- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
- Feb/16/24 12:45:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is important to say that the member is misrepresenting what is going on. For parents who want gender-affirming care, the government will not be standing in the way. The Premier of Alberta has made that abundantly clear.
What people do not want to see is the government forcing, swaying or moving the conversation a certain way without parents being part of the conversation. This is because parents, not the state, are the first caregivers for our children. That is the most fundamental thing that people need to know understand. We know that parents need to always be at the table when it comes to decisions for their own children. My biggest point is that parents need to be number one as the caregivers for children. That is what we are focused on.
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- 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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Mr. Speaker, it is great to have such a lively audience here tonight in the chamber just past 11:30 p.m. It is fantastic to have a lively House of Commons. I really appreciate it.
We are here to talk about strengthening the port system and railway safety in Canada act, Bill C-33. This bill is important to me. The reason is that Saskatchewan, the province where I am from, is completely landlocked. We need our ports. We need railway access. Those are two hugely important fundamentals to the province of Saskatchewan.
Saskatchewan, in 2022, had over $81 billion in gross domestic product for this country. That is a fantastic output and a fantastic number. Saskatchewan does a fantastic job. It definitely punches above its weight, especially for a province that has roughly 1.2 million people. We do a great job. Obviously, agriculture and the energy sector are the main drivers of the economy where I am from.
I want to talk more about the agriculture side. In Saskatchewan, particularly southwest Saskatchewan, where I am from, we grow the vast majority of the pulse crops that the world relies upon, particularly the lentil crop. It is exported all over the world. Whether someone is growing organic crops or otherwise, we grow what the world wants and what the world needs.
The only way we can get those lentils around the world to all the countries that have such a high demand for them and for the protein they provide is through rail. When I look through this bill, I see it is trying to do some things around safety. It is trying to do some very important things around modernizing our ports. It is trying to strengthen our ports.
If we look at where our ports rank across the world, we see that we are right at the bottom. I am sure my colleague from Provencher, with whom I will be splitting my time, will want to touch on that later, so I will be sure to leave a few points for him to get to as well.
Access to ports and access to rail are so important. We have CN, we have CP and we have some really fantastic short-line rail operators. Our short-line operators are actually leading the charge on safety in the railway system. In fact, one of the owners of one of the railway companies reached out to me recently to send me an email regarding some of the statistics that the short-line operators have in Saskatchewan around safety. There are zero incidents, month over month. There are zero incidents.
They are running a high-quality rail line, taking care of their employees, providing great jobs and providing a service to the farmers, the producers and the shippers in Saskatchewan, and they are doing so while respecting the safety of the workers and providing high-quality service. That is what they are doing.
The email I got was from the Great Sandhills Railway. Our Saskatchewan caucus recently met with Great Western Rail, another fantastic short-line operator in our region that does a fantastic job of providing that service to farmers. It does so safely, while providing the fantastic jobs that are required to be able to meet that demand.
I was just messaging one of the exporters in my riding. They export farm equipment around the world. They export to 28 countries across the world. It is a farm implement dealership in a small town in Saskatchewan. It ships to 28 countries. How does it do that? It ships through the ports in Halifax, Montreal, Vancouver and, I believe, Prince Rupert.
Earlier today I heard my colleague from British Columbia talking about what the port of Prince Rupert actually means. It is the closest port to the Asian markets. The ports in Halifax and Montreal are some of the ports in North America that are closest to the European markets. They are very important access points.
One of the issues that they are dealing with in Vancouver is that it takes 12 days to get a container through. Montreal is closer to 10 days, and in Halifax, it takes 14 days to get a container through. Sometimes they are waiting over a month to even get a container. Trying to get access to the things they need to ship their products is not being addressed by this bill.
There is mention in the bill about setting up advisory panels and empowering the minister to set up authorities to deal with a variety of issues. However, the one thing that is not included as one of the issues that they would deal with is the actual production of the ports and making sure that they are getting results for producers and shippers. The bill would not require rail companies to make sure that they are providing the fullest service to shippers.
For example, CN does not do any business with Hapag-Lloyd. When we are sitting in Saskatchewan watching a train go past one of the many intersections that we have, we see Hapag-Lloyd's name on many containers. It is one of the more popular company names that we see going across Saskatchewan when we see sea cans going down the rail lines or on a flatbed truck, but CN does not deal with it.
How is that going to work for exporters in a landlocked province trying to export products? They also have to import pieces so they can build the product they are trying to make and then export. However, one of the biggest players, CN does not even deal with it, and there are other companies CN does not deal with as well. This is severely limiting the options for people trying to export a product, but the bill does not deal with that. These advisory panels that the government is looking to set up would not deal with that. It is not a priority for this government.
When we hear other colleagues talking about the bill needing to be withdrawn and strengthened, and that the government needs to do more, I would suggest that these are some of the things that need to be looked at in the bill. Why is it not a priority for the government to try to make sure that we get the best result for our exporters who do such a fantastic job?
All across this country, we care about the environment, reducing emissions and reducing greenhouse gases. We do that all across this country and across party lines; everybody cares about that. We have innovators in the prairie provinces that make world-class products, and they do so in a manner that is environmentally sustainable. These are products that people in the rest of the world need. If they had the technology, if they had the products that our farmers in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta have, they would be able to reduce their emissions as they harvest their crops in other regions of the world. They need what Canada has to offer, and without a robust port system, without a robust rail line, that cannot happen. I see that one of the advisory panels would actually deal with climate change, but do members think that it would bring this element of it up? No, not a chance. This will not be part of what the panel would talk about.
My hope is that the government, if it is going to appoint these advisory panels, will actually talk to the shippers, exporters and manufacturing companies; the people who are trying to get their far superior products out to the world market. The government should talk to them when it is talking about how it is going to achieve some of the things that these boards are going to do. It should make sure that there are actually people in industry, who are involved in taking real and meaningful actions on these boards to make sure that we can actually get things done in a timely manner, to benefit our country and the rest of the world, and do so in a sustainable manner. That is the power that a robust rail line and port system could have in this country, because Canada has what the world needs and wants.
We grow the products, we manufacture the goods and we export them. Some of those things have to get refined and brought back yet again, which is crazy; we could do much of that here in Canada. However, in order to do any of that, regardless of where we are at, we need a robust rail and shipping system, and we do not have that, but we could.
We have had a trans-Canada rail line for over 100 years. It has been around for a very long time. It was a huge marvel to get that project done. However, we still have not reached the full potential that a valuable resource like that could have. We need to utilize it. The bill before us should be strengthening and building that up. It should be focused on lifting the entire country up so that we can use those ports, especially for landlocked provinces. We have not just what the world wants, but we have what our country needs, if we could even just get our goods out to the provinces and out to the edges. We have what is needed.
I hope that the government will take these considerations to look at the bill and make a serious version of it so that we can actually accomplish what needs to be addressed.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to once again be able to rise in the House on behalf of the great people of southwest Saskatchewan.
As I kick off my speech tonight, there is a core principle I really want to get at, and that is about trust. When I speak in this House, I like to ask how much trust the government has built with Canadians and whether Canadians can actually trust what the government is doing.
Before I get into the meat of it, I would really like to talk about the actual cost. We hear a lot from the Liberals about how this is $10-a-day day care. I recognize there is a benefit to people who are currently in the system, who will be paying less up front because of the program. I am not going to deny that and I am not going to say it is not a benefit to people who are in the program and are already benefiting from it. That is great for those people.
However, a lot of people email my office and routinely ask how much this program is actually going to cost. What we do know is that over five years the Liberals have set aside $30 billion to implement this program, so that is the cost we are aware of. We heard others, through many speeches tonight in this place, about the additional costs that are starting to already creep into the system. This is the cost of meals on top of the fees people are going to be paying up front. We are already hearing of extra costs that will be burdened onto the system.
That does not even get into the fact this system we are talking about here tonight is not going to build much in the way of new spaces. It is not going to provide new access to people, which, being from Saskatchewan, and particularly being from rural Saskatchewan, to me is the crux of the debate when we talk about day care.
We know day care is a universal need. It does not matter if one is from urban or rural Canada, from Saskatchewan or Ontario, from Toronto, Swift Current, Frontier, Leader or Maple Creek, one needs access to day care. There are many different ways people realize this. There are a lot of different programs out there. Some of them are private, some of them are run through co-operatives and some of them are just in-home systems. There might be a person who has chosen to be a stay-at-home parent, and other people looking for child care might bring their child to that person and have that person provide the service to them.
A lot of what we are finding out is that this bill would not do anything for those people who are in those situations. In fact, in Saskatchewan, only 10% of kids from the age of zero to 12, whether they are full-time or part-time, currently have access to day care. From zero to six, which is what the agreement signed between the Province of Saskatchewan and the federal government covers, right now that access number I believe is a bit under 18%.
Saskatchewan is a bit of a unique case. I would be willing to say we are the most rural province in this country. I think that is a fair thing for me to say. We have so many small towns. We are a very spread out province, so the needs of people are vastly different in rural versus urban. The access to spaces is different as is access to workers. One of the fundamental issues we have is the access to workers to be able to fill these positions. That is one of the key points we have.
I did a town hall probably about a year and a half ago or maybe two years ago in the town of Maple Creek. A lot of the business owners came together and arranged this. They wanted to have me out to talk to them about what is affecting their businesses. Part of it had to do with the pandemic at the time with the programs and different things, but we also talked about things that were outside of the pandemic.
One of those issues was day care. Multiple business owners have told me they cannot hire the workers they need. In fact, there are many people who came to Maple Creek, interviewed for the job and really wanted to move to Maple Creek, but because there was actually no day care available to them, these people passed on that job and passed on moving to Maple Creek.
To me, Maple Creek is one of the greatest towns in this country. It is a phenomenal place. It does economic development really well. On the cost of living, one can get affordable housing there. There is a great school there and it is close to Cypress Hills. It is close to some of the bigger centres both in Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is not terribly far away, so it is a great location and a great place to raise kids, but there are people who have a young family who are choosing to not move to Maple Creek simply because they cannot find day care.
When I talk about trust, repeatedly we do not see the government working to build trust with rural Canadians. To me, that is a problem and is again where this bill misses the mark.
I talked earlier about the agreement between Saskatchewan and the federal government. Part of the agreement that they signed only provides the subsidy for kids aged zero to six. I have a had a mother reach out, talking about both her and her husband and the hours they work. They need day care before and after school, and the agreement actually does not cover people in that situation. Therefore, those people are being left out of the picture here, yet in a community like Swift Current, that is actually a big chunk of people who are trying to utilize day care spots.
I also want to talk a bit about my own story. My wife and I have three kids, and they are fantastic. They are 12, 10 and eight years old. When my wife and I had our first child, we had a great conversation, talking about what our goals as parents were. One of our goals was something that we even talked about when we were first married; it was that my wife wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. This meant that we had to plan out a few things. We had to figure out how we were going to make that work and what that was going to look like. We had to make some big decisions, such as where we were going to live, where we could afford to live and what kind of vehicle we were going to drive.
We had to make a lot of sacrifices. For example, a lot of our friends would go on these big, elaborate trips, and we never did that. For us, a trip was driving from Swift Current to Saskatoon. That was our summer vacation, but that was because it was all we could afford with the goal of having my wife be a stay-at-home mom raising our kids. That just meant that disposable income was not necessarily there. Those were some of the sacrifices we had to make. However, the bill before us would not have any provisions for people who are choosing to stay at home and raise their own kids.
As we added more kids to the mix, it definitely changed that dynamic. My wife was a stay-at-home mom from 2011 all the way up until about 2019. Then, she was first able to go back to work, because our kids were old enough. All three of them were in school at that point in time, and she was able to find some part-time work where she could work during the school day but be home when school was over, so she could be there for the kids when they got home.
I recognize that this reality is not available for everybody, but there is a lot of sacrifice that is required to do that. Therefore, I think it is really important that we talk about the government respecting families that have made that decision. I have listened to Liberal speeches at report stage here and also at second reading, and to paraphrase them, what I heard repeatedly from that side and from some of the other opposition parties was that women are only of value if they are working; they are not of value if they are staying at home. I think that is completely bonkers. That is absolutely ridiculous.
Being a mother is a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job. There is no break from it. As husbands, we come in and try to do what we can, but there is no replacing a mom in the house. My wife and many other moms we have talked to talk about the commitment it takes, how much work and effort go into it, and how it is more tiring and more gruelling being a stay-at-home mother and being with the kids compared with going to work. However, it is also more rewarding.
I recognize that some people are dedicated to their profession, and they have chosen that professional life, which is awesome. It is fantastic that they are doing that, and we want them to be able to do that. They should have that choice and the ability to do that, but the signalling we are getting the government is that a woman who decides to stay at home has no inherent value, because she is not working. That is the vibe we get from the government. That is the message it is signalling, and that is wrong. The value a stay-at-home parent has, even if the father does stay at home with the kids, is extremely valuable. Society, the kids we raise and the system generally, at large, all benefit from that.
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- Oct/24/22 12:18:03 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park is a very unique and diverse ecosystem. It plays a very important role, obviously, in many industries in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. What is interesting about it, though, is that it is right in the heart of the Palliser Triangle. The Palliser Triangle is an area of the country that, when the country was being developed, was deemed to not be suitable for humankind. Drought is not something new. It is a naturally dry area of the country.
Cypress Hills generally gets more snow and rainfall than most other regions of the province, because of its unique nature. There is definitely drought in the areas right around it, for sure, but looking at the average snowfall, there is a lot of moisture there. We had a blizzard come through just this past weekend. At least we are seeing a good shot of moisture coming into the area.
We cannot control the weather, unfortunately, but again, having policies in place that will enable our producers to manage the grasslands and manage the forests helps prevent disasters and crises from happening in these ecosystems. Grasslands National Park is a perfect example of that, where the government in the eighties banned the grazing of the pasture land and we saw all kinds of issues in the ecosystem. Once it was opened up for grazing again, the balance was restored, and they have thrived ever since then.
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