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Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Warren Steinley

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Regina—Lewvan
  • Saskatchewan
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $123,656.05

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 276 - Feb/6/24
Mr. Warren Steinley
  • Feb/6/24 7:34:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will say this about what is going on, and members will not see this on mainstream TV. In Europe right now, farmers are in an uprising because of the terrible policies governments have foisted upon them. Whatever is going on in Europe and the European Union, they should keep it there because their farmers are protesting and taking to the streets. We should make sure that our farmers are happy, that we put policies in place that respect farmers, that we listen to what farmers are doing on the ground, and that we make sure they get it right so we do not copy anything that is going on right now in Europe when it comes to farm policies.
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Context: House Hansard - 77 - May/30/22
Mr. Warren Steinley (Regina—Lewvan, CPC)
  • May/30/22 6:19:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join this debate on ethics and the role that ethics should play for the people who govern our country. This report is about whether we should re-evaluate what happened during the WE Charity scandal but, throughout my speech, I am going to cover many ethical lapses that have happened with the government. I will also talk about some of the things that people in Regina—Lewvan and across Saskatchewan and Canada would actually like to see this chamber debate. I have listened to a few speeches now from the members of the opposition, the members for Winnipeg North and Kingston and the Islands, and they are talking about how the government has been nothing but a blessing for Canadians across the country. They are talking about how they cut taxes for the middle class in 2015, without really having the realization of what is happening in 2022 and putting the lens on. We are getting past COVID-19. They still want to bring it up, and they still want to make everyone across the country afraid, but if we go to every country across the world, people are moving on. It is now time for the government to move on past COVID-19 and start looking at what it can do to help control inflation and the rising cost of living, get people back to work full-time, get all Canadians the ability to travel, get rid of restrictions, and stop stigmatizing and dividing Canadians at every turn. The Liberal government has not met a wedge issue it has not tried to take advantage of with Canadians. Liberals have not missed an opportunity to try to pit Canadian against Canadian. Whether it be western Canadians against eastern Canadians, or people who made a personal health choice to take a vaccine or not, they will continue to try to pit Canadians against Canadians. That is something that us on this side, as Conservatives, have always fought against. We have always had a consistent message: vaccines are available for those who want to take them. We needed to get to a high vaccine rate, which Canadians did. Canadians did go and get vaccinated, but we should not penalize people who have made a different choice. They should be able to go to work and raise their families. They should be able to travel, not only within Canada but also outside of Canada as well. We have people in the country who are not able to travel within their own country. They cannot get on a plane. They cannot get on a train. That is something we should be discussing in this chamber and questioning the Liberal government as to why it continues to try to stigmatize Canadians. Those are the debates we should be having. We should be having debates on policy and on ethics as well. That is important. Time and again, the government has used time allocation to stifle debate. In the magical fantasy land the member for Winnipeg North has brought forward in his speech, Conservatives try to stifle debate. We try to have debate as often as we can because we believe that it actually brings forward better legislation. It has happened, a couple of times. It has happened, a couple of times, where we have added to the legislation. I remember the early times of the pandemic in 2019. We had debates, and we made programs better. That is hardly stifling. They did try to sneak past a piece of legislation that gave them the right to tax and spend for two years completely unfettered, which, once again, shows that every time there is an opportunity or a crisis, the Liberals will continue to try to seize more and more power so that they have the ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want. That actually should be their next campaign slogan in 2025: “Liberals: we can do whatever we want, whenever we want. Just trust us. Heart over hand.” I digress. One of the things that I hear in Regina—Lewvan constantly is the fact that we need to fight the rising cost of living. We have brought forward opposition motions. We have brought forward ideas on how the Liberal government could help people out. Over 50% of Canadians are finding it hard to put food on the table. That is not the sign of a good, prosperous, well-run government, when 50% of Canadians are unable to put food on the table. Plus, we have seen it and people have seen it, all across their provinces, that the rate of visitations to food banks continues to increase. That is a sign of troubling times ahead. We brought forward an idea in an opposition motion a few weeks ago. Why not finally scrap the carbon tax? It continues to punish Canadians who have to drive to go to work. It punishes Canadians who have to heat their homes. It punishes Canadians who have to continue to try to buy food that gets trucked in to the grocery stores. Northern and remote Canadians get punished more because, when their food gets trucked in, the prices of everyday necessities continue to rise. Those are the debates we should be having. The Liberals talk about the tax cuts they had for the middle class in 2015. They are not helping anyone anymore. The price of gas and every essential good has gone up so high that those tax cuts have gone back into government coffers. The government and the Liberals need to listen to what Canadians are saying, not just their Liberal insiders and Bay Street buddies. They need to hear how much harder it is for Canadians to get by, and it is going to get harder. Members may or may not believe this, but they want the carbon tax to go up to $150 a tonne. Imagine being a single parent who is trying to decide whether they can put gas in their vehicle to take their kids to sports, music or drama, or whether they can buy the essential goods of food and medication if they need it. That is ridiculous. When does it end? We continue to bring forward positive suggestions and the Liberal government continues to slap them down and bring more rhetoric forward. Time and time again we talk about people coming with questions about whether the government is doing the right thing. The Liberals continue to show that the only people they are willing to listen to are those who already agree with them. The reason they like time allocation is they do not like debate. They do not like to hear opposing views. They show it in their actions. They showed it in their actions in February when people came to the chamber and wanted to talk to representatives about how they were feeling during COVID‑19. I cannot even imagine the type of frustration some people must have felt when they came to Ottawa to try to talk to a member of the Liberal cabinet in person and they would not be heard. They were good people who came here and wanted to be listened to because it is their right. It is the people's Parliament, and not one Liberal took the opportunity to have a conversation with them. I have gone through a few conflict negotiation classes, and not one of them ever said that conflict negotiations do not include dialogue. We need dialogue to resolve a conflict. I think the Liberals like some of the conflict that is going on right now in our country. I think they enjoy seeing the divide between Canadians, in some way. That is why this building is one of the only places that still has a mask mandate in place. We have asked constantly to see the science and have asked why we still need to wear masks just on Parliament Hill. If we go to receptions all around downtown Ottawa, we see members opposite and members from all parties not wearing masks at them. Let us ask this question. Why is that still in place? Maybe my hon. colleagues will talk about the BOIE, but the Liberals now have a majority on the BOIE with the NDP and can vote in whatever they want, so really it is up to them to decide when restrictions will be dropped here on Parliament Hill. Moving on, restrictions should be dropped elsewhere. I do not know if members have been to the Toronto airport lately, but it is an unmitigated disaster right now. These are very tough times with the restrictions and some of the vaccine mandates. People would be at work today at the Pearson airport if there were no vaccine mandates, and they could be helping get rid of some of the backlogs and making air travel more smooth. Those are some of the things we should be talking about, but the Liberals continue to bring in time allocation. This is an opportunity to bring forward something else that is also important to people across the country: When are we going to have some confidence in our democratic institutions again? That goes straight to the heart of ethics and the ethics report. People see a decline in democracy in our country and they are losing faith. I hear it in the conversations I have in Saskatchewan with people from Regina—Lewvan. A lot of people who come to my office ask why we cannot get rid of these guys and ask what is going on in our country. Some people feel our country is a laughing stock right now because of some of the policies the government has put in place. People are travelling to the States or over to Europe and they see how life there is returning to normal. When they come back home, they find that travellers from other countries who come here do not understand this because a lot of people have moved on. It is a difficult thing, because now these decisions and policies, which are really out of touch with most Canadians, are being propped by the junior party, the NDP. It is propping up the Liberals now. Technically they never won a mandate for a majority, but they stole a majority government from the mandate they got in 2021. That is something people have a really hard time computing. They are asking how the Liberals have a majority when they never were awarded one by the voters in Canada. When they talk about the co-operation, they understand that sometimes parties have to co-operate, but how could they give a blank cheque to the Liberal government to govern until 2025 and not show what was agreed to on the blank cheque? We have asked many times for them to show the documentation of what was in the hidden deal that was signed in the back rooms of Ottawa that allows the Prime Minister and the government to stay in power until 2025. What were the priorities of the NDP? A lot of us who live in western Canada have seen some NDP governments, and they have had a lot of different priorities from those the federal NDP does right now. I am pretty sure Tommy Douglas would not even be part of the NDP right now in Ottawa because he would have a lot of different views, especially around fiscal policy. Some of my friends have seen some NDP governments, such as in Winnipeg, for example, that have had a lot more fiscal responsibility than the current NDP members in Ottawa have. That comes to the crux of the argument. When we are looking at supporting the government, from my standpoint, if I was a New Democrat, I would also look at how I could support a government that has this many ethical violations. My friend from Kingston and the Islands actually had to answer the question when I said the WE Charity maybe did not say the Prime Minister was guilty, but it did say the former finance minister, Bill Morneau, was guilty of breaking ethics rules. There was also the “Trudeau Report” and the “Trudeau II Report”, which show the Prime Minister has broken ethics rules on several different occasions. When we are talking about an ethical government, people at some point in time in the next little while are going to wonder if they can continue to vote for a government that has so many ethical lapses. I think that does go to the heart of the debate in this chamber, and it goes to the heart of the debate on what is going to happen if the government continues to have ethical lapses. For example, we just saw another one. The Minister of National Defence gave a sole-source contract to a friend for $16,000. That has come out in the last couple of hours. The Minister of International Trade gave a sole-source contract to her friend for $17,000. Also, who can forget Frank Baylis's sole-source contract? There was couple million dollars for that one for ventilators, and he does not even have a company that makes ventilators. It goes on and on with these ethical lapses, so the question that comes to Canadians is, how much is enough and when is it enough? Also, it does not have to just be contracts. We have seen this time and again in other areas of the government. Continuously we see it among insiders and Liberals who are well connected to the Prime Minister and to the front bench. We have seen it from the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, from New Brunswick, who has had a few questions come up about some of his appointments. I think members might remember they had to go through a Liberal donation registry before they had the opportunity to do some other things. These are some of the questions that Canadians continue to ask us, which we want to bring forward on the floor to debate, because I think there is a higher expectation of government than what the government has had. I was an MLA in 2015, and I remember watching the Prime Minister debate Stephen Harper and talk about how sunshine is the best disinfectant. Do members remember that? An hon. member: Hear, hear. Mr. Warren Steinley: Madam Speaker, I heard a “hear, hear” from the member for Winnipeg North. I wish the Liberals still believed that. I also wish the Prime Minister still wanted to lead the most transparent and open government in Canadian history. An hon. member: He does. Mr. Warren Steinley: Madam Speaker, I heard “he does”, but he does not, because he is only the second Prime Minister to break the ethics rules not once but twice. It is unbelievable for the government to say it is going to be the most open and accountable government in Canadian history and then continue to bring forward legislation that curtails freedom of speech, curtails freedom of expression and curtails what Canadians can put on the Internet on their own personal pages. How does that make it the most open and accountable government in Canadian history? People are looking for more. Something the government is really falling short on is making sure that people have hope for the future. There are reports that the optimism of Canadian business owners is at an all-time low. If we talk to anyone in agriculture right now, we hear that people do not know how they are going to afford the inputs. This is a direct result of some of the policies put forward by the government. Let us look at what the cost of fertilizer is going to be for this year, with a 30% reduction, a completely arbitrary number, in emissions in the fertilizer industry. Basically, the only way the industry is going to get there is by lowering its outputs. Less fertilizer means that agriculture producers are going to have less fertilizer to put on their crops because they cannot afford to put more on. In turn, that means there is going to be less food available to Canadians and people around the world. That is the result of some of these arbitrary emission targets that the government has put into place. I do not think some members of the Liberal government have thought about what the consequences are. I know a few have because, in doing the right thing, a few have voted in favour of a private member's bill that would lower the cost of the carbon tax on agriculture producers. One was the member for Kings—Hants and another member abstained. They have talked to agriculture producers and realized the impacts that these policies are going to have on the people who produce the food we consume. Some of these ideological crusades that the government has been on for the last seven years do have real-life impacts on Canadians across the country. I am not talking about just western Canada, although western Canadians are the ones who produce the food that feed the rest of our country. It is not all of it but a lot of it. These impacts are compounding each other. Some of these policies were put in place not by malice, but maybe simply because sometimes the people who are putting them in place do not understand what is happening in agriculture in western Canada and the differences we see in our country. There are a few other issues we can talk about. I have some time left, and there is a lot more I want to say. I want to talk about the residents of Regina—Lewvan and the effects that some of these policies have had there, and some of the causes and effects of ethics. When the government makes decisions and gives some sole-source contracts, it is giving money to Liberal friends. However, it is also leaving out some of the people who are creating jobs and creating wealth in their communities. Small business owners have had a tough time over the last couple of years. I talked to one of them, who owns a restaurant called Rock on Albert Street in Regina. He said that with how much money he has paid in carbon tax for heating and cooling the building, he could afford to hire another two staff members if he did not have to pay the carbon tax. Two people in Regina could have a job in one restaurant if there was not a carbon tax. That is something the Liberals really have to think about. Another thing that this carbon tax is affecting in our country more than the Liberals probably realize is the budgets of school divisions in Saskatchewan. The school divisions have to heat their schools in the winter and keep them cool in the summer. Our temperature fluctuates a fair bit in Saskatchewan. It snowed on the May long weekend. What the school divisions are seeing in their budgets, which are getting squeezed tighter and tighter, is that the carbon tax is taking tens of thousands of dollars out of them. That could be used for an EA, for another teacher or for the expense of fuel for busing. Some people do not understand how much people have to ride the bus in rural and remote communities. Fuel is also needed for heating and cooling schools. That is the equivalent to probably one or two EAs in a school division per year. The Liberals talk about putting Canadians first and talk about having Canadians' backs. We need to bring forward good public policy to try to help out and make sure that the lives of Canadians get easier and more cost effective. We need to control inflation and the price of living. That is what we are hearing from Canadians. I hope that when we have another conversation, we will be able to talk about the Liberals being more co-operative in the House.
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