- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Regina—Lewvan
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $123,656.05
- Government Page
- Feb/6/24 7:21:11 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to join in the debate today around the price of food inflation; the report that came from the agriculture committee, which I am proud to sit on; and some of the ideas we have heard over the last little while about how increases in the cost of food have affected Canadians in their day-to-day lives.
My friend from Battle River—Crowfoot just had a great point that he asked my colleague from Kenora about, and I asked this of Tyler McCann in committee today. I asked whether the point of a carbon tax, which the Liberals and NDP opine is the great resource they are going to use to lower emissions, was to change consumers' behaviour. Mr. McCann said yes, it is. We can go on Environment and Climate Change Canada's website, and see that the point of a carbon tax is to change people's behaviour based on an increasing price of a product.
It just so happens to be a product we are talking about today, which is food. I said in committee that it is amazing that a government is now fighting its own policy. Liberals and New Democrats are scrambling over each other to say that the carbon tax has not worked, because it did not increase the price of food. It was really one of the first times in my life in public service that I have seen a government arguing that a policy did not work when it did.
I see this in other areas of people's lives too. We see it in transportation, where mothers are having a harder time filling up a tank of gas to take their kids to hockey games, to ballet classes or to music lessons. In rural Canada, we have to drive. There is not public transportation service like there is in downtown Toronto, so people are making a choice about how many extra shifts they have to pick up to cover the next tank of gas. We see it with seniors, who are still in their homes, asking how many sweaters they are going to have to put on because they cannot afford to keep the heat up.
We see it time and time again. The Liberal-NDP carbon tax is making people change their behaviours in Canada, because it has made everything so much more expensive across our country.
We know it is working, because there was a little caucus revolt in the Liberal Party recently; Atlantic Canadian members, along with the Conservatives, who have called for a long time to axe the tax as part of our plan, said they had to exempt home heating. The proof is in the pudding. Why would the Liberal members in the Maritimes fight tooth and nail? It is because they are having political issues to get a carve-out from the carbon tax, since home heating is costing too much. It is almost like it is working, but the people within the Liberal Party and the NDP did not realize how much pain they were going to inflict on Canadians.
There is no other solution to heat a 100,000-square-foot barn. Today, in Ottawa, I met with a dairy farmer from just outside Regina. He said his heating bill for the barn has increased and increased. I have a SaskEnergy bill from another farmer, a chicken farmer. For one month, their gas supply cost is $1,092. Their carbon tax, with the GST on top of it, is $1,071. They are almost paying more in taxes on a monthly bill, $20 less, than they are for the gas they are supplying to heat their building. Maybe I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, but I do not think the Liberals and the New Democrats realized how much this was going to hurt.
From APAS, in Saskatchewan, Mr. Boxall was at our committee when we were talking about food prices. He said that, on the average farm in Saskatchewan, the carbon tax cost will be between $14,000 and $25,000. However, when it goes to $170 a tonne by 2030, Canada's Food Price Report for 2023 stated that a farm could pay $150,000 in carbon tax per year.
We asked Mr. Boxall in committee how that was going to affect farms. He said that:
It will have a huge impact—$150,000 on a 5,000-acre farm. It's unfathomable that we will get there on a carbon tax alone. It makes my skin crawl to think that's where we'll be, and then to be turned around and not recognized for the work that is done, ensuring that we have proper grasslands and that we have proper management of our farm soil. Farmers are the biggest stewards of the land in this country, and we care more about the environment than we ever get credit for. It really is going to be detrimental to Saskatchewan farmers.
That says it all. This Liberal government continues to punish our farmers, the people who put food on our plate, without a second thought of what the effect is going to be.
We talked to some witnesses today in the agriculture committee and one witness laid out three things that this government has done and wants to do that will affect food prices. Number one, he said, was the carbon tax. Number two was P2 packaging where the government wants to make sure that, in Canada, we cannot use plastics to ship fruit and vegetables, which the U.S.A. has already said it is not going to do, and so it is going to cut the supply of fruit and vegetables in our country. Number three is the fertilizer reduction targets. Those three things are what this witness said is going to inflate the cost of food exponentially year after year. This is from people who are on the ground from the fruit and vegetable growers in Ontario.
So, are we not going to believe a carbon tax bill that we saw from Saskatchewan where they were paying almost as much in taxes as in gas supply? Are we not going to believe members from the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, APAS, who are on the ground tilling the soil and planting the seeds who have said that $150,000 for a 5,000-acre farm will destroy farms in Saskatchewan, because it will make them unsustainable, which will lower supplies again? Are we not going to believe a dairy farmer who says that it is going to cost more and more each year to heat their barn with this carbon tax?
The PBO said that, by 2030, farmers will be paying $1 billion a year in carbon tax. My friend for Huron—Bruce, who has put this through on a private member's bill, talked about the GST and HST that we pay on the carbon tax, which is about $490 million a year. So, combined, the carbon tax and then the tax on the tax is going to be $1.5 billion automatically out of farmers' pockets, and people do not think that is going to have an effect on food prices. That is irrational. It is taking $1.5 billion out of farmers' pockets.
How are we going to make that up? Two things will happen: one, consumers will see that on the till at the grocery store, and prices will increase because farmers have to make that up; or two, farmers go out of business, and no farms, no food. If we lower the food supply in Canada, that will also increase the food cost. Members can see, and I agree with my friend from Winnipeg, that either way, consumers in rural or urban Saskatchewan are going to have to pay more for food.
At this point in time I would like to move an amendment, which will be seconded by the member for Battle River—Crowfoot. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, presented on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food with instruction that it amend the same so as to: (a) take into consideration that Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, has been amended by the Senate in a way that will prevent farmers from getting a carbon tax carve-out for grain drying, barn heating and other farm operations, and that since the Parliamentary Budget Officer has made clear that this bill, in its original form, would save Canadian farmers $1 billion by 2030, reducing the cost of food for Canadian families currently struggling to afford groceries; and (b) recommend that the House adopt the motion rejecting the Senate amendments as soon as possible.
1516 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to get to my feet and second this bill from my friend from Huron—Bruce, Bill C-234, an act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act or, what we more commonly call it, the farming exemption for the carbon tax.
I was able to join the Standing Committee on Agriculture when this bill was working its way through the agriculture committee. I want to thank my colleagues on the agriculture committee, the NDP member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, the member for Beauce, our shadow minister and member for Foothills, the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex as well, and it feels like I am applying to be the next Speaker but I assure you that this is not the case, and a wonderful Bloc member as well.
I agree with my NDP colleague that the agriculture committee does work very well together. There were some amendments that were agreed to by all members. I would like to thank them for their contribution to make sure that this got passed. It is a bill that is very important to the agriculture committee across the country and very important to our people in Saskatchewan, Alberta and western Canada.
We have talked about what is involved when one is adding natural gas and propane as an exemption to this bill, and grain dryers, irrigation pumps and heating of barns for livestock.
The numbers actually have not been gone through as well as I would like. I would like to put some of the numbers on the record as to how much money we are actually putting back into the pockets of farmers, so that they can reinvest in their farm and invest in new technology, so that they can become more environmentally sustainable, because that is a goal for them. The better their land is looked after, the more land they can put into production, the more we can help with the global food crisis.
We have some numbers from APAS, the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan. It calculated the carbon tax, at $50 a tonne, will cost farmers between $13,000 to $17,000. That is an equivalent of a 12% decrease in net income.
One of the reasons why we want to get this bill passed as fast as we can is because, I do not know if we remember, in the recent election the Liberals promised that the carbon tax would never go over $50 a tonne. Well, they blew through that promise. By 2030, the carbon tax is going to be $170 a tonne. APAS said that at $170 a tonne, they estimate that the carbon tax will cost a grain farmer $12.52 per acre by 2030. Of that, $4.44 will be specifically for grain drying. That is a lot of money back into the pockets of our producers.
I think that this is something that we can all agree is a very good thing when it comes to innovation in the agricultural sector.
Some more numbers have come through. The Canola Growers Association calculated that the carbon tax actually cost the industry $52.1 million in 2022, at $50 a tonne, which they said they would never raise or pass, which we all know is not true now, and the end goal will be $277.9 million in 2030 at $170 a tonne.
I think that this is something that we hear a lot from agricultural producers. My colleague from the NDP is very correct in saying that a lot of producers and a lot of groups that represent producers across our country came to the agriculture committee and said that this is something that is very important for their industry.
I am happy that the NDP and the Bloc and the Conservatives voted in favour of moving this bill forward but the Liberals did not. However, they have another chance to actually stand up for agriculture producers in this country on the vote at third reading.
My hope is that there are a few who show the courage of the member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert in breaking ranks and will actually join us in supporting our agriculture producers, because it is what the industry wants.
In January 2022, the PBO updated a report on what the cost would be for Bill C-206, and by cost, I mean the savings that will go back into the farmers' pockets. It is a cumulative total of $1.1 billion over a 10-year period.
Can members imagine the innovation and the inputs that money could be in farmers' pockets and back into innovation in the agriculture sector? I come from Saskatchewan, and we are big believers that a dollar in the pocket of someone who has earned that dollar is worth a lot more than a dollar in the pocket of the government.
We have seen all this innovation when it comes to soil health from our province. We have seen precision drilling. We have seen zero tillage, direct seeding and crop rotation. These are all things that were brought forward in our agriculture industry without a dime from government. It was private innovation, such as Seed Hawk, Bourgault, private companies that brought forward these innovations in the agriculture sector, that allowed us to maintain our soil health and to produce more, and that is something the world needs more of.
We say this in the chamber often, but time and time again we see the Liberal government try to hamstring our farmers in producing more of what the world needs. We talk about being a global supplier of food, but we are now talking about adding another carbon tax for farmers who are already struggling under the inputs they have.
My friend from Huron—Bruce was dead-on when he said that farms are like a carrying account where farmers put money into inputs and wait until the end of the year to see what they are going to get back from the AgriStability suite of programs. However, farmers cannot continue to carry those exorbitant input costs, such as fertilizer. The tariffs on fertilizer hit farmers a lot harder than they hit Russia, which got its money. The farmers had to pay more, because the supply was shortened.
When we talk about how we want to support, stand up and be there for our farmers, this is definitely a case where I would urge my Liberal colleagues to support this bill, because that would definitely be a demonstration of supporting our farmers and putting Canadian agriculture first. We do agriculture better than anyone else in the world, and we are proud of our farmers. We are proud of the hard work they put in.
I talked with the Minister of Agriculture at committee a couple of weeks ago, and she did not realize that 95% of Canadian farms are still family-owned and operated. Everyone has a picture of this big corporate farm in Canada now, because it is painted by the left, but it is not true. It is still Canadian families that run Canadian farms. Those are the people we are supporting with Bill C-234 today, and it is something that is very important for us to continue to do.
On the topic of the environment, I think the carbon tax has nothing to do with the environment; it is just a tax scheme. However, when we talk about agriculture and the environment, when we were able to present to the minister, we disagreed on the numbers. I told her that agriculture represents 8% of all the carbon emissions in Canada, but the minister said that figure was wrong and that it was 10%, which is as close as I have been to a Liberal on numbers in a long time, so I said, “All right, we'll meet in the middle and say it is 9%.”
If it is 9% of our emissions, the average in the world when it comes to agriculture emissions in other countries and other jurisdictions is 25%. That is how much better our agriculture producers are doing when it comes to lowering their emissions than their competition. In trumpeting that and being proud of how well our agriculture producers are doing and will continue to do, we are now asking the Liberals to vote in favour of Bill C-234, because it is the right thing to do. It would allow our farmers and producers to have more money in their pockets to invest in more innovation on their farms to ensure that we have even better environmental standards than we already do, and they will do it better than government.
Do members know what the government might do with $1.1 billion? I can guess that probably more of it would go to McKinsey & Company, their buddies and high-paid lobbyists. So why do we not put that money back into the farmers' pockets? They are going to spend it a lot better than the Liberal government.
1518 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/2/22 5:17:19 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to join the debate this afternoon.
I thank my colleague from Edmonton West for his remarks. I do appreciate them.
The member for Vancouver Kingsway talked about a socialist plot. I think there are some socialist plots, but I do not think they involve the environment. They are more or less about wealth redistribution than anything else. The members are quite cagey on the NDP side, so I look forward to answering questions from them after this speech.
A member from Vancouver on the Liberal side asked what the Conservatives' plan is when it comes to the environment. I would put this to him.
Several private members' bills were put forward last session before an unnecessary election was called. One of them was to ban the dumping of raw sewage into the lakes, rivers and oceans, to make sure we could clean up the St. Lawrence River. That private member's bill was put forward by my hon. colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle and only God knows why, but the Liberals voted against it. They voted against the ban on dumping raw sewage into our pristine lakes, rivers and oceans in Canada.
When they talk about the environment and what would be the Conservatives' plan, one would think a very good start would be to ensure that we do not put pollutants into our water systems. That would be a rational conversation and something that any government should do. We have the capacity. We have the Liberals' failed Infrastructure Bank, which could have put money into making sure the municipalities had the money to upgrade their infrastructure so we would not be putting raw sewage into our water systems in this country. That would be a start. If the member asks the question again, I may have tripped on the answer to it already.
A bill that was brought forward by the member for York—Simcoe in the last Parliament, and which was part of the Conservative campaign plan, was to make sure that we stop dumping plastics in other countries and to make sure we look after our own waste. Once again, unknown to many in this chamber, the Liberals voted against that private member's bill brought forward by the Conservatives to make sure we have a cleaner and greener environment to be passed on to the next generation.
A couple of those private members' bills we put forward in the last session before the election of 2021 would have definitely been concrete measures to make sure the environment is cleaner. I would like to have that conversation and put on the record that there have been several measures we have looked at as a party to ensure our environment stays clean.
As my friend from Edmonton West said, we will be supporting the bill going to committee for amendments. Because the CEPA has not been amended since 1999, I think there are some things that need to be changed. We look forward to having that conversation at committee.
Another thing we have asked our Liberal counterparts is what their environmental plan is. The bill proposes to change CEPA, but what is their plan to ensure that emissions go down? They have a carbon tax, but that definitely is not an environmental plan. It is a tax scheme. Under the current government, emissions have continued to increase.
The Liberal government has brought forward policies recently, such as, the reduction in fertilizer use on farms across the country, which is not an environmental plan either. That is just a plan to hamstring our producers, ranchers and farmers even more when they are trying to feed the world. That is not a climate plan. We would ask our Liberal colleagues across the way that same question. When I talk to residents in Saskatchewan and around the country, they want to know what the benefit of the fertilizer reduction plan is. One of the biggest things I am asked is if it will result in less food in Canada.
On the flip side, if the Liberals want our farmers and producers to continue to produce the same amount of food with less fertilizer, they are going to have to use more arable land. This would result in more machinery being used and higher fuel consumption because more land has to be used to produce the same amount of food. A lot of the time when we hear about the environmental policies and actions of the Liberals, they have some unintended consequences, because they either have not done their homework or they do not understand what it takes to produce food.
When I see the environment being impacted in different ways when the Liberals bring forward these policies, that is what I like to bring to the table. Maybe they do not understand what it takes to actually produce the food that ends up in grocery stores across the country.
Another thing I would say about our environmental plan is the Conservatives also put forward a policy called the clean air act. For all of these things, we have taken steps to try to ensure we have a cleaner environment for the next generation. I have three young children, and I think everyone in this chamber wants to ensure they have the opportunity to enjoy a clean environment, just as we did growing up as children.
I grew up on a family farm, and we took the sustainability of our farm very seriously. If we did not have grassland, our cattle could not be fed. If we did not have the proper soil and nutrients in our hay lands to produce hay, we did not have feed to feed the dairy cows. I grew up on a dairy farm, so we had to make sure there were nutrients in the soil, that we conserved water and that we had runoff. Tree rows would collect the snow so there would be runoff.
Producers have been environmental stewards for generations, and it is not because of any government policy—
1014 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 8:39:00 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Chair, I would like to congratulate the member for Kings—Hants on his upcoming wedding. That is amazing. He has probably, like most of us, punched above his weight, so hopefully his wife knows what she is getting into.
On his two questions I would say this: First and foremost, we are the only country in the world that has put a tariff on fertilizer. Other G7 countries are creating policies to help their agricultural producers, and we are creating a policy that hinders them.
On the second question, I would say that I am glad the government found out that BHP exists in Saskatchewan. I know it has been a long time since there has been a Liberal out there, but BHP has been talking about going to phase two since I was an MLA in 2011, so I have a great relationship with BHP. We talk all the time. I have been out to that mine, and we have done the tours. I think it is going to do very well this year with where fertilizer and potash prices are right now, so I wish BHP good luck and all the best.
196 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 8:33:25 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Chair, this is a very important and timely debate that we are joining here this evening on the floor of the House of Commons. It is really talking about food supply and how Canada can be one of the sources to get food to people around the world.
There are five major points I am going to make in my presentation today about what I see as the issues agriculture producers are facing in Canada that are hindering their ability to supply the world with more of the world-class beef, chicken, wheat and commodities and to get things moved from market to market.
The first thing I see as an issue facing our producers coming down the pipe is front-of-package labelling. It is a big concern. We were reached out to by the Canadian Cattlemen's Association and the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association. They interviewed yesterday, and it is something people are getting more concerned about, that the government is going to put warning labels on our beef and pork.
We should have a really serious debate about whether that is something we need to do going forward because our producers have world-class beef and pork, and we do not need to put warning labels on them. It is a conversation that we need to have in the House of Commons to make sure we are supporting our producers. I believe they are doing phenomenal work from an environmental standpoint and from a food quality standpoint, and the government should not be putting a warning label on the front of packages. We would be the only country in the world to put this burdensome policy on our beef and pork producers.
A second issue we talk a lot about in this chamber that is really hurting the food we can produce is the carbon tax. It is ever-increasing for our Canadian producers. In western Canada, when we have these conversations about the carbon tax, we hear these are serious dollars. Now the PBO has come forward and said Canadians are not receiving as much money as they are paying in the carbon tax.
The fuel bill of a friend of mine has gone up $15,000 a week, just in the carbon tax, when he is seeding and harvesting. Obviously that is in the high point, during seeding, but that is how much more money this producer is paying to fuel his equipment, and that is just the tractors. It is not counting other pieces of machinery. That is the second thing that is hindering our producers from being able to feed the world.
The third thing, as the member for Foothills talked about, is the fertilizer tariff. We are asking for the producers to get that money back from before March 2. We are penalizing our producers with the government's policies, which are something it has control of. It can make it better for our producers and easier for them to grow what the world needs.
The fourth thing is the 30% reduction of fertilizer. I have talked to stakeholders across the country, and before this emission reduction was put on fertilizer, Fertilizer Canada, Nutrien and BHP were never reached out to. They were surprised by this 30% reduction target. There were never appropriate conversations with the stakeholders to ensure that they knew this was coming down the pipe. It was a surprise for them. It was a subjective target that came out of nowhere and really shook the people who produce the fertilizer that helps to grow the crops we need to feed the world.
The fifth thing has been touched on by colleagues on all sides. It is not a partisan thing. It is the war in Ukraine. Ukraine is the third-largest producer of wheat in the world, and they are in war zone. Those crops are not going to be planted this year. We are burdening our producers in this country with more red tape and more regulations, which will hinder our yields and our crops.
We are not going to be able to use much fertilizer, and that is something that is going to happen in this country. We are going to grow less produce and have smaller yields because producers are going to use less fertilizer because they simply cannot afford it. They will not be able to afford the increase in the cost of fertilizer, and they cannot support an increase in the carbon tax. When we talk about the global food supply, where we should be a major player in the world, the government is hindering the ability for our producers to step up and do what is needed.
785 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/30/22 6:19:56 p.m.
- Watch
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.
3372 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
