- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Kelowna—Lake Country
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $131,412.70
- Government Page
- Nov/29/23 6:30:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of constituents from Kelowna—Lake Country.
Today I rise to speak to the Liberal private member's bill before us. Canadians are struggling to heat their homes, to find affordable places to live and to feed themselves and their families. After eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, residents in my community and other Canadians cannot even provide basic necessities for their families. Many families are finding themselves in this situation.
More children are not able to access nutritious food, and more of their parents are relying on food banks. Food bank usage hit another record high in 2023, with two million people using a food bank in one month. Canada's largest city, Toronto, just reported that one in 10 people relies on a food bank. Usage is up over 30% in my community. This is a crisis and a result of government policy failures. The idea that children are missing meals because families can no longer afford to buy food is heartbreaking. However, the legislation would not address the causes. The only thing it calls for is for ministers to do reports and reviews, all of which we would not see for years down the line. We need to focus on stopping the crushing inflation and cost increases to families.
The NDP-Liberal government continues to create legislation and policies that are driving up the cost of everything. Its inflationary spending has driven up inflation, which has driven up interest rates. The facts are that after eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, higher taxes and increased red tape and bureaucracy have driven investment away. This has Canada sliding further down each year, with a continued low Canadian dollar, making anything bought from our largest trading partner, the U.S., more expensive and putting Canada on track to be one of the most unproductive and least prosperous OECD countries. The International Monetary Fund listed Canada as having the sixth-worst misery index score out of 35 industrialized countries. Simply put, the higher the score, the worse the economic situation and quality of life. Canada's score is the sixth-highest.
However, the Liberals do not want to be talking about any of this. They want to make it appear like they are helping, even though they are the cause of high prices and people's misery. It is like walking along and being tripped by someone, and while looking up at them, they hold out their hand and say, “I am here for you; let me help you up.” Meanwhile, the person on the ground is lying there thinking, “I would not be lying here if you had not tripped me in the first place.” The truth is that the proposed legislation would do nothing to address the rising cost of groceries through inflationary spending and increasing carbon taxes that increase the cost of fuel. The bill would bring more government and more bureaucracy. It would be more government studies and more government reports.
If we look back, we can remember that the Liberals campaigned on this bill in 2021. Now, two years later, the Liberals want to make it seem like they have not broken yet another one of their promises. The legislation is not even from the government; it is a private member's bill to think about enacting legislation. In reality, the bill is a placeholder. Even if the bill had any substance to it, the effects would not be felt anytime soon, and, again, it would do nothing to mitigate the causes. The bill is about creating reports. Not-for-profits are the ones doing the work serving communities now. We must do more to fight food price inflation by the federal government's stopping the spending.
Children need and deserve proper access to nutritious food at every meal. According to Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab, a new survey showed that almost half of Canadians are purchasing less protein for their meals and that over 45% of people are prioritizing saving on costs by skipping out on nutritious meals for themselves and their families. The Prime Minister said that Conservatives are exaggerating how bad people's personal financial situations are, but in B.C. alone, over 66% of people are worried that their health may be compromised in the long run. A resident in my community even told me that because food prices are so high, she was praying that her garden would be able to provide enough food for her household with four teenagers.
People have been left to pray. I spoke with a resident from my community who said she works with seniors and some of them are so undernourished, they actually look forward to being admitted to the hospital so they can be provided with some nourishment. This is the Canada of the NDP-Liberal government and its decisions after eight years. It is nothing short of shocking, how they are affecting people.
There are things we can do now: First, we can axe carbon tax 1 and carbon tax 2 outright across Canada. Second, we can stop the inflationary spending, which is also increasing interest rates. Third, we can stop the red tape and bureaucracy that is holding back investment, making Canada uncompetitive and unproductive, which is increasing Canada's misery index.
There are record-breaking lineups outside food banks and people who cannot afford to house themselves are living on the street. For the first time, there are working middle-class people living in their cars. In my home province of British Columbia and in my community of Kelowna—Lake Country, one of our local food banks just said a 91-year-old came in as a client for the first time in her life. There is a food bank now for students at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. Our two community food banks and the many not-for-profit agencies are helping to feed families with young children, seniors and our most vulnerable.
In Victoria, some food banks are seeing monthly increases by the hundreds. In Vancouver, one food bank has registered nearly 2,000 clients since July. This is what happens when they tax the farmer who makes the food, then the trucker who transports it and then the parent who buys it. A resident in my community of Kelowna reached out to me because the taxes on his gas bill were actually higher than his total gas usage cost for the month. That puts pressure on other home expenses like food.
Inflationary deficit spending is driving up inflation, which is driving up interest rates. Housing prices have doubled over the last eight years. Rents have doubled over the last eight years. What the Liberals are doing is not working. This private member's bill today from a Liberal is, in fact, an acknowledgement that Liberal policies simply are not working.
Across the country, Canadians are realizing that the NDP-Liberal government is simply not worth the cost. Feeding our children is important and I know all of us in this house want to make sure every child is fed. We need to scrap the NDP-Liberal carbon tax, stop policies that mean increasing costs for farmers, and stop policies that will make food packaging more expensive. We need to bring down the spending, which will also bring down inflation so that parents can afford to buy food.
Only Conservatives would stop the inflationary spending to bring inflation down so that Canadians can bring home lower interest rates and afford to live. We would reduce taxes to bring down inflation and make paycheques go farther. This placeholder bill would do nothing to stop the causes of why families are struggling to feed themselves. It is actually an acknowledgement that the policies of the government are not working.
We must fight for our families and children, and their well-being. This means fighting government bureaucracy and red tape, and fighting to stop the root causes of the misery of residents in Kelowna—Lake Country and across the country. It means fighting the costly carbon tax and inflationary spending that the NDP-Liberal government continues to pile onto Canadians, increasing prices and their misery.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner.
It is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the constituents in my riding of Kelowna—Lake Country.
We are debating Bill C-56. The NDP-Liberal government continually fails to address the real issues that it has caused for all Canadians. It says the bill will somehow bring down the cost of living and grocery prices.
People in my community are struggling to pay their bills and put food on the table. Food bank usage is the highest it has ever been, with over 30% more clients year over year. This is consistent across the country and also in my community. People with disabilities and seniors on fixed incomes are hit particularly hard.
Instead of cutting the carbon tax and government spending, which is driving up inflation, the Liberal-NDP government believes that implementing Bill C-56 would somehow solve the inflated cost of living and grocery price issue.
There is a lack of competition in Canada's grocery industry, an industry held mostly by Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro, and this is a problem the bill would not solve. We have already seen the Prime Minister and the government fail at keeping their promises, like having cheaper groceries before Thanksgiving. That date has long come and gone.
Canadians are faced with higher costs than many other developed countries due to a lack of competition, whether in industries like grocery, airline, banking or telecommunications. High taxes, bureaucracy and red tape make Canada unproductive and uncompetitive. The Liberals added a second carbon fee, basically a second carbon tax. Saying the legislation takes some kind of stand against grocery stores is nothing short of performative with a nice title.
The policies of the NDP-Liberal coalition, with its inflationary deficit spending and high-tax agenda, has caused our inflation rate to be as high as it has been, and continues to be, which has caused the highest interest rates in a generation. The legislation is trying to deal with problems created by the government without addressing any of the causes. It is as if we are walking along and someone trips us and while we are lying on the ground looking up, that individual puts his or her hand out and asks to help us up. Meanwhile we would be thinking that if that person had not tripped us in the first place we would not be on the ground.
The NDP-Liberal coalition thinks that taxing farmers who grow our food, taxing transport trucks that move our food and then taxing grocery stores that sell our food has nothing to do with inflation. We have to remember that it was the Liberal finance minister who had declared victory on inflation only to see it go higher.
We also have to remember that inflation is compounding. Most people are familiar with compounding interest on their investments. However, this is the harmful kind of compounding, because it means things cost more.
For a 3% inflation, for example, that is 3% on top of last year, where during the same month it could have been 8%, as we were seeing in 2022. Therefore, the inflation rate this year is 3% plus 8%, which is 11%, but is even more because it is compounded compared to two years ago.
The Governor of the Bank of Canada said that inflation was homegrown and that it was costing the average Canadian $3,500 a year. That is not per family; it is per person. No wonder people are having trouble heating their homes. They were last winter and we are seeing them have a tough time again this year.
I send multiple surveys each year to every home in my community of Kelowna—Lake Country, and it is amazing the huge amount of people who respond to them. A recent one was this past summer. Here are the results: 70% say they are buying fewer groceries; 81% say they are taking fewer trips; 78% say they are donating less to charity; and 89% say they are putting less into savings. Many people also put detailed notes, sharing their ideas, solutions and heartbreaking stories with me.
The John Howard Society of Okanagan and Kootenay has stated that it is now having clients come to its organization saying that they have just lost their homes and do not know what to do. Now the organization does not know how to support these people because it was not built for the capacity it is now seeing.
It is no surprise that people cannot afford a home when the price of homes and rent in Canada has doubled over the last eight years of the NDP-Liberal government. It used to take 25 years to pay off a mortgage. Now it takes 25 years to save for a mortgage.
Saving for the average mortgage for the average home used to take five and a half years before the Liberal government. A recent C.D. Howe Institute study determined that in Vancouver, nearly $1.3 million of the cost of an average home is government gatekeepers adding unnecessary red tape. That means that over 60% of the price of a home in Vancouver is due to delays, fees, regulations, taxes and high-priced consultants.
The NDP-Liberal government has poured billions of dollars into housing programs and there is little to show for it. Removing the GST from home construction was proposed in a private member's bill by the leader of the official opposition. The difference between what he was proposing and what this bill would do is that this bill would help, but it is not focused on affordability like the official opposition member's bill is.
When I am home in my community at many different activities and events, a top issue many people bring to me is the increasing cost of their mortgage payments and how it is affecting their families and families they know. I was talking to a dad who said his mortgage just increased by over $1,000 a month. Another person, who has three kids, reached out. He is the sole income-earner for the family as his wife stays home to look after the kids. He was looking for any tax credits for kids' fitness and other activities, something I had to tell him the Liberals cancelled.
The latest MNP consumer debt index shows 51% of Canadians are $200 or less away from not being able to complete their financial obligations. It said, “Facing a combination of rising debt carrying costs, living expenses and concern over the potential for continued interest rate and price hikes, many Canadians are stretched uncomfortably close to broke. There is no mystery as to what is causing Canadians’ bleak debt outlook: it’s getting increasingly difficult to make ends meet.”
A recent survey released by financial firm Edward Jones Canada said, “Canadians are stuck in a chaotic whirlwind of personal financial stress,” and, “The poll clearly shows that Canadians are so preoccupied with just getting through the day, that the idea of paying debt feels like a distant dream.” It also found that 88% of Canadians say their personal financial situation is impacting their well-being.
In addition, 65% of Canadians now say they are concerned about saving for retirement, and 63% are concerned about how to prepare for an unexpected financial event. There are less savings, more concern and more risk. Forced sales events are up 10%, with mortgage defaults climbing, as just reported by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board. It is not just me talking about the financial situation in my riding of Kelowna—Lake Country. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada said that Canadians are now facing the biggest financial challenges of their lives.
The Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal coalition have really lost touch with Canadians. This bill would assist with one small sliver of an issue with building homes, but it is not a housing affordability bill. As we see now with the fall economic statement and the Liberals being supported by its partner, the NDP, this spending will continue on a path of deficits and keeping inflation and interest rates high. This bill would not address the causes of high food costs, inflation or high interest rates. The Prime Minister is just not worth the cost.
We can send this bill to committee to be studied, and hopefully, some amendments can be made at committee and brought back to the House.
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Mr. Speaker, in Canada if we had not had hundreds of thousands of people laid off in the resource sector who had very good-paying jobs, if we did not have 40-year inflation where people can barely buy food and groceries, maybe it would not be such an issue that they would not be able to afford their basic necessities and not be able to afford child care.
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- Nov/28/22 2:11:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with the cost of living and record-high inflation, small businesses have been forced to bear the brunt of cost increases, which are hitting them hard after more than two years of challenges.
According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, small businesses have incurred, on average, $150,000 in new debt, yet what Christmas gifts are the Liberals giving them for 2023? Tax increases.
Carbon tax increases add costs to their heating bills and anything that is shipped. There is the payroll tax increase and an automatic tax increase on beer, wine, ciders and spirits, affecting beverage production and hospitality industries.
It is no wonder that one in six Canadian small business is considering closing its doors.
A female entrepreneur from my community recently told me that she was making the tough decision to raise her prices, knowing that it would affect her clients, and that she held off as long as she could. Small businesses are among the most affected by inflation and they are making tough decisions every day.
Only the Conservatives will axe the carbon tax on gas, groceries and heating and give our small businesses the breaks they need now.
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- Nov/4/22 11:35:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, if we listened to the Liberals we would think Canadians had never had it so good. Liberals always list off all these new benefits they have created for people. Who pays for those benefits? People pay for them out of their taxes, and then the government takes that, gives them a little back and pats itself on the back. That is what is playing out here.
Why will the Liberals not cancel their plans to triple taxes on gas, groceries and home heating?
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- Nov/4/22 11:34:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the feedback from my community on the fall economic statement was not positive. Yesterday, I had someone ask how long they will have to wait for this nightmare to end, and another said the Liberals have a boot in Canadians' backs. On this side of the House, we have been calling on the government continually to stop its inflationary tax increases. Of course, we have seen that this is not what the government is doing.
Why will the Liberals not cancel their plans to triple the taxes on gas, groceries and home heating?
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Red Deer—Lacombe.
This summer, I spoke with thousands of constituents from Kelowna—Lake Country in person, over the phone, on their doorsteps and at community events. I met with small businesses, farmers and not-for-profits. The struggles I heard from people and small businesses are real and extensive.
I heard about the unmanageable cost of living, which includes costs on housing, fuel and food, overall inflation, labour shortages, travel restrictions such as the ArriveCAN app, ongoing federal mandates, crushing debt for small business, supply chain issues, and delays in every federal government department, whether it be immigration and citizenship, CRA, benefits or passports.
It is evident that the legislation before us, Bill C-31, does nothing to address any of those issues and nothing to address the cost of 40-year-high inflation. For the Liberals to introduce this thrown-together legislation that will only boost inflation, and which will see its benefits evaporate with the ever-rising cost of food and gas, demonstrates the government's detachment from working families, small businesses and seniors.
I remember as a kid those tough times 40 years ago at the end of the last Trudeau government. History is repeating itself. I remember eating lots of wieners, white bread and Spam. What got us through were two sets of grandparents who had big gardens. Families are suffering today.
I mailed out a survey to residents of Kelowna—Lake Country to get their feedback about the cost of groceries and gas prices. I received thousands of responses. Food costs can vary regionally, and most people said their food bills had actually gone up more than 20%. To fill their vehicles was over $50 more per fill than last year.
Many people gave specific examples of their personal situations. I will give just a small sampling. John, who needs his pickup truck for work and who says he has good mileage on his truck, will be paying $513 a month more for gas than last year. Jeff in Lake Country wrote to me that he is getting close to having to choose between gas or food, saying that is “not a good spot to be in.”
Lea in Kelowna says she is forced to go to food banks for the first time in her life. Ken wrote that his family is presently helping a person who is living in his car because he cannot afford rent. This person works as a delivery driver, but gas prices may now prevent him from working entirely.
Paulette wrote to me and said, “I am a recently retired as a nurse. I am pretty tight with my budget. I have been able to keep my bank account at the same float number. Since March of this year, I have noticed incremental decline in my bank balance to the tune of $400 a month. It doesn't take long on a fixed income to be alarmed in seeing consistent decline.”
How is a retiree like Paulette supposed to deal with a $400 loss each month? How is a new family or a young worker supposed to deal with it? They will not if we maintain the government's high-spend, high-cost NDP-Liberal approach. We need to stop the money printing, stop the spending and stop increasing taxes, all of which are creating inflation.
Legislation like Bill C-31 will not reverse the ever-increasing costs of our basic necessities. While the government says this legislation will tackle the real issues of Canadians in need of relief, the value of these supports on people's budgets will rapidly proceed to nothing. They will evaporate quickly if the government does nothing to rein in its own costs.
Conservatives have been talking about precisely where the government could reduce costs, which would directly help to reduce the inflation that is shredding the value of people's paycheques and household budgets. It could cancel its $35-billion Canada Infrastructure Bank, which has yet to build a single road, bridge or rail line. It could drop the ArriveCAN app entirely today. It could save $25 million right now and scrap what I call the “ArriveCAN'T” app.
The government could use a one-for-one rule: For every dollar spent, find a dollar in savings. It could cancel all planned tax increases, including payroll tax hikes scheduled for January 1 and tax hikes on groceries, gas and home heating scheduled for April 1. It could cancel the escalator excise tax, which is also scheduled for April 1.
Leaving those scheduled increases on the books will be catastrophic to Canadian and small business bank accounts. Let us change course today. The NDP-Liberal bill would only raise Canadian costs, and this is obvious.
Economists are in agreement on this as well. Robert Kavcic, senior economist at the Bank of Montreal, was quoted recently on the government's proposal as saying, “We all know that sending out money as an inflation-support measure is inherently…inflationary.”
Andrey Pavlov at Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business said, “If we have high inflation and that inflation continues, that assistance isn’t going to do very much to help anyone, including the recipients of that assistance. It’s just not going to be enough.”
Derek Holt, vice president and head of capital markets economics at Scotiabank, could not have been clearer: “Any belief that the government's proposals will ease inflationary pressures must have studied different economics textbooks.”
Let us not forget that this legislation is before us only because of the summer rush that the members of the costly NDP-Liberal coalition put on themselves, once again trying to make a parliamentary body of law-making into a short-order kitchen of quick fixes.
The legislation bears all the hallmarks of a bill not thoroughly thought through. If the government members even took the time to glance at most rental listings in British Columbia, they would know that a $500 cheque would represent not much more than a single week's worth of rent.
According to rentals.ca, British Columbia had the highest average rental rate, at $2,578 per month in August 2022. Even if the bill passes, six out of every 10 renters will not qualify for it. In Kelowna—Lake Country, the government's record on rent is clear. According to the CMHC, the average one-bedroom apartment was roughly $900 a month in 2015, when this government was elected. Fast-forward to 2022 and the rental prices have increased 61%, to $1,475.
Instead of a bill that would expand the rental market or offer my constituents an affordable path to home ownership, the government chooses to raise costs even further.
For the government to call the other half of this legislation a dental program is not quite accurate. A program would typically feature an application process. It might coordinate with many provincial, low-income dental care programs. It would actually be a program. Instead, what the government offers is an attestation.
We have seen this attestation process with no verification or cross-referencing before. We have not been told how the CRA will administer this program or what extra staff they will need to administer it. All the government has said is to remember to keep one's dental receipts.
Will people be subject to having the value of this benefit clawed back if the government or the CRA deems them not applicable? My constituency office was inundated with people being told they had to pay back CERB. The government just has not learned.
Once again, the Liberal-NDP coalition is clear on how it wants the government to run: Allow inflation to rise unchecked, take more from Canadians' pockets, circulate it through the government's bureaucracy, and then write cheques that will give only a fraction of it back. It is like a family's financial situation is a sinking boat, and the Liberals throw them a teacup to bail out the boat instead of patching the holes.
We need to put people first.
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