- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
- Jan/30/24 6:27:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, of course Conservatives support the development of all types of energy. What we do not support is the government picking winners and losers and putting barriers in the way of provinces being able to set up whatever it is that they want.
I have actually worked in the wind industry. This is just a quick fact. In Alberta, 88 of 88 wind farms were producing next to zero power when it was -50°C, because it was literally too cold for them to operate. It was too dangerous. We need to consider other variables at play in a Canadian winter as to why we cannot go that far in on wind and certain other technologies. We can supplement a grid with them, but we cannot replace the reliable, predictable, affordable energy that we get from natural gas.
That is something that Saskatchewan has decided to do more and more of. We have the Chinook Power Station in Swift Current, which produces all kinds of wonderful power. They are building another one in Moose Jaw. The government needs to support those kinds of projects instead.
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- Jan/30/24 6:20:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, before I get started, I just want take a minute to thank all the great workers in the natural resources sector, and also our farmers and our producers, for making sure that the lights can stay on when it is -50°C, that our homes can stay warm and that we can still produce food. I also thank all the transport workers, who make sure that food, clothing and resources can get all the way across our country regardless of the temperature, whether it is warmer like it is today or if it gets to be, like I said, -50°C as it was a couple of weekends ago back home in Saskatchewan.
Canadians understand how important it is for us to have energy security. Before we all came back to the House, western Canada had to deal with the alarming effects of extremely cold temperatures. The worst of it hit my home province of Saskatchewan, but it was also in Alberta and British Columbia. As we might expect, there was a surge in demand for electricity, but this time, it all put a strain on the system. It got to the point that Alberta had to send out an emergency alert asking everyone to limit their electricity use in order to avoid blackouts. For hours, people were asked to do different things to cut down on their usage, such as turn off their lights, avoid cooking with a stove and delay charging their electric vehicles.
Alberta also received some power from other places, including Saskatchewan. Here is what our Premier Scott Moe said on X at that time. “SaskPower is providing 153 MW of electricity to AB this evening to assist them through this shortage.” It goes on to say, “That power will be coming from natural gas and coal-fired plants, the ones the Trudeau government is telling us to shut down (which we won’t).”
We fired up Boundary Dam 4 in Estevan country to produce more coal-fired power, and I am sure the folks in Alberta were very grateful that Saskatchewan was able to do so. Meanwhile, the government's emissions cap would prevent this from happening. Thankfully, we avoided having a worse situation with rolling outages. However, it is something that could happen, and we do need to take that situation seriously. For the NDP-Liberal government here in Ottawa, it should serve as a wake-up call.
Most people across the country understand that Canadian winters are tough, but I am not sure if some members, Liberal ministers or parliamentary secretaries realize what it is like to live through a typical prairie winter, where it is normal to have a wind chill of -50°C. Our average temperatures can be terribly low and last for a long time. They do not just come and go right away. There are times when it is actually not safe for people to stay outside for very long. People need to be somewhere indoors with a reliable source of heat. That is how we survive. It was one of those extremely cold days when people were faced with the power going out.
My province had greater energy demand as well, and we met that demand from reliable sources. When push came to shove, the overwhelming majority of it came from natural gas and a bit from our coal plants. At the same time, we were also able to lend a hand to our friends over in Alberta. It made a difference for them. It is not a mystery why the premier says he does not want to get rid of affordable and reliable energy. In a critical moment, we all had something solid to fall back on.
The real question is why the Liberals are obsessed with weakening our energy supply with their carbon tax, their emissions cap and the so-called just transition. Not long before all of this happened, they announced some new electricity regulations, and they were shocked to hear that the premiers of Saskatchewan and Alberta would refuse to go along with it. This threat of power outages, while enduring extreme cold temperatures of -50°C, is exactly why.
Are the Liberals going to listen to what our western premiers are trying to tell them? Do the Liberals get it yet? Does the Minister of Natural Resources understand why Saskatchewan will not accept his radical agenda? Will they finally give Canadians a break?
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- Dec/14/22 4:36:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on behalf of the members of the Conservative Party on the natural resources committee, I have the honour to table our dissenting report.
The report fails to mention the world-leading standards Canada has. It also fails to address issues like carbon leakage and to give credit to what rural, remote and indigenous communities provide when it comes to service work in the energy sector.
Canada has what the world needs, and that is clean, reliable and affordable energy, and the Liberal emissions cap will substantively prohibit Canada from being able to take its place as a world leader in energy production.
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- Nov/22/22 3:05:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals break everything that they touch. In 2015, there were 15 LNG projects proposed for Canada. Zero have been built. Energy east and Keystone XL could have provided paycheques for Canadians rather than dollars for dictators. Neither project was built. In 2015, they inherited a balanced budget, only to spend their way to an inflationary crisis not seen in decades.
When will the Liberals quit breaking everything that they touch and, instead, let Canadians have back control of their lives?
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Madam Speaker, I rise to join the debate today on Bill C-32 as the government tries to push through some of its fall economic update. Not only are we talking about yet another bad bill, but again, it is trying to rush through the process of us reviewing it.
We saw this morning the government wants to cut short our debate by limiting it until the end of the day. To be clear, when I say “government” in this case, it applies to something more than what the Minister of Finance and the government House leader, as cabinet members, are supposed to represent when they introduce their bills or motions. It is something more than the wider Liberal caucus in this place that has stood by and supported the government's decision no matter the cost it brings to Canadians.
What is happening right now actually goes back to the agreement made earlier this year with the NDP. Yes, we are starting to see the NDP-Liberal coalition back in action.
It reminds me of when, not too long ago, Canadians first learned about a deal between the Liberals and the NDP. Everybody knew it was a convenient arrangement for these two parties to help each other stay in business, but they have been downplaying it from the time they announced it. They tried to pass it off as a working agreement on a small number of points where they had some mutual understanding. However, over here in the opposition, we have already seen what is going on, and Canadians outside this place can see it too.
The NDP and the Liberals will not dare to call themselves a coalition, but the whole time they have behaved like they are a majority government in Parliament. Back in the spring, it did not take long for them to bring forward a motion to push through government bills. The most shocking part of it might have been that it allowed a minister to move, without notice, a motion to adjourn the House until we would resume months later in September. Such a motion would be decided immediately without debate or amendment.
From early in May, the opposition was left waiting to see if the government would suddenly shut down Parliament for months. It was a strange thing to give the government such power if there was never actually a chance or need for it to be used.
At the same time, the motion also allowed the government to change the parliamentary schedule and give next to no notice. A minister could rise a minute before adjournment and declare we are sitting until midnight on a government bill. This introduced a lot of uncertainty into the whole process, not just for members but for parliamentary staff like our interpreters, who have had to work throughout these proceedings.
The Liberals and the NDP would have to explain to me the practicality of a lot of this happening without them working so closely together to coordinate the agenda and prepare for any last-minute changes. It would be exactly like if they were all part of a government trying to keep the opposition on its toes and undermine our important work. As we have heard from the government so often, it made it seem like this was only temporary and that it expired before the summer break. Then we all came back and it seems to be happening all over again.
First, the Liberals and the NDP used a special motion to rush Bill C-31 through the House with late-night debates and committee meetings. The result is more inflationary spending, which might fulfill part of their political agreement but is not the right solution for what Canadians are going through and asking for at this moment in time. However, that was not enough for the coalition. Last week, it passed another motion similar to the one it used before the summer, so now it can play games with the opposition again until the end of June.
It is a clear pattern. It is even more troubling to see it come from a party that is supposed to be in opposition and still officially pretends it is. Instead, it is enabling the Liberals to avoid accountability as a minority Parliament. That is what they are doing again with Bill C-32 today. However, none of this will stop us Conservatives from doing our jobs and doing our best to stand up against the desperate decisions of a government in decline.
Right now there is a cost of living crisis caused by inflation and interest rates, and they are failing to address it. The cost of groceries went up at the fastest pace in 40 years, and people have had to pay the highest gas prices ever. While Canadians are forced to cut back on spending, we are not seeing the government show fiscal restraint or provide tax relief. Instead, it continues to waste taxpayer dollars and weaken the foundation of our economy, especially by attacking our energy sector.
With that in mind, it is ironic to read this part of the economic update:
There is no country better placed than Canada to weather the coming global economic slowdown and thrive in the years ahead. We have the most talented and resilient workforce in the world, and we are a country that skilled workers want to move to. We have the key resources the global economy needs, and as we enter an era of friendshoring and our closest partners shift their strategic reliance from dictatorships to democracies, they are looking to Canada to provide them with those resources.
It is the last part of that statement that I find the most interesting. The government, from day one, has spent the last seven years attacking the development and growth of our natural resources sector here in Canada. During that entire time, the Conservatives have defended Canada's great potential to supply the world's needs, while our industry follows higher standards for respecting human rights and the environment. We keep saying it and the government ignores it time and time again. Even now, I doubt it really even cares to get it.
The sad reality is that the government is hurting the same sector that would strengthen our economy and support our allies all over the world. We have already seen that the federal government's past decisions have limited Canada's ability to help Europe as much as we otherwise could have during an energy crisis, but what is worse is that the government still does not have the willingness to rise to the occasion with Canadian energy. We saw that when the German Chancellor personally came here on a special trip and the Prime Minister gave him a disappointing response. The Chancellor came here looking for Canadian LNG to help wean Germany off its dependency on Russia, and he was told “no”.
The Liberals are not going to reverse their anti-energy policies, which they will continue to expand. One of the new and subtle ways they are doing this is through a shares tax. They are not saying it openly, of course, but the industry has raised it as a concern. What is even more telling, though, is that opponents of the energy sector have also pointed to this tax as something that specifically targets Canadian oil and gas.
The likely result is that there will be damage done to Canadian jobs and industry more than anything else. It is also going to help drive carbon leakage into other areas run by dictators, like some of these overseas places we are importing oil from and other countries are dependent on when they should instead be focused on Canadian oil and gas. As usual, the Liberals pretend to go after big business, while their policies make life more expensive for all Canadians, including the most vulnerable. It is exactly the opposite of what is needed while facing economic hardship.
This is the same government that weakened our economy before it had to go through stressful events, and then decided to make it worse with wasteful spending. The Liberals' economic update proves that they have not learned much from their mistakes. As a case in point, the Liberals are going to raise the carbon tax, even though it has been a big part of the problem in terms of the cost of food and fuel. They say it is an environmental plan, but it is really nothing but a tax plan.
Along with that, the Liberals are failing to support workers and communities affected by their mandated coal transition. I represent some of these communities, alongside the member for Souris—Moose Mountain. Rockglen and Willow Bunch are such communities that are in my riding, and this year the environment commissioner's audit has shown that so far, the transition program is shaping up to leave these communities and their workforce behind. In fact, it goes so far as to say there is a complete lack of a plan, and that over the pandemic the Liberals have taken the last two years completely off, while not even allowing an extra two years in lieu for these communities to get their orders in line to be able to meet this transition from the government, but without the government's help.
There are a lot of talented people who are doing the best they can to prepare for this coming change, but again, as I just alluded to, there is still no planning and no attention from the government. These places still are not getting the answers they need for the future. When I look at the economic update, it still seems like this not a real priority for the Liberals, and that they will continue to break their promise to these coal communities.
These are the things we need to talk about while the government tries to shut down debate. These are things that should have been brought up in the fall economic update and have not been brought up, which is why we need this time to be debating this here today.
The Liberals are once again missing an opportunity, and they will continue to use the same kinds of decisions that brought us here, to where we are, where they limit debate along with the help of the NDP, and Canadians cannot afford it anymore.
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Mr. Speaker, I was just going through some numbers I received from the Library of Parliament on tax revenue to the Government of Canada from the oil and gas sector. Back in 2019, it was as high as $807 million. When we talk about oil and gas companies bringing in record profits, we know the government is also bringing in record taxes from the oil and gas sector.
The member talked about his dental care bill. If they succeed in killing off the oil and gas sector, where are they going to get the money to pay for their programs? These are programs such as the dental care bill, which has passed through the House of Commons, and which has a much larger bill than the tax revenue from the oil and gas companies.
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- Oct/24/22 12:05:26 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise once again to finish my speech on Bill S-5. For the benefit of my colleagues in the chamber today, I will do a quick review of where we were last week.
Before looking at how the bill is written, I explained why we should always be ready to question the Liberal government's real agenda whenever it makes announcements or introduces legislation about the environment. We need to look no further than its history of hypocrisy, double standards, failures and empty promises. If its members say that they are doing something in the name of the environment, it is not necessarily the case to begin with, and later we do not see the expected results.
Sometimes it gets worse than that, when a policy that claims to be helping the environment will end up having a negative impact on the environment. With all the economic and social costs, and with our industries attacked or neglected despite their own best efforts to be environmentally responsible, Canadians are left to wonder what the point of it really was, but it does not need to be that way.
There needs to be a balanced approach to caring for the environment and promoting industry. Bill S-5 seems to be a little different from the more outrageous examples that Canadians are used to seeing from the Liberals, but some of the amendments have raised concerns that we will not maintain the right balance, which is the point I was making before the House adjourned.
I was talking about one of those amendments in the section dealing with assessments of whether a substance is toxic or not. The original version of the bill mentions “vulnerable population”, but it has been amended to include a new term, which is “vulnerable environment”. As a new term, it is vague and unclear, and this could be another source of regulatory uncertainty for the stakeholders who are involved in the assessment or enforcement process.
Such a concern does not come out of nowhere. It is a real possibility, and we have already seen it happen more broadly with the same government's impact assessment process. It has not only ruled out new pipelines for oil and gas, exactly as it was expected to do, but the Liberals have made their hostility to that sector abundantly clear, and they will find any excuse to express it to the point of absurdity.
The Chancellor of Germany travelled all the way here to ask for our support in supplying them with more LNG, but we let him down. Since then, we recently heard the Prime Minister say that Russia invading Ukraine will accelerate Canada in its transition away from petroleum products, even though there is a surge in global demand for Canadian LNG and oil to stop relying on Russian energy. Despite the needs of our allies, the Liberals will not miss a chance to publicly attack our energy sector. This will be a sad part of the legacy of the Impact Assessment Act.
That same process has created challenges in other areas of resource development, whether it is with forestry or even with expansion in new mining projects, and I will provide a quick example.
In the CUSMA deal, when it was renegotiated, there was a three-year window to source lithium tariff-free regionally, but because of the Impact Assessment Act, there is not a chance that there will be a mining project in Canada put on—
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- Jun/6/22 3:25:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions today.
The first one is from Canadians who acknowledge that the development of Canada's natural resources is essential to the national economy as a whole. They want to see the government respect the development of pipelines in the oil and gas industry even further, since they realize this helps promote healthy and vibrant communities, particularly in small-town rural Canada.
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- Mar/28/22 4:04:44 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House on behalf of the great people of Cypress Hills—Grasslands, and I am grateful to also be able to have people attend the debate in person in the House. I have my family on Parliament Hill with me here today, so it is fantastic to have people in the gallery to see and hear the important work we do in this place.
Before getting into more detail on this particular bill, I just want to make sure that we keep in mind a major concern for our public spending going forward. When this bill was debated here last time, we did not realize that it would be the last Liberal spending bill for the next few years. Since then, we have seen that the Liberal minority government has made an official deal with the NDP to act as an artificial majority until 2025.
In a certain way, calling it a Liberal-NDP coalition gives it way too much credit, because the NDP as an opposition party is selling itself short as much as it is selling out. Giving away opposition power over a minority government to bring stronger accountability to Parliament without getting the perks of officially working in cabinet means the New Democrats will miss out on a promotion while protecting and getting used by the Liberal establishment. The NDP is a party that came to this Parliament in fourth place, and now it seems clearer than ever that it will not address the priorities of Canadians in years to come.
As one Liberal MP quietly told the media, “Already the Liberal Party has been too far left.... Now, it's official, we have joined this ultra left.” The article continues, saying, “MPs interviewed for this article said they were not against the idea of an average Canadian getting free dental care or pharmacare, but said their main concern is that after hundreds of billions of dollars of spending during COVID, it would be imprudent to embark on endeavours that will only add to those costs.”
Despite our best efforts here as the official opposition, which we are not going to stop, the Liberals are going to have their way with the NDP at the expense of Canadians. In speaking to those same Canadians, I will start with a number: $30,964. That is the share of national debt right now of each and every Canadian. Let us take that for a moment. Every hour our debt rises by $16 million and currently we owe over $1.2 trillion.
We can talk about millions here and billions there. The number is so big that it starts sounding meaningless and easy to tune out, but that is exactly how risky our situation is. Who really has millions or billions to drop, adding up to trillions? We do not, and that is before another $70 billion that this current bill we are debating here today wants to add. Then, right away, there is going to be another federal budget, no doubt introducing hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars more of federal spending, as if the Liberal obsession with failing to spend money effectively was not making it bad enough for people already in their everyday lives.
On Friday, the carbon tax will be going up yet again. That means the exact opposite of what we asked for on behalf of Canadians, which was to remove the GST on fuel temporarily, in our last opposition day motion. Instead of going down, gas prices will be going up, unfortunately, on April 1, and unfortunately that is not a joke.
When people roll up to a gas pump they are greeted with sticker shock. Across the country prices are ranging anywhere from $1.60 all the way up to two dollars a litre. That is not high enough, apparently, for the NDP-Liberal government, because is that not what this is all about? For an oil-exporting country, there is no reason for it. We need to harness oil and gas capacity and increase their production to meet demand and lower prices. We could do this by reducing the regulatory burden, building pipelines and increasing our refinery capacity. It could have helped our friends in Ukraine and all of Europe as well. These are common-sense solutions that do not involve spending $70 billion and would actually help hard-working everyday Canadians.
People are also greeted by record-high prices and empty shelves in grocery stores. This is the result of poor infrastructure and no plan to fix the shortage of truckers that exists here in Canada. Before our vaccine mandate, the industry was already short over 18,000 truckers, and because of those mandates an additional shortage of 16,000 truckers is where the shortage is now.
I recently spoke to a senior in my constituency who relies on a health product that is only sold at Walmart. For years he has been taking this product and it has kept him healthier during COVID. Unfortunately he can no longer find it back in Saskatchewan. Upon further research and after contacting Walmart's distributors, this constituent found out it is having difficulty getting the product up to Canada, but particularly struggling to get it into western Canada. The NDP–Liberals voted down our Conservative motion on that issue too.
Instead, they want to spend $37 million to extend mandates for another three years. It is time to end the mandates, no matter what flimsy justifications the health minister pretends to give. The Liberals laugh and call us names instead of fixing people's problems. Canadians are ready to get our country open, to get our country back and to be able to travel across the country without having to deal with mandates. We heard today in question period of people trying to go to see loved ones but unable to do so because of the mandates that are in place. Canadians did and gave up so much over the last two years. I recognize that a lot of it over a period of time was necessary, but Canadians are ready. It is time for the government to lead. It is time for the government to do what is right for Canadians. It is time to end the mandates.
It gets worse for everyone again, with the upfront cost of living, transport or the carbon tax through something like agriculture. I have heard from countless farmers in my riding who have shared how much of a burden the federal carbon tax is on them, for starters. Thankfully my colleague from Huron—Bruce has tabled a private member's bill that would exempt Canadian farmers from the carbon tax when using propane or natural gas for drying grain or for heating their barns. On top of this, producers are dealing with record-high input costs on their farms. A local farmer recently shared with me how fertilizer has nearly doubled in price, which is proving to be a huge burden for him as he prepares for the spring plant.
Another farmer told me that, after last year's drought, many have found themselves in a position where they are importing feed for their herds all across North America. This is proving to be very costly, without even mentioning the cost of machinery or seed. This is leaving many producers in a position where they are losing money on the cattle they are raising. We are now heading into another planting season, and we are all holding our breath and praying that we might have a good and fruitful year.
This is the reality for our farmers. Coupled with record-high input costs, our farmers need all the support and help that they can get. We need to help them so that they can have a robust agricultural sector. We need to remove the red tape and increase our domestic production to bring down the cost of food for all Canadians. I am from the area of the country where the Palliser Triangle is. We farmed right in the heart of it, and we were able to produce all kinds of fantastic crops in an area where it was previously said no human being should even be attempting to live, let alone grow the food that feeds the world, which we do at an exceptional array down south.
Why has the government completely forgotten about the Canadian people who are struggling? Gas, groceries and rent are all going up and people's wages just simply are not matching up to this increase. People are having to decide between filling up their vehicle or putting food on the table. It is very shameful. It is very unacceptable.
Financial struggles do not end there. We currently have a housing market that is exploding. We are seeing record prices and competition that have resulted in it being extremely difficult for first-time homebuyers to enter the market. Once again, Conservatives have called on the government to implement common-sense solutions that can better address this issue. Simply increasing supply will do a lot to calm down the market. For that reason, we have called on the government to leverage our federal infrastructure in an attempt to increase supply. On top of this, we need to remove the red tape that is withholding the industry from simply building more houses. Conservatives have also called on the government to address the issue for first-time homebuyers by fixing the mortgage stress test, in turn making it easier to purchase their first home. It is not too late for the government to implement these measures that would actually have a real impact for hard-working Canadians.
The NDP-Liberal government has gone on a spending spree, claiming to help with COVID by spending over $541.9 billion. However, it is important to note that $176 billion is completely unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is unacceptable that millions of dollars are still unaccounted for. We have been seeing multiple examples of the Liberals padding the pockets of their closest friends. On top of this, the Prime Minister wants to print billions of dollars out of thin air.
Today I have outlined some of the issues that are facing everyday Canadians and some of the practical solutions that the government could implement to help them. I look forward to questions and answers.
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- Feb/9/22 5:40:42 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House once again.
How do we begin to go over the country’s finances under the Liberal government? There is always so much spending and it is impossible to keep track of it all. It can give someone a headache if they try to keep up with it. Many of my fellow Conservatives are doing a great job of going through these spending items, showing how a lot of them do not make any sense and helpfully explaining how to handle Canada’s finances more effectively to get a better deal for the taxpayer.
I think it needs to be said, as a general comment, that in difficult times it is actually more important, not less, to make sure that we are managing our finances carefully and with close attention. The government must not act like it received a blank cheque from Canadians. However, when we are dealing with unusually large amounts of money, and when our minds are easily distracted by the news and events surrounding us here in this country, the temptation is always there to fall into a spending spree and make impulsive decisions without clearly thinking about the future and the ramifications of the decisions we make.
Everybody knows by now that we have entered a time of soaring inflation and supply chain shortages. Maybe it took an extra while for the Liberals to acknowledge it, because the warnings were coming from the official opposition, but they got there eventually and recognized that it was more than “Justinflation”.
To a degree, some challenges were expected during all the uncertainty and real disruptions to do with COVID and two years of lockdowns. That is the sort of thing that has been affecting countries around the world, which has been the government’s favourite talking point for a little while. However, it is not the perfect excuse that the Liberals are trying to make it out to be. Their mandate for truckers crossing the border, for example, at a time when supply chains are fragile with moving goods, is only one of the latest examples of their wrong-headed and unbalanced policies. We are already behind 18,000 truckers, and the mandates are only further exacerbating that issue. The Prime Minister's inflammatory and extreme rhetoric has also not been helping. However, I am not so much speaking on national unity today. It is the economic side of these problems that is the focus of debating the bill in front of us right now.
As far as handling COVID is concerned, the Liberals really have been normalizing lockdowns in practice. They have gone along as if it was a fallback or default position. Sometimes it seems as if they are stuck in the spring of 2020. The Liberals did not listen to feedback inside or outside of the House about supporting the provinces, strengthening their health care funding and providing all kinds of preventive measures as requested. The Conservatives demanded that they maximize all the incentives for businesses to hire and for more people to keep working, but now we find ourselves with ongoing labour shortages across different sectors. We are not out of the woods yet.
Even though we do need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario, it is still concerning to see the government announce a local lockdown program when it has consistently lacked a balanced approach. It would be one thing if the government was caught off guard by a crisis and had trouble finding its way, but with the Liberals and their economic update, it is about so much more than just COVID. Our finances were not in good shape before 2020 because of the same government’s mismanagement. We started off weaker than we needed to be, and it is obvious that the Liberals have not learned anything and are not willing to correct the course.
Over the last couple of years as a member of Parliament, I have had the chance to work on a few committees. In each of them, I have seen the same pattern up close. The government will make announcement after announcement for our future economy yet to come, while it does not hesitate to actively undermine our strongest sectors in the current economy. We cannot go on spending as much as we are if we do not have a strong economy to back it up.
When we ask them practical questions about the most basic details of their dream economy, there is not an answer, because questioning them on it just kills the mood. The Liberals are shooting our country in the foot and asking questions about it later, but it is okay, as there is a buyback program for the proverbial gun anyway. They will happily bring in new restrictions on people’s lives through taxes and new laws, but they do not seem to care as much about making sure that ordinary life can function in their new utopia.
First, they brought in their carbon tax, with no regard for the disproportionate impacts it has on rural areas, like the ones I serve, and the most vulnerable populations, even though their regulatory review admits it. It specifically singles out seniors living on a fixed income, but also single mothers, who are most at risk of experiencing energy poverty. As the carbon tax continues to escalate, The Liberals are looking to pile on the clean fuel standard, which has another carbon pricing mechanism attached to it. These people are only going to feel more and more crushed by the burden of the government's tax-heavy approach.
However, there is no need to worry because they say they are preparing our economy for the future. They promise a boom for industry with electric vehicles and biofuels in Canada. Again, without a plan, it sounds too good to be true.
A couple of days ago in committee, I followed up with the Minister of International Trade on a potential problem under CUSMA. Since coming into force in July of 2020, we have had a window of time to prepare for a requirement to regionally source 75% of lithium for EV batteries with minimal impacts on tariffs. If we are unable to do so there will be a massive increase in tariffs. With or without them, we could easily fall behind in this new industry, which appears to be crucial for the government's direction. What if it does not work out as well as expected?
I asked the minister about it a year ago. She did not seem to know what it was, and with no clear answer since then I decided to bring it up again this week, one year later. I am still not sure if the minister is actually aware of it and it is hard to get anything done if one does not know what one might have to deal with.
When it comes to new mines or resource projects in this area, industry has clearly said that the Liberal government's own impact assessment process is getting in the way and causing delays. The timelines for approval take way too long and it does not have to be this way. Our Canadian economy depends on resource development, the energy industry, specifically oil and gas, as a major contributor for work and wealth, but it is the same Liberal legislation, with an activist environment minister, that would aggressively shut it down while preventing the projects it will need to replace it.
If the Liberals want to keep spending away, where will the money come from? This is not the only way Liberal policies are working at cross-purposes either. Ever since the Liberals first floated their idea of reducing fertilizer emissions by 30%, producers and industry have been deeply concerned that this would follow the European Union's model of restricting the total amount of fertilizer used. It went with a 20% hard-cap reduction on fertilizer usage. This could cause huge losses for crop production.
Following its efforts, I raised this issue multiple times and the government has not ruled it out here in the House of Commons. Last fall, Meyers Norris Penny released a commissioned report on the estimated impact of such a policy in the coming years. By 2030, according to the report, losses of crop yields for corn, canola and spring wheat could total tens of millions of tonnes, costing up to nearly $48 billion to the Canadian economy. For Canadian agriculture, which is already a leading example of environmental efficiency and sustainability, this would be nothing short of devastating.
Considering the estimated number of losses to crops, this would also create new problems for trade exports and disruptions to domestic or global supply chains. Price pressures with reduced supply can easily combine with inflation to make it worse. What makes it even worse yet is this. Part of the Liberals' plan for their new economy for the new future is going to be biofuels. We all know that both corn and canola are the main crops we are going to be growing for biofuels going forward. According to this report, the number of bushels that are going to be produced is going to massively drop and we are not going to be able to meet this demand to fuel the future set out in the Liberals' plan.
Do members know what the government's response continues to be to all of this? It disagrees with the report, which is fair enough, except it has not even done its own impact studies or clearly laid out to farmers and producers what it is going to do. I was glad to hear it is looking at options besides heavily reducing fertilizer, but the main issue I am trying to raise today, and in the past, is that it continues to refuse to rule out the hard cap for the use of fertilizer. This whole time the government could have reassured us by saying it is not going to happen, but here we are again. It will not do it.
The Liberals need to think twice about ruining their own plan for biofuels where there is going to be even more demand for canola. How will it work for our producers who are having a harder time growing it underneath this new regime it is putting in place? The input costs are already through the roof, both for seed, fertilizer and spray. Machinery costs are also through the roof. Somehow I do not think they understand the practical realities and decisions that our farmers have to consider. The government already is not taking the concerns about land used for food versus fuel seriously, but now it wants to play with the idea of restricting fertilizer.
Despite all the uncertainties right now with inflation and supply chains in our economy, Canadians can be sure of at least one thing. The current Liberal government has been and will continue to be a disaster for our economy. It really could be so much better if it would only listen.
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- Dec/2/21 1:11:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, from 2014 to 2018, at the height of oil and gas production in Canada, we increased production by 38% but reduced emissions of flare gas by 22%. We are the only country to do that. If the world adopted the practices that we have here in Canada, emissions from the sector would drop worldwide by 22%.
The government is all about reducing emissions, so why are we not talking about the practices we have in Canada and taking that abroad to reduce emissions, if that is what the Liberals are so concerned about?
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