- 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
- Feb/5/24 2:36:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they are good at trying to distract us to better divide us and shift the focus away from their disastrous record, which is driving two million people to use food banks every month. People can laugh if they want, but there is nothing funny about two million Canadians having to turn to food banks every month because groceries are now beyond their means.
Who is going to do the right thing this afternoon? Who is going to vote against a tax that the Bloc Québécois wants to drastically increase and, instead, vote in favour of the Conservative Party motion to abolish the April 1 tax increase? Who will have the courage to do it?
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- Nov/23/23 10:07:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find it rather ironic to hear a member question my good faith about food banks and my willingness to help people. I think it is totally unacceptable and inappropriate of him.
What I gather is that this member in particular wants to make life even more difficult for all Canadians. It is this member who supports a drastic increase in the carbon taxes to the detriment of all Canadians. A drastic increase in the carbon taxes would mean groceries will cost more, shipping goods will cost more. It means a higher cost of living for all Canadians. That creates poverty.
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- Feb/10/23 11:24:30 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what we voted against are this government's inflationary policies of the past eight years.
This week, the big grocery store chains announced that the price of groceries is going to increase again in the next few months. Last year, prices went up by 11%. This year, the average family is going to pay $1,000 more for groceries, so they can eat, so they can put butter, bread, meat and vegetables on their table.
That is the reality that the Liberals do not want to see, but that is how it is right now in Canada. Will the Prime Minister admit—
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- Feb/8/23 3:04:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years with this Prime Minister at the helm, Canadians are realizing that all his talk about helping the middle class was just grandstanding. As a result of his policies, ordinary Canadians are finding it increasingly difficult to pay their bills. After eight years of this Prime Minister, his inflationary spending has driven up interest rates, depriving young families of their right to dream of home ownership.
After eight years, will the Prime Minister finally take responsibility for the rising cost of groceries, rent and gas so we can finally fix what is broken?
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- Dec/8/22 10:28:40 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I went to do groceries with my wife last week, and I was walking up and down the aisles. When I saw that all the prices had gone up, I began to ask myself some serious questions. How can we help families deal with these price hikes?
The report said that the price of lettuce went up 12%. That is not correct. The price of lettuce actually jumped from 99¢ to seven dollars. Things are so bad that we can no longer even afford to eat vegetables. Imagine how much more expensive meat is these days. It is absolutely essential that we give Canadians a little breathing room. We need to focus on what Canadians need right now. They need to put enough food on the table to stave off hunger.
We could help them right now by putting an end to the carbon tax on everything up and down the food supply chain. I encourage my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois to think about that.
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- Dec/8/22 10:14:31 a.m.
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moved:
That, given that, (i) Canada's Food Price Report 2023 states that a typical farm will pay $150,000 in carbon tax per year when the carbon tax is tripled, (ii) families will pay an additional $1,065 for groceries in 2023 for a total of $16,288 due to increased costs being passed on to consumers, (iii) food bank visits were at an all-time high reaching 1.5 million in March 2022, a 15% increase from the previous year according to Food Banks Canada, (iv) 20% of Canadians are skipping meals and grocery price inflation is at 11%, the House call on the government to cancel the carbon tax that is applied to all food inputs and production, including: (a) all farm fuels; (b) grain drying; (c) fertilizer; (d) transportation; and (e) other appropriate aspects of the food supply system.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent speech.
I will start with a number: $1,000. That is how much one mom just paid to fill her heating oil tank for the first time this season. That $1,000 was a big surprise, a huge amount of money for her.
She wrote to me this morning to say that she hopes the winter will not be too harsh, because, at $1,000 a pop, she cannot afford to fill the tank four times, as she usually does every year.
This is not about comparing ourselves to other countries or to what we had in the past. This is not about saying Canada is doing well. This is about making sure everyone knows about this mother, who wrote to me today to say that her bill was $1,000 and that she will probably have to fork out that much cash at least three more times this season if the winter is mild, or maybe five times if the winter is severe.
This mother is desperate. She is also desperate because of the rising price of food. Groceries now cost 11.4% more than last year. That is the overall price of groceries, but looking more closely at the price of meat and essential items, for example, we can see that the price of pasta, which is a staple among students, has increased by 30%. The go-to food for students who do not have much money has just increased by 30%.
That is the reality facing families, students and this mother, who will have to choose between hamburger, pork chops and bologna to feed her family and make sure her children get enough protein. That is the reality.
The reality is also the ever-increasing price of gas. People work and need to drive their car, especially in the regions. Why? Because there is no public transit in the regions. They cannot go to work if they do not have a car. In the regions, jobs are often far from home. People absolutely need a car to get around.
Also, there is winter in Quebec, as in many other regions of Canada. Winter is hard. There are snowstorms, but people still have to drive to work. Their vehicles are a little bigger. They have trucks or SUVs. Unfortunately, the price of gas is rising, and we are hearing more and more from people who wonder how they will be able to get to work. Since they have to get to work, they must make other choices and cut into their food budget. That brings us back to our mother's heartbreaking choice between buying hamburger or bologna to feed her children. With the money that is left after she pays for gas to get to and from work, she will have no other choice but to buy bologna. That is the reality in Canada today.
We asked the government to do something to help families, or at least not to make things worse for them, by January 1. In the economic statement, we were expecting the government to take action and do something, as the hon. member for Carleton and leader of the official opposition requested. We had two very simple requests, starting with the cancellation of the tax increases that are to come into effect on January 1.
The Liberals will say that increasing employment insurance and Canada pension plan contributions is not a tax increase. The result is the same. It is exactly the same thing: The mother I was talking about, who was already having to make difficult choices to pay for heating and groceries, will have a smaller paycheque. She has just been told that on top of all her problems, she will now have a smaller paycheque to pay for everything that costs more.
We expected the Liberals to hear that mother's message instead of including more inflationary spending in the economic statement. It seems that the Liberals have not heard the message, since that mother’s paycheque will unfortunately get smaller as of January 1.
Things will be even worse in some parts of Canada, since several provinces will see an increase in the carbon tax. This will cause this family even more hardship, since absolutely everything will be even more expensive. By tripling the carbon tax, the government is tripling costs for families, who will have less money to pay for gas, food and rent. That is our current reality.
We expected the government to say that it understands that the situation is difficult, that interest rates and food prices are the highest they have been in 40 years, and that it would give Canadians a break.
Well, no, they did not hear the message. When we ask the government ministers questions day after day in question period, they tell us all sorts of things. They tell us that this is a global crisis and that Canada is doing a little better than other countries, and they come up with every imaginable excuse. We are told, for example, that the war in Ukraine is responsible for all this, but we never hear a minister take responsibility for the situation. The government, however, must also look at itself in the mirror and ask what it did to get us where we are today.
To understand this, we have to go back to the election of the Liberal government in 2015. I remember very well that the Prime Minister campaigned on a promise that there would be three tiny deficits, $10 billion the first year, $10 billion the second year and $6 billion the third year, and that we would then return to a balanced budget. Wow. I cannot say that he lied, but I can certainly say that he misled Canadians.
In reality, the deficits were not tiny; on the contrary, they skyrocketed. We are talking about a $100-billion inflationary deficit, even before COVID-19. That is not surprising, given that the Prime Minister stated in his maiden speech that it was the right time to borrow, since interest rates would remain low for decades. At the time, interest rates were 0.5%, 0.25% or 0.75%. The interest rates were very low. The Prime Minister's crystal ball showed him that it was not a problem, he could borrow money and that was the time to do it.
However, members of the House, mainly members of the official opposition, had warned the government that interest rates would go up and make things difficult for families. The government chose to close its eyes and turn a deaf ear. It did not listen and continued to borrow money.
Then the unexpected happened, COVID-19, and another $500 billion was added to the deficit. We would have expected that money to be spent on measures to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 pandemic. However, of that $500 billion, $200 billion was spent on new programs and expenditures that had absolutely nothing to do with COVID-19.
The Minister of Finance's fall economic statement was literally a failure on all counts. We cannot support measures that will just add to the deficit when the government has received $40 billion in new revenue from taxpayers' pockets. Think about the mother I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, who must make difficult choices to pay for her heating and groceries and to get to work.
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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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- Nov/1/22 2:44:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what the government did not need to do was take $200 billion of the $500 billion and spend it on programs in no way related to COVID‑19. That is the reality. They hide, they deflect and they do all sorts of things to avoid telling Canadians the truth. Of the $500 billion, 40% was not for COVID‑19.
Meanwhile, 1.5 million Canadians had to use food banks for a month and 20% of Canadians said they had to skip meals because they could not afford groceries.
When will the Liberals stop wasting money?
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- Oct/27/22 2:08:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, whether in Thetford Mines, Le Granit or L'Érable, the rising cost of living is making life more difficult for everyone. Groceries are expensive, and the lines are getting longer on the day the flyers come out.
Things are even harder for some people and certainly more miserable for some workers; for example, employees of the Maxi store in Lac‑Mégantic have been on strike for over three months. All they want is fair treatment from Loblaws relative to other grocery stores across the country. Enough is enough. Loblaws must resolve the dispute as soon as possible, so that people have access to affordable groceries and workers can get paid this winter.
We are all concerned. The Liberal Prime Minister said that interest rates would remain low for decades. He has borrowed more than all previous prime ministers combined. Canadians denied the Prime Minister a majority mandate to avoid giving him unlimited access to the Liberal credit card. However, he found an accomplice, someone who is only too happy to add his name to the Liberal credit card, namely the leader of the NDP.
This is how Canada ended up with two grasshoppers singing in the sunshine without a care in the world, although winter is just around the corner and the carbon tax is going to eat into the savings of Canadians who want to put food on the table, heat their homes and—
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- Sep/28/22 2:40:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is coming from the finance minister who has run up the biggest deficit in Canadian history, more than all previous prime ministers combined. She wants to lecture us on that. She has no credibility with Canadians.
The cost of groceries is at its highest level in 40 years. It has risen more than 10%. What is even worse is that now, the Liberals want to take even more from workers' paycheques as of January 1, 2023.
Rather than hurting everyone, will the Liberals end “Justinflation”, yes or no?
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- Sep/20/22 2:55:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 600,000 Quebeckers are using food banks because they cannot afford to feed themselves. More and more of them are working folk. Rising costs are driving inflation, and workers cannot make ends meet. Groceries alone have gone up by more than 10%.
Will the Prime Minister commit to leaving more money in people's pockets by immediately putting an end to these new tax increases?
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- Jun/22/22 2:32:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the figures speak for themselves. Inflation is at 7.7%, its highest level in 40 years. The grandiose speech by the Minister of Finance to the elite in Toronto last week was all smoke and mirrors. There was absolutely nothing in there to address inflation in this country. Even President Joe Biden temporarily lowered taxes to give Americans a bit of a break. It is well known that the Liberals love it when gas is expensive.
Why are they willing to let Canadians suffer instead of helping them pay for groceries, rent and gas? Why are they doing nothing?
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- Jun/7/22 2:27:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, working Canadians and everyone else do not care what is causing inflation or why everything costs more.
What they do care about is being able to afford to buy groceries at the end of the month, making sure that their kids are not going to bed hungry, and being able to afford to fill up their vehicle so that they can get to work.
Whether it is the pandemic, COVID‑19, or anything else that the Liberals are going to blame, the reality is that they are doing absolutely nothing right now to help Canadians who need it.
Why are they so out of touch with Canadians?
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