- Member of Parliament
- Deputy House leader of the official opposition
- Conservative
- Mégantic—L'Érable
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 69%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $94,201.00
- Government Page
- Nov/20/23 3:00:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in a post on social media, the leader of the Bloc Québécois said he wants to hold the balance of power, but he has yet to say how he will balance the Liberal budget.
As we know, the Bloc Québécois supports the Liberal government's inflationary spending, and now it wants to keep the Liberals in power for the next two years. The Bloc Québécois is okay with drastically increasing the carbon tax and maintaining inflationary deficits in order to keep the Liberals in power. Voting for the Bloc Québécois is costly.
Will the Prime Minister continue to send more and more Quebeckers to food banks just to ensure he receives support from the Bloc Québécois, which is constantly looking to drastically increase taxes on the backs of Canadians?
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- Nov/20/23 2:58:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have in my hands a copy of the front page of the Thetford Mines local newspaper.
After eight years of the Liberal government's inflationary policies, here is the sad reality in our regions: a headline that reads “Soaring demand for food assistance in Thetford Mines”. Scotiabank has confirmed that Liberal spending has increased the interest rates that families are paying by two percentage points, forcing more and more of them to turn to food banks to feed themselves.
Will this Prime Minister, who is not worth the cost, stop his gargantuan spending and give us the date when we can finally expect a balanced budget?
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- Oct/18/23 3:11:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of inflationary spending, the Prime Minister has literally killed young Quebeckers' dreams of becoming homeowners.
Imagine. A young person in Montreal has to earn $116,000 a year if they want to buy a house, and that is not counting the down payment of 20%. How many years will it take a young person to earn that kind of salary and save enough money?
After eight years, do the Liberals realize that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost and that middle-class young people can no longer afford a Prime Minister who is mortgaging their future?
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- Nov/1/22 4:19:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of rising today to speak to the motion moved by the hon. member for Carleton and leader of the official opposition on the important issue of the Liberal government's wasteful spending. Rather than helping to combat the inflation crisis Canadians are experiencing, this government is fuelling inflation and making everyone's life more difficult. I would like to share some aspects of this motion with my colleagues.
First, the member for Carleton believes that the cost of government is driving up the cost of living. That is a fact. The cost of groceries has gone up by 11.4% in a year. That is the largest increase in 40 years. That means that some items at the grocery store will cost up to 40% more. That also means that mothers and fathers will have difficult choices to make at the cash register. They may have to decide not to buy certain items that week even though the kids want them. They will have to tell their children that they can only afford to buy those things once a month because they have difficult choices to make. That is today's reality. The cost of living is sky-high.
After having dropped, the price of gas is on the rise again. It is now almost $2 a litre in Quebec. For workers in regions like mine, who have to commute and travel close to 60 kilometres every day to get to work, this money is coming directly from their pockets. They can no longer use it to feed their families. That is another really problematic situation. Now we learn that this government has decided to add new taxes. It wants to triple the carbon tax, which will have an even more damaging effect on consumers across Canada.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer told us that this government has torn through $500 billion in inflationary spending. That is half a trillion dollars. I never thought I would use that term in the House. Canada's debt is now $1 trillion. The government has spent half a trillion in the last two years. It claimed that this money was used to help people deal with COVID‑19, to send cheques to citizens, families and businesses.
Yes, Conservatives supported those measures. However, we did not support spending 40% of that $500 billion, or $200 billion, on things that had absolutely nothing to do with COVID‑19. The government created new programs and new spending that ended up boosting inflation in Canada. As a result, the family I was talking about earlier will have a harder time putting food on the table at the end of the month. That is the reality.
Members will recall the Prime Minister saying that interest rates would stay low for decades, that it was fine to borrow money, that the government would absorb those expenses on Canadians' behalf. Now Canadians are the ones who have to pay back their loans at interest rates that are higher than they have been in years.
What do the Liberals have to say to those Canadians? Will they pay their bills? No, they will not, contrary to what the Prime Minister said during his inaugural speech in 2015. That is the reality.
The third part of the motion says, “Canadians are now paying higher prices and higher interest rates as a result”.
Yes, Canadians are paying higher interest rates. The government is going to pay higher interest rates. That means that a larger portion of the money that Canadians send to the government will be used to make interest payments because this government spent an incredible amount of money, money that it should not have spent, spending that could be described as wasteful, as in the case of the ArriveCAN app. Paying off this debt is going to cost more for everyone. That is the reality.
The motion also says, “it is more important than ever for the government to respect taxpayer dollars and eliminate wasteful spending”.
Who can be against that? If there is one person here who is against that sentiment let him or her rise immediately and explain how they can be against using taxpayer money better and eliminating wasteful spending. One of the best ways to do that is to investigate the government's wastefulness.
If my colleagues support the motion, it would mean calling on the Auditor General of Canada to conduct a performance audit, including the payments, contracts and subcontracts for all aspects of the ArriveCAN app, and to prioritize this investigation.
This app cost $54 million, when it could have cost $250,000. Certain invoices led us to believe that some companies had been hired. We heard about a $1-million contract awarded to a firm that candidly admitted to the newspapers that it never worked on the app. That is to say nothing of how useless the ArriveCAN app is.
I will conclude my speech by saying that I urge all of my colleagues to support this motion.
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- Oct/28/22 11:25:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, not once since the start of question period has the parliamentary secretary answered the question asked of her.
How many families will have to declare bankruptcy at the end of the month because of the NDP-Liberal coalition's inflationary policies? An average Montreal family servicing a $500,000 loan will not be able to pay the mortgage at the end of the month, because that loan will cost an extra $800 per month.
How many families will have to hand over the keys to their home because of the government's financial incompetence?
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- Oct/25/22 11:20:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute‑Saint‑Charles for his speech.
We are here because our colleagues from the Bloc Québécois decided to present an opposition motion in the House of Commons from which I will read the preamble, which I find interesting. It states that “Canada is a democratic state” and that the “House believes in the principle of equality for all”.
I will focus on those two points from the Bloc motion day because I do believe that “Canada is a democratic state” and that the “House believes in the principle of equality for all”. That is why I prefer today to talk about the fact that 100% of Canadians are suffering every day from the cost of inflation caused by the costly New Democrat-Liberal coalition.
When we look at the numbers, we realize that 80% of Canadians, including Quebeckers, are worried about their finances and wonder if they will be able to make ends meet at the end of the month and pay their bills and groceries each week, while 72% of Canadians feel they pay too much in taxes.
On January 1, 2023, the Liberals are preparing to further increase what they will be taking from the paycheques of Canadians and Quebeckers. They are about to further raise the carbon tax, which will create even more inflation and make absolutely everything cost more. The cost of food alone has risen by more than 11%, something that has not been seen in the last 40 years.
In addition, inflation remains at about 7%. There were reports that inflation had come down slightly, but it only came down by 0.1%, primarily because of a drop in the price of gas, but that did not happen everywhere. Unfortunately, people will not benefit from it for long because, very soon, the Liberals will turn that drop into an increase for all Canadians.
Let me also quote a few figures from Statistics Canada. Last month, the price of meat was up 7.6% compared to last year, dairy was up nearly 10%, baked goods were up 14.8% and vegetables, 11.8%. These figures do not paint a complete picture, however.
It is clear something is going on when you go to the grocery store and see how people have been acting over the past few months. People are looking for products, they cannot find what they are looking for, or they are leaving products on the shelves because they simply cannot afford it. Another change is that people are going to grocery stores as soon as the flyers come out so they can take advantage of the discounts as quickly as possible. That way, they can save money on products that inflation would otherwise prevent them from buying. That is the reality.
What is in store for us tomorrow? The Bank of Canada is going to raise its key interest rate again, making housing even more expensive and making home ownership even less likely for young families and young people entering the workforce. That is the reality. We do not know by how much the rate will go up, but it will definitely go up.
The Liberals keep saying that they are not responsible for inflation because it is caused by the global economy and all sorts of other reasons and people. However, that is not what the head of the Bank of Canada thinks. According to Mr. Macklem, inflation is the result of many factors that are becoming purely domestic. In other words, inflation in Canada is created by Canada.
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