- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72
- Government Page
- Apr/18/23 12:16:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, listening to the hon. member's speech, one would think Canadians, and particularly Torontonians, have never had it so good. In fact, prior to the pandemic, of the 128 food bank networks across the greater Toronto area, 65,000 people were using the food bank. This March, 275,000 people used the food bank. Across Canada, 1.5 million people are using food banks.
Does the hon. member not take any responsibility for government policy creating this mess in terms of the debt, the deficits and the increased inflation, all the things that have contributed to this food bank usage?
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- Apr/18/23 11:14:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the areas I want to focus on in the budget is specifically with respect to Lake Simcoe. I know the government has allocated a multi-million dollar fund for freshwater lakes and watersheds across the country.
One of the things that we are focused on locally, and I would consider the member to be part of that in central Ontario, is specific funding for Lake Simcoe and the reinstatement of the Lake Simcoe clean-up fund. As we know, a previous Conservative government invested close to $60 million and saw measurable improvements in phosphorus and fish habitats were coming back.
There were numerous councils around the Lake Simcoe watershed that passed motions asking for direct funding for Lake Simcoe. Why would that not have been specifically indicated in the budget as a direct funding mechanism for Lake Simcoe?
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- Apr/25/22 1:30:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the latest report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which I know my colleague would have read, it calls into question the ability, and it is a fair question and I say this respectfully, of the CRA to actually go after these tax dodgers, as the NDP calls them. There is still a problem that exists there that needs to be addressed.
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- Apr/25/22 1:28:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is the problem with passing that on to the farms and the legislation that started years ago under the Liberal government. There are many challenges within the agriculture sector that farmers are facing. I happen to come from a large agricultural area. The carbon tax is causing problems, especially for grain heaters.
On fertilizer costs, I just spoke with one of our local farmers, Larry Kell, last week. There is an increase in fertilizer costs, the 35% surcharge, and they have already prepaid for a lot of this fertilizer, but there is a shortage of fertilizer right now. It is going to cause a major problem for the agricultural sector. There is a lot to be concerned about.
There are three things that we need in this country: energy security, food security and biopharma security. Those are the things that we need to focus on, especially at this time, given the geopolitical crises happening around the world.
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- Apr/25/22 1:27:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an absolutely absurd assertion. Banks pay their fair share. Businesses pay their fair share. Individuals pay their fair share. I just did my taxes, and believe me, I am paying my fair share.
The problem is the banks are simply going to pass that cost on to consumers. Let us be realistic about this. If the hon. member actually thinks the banks are going to pay any additional taxes charged by the government and not pass that on to consumers, adding to the existing burden consumers, taxpayers and people in my riding are already facing, then he is sadly naive. He is sadly mistaken if he does not think that is going to happen.
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- Apr/25/22 1:21:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues' passionate discourse on this and the fact that they were more or less agreeing with what I was saying. When the Liberals were out selling the budget and travelling around Canada contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, the Parliamentary Budget Officer issued a report on Friday that was quite troubling with respect to the budget. He flags several downside risks in the recent federal budget, the biggest being big-ticket campaign promises that have yet to make an appearance in the government's fiscal forecast.
What they've forecasted is in the budget, but there are things that are not forecasted that are going to cause some significant costs later on. The PBO's largest concern is expenditures looming outside of the budget, including some of the Liberal campaign pledges and lobbying by provinces for big increases to health care transfers.
On the spending side, he said there could be a significant delta. This is the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux. He went on to say some of those election promises were slated to start up in the current fiscal year, most notably the commitment to increase annual payments to seniors receiving the guaranteed income supplement. He said many of these costs, including a promised increase to Canadian mental health transfers, do not appear in the budget. Universal pharmacare, which is of course a large part of the NDP-Liberal alliance, could cost billions of dollars a year. The Liberals pulled up short of a commitment to a full-blown program during the campaign, but the agreement struck with the NDP last month says that the government will make continuing progress toward such a program. However, there is no forecasted cost to that. Those costs will come up later on.
When the Parliamentary Budget Officer is warning about this particular budget, then I think all Canadians should heed those warnings. As I said earlier, I spent the last couple of weeks in the riding, and I heard from a lot of people. I know the Liberals' argument, because I have heard it a couple of times this morning, has to do with some of the geopolitical problems happening around the world being a cause of current inflation, whether it is supply chain issues or others. However, as I said at the onset, this was predicted to happen when the money printing presses were going at full steam a year and a half to two years ago. Even then, people were concerned about the cost of living. Some emails I received August 25, 2021, almost eight months ago, begged me to do something about this, if not for them, then for their future children. They say the government needs to fix this broken situation as it relates to housing.
One from August 25 reads, “I'm not sure who I would send this letter to, but I wish to express my concern with current rental and housing shortages in Barrie and surrounding areas.” This is a serious issue and many people are struggling as a result. I know there are billions allocated toward housing, but there have been billions allocated in the past, and we have not seen any measurable increases.
There are affordability projects right now that are waiting for approval from the government. I wrote a letter to the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion three or four months ago. Still, no decision has been made for an already existing project that is waiting to go through the rapid housing initiative. It is to be a joint partnership between Simcoe County and what we hope would be the province and the federal government, but we have not heard anything at this point. There are a lot of announcements, but the list is long.
The emails and texts about the anxiety and the affordability crisis people are facing right now are long. Adding on billions and billions of dollars for more long-term, unsustainable programs, from the affordability standpoint, is awfully difficult for Canadians.
The last thing I will speak to is my profound disappointment about Lake Simcoe. In 2019, Conservatives were promised $30 million for the re-establishment of the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund. Just two or three days before the election in the advance polls, the then deputy prime minister, the now finance minister, came to the shores of Lake Simcoe promising $40 million for the reinstatement of the Lake Simcoe fund. Just a couple of days after the election, my colleagues and I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister about it.
In this budget, only $19.7 million was allocated, and it is not for direct funding for Lake Simcoe. It is to be spread across the country. There was $60 million spent to clean up Lake Simcoe. We saw measurable improvements. I am extremely disappointed that the commitment made in 2019 was not lived up to in this budget. We are going to continue to fight for Lake Simcoe.
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- Apr/25/22 1:16:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to get up this afternoon, on the first day back after a couple of weeks back in our ridings, to speak about the budget. It reminds me of that old adage that people of integrity expect to be believed, and when they are not, time will prove them right.
Time is certainly proving us right on predictions that were made a year and a half to two years ago, when the money-printing machines were going at full force to provide the types of supports that were needed for COVID. There were predictions on this side at that time, and right across the spectrum economists were predicting that inflationary pressures would begin to increase. We are now seeing those inflationary pressures affecting Canadian families in a way that they have not for a generation.
I have been in my riding for the last couple of weeks, as all members have, and received emails, phone calls and text messages from the people of Barrie—Innisfil, who are quite concerned about the inflationary pressures that are happening within my community and in communities across Canada. This morning I happened to be watching the finance committee, and the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, was on there. He was asked a point-blank question by our shadow minister of finance: “Can we still consider inflation as transitory?” His answer was no.
We are entering into a period of permanent inflation, it seems, and we know, based on Statistics Canada, that last month it was at 6.7%. We can think of the impact that has on Canadian families and the families I represent in Barrie—Innisfil. The price of everything is skyrocketing. The prices of gas, home heating, consumables, groceries, commodities and the necessities of life are increasing dramatically right across this country, and the expectation, according to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, is that this inflationary period we are in is going to be lasting for a long time. This is going to further impact affordability for families, further erode their retirement savings and really dramatically impact their ability to pay for things, especially at a time when they can least afford them.
We heard, even in the last couple of weeks, in some of the surveys that came out, about how Canadians are desperately clinging to affordability. In many circumstances, over half of Canadians do not have enough money at the end of the month to pay for the things they need, the necessities of life.
This budget actually increases government spending. There are certain things that are sure in life, and the one thing we can count on is that this budget is going to pass. Because of the coalition between the NDP and the Liberals, the New Democrats have signalled that not only are they going to support this budget, but they are also going to support subsequent budgets.
We can sit here and criticize, and I have some things that I want to bring up specifically with respect to the budget as it relates to local issues in my riding of Barrie—Innisfil, but when we want to get an assessment of what people think about this budget, we can go to the experts.
People do not have to listen to us; they do not have to listen to the government or the other opposition parties. They can listen to what respected economists are saying about this budget and the impact it is going to have on Canadians. Don Drummond, who is a former senior Department of Finance official, former TD Bank chief economist and current Queen's professor, said this:
If I were in the business world I’d be extremely depressed, because we are at some point going to have to turn to how we fund all this spending, and it would seem the go-to funding source is corporate income tax.
It was the first seven words, “If I were in the business world”, that caught the eye of another expert, who said:
The problem is, we are all “in the business world,” whether we like it or not—as workers, consumers, and taxpayers. Tax business, and you tax almost everything we consume and most of the services we depend on.
Those services will be hardest hit as a result of this. We have spoken about this many times. The impact of this type of continued spending is that taxes go up and services get cut. It is that simple, especially entering into a period in which we have higher interest rates. Even the—
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