- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cumberland—Colchester
- Nova Scotia
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,737.37
- Government Page
- Sep/27/22 12:24:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House of Commons on behalf of the good people of Cumberland—Colchester. As we found out last night, we were hit very hard by hurricane Fiona. I think it bears repeating that our thoughts and prayers are with all the folks out there who continue to suffer without power and to dig out from the storm.
Primarily, we need to think of the carbon tax as exactly what it is. It is a tax. It is another tax that businesses and individuals have to pay. We are here now, of course. If other parliamentarians are not aware of this, then they must be living under a rock, but we are at the highest rates of inflation in decades. It harkens back to those days in my life in 1999 when we were coming out of those very high inflation years. Indeed, in 1990, when my wife and I bought our first car, we needed a loan and interest rates were at 18%. My lovely father-in-law was a great accountant and someone who always needed to teach one an interesting lesson. Interestingly enough, he was kind enough to give us a loan for 12%. Those kinds of things are where we are headed to now.
A big concern that I have is the cost of living. If we are talking about raising taxes, we cannot do so without talking about the cost of living. Every day, my constituency assistants receive calls from people who are unable to afford their lives. As we might say, they are being priced out of their own lives. I have spoken in the House previously about people who have had to sell their wedding bands in order to buy food.
We know that where I live, in rural Canada, it is going to be important to understand that winter is coming. I know that is a bit of a cliche from a TV show, but winter comes every year, and it is still coming. I think we need to understand what it costs to fill a barrel of oil now. Many people in rural Canada still live in single-family dwellings with oil heat, especially in Atlantic Canada. It is going to cost about $1,500 to fill one barrel of oil. Of course, if we get a bad winter it may last six weeks, but it may only last a month. When we are talking about $1,500, we all know that is a significant amount of money.
We also know that people at the current time cannot feed themselves. We have heard multiple times that the cost of groceries has gone up 10%. On top of that, the carbon tax, of course, will add many more difficulties and much more hardship on the people who live in Cumberland—Colchester. Another thing of interest is that I am very perplexed as to why the government would continue to have only one solution for a complex problem. Why continue to beat Canadians over the head with more taxes, more taxes and more taxes to fund the free-fall spending of the Liberal government? I fail to understand that.
Previously, I was a physician. What we do know is that for complex problems there are often multi-faceted solutions. For instance, when people suffer from cardiovascular disease, we know that people may take medications. We could suggest that they just take their pills, go out, eat whatever they want and live their lives. Is that appropriate? Could it make them live longer? Yes, but does it make people any healthier? I would suggest to the good folks out there that it would not actually make them healthier. How do we help people become healthier? We ask them to exercise more. We ask them to get better sleep. We ask them to help their mental health problems.
The stretch here, of course, is to understand that climate change is real and to question how we will solve that problem. They continue to push tax upon tax to solve a problem. In my mind, and I think in the minds of Conservatives across this great country, people understand that that is a solution based on only one facet of the problem. Clearly, we know it is, given the significant cost-of-living challenges of Canadians at this time and what they are really unable to afford. As, my great colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable pointed out, gasoline it is costing another 40¢ a litre.
In parts of Atlantic Canada, buying a car still poses a great difficulty. There may be many people in larger cities, and perhaps across the aisle, who can afford fancy electric cars for $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000, but we know that in parts of rural Canada there are people who buy cars for $2,500 or $3,500 because that is what they can afford. We know now that adding on top of that is going to be difficult.
One of the big concerns I have is that people in Cumberland—Colchester are going to be specifically and proportionally disadvantaged by having to pay more for gasoline. We do not have mass transit. We do not have subways. We do not have those kinds of things. People rely on themselves to get to where they need to go, because that is where we have chosen to live. Therefore, should we be disproportionately affected by another 40¢ per litre on gasoline? To me, that is not really a possibility.
One of the other important things to figure out is who is paying this tax? We understand very clearly from the government that large corporations can apply for an exemption from the carbon tax. That does not really make a lot of sense to me, because we know small businesses are not eligible to have an exemption from it. We also know that small businesses are the backbone of Canada; they are the economic drivers. Therefore, small businesses have to pay the tax and large corporations do not.
We also know that individuals will end up paying more. We know that an average household is now paying $1,400 more annually for the carbon tax.
I always look at this as a shell game, that game where the ball is hidden under shells, then they are moved around and we guess what shell the ball is under. We want to know where that shell is, who is paying the tax and how much is it. These elusive answers make it more difficult to find any type of support for a carbon tax.
We need to look at other technological examples of how to do that. We know that our western partners in the great province of Alberta have the cleanest oil in the world. We also know that there are other technologies, such as carbon capture and storage. We also look to things like small modular reactors to produce pollution-free electricity.
When we look at those kinds of things, it becomes very clear that there are multiple solutions to a problem as opposed to continuing to talk about a carbon tax, which we know very clearly was originally promised at $50 per tonne and is now set to more than triple to $170 per tonne.
I would also be remiss if I did not talk about the specific situation in Nova Scotia. We know that it has made significant strides in greening its economy and reducing greenhouse gas. We also know that Premier Tim Houston has sent very pointed letters to the Minister of Environment to help understand better what Nova Scotia's position is.
To quote Premier Houston, he said that his government would outpace federal greenhouse gas reduction targets while costing Nova Scotians less than what they would pay with a federal carbon pricing system. He said, “our path to 2030 is more effective, it’s more affordable and it’s more visionary than a carbon tax.”
According to provincial documents, Nova Scotia's legislated greenhouse gas reduction target is to be at least 53%t below 2005 levels by 2030. The objective of the federal carbon tax is to be 40% to 45% below 2005 levels.
The other part of this is that it behooves us to understand that if we are to continue to not allow the provinces to be creative and if we are to continue on with this Ottawa-knows-best approach, this again is absolutely untenable. Why would Canadians believe in this carbon tax when clearly, as I have stated in multiple different ways, there are other ways to reach these targets? Continuing to bash Canadians over the head at a time when inflation is at a 40-year high is really an untenable position.
Canadians are hurting. Our offices hear from them every day. I am absolutely astounded that the members across the aisle are not hearing from their constituents as well to understand how difficult it is to function in today's world from a financial perspective. Therefore, I would suggest that perhaps the members opposite need to listen to their constituents to understand how difficult it is and then, as we might say in the vernacular, axe the tax.
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- May/13/22 11:56:33 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, recently I spent time in Springhill. All the businesses had concerns about the state of our economy. They need workers, both unskilled and skilled. They need regulatory changes for their products. They need relief from extreme inflation. They need answers, not talking points about the United States or the rest of the world, and they need the government's hand out of their back pocket.
How will the government create good policy, not more handouts, and let small businesses flourish?
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- Dec/3/21 1:54:21 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Madam Speaker, I want to make something clear to my colleagues. The reason I decided to change my profession as a front-line health care worker was to come here to Ottawa. I have been married for 31 years to my wife, Deborah, who is a pharmacist. I also have a daughter who is a paramedic, so this bill has really important meaning for me.
I wanted to come here to help create good laws, such as the one around conversion therapy, which we all worked on together. I wanted to help support my constituents to live their version of the Canadian dream, which I have been very fortunate to be able to do. I also want to help return Canada to its rightful place on the world stage, having had the opportunity to serve our great country in the Royal Canadian Air Force for nine years as a flight surgeon. Being here today to speak to a bill to protect health care workers and patients alike, so they can give and receive the care they need and desire, is truly an honour.
This is indeed a terrible situation. It is one I have experienced personally, and it is one I have seen other people experience. The abuse is mainly verbal abuse, threats and sexual harassment. As I mentioned, there are health care heroes. At the beginning of the pandemic, health care heroes were ready to give their lives for the sake of their patients. I think I talked about this in one of my other speeches.
I have often thought about this: Why do some people run into burning buildings and others run away? That is a real characterization of primary care providers and first responders alike.
They provide life-saving procedures and care to many people who perhaps are not ready to receive that type of care and do not know what type of illness they have. My dear colleagues should think of this: When the pandemic began, there was a significant fear that we would get the virus, as front-line health care workers, and perhaps die from it. However, the worse fear was thinking we were going to take it home to our loved ones. I can remember taking three showers a day when I worked on the COVID unit and thinking I would lose layers of skin so that I would not take it home to my family. Also, a lot of us lived separately. Several of my colleagues bought recreational vehicles to live in the driveways of their homes.
I think that COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of health care providers and the care they provide. Our colleague from Winnipeg North talked a little about this. Sadly, though, COVID-19 has also contributed to a mental health decline among health professionals. As we know, violence against health care workers is on the rise, and it often begins at the bedside in hospitals. Sadly, it is often gender-based and racially motivated, although certainly not always.
I can give examples of violence I have witnessed from patients who were admitted to the emergency room, and in my own office. Fortunately, in my office it was often characterized by foul language and demands toward my front-office staff. I want to make it clear to people that in no way, shape or form did I find this tolerable, and I made that clear to those folks who wanted to purport that.
In my opinion, the reason for this rise in violence is multifactorial. It is related to access to our systems. It is sometimes related to things like dementia or unhappiness with the health care system, which is suffering greatly; to differing opinions on the type of care people should have, or desire to have; to the mental health changes associated with isolation, fear, sadness and irritation; or to following multiple rules and mandates and uncertainty.
I have to be clear that some of these things have been made even worse by my colleagues across the aisle with their mandates and uncertain rules for people, as well as by their lack of clarity. Unfortunately, through social media the good graces that many in my age grew up with are gone. That is not to be disparaging to younger folks. That is unfair, but many of those good graces are gone and that is spilling over into real life. It is not just in the virtual world. That, too, makes me sad.
This is also exacerbated by the 24-hour news cycle and the need to report and dissect stories and positions by pundits, politicians, professors and profilers. Does this matter? I think it does matter, because if we also do not examine the root causes of why these people feel like they are not being heard and need to act in the ways we are seeing, then we are not going to be able to act as a good government, make good policies and give folks better direction.
Why does someone become a health care worker? Why do people work in nursing homes and emergency rooms and provide in-patient care? Why is someone a health care technician, nurse, physician, pharmacist or paramedic? The unifying idea here is that they want to help people. They think it is very important that they see people who are sick and unwell, and they are caring at heart. They want to help people get through those difficult times in their lives, whether through things like bereavement, a surgical illness or mental health illness, they want to be there to help.
I also want to make it clear to my colleagues that unfortunately this type of abuse is not only directed at frontline health care workers. We have also seen it directed toward policy-makers. In my own province of Nova Scotia, we have seen Dr. Robert Strang, our chief medical officer of health, subjected to these types of actions. We have also noted that Dr. Theresa Tam has been subjected to it. We know our own colleague, the shadow minister for natural resources and former shadow minister for health, suffered threats and humiliation.
What is important here is giving good direction and clear advice to Canadians, but also to come at that, as we have often talked about here in the House over the last several days, from a position of caring and concern for our colleagues and for all Canadians, and to give them a voice so that we can hear their issues. It is somewhat counterproductive to alienate millions of unvaccinated Canadians with more and more restrictive mandates. Unfortunately, we do hear from them over and over that they are losing their jobs, they are losing their pensions, they are concerned about losing their house and how they are going to provide for their family. Those are not the types of policies that are going to help us fix this situation.
I watched the news the other day. I did hear one pastor say that unfortunately there are people out there who are going to dig their heels in all the way to their necks. We need to support the right to lawful association and for the right to express alternate opinions. As we will likely see in debates coming up in this House in the future, we know that free speech needs to be defended. In the immortal words of Voltaire, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.” Colleagues, this is not about restricting the right to protest. It is about ensuring the manner in which it is done does not harm another person.
On the second part of this bill and being a rookie politician, I am not sure how well they go together or how much it will add to those folks who already have significant federal benefits. I do get concerned about the trickle-down effects this may have on provincial governments and small businesses. We know that small businesses are essential to our economy moving forward, especially in this time of significant inflation, and that is going to be important as we go forward.
I am not entirely sure what the benefit is of having these two together and what benefit the second part of the bill is going to provide. Certainly, it is a worthwhile bill to present and to send it off to committee for further study.
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