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Member of Parliament

Jasraj Singh Hallan

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Calgary Forest Lawn
  • Alberta
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $131,041.76

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 271 - Jan/30/24
Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)
  • Jan/30/24 11:15:42 a.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-59 
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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