- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $138,707.52
- Government Page
- Feb/6/24 3:04:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if the Liberals do not measure the results of the carbon tax, there are no results. The Liberals have no shame in punishing Canadians without anything to show for it.
Here is something we can measure, though. After eight years of the Liberal government, gas is up, groceries are up, home heating is up because of its failed carbon tax.
Now that the environment minister has exposed his own carbon tax scam, will he finally axe the tax?
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- Feb/6/24 3:02:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, shame on the Liberals for telling Canadians that their costly carbon tax is reducing emissions. It is a complete scam.
The minister pretends that his carbon tax reduces emissions, but now we know that the Liberals do not measure the results of their carbon tax. With no measurement, there are no results. No wonder emissions went up after eight years of the NDP-Liberal government.
Why did the environment minister mislead Canadians about his carbon tax scam?
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- Feb/6/24 3:00:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week, the environment minister revealed the truth about the carbon tax. I asked how many emissions were directly reduced from the carbon tax in an Order Paper question. The minister's response was “the government does not measure the annual amount of emissions that are directly reduced by federal carbon pricing.” Those are his words, not mine.
Why is the minister forcing Canadians to pay his carbon tax if he does not measure the emissions he pretends to reduce?
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- Nov/9/23 2:17:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years it has never been more clear that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. He told Canadians that, if they just paid their costly carbon tax, the NDP-Liberal government would meet their environmental target.
However, in a bombshell report, Canada's environment commissioner revealed that, despite a punishing carbon tax, the Liberals will fail to achieve their own emission targets. In fact, the only time emissions went down under the current government was when the entire economy was shut down. It is all pain and no gain under the NDP-Liberal government.
The truth is finally exposed. The carbon tax was never an environmental plan. It was always just a tax plan. After eight years of environmental failure, the Prime Minister is definitely not worth the cost.
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- Nov/7/23 7:00:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals did not answer my question. The question is very simple, so I will ask it again.
How many emissions have been directly reduced exclusively from the carbon tax, just a number?
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- Nov/7/23 6:55:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, over the last eight years, the Prime Minister told Canadians that if they just paid the costly carbon tax, the NDP-Liberal government would meet their environmental targets. Today, the environment commissioner revealed that, despite the punishing carbon tax, the Liberals will fail to achieve their own emission targets. After eight years under the Prime Minister, it is all pain and no gain. If the Liberals are forcing Canadians to pay their costly carbon tax, Canadians should know how many emissions it will reduce.
My question is simple: How many emissions have been directly reduced from the carbon tax? I just want the number.
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- Oct/30/23 2:57:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. The Prime Minister finally admitted that his carbon tax is unaffordable for Canadians, but instead of removing the carbon tax for all Canadians, the Prime Minister chose to further divide this country by only helping those who voted for him. The Liberals are saying that Manitobans did not deserve the tax relief because they did not vote Liberal. Unfortunately, Manitoba elected four Liberals.
Why did the Manitoba Liberal minister from Saint Boniface—Saint Vital fail to get a carbon tax exemption on home heating for Manitobans?
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- Oct/19/23 2:58:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government's own impact assessment on its clean fuel regulations says that the regulations are estimated to increase the price of gasoline and diesel, that “low-income households may be disproportionately affected by...[r]egulations”, and that rural Canadians “may have limited opportunity to reduce their fuel consumption in response to higher [fuel] prices.”
Why did the government ignore its own advice and plow ahead with the second carbon tax?
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- Oct/19/23 2:56:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eights years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. Canadians cannot afford to drive their cars or heat their homes, but that does not matter to the NDP-Liberal government. After forcing Canadians to pay a costly carbon tax, it is plowing ahead with a second carbon tax. Earlier this week, the minister's department told the environment committee that the Liberals knew their clean fuel regulations would cost Canadians more.
Will the government finally admit that its second carbon tax is not worth the cost?
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- May/15/23 1:50:26 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I just want to get some things straightened out. The member talked about there being no definition of clean air or clean water in this legislation; it is sort of open to interpretation. Running with the track record of the government for the last eight years, the government has actually made more red tape and made things more confusing to anybody who really wanted to do something better for the environment. This is coming from a government that actually charged hospital administrators a carbon tax to heat their own hospitals during a pandemic. I wonder if the member across the way can comment on why he is looking for more clarification on this bill.
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- May/10/23 6:15:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government again did not answer my question. I find it interesting that the Liberal platform was to tax hospitals in the form of a carbon tax to heat themselves. That is an outstanding type of platform. Maybe the member should run on it again and call this the actual carbon tax that it is, but I digress.
I guess Canadian hospitals, municipalities and universities will never know where the money went. Here is an idea. Instead of forcing hospitals and municipalities to pay a carbon tax, and instead of designing a complicated government program that makes it look like the money will be returned, let us just scrap the carbon tax altogether.
I will give the government one more chance: Why did the Liberal government mislead Canadians and not return any carbon tax revenue to hospitals, municipalities or universities through its own MUSH retrofit program?
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- May/10/23 6:08:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my question to the Liberals is regarding their failed, ineffective and ever-increasing carbon tax. The Liberals have misled Canadians on their carbon tax, not once, not twice, but many times. Government members must be held accountable for their misleading carbon tax claims, and they must answer to the Canadians they are supposed to represent.
Let us take a walk down memory lane. First, the Liberals promised not to raise the carbon tax, and then they tripled it. Then the Liberals promised Canadians they would get more money back than they had paid, but the government’s own Parliamentary Budget Officer proved the government wrong. In fact, we now know the average family in 2023 will pay between $402 and $847 even after the rebates. Then the Liberals claimed the carbon tax would reduce emissions, but guess what, emissions went up.
Now we know the government misled Canadians once again on its failed carbon tax. Let me explain. In 2019, the Liberals announced a program called the MUSH retrofit stream. MUSH stood for municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals. It was a bureaucratic government program designed to return the carbon tax back to the public institutions it was charged to so they could afford energy-efficient retrofit upgrades.
One may be wondering why on earth the government is forcing a carbon tax on our hospitals and schools in the first place, or how this reduces emissions, and trust me, I wonder the same.
Despite this, and despite promising to return the money the Liberals took from our hospitals and public institutions, no money was returned to hospitals, no money was returned to municipalities and no money was returned to universities. Not one dime.
The Liberals took millions of dollars to Ottawa, created their own bureaucratic program, promised to return it and never did. Even the commissioner of the environment pointed this failure out in a recent report, and local governments across Canada were wondering where the millions of dollars they were promised went. We would never have known this if it were not for an Order Paper question I submitted because the Liberals took the money and secretly shut down the program without telling Canadians. I guess we will never know where the money went.
My question to the Liberal government is very simple. Why did the Liberal government mislead Canadians and not return any carbon tax revenue to hospitals, municipalities or universities through its own MUSH retrofit program?
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- Feb/14/23 2:10:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the cost of food production in Canada is soaring because of the government's failed carbon tax. A family farm is now expected to pay $150,000 in carbon tax every single year. Families will pay over $16,000 a year in groceries. It is no surprise that Canadians are visiting food banks at record rates: The Prime Minister has failed the producers who put food on the table.
It does not need to be like this. Conservatives will stand up for farmers, ranchers and consumers, and we will axe the failed carbon tax.
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- Nov/29/22 3:01:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first the Liberals promised not to raise the carbon tax, and then they tripled the tax. Then they said Canadians would get more money back when they paid the carbon tax. That was proven false. Then the Liberals promised the carbon tax would lower emissions, but emissions went up.
When will the Liberal government stop misleading Canadians and cancel the failed carbon tax?
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- Nov/29/22 2:11:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, rural Canadians are at a breaking point under the Liberal government's carbon tax. They are the Canadians who are lining up at food banks because grocery prices are too high. They are the Canadians who cannot afford to drive to the city because gas prices are too expensive. They are the Canadians who are wearing winter jackets inside because home heating has emptied their savings account.
The Liberal government does not care about these rural Canadians. When speaking about the carbon tax, the government's own member said, “There needs to be a bit of pain there. That's the point of it.”
Rural Canadians are out of money, and the Liberal government is out of touch. Only the Conservatives will fight for rural Canada and cancel the painful carbon tax.
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- Jun/16/22 9:11:41 p.m.
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Madam Chair, ironically, no. On the fuel source, what are they going to reduce? It is the only option they really have at this point. There is no other choice. We have no choice to make.
We need energy to grow food. It does not matter where it comes from. We need diesel fuel and it comes from natural gas and it comes from fossil fuels. There is no other choice right now. Manitoba tried to eliminate the use of coal for heating homes and stuff like that, and it did not work. It just came back that we needed to heat our homes at the end of the day.
This is a made-in-Canada problem. The government can fix it, if it really decides to and starts working with farmers. I think that is the most important thing it could start doing right now.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-19, the budget implementation act. I will be honest. I found the title of this year's budget quite misleading. The NDP-Liberal government titled this year's budget, “A Plan to Grow Our Economy and Make Life More Affordable”. If the government really wanted to grow our economy and make life more affordable, it would have looked at Canadian agriculture. Unfortunately, when I looked for Canadian agriculture in the budget, I noticed that not one page was fully dedicated to agri-food or agriculture. The blatant lack of priority for Canadian agriculture would be concerning in any budget, but even more concerning in budget 2022.
We are in a food crisis. There is a global food shortage, and the Canadian government is nowhere to be found. I am going to quote Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, a professor and researcher of food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University, who has been sounding the alarm on this crisis. He stated, “We need to be clear on the fact that by fall more than 100 million people will experience either famine or severe hunger.” Let us let that statistic sink in: By fall, more than 100 million people will experience either famine or extreme hunger.
Corn and wheat make up 30% of the calories consumed on earth, yet the region responsible for 25% of these exports is at war. That means that the poorer countries will lose access to their food supply and developed countries will pay higher prices to secure their food. Where in the budget was there anything to ramp up the production of export capacity of these commodities? I sure did not find it.
When I read the budget implementation act, I saw things like new taxes on luxury goods and vaping products. These are the types of things that the government has prioritized over Canadian agriculture. This reminds me of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: one of the best-known theories in human motivation. This hierarchy is modelled in the shape of a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid is the need for self-actualization. Beneath that are the need for esteem, the need for love and belonging and the need for safety. At the bottom of the pyramid are the foundational psychological needs, including food, for example. Society does not care about the higher levels of needs if the foundational needs are not met. At a time when the world is in a food crisis, the NDP-Liberal government is more focused on some higher ideological need than on the foundational need of food security.
I am shocked that the government is not focused on replacing the global reduction in food from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Not only could Canada feed the world, but we could also create wealth and jobs for our rural communities. We are one of the few remaining agriculture-exporting nations on earth. I believe we have a role to play in feeding the world. However, when I read the budget, I do not see any priority given to this by the current government.
The government has the mentality that western Canada should be limited to simply producing, harvesting and exporting raw commodities. This means that even if Canadians produced a record crop, we would still have to rely on other countries to process our commodities. This is the wrong mentality. We can do so much more. The government should create the right business environment so industry can create more value in Canadian agriculture products. When we turn our raw commodities into high-quality products such as canola oil, flour and starch products, we not only grow our economy but we also meet the demands of the world.
It was the current government that commissioned the Barton Report. In that report, agriculture was identified as a sector where Canada has the potential for substantial growth and export improvement. The report mentioned global population growth, a rising protein demand in Asia and the need for trusted markets. Canada could and should meet these new global demands, if only the government would let it.
Production and processing capacity is not the only bottleneck in the agriculture value food chain. We must also improve the resilience and reliability of our transportation system. There is no mention of investing in transportation to export our agri-food products faster and more efficiently. I think all members of the House would agree with the notion that our country is too reliant on a few transportation systems.
We saw this last year when the flooding in B.C. completely landlocked our ability to export product. Imagine the drastic consequences of not being able to feed the world because we could not get our agri-food products to tidewater.
I am noticing a consistent theme with this Liberal government. It is more focused on the farming of the past than on the farming of the future. The Liberals try to be visionaries in many areas, but never in agriculture. The lack of thinking is limiting our nation's potential and starving the world. If the Liberals want to grow our economy, I can tell members how: It is through agriculture.
Not only does the budget fail to prioritize increased food production, but it also fails to address the restrictions and regulations that are preventing Canada from becoming an agriculture superpower. We know that this government's carbon tax is restricting our ag industry's competitiveness and driving up the cost of food from the day it is planted until the day it is consumed.
APAS reported that the government's carbon tax would add an additional $12.50 of input costs per acre on wheat by 2030. At the same time, when the world is desperate for wheat, it is absurd that this government is actually making it more expensive to produce such an essential commodity.
The government also appears to be drafting regulations that would restrict fertilizer usage for Canadian farmers in the name of the climate agenda. Any plan to meet fertilizer emissions reductions should not be at the cost of production. Is the government aware that there is a global fertilizer shortage? The less fertilizer that is available, the less food we can grow.
MNP reported that reducing Canadian fertilizer use to achieve 30% emissions reduction would result in yield losses. Corn, for example, would see losses of over 67 bushels per acre per year, which is about 40%.
Where is the investment in creating a more competitive fertilizer industry? Where is the focus on exporting Canadian fertilizer? I did not see that in the budget.
I also learned last week that Health Canada has yet to release its regulations on gene editing. This innovative plant science technology is an important tool in helping Canadian farmers be more productive and efficient. Plant science innovations have been responsible for a 50% increase in crop productivity over the past century. Without these innovations, prices would be 45% higher, on average, for many food staples.
The government should create an investment environment that fuels plant science research and development. There is no reason why Canada cannot have the fastest and most responsible regulatory process in the world. Where was this investment in the budget? I did not see it.
The world is facing a food crisis. Food is becoming unaffordable for millions of people and, for some, food is becoming unavailable. Millions will starve if Canada does not step up to the plate. Instead of focusing on fulfilling the basic needs of society, this government continues to focus on a political agenda. This government's disregard for the food crisis before us is deeply disturbing.
Not one page in the budget is focused on agriculture and agri-food. That should concern every single member of the House. It is time to focus on the future of farming. It is time to make Canada an agricultural superpower, and it is time for Canada to feed the world when the world needs us most.
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- Mar/25/22 1:17:32 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, our party has always stood up for rural Canada. The fact is that rural Canada is paying a disproportionate part of the carbon tax that has been imposed by the Liberals, and they are not even giving it back. The 10% does not even come close to the inflationary pressures they are putting on rural Canadians and small communities, and I will defend that to the end of this day.
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- Mar/25/22 1:08:22 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-8, the economic and fiscal update implementation act, 2021. I will say that many of my constituents and Canadians across this nation are concerned with the fiscal policies of the government, and rightly so. Government spending is totally out of control, and Canadians are paying the price. The cost of everything is rising at record rates, inflation is reaching new highs, and the value of one's hard-earned dollar is becoming less and less.
If Canadians thought the last six years of government spending were bad, they are in for a rude awakening until 2025. We found out that Canada has a new government this week, a Liberal–NDP government that Canadians did not want. If the NDP is now in charge of our nation's finances, government spending is guaranteed to reach unprecedented highs.
Financial experts are already sounding the alarm about the consequences of more spending. The director of fiscal and provincial economics at Scotiabank stated, “The finance minister risks further undermining Ottawa's credibility in its commitment to tackling inflation.” I would be interested to know if part of the backroom deal with the NDP was to remove the fiscal guardrails that the finance minister talked about so much.
Canadians expect their government to be fiscally responsible. Bill C-8 has $300 million dedicated toward proof-of-vaccination policy. At a time when provinces are lifting mandates, removing restrictions and giving Canadians control of their lives again, the government wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on more vaccine mandates.
Canada has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. Every provincial government has been giving control of their lives back to Canadians, but the federal government has no plan to end these mandates. It had an opportunity to do so yesterday. Canada's Conservatives introduced an opposition day motion calling on the federal government to lift all federal vaccine mandates immediately. We wanted to protect the jobs of federally regulated employees. We wanted to enable Canadians to travel freely. We wanted to kick-start our nation's tourism industry. We wanted to enable our goods to move across our national border. Guess what? The Liberal–NDP government did not want to see Canadians regain control of their lives. It voted our motion down.
I think of all the local guides and outfitters in my constituency who rely on American clientele to make a living. Their businesses were completely shut down because of government restrictions. I met with people at North Mountain Outfitters in my constituency, whose business came to a complete stop because of the government. Guides, outfitters and lodge owners contribute immensely to the local economies of rural and remote Canada, but there is no plan to help them or the thousands of outfitters across our nation to reopen.
Bill C-8 also refers to the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act. Most Canadians know it as the Liberal carbon tax, newly named the Liberal–NDP carbon tax. I should remind this House that the Liberal carbon tax is going up again on April 1, increasing the cost of gas when the cost of fuel is already reaching record highs, but every time Canadians raise their concerns with the Liberal carbon tax, the government tells them off, basically. The Liberals claim that Canadians are in better shape financially from this pricey tax. They say that more money is going back into the pockets of Canadians than into the government coffers.
Every time the government says that Canadians benefit from the Liberal carbon tax, Canadians call it out. They do not buy it for a second. Guess what? Yesterday we learned that Canadians were right. The Liberal carbon tax will leave Canadians worse off. Canada's independent Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report stating that the Liberal carbon tax is a financial burden on Canadian families. The report stated that the majority of households in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario will see a net loss from the Liberal carbon tax. There we have it. The Liberals can no longer hide behind their talking points. Canadians will be worse off financially.
We also know that this financial burden impacts rural Canadians more. Rural Canadians, in particular, know that the Liberal carbon tax unfairly impacts them for simply living in rural Canada, within Canada's vast and beautiful geography.
The government tries to make rural Canadians feel better by giving them an extra 10% back. People are probably wondering how the government determined this number. Does 10% account for the increased heating costs in rural Canada? Does 10% account for the driving that rural Canadians have to do? Does 10% account for the increased cost of transported goods to rural Canada?
That is why I asked the government at committee yesterday what scientific assessment was done to decide that a 10% additional carbon tax rebate accounted for the added expenses of rural Canadians. Guess what? Canadians will never know, because the government admitted that no scientific assessment was completed to ensure that rural Canadians were getting back an adequate amount of their money. Can we imagine that? Once again, rural Canadians were neglected by the government.
Municipalities are also concerned with the financial accountability of the Liberal carbon tax. Canadians may not know this, but the Liberal government applies this tax to municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals. I do not know how taxing a hospital reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but I digress. The fact is that the government promised to return the taxes to municipalities and hospitals, but it has not. To date, municipalities and hospitals in my home province of Manitoba have received no money through the MUSH retrofit stream.
The Association of Manitoba Municipalities raised concerns, but its concerns have clearly fallen on deaf ears. On March 4, the AMM wrote to the government and stated the following: “our members continue to raise questions regarding the lack of communication about CAIF rebates for 2020-21 and 2021-22 for the MUSH sector”.
This is of course concerning, given that the Government of Canada is legally obligated to return these funds to the province of origin. As well, it previously committed to sharing these revenues with municipalities to assist with advancing climate change-related projects. I see why rural Canadians have lost their trust in the government.
Canadians pay attention when any government spending bill is pushed through Parliament. Bill C-8 is no exception. Canadians feel let behind. The cost of living is rising at record rates, and the new NDP-Liberal government will only accelerate this. The Liberal carbon tax is fuelling Canada's inflation crisis and is leaving the majority of households worse off financially.
The federal government has yet to introduce a plan to end mandates and give Canadians back control of their lives, and hospitals and municipalities are paying tens of thousands of dollars in taxes without receiving a promised penny back. God help us all.
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- Jan/31/22 4:42:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as this is the first time I am rising in the House since being elected, I want to thank the constituents of Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa for once again placing their trust in me to be their voice in Parliament. I give special thanks to my campaign team for running a successful operation in a riding geographically larger than the entire province of Nova Scotia and with over 200 rural communities. I would also like to thank my family, and in particular my wife Leigh for her unwavering support.
I have been asked by many constituents what the purpose of a throne speech is. I tell them that the throne speech is supposed to be a guiding document that will pave the way for the priorities of the government in the upcoming parliamentary session. In other words, it is the plan. It is supposed to be a clear strategy of how the government will improve the lives of Canadians and will improve this nation.
Once Canadians understand what a throne speech is supposed to be, they may ask themselves: Does this plan help me? Does it empower me to make a living and provide for my children? They may ask themselves if the throne speech will enable their parents to live out their golden years as planned or if the plan will unite the country. However, if they had read this throne speech, they would be asking themselves where that plan was.
If the Prime Minister spoke to Canadians across the country today and asked whether life was getting better for them, he would hear the majority say that life was not getting easier. In a recent poll by Angus Reid, 57% of Canadians described feeding their family as “difficult”, and only 8% of Canadians expected to be better off financially at this time next year. It is clear that life is not getting easier under the Liberal government, and life is certainly not getting easier for rural Canadians.
Life may be getting easier for some. For example, life may be getting easier if one is a well-connected Liberal insider or a friend of the Prime Minister. Of course, with this pandemic, we have seen government kickbacks to insiders and billions of dollars more paid to consultants, but the people I represent are not these people. I represent hard-working, everyday Canadians who are slow to anger and do not ask for much. They are Canadians who believe in hard work, Canadians who want to give back to their community and support one another, and Canadians who believe in personal responsibility. I read the throne speech, and I did not see a plan for them.
What is the plan for seniors? Many of the people I represent are seniors. They have worked hard their entire lives to help build the country that we know today, but seniors in this country feel left behind, and I understand why. As a matter of fact, the word “seniors” was only mentioned once in the entire throne speech. Our aging population is only growing and many seniors depend on fixed incomes to get by, but when the costs of everyday essentials such as home heating, groceries and gas are rising at record rates, fixed incomes are stretched to their limits. A senior wrote to me the other day. He stated, “Food prices are out of my pay grade”. How can we as a country allow food to reach prices that are unaffordable? Who are we, as a nation, if we neglect the hard-working individuals who contributed so much to make the nation what it is today?
Despite promising not to, this Liberal government will make life even more unaffordable for our seniors by raising the carbon tax again. In a few months, the Liberals will increase the carbon tax for the third time during this pandemic. The prices of propane and natural gas will continue to rise and, as a result, energy poverty will continue to make heating one's home even more unaffordable. If the fixed incomes that our seniors depend on do not grow quickly enough to keep up with inflation, the value of their paycheques becomes worth less and less. It was just last year when our members of the House supported our seniors by voting to increase the old age security benefit. Guess what? The Liberals voted against it.
I ask the House what the government's plan is for our seniors, because I do not see one. The narrative given in the throne speech was far different from the reality of what is happening across the nation. We hear language from the government all the time, whether it is “sunny ways” or “we have your back”. However, rarely do we ever see those words turn into action. Words do not solve the problems of Canadians: action does.
I found it interesting that in the throne speech the following statement was made:
As we move forward on the economy of the future, no worker or region will be left behind.
That is right, that is laughable. I will read that statement again because many Canadians will find it very surprising: “no worker or region will be left behind.” I encourage the Prime Minister to ask western Canada if it has been left behind, and to ask the Prairies if they feel they were left behind. I would encourage him to ask all rural Canadians if they have been left behind. I can assure him that they do feel left behind, and they have felt this way for far too long.
How can the government say that no worker will be left behind when so many workers have felt neglected since the government took office? For the last six years, there has not been a plan for the Canadian energy worker, there has not been a plan for the Canadian farmer, there has not been a plan for the Canadian fisherman and there has not been a plan for the small business owner. If there has not been a plan for the last six years for the regions and workers who I believe are the engine of our country, why should they believe that a plan exists now?
Canadians were also looking for a plan to get our country back on track. They were looking for details on when life would return to normal. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister has normalized lockdowns as the solution to our problems. The Ottawa-knows-best approach can no longer be the path forward. We need to re-evaluate what is working and what is not.
Just last week, two of my constituents travelled to the U.S. They are both triple vaccinated and both received negative PCR tests before returning to Canada. However, they were still required to take an at-home test and mail it to the city to get another set of results. As many rural Canadians know, not all courier services operate in rural areas of this country, so as instructed the couple drove to the closest shipping location to their farm to send away their tests. Hours later, to their surprise, an individual from the testing company Ottawa is funding to administer the program showed up to pick up their tests. The designated driver drove over five hours from Winnipeg to pick up tests that were supposed to be sent by mail, and drove back another five hours without the tests. This couple is waiting longer than ever to confirm that they can go back to living their lives normally, despite following all the rules and instructions. Canadians are frustrated, and rightfully so.
In conclusion, I think it has become clear that there is no plan. This throne speech does not address the inflation that has fuelled the affordability crisis sweeping across our nation. It does not have a plan to support our seniors who are struggling to make a living on their fixed incomes. This throne speech also has no evidence that the government is going to take rural Canada seriously, and it certainly does not put forth any details of how it is going to make life better for everyday Canadians.
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