggling with both a driver shortage as well as increases in the cost of fuel, which has risen by 30% in recent months.
Inevitably, merchants also have to pay to get products in a competitive market like ours. It is not always easy to increase prices quickly, since consumers have fortunately learned to use coupons, now that everyone is forced to deal with the skyrocketing price of products in stores. Profit margins are not huge at these major chains, nor at our local stores, who have to recover their loss somewhere.
Prices have also increased considerably at grocery stores. I went grocery shopping on the weekend. I could not get over how much the price of butter, milk or bacon has gone up in a year. It makes no sense. People are worried that these prices will continue to go up since all the other costs in the supply chain are going up as well.
I just listed a host of factors that led to these price increases over the past year.
Does the NDP truly believe that the big box stores will simply accept this new proposed tax and not pass it on to the consumer?
It is absolutely ridiculous to think so. Make no mistake: If there is a government-proposed tax or surtax, even with the billion dollars or more in profits that those companies are making, they will pass it on to the consumer. There is no doubt about it. That is what will happen. At the end of the day, it will still be the consumer and every socioeconomic group who will be paying.
Let me give an example. I live in La Pocatière, or, more specifically, Saint‑Roch‑des‑Aulnaies, which is an hour and fifteen minutes away from Quebec City and major chains like Costco and so on. What kind of compensation would I get with the surtax, compared to someone who lives in Lévis and is a two-minute walk from the major chain in question?
That is what life is like in the regions. Longueuil, for example, is not a big region. My region covers 7,500 square kilometres. When I am travelling around my riding, it can take three hours to get from one end to the other. I do not cycle that. When I go shopping, I obviously try to shop as close to home as possible, but if I want to shop elsewhere, I have to pay for gas, travel and my time. That will obviously have an impact on my total costs.
Why is the NDP not trying to address the root cause of these price increases?
It must know that printing money to finance the Liberal government's astronomical deficits has devalued the Canadian dollar. It is sad to say, but the current government's poor management has weakened our petrodollars, which, in the past, increased along with the price of a barrel of oil. This is definitely not the case at present.
Members will recall that in 2007 and 2011, under the Conservative government, the Canadian dollar was practically on par with the U.S. dollar, and even briefly pushed above it, in some cases. Not everyone was pleased, especially exporters, but it did at least give consumers some breathing room and let them take advantage of prices that were stable and even dropped for some imported goods, such as food items that we cannot grow because of our climate.
This year, however, we find ourselves with the worst of both worlds: gas prices that continue to increase significantly and the purchasing power of our dollar that is decreasing across the board. We all know the results of the government's record over the past six years, which consists of financing deficits not just with borrowed money, but with printed money as well.
Why does the NDP believe that everything can be solved by increasing taxes?
I cannot wrap my head around that. I cannot understand it. What we need to do is lower taxes and reduce the size of the government to try to save money in a lot of different places.
I would remind the House that, in 2015, the Liberal government said that it would run three small deficits of $10 billion, but it ran a $100-billion deficit after three years. Then, the pandemic hit. Imagine what that would mean if a recession were to hit. That would add fuel to the fire. The Liberals are going to make the inflationary spiral we are experiencing in Canada even worse.
Canada must be able to compete in a global economy, and the worst thing that can be done for investment in Canada is to entrust this government with the task of determining which industries are more deserving of preferential tax rates and which ones should be given punitive tax rates. It can take years before a company takes off and becomes profitable. There is still a lot of uncertainty in the business community right now. The government cannot just suddenly decide how a society will pay taxes based on public discontent. We need to maintain a predictable business environment.
Did the NDP think about how many more public servants it will take to administer this new tax and to redistribute the funding? How much will that cost in paperwork alone?
The government is slow enough as it is in delivering its current programs. This would only make things worse. In rural ridings like mine, people are tired of paying more and more taxes. This only increases the cost of travelling long distances to work, to school, to kids' activities or simply to the grocery store.
We say no to any more taxes. The cost of living is high enough as it is.
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