- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Kelowna—Lake Country
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $131,412.70
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Huron—Bruce.
Just before I begin debate, I would like to wish a happy graduation to my niece. She has worked hard and deserves all life has to offer, and Auntie Tracy is proud of her.
I rise today on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country to speak to the 2024 budget, one of the most consequential pieces of legislation the House of Commons debates every year. This is now the ninth year the NDP-Liberal government has chosen to run deficits in its budget. I was in my community all last week meeting with businesses and not-for-profit organizations and attending all kinds of events. I had days with back-to-back meetings with people who reached out. Not one person said they were happy with the Liberals' budget.
One resident said the budget is like throwing spaghetti at a wall. Another said her family has lived in the Okanagan for generations and now the whole extended family is considering leaving Canada as no one can get ahead. Another person explained how moderately successful people who have worked hard and followed all the rules are being crushed by the government. A small business owner said, “So much for building up my small business to fund my retirement.”
For nine years, the Liberal government, propped up by the NDP, chose together to double the size of the federal debt, which is on track to lead to a generational debt crisis for the children of today and tomorrow. Together, those parties chose to support expensive, third-party consultants, at the same time as seeing a decline in accountability in federal department services, with many departments not meeting their own minimum service standards. They chose together to increase taxes, including the carbon tax, excise tax and payroll tax.
What are the results of the Liberals being propped up by the NDP? It is a cost of living crisis that is destroying the spending power of working-class families and causing a record number of Canadians to have to go to the food bank. People are losing hope.
After nine years of the Prime Minister, it now takes the same amount of time to save for a down payment on the average home that it used to take to pay it off. People have a lower quality of life than previous generations. People have more mental health and addiction issues than at any time in the past.
I was hopeful that the Liberal ministers, in their ninth year of government, might listen to Canadians.
Conservatives were clear about what we wanted in this budget in order to support it. We wanted the government to axe the tax on farmers and food by immediately passing Bill C-234 in its original form, which would give farmers in my community and across the country much-needed tax relief. We wanted the Liberals to build homes, not bureaucracy, by requiring cities to permit 15% more homebuilding each year as a condition for receiving federal infrastructure funding. We wanted the government to cap its wasteful spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation, which presently impacts Canadians in many ways, including mortgage renewals.
Just like a family managing its household budget, Ottawa should always look to find a dollar in savings before looking for a dollar in new spending. Sadly, the NDP-Liberal government did not meet any of these common-sense requests. The finance minister has again chosen the same inflationary deficits that have pushed Canadians into a cost of living crisis.
In listening to the Minister of Finance present her budget, I was particularly struck by one line. In her budget speech, the Minister of Finance discussed the importance of not passing on ballooning debt to our children. That is exactly what the budget does.
That is what the NDP-Liberal government has been doing for nine years; just look at the numbers. Budget 2024 forecasts that the federal debt will rise to $1.2 trillion this year and the interest Canadians will pay in servicing that debt will increase to $54 billion this fiscal year. That is more than the government intends to spend on provincial health care transfers.
The budget also shows that the government raised $51 billion in revenue from GST last year. That means that every cent of GST that every Canadian, business or not-for-profit organization may pay on the products and services they buy will not go toward a single government service program. It does not matter if someone buys a key chain or a car. If they pay the government GST, it will not be used to pay for roads, health care or armed forces. Instead, that amount will be used solely to pay the interest on the government's credit card.
Canada is not paying down its debt. Canada is paying the interest on our debt, while the debt still grows. That means these payments will only increase by a projected $54 billion again next year, $57 billion the year after, $60 billion after that and $64 billion after that. From now until the end of this decade, taxpayers will provide the government with $289 billion, which would not be used to pay for any public services Canadians depend on.
As the shadow minister for persons with disabilities, I have been greatly concerned with the government's string of broken promises regarding the Canada disability benefit, which all parties in the House supported. The Liberal Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities will not even acknowledge that persons with disabilities are in a cost of living crisis.
I asked her three times yesterday at the human resources committee, and the most she would say is that it has been “a challenging time”. We heard testimony during the Canada disability benefit legislation at the human resources committee that persons with disabilities were considering medical assistance in dying because they could not afford to live.
The Liberal government's pushing off implementation until late into 2025, with a peek into the limited regulations and amounts that might be, saw widespread backlash from my local residents and from national groups representing persons with disabilities. Many persons with disabilities are already among the hardest hit by the cost of living crisis, but apparently the minister does not agree.
Five years of Liberal minister photo ops and announcements on this benefit have produced another broken promise. Ironically, the NDP-Liberal government's 2024 budget title is “Fairness for Every Generation.” Skyrocketing federal debt will consume more of our tax dollars, while potentially threatening future social, environmental or security initiatives. This is not worth the cost to any generation, and it certainly is not fair to young adults and kids who will bear the brunt of paying the debt down.
This unwavering commitment to higher debt and deficits has characterized the Liberal government's last nine years. We have seen a doubling of rent, mortgage payments and down payments. There are reports of people not meeting the mortgage stress test and having to sell their homes to rent, only to find rent to be more expensive than their mortgage payment. It is a real concern that there is a big wave of both residential and commercial renewals coming this summer. Insolvencies are already increasing.
This budget projects unemployment to rise to 6.5% this year. Despite the employment minister telling us, at the human resources committee in December, that he had a plan to address it. We have not seen that plan.
All these issues are not coincidences. They are the consequences of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal deficits driving up costs.
David Dodge, the former Liberal-appointed governor of the Bank of Canada, said that this budget is the worst he has seen since 1982. The previous finance minister, Bill Morneau, has also criticized it. The Bank of Canada and former Liberal finance minister, John Manley, both confirmed that the federal Liberal government's deficit spending was pressing on the inflationary gas pedal, forcing the Bank of Canada to balloon interest rates.
Liberal ministers have been travelling the country to create photo ops for their new spending. However, new spending outlined in budget 2024 would not meaningfully impact consumer costs if inflation is not brought under control, therefore, lowering interest rates. The government, at the same time, continues to increase taxes. Rising food and gas prices are predicted to rise through 2024.
I have no confidence in the government. My Conservative colleagues and I will vote against the Liberal government's ninth deficit-and-debt budget.
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- Feb/16/24 11:10:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, the lives of renters, mortgage holders and the unhoused continue to worsen, with crushing costs. The facts speak for themselves. Home prices now outpace incomes by 40%, earning Canada the worst record in the G7. While American rents fall, Canadian rents hit record highs. Canada built fewer homes in 2022 than in 1972, and housing starts were down in 2023. We now have the fewest homes per capita of any country in the G7, despite having the most land to build on.
Ottawa-funded gatekeepers and punitive taxes add hundreds of thousands of dollars of unneeded costs to the construction of each home. Canada's infrastructure funding should be tied to actually building homes. On top of that, we now hear that the radical environment minister does not even want to build new roads.
Our common-sense Conservative plan will ensure that infrastructure dollars go to the municipalities to get their bureaucracies out of the way, to build homes, not bureaucracy.
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- Oct/26/22 3:11:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government continues with wasteful spending. There is WE Charity, storytellers for the Prime Minister, the infrastructure bank, fridges for Loblaws, cheques to Mastercard, the arrive “scam” app and expensive hotels, just to name a few. Hard-working Canadians who send their money to Ottawa are not being respected. Canadians cannot afford this costly coalition.
Will the Liberals end their inflationary spending?
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- Feb/20/22 4:14:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was in the House yesterday when that member yelled across the floor to a colleague of mine from B.C. in the official opposition, asking them something to the effect of how they would feel if something like this was happening in their community.
I just want to remind the member that last year a huge portion of B.C., my riding and neighbouring ridings in particular, had extensive fires, floods, mudslides, lives lost, houses burnt, substantial infrastructure destroyed and livelihoods destroyed. The member talked about having to go through some checkpoints to get to his office; in British Columbia, for many days and weeks, many members of Parliament could not get around their constituencies and could not even get to the airport to come to Ottawa. It just shows a disconnect with what is happening across the rest of the country.
The member is in the government and knows the serious crisis that we had. Just as a reflection, the act defines an emergency as a situation that “seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians”. Based on that, was this member involved last summer, due to the serious situations happening in British Columbia, and did he advocate invoking the Emergencies Act at that time, or is he only considering—
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