- 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
- Nov/8/23 2:17:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, he is trying to save his career any way he can.
As luck would have it, he has found a new partner in the centralist Bloc Québécois. Monday, we voted on a common-sense motion that would have given everyone a break on the carbon tax on home heating. That was not just for 3% of the population, but for all Canadians, contrary to what the Minister of Rural Economic Development would have us believe.
However, the Liberals voted against the motion, as did the separatist Bloc Québécois. Voting for the Bloc Québécois is costly, and it is going to remain costly for a long time, because they want to radically increase the carbon tax. The costly new Bloc-Liberal coalition hurts everyone, including Quebeckers. It is not me who is saying this, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer, since the second carbon tax will add 20¢ to every litre of gasoline.
Our proposition is clear: no gimmicks, no temporary measures. We have to eliminate inflationary taxes to bring common sense back to Quebec. That is common sense.
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- Oct/16/23 3:01:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this government's policies have forced the Bank of Canada to increase the interest rate 10 times, with devastating effects. Here is the latest example. Approximately 20% of mortgages at the country's big banks are in negative amortization. What does that mean? It means that people's monthly payments are not enough to cover the interest. The unpaid interest is growing and being added to the balance. These loans will never be paid off.
When will the Liberals put an end to their inflationary deficits so that interest rates will drop and Canadians are able to stay in their homes?
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- Sep/29/23 11:56:44 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is scrambling to convince Quebeckers that the carbon tax will have no impact on Quebec. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everything that is transported from one province to another and ends up in our shops costs more because of this tax. Everything, including voting for the Bloc, costs more. After eight years of this government, many Quebeckers are being squeezed.
Will the Prime Minister finally call off this costly Bloc-Liberal tax?
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- Jun/12/23 3:05:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister is running deficits like there is no tomorrow and that has driven up inflation.
Inflation prompted the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates nine times over the past year. Homeowners who are making mortgage payments know all about it. The International Monetary Fund has warned Canada: The country is at risk of defaulting on its payments. That is where we are. It is very unfortunate, but that is how it is.
Will the Prime Minister stop with his inflationary deficits?
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- May/9/23 2:55:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, ever since this Prime Minister came to power, everything costs more. A family of four will have to hand over $1,065 more for food. One in five Canadians is skipping meals, and more and more people are turning to food banks. What is this Prime Minister doing? He is making things worse by increasing the carbon tax. Contrary to what he is saying, this increase has an impact across the country, even in Quebec.
Will he finally get rid of these policies, which increase the price of everything we buy?
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- Apr/20/23 2:59:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, since this Prime Minister took office, the average cost of mortgage payments has doubled in this country. Worse yet, because of the successive increases in interest rates, the cost of interest on mortgage payments was up by 26.4% in March compared to February. It is the largest increase ever recorded. Canadians continue to go into debt and have to give up their dream of home ownership.
Will the Prime Minister finally take measures to curb the inflation he himself created?
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- Feb/3/23 11:16:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in its eight years in power, the Liberal government could hardly have done worse.
Inflation is at a 40-year high, and interest rates have gone up nine times in the past year even though, just six months ago, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance said rates would stay low.
As a result, young people cannot afford to buy a house, rents have skyrocketed, and steadily rising food prices are hurting families.
By doubling the national debt, which will cost twice as much interest, this government has made it abundantly clear that it is not to be trusted.
Then there is the justice system, which is broken all across Canada. Repeat offenders can serve their time in the community rather than in jail. Violence has gone up 32% since 2015, and street gang violence has jumped 90% in that time.
It is time the NDP-Liberal coalition handed things over to a team that is qualified to lead the country: the Conservatives.
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- Nov/16/22 2:13:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are worried. They feel as though they have lost control of their finances, and they are right.
Today, we learned that the consumer price index was 6.9% higher in October than it was a year ago. Here are some concrete examples. A pound of butter now costs $8.29 and a litre of gasoline costs over $2.50, sometimes even $3 in some regions.
These increasing prices are having unfortunate consequences. Food bank use has reached record highs. Parents are being forced to skip meals so that they can feed their children.
What is this government doing? Nothing. The recent economic update does nothing to stop inflation, nothing to address the cost of living crisis and nothing for citizens who are struggling to stay afloat.
The Conservatives have some very simple and practical suggestions: no tax hikes and no new spending.
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- Nov/4/22 11:12:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, inflation is at a 40-year high. This week, butter, which is usually a staple on Canadian families' tables, is $8.29 a pound. It has practically become a luxury good. More and more parents are being forced to make agonizing choices, or even worse, to go without meals so their children can eat. Food banks were visited by 1.5 million Canadians in a single month. That is the sad reality, and that is on top of the ever-increasing cost of housing, home heating, groceries and transportation.
The inflation we are currently experiencing is a result of the government's out-of-control spending. The government has had its wallet wide open and its credit card out for years now. It has shown no restraint or forethought. We are in this situation because of the government's recklessness, but now it is time to course correct. If the government is serious, it will not increase taxes. It will reduce taxes and continue to lower the carbon tax.
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- Oct/24/22 3:03:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, many Quebeckers, especially those living in rural areas, heat their homes with oil, whose price has doubled since last year. Many Canadian and Quebec families must make tough choices in order to cover the costs of food and housing, in addition to paying their heating bill, because people in Quebec and Canada have no choice.
With winter quickly approaching, we are asking the government to do one simple thing, and that is to cancel the carbon tax on home heating bills. Will it do that?
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- Sep/20/22 2:57:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, according to Statistics Canada inflation remained above 7% last month. Why?
It is because of this government's incompetence and its failure to understand the economy. As long as the Liberal-NDP coalition is in place, Canadians and Quebeckers will have to deal with this inflation.
Will the Liberals promise to at least cancel the tax hikes? If not, why not?
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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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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Niagara Falls. Niagara is a beautiful spot in Canada, but not as beautiful as Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.
I am very pleased to rise in the House this evening to share my thoughts on Bill C-19, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures.
The first thing that came to mind when I read the budget was the phrase “out of touch”, because I was really upset to see how out of touch the government and the Prime Minister were with the reality of Canadians and their daily concerns.
Inflation is at its highest in 30 years. Absolutely everything costs more. The price of gas has skyrocketed. In my riding, the price per litre of regular gas is around $2.03 right now. The price of food has climbed by 9.8% since last year, and house prices have doubled since the Prime Minister came to power.
All these increases have a direct impact on ordinary Canadians, but the government is doing absolutely nothing to help. We pored over the budget, but we did not find anything that would help families cope with these three key issues.
The government is just as out of touch with two important sectors of our economy that are especially important to me and that are being hit hard right now: the agri-food chain, which is severely affected by inflation, and the tourism industry, which suffered tremendously during the pandemic. The budget offers only a few crumbs for these two sectors.
Madam Speaker, there is so much noise I cannot hear myself speak.
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- May/6/22 11:34:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, inflation is affecting everyone and every sector. The price of diesel is verging on $3 a litre. It is awful. The impact is real, and it is especially hard on farmers who rely on fuel for transportation and for their farming equipment. They were being choked by Liberal taxes, and now they are being suffocated by them. The government blames external factors, but in reality, the government is responsible.
Will the government do what it promised and truly help farmers?
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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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- Mar/31/22 5:25:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to have five minutes to talk about a very important issue: this government's approach to spending.
It is 2022, but we need to look back in time a little. Back in 2015, the sunny ways era, this government made a campaign promise to run three small $10‑billion deficits and said that the budget would then balance itself. Surprise, surprise, in 2019, the deficit was over $80 billion. History has made it very clear that budgets do not balance themselves. Quite the contrary.
That has been this Liberal government's track record ever since. With the arrival of COVID‑19, it has added over $600 billion to our existing debt. Our debt now represents approximately 47% of our gross domestic product, our GDP. When the Liberal government took office back in the 1980s, it was about 25% or 28%.
This is an extremely important matter. The budget will be tabled next week, on April 7. By the way, that is a Thursday. The following day, April 8, is a Friday and the last sitting day before members are away for two weeks. I remember the years when the Liberals accused the Conservative government of disrespecting the House of Commons. Today, I believe it is the Liberals who are disrespecting this chamber with their decision to present a budget before a Friday, on the eve of a break that we will spend in our ridings.
Of course, I am going to come back to the GDP. We have a debt-to-GDP ratio of 47%, and I am wondering how much more the Liberals will add to the deficit in the coming years. The two words “balanced budget” are not part of the Liberals' vocabulary. That is absolutely unconscionable and unacceptable.
In a country such as ours, a balanced budget is extremely important. I used to be the mayor of La Pocatière, and in Quebec, we were required by law to balance our budget. I do not see why this could not apply to a federal government that should be mindful of its spending. The problem with this government is that it spends money hand over fist, without considering the medium-term effects and especially not the long-term effects.
Interest rates are going to increase, and in fact, it has already started. The Bank of Canada predicts that interest rates will increase to at least 1.5%, maybe 2%, within a year. We can imagine what impact that will have on Canadian households that have gone into debt because of the cost of living and because inflation is at 5.7%, nearly three times the Bank of Canada target of 2%.
House prices keep going up and have doubled in the span of 10 years in Canada. For last year alone, that represents 30%. Let us not forget the price of gas. When I bought my car in 2009, it cost me $32 to fill up the tank. Last week, a full tank cost me $120, a fourfold increase in the span of 11 years.
All these things end up having an adverse effect on people's quality of life, especially for the most vulnerable, whose expenses far outweigh their income.
I will stop there because I could go on for hours. I often have people in my riding call our offices to tell us about the trouble they are in because of this government.
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- Mar/21/22 1:12:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, our country's debt has doubled over the past six years. It took 150 years for the debt to reach $600 billion. Now it is over $1.2 trillion. The size of Canada's debt is almost inconceivable. We have to pay all that borrowed money back, and that affects the value of our dollar.
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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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- Mar/4/22 11:40:24 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for the past few days, the cost of gas in Rivière‑du‑Loup has been more than $1.85 a litre. The cost of groceries will jump by more than $1,000 over the next year. That has been announced.
This year, costs are spiking everywhere, and I am talking about just those two things. I am not even talking about housing. With the $500‑billion deficit that the government added to our country's debt, inflation just keeps on climbing.
When will the government start to address inflation?
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- Feb/9/22 5:24:06 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I just saw on Facebook that in Rivière‑du‑Loup, in my riding, the price of gas is $1.66 a litre for regular and almost $1.90 a litre for premium. That is unprecedented in Canada.
My colleague referred to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has said that it is time to stop spending money and that it is not getting us anywhere because inflation keeps soaring.
I would like his opinion on that.
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