- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72
- Government Page
- Feb/9/23 4:43:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, certainly nobody on our side is questioning the importance of this particular debate, but it is important to understand the number of crises happening in this country. I think the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona hit the nail on the head. There are economic crises and constitutional crises that the Prime Minister is creating in order to distract from his many failures.
These crises are happening right across the country as a result of the Prime Minister, and I am wondering if the hon. member would like to comment on the distraction tactics and the division created by the Prime Minister every time he gets in trouble.
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- Feb/9/23 3:39:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member referred to the fact that the Prime Minister used wedge politics to pit Canadians against Canadians and Quebeckers against Quebeckers. It should come as no surprise that he is creating a constitutional crisis to deflect attention from his failures.
Does she agree with me that the current Prime Minister has made the most use of wedge politics in the history of Canada?
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- Feb/9/23 12:31:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech this afternoon. We work together on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. His contributions to that committee are always thoughtful, as are his contributions to the House today.
Would the member agree with me that there has never been a Prime Minister in the history of our country like the current Prime Minister, who has used division to pit Canadians against Canadians and Quebeckers against Quebeckers, and who has used a constitutional crisis to deflect attention from his failures?
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- Feb/9/23 11:21:23 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just because the member does not like what the hon. member is talking about, that does not mean he gets to rise on a point of order. It has to do with the Standing Orders and rules, and I know that you, Mr. Speaker, will rule appropriately.
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- Feb/9/23 11:00:04 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the hon. member's speech this morning. One of the things he talked about early on is the need for energy. What we have seen with the government is an attack on the natural resource sector and the energy sector. We saw the German chancellor and the Japanese prime minister come to Canada on bended knees seeking LNG, yet the Prime Minister just shooed them away like they were nothing. There is a real demand in this world for clean Canadian energy.
Yes, I understand there is a transition going on and we are a long way from there, but why would the Prime Minister simply toss his hand at this other prime minister and chancellor when they came here demanding clean Canadian energy?
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- Feb/9/23 10:28:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear what the leader of the Bloc Québécois is saying this morning. His diatribe against the Prime Minister and the Liberal government is interesting. The government has failed in many respects, and the Prime Minister has sown division throughout Canada by pitting Canadians against Canadians and Quebeckers against Quebeckers. A total of 63% of Canadians, including Quebeckers, think that Canada is broken after eight years under this Prime Minister.
Does the leader of the Bloc Québécois think that the Prime Minister is trying to create a crisis in the country to divert attention away from his failures?
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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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