- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Calgary Forest Lawn
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $131,041.76
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, before I get started I would like to say that I am splitting my time with the hon. member from the soup-and-salad bowl of Canada, Mr. Lake Simcoe himself, the hon. member for York—Simcoe.
Thomas Jefferson reportedly said that democracy would cease to exist when you took away from those who were willing and able to work and gave to those who were not.
Speaking from my own experience, coming as an immigrant to this country, my family, like many, came here looking for that Canadian dream that so many are coming to Canada for still. However, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, we know it is not worth the cost. We see now, more than ever, that it is harder, whether for a Canadian or for a newcomer, to survive in this country. It is so much so that more than 400,000 people left Canada just last year. That is not a good sign for any country to think that it can prosper when 400,000-plus people are leaving. I look at the reasons that people are leaving or wanting to leave, and the number one cause is the cost of living. Number two is that their credentials are not being recognized. Both are issues that Conservatives have plans for.
I do not believe that anyone moves to this country thinking that their government will work against them, but when they get here they are proven wrong, time and time again, by the Liberal-NDP government. Their paycheques are attacked; their civil liberties are attacked; their freedom is attacked, and their freedom of speech is attacked over and over again by the Liberal-NDP government. It makes them rethink why they came to this country in the first place.
This is because everything does feel like it is broken here. People are getting taxed more. Their paycheques do not go as far as they used to. They are working harder. They are working so much that many people I have talked to are working two or three jobs. If I talk to anyone in any riding, one thing I am seeing as being more and more of a trend is that more people are picking up Uber jobs or Uber Eats jobs or Skip the Dishes jobs on top of the jobs they are already working. I remember, when growing up, that people would pick up taxi jobs or a job on the side just to make extra money above and beyond whatever their savings were. However, it is sad to see that after eight years of the current Liberal-NDP government, that is a must now, even to pay for the basic necessities just to live here in Canada.
The inflation that was caused by all the spending by the Liberal-NDP government, which continues to spend, made interest rates go up in the last 19 months at the most rapid pace seen in the last 20 years. In fact, the intensity of those rate changes is actually the highest in Canadian history. Because the government spent and wasted so much money, the Governor of the Bank of Canada had to tackle that inflation by raising interest rates.
The government's own housing department officials say that they have no faith in the current government to build the homes that are needed today. In fact, CMHC said in a recent study that homebuilding was actually down 7%. When we look at some of the factors, we see that builders are not building and buyers are not buying, because of those high interest rates. They went up once again, because of the overspending of the Liberal-NDP government.
When we look at Bill C-59, we see that the only thing the government has included with respect to housing is that it changed the housing department's name and increased the funding for more photo ops. There is no concrete action that would be taken to help with housing affordability. After eight years, we have seen rents double and mortgages double, and even the down payment needed for a house has doubled in just eight years.
Canadians pay today over one-third of their income in taxes, and the rest goes to housing, with little or nothing left for groceries, gas and home heating. This is very concerning. People are making their shelter payments, but all the other payments are starting to go more and more onto Canadians' credit cards. Utilities and groceries are going up. Even though people are paying more for groceries, they are getting a lot less in groceries than they used to.
This is because of high taxes, like the carbon tax that made the cost of gas, groceries and home heating go up, which the Liberals plan on quadrupling this year. The household debt in Canada, in totality, is more than the Canadian economy. This is not a good sign for a country where we want people to come and be successful and prosper. We are missing out on a lot of talent that could come here, with new energy and new investment, because Canada is not affordable anymore. It is not a place where people can come and be successful.
Canadians have record credit card debt, and over half are only $200 or less away from going bankrupt. The fact is that more and more people are putting more onto their credit cards. We are hearing horrific stories where students are living under bridges. Working people are living in their cars because they cannot afford housing. Mothers are putting water in their children's milk and parents have to choose less nutritious food because they cannot afford groceries. We are hearing about seniors who are having to wear blankets inside their houses because they cannot afford heat them and have to turn down their heat. That is how they have to get by because of this punitive carbon tax the government continues to raise.
Bankruptcy and insolvency are up. All the increases for small businesses are crippling owners, who are the backbone of our country. The IMF also warns, because of the interest rate hikes, that Canada is most at risk in the G7 for a mortgage default crisis. More than 70,000 mortgages a month are now being renewed, sometimes at double the rate. That could mean anything from a $400 increase to a $1,200 increase. This is not sustainable. With the recent inflation numbers, where inflation is above the target rate, the Governor of the Bank of Canada has been clear that there is a fear of these rates staying higher for longer, which means the pain will be higher for longer. There is no hope in sight. There is no light at the end of this inflationary crisis tunnel we see right now.
When we look at the economy today, after eight years we are in a worse position than we have ever been before. In fact, Canada's economy has contracted, whereas our U.S. partner's has grown. This is because of the bad restrictive policies of the Liberal-NDP government, which have stifled any type of economic growth in our country, let alone productivity or any type of investment that should be made in Canada. Canada is a lot less competitive because of its tax regime, which has held back the country.
The GDP per person is a determining factor for how successful each person is in Canada, and it has been declining since September 2022. Canada is last in the OECD for GDP per capita. GDP per capita today is lower than it was in the last half of 2018, which means five years of the wealth of Canadians has been completely wiped out.
Taxes are high. The tax code is too complicated. Taxes have been taken from working Canadians and their families for Liberals to give to their insider friends, consultants, bankers, bondholders, Liberal Bay Street buddies, bureaucrats and woke multinational corporations to advance the Liberal virtue signalling and its unjust job-killing transition.
Canadians are being forced to go to food banks more than ever because of the productivity gap and more taxes. While the Liberal-NDP government thinks the government is the solution, we believe people are the solution, and we need to give them the freedom to spend and to earn the way they want to, not restrict them.
Once we have a strong Conservative government under our Conservative leader, we are going to bring home those powerful paycheques again and an economy that is strong like it once was before, where the GDP per capita works for more and more people and where powerful paycheques will become a reality, because what people earn, they will be able to keep more of it in their pockets. We are going to keep it simple by doing four things to bring it home. We are going to axe the tax, we are going to build the homes, we are going to fix the budget and we are going to stop the crime.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to be splitting my time with my good friend and colleague, the great member for Foothills, who is from the great province of Alberta.
Before I get started, let me give another shout-out to another fellow Albertan, another colleague in this House who has done incredible work on this unjust legislation, the member for Lakeland. She has been an absolute advocate not only for our province but also for our world-class and world-leading energy sector.
The world needs more clean, responsible low-carbon energy. Not only does the world need Canada's world-class energy, but Canadians need it too. They need it not only to heat their homes, keep the lights on and fuel their vehicles, but for the economic benefit it brings.
After eight years of the incompetent Liberal-NDP government, it is just not worth the cost for Canadians or our resource sector. Canada is last among developed countries for GDP per capita growth. Canadians are suffering with the worst GDP per capita growth rate since the Great Depression, or since the 1930s. GDP per person in Canada today is just under what it was halfway through 2018. That means Canada has had five years' worth of economic productivity wiped out.
According to the OECD, Canada will remain last among developed countries for GDP per capita growth through 2060. The government has been doing one thing really well, which is chasing investment out of our country. As our leader once said, all of our exes are running away to Texas.
The costly Liberal-NDP coalition has not just been chasing investment out of our country, but chasing out jobs, people and talent as well. People do not want to move to this country because they do not see a future here anymore. When my family came here as immigrants, there was a hope in Canada that if one put in hard work, one would be able to see the fruits of that labour. However, after years of the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister, all that hope has been wiped away by bad economic policy that has told the world that Canada is not open for business anymore.
This unjust legislation would further hurt Canada's economy and reputation on the world stage, as if the Prime Minister's reputation has not already damaged Canada enough.
The Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada was formed just a few years ago to advocate against the government's anti-competitive and antiworker policies. Now half of its manufacturer members have already moved or are moving their operations out of Canada.
The green industry in Canada will not even make a dent in the kind of economic development and growth needed for recovery. In 2007, the clean-tech sector was 3% of Canada's GDP. Today, even after billions and billions of tax dollars and government subsidies and billions more in private sector investment, it is still only 3%, and 1.6% of employment.
Despite the anti-energy agenda by the Liberal-NDP government, the unconstitutional “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69, the tanker ban bill, Bill C-48, cancelling Energy East, cancelling Keystone XL and not building any of the 18 LNG projects proposed when the Prime Minister took office, Canada's energy sector still represents 10% of our GDP and, with the related manufacturing that comes with it, contributes over $120 billion to our economy. Canada needs its energy sector to be strong to attract businesses, investments and jobs in order to get our economic growth and productivity back on track.
The Liberal-NDP government loves nothing more than to vilify profit or the success of large Canadian industries. When it comes to Canada's energy sector, it is like a sport for the left to see who can hate it the most. There is a big cost to these failed Liberal-NDP policies, these anti-energy and anti-Canada policies. These attacks will throw at least 170,000 people out of work across the country, many of them in my home province of Alberta and many in my riding of Calgary Forest Lawn. They will displace another 450,000 workers and risk the livelihoods of 2.7 million Canadians in all provinces and sectors, regardless of whether they are working class or middle class.
We know that people would lose jobs with the unjust transition the left is proposing. We already saw it in Ontario under Kathleen Wynne with the green energy program, which killed off nearly 100,000 jobs directly. The 50,000 green jobs those Liberals promised to create never materialized. In Alberta, the Rachel Notley NDP, in 2015, implemented a just transition, and in small mining towns like Hanna, just north of Calgary, workers were promised new green jobs once their coal mining jobs were wiped out. Just as in Ontario, over 1,000 workers left town because the jobs that had been promised were not there. This was in a town of just under 3,000 people, and 1,000 were driven out of work and out of town.
The sheer number of job losses we are talking about on a national scale is devastating, especially at a time when Canadians face a cost of living crisis. Sixty per cent of Canadians are choosing cheaper, less nutritious food because they cannot afford healthy options. Millions of Canadians are visiting food banks as families choose between keeping a roof over their head and keeping food on the table. Nearly a third of mortgage holders are concerned they will not be able to afford their mortgage, as interest rates could increase monthly payments by 40% or higher.
It is not just the jobs, livelihoods and communities that suffer when the Liberal-NDP government attacks our energy industry. It is also hurting Canadian pensions. The Canadian pension plan and Ontario pension plan invest billions in Canada's oil and gas sector because they know it is a good return on investment. In fact, seven of the largest pension funds in Canada remain invested in Canadian oil and gas. By firing energy workers and attacking our world-class energy sector, the Liberal-NDP coalition is attacking the retirement security of Canadian seniors and workers.
There is a huge impact of this unjust transition on communities and Canadians. There is nothing fair, equitable or remotely just in this blatant anti-energy attack. The Liberal-NDP government, with its war on Canadian jobs and paycheques, is not worth the cost. Canadian energy companies provide good-paying jobs, even good union jobs, for Canadians.
As an example, the Keystone XL pipeline project was to employ 1,400 direct and 5,400 indirect jobs in Alberta alone. The province and TC Energy partnered with Natural Law Energy, an indigenous-led and indigenous-run company. Many of the Canadians who worked on the project were indigenous. The economic benefit for Albertans in surrounding rural communities kept people employed and businesses running.
Canadian energy companies are also leaders in the investment and development of clean technology. Seventy-five per cent of private sector investment in clean technology comes from the oil and gas sector.
Canada's energy sector contributes $48 billion in taxes and royalties to all levels of government. These continuous attacks on our energy sector drive up the cost of gas, groceries and home heating. We do not need to go very far to ask a Canadian about that. We have talked to Canadians all across this country who just last winter were hit with the failed policies of the Liberal-NDP government when we saw the cost of heating homes double and saw gas prices at record levels. All of these things are contributing to the cost of living crisis we see today with the failed carbon tax scam that the Liberal-NDP government continues to introduce.
It was not like this before the Liberal-NDP government and it will not be like that after the Liberal-NDP government, because when the member for Carleton becomes prime minister of this country, we are going to bring it home. Conservatives will bring home energy production to Canada to produce energy here and create jobs to get Canadians good paycheques instead of giving dollars to dictators. We will green-light green projects like tidal water, hydro, hydrogen and LNG. We are going to make sure that we support our seniors by axing the failed carbon tax to bring down the cost of gas, groceries and home heating and bring home lower prices. We are going to bring it home for Canadians.
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- Jun/1/23 1:15:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to be splitting my time with my amazing colleague and good friend, the member for Sarnia—Lambton.
It was a scam all along. It was never sold as advertised. This carbon tax scam, in 2015, was sold to Canadians as a scam that the Conservatives called out all along the way.
First Liberals said it was a levy. They said it was a levy for one's Chevy, that they wanted to charge us for driving our Chevys around rural Canada to get from job site to job site and job site to home. They said that it would make Canadians better off. That was the other scam they sold with carbon tax scam 1.0. They said that Canadians would get more into their pockets than what they paid. That was the scam.
Thank God we have a public budgeting officer. Who should we believe? Should we believe the public budgeting officer the Liberals appointed themselves or should we believe a drama teacher, the Prime Minister, who has the most scandals of any prime minister in Canada's history?
Should we believe the public budgeting officer, whose job is to tell the truth and expose any scandal or any mistruths being told in any type of reporting or should we believe an environment minister, who is the only one in this House I know of who has been in an orange jumpsuit?
Should we believe the public budgeting officer or should we believe a finance minister who said she would not fuel the flames of inflation and who just months ago took a big $63-billion jerry can of inflation of fuel and threw it on the inflationary fire she started herself?
Who should we believe?
The misinformation continues from the Liberal-NDP costly coalition, which continuously says Canadians get more into their pockets and are much better off. The reality is that after eight years, the carbon tax scam 1.0 is still a scam. It will cost on average every single Canadian household, every struggling Canadian household, around $1,500 each. This is at a time when we see inflation out of control because the Liberal-NDP government spent out of control and spent more money than all governments before it combined, making inflation out of control. We see rents out of control and mortgages unaffordable, going up by the day, because it could not stop spending Canadians' money.
Then the Liberals sold this other scam that it would magically fix the environment and that the weather would start getting better, the more they charged Canadians for this scam. They said that they would be fix all the problems we see around the world with climate. The reality is that was a scam all along too, because Canada ranks 58th out of 63 countries in its climate plan. This is behind China, of all countries, the same country the Prime Minister admires because he admires that basic dictatorship. Although Canada produces much less emissions than China, we are still behind it. That just goes to show how big a scam this was from day one.
Let us now talk about the realities of what Canadians are going through today. As I said, we see inflation out of control. Food inflation is out of control. We see mortgages have doubled since the Liberal-NDP government has taken over. We see rents that are out of control. There is not enough housing. One in five Canadians are skipping meals today because they cannot afford to eat and heat their homes. There are 1.5 million Canadians visiting a food bank in a single month in this country. I could not have imagined when my family and I moved to this country that this would be what Canada is today, a country where one can have two or three jobs and still not be able to afford eating and heating one's home.
Not only has the Liberal-NDP government caused the price of food to go up, it added to that price, because of the carbon tax scam, which has made it more expensive for farmers to grow food, to transport it and to store it at the grocery store. At the end of the day, Canadians are having to pay those costs, at a time when one in four Canadians are saying they have to borrow money to meet their basic necessities. This is not the Canada my family and I moved to so many years ago. Like other immigrants who came here, we were looking for hope, hope for a better future and a government that wanted to support them, not continue to kick them down and take more from them while giving less back.
This carbon tax scam is hurting Canadians and Canadian households. It takes more out of their pockets, leaving them with even less. We see parents and single moms having to choose between being able to afford tutors for their children or feed them nutritious food three times a day at minimum. They are making choices they have never had to make before. What did the Liberal government do? It added a second carbon tax scam on top of it, one without any phony rebates. Now, on average, every single Canadian household in this country is going to spend $2,000 on these carbon tax 1.0 and 2.0 scams combined. This is the Liberal-NDP solution to a problem it created for struggling Canadian households.
Canada is in a dire situation. I will quote some statistics from a representative of the Daily Bread Food Bank who came to the finance committee on May 17. Before the pandemic it saw 60,000 clients a month, during the pandemic it saw 120,000, but in March 2023 it spiked to 270,000 visits.
I will quote Neil Hetherington, from the Daily Bread Food Bank, who stated:
The underlying reasons for this are complex, but I can summarize them in one sentence: People do not have enough income to afford the rapidly rising cost of living.
The Liberal-NDP government not only made housing impossible to find in this country, but its out-of-control spending made mortgages and rents go up. Now it wants to take even more from Canadians who are struggling. It is impossible for anyone to be able to survive today. I have spoken with newcomers who have said that they find it impossible to stay in this country when they came here looking for hope.
Hope is on the horizon. We are going to get rid of these carbon tax 1.0 and 2.0 scams. We are going to make sure we build more green, clean projects in this country to bring down the cost of our energy. We are going to make sure we are supporting families, not taking more from them. We will leave more in their pockets. We are going to bring home more powerful paycheques by lowering prices and making sure we get rid of the carbon tax scam.
We need to make sure our immigrants, newcomers and young people can all see the hope of a better future in this country, and we will see that hope when the member for Carleton becomes the Prime Minister of this country.
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- May/29/23 8:27:23 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I will split my time three ways.
The finance minister said that, by exercising fiscal restraint, she would not pour fuel on the fire of inflation. She did a massive flip-flop from November and added an extra $60 billion of spending in her failed budget. Can she tell Canadian families how much that is going to cost each and every household in Canada?
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Before I move on, Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with a great man, who we call the great boss from the great riding of Beauce.
When my family moved to Canada, there used to be a pretty good deal between Canada and its citizens. Today, after eight years of the Prime Minister and the Liberal-NDP government, that deal feels broken and so does Canada. One in five newcomers to our great country want to pack up and leave.
The number one reason for that is the high cost of living that has been caused by the Liberal-NDP government. It borrowed and spent more money than every single government before it combined. It made interest rates go up and that made the cost-of-living crisis even worse. The government is the architect of this inflationary fire, and the budget has thrown a $69.7-billion jerry can on top of the inflationary fire, which has made things even worse for Canadians.
My family moved here when I was young because we wanted to live the “Canadian dream”. My parents wanted us to have a safer future and a better education. They wanted us to be raised in a country where we could feel safe and where we could raise kids to feel the same way. However, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, that Canadian dream is nothing but a nightmare and a broken dream today.
Newcomers should want to flock to Canada, but Canada is not seen as a country where people can survive. It is not seen as a country that is even open for business. When we look at the budget, productivity is not going to grow because the government has done nothing to help support businesses and create an environment that would have more investment coming to it.
In fact, the number one complaint that we hear is that the regulatory burdens and the economic uncertainty that the government has created does not let good investment and good jobs come to Canada. The government would rather stand under its make-believe ideology on things like the job-killing carbon tax, which is driving people away. It is driving costs up. It is making everything more expensive, and Canadians are suffering for that.
Canada is one of the last destinations people want to come to today. That is clear when we hear that one out of five newcomers want to pack up and leave.
We can look at some of the disastrous policies that have caused so much pain on Canadians today.
Let us look at housing. When we moved to Canada, it was reasonable to find a house. Someone could get a job and put in the hard work. That was the deal Canada used to have. If people worked hard, they would see the fruits of their labour. That deal is broken today. Nine out of 10 young people say that affording a home is just a pipe dream now because of the rising cost of living.
Who can save for a down payment? Down payments have doubled. People have to spend double just to for a down payment on a house now. Rents and mortgages have doubled under the Prime Minister, after eight years of failed housing policies. It is impossible for young people to move out of their parents' basements today because of eight years of failed housing policies.
How does a government spend $89 billion on housing and the outcome is that rents and mortgages have doubled, and nine out of 10 young people say they will never be able to afford a home? How does a government spend so much to accomplish so little? It is on par for that government. It shows its incompetence every day. It does not stand with the common person. It does not want to make the lives of people easier. If it did, it would not have jacked up the cost of the failed carbon tax. It has accomplished so little on that as well.
We finally have an environment minister who admitted that the government misled Canadians all along about the failed carbon tax scam. For years, the government said that it was going to make the lives of people better. For years, it said that Canadians would get more back from this carbon tax scam in so-called carbon pricing rebates than what they would pay into it. We now have the Liberal environment minister admitting that this was misleading all along.
We requested a report from the PBO report and that report confirmed that more Canadians would pay more out of pocket in this scam than what they would get back in these phoney rebates. It is time for the Liberal-NDP government to stop causing Canadians, farmers and producers pain. It needs to scrap this scam, axe the carbon tax and let Canadians survive.
If we look at the price of groceries today, we see how the carbon tax has impacted how expensive they are getting. The government has done nothing to help with the inflation it has caused. It not only has caused this inflation, but it keeps adding more fuel to the fire, and the carbon tax is a clear example of that when we look at the price of groceries.
When me and my family, and many other newcomers, came to this country, we could not have imagined that in a single month 1.5 million Canadians would be visiting a food bank, a third of whom are children. One-in-five Canadians are skipping meals. One-in-five Canadians are saying that they are completely out of money. This is not the Canada that me and my family envisioned when we moved here.
However, hope is on the horizon. We have a new Conservative leader who will turn this hurt that the Liberal-NDP government caused Canadians into hope. We are going to do many things, the first of which is to get rid of the Liberal-NDP government. We are going to ensure that we bring home powerful Canadian paycheques. We are going to bring home lower prices for Canadians. We are going to get rid of this job-killing, failed carbon tax scam. Most important, we are going to bring in more homes that our young people and many others can afford. We are going to get the gatekeepers out of the way. We are going to ensure that Canadians keep more of their hard-earned paycheques in their pockets so they can make their own decisions and bring back the freedom our country so much deserves.
The Conservatives will restore safety to our streets, so people do not feel they are going to be attacked randomly. We keep seeing violent crime on the increase after eight years of the government. We need to bring home common-sense solutions for the common people. We need to return Canada to a place where we have elected officials who work for the people, who understand their pain and do not cause more pain. That is exactly what the Conservatives will do when our new Conservative leader, the member for Carleton, becomes the Prime Minister of Canada. We will return Canada to being the freest nation in the world.
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- Feb/14/23 10:16:38 a.m.
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moved:
That, given that,
(i) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, inflation is at a 40-year high,
(ii) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, the cost of groceries is up 11%,
(iii) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, half of Canadians are cutting back on groceries,
(iv) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, 20% of Canadians are skipping meals,
(v) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment across Canada’s 10 biggest cities is $2,213 per month, compared to $1,171 per month in 2015,
(vi) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, 45% of variable rate mortgage holders say they will have to sell or vacate their homes in less than nine months due to current interest rate levels,
(vii) after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, average monthly mortgage costs have more than doubled and now cost Canadians over $3,000 per month,
(viii) the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, has said that “inflation in Canada increasingly reflects what’s happening in Canada”,
(ix) the former Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, has said: “But really now inflation is principally a domestic story”,
(x) former Liberal finance minister, Bill Morneau, has said that the government probably spent too much during COVID,
(xi) former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, John Manley, said that the Liberal Prime Minister’s fiscal policy is making it harder to contain inflation,
the House call on the government to cap spending, cut waste, fire high-priced consultants and eliminate inflationary deficits and taxes that have caused a cost-of-living crisis for Canadians.
He said: Madam Speaker, Biggie Smalls once said, “Mo Money Mo Problems”. With the Liberal government, it seems like the more the Liberals tax, spend and waste Canadians' money, the more problems Canadians have.
After eight years of the incompetent Liberal government and its economic mismanagement, Canadians are feeling the pain. A 40-year high in inflation, high interest rates, and tripling taxes have led to Canadians running out of money.
Even before COVID hit Canada, the Prime Minister was spending record amounts on consultants and his Liberal insider friends. On top of all that, there was $100 billion in deficit spending. Of course, the spending has never ended. During COVID, the government felt good about adding half a trillion to the national debt, 40% of which had nothing to do with COVID spending.
We know now that the Prime Minister's nearly $700-billion spending spree has been more about helping insiders than actually supporting Canadians. Instead of making life better, the Prime Minister spends $15 billion a year on high-priced consultants with whom he has personal connections. Lucrative contracts have gone to companies like SNC-Lavalin and the WE Charity, as well as a company run by former Liberal MP Frank Baylis. He flushed Canadians' money down the toilet each time just to make his friends richer.
The Auditor General has even reported that $32 billion went to subsidizing criminals, foreign nationals and even dead people. Will the government get Canadians' tax dollars back from the people who should not have gotten them? Of course not. Is it going to be knocking on those coffins or tombstones to ask for the money back? The CRA seems more interested in going after law-abiding, living, breathing Canadians than Liberal-friendly corporations and criminals.
No wonder everything feels broken in this country today. Even our health care, airports and trains are a mess, and standard government services like passports or immigration are so backlogged it will take years to undo the damage once the Conservatives take over.
The cost-of-living crisis in this country is only getting worse. Inflation remains three times higher than the Bank of Canada's 2% target. Grocery prices are inflating by 11% every single month, and Canadians cannot afford home heating even if they can afford a home.
The fiscal policies of the Liberal government have left Canadians in a hole. The Prime Minister, who admits he does not think about monetary policy, is clearly not thinking of fiscal policy either. The result of hundreds of billions of dollars being added to the national debt is that the government has created inflation, which has taken the money out of everyday Canadians' pockets. It has taken the food out of Canadians' mouths and the roof from over their head, and the possibility of retirement is now just a dream. Now one in five Canadians is out of money, skipping meals, or accessing charities for help just for basic necessities; 60% of Canadians are cutting back on groceries, while 41% are looking for cheaper, less nutritious options.
Even if people can get their grocery bill down, the Liberal government's inflation is making everything else expensive. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment across Canada's 10 biggest cities is $2,213 a month, compared to $1,171 a month in 2015. That is an almost 90% increase in rent. One of the issues complicating the price of renting is the need for more supply. Inflation has made the price of building housing units substantially more expensive while increasing red tape and taxes, disincentivizing builders from creating much-needed units.
Canada is becoming a nation of renters. According to RBC, the number of renters has increased at three times the rate of the number of homeowners in just the past 10 years. It is not only young Canadians who are increasingly turning to rent. The shift to renting is across age groups and geographic areas. RBC is projecting that the rapid growth in renters is not going to slow down, and it is clear that the home affordability crisis plays a significant role in that. The number of new homes completed in a year has increased only by 13% from 2015 to 2022.
I am glad to share my time with the great member for Simcoe North.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says that if the current rates of new construction continue, housing supply will increase only by 2.3 million units between 2021 and 2030. CMHC projects that Canada must construct an additional 3.5 million units by 2030 to restore house price affordability.
What is most concerning to me is the lack of understanding that the government has of Canada's housing supply crisis. Instead, the Liberals continue to blame other factors or people for their own failures. We do not import land, workers or many of the supplies needed to build a house. I was in the homebuilding industry before coming to this place. I know first-hand that houses can be built using Canadian lumber, metal and workers. Russia, Ukraine and China do not play a part in that, yet house prices have doubled and Canada has the fifth-biggest housing bubble.
While home prices have come down from the crazy highs of last year, they are still significantly higher than prepandemic levels. The government's solution is to give tax credits and handouts, which do not address the housing supply issue, and provide more money to drive home prices. Even if homebuilders can meet the need for 5.8 million new units by 2030, Canadians still face high mortgage costs and diminished purchasing power.
Inflation has decimated paycheques and for first-time homebuyers, paying for a new home is daunting. As of 2021, Canadians would have to spend over half of their disposable income to purchase a home, and that number is only growing. Mortgages are now costing Canadians 60% to 70% of their paycheque and, at the same time, banks continue to raise mortgage payments to respond to the eight consecutive rate hikes by the Bank of Canada. Over 80% of homeowners with a variable rate mortgage have hit the point where their mortgage payment is made entirely of just interest and none of that on the principal.
I hear from industry experts and people in the financial sector that they are already seeing a rise in the number of people turning in their keys and defaulting on their mortgages, a sign that we are dangerously close to repeating the Pierre Trudeau era. The ratio of household debt to disposable income is at an all-time high of 183%, proving that Canadians are over-leveraged amidst the Liberals' overspending. Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem is using this as a reason for pausing interest rates, despite him and the current finance minister telling Canadians it was okay to spend and borrow as much as they liked because interest rates were going to be so low for so long.
Now, when Canadians face this affordability crisis and high inflation and interest rates, Governor Macklem and the finance minister seem unconcerned with the potential for a debt default crisis. Instead, the Liberals are so ignorant that they keep spending on inflationary waste like their insider consultant contracts.
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- Mar/29/22 10:17:13 a.m.
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moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration presented on Thursday, March 3, 2022, be concurred in.
He said: Mr. Speaker, today we are asking the House to agree to the report from the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration recommending that Canada implement visa-free travel from Ukraine to Canada, including by the rapid issuance of electronic travel authorization and by increasing staff so that the existing immigration backlog is not further impacted by this crisis.
This motion was passed at committee with the support of all opposition members. I hope the government will support this necessary step, as it voted against it when we brought it up at committee.
I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
We are all horrified at the events unfolding in Ukraine. The unprovoked Russian invasion of a sovereign country and a friend of Canada is disgusting. In this time of need, Canadians across the country have organized to provide aid. They offer their homes to Ukrainians who come to Canada and they raise money to support people in refugee centres in Europe and those who arrive here with almost nothing. That is the generosity of Canadians. Ukrainians fleeing war are looking for safety and a place to work and live where their kids can be kids.
Countries next to Ukraine, such as Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Moldova, have taken in millions of refugees. UNHCR estimates that the total number of refugees is now over 3.8 million, and over 6.5 million people are internally displaced in their own country. Poland is at a point where its infrastructure cannot take much more, yet these countries continue to open their homes and communities. They provide aid and military assistance to Ukraine, all while standing up for freedom against Russian aggression.
This refugee crisis is on a scale that the world has not seen since World War II. The gravity of the situation is not lost on anyone. We see the images of bombed-out cities, bodies of women and children lying on the street and the war crimes committed by a regime wanting to recreate the Soviet Union. Back in January, the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake and I wrote to the Minister of Immigration, asking him to prepare for the invasion and the refugee crisis. We reiterated the Conservatives' call for visa-free travel for Ukrainians and their families. I will note that the Bloc and the NDP support this measure and have been calling for it as well.
With all of the pain and suffering that Ukrainians are going through and the pressure building in neighbouring countries, the current immigration system and the pathway need to change. The Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel has not improved the situation for Ukrainians. It is no secret that people applying for a temporary resident visa through this program are still stuck in IRCC's historic Liberal-made backlog of almost two million applications. I am hearing stories from Ukrainians and their families who are completely frustrated by the red tape and bureaucracy affecting people hoping to come to Canada. The new program is based on the existing temporary resident visa program. That means people still need biometrics and need to apply for a visa online. In their time of need, the current government asks Ukrainians to meet the same standards as an immigrant coming to Canada from a country without war. People who do not have computers or access to the Internet or who have limited access to those things are not in a position to have to deal with IRCC and its bureaucracy.
Look at what happened in Afghanistan. When the government opened up special measures, people had to submit everything electronically. In the middle of the Taliban taking over, refugees had to go to an Internet café, pay, print out documents, fill them out, scan them and email them. After Kabul fell, NGOs such as Ark Salus set up safe houses for people to do this paperwork, but to date, thousands of Afghans who worked for the Government of Canada in Afghanistan or as interpreters with the Canadian Forces are still stranded and in harm's way.
The government's lack of foresight, planning and coordination was on full display in Afghanistan. In the letter to the minister, we asked him and the government to develop a response to Ukraine that coordinated with national defence and public safety. The government failed to plan for the fall of Kabul, and Ukrainians cannot afford to have the Liberals make the same mistake Canada made in Afghanistan. When the government finally released its new program for Ukrainians, I knew the minister did not listen. He did not listen to the official opposition, the Bloc, the NDP or even Ukrainians who are here in Canada.
Visa-free travel is a simple ask that we are all making. We knew that if IRCC left a bureaucratic process in place, it would be like watching August 2021 all over again.
Canada is home to over 1.4 million people with Ukrainian heritage. Thousands of Canadians have family who are or were living in Ukraine. Our country is home to the second-largest diaspora of Ukrainians in the world. That means many people who are escaping the war and want to come to Canada are friends and family of people already here.
When I moved the motion calling for visa-free travel from Ukraine, the Liberal members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration said no, giving security as the reason, but if Russian sympathizers or spies were trying to come to Canada, our biometric system would not catch them anyway. The minister said so himself at committee on March 3, 2022. The minister said that about 80% of applicants caught for criminality are caught because of biometrics. The member for Lac-Saint-Jean asked the minister if that means that 80% of pro-Russian Ukrainians are detected through biometrics, and the minister said, “No.”
If biometrics are not as useful as the government wants everyone to believe, why force Ukrainians to go through the bureaucratic mess that the government created? Anyone coming into Canada who is not already a permanent resident or citizen still has their name checked against international and criminal databases. In addition, they still have to submit their passport to get an electronic travel authorization, and everyone entering Canada has to go through customs. That is not to mention that the vast majority of Ukrainians who have left the country are women, children and seniors who cannot stay and fight.
Then the story changed. The minister said he did not do visa-free travel because it would take too long. He said:
I realized that certain regulatory changes would need to be made. ...The timeline to implement that would take 12 to 14 weeks, and I didn't think we had 12 to 14 weeks. We'll be able to stand up a new system much faster.
That statement has come back to bite the government, especially now. People applying for visas are waiting anywhere from three weeks to six months to get a biometrics appointment at a visa application centre in Europe, let alone have their application even processed.
Mike O'Leary, a Canadian ex-pat, fled Ukraine with his family into Poland. He has been trying to bring his family back to Edmonton but cannot, because an overloaded system is holding up his application.
Tetiana is a former military interpreter who worked with the Canadian Forces before the war. She is in Poland and is waiting to do biometrics. She got the letter from IRCC with instructions on how to schedule an appointment. Still, she can find free spots in neighbouring countries only for July of 2022. Her friend applied on the first day the new program was opened and could only get an appointment for April 5, three weeks after she applied.
Konrad, a Ukrainian Canadian, contacted my office about his family in Ukraine. They were under siege in the south of the country. His family and their neighbours lost everything. His family managed to leave and get to Bucharest. They applied for the new program the day it opened and could only get an appointment for April 28, 2022, over a month from the day that they applied. He asked, “What is the meaning of 'emergency' in the title of this measure if the refugees have to the use the same procedure as study permits, regular economic immigration, work permits and tourist visas?”
He has a point. Why are Ukrainians stuck in a system that is already nearly two million people deep in backlogs when they are just looking for safety from a war inflicted on them?
That is why I brought this motion to the immigration committee. That is why I stand here today asking that the government not leave our friends and family trapped in red tape. We need to have visa-free travel for Ukrainians fleeing war, and they need it now.
I want to thank the hon. members from the Bloc and the NDP who voted to pass this motion at committee. I urge all members in this House to do the right thing for people escaping the Russian invasion and vote in favour of visa-free travel.
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- Dec/7/21 1:36:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is my first time rising in this Parliament, so I would like to thank all of the wonderful people of Calgary Forest Lawn for putting their trust in me and sending me to this wonderful place to be their voice. I am thankful for all of the support from my family and everyone else who got me here.
I rise today in support of this important motion. The fall of Afghanistan was tragic, and the tragedy is still unfolding today. The U.S. made no secret of their troops' withdrawal. It was only a matter of time before the Taliban would advance through the country once American soldiers were out of the way.
When the U.S. made that announcement, veterans, NGOs and experts warned governments around the world that Afghan interpreters, support staff and their families were in urgent need, yet at the time that Kabul fell, Canada had no active plan to respond to the deteriorating situation.
The government conveniently hid behind the excuse of national security while our NATO allies were launching full-scale evacuation operations to get their citizens, and Afghans who had supported them, out of the conflict zone.
It has been about four months since Kabul fell, and we finally saw the first plane of privately sponsored refugees come to Canada last week. After almost 120 days, the government has yet to put a plan or a timeline in place for fulfilling its promise to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees. The government has had months to prepare, months since the U.S. began its withdrawal and months since the Taliban took over the country. To say the situation in Afghanistan is dire would be an understatement. There are increasing food shortages, little to no access to money, and travel outside the country is severely limited.
The Taliban is actively hunting anyone who supported NATO and Canadian forces. The regime is arresting religious minorities, including Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Hazaras and Ahmadiyya Muslims, and charging them with blasphemy, putting their innocent lives at risk and, in some cases, resulting in death. Women's rights leaders, LGBTQ people, pro-democracy activists and anyone who dares to speak out against the Taliban are harassed, tortured and killed. Vulnerable Afghans are stranded in Afghanistan, watching their friends, family and neighbours arbitrarily arrested or summarily shot in the street.
In the middle of the Taliban takeover, the Prime Minister called an unnecessary and unwarranted election. He dissolved Parliament and with it, any accountability his government would have had to face. Whenever we ask the minister of immigration what his government is going to do to address this disaster, he has said that it is complicated, that they did not have enough information and that they are working on it.
Do members know what is hard? Hard is when a person has to hide in the country they fought for, knowing they are on a list and being hunted by a regime with historical ties to some of the most horrific terrorists in history. Hard is living in a country without money or food, unable to feed one's family, practice one's religion or speak one's mind. That is hard.
The government had months to plan for, and now months to evacuate, those who served alongside our forces and in our embassy. Now it makes excuses and talks about a big commitment to settle 40,000 refugees in Canada. Like other Liberal promises, this one will surely be left behind, just as the government left people stranded at the airport.
The situation has only become more urgent after the data breach at IRCC, which released hundreds of Afghan refugees' personal information. When I wrote to the privacy commissioner calling for an investigation, I knew that the government would do nothing about this. I welcome the privacy commissioner's investigation into this life-threatening data breach, and I hope changes are made by the government to prevent further leaks of sensitive data. This incident, along with the government's inaction, gives me no confidence that the Prime Minister or his cabinet will do anything.
There seems to be a lack of urgency coming from the Liberals. It is sad. Afghan refugees feel abandoned. They have been stranded in a country with a regime that is hunting them. My inbox is flooded daily with emails from Afghan interpreters and other vulnerable people desperate for help. They are pleading for someone to do anything to help them. Their calls and emails to IRCC go unanswered. They cannot even get an acknowledgement from the department on whether their case is even being processed or not. It is all well and good for the minister to state that they are in the process, but those families have been left completely in the dark, just like the tens of thousands of individuals stuck in the government's massive backlog of applicants.
It is not just those stranded in Afghanistan. This fall, I met with former Afghan interpreters who were resettled in Canada by the previous Conservative government. Now that the Taliban is back in control, they are trying to get their families out and into Canada as soon as possible. They told me stories of how their families were in more danger now than ever. However, IRCC is dragging its feet, leaving these people in the dark.
When the Afghan government fell, there was no time for the public servants to destroy sensitive documents, so the Taliban now has all the information on anyone who served with the International Security Assistance Force, the Afghan military and Canadian Armed Forces. The interpreters, proud of their service in the war, had shared photos and stories on social media. The Taliban took that information too.
Since the Taliban began retaking Afghanistan, they have used any information they can get their hands on to find, target, arrest, torture and kill anyone who served with us and our allies in the war. If the Taliban cannot find the interpreters or support staff, they target their families.
The Taliban send the interpreters messages and emails threatening their families, their parents, siblings, spouses and children. When they realize that the interpreter is in Canada, they begin killing the interpreter’s family members. The government’s answer to this desperate situation is to offer to prioritize family sponsorship applications, the same applications that are in massive backlogs and that were not being processed throughout the pandemic.
I have personally experienced first-hand the inaction and bureaucratic disaster of the Liberal government. In 2015, I helped to sponsor an Afghan family to come to Canada. The family members are religious minorities who were persecuted by the very people who now control Afghanistan.
Before I continue, Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention I will be splitting my time with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.
My older brother, the late Manmeet Singh Bhullar, started an amazing initiative to bring those persecuted Sikhs and Hindus refugees over here. It took four years for the Liberal government to bring those who were heavily persecuted to Canada. This included young women and girls who were being targeted as they walked to school. They were being forced into conversion and forced marriages, and the civil government sat around for four years.
We see the same thing today. It is all due to the bureaucratic, Liberal-made backlog that is causing so many families harm. In this case, it is costing lives. Today, 1.8 million applications are backlogged, waiting to be processed. Families are behind those backlogs. It is hurting families and costing lives.
Let us think of the refugees who are ignored by the government and are left hoping for private sponsorship. If the private sponsorship only happens every few years during an election year, how can anyone say the government is not abandoning these refugees?
I want to take this opportunity to thank all the veterans and active-duty soldiers in Canada, first for their service and second for their tireless efforts in trying to get Afghan interpreters and their families over to Canada after the Taliban took over. It is because of them, other Canadians and people around the world that Afghan refugees are getting out.
These brave veterans have partnered with NGOs to fill the void left by the government. That first plane of Afghan refugees who finally made it to Canada was only possible because of veterans and private citizens who took the initiative and acted. That is why we need to pass this motion to finally get to the bottom of the disaster that has unfolded in Afghanistan and to not let our soldiers’ sacrifice be in vain.
We need to finally act and evacuate those Afghan refugees abandoned by the government. Families of people still stuck in Afghanistan tell me that they live in constant fear, afraid every time the phone rings. They are afraid that it will be the call telling them their loved ones have been killed by the Taliban.
Enough is enough. We must pass this motion to hold the government to account and get to the bottom of its failures. We are a country that prides itself on being peacekeepers, defenders of democracy and a land of opportunity. Now is our opportunity to do the right thing.
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