- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,486.97
- Government Page
- Oct/16/23 2:59:58 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, a half a billion dollars in inflationary deficits has fuelled 40-year inflation highs, causing the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates. In the midst of a housing crisis, mortgage defaults and forced home sales are on the rise. People are losing their homes.
This Prime Minister is just not worth the cost. Will the Prime Minister finally put an end to his inflationary spending so that Canadians can keep a roof over their heads?
86 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/12/23 3:04:16 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, that is certainly not a very serious answer.
The bank governor is working to rein in inflation by increasing interest rates. At the same time, the Prime Minister's massive $60-billion spending spree is fuelling inflation and has caused yet another interest rate hike just last week. While the Liberals are making the Bank of Canada's job even harder, it is ordinary Canadians who will be dropping their keys off at their banks and saying goodbye to their homes.
Will the Prime Minister put an end to his inflationary deficit spending and let Canadians keep their homes?
101 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/12/23 3:03:04 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious problem. Massive Liberal deficits are fuelling inflation. Inflation causes interest rates to go up. Higher interest rates lead to higher mortgage payments and more mortgage defaults. To stop mortgage defaults, we need to balance the budget, end the big deficits and reduce interest rates.
Will the Prime Minister end his inflationary deficit spending so Canadians can afford to live?
66 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/15/23 2:54:46 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the finance minister plans to spend $490 billion in this budget but is refusing to show up at the finance committee for just two hours to answer questions. The budget would drive every Canadian family another $4,200 into debt. Canada has the fifth-highest increase in government spending and the third-largest increase in our debt-to-GDP ratio. Our debt has increased faster than that of almost every other advanced country. Just last November, the finance minister promised to balance the budget by 2028. In this budget, her deficits go on forever and ever. Why is she breaking that promise?
104 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/27/23 3:00:25 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, former bank governor, Stephen Poloz, now says that Liberal deficit spending drove up inflation. The current bank governor said the same thing last fall. If he will not listen to us, maybe the Prime Minister will listen to the bank governors.
Inflationary Liberal spending and taxes drive up the cost of everything. People cannot afford to eat or even heat their homes. To make matters worse, now the Liberals are going to triple the carbon tax.
I have a simple question. Will the Prime Minister commit to no new taxes?
99 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/7/22 3:08:13 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, we have seen $52 billion in new inflationary spending and $500 billion in deficits in just two years. Yesterday the Auditor General reported that $32 billion in overpayments and suspicious payments just went out the door. The Governor of the Bank of Canada said that if Liberal spending had been less, inflation would have been lower, and today interest rates went up by another half a per cent.
The Prime Minister's big spending is now hurting Canadians. Will he stop the spending, stop the waste and get inflation under control finally?
94 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/24/22 3:05:32 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the reality is that 40% of spending that took place during the pandemic, according to the government's own appointed Parliamentary Budget Officer, had absolutely zero to do with the pandemic. The member's response is cold comfort for those who cannot afford to heat their homes because of the carbon tax or cannot afford to stay in their homes because of interest rates, or cannot afford groceries because of inflation. The fact of the matter is that the Governor of the Bank Canada has now confirmed what we all feared: excessive government spending is the cause of made-in-Canada inflation.
Will the Prime Minister stop this problem, stop the spending and get inflation under control?
119 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/24/22 3:04:11 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, since 2015, the Prime Minister has doubled our national debt to $1.2 trillion. Over $100 billion of that was even prior to the pandemic. He has incurred more debt than all other prime ministers combined. Just yesterday, the Governor of the Bank of Canada told me that, but for this massive spending, inflation would have been less.
This is a very important question: Will the Prime Minister finally admit that his failed fiscal policy is costing Canadians more for everything?
83 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies.
A staggering $1.2 trillion is how much debt the finance minister tells us we will be up to our necks in by just next year. The Liberals have doubled our national debt since they came to power. The Prime Minister has incurred more debt than all prime ministers who came before him. The Liberals have doubled the debt, they have tripled the carbon tax and, to make matters worse, they have quadrupled people's mortgage payments, because Liberal inflation has led to Liberal interest rate hikes.
A favourite quote of mine is from Winston Churchill, who famously said, “Gentlemen, we have run out of money; now we have to think.” Well, it turns out the Prime Minister not wanting to think about monetary policy has had absolutely devastating consequences for Canadians.
The Conservatives had two simple asks: one, no new taxes, and two, no new spending unless it is paid for with equal savings. However, the Liberals did just the opposite. They are going to triple the carbon tax and increase spending by $21 billion. That is their brilliant plan to combat inflation. It is obvious that a Prime Minister who does not mind spending Canadians' hard-earned tax dollars on a swanky $6,000 hotel room and a finance minister who defines belt tightening as cancelling her Disney+ subscription just do not get it. However, do members know who does get it? It is everyone else.
This economic plan does nothing to address Canada's cost of living crisis. With a $40.1-billion increase in revenues just this year, this statement shows that inflation is not only increasing the cost of living but increasing taxes on Canadians. Instead of giving Canadians much-needed relief during this time, the costly coalition seeks to profit off increased inflation.
Canadians are out of money and the Prime Minister is out of touch. Members opposite do not seem to know the facts. Do they not know that interest payments on our debt will double this year, costing nearly as much as the Canada health transfer? Do they not know that Canadians continue to cut their diets, and mothers are putting water in their children's milk because they cannot afford 10% annual food inflation? Do they not know that home prices have doubled over the last seven years, forcing young Canadians to live in their parents' basements? Do they not know that food bank usage has soared to an all-time high, recording 1.5 million visits in just one month? No, they do not know, but the Conservatives know what it will take to solve this inflation crisis. Let us stop creating more cash. Rather, we should create more of what cash buys.
If I had to sum up the fall economic statement in one word, do members know what word I would use? I would use the word “deceptive”. It is deceptive because its central theme is this farcical tale that tough times might be ahead of us, but hey, Canada is on the right track, our fiscal policy is sound and at least we are doing better than everyone else. It is deceptive because it portends to be fiscally responsible when it is not. It is deceptive because it portends to rein in spending when it does not. It is deceptive because it portends to rein in inflation when it does not. It is deceptive because it portends to offer relief to Canadians when it does not. It is deceptive because language like “economic slowdown” belies the reality of a looming recession.
Now, we know that the Liberals are experts at shirking responsibility. Inflation is not their fault. Blowing up people's mortgage payments is not their fault. If one cannot get a passport, it is not their fault. If we cannot afford gas, groceries or home heating, that is not their fault either. Who do they blame? Well, it is Putin, of course, the war, supply chains, COVID or corporate profiteering. It is never their fault. They will blame anything. However, when we pose the question asking whether inflation was caused by a failed domestic monetary policy that ballooned the money supply by 27% in two years from $1.8 trillion to $2.3 trillion or by massive deficit spending, they will say no, that is not it; it is the war. Do members not see that it is Putin?
This is what is happening. The cost of government is driving up the cost of living. Half a billion dollars in inflationary deficits means more money chasing fewer goods, which drives up the cost of everything. Inflationary taxes drive up the cost of goods. The more the Liberals spend, the more things cost. Their argument that inflation was not triggered by domestic policy simply stretches credulity.
In recent weeks, experts from across the country have presented the government with an uncomfortable truth: The inflation crisis is in fact a domestic crisis. After doubling our national debt, now the finance minister says it is time to be fiscally responsible. It is time to turn off the taps, and more spending would, in her words, “force the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates even higher. It would make life more expensive, for everyone, for longer.”
Remarkably, in the same statement, she increases spending anyway, by $21 billion. By the way, spending is already way up. In 2020, just before the pandemic, federal program spending was $338 billion. Now the finance minister says in 2023 it will be $437 billion, a whopping 29% increase in spending over prepandemic levels.
When it comes to COVID, I will offer the Liberals a bit of an olive branch. The pandemic necessitated a certain degree of spending, which Conservatives voted for. However, the problem is, of the $500 billion they spent in deficit, over $200 billion had absolutely zero to do with COVID. Even before 2020, in the good old days of sunny ways, the government added a staggering $112 billion to our debt.
I understand why the Liberals do not want to think about this. When Canadians realize how badly their tax dollars have been mismanaged, make no mistake, they will hold the government to account.
Here is another uncomfortable truth. For far too long, Europe was content with getting its energy from a brutal despot, but today that is no longer an option. Now the continent prepares for a winter that can only be described as hellish. We could have been there for them. However, the Liberals once again dropped the ball. While Canada sits upon the most ethically produced supply of natural gas on the planet, our friends in Europe are being held for ransom, begging to buy overpriced blood natural gas from Putin.
We could have been there for them, but the Prime Minister decided not to invest in exporting our natural gas. We could have been there for them, while creating good-paying Canadian energy jobs. We could have been there for them while generating revenue for Canadians, but the Prime Minister did not want to think about developing Canadian natural resources, and now Europe is paying the price. Canada does not get the sale, and Putin rakes it in, all the while funding his brutal war.
It is frustrating to see the Liberals being so inflexible and so ideological that they refuse to accept this fact almost 10 months into this brutal war. Talk about choosing posturing over prosperity.
I wish I had something positive to say about the fall economic update. I wish I could commend the government for exercising even an iota of the fiscal discipline that it claims to have suddenly converted to. This so-called fiscal discipline is relative only to the massive spending over the last two and a half years. Just about anything is a success when working with such a low benchmark. It is the financial equivalent of gorging on Halloween candy, minus a few chocolate bars here and there, and telling the world that the diet is “going well”. Ironically, when Conservatives propose fiscal responsibility, Liberals brand it austerity. When Liberals feebly try to do the same, it is called fiscal discipline.
We have been trying to reach across the aisle for months now. Just a few weeks ago, it looked like we had seen some progress when the finance minister endorsed our “pay as you go” approach to her cabinet colleagues. However, there is not a word of that policy in the update. When will the government commit to a real plan to balance the budget and stop adding fuel to the inflationary fire?
It goes without saying that $1.2 trillion is a lot of money to owe. Right now, I say that Canadians have 1.2 trillion reasons to reject the Prime Minister's failed economic policy.
1503 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
