- 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
- May/7/24 4:37:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Barrie-Innisfil.
After nine years, the Prime Minister still does not get it. There are many things he does not understood. He does not understand that budgets do not balance themselves. He does not understand that Canadians cannot live on their credit cards forever. He does not understand that leading a country means much more than just smiling for the cameras.
After nine years, he clearly does not understand that Canadians are tired of paying for his and his government's incompetence. I say incompetence because, after nine years, too many families have seen their quality of life go down as a result of his inflationary policies. Everything costs more, including food, rent, gas, taxes, mortgage payments, everything people have to buy on credit, restaurant meals and recreational activities. The list goes on. Absolutely everything costs more.
The Liberal Prime Minister has made the public service so big it is literally bursting at the seams, which leads me to say that the government, too, costs a lot more after nine years of this Prime Minister.
The Liberal government hired no less than an additional 100,000 public servants. With so many new government employees, one would expect services to improve, at least proportionately. One might think that waiting for a passport was a thing of the past, that immigrants who are waiting for a family member are now all very happy with the family reunification and immigration processes, and that it is now easy to talk to a CRA or an EI agent. One hundred thousand more public servants means 200,000 more hands to work on finding solutions to people's problems. That would make sense, but no. That is not what happened, despite the additional billions of dollars that this government spent on expanding the public service.
The Prime Minister and this government's ministers created so much chaos that even 100,000 more public servants have been unable to correct nine years of complacency. Take, for example, passports, the people who are waiting for EI payments and the thousands of Canadians who have to pay back billions of dollars to the government because the Liberals' pandemic measures were a failure.
Let us talk about immigration and the former immigration minister, who not only created the worst management crisis ever at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, but also lost track of one million people. That minister is now in charge of fixing the country's housing crisis. I wonder what that minister has to say to Cédric Dussault, the spokesperson for the Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec, a renters' rights group, who said, “We hear from tenants who intend to commit suicide. This is more than just despair. They do not see a way out, and they want it to be over. That is what it has come to”. That is what it has come to in Canada after nine years of this Prime Minister.
This is just a glimpse of Liberal incompetence. In addition to hiring tens of thousands of public servants, this Liberal government has literally doubled the cost of hiring outside consultants. Many of those expenses were unjustified. Here is just one example: ArriveCAN. The government spent $60 million of taxpayers' money on an app developed in a basement by two people with no computer skills. That app was supposed to cost $80,000. Let us do the math. The cost ballooned from $80,000 to $60 million. That is how this government manages public finances.
As I said earlier, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost of his government, which has skyrocketed over the past nine years. Let us look back at 2015, when this same Prime Minister promised Canadians that he would run small deficits of $10 billion and balance the budget in four years. Since then, he has not only failed to keep his promise, but he has also become the spendiest prime minister in Canadian history. He single-handedly put Canada further into debt than all previous prime ministers.
I am not talking about him spending more than any previous prime minister. I am talking about the debts of all prime ministers combined. This Prime Minister has managed to spend more than all the previous prime ministers combined. He has increased Canadians' debt from $700 billion to $1.3 trillion in just nine years. I never thought I would use the word “trillion” in the House, but that just shows how out of control this government's spending is.
That means that today, just to pay the interest on this massive debt, Canadians have to fork over more than $57 billion a year. How much is $57 billion? People wonder, because it is impossible to grasp the scale of a number that big. It is more than what the federal government transfers to the provinces for health care every year. It is the equivalent of all the goods and services tax, or GST, that is collected when people buy goods and services. In other words, every time we pay GST somewhere, it does not go toward improving the environment, national defence or social housing; it goes to pay the interest on this Prime Minister's debt.
This Prime Minister has inflated the debt to the point that he no longer sees what effect this spending is having on Canadians. It is contributing to inflation, driving up the price of everything and forcing the Bank of Canada to keep interest rates high. That is what nine budgets from this Prime Minister has done. This ninth budget is no exception. Time and again, we see new spending, stagnating services, rising prices and daily revelations of corruption. This is the perfect example of an incompetent Prime Minister who is not worth the cost.
I also wanted to take this opportunity to talk about something that has been a concern of mine for the 25 years that I have been in politics. This theme has only reinforced my decision to be a Conservative in Quebec over the years. I want to talk about the mindset that, no matter what the Liberals do, no matter what the left proposes, whether it is the NDP, the Bloc Québécois or the Liberal Party, just one group suffers as a result of all their good ideas. That group is average Canadians. It is the Quebecker who works hard to support his family. It is the Quebecker who struggles to pay rent, to give her children a decent education, to be a good citizen by volunteering to help those in need. That is a fact. I talk to people in their homes. The only people paying for all this spending are not the Prime Minister, nor his ministers, nor the Liberal government, but the hard-working people at home.
Who pays more for gas when someone decides one day that it would be a good idea for gas to be more expensive so that people will use less? Who pays more for electricity because it is bad to waste electricity and because, if the price is raised, people will realize that it is too expensive and then use less? If they need it, they will have to pay either way. The Prime Minister said so himself when he was invited to comment on the rising price of gas before the carbon tax even came into effect. He said that that was exactly what they wanted, for Canadians to pay more. Worse yet, left-wing parties like the Bloc Québécois are not shy about saying that it is not enough. The Bloc says that the carbon tax — they probably also want to talk about the carbon pricing that applies in Quebec — should be radically increased. It is the public that pays every time these people say that they have a good idea.
Who pays for these taxes, these bags, these services, these user fees, this big government that is supposed to solve all the problems? It is Canadians. It was Canadians before, it is Canadians now, and it will be Canadians as long as we have a Liberal government. That is why the Conservatives have a common-sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. The “Liberal Bloc” does not want us to keep saying it, but it is a common-sense plan that will ensure that we can give Canadians back a little pride, so that Canadians realize that things were not like this before the Liberals took office and that it will certainly not be like this once they are no longer in power.
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- Jun/2/23 12:27:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, during question period, the member for Edmonton Centre, who is also the Associate Minister of Finance and the Minister of Tourism, referred to the Conservative Party platform on two occasions.
Since the beginning of the week, and again today during question period, the Liberal Party has been asking the Conservative Party for permission to table the Conservative plan in the House.
I would like to correct one of the facts. First, there is no mention of a carbon tax in these platforms.
Second, I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to table the Liberal cost plan from the 2015 platform, in which the Liberals said, “We will run modest deficits for—
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- Jun/1/23 3:43:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, following the member's multiple requests today for unanimous consent to table the Conservatives' platform for two election campaigns, I am requesting unanimous consent to table the Liberal Party's fiscal plan from the 2015 campaign.
It says, “We will run modest deficits for three years so that we can invest in growth for the middle class and credibly offer a plan to balance the budget in 2019.”
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- Mar/28/23 4:28:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the budget we are being presented with today raises many questions.
First, it bears repeating that, in 2015, this government promised to run only modest deficits before returning to a balanced budget in just four years' time. This is the same Prime Minister who said that, one day, the budgets would balance themselves. This is the same Prime Minister who said that it was time to invest in Canada because interest rates were low and would stay that way.
Today, the Minister of Finance is tabling a budget that follows last year's budget, when she said the following:
On this next point, let me be very clear. We are absolutely determined that our debt-to-GDP ratio must continue to decline and our deficits must continue to be reduced. The pandemic debt we incurred to keep Canadians safe and solvent must [and will] be paid down.... This is our fiscal anchor.
Here is what the minister said in English:
This is our fiscal anchor.
Last year's figure was 42.4. The minister went on to say:
Canada has a proud tradition of fiscal responsibility. It is my duty to maintain it and I will...
This year's projected ratio is 43.5. The projection for next year is 43.2. In its first budget after announcing its fiscal anchor, the government is exceeding its fiscal anchor. It should never be exceeded.
Given everything I have just said, can the Minister of Inflation tell us why Canadians should believe a word of these budget forecasts or trust them?
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- Oct/31/22 4:27:14 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, when I listen to my colleague speak, there is a word that springs to mind. It is the word “hypocrisy”, which he just mentioned.
I remember one thing. In 2015, the Liberal government was elected on a major promise: that it would run very small deficits for three years and then slowly come back to a balanced budget.
In his maiden speech, the Prime Minister said that interest rates were low and that they would stay that way for decades. He said that to justify his voracious appetite for spending. That is what I call hypocrisy. I do not think the parliamentary secretary is in any position to lecture me on that score.
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- Oct/25/22 11:25:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I refer to the motion.
What is driving inflation to this point? Our national debt. The national debt has increased by $100 billion, despite Liberal promises. We remember the promise they made in 2015 to run small deficits for three year and then return to a balanced budget. That was forgotten and there is now a deficit of $100 billion.
Before the crisis in Ukraine, the Liberals increased our national debt by $500 billion, $200 billion of which was in no way related to COVID‑19 expenditures. The Prime Minister's mindset was plain to see when he said in his inaugural speech that it was time to borrow because interest rates would remain low for decades to come. I again refer to the motion, which states at point (ii) that the “House believes in the principle of equality for all”.
Unfortunately for the poor, the price of inflation means that they cannot buy and acquire goods. That is the reality and I thank the Bloc Québécois for giving me that opening and this opportunity to talk about equality for all, here in Canada, because it is important. Unfortunately, due to the costly NDP-Liberal coalition, that is no longer a reality; the poorest are finding it increasingly difficult to buy most things.
Let us talk a bit about the Bloc Québécois. If there is one good thing about their motion today, it is that it shows Quebeckers what the Bloc Québécois's main priority is. Contrary to what I have just said and the concerns of Quebeckers each day, the Bloc Québécois has shown today what its priority is. The Bloc Québécois supports a general federal carbon tax for all Canadians because they refuse to vote in favour of our motion to not increase the carbon tax for all Canadians. How ironic that the Bloc Québécois should support a federal tax on all the provinces.
The Bloc Québécois and its leader have always claimed they want to be the voice of Quebec's National Assembly in Ottawa. Unfortunately, what we have just seen proves that the Bloc Québécois talks a good game, but when the time comes to act, it cannot deliver.
Quebec just held an election to which the Bloc Québécois devoted all its energy. All the Bloc Québécois members worked really hard. They invested resources, and the leader gave speeches in support of one political party in Quebec's National Assembly, the Parti Québécois. Did the Bloc Québécois, the Bloc members and the party staffers who claim to represent Quebec's National Assembly remain neutral in the recent provincial campaign? The answer is obviously no. They dedicated their hearts, their energy, their resources and their speeches to supporting the candidates from a single political party, Quebec's separatist political party. It is the only party whose ultimate goal is Quebec independence, which is far from the goal shared by all the members of Quebec's National Assembly. I think if we did a quick survey of the National Assembly, we would see that most do not want Quebec independence.
In the election, only three Parti Québécois candidates won seats, despite all the resources that the Bloc Québécois had put into campaigning in Quebec. After campaigning against all the other parties represented in the National Assembly, and after Quebeckers only elected three Parti Québécois members, the Bloc Québécois still claims to be the voice of Quebec's National Assembly in Ottawa. That is not true, and the motion is clear proof of that. Rather than talk about Quebeckers who cannot make ends meet, rather than condemn the Liberal government's encroachment on areas of provincial jurisdiction, the Bloc Québécois chose to ask the House of Commons to debate an issue that only got three members elected to the National Assembly.
In closing, I just want to state that I speak for many Quebeckers when I say that people do not really care whose face is on the $20 bill. What they care about is having enough $20 bills in their pockets to pay for their groceries at the end of the month.
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- Oct/20/22 2:37:33 p.m.
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Yes, Mr. Speaker, let us talk about fiscal responsibility.
The Prime Minister said in his inaugural speech that interest rates would remain low for decades to come. I remember that the Liberals promised to run small deficits because we had the means and said interest rates were going to remain low and that it was no big deal to continue to rack up debt. The Liberals added $100 billion to the debt even before COVID-19. That is the reality.
Today, they are asking Canadians to take them at their word when they say that they are going to manage inflation and lead them out of this crisis. No, Canadians no longer trust them. The Liberals are not capable of managing the crisis.
When will you abandon your plan to hurt Canadians by raising taxes yet again?
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- Apr/5/22 2:25:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about that.
The Prime Minister systematically refuses to listen to the Conservatives, who are calling for more fiscal restraint. For the good of Canada, perhaps he will listen to advice from his own party. Former finance minister Paul Martin said that, “the time to reduce deficits is when the economy is growing”.
The time to act is now. The economy has generated huge revenues for the government because of inflation. Will the Prime Minister continue to take this money from the pockets of Canadians? Will he continue to spend lavishly until those pockets are empty, as he has done since 2015?
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- Mar/30/22 2:24:09 p.m.
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Let us talk about that, Mr. Speaker.
The NDP Prime Minister and the leader of his moderate wing signed a secret agreement that seeks to implement the NDP's $200-billion spending plan, which goes against supposedly Liberal values.
As Jean Chrétien said, “The time to reduce deficits is when the economy is growing.” Paul Martin said, “Not to act now to put our fiscal house in order would be to abandon the purposes for which our Party exists and this government stands”.
Are there any fiscally responsible Liberals left in this government or did they all join the NDP?
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