- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Regina—Lewvan
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $123,656.05
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I heard the member talk about palling around and burning fossil fuels.
In 2020, the member took a trip to Washington on sponsored travel, when most Canadians could not travel. In 2022, the member took a trip to Germany and burned fossil fuels worth $10,489. He talked about palling around with Pierre Elliott Trudeau. On this trip to Germany, he palled around with a group that actually did a joint press conference with Hezbollah, which is now a terrorist organization.
Can he explain to his constituents why he is palling around with Hezbollah terrorists?
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- May/8/23 11:41:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I join this debate tonight with a bit of a heavy heart. I look back at being elected in 2019 and wanting the full opportunity to represent the people of Regina—Lewvan. This is the second debate where we are talking about the foundation of our democracy and what the people of Canada sent us here to do.
The first debate was around the Emergencies Act in February of 2022. The second one is this evening, where we are talking about the fact that a member of Parliament and his family, because of a vote in this place, have been harassed by a foreign diplomat, who tried to create foreign interference by the Communist Party in Beijing. We need to look back to see how we got here, first of all.
I was always told as a young kid growing up is that if one does not learn from one's history, one is bound to repeat it. On the very important debate we had on the Emergencies Act, the NDP supported it and the Liberals invoked it on Canadians. On this one, it is about an MP being harassed, but it is not just about an MP. Throughout the Chinese diaspora in Canada, lots of people have faced the same things the member of Parliament for Wellington—Halton Hills has. He is not just standing up for himself, he is standing up for all Canadians who have gone through harassment.
I started to talk about learning from our history. My friend from Perth—Wellington started down this path a little. I also brought up some of the debate from the House of Commons when the War Measures Act was invoked on October 16, 1970.
There are some words by the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker I would like to put on the record that run parallel to the discussion we are having this evening.
Mr. Diefenbaker said:
All over the world, Canada has a black eye. And now what is the government doing? It has recognized Communist China. Well, I can just imagine the deluge of communist spies who will come in here attached to the Chinese embassy, when it opens. They will all masquerade as diplomatic representatives. With the United States alongside us, we have not yet seen anything of what will happen when this group comes to Canada and begins its active responsibility which is to destroy Canada from within and, as well, undermine the United States.
Mr. Diefenbaker goes on to say:
The minister said yesterday that what Canada has done will have great influence in the United Nations. Well, and I think this expression is to be ascribed to Mao, for anyone to suggest that communism and the western world can coexist side by side is as ridiculous as endeavouring to fry an iceberg. And that is the situation. They are coming and we have seen happening up to now will be as nothing.
This was a speech given in this very chamber in 1970. The discussion we are having now as parliamentarians is how we can expel foreign influence not only on our elections but on our government as well. It is something every Canadian should be taking very seriously because it is affecting our lives on a daily basis.
This particular motion, which my colleagues have been talking about all evening, is part and parcel of our opposition day motion delivered a few days ago. This House voted to pass our opposition day motion and had support from the other opposition parties.
The motion talked about four things:
(a) create a foreign agent registry similar to Australia and the United States of America;
(b) establish a national public inquiry on the matter of foreign election interference;
(c) close down the People's Republic of China run police stations operating in Canada; and
(d) expel all of the People's Republic of China diplomats responsible for and involved in these affronts to Canadian democracy.
Lord only knows what the reason was, but it took until this afternoon after question period for the government to finally make the Chinese diplomat from Beijing persona non grata for the harassment of a member of Parliament because of a vote he made in this House.
That vote was on the motion that we brought forward on the Uyghurs in China and the genocide happening to the Uyghurs in that country. All of us voted in favour of that motion to make sure that that was recognized, and that those human atrocities could be talked about on the floor of the House of Commons, where they should be talked about.
The disappointing thing about that was that the Liberal front benches did not even pick a side or even get in the game. They abstained from the vote, which is shameful. We should always be on the side of right when it comes to human rights. That is something Conservatives have always been proud supporters of. It is one of the principles we extol across the country and around the world, making sure that we support people in their time of need.
Another thing I would like to put on the record is the fact that this is not just about the MP for Wellington—Halton Hills. This is about so many people in the 2019 and 2021 campaigns who felt bullied into not being able to vote for the person they wanted to vote for, which is fundamental to our Westminster system of democracy. It is one person, one vote, and the freedom to chose who governs them. That is something we should all stand up for and continue to push for. When we ask for a foreign agent registry, it is so that we can have a free and open democratic process. As a member of Parliament and as a former MLA, it is something that is close to my heart. That is what we do; we try to earn support.
I remember our leader talking to a lady at one of his rallies. She was just amazed, because in the country she came from, people never got that close to a politician. People never got close to the people who were elected. In other countries, politicians are insulated from the people they represent. A great thing about Canada is that we are not insulated from the people we represent. It is a point of pride for us. We do not need a big security detail to go out in our riding. We do not need to have security systems installed in all of our homes, because this is the House of Commons. It is for the common people to come and make decisions on behalf of everyone else in our country. It is a point of pride for us to not be seen as above everyone else.
On our side of the House, Conservatives take this to heart each and every day. We make sure we stay grounded, not out of touch. We believe the Liberal government has fallen out of touch with everyday, hard-working Canadians, whether it be in the oil and gas sector or the agricultural sector. It is because we stay in touch with the people we represent that we are able to bring their concerns to the chamber.
So many different times today, I heard the member for Kingston and the Islands say that people take it for granted that every person in this place is going to be telling the truth. We said that people should take the member for Wellington—Halton Hills at his word when he said that he was never briefed on the specifics of what was happening to him through the Beijing diplomat who was harassing him and his family. The member for Kingston and the Islands said that if we take the member for Wellington—Halton Hills at his word, we should expect the truth from the member for Papineau.
I served with a lovely lady in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. Her name is Doreen Eagles, and she was a long-serving member for Estevan. She had one of the best quotes I have ever heard, either here or in the Saskatchewan chamber. She said, to the Speaker in the Saskatchewan legislature, that the best indication of future behaviour is past behaviour.
We can be forgiven, on this side, if we sometimes do not take the member for Papineau at his word, because we have heard, time and time again, that a reporter experienced it differently, that he did not mean to elbow the NDP member during a ruckus in the House of Commons, that there was nothing to see with SNC-Lavalin, that Jody Wilson-Raybould got it wrong, or that Celina Caesar-Chavannes did not understand the conversation they had together. There are so many situations that we could put forward from the member for Papineau's past behaviour that would perhaps indicate that his future behaviour may not be on par with what we think likely happened in this situation.
Over the last week, we have seen the government change its story several times. First of all, we had a couple of members say that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills knew what happened and should have brought it forward sooner, over the last two years, which we know is categorically false. Second of all, at the Liberal convention this past weekend, we saw the current Minister of Public Safety say that CSIS should have brought it forward, and it is not the government's fault that CSIS did not bring it forward to them. I say “current” because I think he is in some trouble. That, once again, came to be categorically false; the security adviser to the PMO said that they got the briefing. I wonder if the Minister of Public Safety thinks it is actually CSIS's job to go and read the briefing to the Prime Minister or to him.
Yes, it is story time. We know because we have experienced this. We saw that the government hired storytellers a couple of years ago to actually tell Canadians a story about how well they are doing. Perhaps the Liberals thought CSIS was supposed to tell them the story of what happened with the national security breach, because they did not have time to read their briefings.
The Toronto Sun, which I do not quote often, has an article that brings up some questions. Every Canadian should think about this over the next couple of days when we are discussing the foundation of democracy and whether people can make free choices without harassment from foreign governments. The reporter ends with this:
The report was sent to the government as they were gearing up for the 2021 election, making this issue public at that time could have created sympathy for the Conservatives. It’s easy to imagine Canadians being outraged at China targeting a Canadian MP for voting to condemn China’s genocide of the Uighurs, a clear stand for human rights.
Did the Liberals opt not to deal with this report for partisan reasons? Were they so focused on beating the Conservatives that they ignored attacks by a foreign government on our democracy?
These questions should be unthinkable. We should expect that all politicians would put country over party.
It’s not clear, given what we’ve learned over the last week, that we can assume that anymore. Asking whether the lack of action was partisan in nature is entirely acceptable given the circumstances.
Canadians should take that and mull it over for a bit. What if a government had a harassment claim with respect to a member of Parliament because of a position he took on the side of human rights, and it sat on that for another couple of years for partisan reasons? I hope that would never happen in this country. However, it is an interesting question that the reporter from the Toronto Sun puts forward in his article today. For this, we really have to understand how far we have come in the divisiveness of politics in this country.
I started by saying that there are two times when I stood in this chamber thinking about what our democracy would look like not 10 or 15 years from now but in two or three years. We have had people come to Ottawa asking for their voices to be heard only to have the other side actually create a division, where it treated them as second-class citizens and then invoked the Emergencies Act to make sure it could deal with them swiftly. Is that the right word? I am not quite sure.
I remember standing in this House giving a speech about Tommy Douglas. I know the NDP supported invoking the Emergencies Act, and I remembered something Tommy Douglas said in 1960. When the elder Trudeau invoked the act in 1960, Tommy Douglas said it was like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. I would suggest that many New Democrats would have felt the same way, but the group that they have in the chamber today decided to support it. Then the government went on to freeze people's bank accounts as well, which is something I never thought I would see in this country.
If we fast forward to now, I do not think we have learned many lessons on how to perhaps cradle democracy and keep it a bit safer. We are talking about a ruling by the Speaker that a prima facie case was found that a member of Parliament was harassed to the point that his family overseas was threatened because he was doing his job. Many Canadians have gone through this, from B.C. and across the country, in Toronto and Quebec. What has happened in 2023 in this country is really unimaginable.
Another item in the Conservative motion that was passed by the opposition parties talks about Beijing-run police stations in Canada. I remember when the Liberal member for Scarborough—Guildwood stood up to talk about there being one close to his riding as well. We asked him if he had brought that forward to the minister. Obviously, he said yes.
The minister stood up and said that these Beijing-run Communist police stations in Canada were going to be closed immediately. The member for Kingston and the Islands stood up and said that the government was going to close them immediately. I asked him if he knew what the definition of “immediately” was, because the government seems to move a bit slower than some Canadians would like. The fact there is a foreign country running police stations in Canada is unacceptable, full stop. They should be shut down immediately. Not one person should be detained in these police stations because they should have no authority in our country.
I remember one of the first emails I got on this was a couple of years ago. At first, I thought people were joking because, from my standpoint, being a provincial politician, policing is a big part of provincial jurisdiction. Then, when moving into the public service federally, I did not understand how a foreign country could even, first of all, start and then operate a police station on Canadian soil. What kind of jurisdiction would it even have? Then we learned more about certain people with origins in different countries being targeted and harassed to make sure they are doing what their home country thinks they should be doing.
What I would say to people now is that we need to stand up for democracy in our country. We need to make sure that the things that happened to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills never happen again. That starts with going forward with our motion, having a public inquiry to get to the bottom of everything that happened over the last couple of years, and making sure that we have this motion go to PROC, which I hope the Liberals will vote for. If the Speaker has found a prima facie case, it would be unheard of for the government to vote against it and, quite frankly, ridiculous. We need to make sure this goes to PROC so it can be fully studied. We especially need a public inquiry into foreign interference in our elections so Canadians can have faith in our democratic system.
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- Jun/23/22 3:02:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as my father always said, “Trudeau times were tough times back in the eighties.” We have the highest inflation rate since 1983, at 7.7%. We have heard the tired old talking points and we know the finance minister's only solution is to increase spending and raise taxes. That is simply not working. Now, more than 72% of Canadians are finding it hard to make their paycheque last until the end of the month.
The government cares only about its rich friends and elitist donors. It is really out of touch with the realties of families across Saskatchewan. Is that not the truth?
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- Jun/17/22 11:53:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have already seen the steepest 52-week rise in the price of meat since Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and we have producers across the Prairies reeling because of dry conditions. With the government's insistence on pushing through front-of-package labelling on beef and pork, it is further hamstringing producers and consumers without solid evidence that this expensive change is necessary.
With Canada set to become the only country on earth to impose this policy, is the government using the same top-secret scientists it used to defend its unnecessary COVID mandates to now defend kneecapping our ag producers?
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- 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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