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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 - 312 - May/9/24
Mr. Warren Steinley (Regina—Lewvan, CPC)
  • 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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