- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72
- Government Page
- Nov/2/23 5:07:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the hon. member was one of the 50 species of fish that swim in the Red River, he would certainly be swimming upstream on this issue.
In late September, there was a Postmedia-Leger poll that found a clear majority of 55% of Canadians want the carbon tax reduced or eliminated entirely and that everyone thinks the federal plan to get to net zero is unrealistic. Of the respondents, 18% wanted the carbon tax reduced, 37% wanted it abolished, and 27% were fine to keep it as is.
One thing I have never been able to understand and explain to the residents of Barrie—Innisfil is this: The government talks about them getting more money than what they pay into it, which the PBO has said is not the case. If I take a dollar from somebody and give that person their dollar back, how are they ahead? I would love to hear an explanation on that one.
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- Nov/2/23 2:57:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not a luxury for seniors, families and single-parent families to heat their homes, regardless of what type of fuel they use or what region of the country they are from. After eight years of the Prime Minister and a year and a half of the NDP-Liberal coalition, Canadians realize they are not worth the cost.
On Monday, NDP members will have a choice to make: support their constituents who are suffering from energy poverty or support a panicking Prime Minister.
Will the Prime Minister force the NDP members to support their coalition agreement, or, with what little dignity they have left, will they support the people they represent, to keep the tax off and the heat on?
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- Nov/2/23 12:30:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad the hon. member for York—Simcoe rose on that, because I was in the House when the member for Kings—Hants said that. I know the hon. member for York—Simcoe, and I know how he feels about this carbon tax and that he wants to see it scrapped across the country.
I sat in the House, as I said, for the debate this morning. I listened to the NDP and the Liberals. For lack of a better term, there is a falsehood that is being spread in the House. The NDP is saying that they had a motion to remove the GST off home heating, when in fact it was a Conservative motion to scrap the carbon tax. The NDP actually tried to amend the motion. That is really where this misrepresentation is being spread.
My question to the hon. member is this: Is that not factually what happened in the House a year ago?
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- Oct/30/23 2:53:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, an obvious, desperate Prime Minister admitted his carbon tax is punishing Canadians and making life unaffordable. After eight years he finally proved to himself last Thursday that he is not worth the cost. His only strategy at this point is not about climate. It is about protecting his Liberal MPs. In Sudbury, in Nickel Belt, 55% of homes are heated by natural gas, yet for these struggling Canadians they get no exemption from heating their homes.
The Leader of the Opposition has proposed to axe the tax in all forms of home heating for every Canadian. Will the Prime Minister agree with that?
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to stand in this place and speak to legislation and, in this particular case, it is an honour to speak to the report stage of Bill C-34.
Before I begin, having just spent the weekend back in my riding and arriving this morning back in Ottawa, at different events and in lots of interaction with my constituents, since we are speaking about competition, I cannot say enough about the impact of the Prime Minister's decision last Thursday to limit the carbon tax, or actually take away the carbon tax, on home heating oil within Atlantic Canada and how much of an impact that is having on the residents whom I represent in Barrie—Innisfil, in a negative way. Many are questioning and wondering why the same application of an exemption to the carbon tax was not applied equally across the country.
I know the Prime Minister gave his rationale, but that is literally cold comfort to the people whom I represent, especially the seniors who are struggling to pay for groceries and to pay their natural gas bills. Many of them are sending me their natural gas bill, and the carbon price is oftentimes equal to the distribution charge of natural gas itself. There are families who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, moms who are worried about paying the bills on a daily basis and, of course, single-parent families who are just struggling to make ends meet, buy nutritious food for their families and pay their gas bills, especially with winter coming up. It was quite the topic of conversation this week within my riding.
Quite frankly, I did not have an answer for any of them because the Prime Minister's decision was to exclude solely Atlantic Canada when the rest of us are still paying the carbon tax for home heating in particular, and those prices are going to go up. The cost of distribution is going to go up and the cost of the carbon tax is going to go up. People in the riding I represent are quite concerned about the inequity of not having the same benefit other Canadians have. I wanted to share that message because it is something I heard on the weekend in my many interactions with the people whom I represent in my riding of Barrie—Innisfil.
We are here today to speak to Bill C-34 at report stage with respect to the improvements, and some needed improvements, to the Investment Canada Act. It is important because we just finished, at the ethics committee, a study on foreign interference and the role that nations, particularly China and Russia, are playing as state-owned actors making investments into our economy for the purpose, quite frankly, of control, including controlling Canadian businesses, controlling Canadian minerals, controlling Canadian resources and controlling, in many cases as the hon. member just spoke about, some of our northern and offshore areas as well. Therefore, it becomes critically important for the government to keep a keen eye, and multiple eyes, in fact, on what is happening with foreign investment and the approvals.
Bill C-34 highlights a few simple things. Number one, there are numerous foreign state-owned enterprises who have acquired interest and control in many Canadian companies, intellectual property, tangible assets and the data of our citizens. We are finding more and more that this access to data and theft of data are not just to use it for nefarious reasons but to propagate disinformation and misinformation to create societal chaos, so we have to be mindful of that. The government, quite frankly, would do very little to protect our national economic and security interests with this bill, despite what we are hearing the Liberals say today and other days during debate, and certainly at committee.
We have to take sensitive transactions seriously, and we have failed to fully review some of the transactions, particularly as they relate to Chinese state-owned enterprises in the past. Later, I am going to be citing some examples of where we have put at risk not just Canadian intellectual property but also Canadians in general.
One can agree with some of the principles of this bill, and we certainly agree with some of the principles, but it does not go far enough to address some of the risks faced by Canadians. That is why we worked to pass significant amendments in committee to better protect Canadian interests and Canadian assets.
When I look through the list of amendments that were proposed for Bill C-34, only four were passed at committee out of the roughly 13 we proposed. One that was accepted was on reducing the threshold to trigger a national security review from $512 million to zero dollars for all state-owned enterprise investment made in Canada. Lowering that threshold was critical so that at least it would trigger and initiate a security review.
The other amendment that was passed would ensure that items renewable under the national security review process include acquisitions of any assets by a state-owned enterprise. Again, this is all about protecting Canadians and protecting our valuable assets, our businesses and certainly our interests.
The other one would ensure that an automatic national security review is conducted whenever a company has previously been convicted of corruption charges. If somebody had not supported that, I would have been surprised, quite frankly. It is one of the proposals at committee that were adopted.
The last would require the minister to conduct a national security review by changing the word “may” to “shall” to ensure a review is triggered whenever it is in the new threshold. This was quite frankly a no-brainer.
However, there were some amendments proposed that were not accepted at committee and rejected. The one that concerns me the most is the one that would require the minister to conduct a national security review by changing “may” to “shall” to ensure the review is triggered whenever in the review threshold.
One of the things we have to be mindful of is that anytime a transaction being proposed impacts the national security interests of our country, we have to make sure there is a review. One of the proposed amendments was to have a Governor in Council review of this so there is not just one eye on it, the minister's eye. It would go to the cabinet table so there are multiple eyes on it and multiple questions being asked, which is critical when we are dealing with sensitive national security interests.
Why is this important? As I said earlier, there have been situations in the past where companies have not had the type of review they should have. That has been widely publicized. A Chinese takeover deal in 2015 had been previously rejected by the Conservative government, but it was approved in 2015. This was based on Hong Kong O-Net Technologies Group as it related to a business here. Having multiple eyes on the review therefore becomes critical.
In fact, three years ago, a Deloitte study suggested to the government that we should not buy sensitive security IT from despotic regimes. That was in relation to a $6.8-million contract to supply security equipment to Canada's embassies. This was Nuctech, which is known as the Huawei of airport security. Some may recall that this involved X-ray machines being supplied for use by the Government of Canada.
While there are some things to support in this bill, the amendments that were proposed by our Conservative colleagues in committee were reasonable and practicable and should have been applied to many aspects of the bill we are debating today.
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- May/29/23 4:56:40 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for representing the views of his constituents in this place. He is an elected member of Parliament. He gets to reflect those views. Despite what other parties may think is indignation and may say to impose indignation on his comments, I want to ask the hon. member what his constituents' views are with respect to the carbon tax itself.
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- Feb/6/23 2:59:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, it has come down to this. While I was at community events this weekend, several people I spoke to were telling me how hard it is to pay their bills. I heard stories of seniors living in the cold because home heating costs have doubled. The carbon tax is not helping. Community fridges are being emptied as quickly as they are being filled. Working families are using food banks, and moms are struggling to pay to keep the rooves over their heads.
When will the Prime Minister realize the pain he is causing, quit blaming everyone else for the problems he has created and do something about it? He can start by scrapping the costly carbon tax.
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Madam Speaker, I encourage the member to read what is in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report and how that impacts Canadians across the country, not just in Winnipeg North.
I can speak to my issue in Barrie—Innisfil. The carbon tax is disproportionately affecting individuals and businesses. People need to drive to go to work, need to heat their homes and need to eat. Businesses that are providing goods and services are being charged a carbon tax and they are not getting any rebate back. It is a tax. It is not a price on carbon. It is disproportionately affecting a majority of people across the country.
Leger did a poll this week, and 71% of Canadians want the carbon tax eliminated, because they know it is having an impact on them.
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Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today for the people of Barrie—Innisfil, representing them as their member of Parliament, to talk about the fall economic statement.
Let me begin by saying that those who are residents of Barrie—Innisfil and the businesses within Barrie—Innisfil are really feeling the inflation and the affordability crisis that is happening right now. Despite the rosy picture painted by the government, this lollipops, gumdrops, rainbows and unicorns scenario, people are finding the affordability factor to be real. They are hurting. Businesses are hurting. People are wondering, as we head into the winter heating season, how they are going to heat their house.
I hear from seniors and families all the time about their circumstances and how bad things really are, particularly for seniors on fixed incomes who are making healthy nutrition choices about what they are going to eat. This should never be happening in a G7 country such as Canada, yet it is, and the government sits here with the fall economic statement somehow portraying this rosy picture, when in fact it is not the case.
I am just one of 338 representatives in this place, but I know from talking to my colleagues that they are hearing about it. I am sure those on the Liberal and NDP benches, and others, are hearing about the problem of inflation and affordability, the housing crisis and the issue of rent prices. We are hearing about the affordability and attainability situation with houses and about the many young people who are being priced out of the market. They are losing their hopes, their dignity and their dreams of aspiring to be a homeowner, which is being lost as a result of the self-inflicted wound of inflation and affordability that has been caused by the Liberal government.
I have spoken to many young people, not just within my riding but also across Canada. They feel like they have been lied to and let down by the Prime Minister and the government. I will go so far as to say that they are despondent. They are despondent they are not going to have the same opportunities, hopes and dreams as earlier generations. Something has to change, and this fall economic statement does nothing to change the current situation.
What is required here, and I know Conservatives put this forward in advance of the fall economic statement, is the need to lower taxes. We need to put a halt on the carbon taxes, stop the payroll taxes and the CPP taxes, which are impacting not only the people who are employed but also employers. We did fire a warning shot across the government's bow that we would support the fall economic statement if certain measures were put in, but this one was not. It was that, for every new dollar being spent, the government would find a dollar in savings from government waste. There is nothing in the fall economic statement that actually addresses that.
In fact, I read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report this week, and interestingly, in it he talks about an additional $14.2 billion in spending with no indication at all of how that money is going to be spent. One would think a government, when proposing $14.2 billion in additional spending in its fall economic statement, would at least have line by line items or details on what it is going to spend that money on. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that there was nothing in the fall economic statement to give that indication.
Here we are, as parliamentarians, looking over a fall economic statement that talks about billions and billions of dollars in additional spending without the ability to hold the government to account or ask those questions on a line-by-line basis. The government and the Prime Minister expect we are just going to willy-nilly pass this thing through.
That is not the function of Parliament. It is not the function of parliamentarians. Our function is to hold the government to account, and the government needs to reciprocate that by being as transparent as it can. The fall economic statement, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, does little of that. Those were the two criteria we set, and we gave the government ample advice and ample warning that we would support the fall economic statement if those two issues were met, and neither one was.
We find ourselves in a situation right now where, yes, we are going to dispute the fall economic statement. No, we are not able to support the measures the government is going to implement, because it did not abide by those simple principles, like every Canadian family does: If we are going to spend something, then we have to find those dollars.
Throughout COVID, we have seen a lot of wasteful spending. In fact, recent reports show that $200 billion of the $500 billion that was purportedly allocated toward COVID measures were actually not put toward COVID measures. Where did the money go? We are starting to find out. There was the multi-million dollar arrive scam app. We found out about $240 million in ventilators that were never used. There was $150 million for SNC-Lavalin to provide field hospitals that were never built.
Parliamentarians on this side of the House have every right to question government spending. They have every right to question what is in budgets and in this fall economic statement. I know the government does not like that, but that is our job.
As I said at the outset, there are many things going on around the country, not just in Barrie—Innisfil, but it is important to highlight some of the challenges this inflationary and affordability crisis is causing for Canadians.
Debt interest payment costs have doubled this year. Next year, interest payments will be nearly as much as the Canada health transfer. We are back in that cycle again, under a Liberal government, where the cost of servicing debt is more than the health transfers that are provided to the provinces. Something has to give. It always does when we increase debt and deficits. One of two things happens, which we are certainly seeing this with the government: Taxes go up or services get cut.
Interest rates, as we all know, are increasing at the fastest rate in decades. Families that bought a typical home five years ago, with a typical mortgage that is now up for renewal, are paying $7,000 more a year. The Bank of Canada has signalled that interest rates will have to continue to rise even higher, and that will continue the pain.
I mentioned the carbon tax earlier, and that is expected to triple. This is despite the promise of the Prime Minister heading into the 2019 election that it was going to be capped at $50 a tonne. A year after that election, the government announced that the carbon tax was going to increase to $170 a tonne. That is a threefold-plus increase in the carbon tax.
Who is paying for that? Homeowners are paying for it with home heating, hydro, groceries and everything else. Wholesalers and producers are paying that on the manufacturing and production side, and they are passing that down to the consumers. It is having a cascading effect across the economy. The government's argument is that this is what it needs to do to fight climate change.
We found out this week from COP27 that Canada ranks 58th out of 64 in the world for a reduction of carbon emissions. Clearly, the plan is not working, but Canadians are suffering as a result of the carbon tax that is being imposed. The government will then again argue that more families in Canada are getting more money back than what they pay in the carbon tax. The Parliamentary Budget Officer again says that is not true. The government picks and chooses what it wants to hear from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is an independent agent of Parliament, but when he tells the truth, it does not like the truth.
That is part of the problem that exists today. Liberals are not living in reality. They have lost touch. Their ideology will not allow them to solve the problems that they have created with respect to inflation. Until and unless we get to a point where we reduce government spending, or at least if there is new spending then attach it to dollars found and start reducing taxes to make life more affordable and attainable for Canadians, this situation will be prolonged for a long time. Canadians will continue to suffer, and the only way that we can change that is with a change in government.
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- Nov/17/22 2:11:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, here are some sobering numbers to show how much Canada has been broken financially by these Liberals.
Government debt in Canada has doubled since 2015 to $1.13 trillion in 2022, meaning the Prime Minister has spent more than all previous prime ministers combined. The total cost of servicing that debt is roughly $42 billion per year and growing, exceeding the cost of yearly health transfers to the provinces.
Each man, woman and child in Canada owes $56,000 as their part of the national debt, and it is having an impact. Inflation is at a 40-year high and affordability anxiety is a major problem. There are 1.5 million Canadians who visited a food bank in September. Half of Canadians are $200 away from not being able to meet their monthly obligations, and 30% say they cannot meet their monthly obligations.
These Liberals, aided and abetted by the NDP, are causing Canadians to lose their jobs, their hopes, their dreams and their dignity. It is time to stop wasteful spending, eliminate the carbon tax and give Canadians a break, which is what they need the most.
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Madam Speaker, as this is the first time I have risen in the House since, I would like to mention that we have had a pretty terrible week in the riding of Barrie—Innisfil with the loss of two South Simcoe police officers, Constable Morgan Russell and Constable Devon Northrup. I want to thank, on behalf of the people I represent in Barrie—Innisfil, not only all of the Canadians who have reached out to my office but also those who have shown support for the South Simcoe Police Service family and the families of the fallen officers.
Sadly, we had another reminder of the danger that police officers face again today. An RCMP officer in Burnaby has been killed, stabbed, in the line of duty. On behalf of the people I represent, I express my sincere condolences to that family and the RCMP family as well. It is an inherent reminder, as we talk about many issues in this place, of the dangers that police officers face day in and day out as they put on their uniforms to protect our communities, not just in South Simcoe or Barrie—Innisfil, but right across the country.
I am rising today to speak on Bill C-31, which is the rent and dental piece of legislation the government has proposed. There is most definitely an affordability crisis in this country. We have seen that over the course of the last several years. Much of this has been predicted. In fact, Conservatives were predicting, through our finance critic at the time, that we were heading toward this inflation crisis.
The reason for that is the amount of liquidity that has been injected into the market, and that continues to be injected, by the government through bond purchasing by the Bank of Canada and through other government programs that have been announced, not the least of which is this, a $10-billion program. This inflationary crisis, which was considered to be transitory at the time, will continue. It is actually almost becoming structural.
We have seen that the Bank of Canada has had to increase interest rates in a fairly aggressive way to mitigate some of the inflationary crisis that is facing Canadians. It is facing Canadians right across the country, such as those who I represent in Barrie—Innisfil. I had a chance to travel the country over the summer and speak to many Canadians who were quite concerned about the rising cost of food, groceries and shelter, as well as the increases in the carbon tax and the impact they are having, not just on individual families, but also on businesses.
I heard from one restaurant owner who sent me a copy of a bill. The carbon tax portion of his heating bill was over $1,300, which is an additional cost to his business. Let us assume, for example, that he works off of a 10% margin, which is quite likely in today's competitive retail space. That means that, in order to pay for that carbon tax bill, that restauranteur would have to sell 13,000 additional more dollars' worth of food that month to pay his carbon tax bill. Those are the types of things that are impacting Canadians.
I got an text from a resident of my riding, Kevin, just over the weekend. He mentioned to me that he got his carbon tax rebate last week of $163. He wrote, “How is that supposed to help. It's not even a small dent in all of our extra expenses with gas for our 2 cars and heating for this winter.” I do not want to say what he wrote next because it is an expletive, but he then said that he has paid way more in carbon tax than he would ever get back. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed that.
The majority of people in Ontario will be getting less back in their carbon tax rebate than they will be paying in carbon tax. That is clearly the case in Barrie—Innisfil and the people who I represent. They are disproportionately being impacted by this carbon tax because of the cost of gas that they have to put in their cars to travel to go to work and for heating their homes. We are also hearing about a potential 300% increase in home heating costs this winter. How are Canadians going to handle that? This is not just the people who I represent. We have heard stories about Atlantic Canada about the cost of propane and the impact the carbon tax is having on that.
We have asked the government many times to give Canadians a break and stop the impact and increases of the carbon tax, which is now $50 a tonne and is going up to $170 a tonne. This is in spite of an election promise in 2019 by the Prime Minister that the carbon tax would not increase over $50 a tonne. However, eight months later, there was an announcement by the environment minister and the Prime Minister that called for a tripling of the carbon tax.
This is not just going to impact families in a negative way, especially at a time when they can least afford it, but it is also going to speak to and impact the competitiveness of our Canadian businesses, such as the example of the restauranteur I gave. It is time right now for this government to look at the self-inflicted wound that it has created on the Canadian economy and to do something about it.
There were several times before the summer break when Conservatives proposed real and pragmatic solutions to solving the inflation and affordability crisis that is impacting Canadian families and businesses. However, in every circumstance, the NDP-Liberal coalition voted against. What do we have in front of us here today? We have a patchwork bill that is somehow going to solve a dental and rental crisis.
For rent, the government would be giving a one-time $500 payment to those who qualify, and not every Canadian is going to qualify for this. However, the $500 would not even cover today's rents across the country, particularly in Barrie—Innisfil, where it would not cover more than a week's rent.
Somehow this patchwork solution is the Liberal's solution to a problem they have created, which is really the problem we are facing right now. The Liberals and their NDP partners have boxed themselves into what I would classify as an ideological box, and they cannot ideologically align with and accept the very real solutions required for us to solve this inflation and affordability crisis. That is the problem we are facing right now, so they come up with these patchwork solutions.
On the dental program, I mentioned this last week, and I tried to table the healthy smiles Ontario program, which gives low-income people and children under 17 with disabilities the ability to get their teeth cleaned, have examinations and have dental work done. In fact, in my county, Simcoe County, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit has a bus that goes around and provides dental work, programs, examinations and preventative work for students while they are at school.
Several times the health minister was asked how many times the provincial health ministers had been asked about this program? How many of them actually asked for this program? He would not answer the question, because right now, 11 out of 13 provinces and territories have a program for healthy smiles. In fact, 70% of Canadians right now are covered through a health insurance program.
We have heard that there may be consequences to what the government is doing, one of which is that small and medium-sized enterprises may look at not providing this type of coverage if the government decides it is going to do it. Clearly, through this motion, the government is trying to effectively ram a $10-billion bill through the House of Commons without looking to solutions.
What is the solution? The solution is for government to get out of the way and allow for the power of our Canadian businesses, the people they employ, and the products and services they produce in every sector and every region of this country, and that includes the typical wealth-creating sector, which is the natural resource sector.
Right now, we are seeing around the world the geopolitical problems that are going on because of the ideological attack on what has always been and always will be a great revenue and wealth generator in this country. We have the ability to supply the world with clean Canadian energy and see the revenues that come with that, yet, because of the ideological alignment of the NDP and the Liberals, we are not doing that.
If Canada is not providing clean Canadian energy to the rest of the world, then who will? Would it be Russia, Venezuela or Iran? Those are the choices we face to find the solutions to open up the revenue side of the ledger so we can pay for the expenses this government has incurred and the inflation and affordability crisis that Canadians and businesses are now facing.
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- Oct/6/22 2:55:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the inflation and affordability crisis facing Canadians right now is a direct result of the Prime Minister's failed economic policies. When the Prime Minister of a G7 country admits that he does not even think about monetary policy, it is Canadian families and businesses that pay the price, and they are. They are paying the price with higher payroll taxes and higher costs for the necessities of life, like food, shelter, heating and clothing, and it is getting worse. Families need a break.
Will the Prime Minister stop his planned tax hikes on Canadian paycheques and his plan to triple the carbon tax?
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP, with its partnership and coalition with the Liberals, keeps propping them up for these victory laps.
My question is a simple one. His Majesty's Loyal Opposition has been proposing, over the last several days, a series of propositions to make life more affordable for Canadians by reducing taxes and reducing, or not implementing, the tripling of the carbon tax, yet this member has voted against every single measure Conservatives have brought forward to improve the affordability and inflationary crises Canadians are facing. I am wondering how the member could justify that to her constituents.
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- Sep/27/22 4:09:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have more a comment than a question. I learned long ago to never argue with a fool because they will never know when I am right.
The Liberal platform in 2019 spoke about a carbon tax that was going to be about $50 a tonne. Surprisingly, just a year after that, the Liberals announced that they were going to raise that up to $170 a tonne, which is almost a fivefold increase. At a time when Canadians can least afford it because of inflation and the affordability crisis, here they are raising carbon taxes again.
We are saying, give Canadians a break right now and give Canadians a break in the future from an affordability standpoint. Young people are neither fearful nor anxious. They are despondent right now, because they do not feel like they have hope for a prosperous future.
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- Apr/1/22 11:22:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, no one ever imagined a time when a family or seniors would be punished financially for simply driving their car to earn a living or to visit their grandchildren, yet gas prices are up again today because of the 25% hike in the carbon tax. The Liberals have a choice in the budget next week. They can be fiscally responsible like the Chrétien–Martin Liberals were or they can continue to take their marching orders from their radical NDP partners and be completely out of touch with Canadians, according to Ipsos.
What will it be: a Chrétien-Martin Liberal budget or an NDP-Liberal party budget?
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- Apr/1/22 11:20:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it may be April Fool's Day, but the tax hikes that went into effect less than 12 hours ago are no joke. This morning, Canadians woke up to higher taxes on everything from gas to groceries to home heating because of the 25% increase in the carbon tax. Everything moved by a truck will go up as producers and wholesales inevitably pass those costs on to the families and seniors who can least afford them.
Why is punishing Canadians financially at a time when they can least afford it acceptable to the NDP-Liberal government?
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- Mar/31/22 4:06:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a great question and the answer lies in the report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. While the Liberals say that 60% of Canadians will get more back in the carbon tax, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that 80% will receive less than what they pay in carbon tax. This is a fallacy that is spread by members of the Liberal government. They stand up here in the House and tell people things that are not exact.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer answered that question, and the people of Barrie—Innisfil are not getting back what they are paying in carbon tax. In fact, it is costing them more.
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