- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Regina—Lewvan
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $123,656.05
- Government Page
- Jun/5/24 2:12:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today it is my great pleasure to rise and congratulate the graduating class of 2024. Congratulations to the graduates on reaching this very important milestone in their lives.
From the beginning of kindergarten to the end of grade 12, they have grown into adults who are ready to take on the many opportunities and challenges that they will face going forward. The skills that graduates have learned and developed throughout their education will set them up to excel in whatever career path they choose to pursue. Their teachers, coaches, classmates and friends have all added to the strong individuals they have become. School is not just about academics but is also about the all-important life lessons and experiences graduates have gained while navigating their first 18 years.
Congratulations to the graduating classes of 2024 in Regina—Lewvan schools: Sheldon-Williams Collegiate, Luther College, Riffel high school, Winston Knoll Collegiate and Martin Collegiate. We look forward to seeing how they, as future leaders, will contribute to our great province and our country.
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- Jun/4/24 11:04:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have heard this ridiculous conversation around bringing forward amendments to change the short title of a piece of legislation. Would the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge have any other examples of perhaps other parties putting forward amendments that would change the short title? This is not a very uncommon thing. Perhaps, even the government itself, the NDP-Liberal government, has done it also.
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Madam Speaker, I do like the little cute condescension from the NDP: “when he reads the bill”. The bill, Bill C-64, is four pages. I did read the bill. It is really cute when they have that passive-aggressive tone. It is adorable.
If they sign on and if they do take the universal single-payer coverage, what are his constituents going to say when their coverage is less than what they had before?
What is he going to say to 27 million Canadians who are losing better coverage because they are going to add coverage that is not as good as what they have right now? They would have a lot of explaining to do to their constituents when they try to take away the coverage they have right now and give them less coverage.
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- May/9/24 8:29:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to take to my feet today to talk about the fall economic statement.
First, if I have some latitude, I want to say that Canada just lost a national treasure not too long ago. It came out in the National Post that Rex Murphy passed away this evening, at the age of 77, after his battle with cancer. I hope that I will be able to read some of Rex's best quotes into the record. I am sure that we will recognize him later on, but I thought it would be fitting. He was, I think, an iconic writer in our country for years. I think he has the respect of all sides. He was a great, proud Maritimer as well. I googled some of his best quotes. I am going to read a couple here.
Rex Murphy said, “Everything written, if it has anything in it, will offend someone, and if the mere taking of an offence were to amount to a license to kill the offender, well the world will be sadly underpopulated of novelists, columnists, bloggers and the writers of editorials.”
He also said, “Not every article in every magazine [or] newspaper is meant to be a valentine card addressed to every reader's self-esteem.”
This is a personal favourite of mine: “Stay away from philosophy kids. It'll ruin your mind.”
He also said, “Hollywood is a narcotic, not a stimulant. It wants to sell you something. Literature wants to tell you something.”
This is another personal favourite. I am a country music singer, so this is the last one. He said that Shania Twain has done more for country and western than heartbreak and whisky combined.
To Rex Murphy, may he rest in peace.
The fall economic statement was a disappointment from our point of view. It really did not address some of the major concerns and issues we had. It did not fix the budget, stop the crime, build the houses or axe the tax. We know that Canadians from coast to coast are continuing to find it harder and harder to put food on the table. That is something that sorely needs to be addressed in this country. As of last year, two million people used a food bank across this country. It is now expected, from food bank data, that three million people will do so in 2024. This is not the Canada that I want my children to grow up in, and I think most people would agree with that.
I had a great opportunity this week to attend the Food, Fuel, and Fertilizer Global Summit, held in Regina, Saskatchewan. They had some of the most forward-looking thinkers in the industry when it comes to prudent agriculture, energy and resources. One of the speakers was Tim Gitzel from Cameco, a company located in northern Saskatchewan. They said an agreement was made among 24 nations, and in the next couple of decades, they want to triple the amount of nuclear energy to fight climate change. That is a big commitment from nations across this world. That means they can go from 400 to 1,200 nuclear reactors.
That was not addressed in the fiscal update or even in the budget at all. Canada can be a world-leading nuclear power, but it is falling by the wayside because the government has an ideological philosophy that is not in favour of nuclear power.
Another speaker at the summit was Bruce Bodine. He is the CEO for Mosaic, which has its head office in Regina, Saskatchewan. They are one of the leading producers and exporters of fertilizer in the world. That is so important; a speaker said at this summit that, in the next couple of decades, we are going to have to produce as much food to feed the world as we have in the past 10,000 years.
That means we are going to have to grow our agriculture sector. In the fall economic statement, there is nothing that looks at growing our agriculture sector. In fact, the government has had policy after policy that continues to kneecap this sector. By 2030, the carbon tax will cost ag producers $1 billion a year; this will come out of the pockets of our agriculture producers across the country. Can one imagine the innovations that they could have if they kept that money themselves and put it into new technology and new machinery?
I was able to go to Ag in Motion in Saskatoon. It is one of the leading agricultural shows in North America, where they actually have on-site demonstrations. I was able to go to a Yara plot. The person who took me from Yara said to scan some leaves. I had a little instrument. I scanned 20 leaves in a plot, and it gave, to the decimal point, how much fertilizer one is supposed to put on that plot.
A lot of people in the chamber and in the ag community do not realize how advanced agriculture has become. While fertilizing in a field, that changes the amount of fertilizer one puts in real time. Lower spots have a bit more moisture, so one puts less fertilizer. Higher spots on the hill are drier, so one puts a little bit more. We do not need the government to tell agriculture producers how much fertilizer they need to use; they are already doing it.
Another great technology that has come out of, not government but the private sector for agriculture, is GPS and field mapping. I remember 10, 15, 20 years ago, on our farm, we had a disker, and we would over-seed 10 feet all the time just to make sure we had enough seed. Now, with GPS and field mapping, there is no over-seeding; there is no going back and forth over a field. That is saving emissions when it comes to the machinery, which is not going back and forth over the field as much.
However, we did not see anything in the fall economic statement to promote agriculture. In fact, we always hear the opposite from the NDP-Liberal coalition. We see that agriculture is a bit like a person the Liberals do not want to talk about. They like it because it brings in some money, but they do not promote it on the world stage. They always ask, “How can agriculture in Canada lower emissions?” However, according to the ECCC, they are not even tracking them. Actually, the environment commissioner just came out with a report on the agriculture strategy of the Government of Canada, and there is no strategic plan in the Department of Agriculture to lower emissions. That is straight from the environment commissioner's report.
The Liberals have been in government for nine long years, and they talk about climate change every day, but there is no strategic plan to lower emissions. That is exactly what the non-partisan environment commissioner said in the report. It is actually a condemnation of how little the Liberals have planned. They will throw a bunch of programs at the wall, but none of them have stuck, because they actually do not have a plan to lower emissions.
The carbon tax is not a plan. It is not an environment plan; it is a wealth distribution plan, and we see that time and time again. When we are talking about how the Prime Minister is not worth the cost, he is not worth the cost of food, because people now cannot afford to put food on the table. He is not worth the cost of housing, because, despite the fall economic plan and the budget, housing costs will continue to increase. They have doubled since the Liberals took government. The Liberals have doubled the cost of mortgages, and they have doubled the cost of home properties.
The amazing part is that, 10 years ago, it took 25 years to pay off a mortgage in Canada. Now, under the NDP-Liberal government, it takes 25 years to save for a down payment to get a home. It is no wonder now that eight out of 10 young Canadians believe that they will never own a home. That has happened over the nine long years that the government has been in power. It is no wonder that the Liberals' polling is the worst it has ever been with younger Canadians. They have lost faith, because they do not believe this is the country where they can get ahead.
I had the pleasure to serve with Premier Wall in the Saskatchewan government. On his last day, when he gave his final speech in the Legislative Assembly, he ended with this, and I'll end with this as well. This is about how a person should always be judged after they leave politics or when they are done: “Did you leave things better than you found them?” The unequivocal answer for the Liberal government is absolutely not.
I know the Liberals are fans of slogans, so I will leave them with this: Instead of build back better, they should put it back the way they found it.
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- Feb/27/24 12:12:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we do keep records of who voted for what during budget deliberations, so I would ask this member how he can go back to his riding, when he voted eight times to ensure that GC Strategies got tens of millions of dollars. He talks about the corporate parties. He literally is propping up the Liberal government to ensure the ad scam continues. GC Strategies is still getting money because of his vote. It is actually quite embarrassing.
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Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise once again to present a petition. Whereas employment insurance, maternity and parental benefits provide parents with critical financial support while they care for and bond with a new child, and having a parent at home longer in the critical first year of a child's life or placement within a family better supports healthy attachment and the well-being of a child, adoptive and intended parents are at a disadvantage under the current EI system.
Bill C-318 would deliver equitable access to parental leave for adoptive and intended parents, and the Speaker of the House of Commons has ruled that the passage of Bill C-318 requires a royal recommendation. The undersigned citizens and residents of Canada call upon the Government of Canada to support adoptive and intended parents by providing a royal recommendation for Bill C-318, which was just presented in the House.
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Madam Speaker, I present a petition. Whereas employment insurance, maternity and parental benefits provide parents with critical financial support while they care for and bond with a new child, and having a parent at home longer in the critical first year of a child's life or placement within a family better supports healthy attachment and the well-being of a child, adoptive and intended parents are at a disadvantage under the current EI system.
All parents are deserving of equal access to parental leave benefits. Bill C-318 would deliver equitable access to parental leave for adoptive and intended parents. The Speaker of the House of Commons has ruled that the passage of Bill C-318 requires a royal recommendation. The undersigned citizens and residents of Canada call upon the Government of Canada to support adoptive and intended parents by providing a royal recommendation for Bill C-318.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. My friend from Lac-Saint-Louis asked me how much money he spent on Facebook ads and I was not able to answer, but he spent $2,833 on Facebook.
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Madam Speaker, we are discussing Bill C-11, and maybe the member did not hear me talk earlier about some of the issues we had specifically with Bill C-11, such as proposed subsection 4.1(2), which talks about an exception to the exception and some of the criteria that the CRTC has laid out on what could be admissible under the new Broadcasting Act and what may not be admissible. There are issues we have with the bill we are talking about right now. I laid that out quite cleanly in my opening remarks, when we were talking about this bill, which is Bill C-11, and we will debate Bill C-18 another time. I look forward to having that discussion with the hon. member, when that is the actual bill we are supposed to be discussing on the floor.
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Madam Speaker, this is talking about Facebook, Netflix and the CRTC, so I think this would be something of interest to members.
I will talk about a few of the other bills that have been paid by the taxpayers. For the Prime Minister, $2.8 million has been spent on Facebook advertising from June 25, 2019 to May 9, 2022. Interestingly enough, the member for Kingston and the Islands, who speaks often here and I enjoy his speeches, spent $43,578 on Facebook advertising from June 25, 2019 to May 9, 2022. The member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country spent $23,466 from June 25, 2019 to May 9, 2022. These are all Liberal members. The member for Hamilton Mountain spent $2,787. The Liberal Party of Canada spent $4.2 million on Facebook ads from June 25, 2019 to May 9, 2022.
I can understand why they talk about wanting to get some of the money back from some of these big social media companies: It is because they have given them so much money. It is really quite impressive how much money they have given them over the period of June 25, 2019 to May 9, 2022.
When it comes down to it, we still have a lot of questions and we will not be supporting Bill C-11. When it gets to committee, our members will do their good work and ask some of the questions, especially about proposed subsection 4.1(2) on what the exception to the exception looks like and how the Liberals are really trying to regulate what online users are saying on social media. Those are some of the concerns that our members will bring forward at committee.
When it comes to paying their fair share and whether or not we should make sure that we support our Canadian content creators, we will always do that. I will continue to advertise in my local papers, while the Liberals advertise on Facebook.
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- May/2/22 10:13:55 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I know the member did not try to mislead the Canadian public. Obviously, members can tell that I did not have any notes to ask that question. It came from constituents. I would ask him to apologize.
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- Mar/2/22 4:43:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I misspoke. I wanted to say that some things have happened that are not relevant to the history of the Emergencies Act. The member said that the Emergencies Act had to be invoked to clear the blockades, but that did not happen. The blockades were removed before the Emergencies Act was used.
I would like to get back to the point of the question. The fact the Liberals keep telling a story that is fictional is something that really affects my constituents in Regina—Lewvan. Did they reach the criteria to invoke the Emergencies Act? That is the question the committee wants to have answered and why—
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- Mar/2/22 4:42:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious conversation about how we can move forward to see if the emergency measures act was correctly implemented. I feel sorry for the government House leader. I believe he has short-term amnesia about what actually happened. In his answer, he said that we needed the Emergencies Act because there were blockades across our borders. That is not true. It is a lie. It is an absolute untruth and it did not happen. The blockades were gone—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
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- Feb/20/22 11:55:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is what this question is about. To have one's own opinion about protesters and blockades, that is fine, but what we are talking about today is the Emergencies Act, and whether it should be used going forward and whether we in this House think the government needs that unbridled power—
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- Feb/20/22 11:18:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the story that was just told by the Liberal member in trying to perpetuate the myths the Liberals are putting forward, the myths that there is no charter infringement, there is nothing going on here and people are not losing their freedoms.
The government said it needed this act. Coutts got rid of the blockades without using the Emergencies Act. Surrey got rid of the blockades. Windsor got rid of the blockades. If the member does not think that individual Canadians are losing their freedoms, does he believe that the freezing of 73 bank accounts by the government is not a loss of freedom in Canadians' eyes?
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