- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72
- Government Page
- Oct/4/23 2:16:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with Thanksgiving coming, the Liberals have in the past issued what they call “turkey talking points” as a guide to what they want families to discuss at the dinner table.
This year, their talking points should sound something like this: after eight years of this NDP-Liberal government, groceries, gas and home heating have become unaffordable because of their inflationary spending, the debt and the carbon tax. Housing costs are at 30-year highs, rent has doubled and young people have lost hope of ever owning a home. Three in five Canadians will be in financial trouble if interest rates increase. For many families, mortgage costs will double as renewals come due. Seven million Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, and 63% of Canadians spend what they make, while 30% spend more than they make each month. Violent crime is up 39% since 2015, and violent gun crime is up 101%. Finally, Canada has been humiliated and embarrassed on the world stage.
As Canadians gather this weekend, let us consider this one last “turkey talking point”: this is a Prime Minister who cannot be redeemed at this point, he must be replaced. Oh and by the way, he is not worth the cost.
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- Feb/15/23 3:03:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the current Prime Minister, Canadians are struggling to pay for their food and for their heat, and moms are going to bed every night worried about keeping roofs over their heads. However, if someone is a Liberal-connected insider, or a friend of the Prime Minister like McKinsey, they get their palms greased to the tune of $120 million, yet the Prime Minister does not care. He takes no responsibility either.
Will the Prime Minister either step aside and let Conservatives fix the problem, or is he going to add to the problem like he has over the last eight years?
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- Feb/14/23 2:16:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is never the crime; it is always the cover-up. As journalists were getting wind that some random Liberal had stayed in what we now know was a $7,000-a-night, posh London hotel, the Liberals went into full panic mode. They tried to spin and twist the story in any way possible, even blacking out emails identifying who stayed in the room. Imagine that, Mr. Speaker. Does anyone remember when the Prime Minister said that this was going to be the most transparent and accountable government in history?
Many Canadians are barely able to afford food, groceries and heat; moms are going to bed worried about keeping a roof over their families' heads. While Canadians are suffering the pain of the Liberal's self-inflicted inflation and affordability crisis, I wonder who on that side thought it was okay to spend $7,000 a night on a hotel and then try to cover it up.
After eight years of scandals and ethical violations, Canadians are now seeing that this out-of-touch and entitled Prime Minister cannot be redeemed and must be replaced.
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- Jan/30/23 2:18:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister's high taxes and inflationary deficits, 22% of Canadians, 28% of them women, say they are completely broke. After eight years, 32% say they will be in the same boat if prices continue rising. After eight years, 52% are concerned they do not have enough money to feed their families. After eight years, 1.5 million Canadians are using food banks every month. After eight years, young people feel lied to and let down by this Prime Minister. After eight years, seniors can barely afford groceries and many are living in the cold, unable to heat their homes. After eight years, Canadians are anxious, angry and worried about their future.
After eight years, this Prime Minister is completely out of touch and has no solutions to the problems that he has created. After eight years of dividing Canadians, this is a Prime Minister who cannot be redeemed; he can only be replaced. After eight years, Canada's Conservatives, led by the member for Carleton, are focused and ready to lead and as Parliament returns, we will show Canadians why.
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- Dec/2/22 11:10:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, everything feels broken in Canada because of the Liberals. The inflation and affordability crisis is causing stress to Canadian families, who, for the first time in their lives, are having to make difficult decisions as their household incomes are being eaten up by the cost of everything going up.
The cost of groceries is up, along with gas, home heating, housing, interest rates and food bank usage; they are all up. When we add the tripling of the carbon tax and other planned tax increases taking effect in January and April 2023, things are about to get worse.
It is no wonder Canadian families and businesses are at a breaking point, and one-time bribe payments by the Liberals will not solve what is quickly becoming a bigger crisis than it already is. The people I represent in Barrie—Innisfil and people across Canada are spending an extra $3,500 a year because of the self-inflicted Liberal inflation.
How did we, Canada, as a G7 country, get to a point where seniors, young people, families and businesses have been lied to and let down, with many losing their hopes, their dreams, their confidence and their dignity?
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- Nov/24/22 2:20:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last weekend, I attended a church Christmas bazaar. I stood behind a senior who was putting five for $3 raffle tickets into a cup for a $50 dollar grocery store gift card. She turned to me and said that she hoped she would win because she could not afford groceries anymore. What a sad indictment of how the Liberals and the Prime Minister, helped by the NDP, have broken our country in so many ways.
Inflation is at a 40-year high, 1.5 million Canadians rely on food banks since September and housing affordability and rental costs are out of control. Young Canadians feel they have been lied to and let down by the Prime Minister and are despondent about their future.
The problems that exist are structural. They are self-inflicted wounds created by a government so blinded by its ideology that it is impossible for it to come up with the solutions needed, and one-time bribe payments will not solve anything.
The only solution is a change in government to give Canadians control of their lives, to restore their hopes, to restore their dreams and to restore the dignity of that senior who stood in front of me last weekend.
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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, I want to thank my hon. colleague for her kind words.
I have very little faith in the government's ability to deliver even the most basic programs. I lived through the passport fiasco, as we all did, throughout the summer. We want to make sure, obviously, that we have healthy children in this country. Many of the provinces already have existing programs. It is a little concerning to me that the health minister would not even speak to his provincial counterparts or find out what their needs are before tabling a $10-billion piece of legislation.
One would think a little more legwork would have gone into it before the government brought it forward. It is right that we have these many concerns.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his sympathy for what happened in my riding.
It has been clearly demonstrated that the government has mismanaged almost every aspect of every program it has implemented. This is why this debate has gone on, because we are trying to find solutions to this problem. The list is as long as the day of some of the promises it has made and failed to deliver on.
There was no greater example of that than today, when I met with the Canadian Real Estate Association, which is not seeing the type of affordable housing that the government is announcing. The Liberals are great at making announcements but awful at delivering programs. It is all about the big cheques and the photo ops.
I share my hon. colleague's concern. I said it earlier and I will say it again: This is nothing but crass politics to make it seem like the Liberals are doing something, when in fact the program will do nothing.
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Madam Speaker, as I said in my speech, over 70% of Canadians are already covered by a dental plan, and many low-income youth and families are covered by already existing provincial and territorial plans.
The reality is that the government is looking at some crass political play with its partners in the NDP to somehow give the impression that it is implementing some sort of dental program.
Earlier the health minister said that he has not even discussed any of these programs with dentists or with provincial authorities. This is a government that cannot even deliver the most basic services, yet its expectation is that it is going to deliver a complicated dental program across this country with very few checks and balances in place.
This is crass politics, and it is vote buying at its best.
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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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Madam Speaker, one of the things that is being lost in this whole discussion about this dental program and Bill C-31 is the fact that in Ontario, for example, under Ontario's healthy smiles program, the government funds a dental program that provides free preventative, routine and emergency dental services for children and youth 17 years old and under in low-income families. That includes checkups, cleanings, fillings for cavities, X-rays, scaling and tooth extraction, and the list goes on. In fact, in my area of Simcoe County, the Simcoe County and Muskoka District health unit has a bus that visits schools to provide oral health care.
Is this really an issue of oral health for Canadian children, or is it just pure political crassness and political vote buying to offer this payment when many of these programs exist within the provinces or are covered by insurance companies?
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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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Madam Speaker, my question is very simple. We have proposed several measures over the last couple of weeks to help with the affordability crisis and inflationary crisis that exist for Canadians, like lowering taxes.
I wonder if the member has a comment on that.
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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/22/22 2:37:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what a week this has been sitting here listening to the Liberals justify their inaction to solve the inflation and cost-of-living crisis, which they created, and things are simply getting worse. Canadian families are on bended knees under the weight of trying to afford the necessities of life. What is the Liberals' solution? It is to pile on the misery with planned tax increases to gas, groceries and home heating through increasing the carbon tax.
For the sake of every Canadian family that is struggling, will the government cancel its planned tax increases?
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- Sep/22/22 2:36:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government can misrepresent the facts on the carbon tax all it likes, but Canadians know it costs them more. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed that the carbon tax will cost families more than they get back, and when the Liberals triple the tax on gas, heat and groceries, it will cost an Ontario household $1,500 more. Given the PBO's credibility and independence, I believe Canadians and Canadians should believe him, rather than the spin from the other aside.
Again, for the sake of every family struggling, will the government cancel its planned tax increases?
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- Jun/22/22 7:59:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the NDP House leader for his version of Liberal karaoke. That was very nice, and I appreciate his interjection.
I will continue with what we talked about as far as the pairing situation, which is an option. Since, and well before, Confederation, politicians have contracted serious illnesses, suffered critical injuries, welcomed new children into their families and said tearful farewells to loved ones, among other significant life events. In short, life happens to members of Parliament, just like it does to all other Canadians.
For the first 153 years of Confederation, we ably managed to square our personal circumstances with our professional lives, even if it might not always have been ideal. As unprecedented as some aspects of the pandemic were, the demands on us to balance our personal and parliamentary responsibilities are not, and we can easily revert to the tried and true practices that we know work.
Again, on the issue of pairing within the standing rules and Standing Orders, while pairing has been largely based on a series of customs and practices, with only a tangential appearance in our rules via Standing Order 44.1, we would be open to considering proposals to strengthen these arrangements, to render them more transparent or to empower further individual members. If there were ideas on this front, I would have been happy to entertain them. Otherwise, I suspect that this will come up in the procedure and House affairs committee, as it is charged with studying and issue, which I know the Liberals and the NDP want, and that is a more permanent movement toward a hybrid Parliament.
Speaking personally, I got elected to Parliament with an understanding of what that responsibility was, and it is a great responsibility, as we know, to represent, in my case, the residents of Barrie—Innisfil.
I also understood, and my family understood, that there was a requirement for me to come to Ottawa. Being elected in 2015, and with the pandemic happening in 2020, it was common practice for me, and all of my colleagues, all of us in the House, to show up in the seat of Parliament. There is the constitutional requirement for us to be here in Ottawa.
As difficult as that was, that was a choice I made. It is a choice that all of us make. Notwithstanding some of those family pressures that I highlighted or outlined and some of the demands that go with this job, it is an incredible privilege to be able to sit in this place, to be able to come to Ottawa and represent my constituents, not just to engage in debate, not just to engage in the committee work that we do and interact with all of our colleagues on all sides of the aisle, but to actually sit in this seat and be able to vote and to stand up and be counted in person. Those were the expectations that I had when I was to become a member of Parliament and those expectations continue today.
As I said earlier, one of the issues that came up in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs was the concern that there would be perpetual electioneering in those close ridings.
I say this with great respect, that if it is one's intent to be elected as a member of Parliament, the reasonable expectation of that intent is to come here to Ottawa. If a person is not willing to do that, if they want to stay in their community to continue to electioneer, perhaps the choice that they should make is to run for mayor, council or school board trustee if they are concerned at all with any imbalance in their lives because, as we know, this is a difficult job and a difficult thing to do, to be away from our family, in some cases, 29 or 31 weeks a year.
It is hard. It is a choice we all make because we want to be here to do the best for the people that we represent and the people in this country.
It is a vast country. It is a transcontinental country, from coast to coast to coast. People get elected to be representatives in our House of Commons and the expectation was, is, and should always be that this is the place that they take their seats. Members can call me a traditionalist. Members can call me a Conservative, as long as they call me someone who believes in our institutions, who believes in the institution of Parliament and who believes in the institution of our democracy.
The challenge I have with everything that has been going on in the last little while is that we have really seen a decline in our democracy. When government ministers are not held to the same account and transparency as they typically are by being here, and not just by us as an opposition but also by the media, it poses challenges.
There is no greater evidence of that than what we have seen over the last couple of months, particularly when we were going through the WE scandal, which was happening a year and a half or two years ago. All of that was happening on Zoom, and there were technological challenges going on with that. It was difficult. It was not the same dynamic as in-person committee meetings or the same fiery exchanges we would see, which is all a healthy part of our democracy.
We saw it recently again with Bill C-11. I am not even sure how many times the chair of the committee has been in Ottawa, but she was chairing a committee virtually on a substantive piece of legislation such as Bill C-11, which the government rammed through. We saw how difficult it was to deal with the amendments going through, and the chair was on Zoom. Anybody who was watching those exchanges in the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage could see just how dysfunctional this system has become, especially when people are not present.
Some of the other things we talked about, as I said, is that we were open-minded to meeting and supporting the pairing needs of all colleagues in this House. The current hybrid system, with minor modifications, could be reactivated in the event of a serious reversal of the current trajectory of public health guidance concerning COVID-19, upon the agreement of recognized parties and House leaders, for a period of time they agree on.
That simply means that, instead of precluding some southern hemisphere variant I have heard about from the two doctor House leaders in this place, why could we not revisit this in August? Why could we not come back in September and look at the situation to see if there was a need to flip to a hybrid Parliament? We have learned our lessons over the past couple of years, and that should be an easy thing to do, so why could we not do that in August or September?
Instead, as I said at outset, here we are in the last couple of days of this session of Parliament before our summer break, and we are dealing with and precluding something none of us can predict. In fact, we can in a way because the world has moved on at this point. Public health measures have been eliminated, but not in this place. There is no reason we cannot come back in August and September to revisit this situation.
I did speak to the government House leader and gave him my word, because I will still be House leader at that point, that if there was a need at that point to flip the switch on a hybrid Parliament and get back to the virtual voting app, we would be open to it. I am not unreasonable. I can read the room. We would be open and amenable to doing that.
Some of the other things we were focused on in my May 31 letter to the other government House leaders is that the arrangements we were talking about could take effect, as I said, after the current arrangements expire, which is happening tomorrow and hence the rush for this, and be in place for a year. The House would be instructed to acquire an adequate supply of N95 face masks to allay the concerns some of our colleagues may have going forward.
This is a suggestion I made. There is no masking requirement outside of this place. I gave the example of members of Parliament, including Liberal members and NDP members, at receptions not wearing masks when they are required to, and even on the parliamentary precinct, so this theatre needs to end.
We are at a point right now where if an individual requires or wants to wear a mask, they should have the option of doing that. Those who choose not to wear a mask, just like the rest of the world and the rest of Canada is going through right now, maybe we can supply them with a higher quality mask like an N95 just to allay their fears and make them feel a little more comfortable. It should be the right of an individual, if they choose, to wear a mask. For those who do not want to wear a mask, they should not have to wear a mask. That was in the proposal.
The procedure and House affairs committee would be instructed to study these arrangements with a view of producing a report next May, ahead of the scheduled expiry of these proposed arrangements.
We believe in the work of committees. We believe in the ability of the procedure and House affairs committee to look at this and to revisit the issue, as we did a couple of years ago, but in anything the committee does, any work it engages in, it should never be under the guise or direction of moving to a more permanent system of hybrid. We should not be doing that. We need to be here in Ottawa.
The tide is turning on this. Just this past week, when the issue of Motion No. 19 came up and the government indicated, with the help of its NDP partners, that it wanted to move to a year's prolongation of the hybrid system, we were starting to see pundits and people who watch this place really start to turn on this and ask why we are not getting back to normal, why we are not getting back to a level of accountability and transparency that this place is designed and structured to do, when everybody else is returning to normal. We have seen editorials that have occurred. Here are some of the comments we have seen in these editorials:
That’s all well and good, but the government has not yet properly addressed the toll the hybrid system is taking on the support staff who make it possible for Parliamentarians to work remotely, especially the interpreters—a limited workforce without whom parliamentary work cannot function.
I addressed that earlier, and I think that we have to be empathetic to the plight of our interpreters and the interpretation bureau. It is becoming a real problem, one that is going to manifest itself if we continue down the path we are on with this hybrid system.
Just the other day, Campbell Clark of The Globe and Mail wrote about this. His editorial piece starts with this:
Another year of hybrid Parliament? No.
If the Liberal government wants to extend this semi-artificial version of the people's house, it can come back to the House of Commons in September and ask for a month. If it absolutely feels another 30 days is needed, it can ask MPs to vote again.
That goes back to the suggestion I made earlier. Why are we dealing with this now? There are so many important issues in this country that we have to deal with, such as affordability, the inflation crisis that is going on, and the fiasco going on with the government's ability to provide the most basic services to Canadians, and of course over the last couple of days we heard about Nova Scotia and political interference. Why we are dealing with this now and not in September is beyond me. This is what causes me great anxiety.
The Toronto Star talked about the decline in our democracy and how we need to get back to some sense of normalcy. That is really the theme of what I am talking about tonight, this decline in our democracy and the fact that the hybrid system is proving itself to be an old and tired system. Yes, it was needed at the height of COVID, but we need to get back to some sense of normalcy. That is what I expect.
One of the other things that we found over the course of the last couple of years was that when Canadians were not allowed to travel, when there were mandates that restricted them from boarding airplanes, the Prime Minister had no problem travelling all over the world. It was hypocritical that he could just get on his government jet and travel anywhere he wanted when Canadians were restricted by the government's policies. We have seen this over the course of the last several years. I gave the example of the chair of the heritage committee, who was sitting in her apartment. I do not know whether she has even been to Ottawa once. She may have, and I have not checked, but certainly not during the course of dealing with this substantive bill. She was sitting there while the committee was doing its work here. It created chaos within the committee. That did not deter the Prime Minister from travelling all over the world when Canadians could not.
I will give members an example of how much the Prime Minister has travelled, just in 2022. On March 4, he went to Toronto. On March 6-11, he went to the U.K., Latvia, Germany and Poland. On March 16-17, he was in Alliston, central Ontario. On March 23-25, he went to Belgium. On March 27-30, he went to Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Williams Lake. On April 8, he went to Hamilton. On April 11-18, he went to Victoria, Edmonton, Laval, and Whistler. He flew from Edmonton to Laval for a morning of promoting the budget on April 13, before flying to Whistler that afternoon to start his vacation. On April 19, he went to Dalhousie, New Brunswick; April 20, Waterloo; April 22, Winnipeg; April 29, Montreal and Toronto. That is half of the list. Here comes the second half: May 2, Windsor; May 3, Montreal; May 6, GTA and Hamilton; May 8-9, Ukraine and Poland; May 17, St. John's, Newfoundland; May 20, Sept-Îles, Quebec; May 23-25, Kamloops, Vancouver, and Saskatoon; May 27-29, Nova Scotia; June 2, Siksika, Alberta; June 5, London, Ontario; June 7-11, Colorado Springs and Los Angeles; and today, the Prime Minister left for Rwanda.
Now, the Prime Minister can fly all over the place. He can go to places where arguably the virus is still active, but parliamentarians cannot come to this place. It just does not connect.
I know that the Prime Minister has a job to do, and I know that he represents Canada around the world, but he can fly to places that do not have the same vaccination status that we do in this country, and put himself at risk. He had COVID last week, and he has had COVID twice in the last couple of months. If he can put himself at risk by doing that, then there is no reason, given the safety measures that are in this place, the option to wear a mask if members choose to and the safety that is in aircraft across this country, why members of Parliament cannot be here, unless, of course, they do not want to be here, unless they want to be in their ridings to perpetually electioneer if they are in a close riding so that they can do everything they can to win the next election, or unless they want to hide behind the virtual Parliament and the voting app. It does not make any sense.
I know there are members who are flying across the country and perhaps not coming here, but we can check. There is public disclosure, and we know where people can go. People are flying to other parts of the country, but they are not coming here. Why? This is their job. This is what they were elected to do.
I am going to make a suggestion, and I may bring it up at the BOIE committee, for members who want to be here on a part-time basis and who do not want to be in Parliament. There are many situations where apartments around this precinct are being paid for, in some cases $2,500 a month, and not being used. Why are taxpayers expected to pay for those apartments if members do want to be here? I think it is a fair question. Maybe there are other expenses that are being put in, and we can certainly look at that. However, if members do not want to be here, in their proper seats, then why are taxpayers subsidizing their apartments here, which are sitting empty? I think that is a fair question to ask.
As I said, the tide is turning. I was hoping, by sending that letter on May 31, that we would actually engage in and initiate some consensus. I was really hoping that the government House leader and his partner in the NDP would actually see the sense of what we were proposing. The unfortunate reality is that they did not, and we are in the position that we are in right now, where we are dealing with Motion No. 19 and the government is going to propose closure on this motion. We are effectively going to have a few hours to debate it. I know that it disrupts the plans of NDP members to discuss this, because what they want to talk about, as is their common theme, is the Conservatives obstructing things.
The reality is that the Conservatives are doing their job. They are actually fulfilling their constitutional obligation, as is the Bloc Québécois, to hold the government to account. We were elected in this place in a minority government. The government was sent here with less than a majority, and it was not until the coalition agreement with its partners in the NDP that it actually formed a majority.
I can tell members that I went through the election and I was certain, at the time, that all the Prime Minister wanted was two things. He thought people were going to throw rose petals for the way he handled COVID and the billions of dollars that flowed through the treasury, which we are now paying for with inflation. He thought people were going to throw rose petals at his feet for the way he handled that, and he wanted a majority government, but he did not get it. The reason he wanted a majority government is that he knows, and we knew at that time, that there was a convergence of factors that was happening.
One cannot print that much money and inject that much liquidity into the system and expect that there would not be an impact on inflation and that it would not increase inflation. When we have more money chasing goods, the resulting effect of that is what we are seeing today, what was announced today, 7.7% inflation, and it is only going to get worse.
We are seeing that interest rates have gone up almost a point in the last month. The expectation is that on July 13, in order to fight inflation, the Bank of Canada is going to increase interest rates by another three-quarters of a point. We can think about the impact that is going to have on the lines of credit that people have. We can think about the impact that would have on variable-rate mortgages. If we have an affordability challenge now and Canadians are anxious and angry about their situation, it is only going to get worse as long as the Liberals continue to pour gas on a raging inflation fire.
We were predicting this a year and a half ago. It is not that we did not want to support them, because we did support many of the programs the government was proposing. The challenge was that there really was a lot of money going out and it was not targeted into those areas of the economy where it needed to be in order to support the economy. The Liberals basically let money rain. They were printing money like crazy, and we predicted a couple of years ago that this would happen.
Now, because of these converging factors, all of them, the economy, interest rates and the inflationary pressures that are going on right now, we are in a situation where Canadians are hurting, and I said this the other day. We had better start listening to what they say. I know I am listening to my constituents, but we all need to do a better job of listening and understanding where that anger and anxiety are coming from, because they are coming from fear. People are afraid right now, because debt levels are so high and interest rates are going up, and that is causing significant challenges.
We were talking about this a couple of years ago, and I remember my mom, when we were together two or three weeks ago, reminding me of something I said two years ago. She was upset about some of the government policies that were going on, and I said that until and unless it starts affecting people in their pocketbooks, people will not be concerned about what the government is doing. Now, we are at that point and people are genuinely concerned, because it is impacting them in their pocketbooks.
Many of us were projecting this, including some of our finance critics, our industry critics and others. They were standing up, and I was standing up, saying this is a disaster waiting to happen. What it comes down to is this: People of integrity expect to be believed, and when they are not, time will prove them right. Unfortunately, right now, with all that is going on, time is proving us right about the things we were predicting two years ago.
I really worry for my constituents. I worry for Canadians in general, because despite the lollipops, gumdrops, rainbows and unicorns the government is projecting right now, I do not think that reflects the reality. I know it does not reflect the reality of what is happening on the ground and the anxiety people are feeling, especially those who overleveraged in an inflation-induced real estate market.
I think it was CMHC that recently said that 52% of Canadians have variable rate mortgages. Just think of how susceptible they are to these increases in interest rates, and the impact that these are going to have on their household budgets and their ability to pay not just for housing, but also for the costs and inflationary pressures that are being borne right across the economy by the supply side because of the price of gas.
Gas is $2.09 a litre. For people in my riding of Barrie—Innisfil who have to go to Mississauga, Markham, Vaughan or other communities around the GTA, and who are doing that five days a week, they are putting $115 or $120 in their little cars. Business owners and construction workers, for example, are putting $245 or $250 worth of gas in their trucks and getting three or four days out of that. They are not even getting three or four days out of that when they are driving to Mississauga or Markham every day. That adds up and eats into the household budgets.
Not least, we need to be concerned about our seniors: those on fixed incomes and those who are seeing, because of the stock market right now and as a result of what is going on in the economy, their investments start to diminish. They are watching that closely. It is creating even greater fear and even greater anxiety for them.
When we sit here and talk about a hybrid Parliament and try to project or predict something that is going to happen in September, I am not sure why we are not dealing with those particular issues that are of grave importance to Canadians. We are dealing with this, when Canadians are moving on. When Canadians, health experts, legislatures around the world and legislatures in Canada have all moved on, we are sitting here debating something that we should not be debating.
There is another thing that I would say in terms of the tide turning, and it kind of gives me a chuckle. Dale Smith sits up here almost daily in Question Period. I do not know if he has missed any, quite frankly. We have been on the opposite sides of issues. I have a lot of respect for the work that Mr. Smith does. He kind of leans or works toward the government on a lot of issues. Even he, in a series of tweets over the past couple of days, has said that the acoustic injuries and possibilities of permanent hearing loss are well documented, and that this is taking an unconscionable toll on the interpretation staff.
In another tweet on June 20, he said, “Imagine telling the interpreters, 'Sorry, but you have to face the possibility of permanent hearing loss, but we can't,'” here he uses a slight expletive, “'ourselves to take reasonable COVID precautions in order for us to do our jobs', which is unacceptable”.
There were a few more tweets that he put out there.
Like me, he is a traditionalist. He believes that we are near the end of the pandemic, and that we have to return to some sense of normalcy. We actually have to signal to Canadians that this beautiful place is back to normal, and that all is right in the land. That is not to say that we do not have to be cautious or we do not have to remain diligent as to what could happen. I do not disagree that there may be some other things that we may be facing, but that does not mean that at this current moment we move into what I predict would become a permanent solution of this hybrid Parliament.
We do not move in that direction at this point. We could certainly come back in August or September to deal with it at that time. As I said earlier, we have seen a lot of hypocrisy and a lot of theatre by the government on this issue. I am not diminishing, in any way, the toll that this has taken. I had two friends who died directly as a result of COVID, but we are certainly past the point of where we were not just in March 2020, but at the height of some of the new variants.
We have a 95% vaccination rate in this country, and that is a credit to Canadians who decided to take the vaccine. I had never injected myself with anything. I was a firefighter. I never took a flu shot. I just did not feel comfortable doing that, but I did take a vaccine. I have actually taken three shots right now, and I am not ashamed to admit that. I did that because I know how concerned my mom and dad were. I wanted to make sure that I protected myself, first and foremost, but it was also to protect them as well. I made that determination for myself.
There were many Canadians who felt the imposition of a mandate or the suggestion that they should be vaccinated. Even friends of mine who took the vaccine and had adverse reactions to the vaccine were told by their doctors that they should not get another shot. In one case, someone spent three days in hospital because of a severe allergic reaction to her first dose. Her medical doctor suggested that she not get another dose because of this allergic reaction. Despite the effort of trying to get a vaccination, that effectively made her a prisoner in her own country. I was down in Florida in March with her husband and she could not come.
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- Jun/22/22 5:01:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there was notice of a request for an emergency debate from the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. Unfortunately, he had to leave the House, so I am asking for unanimous consent for an emergency debate on the inflation and affordability crisis in this country. We found out today that inflation numbers are at 7.7%, the highest in a generation, almost 40 years. I am requesting unanimous consent for an emergency debate on that.
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- Jun/3/22 11:23:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, while the lines of credit of Canadians go up, many people who work in the trades drive from job to job. They do not have a choice. Plumbers, electricians and other hard workers do not have the option of staying home and working virtually; they have to travel. Unfortunately, the government's policies have driven up the price of fuel to record levels. This is making life very difficult and expensive for tradespeople and businesses.
Does the government realize how its harmful gas price policy is hard on the hardest-working Canadians and how it is destroying the bottom line of many who work and have businesses in skilled trades?
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