- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Saskatoon West
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,909.92
- Government Page
- Feb/2/23 2:00:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, during January, I met with many folks from the west side of Saskatoon. One message became abundantly clear to me. After eight years, they are sick and tired of the NDP-Liberal coalition government breaking our community. Whether it is at the gas pumps, the grocery store or walking down our main streets, people see every day how everything is broken.
The NDP has been pushing for higher gasoline prices by raising the carbon tax on ordinary folks. It has been colluding with the Liberals to raise food prices. After eight years, crime is on the rise, as the NDP and Liberals work together to set criminals free.
People in Saskatoon continue to deal with persistent repeat criminals because revolving-door sentencing policies allow thugs to commit a crime, get released on bail and victimize yet another person as they please.
After eight years, Canadians are ready for a change from the failing, broken NDP-Liberal coalition.
Thankfully, the Conservatives, under our new leader, will meet the challenge. What they have broken, we will fix.
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- Dec/2/22 12:04:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, residents of Saskatoon are suffering because of the carbon tax. It makes the cost of everything increase. Fuel and home heating are more expensive, and so is food. Some 20,000 people are using the Saskatoon food bank each month, and 40% of them are children.
This tax plan does nothing for the environment. Instead, it is ripping a hole in the bank accounts of Canadians.
Will the Liberal government show some compassion and stop forcing its failed carbon tax on Canadians?
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- Nov/1/22 2:16:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, winter is coming and Canadians are about to pay the true price of this tired, worn down NDP-Liberal coalition. Thanks to its carbon tax, everything has gotten more expensive, from groceries to gasoline to home heating, but the leader of the NDP talks out of both sides of his mouth.
On October 24, the Conservatives moved a motion to remove the carbon tax from home heating and make life more affordable. What did the leader of the NDP and his colleagues do? They voted to keep the carbon tax, making it more expensive for Canadians.
However, this past weekend, the NDP leader spoke from the other side of his mouth, demanding that the government remove the GST from the price of home heating. He cannot have it both ways.
Canadians see through this hypocritical charade. They know that it is actions that matter, not words.
By voting to make home heating more expensive and supporting the tripling the carbon tax, the NDP has made it clear. It is a cold, costly coalition partner of the Liberal government that Canadians cannot afford.
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Madam Speaker, I believe that corporations need to pay their fair share of taxes, absolutely. Also, if the member had listened to my speech, she would have heard me say that we need to fully utilize the gifts we have been given in our country, which are our natural resources, whether they be oil and gas, forestry, minerals, agriculture or potash. There are all kinds of them.
Our country's wealth was built on natural resources and it will continue to be built on natural resources. We can mine them, take them out of the earth and use them in very environmentally friendly and effective ways. We lead the world in that category. That is something we are good at, and we should continue to push ourselves on the world stage because that is where we make our mark. We can actually make the world a better place with the energy and resources in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, the member uncovers a serious problem that I am sure the Liberals will have with this legislation, which is that health care is fundamentally a provincial jurisdiction issue. While the federal government does transfer funds and does dictate certain requirements to the provinces, ultimately the provinces are the ones that carry out these things.
In having money transferred to the provinces to cover things off, certainly the federal government has the ability to suggest that certain things get done, and that is what might happen in this case. However, I really believe that it is the provinces that have to carry out health care. The provinces need more money; that is the bottom line, and I think with the way the government has spent on things other than health care, a lot could have been diverted, and could still be diverted, to the provinces without actually increasing our spending.
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Madam Speaker, I understand that governing is hard and making decisions can be difficult, and many times we have to face trade-offs. However, I would suggest that the mental health crisis we have in our country is the biggest problem we face right now.
Yes, dental health and care for teeth are important, and I do not deny that at all, but I think if we have to pick one first and the other second, I would pick mental health first. We have clear a expense in our country for that, and we are seeing it right now in our health care system every single day. It is not only affecting us in dollars but affecting us in the number of lives that are affected, hurt and lost every day.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise and speak in ths House on behalf of the constituents of Saskatoon West. I thought it would be fair to let members know, right up front, that I am planning to vote against this legislation. I know they are always curious about why we vote the way we do, so I would like them know why I am going to be voting that way.
First, I want to set the stage regarding the rental benefit that is in this legislation. We are in an era of the highest inflation that we have had in 40 years. We have food prices that are at double-digit inflation right now. Our housing costs are among the highest in the world. It is very difficult for people to afford to live right now.
Our energy costs are high. They are higher than they need to be because of all the taxes, including the carbon tax that was put on by the current Liberal government. Home heating is more expensive than ever. In fact, this winter many people in Canada will be paying double or more on their home heating bills than they have paid before. It is partly due to the tripling of the carbon tax that is happening.
These are difficult and challenging times for people with low incomes, seniors and also for those who have fixed incomes. It is very difficult for them to find a way to stretch that money to make it work with the increased expenses that we have.
There is an old proverb that says this: Give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. I suggest that this plan is in the first category and this is why.
What we need are long-term solutions. We need a way to fix things. This is a short-term band-aid. It is a one-time payment.
The average rent in Canada right now is about $2,000 a month. Take that payment of $500 on a monthly basis and it is a quarter of a month or one week. Realistically, thinking of it over a year, it is $42 a month for a year. The truth is that there probably is not going to be an additional payment of this type during the tenure of the government. If the tenure of the government happens to be four years, which I certainly hope it is not, that would be $10 a month over four years. Ten dollars a month on a $2,000 rent bill makes no difference at all.
Nobody is going to refuse that $500, and I am certain that people need that money. The problem is that it is going to alleviate the problem for today. What about tomorrow, when the next bill comes due? How are they going to do that? This is not a long-term solution.
What is a long-term solution? We could be encouraging more housing and not simply throwing money after housing. I was a home builder for 12 years, so I am well aware of the challenges faced by home builders and housing providers in this country. One of the things that always frustrated me was how our municipalities would slow down the process and gum up the works. When people wanted to get a building permit, for example, it would take months to get one when it should not happen that way. Builders who are experienced and accredited should be able to get building permits quickly.
Members may have heard the term “gatekeepers” used around this place. That is a great example of a gatekeeper. They are some of the municipal systems that are in place to restrict and prevent things from happening in a quick way. That is something that we need to encourage them to fix.
Another thing is reducing red tape in bureaucracy in general. I am thinking of the building codes. We keep having more complicated building codes piled on top of building codes. Every time a new requirement is added to the building code it adds costs to the product they are building, which in this case is a house, and to the time to build it. Building codes are another thing that really reduce and end up restricting the amount of housing supply.
Ultimately, we need lower interest rates because everybody has to pay and it affects the cost to everybody. How can we lower our interest rates? What we need to do to lower our interest rates is build up our economy. Some people may not realize it, but over the last three years, most of the jobs that have been created in this country have been government jobs. They have not been private sector jobs. They have been government jobs that are ultimately paid for, through our taxes, by all of us who are working.
What we really need to do is focus on the natural resources that we have in our country. When we develop, sell and export our natural resources, that produces not only wealth for our country, but also tax revenues for the various levels of government, including the federal government. We have oil and natural gas. They are the third-largest reserves in the world. Canada has the best standards, when it comes to environment and labour, and we pay very well in this country. Compared to almost every other country, we are far ahead in being a better producer and a more environmentally friendly producer of oil and gas. We need to do that.
We need pipelines so that we can get our products to the east and to the west. Right now, we cannot help Europe very much with natural gas, which is a huge need because of the war in Ukraine. It is a shame that we cannot help Europe when we have exactly what it needs.
We have rare earth elements, and in my riding we have potash. We have potash all over the place in Saskatchewan and have a company called Nutrien. It has thousands of employees in Saskatoon, and we lead the world in potash production. The government is trying to push through a reduction in potash use in our agriculture sector, which is simply going to reduce the amount of output and the amount of food that is grown, ultimately raising the price of food.
We cannot do that. We need to encourage non-government jobs and private sector jobs that create wealth for our country and raise tax revenue. Ultimately, this will stop inflation, and if we stop inflation we can stop our deficits and our borrowing and can start to enjoy the benefits of a strong economy. To do that, we especially need a “pay as you go” law so that when new spending is introduced, we find a way to save it somewhere else. The result of that would be low inflation and lower taxes. That would be teaching a man to fish.
I want to talk a bit about the dental benefit. There is a dental health crisis in Canada. Actually, no, there is not. Now that I think about it, it is a mental health crisis. That is what is happening in Canada. I have not heard of a dental health crisis in this country.
What about the mental health crisis? One in five Canadians experiences mental illness. Every day in Canada, an average of 10 people die by suicide. Mental health challenges affect every Canadian in different ways. Some of us struggle with diagnosed conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. Others struggle in silence with shame, eating disorders, addictions or alcoholism.
Causes are hard to pinpoint. It can be trauma or tragedy of the worst kind in childhood or adulthood. It can be a physiological chemical imbalance. The DNA and genes we inherit from our parents play a role. Learned behaviour growing up at home, in school and in the workplace can also contribute. Add in race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, income bracket and other factors, and treatment, unfortunately, is haphazard. Some mental health disorders are diagnosed by the police and treated by the courts with prison sentences. Other people are fortunate enough to find themselves a physician, psychiatrist or other professional who can help them.
What we do not have in this country is an actual strategy to tackle mental health, particularly the causes, symptoms and treatments, on a national scale. Over two years ago, my Conservative colleague from Cariboo—Prince George proposed a national suicide hotline. Surely we would think this is a no-brainer the Liberal government could support for Canadians. However, if I dialed 988 right now, it would tell me to hang up and call a different number in English only.
What should we do when a francophone experiences a mental health crisis?
We therefore continue to wait. In the last election, the Liberals promised $4.5 billion for mental health, and we continue to wait. Instead, we have $700 million for the dental health crisis.
Why are we looking at this legislation today? We have a problem to be solved. All legislation is like this: There is a problem to be solved and legislation is supposedly going to fix that problem. What are the problems we have today? We have the cost of living. The rental benefit would not fix that; it is a short-term band-aid. We have a mental health crisis, and this dental benefit certainly would not fix that. Why do we have this legislation? Was there research, focus groups or surveys? I doubt there are many people who want a short-term band-aid on our economy. I also doubt there are many people who want to spend more money and put us into more debt.
I suggest this bill is simply the equivalent of a sideshow, a carny trick or a shiny object in the window meant to distract Canadians. It is meant to have Canadians believe that action is being taken to address poverty and affordability issues while nothing is really being done. Bill C-31 is like those fixed games at the carnival. It is flashy and exciting looking, but as we keep playing the NDP-Liberal game and keep losing our hard-earned money with little return, we realize it is a sucker's game. They are taking money away from us in the way of higher taxes. They continue to have Canadians pay more hoping to get that oversized stuffed animal. Then they give us a free play and another free play, except in this one they say we do not have to pay for it. However, it is our grandchildren who are going to be paying for it in the future when our national debt comes due. In the meantime, they give us some scraps. The government is running that kind of game.
There is a better way to run our country. For years, the Conservatives have warned that there are consequences from the Liberal-NDP's actions. The Conservatives call on the government to scour government spending, find savings for proposals like the $35-billion Canada Infrastructure Bank and stop useless spending like the $54-million ArriveCAN app. Finally, the Conservatives call on the Liberals to cancel all planned tax increases, including the payroll tax hikes on January 1 and the tripling of the carbon tax on gas—
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- Sep/29/22 10:58:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was interesting listening to the parliamentary secretary talk about the fact that EI and CPP were not taxes. I would refer him to his government's own website, where it clearly states, under the tax basics section, that they are, in fact, taxes. I am not sure if he is aware of that, so I wanted to make him aware of it.
Also, the member talked a lot about the ways that the government is shovelling money into the economy during a period of high inflation. Again, a basic economic principle that Liberals seem to misunderstand is that whatever the cause of inflation, and we may disagree on the cause, part of the solution is in the hands of government. One of the things that hurts inflation and makes it worse is when the government continues to pile money into the economy.
I wonder if he understands that and if he wants to do something about it.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a good point. We need permanent solutions to these problems. A temporary tax relief measure like Bill C-30 is helpful, as I said, but it is only temporary.
What we need to do is get government out of the way of our economy. The government is stepping in and messing around with the economy in ways that cause businesses to make decisions differently than they would have before. It causes us to lose jobs. It causes our economy to not have the economic output that it should have, which affects everything from jobs to incomes, from paycheques to government revenue. This is the direction we need to go in. We need to help the government get out of the way so we can let our economy do what it is supposed to do, which is better for everyone, including government.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kenora.
It is an honour to rise to speak on behalf of the constituents of Saskatoon West, but before I speak to this legislation, I would like to let everyone in Atlantic Canada know that my thoughts and prayers are with them as they recover from this weekend's terrible storm. This is a very difficult time, with property destruction, injuries and deaths, and I know that the rest of the country stands with them and is ready to help with whatever they need.
Over the summer, I spoke with many constituents, and all of them had the same message: The cost of living is really starting to hurt. Seniors are struggling to get by on their fixed incomes, and all Canadians know about the high cost of groceries, at least those of us who actually buy our own groceries. I am talking about grocery prices that are up by almost 11%. They are rising at the fastest pace in 40 years.
Here we are in week two of our new parliamentary session. Is the government talking about reducing the sky-high cost of food? Is the government talking about stopping planned payroll tax hikes, such as the tax increases on January 1 that will reduce everybody's paycheques, or the coming carbon tax price increase on April Fool's Day, which is all part of the government's plan to triple the carbon tax? Is this what we are debating? No, we are here debating legislation that was born out of a cynical coalition deal between the NDP and the Liberals to keep this tired, worn-out government in power.
Yes, this legislation, Bill C-30, is nothing more than a scheme cooked up between the NDP and the Liberals through a tweet. In the summer, the NDP leader tweeted that the Liberals needed to do this or that to count on his unwavering support, and the government responded with Bill C-30 and Bill C-31. Close to $5 billion will be used and, to use the words of the Minister of Tourism last week, thrown into the lake to keep the NDP happy.
I do not believe that government should be throwing money into the lake just to cling to power. Governments exist to serve the people who elected them, so today I have good news for Canadians. Our party just elected a new leader who is well versed in economics. He is a man who actually understands how economic works. For years, the member for Carleton warned the government about reckless and out-of-control spending. What was his simple message? It was that excessive government spending would lead to out-of-control inflation. Well, guess what? Inflation is rampant and out of control. Our new leader predicted this, and he has a solid plan to get us out of this. In the meantime, we will continue to hold our Prime Minister to account and work hard to encourage the government to implement sensible policy.
Let us talk about this piece of legislation, Bill C-30, and the financial implications for our treasury, our economy and, most importantly, the everyday taxpayer. The government is telling us that this a limited, one-time doubling of the GST rebate that will provide $467 for the average family. When I look at this, on the one hand, who will argue if the government wants to hand them some cash? It is welcomed relief coming at a difficult time, but it is a short-term band-aid that does not get to the heart of the problem. If we do not fix the core problem, then more band-aids will be proposed, and indeed we are already seeing this. While the government says that this is a one-time payment, it is openly admitting that this is just the start of a larger government spending package. Bill C-31, for example, includes more inflation boost in cash injections, which is just the start of an even bigger spending program that the health minister cannot even quantify right now.
I think this would be a good opportunity to take a moment to provide the government with some information that it may not understand. You see, I, like many of my Conservative colleagues, studied economics. Like me, many of my Conservative colleagues have run businesses and created jobs prior to being elected to this great House. I used sound economic principles to build my successful business and run my own household with the help of my wife. Together, we understood some of the basic economic principles and used them successfully. Now, we are not particularly smarter than other Canadians. In fact, I would suggest that most Canadians understand these basic economic principles and use them every day to manage their own households.
What are some of these basic principles? First, there is only so much money. It is not infinite. There is not a magic money tree in the backyard where we can go when we need a little extra cash. No, we have to make some hard choices. We have a limited amount of money with unlimited ways to spend it, and so we have to sit down together, weigh the pros and cons of the various options available and make a choice. Sometimes that choice is hard, especially right now. Families have to choose between inflated food prices and paying the carbon tax on their heating bills. These are not easy choices, but people are creative. Families find ways to scrimp and save in one area to allow them to spend in another. That is the first principle: Money is finite.
The next principle is that borrowing money is like playing with fire. It needs to be done very carefully and in a controlled manner. Yes, sometimes we need to borrow money, when we are borrowing to purchase a house, for example, but loan payments can become a heavy financial burden, especially when interest rates start to rise.
That is why most families understand that borrowing should be temporary, and that is why, when loans get paid off, there is great celebration in a household and a wonderful feeling of freedom. That is the second principle: borrow with caution. How does this apply to the government? If the government applied these two simple principles, the results would be lower taxes and lower debt. Canadians could keep more money in their pockets and have the freedom to spend their money the way they choose.
There is a third, very important principle I also want to talk about. This one is a larger principle that governments really must understand and apply. The third principle is the law of supply and demand. The easiest way to understand this is through an example. If consumers have $10, and the store has 10 loaves of bread, then consumers will pay $1 for each loaf of bread. If the government suddenly gives consumers an extra $10, but the amount of bread does not increase, now people are going to pay $2 for each loaf of bread. That is inflation. The loaf of bread goes from costing $1 to $2, and that is exactly what is happening in our country right now.
The government has dramatically boosted the amount of money available to people with $500 billion in the last two years. This extra money has bid up the price of everything that we buy. This extra money has also been tacked onto our national debt, resulting in increased interest payments, an obligation that our children's children will have to deal with long after we are gone from this place. When the Prime Minister famously said he does not think about economic policy, this simple principle is what he was not thinking about, and because he was not thinking, we are in this mess today.
I will once again remind everyone that the Conservative leader does understand these principles and is committed to running government according to them. What would it look like if Conservatives were in charge right now? Let us say we had a Conservative prime minister and that we believed the government should provide some GST tax relief to Canadians, just as Bill C-30 proposes. How would we implement something like this?
First, we would understand that money is finite and that we cannot go to a magic money tree to implement this bill. We would task our government to find savings somewhere else to pay for this new program. We would recognize that a new dollar spent would require a dollar to be saved somewhere else, just like all Canadians do every day when they manage their own households. If the government behaved like this, it would not take long for inflation to back down and for taxes to be reduced. That is how Conservatives would govern.
I need to come back to the topic of high prices and the rampant inflation that we see every day. There is a grocery store a few blocks down 22nd Street from my constituency office. The folks who shop there know that I sometimes set up shop there on the weekends to shake hands, hand out reusable grocery bags and chat with my constituents in Saskatoon West.
I also shop there for groceries with my wife Cheryl. Cheryl and I have seen our grocery bill go up every month. It may be salad ingredients, such as lettuce and tomatoes. It might be meat and potatoes, or the side dishes and vegetables. Bread, milk, coffee, pop and chips, everything, has increased in price, and prepackaged portions are decreasing. I am not just talking about small increases. Look at the cost of meat today versus two years ago. It has nearly doubled in price. That is 100% inflation.
Chicken breasts used to go for five in a package for $10. Now we only get three for that same price. They have cut the portion size to hide the cost increase. I was just at Costco this weekend, and I bought a four-pack of bacon. It used to cost $20, but now it costs $30. That is 50% more.
Is this a result of Russia invading Ukraine, as the Liberals would have us believe? How much beef, chicken, lettuce, potato chips, rice, coffee and milk do we get from Ukraine? It is probably zero. The vast majority is farmed and harvested right here in Canada. It is the domestic policy of the federal government, such as printing cash for the past two years, that has put Canada in this inflation period. It is domestic policies, such as the Bank of Canada aiding and abetting the federal government by underwriting its massive debt load instead of sticking to its mandate to control inflation. It is domestic policies, such as the carbon tax and fertilizer reductions, that are hurting our farmers and causing food prices to soar. It is domestic policies, such as ramming massive spending legislation through the House of Commons to keep a marriage of convenience with the NDP alive.
As I wrap up, I want to focus on accountability. Who is accountable for the $5 billion the government is shovelling out the door to satisfy a Twitter outburst from the NDP leader? I know it will not be the Liberals and the NDP, as they ram the legislation through Parliament and pat themselves on the back like they like to do. Instead, it will be the people of Saskatoon West left holding the bag through more inflation, higher taxes and reduced benefits from the government. Rodney Dangerfield famously said he gets no respect. Unfortunately for Canadians, from the Liberal government, they get no respect either.
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