- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Louis-Saint-Laurent
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 63%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $128,105.00
- Government Page
- Jun/6/24 2:55:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for years Canadians have been struggling because of this Liberal government, yet close friends of the Liberals have been profiting.
What is the latest discovery about those Liberal friends? It involves the use of the Sustainable Development Technology Canada green fund. Liberal friends have taken it upon themselves to dip both hands in the cookie jar. According to the Auditor General, $123 million of taxpayers' money was misused. To get to the bottom of this, those documents need to be seen.
Is the government going to give the RCMP access to all the documents so it can get to the bottom of this scandal?
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Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for the minister too, but she is going to have to explain to me why, whenever there is a tax hike, it always means taking even more money out of the pockets of Canadian families. That is exactly what the government is doing.
We had the solution with Bill C-234. It would give farmers a break, it would mean less tax to pay, it would stop food prices from continuing to rise under this Liberal government. Sadly, the Liberals decided to once again use their senator friends, whom they themselves appointed, to attack the wallets of Canadian taxpayers.
When will this government understand that it is costly to vote Liberal?
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- May/18/23 3:10:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I believe that there is unanimous consent in the House for me to table the report entitled “A Distributional Analysis of the Clean Fuel Regulations”, which indicates on page 24 that Quebeckers will pay $436 more.
Some hon. members: No.
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- Mar/10/23 11:55:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years of Liberal governance, all Canadians are paying more for everything, especially the necessities of life. Take housing, for example. Renters are paying twice as much as they were eight years ago. Homeowners' mortgage rates have doubled in eight years. That is down to Liberal management. For eight years, the Liberals did absolutely nothing to control spending, and that led to the inflation we are experiencing now.
Will the government accept responsibility for this? Will the Prime Minister step aside so we can get on with fixing things?
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- Feb/7/23 4:06:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is important that every company pay its fair share. We will continue to fiercely criticize those who refuse to pay their fair share by evading taxes, which is totally unacceptable in our democracy.
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- Feb/3/23 11:34:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my thoughts this morning are with the 300 workers at Medicago who find themselves unemployed today because the Quebec City-based pharmaceutical company is closing its doors.
Two years ago, the Liberal government invested $173 million of taxpayers' money in this company to develop a vaccine. The vaccine was produced, but it was not recognized by the WHO, and it never will be because cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris was one of Medicago's shareholders. The WHO never recognizes the work of cigarette manufacturers in this area.
How could the government be so negligent?
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today.
We are currently in a closure period imposed by the government, with the support and co-operation of the NDP, to limit the debate on the economic update. It is hard to consider this anything but unfortunate. As my Bloc Québécois colleague mentioned earlier, this is the twentieth time that the government has called upon its new NDP friends to stifle debate in the House. This is completely unacceptable and unfortunate and we must denounce it.
We are here to debate the economic update. We Conservatives are always very attentive to the government's reckless spending and mismanagement. Clearly, we have had a lot to say on the subject today, which is unfortunate for Canadian taxpayers.
Just today, the Auditor General released an initial report regarding the management of public funds during COVID‑19. The least that can be said is that it is quite disastrous for people who believe in the sound management of public funds.
The Auditor General “found that Employment and Social Development Canada established performance standards by focusing solely on the speed of payment” and identified at least $32 billion in overpayments and suspicious payments that require a thorough investigation. In short, to paraphrase the Auditor General, it was sloppy. This has been exactly the trademark of this government over the last seven years.
When the government indicated that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance would be tabling an economic update, which happened barely a few weeks ago, we made two very simple requests that were motivated not by ideology but by an acknowledgement of reality.
What do we do when we know that there are tough times ahead? Just like a good mother who has a family budget to manage, we need to stop the taxes, and above all, stop spending. If we have to make additional expenditures, it must be with caution and in a very specific and focused manner. Those were the two requests that we made; they were entirely logical and responsible, but sadly, the government did not heed them.
Should we be surprised that the government has continued in its seven-year-long tradition of spending recklessly? To hell with the expenses, as we say around here.
Let us not forget that, in 2015, those people stood for election and had the audacity to say that they were going to be bold, but responsible. They said they were going to run three small deficits in the first few years to stimulate the economy and then achieve a zero deficit in 2019.
That is the truth about that situation. After four years of the government's being in office under the Prime Minister, there were three huge deficits and another huge deficit in 2019. Liberals were elected saying there would be a very small deficit, but the truth is there are huge deficits, while, when the economy was reeling all around the world in 2008 when the Conservatives were in office, we were the first country in the G7 to get out of the crisis because we were serious in our administration.
Unfortunately, in their first term, the Liberals spent recklessly when, by rights, they should have been setting money aside for a rainy day.
Now, they are obviously going to tell us that, when they ran deficits, it was not their fault, it was because of COVID-19.
Well, we will play along. Sometimes, in a crisis, it is necessary to spend more. We recognize that. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, when we were in government, we ran deficits. The difference is that we brought them under control and then paid the money back and returned to a balanced budget.
However, since COVID-19 and since the Liberals have been in government, there has been a cumulative deficit of $500 billion. The deficit is like a bill we are leaving for our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren to pay, because we are living beyond our means. That is the reality.
Some will say it is not their fault that COVID-19 happened, but the Auditor General found that over 40% of this deficit has absolutely nothing to do with COVID-19, so that argument should be taken with a grain of salt.
The confirmation that the Liberals spend recklessly is that they are currently spending 30% more than before the pandemic. That is because they have been unable to control spending.
As for the excessive spending, we know these people have no shame.
About a year ago, the government decided to implement the sadly notorious ArriveCAN app for people arriving in Canada or those travelling abroad and returning to Canada. Travellers had to fill out a very complicated form. It made no sense. Worst of all, it cost taxpayers $54 million, when one IT company said that it was the type of job that would have taken them a weekend at most and cost a quarter of a million dollars. In short, instead of spending $54 million on something that did not work very well, and sometimes did not work at all, the government could have spent $250,000 and gotten the same thing done at a lower cost and more efficiently. Instead, this government overspent.
It was the same during the pandemic. Money was no issue, as they say. A $237‑million contract was awarded to Frank Baylis, a former Liberal MP, to manufacture 10,000 ventilators. Also, need I remind the House that CERB cheques were sent to prisoners and members of organized crime? It is a bit embarrassing, but it is a fact.
It is understandable that, in an emergency, processes are sometimes sped up. However, the Auditor General's assessment was scathing. The government mismanaged $32 billion during the pandemic. It makes no sense in this type of situation.
Also, as the member for Carleton, who is now the leader of the official opposition, said in April 2020, government should never punish or limit work.
All my life, I will remember going through the first summer of COVID‑19 as an MP. Every day, I met business owners who were angry and upset.
They were angry, because they were upset to see young people staying at home instead of working. That is the reality of what we faced the first summer, when young women and young men decided to stay at home and pick up the $2,000 from the CERB instead of going back to work.
I will never forget meeting the manager of a restaurant in Val-Bélair. I will not name the restaurant because he may not want me to tell this story. He came to see me and was very angry. He told me that it did not make sense and that it had to stop because it was not right. He said that a 17-year-old young man had come to see him and laughed as he told him that it was great because he would not be working over the summer.
That is not how a government should be run. That is not the right message to send our young people. When people are 16, 17 or 18 and working their first summer job, they are proud to get up in the morning and enthusiastic about working and earning their first three-figure paycheque.
We had the courage to identify the problem, but the Liberals went on as though nothing were wrong. Now we are dealing with inflation, the worst inflation crisis in 40 years. It is hurting everyone, particularly the most fragile and most essential sector of all: food.
As I noted yesterday during question period, the next few years are not looking any better. Four universities conducted a study and found that food inflation will remain above 10% inflation in the coming year. It is not a good sign when food banks report increasing demand and people who were donating to the food bank last year are now knocking on the door of that same food bank for goods and food. I see it in my riding.
That is why we will be voting against Bill C‑32. We believe that the government has not done its job properly in terms of sound management of public funds. It has spent recklessly. It has absolutely no control over its spending, but that has not tempered its ambition and desire to raise taxes.
The Liberals can say what they will, but raising taxes during a period of inflation is the worst-case scenario.
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- Nov/28/22 2:36:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pillaging Canadian taxpayers' wallets is not going to solve the climate problem.
This Prime Minister has advanced some ludicrous economic theories. According to him, a budget balances itself and SMEs are a tax shelter for cheaters. These theories are completely ridiculous.
This is the first time a head of government has said that it is a good idea to raise taxes in times of inflation.
Honestly, could someone in this government stand up and tell us when they are going to scrap the Liberal carbon tax increase, which is a terrible idea given the inflation rates?
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- Nov/28/22 2:35:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, inflation is squeezing the wallets of all Canadian families. Unfortunately, the simple fact is that everything costs more. Meanwhile, the government is still planning to increase the Liberal carbon tax.
I want to make one thing clear. Mathematically speaking, when the government raises taxes in a time of inflation, it is very profitable for the government, but it is not at all profitable for Canadian taxpayers.
When will the government finally do the right thing and not increase the Liberal carbon tax?
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- Nov/1/22 12:54:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Calgary Midnapore.
I am very pleased to participate in this debate, which centres on one of the main reasons I got involved in politics 14 years ago today, first at the provincial level and then at the federal level. That reason is the sound management of public funds.
Not a single dollar that the government has in its hands has fallen from the sky. Someone has gone to work, produced something and saved that money, and the government has gone and taken that money through taxes so it could manage it responsibly. In this case, however, its management was anything but responsible.
I will get right to the point. We are talking about the infamous ArriveCAN affair, which started out as a typical tale of a government wanting to bring people into its country. People coming to Canada have to pass a test to ensure that there are no issues. That makes sense.
However, the leadership of this Liberal government—which spends lavishly and has never, in the last seven years, shown the slightest interest in reining in its spending, yet boasts about its lofty principles while generating huge debts and deficits that our children, our grandchildren and our unborn great-grandchildren will have to repay—has given rise to the financial disaster that is ArriveCAN.
Let us review the facts. About a year ago, the government began this process to allow people to come to Canada and fill out the questionnaire.
I do not want to get into my life story, but my brother is an engineer and a Canadian citizen, and he now lives in Portugal with his family. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, he had to come to Canada last spring. My brother is an engineer. As a student, he was among the first computer programmers at Laval. The point is, he is pretty comfortable with computer stuff. When he got off the plane, one of the first things we talked about, after personal and family matters, was ArriveCAN. He asked me what was up with that. He said it took forever to fill out, it was complicated, it did not work, there were lots of pages and so on. If my brother, who is an engineer, who studied engineering and knows a lot about this stuff, had problems, let us imagine what it was like for average citizens who were not used to doing that kind of thing but, all of a sudden, had to.
It was fundamentally poorly designed, but when we look at how it was managed, that was even worse. The Canadian government spent $54 million of taxpayers' money, which Canadians saved and set aside, for which they worked and for which companies worked by producing products. The government collects taxes in order to run things properly, but that has definitely not been the case here. This app has been a fiasco from day one, considering that it almost never worked. It was not at all user friendly for people who had to enter their information. It was a fiasco because more than 10,000 people had to quarantine because of it. Worst of all, however, was the financial mismanagement, because it cost $54 million.
As we have heard, a programming expert said he could have made it in his basement over a weekend or a Saturday night for about $250,000. The Liberal Canadian government spent $54 million on this. That is why our motion today states:
...it is more important than ever for the government to respect taxpayer dollars and eliminate wasteful spending...
No one can be against that. Our motion goes on to demand that:
...the House call on the Auditor General of Canada [a neutral and objective entity] to conduct a performance audit, including the payments, contracts and sub-contracts for all aspects of the ArriveCAN app, and to prioritize this investigation.
How can anyone be against transparency? How could anyone even think of voting against this motion, which asks the Auditor General to do her job with respect to a matter that has affected hundreds of thousands of Canadian families?
Many people did not want to travel because of this. Some 10,000 people ended up in quarantine. More than $53 million seems to have been poorly invested, because someone could have done the job for $250,000 rather than $54 million. That is our job here in the House of Commons.
All 338 of us, regardless of political stripe, were elected to see to the sound management of public funds, among other things.
This is a prime example of mismanagement of public funds. We have a golden opportunity to get to the bottom of this business and find out exactly why things did not go as planned, so we can avoid making similar mistakes in the future. That is why I do not see how anyone in the House could be against us doing our job and asking the Auditor General to do hers.
Government members are likely to be a bit embarrassed when we start analyzing their management of public funds, and rightly so. Let us not forget that, seven years ago, right after the election, this party, led by the member for Papineau and current Prime Minister, boasted that it would run very small deficits and a zero deficit in 2019 because it wanted to stimulate the economy. The result was anything but. It ran one large deficit after another, missing the target set by the former minister of finance three times. Then, it ended its first term with an accumulated debt of more than $100 billion.
The Liberal Party was elected on a promise of running small deficits and then eliminating the deficit entirely. That is not at all what happened. The government ran four deficits in a row. That was the Liberal government's record even before the pandemic and current economic problems caused concerns.
When the pandemic happened, we all realized that an emergency situation called for emergency measures, which was likely to bring about deficits. When we were in power in 2008, 2009 and 2010, our country, like every other country, grappled with the worst economic crisis since the great recession of 1929. Very reluctantly, our government ran deficits because we had no choice under the circumstances. However, starting in 2015, our government managed to balance the budget. Canada was the first G7 country to get back in the black thanks to sound management of public funds. That is what responsible government looks like.
They Liberal government ran massive deficits during a period of growth. When the pandemic happened, emergency measures were needed and money had to be spent. We knew that would result in deficits, but we did not know the deficits would be this big.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently concluded that $205 billion of the $500‑billion deficit had nothing to do with COVID-19. In other words, over 40% of the debt accumulated under the current government over the last seven years was in no way related to the pandemic. Those folks over there say that these were emergency measures and no one knew for sure what was going on, so it was important to be vigilant.
A few months into the pandemic, when there was a bit of a lull in the summer, I remember very clearly talking to people in my riding, as we probably all did, and when I spoke with entrepreneurs or business leaders, I was always asked why parliamentarians had decided to pay people to stay at home and do nothing. People commented on the fact that CERB, which served a purpose during the emergency, was paying people $2,000 to stay at home, even though activities had resumed in the summer and workers were needed. That was the sad reality. That was the reality, but it was also our responsibility to sound the alarm about it. The government was attacking us and calling us names, but that was the reality.
That is why we now know that the inflation that is hitting people rather hard all started with the current government's mismanagement.
I hear my friends across the way say that the entire planet is experiencing a period of inflation. That is true, of course, but let us not forget that the future leader of the Liberal Party, Mark Carney, said that it was mainly a national issue, and therefore a Canadian issue. The Minister of Finance finally opened her eyes and said that the government may need to tighten its belt a bit and cut down on spending.
I sincerely hope that this government will vote in favour of our motion so that Canadians can learn the truth behind the ArriveCAN financial fiasco.
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Madam Speaker, that is a very good question.
In our opinion, this bill does not properly assess the balance we must strike and the fair payment that must be made to all producers and broadcasters, without affecting content quality and creators' initiative, whether on YouTube or elsewhere. Damien, the musician I spoke about earlier, made us understand that.
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- Apr/5/22 12:52:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have to be very careful on that, because the government's money is not the government's money. It is the taxpayers' money, and we have to be very responsible with it.
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- Mar/22/22 12:30:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am also disheartened to see that my NDP colleague has come to conclusion to vote against abolishing a tax. It is too bad, but unfortunately that is what we can come to expect over the next few weeks, the next few months, and, unfortunately, the next few years.
Until October 2025, we have a new government, one that was not elected but magically showed up all of a sudden last night, or last evening, or possibly this morning, it is hard to say. According to the announcement made, we have an NDP-Liberal government. This will be interesting to watch, but it will not be good for Canadian taxpayers, since we are already seeing that the NDP is against lowering taxes and the current Liberal-NDP government is also against lowering taxes. Unfortunately, the best way to help Canadians directly is to lower taxes.
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