- Member of Parliament
- Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- Conservative
- Calgary Midnapore
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $141,419.87
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House and speak on behalf of the incredible constituents of Calgary Midnapore.
Before I begin my speech, I would like to state that I will be splitting my time with the member for Provencher. I look forward to his remarks following mine.
When I received the request from our shadow minister for transport, the member for Chilliwack—Hope, I was, in fact, very honoured. One of my greatest achievements in my time in the House of Commons was serving as the shadow minister for transport during the pandemic. I can certainly tell everyone that things did not function as they should have during that time. They did not function at all, in fact.
My experience, based upon that time, leads me to the conclusion that there is, in regard to the government, lots of regulation and no responsibility. This also summarizes my conclusion regarding Bill C-52.
I think that this is a theme we have seen with the government. We have seen this with some recent decisions made at different levels of government, as well as at higher courts, including with regard to Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” bill, as we called it here. There, they put in significant regulation against not only pipelines but also, actually, lots of other pieces of infrastructure. We see that this was, in fact, overturned.
Just this past week, as well, we were very happy to see, on this side of the House, the overruling of the single-use plastics legislation that was put in by the government. Again, the government imposes all this regulation on industry, on Canadians and on third parties without taking the responsibility for the regulations that it has imposed upon itself. I think we are seeing this again in this bill.
I am sure that we are aware that 2022 was a disastrous summer travel season, as well as a terrible holiday travel season through December. Really, if we look back at that, it was for the reason that I gave at the beginning of my speech, which was poor management of the transportation sector through the pandemic.
Frankly, they had no plan for the airline sector at that time. As the shadow minister of transport, I certainly tried to get them to produce a plan. They did no such thing. This had significant and widespread consequences not only for Canadians but also for workers across Canada, as well as for different communities and regions across Canada.
I implored them to come up with a plan for regional airlines at the time. Regional airport authorities were left to fend for themselves. I, along with my colleagues, made a very strong push for them to implement rapid testing and implement it sooner than they did, in an effort to more easily facilitate both travel and the travel sector. As well, I tried very hard to convince them not to use the supports for sectors for executive compensation. All these requests that I made as the shadow minister for transport fell upon deaf ears at that time.
In addition, of course, I was not alone in doing that. There were also my colleagues, the member of Parliament for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and the member of Parliament for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley.
Sadly, in September 2020, we saw 14% of Nav Canada employees being laid off in centres in Winnipeg and Halifax. That is just another example of the lack of action of the government during the pandemic. At that time, 750 families had to go home and tell their families that they did not have a job anymore.
I said back in September 2020, before the throne speech, that our economy simply cannot function, let alone thrive, without major carriers and airport authorities. Ironically, I said that on mini-budget day, and here we are again today.
In 2020, the Calgary Airport Authority alone was expecting a 64% drop in passenger traffic from 2019 levels and projecting a loss of $245 million in revenue. Other airport authorities across the country were facing similar challenges at the time. Stakeholders also reported that some supply chains had been overloaded as a result of the pandemic, with demand for some products having increased by up to 500% and vulnerabilities having become apparent.
At that moment, I asked for the government to develop a plan with common-sense solutions. We continue to ask for such solutions today; again, they are not apparent in Bill C-52. Once again, we see a government that has lots of regulations, yet takes no responsibility.
I will turn my speech now to the point about complaints. Over the past year, the backlog of complaints with the CTA, the Canadian Transportation Agency, has grown to an average of 3,000 complaints per month, with a backlog of over 60,000 complaints now waiting to be adjudicated by the agency. In fact, the bill before us would set no service standards for the Canadian Transportation Agency and would do nothing to eliminate the backlog of 60,000 complaints. I have an example from my riding, where, as of July 2023, I had a constituent waiting two years for a response from the CTA to the complaint they had registered. In the same eight months when the CTA processed 4,085 complaints, the complaints grew by 12,000, doubling in that time. It is no wonder Canadians are dissatisfied with the current process in place, and the legislation would do little to improve it without said standards.
As well, it is not clear which entities would be covered by the bill as the bill would be left to future regulations. A theme we have heard on this side in discussing the bill today is there are lots of regulations. In fact, we have seen from the other side of the House that members take advantage of the regulations. They take advantage of Canadians in using these regulations. We might see something that is perhaps gazetted and then all of sudden brought into implementation, with both industry and Canadians being forced to respond and to pay the price for the use of regulation by the government.
Fundamentally, the bill remains a toothless bill that contains no specific remedies to the problems that have been plaguing the system since the pandemic. I will add that during the difficult time coming out of the pandemic, the then minister of transport blamed Canadians for forgetting how to travel. I talked about the government's shirking responsibility, and there we see it again with the minister of transport's not saying that it was his bad or that he should have come up with a plan during the pandemic, but rather blaming Canadians. He was not even addressing it through the complaint process, nor was he willing to fix the complaint process.
I have a quote from a significant air passenger rights advocate, Gabor Lukacs. Anyone who sits on the transport committee certainly will have communicated with him. He says, “There may be penalties, but even those powers are left to the government to create.” Since I am throwing out Gabor Lukacs's name, I would also like to mention Roy Grinshpan, who has also been an incredible advocate for passenger rights and passenger advocacy.
Even the pilots with whom I worked so closely during the pandemic are not in favour of the legislation. The president of ALPA Canada, Captain Tim Perry, for whom I have a lot of respect, brought to my attention that safety might be compromised as a result of the implementation of the bill to ensure that passengers are taken care of. This is simply another concern, which is that passengers are not being taken care of, and even the pilots who fly the planes are voicing their concern over this.
To conclude, I talked about the implementation of regulation, so much of it, but again there is no responsibility. The then minister of transport said that there would be consequences for service providers that do not meet the standards, but he did not disclose what they would be. Again, there is so much regulation and no responsibility. The government tells Canadians and industry time and time again that they have to do this and that, but it never takes responsibility for the legislation it implements.
In conclusion, Bill C-52 and the government are about lots of regulations but no responsibility.
1424 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, my apologies, but I have a very difficult time believing the sincerity of the government with this bill, and that is a result of its constant retaliation against the natural resources sector. We saw this with Bill C-48. We also saw this with Bill C-69. We have seen this with the endless carbon tax after carbon tax, as well as with emissions standards, which the government forced industry to meet. This results in a larger mental health crisis among industry workers and higher suicide rates. Perhaps it is even fuelling the opioid crisis.
With a $41-billion deficit and $2.1 trillion of debt across Canada, and with oil and gas making up 7.5% of the GDP, how are the Liberals going to replace the funds in the coffers from a dying industry that they have killed at a time when they are also overspending?
150 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I will share my time with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills.
It is always an honour to rise in the House and to speak, especially on the important motion we have before us today, which is our opposition day motion. Before I get started, I would like to give some credit. I am a shameless team promoter. I love this team. I will say it time and again. I want to give credit to the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon for all of the incredible work he did on this file in the last Parliament. In fact, his work was used as the basis for a lot of our platform development. It received accolades from many groups across the country for the great ideas within our platform regarding housing. I wish him the best in the Asia-Pacific development file as he continues on. I also wish the best for the residents of B.C. as they come out of the difficult time they have been going through.
I would also like to recognize the wonderful member of Parliament for Edmonton Riverbend, who gave me the honour of speaking here today. I do not know if members know this, but he is the father of three children, including the beautiful baby Hugh. He knows this issue very well, because he is a family man. I have family who lives in his riding. I have mentioned that to him before. This affects him and his family and everyone in his community, so I am really happy to see him taking the charge on this motion and on the discussion here today.
I held this file under families, children and social development when I served as the shadow minister in that role. With that, I would like to recognize the new member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. What a fireball she is. I love that lady. She is a new mother and a strong voice for her constituents and for Albertans. When she got this role, I told her that this file was hard. I will tell members what I saw when I held that role of families, children and social development and housing was still under that file.
I saw government members traipse across the country, announce new housing initiatives, pat themselves on the backs and call it a day. They would make outrageous claims. In fact, the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion continues to make claims. For example on November 29 of this year, he said, “Mr. Speaker, every Canadian deserves a safe and affordable place to call home. Since we came into office, we have helped over a million families get the housing they need”. He also said, on December 2, 2021, “We will keep working to make sure every Canadian has an affordable place to call home.”
That is not what I saw in my role at that time. I read the files. I looked around my community and I saw two things. I saw a government destroying my local economy with glee and forcing businesses and residents to vacate buildings, because all the business was gone and all the jobs had been lost. These buildings were being purchased by the government for a song and being turned into subsidized housing, and then the government declared a victory. This is what I saw time and again.
I will repeat that. The government would destroy the economy, force all the businesses to close, take all the good jobs away, purchase the buildings for a song, turn them into subsidized housing and say it had done a great job. It was terrible. There are no winners in that model.
While the government was passing Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium bill, and the clean fuel standard, jumping, cheering and drinking out of their soggy paper straws, my constituents were suffering. They were wondering whether they could keep their houses or if they would have to move in with their sisters. They wondered how they were going to make rent that month, but the government did not care. Its members would show up on this floor week after week, claiming victory.
The second thing I saw was that all of these government programs the government was claiming victory over were the result of two things: a poor economy and higher taxation.
Every single benefit and every program that I considered, and wondered why Canadians would need, always came back to no jobs or no good jobs. While the government was destroying the economy, killing good jobs and taxing Canadians with one hand, it was handing out a measly little portion of what it had killed and collected with its other hand. What could Canadians do? Could they say no to the small amount that was offered to them? There were no jobs, and certainly no good jobs, to go back to.
I have the best riding in all of Canada. Calgary Midnapore was built on the backs of the generation that fuelled this nation for decades. Communities thrived in lakes and parks that were created by a love of what they did and what it meant for Canada. However, that all started to change six years ago. Jobs became scarce. Businesses went out of province and out of country, and people had to turn to these benefits. They had no choice, and they were grateful because their jobs were gone. I am starting to worry that some people are getting conditioned to believe that they do not deserve any better.
Now, we add affordability and inflation to this mix.
Canadian housing affordability deteriorated for a third consecutive quarter in Q3 of 2021. The mortgage payment on a representative home as a percentage of income rose 1.7 points after a 3.2-point increase in Q2 of 2021. Seasonally adjusted home prices increased 4.6% in Q3 of 2021 from Q2 of 2021, while median household income rose only 0.8%. Affordability deteriorated in all 10 markets covered in Q3. On a sliding scale of markets, from worst deterioration to least, were Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau, Hamilton, Montreal, Calgary, Quebec, Winnipeg and Edmonton. That was the third consecutive quarter with a worsening in all of those markets. Countrywide affordability deteriorated 0.7% in the condo portion, versus a 2.3% deterioration in the non-condo segment. Prices continued a relentless upward trajectory, rising 4.6% in the quarter and 18.6% year on year. That annual figure was the most it has been since 1989, which was before I graduated high school in Calgary Midnapore.
Let us talk about inflation. There is hardly a commodity that has not been touched. Natural gas is up 18.7%. Gasoline is up 41.7%, and I certainly think twice before I decide that it is time to fill my car. Ground beef is up 8.2%. Sausages are up 11.3%. Steak is up 13.6%. I examine the cuts way more thoroughly now before making my choices at the grocery market. Eggs, which are not even a direct meat product, are up 7.4%. Butter, another Canadian staple, is up 5.5%. Syrup is up 11.6%. Coffee is up 3.7%. Chicken is up 8.3%. A year ago I could buy the whole bird, and nothing but the whole bird, for $10. Now it is $14 when I go to the grocery store.
The current government wants to claim victory on this file, but I will not let it. The Liberals destroyed our economy, took away the good jobs and increased taxation, and they want to pat themselves on the back. I will not let them, and neither will Canadians.
1302 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
