- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72
- Government Page
- 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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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/3/22 10:44:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said at the onset of my discussion today, a lot of money gets thrown at the problem, but it is the processes that really need to be streamlined, filtered and expedited so that the money gets to where it needs to be and the effect of that money is realized when it comes to homelessness among veterans.
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- Jun/23/22 12:07:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to continue on this very important debate, although unfortunately under different circumstances than we had last night. Obviously the government, by invoking closure on this motion, is really looking to limit any further debate on this and censor members of Parliament, who have been elected to this place. There are millions of voices on this side and 119 members, yet in just a couple of hours of debate, we are going to determine the continuation of a hybrid Parliament into the fall.
Just to recap what I said last night, there are no other legislatures in this country, provincial or territorial, or around the world, not even the mother Parliament in Great Britain, that have a hybrid system. They all have in-person sittings at this point. In fact, the mother Parliament went back to in-person sittings last July.
We would be the only outlier, not just within the Commonwealth, but globally, in using a hybrid system. Why are we at this point? The government House leader and his partner in the NDP, with their coalition agreement, have decided this is the direction we are going in the absence of any science, evidence or form of decision-making we should be taking. They are just arbitrarily and unilaterally deciding this is the direction we are going to go.
I have heard the argument from both of them that somehow, as I said earlier, there is this southern hemisphere variant coming in. The doctor government House leader and the doctor in the NDP suggest that somehow they know more than public health officials. Here is a news flash: Public health officials in governments across this country have eliminated mandates. They have eliminated mask mandates, and they have also returned to normal within their legislatures.
Why are we an outlier? Perhaps the most world-renowned epidemiologists, virologists and immunologists, the doctor in government House leader and the doctor in the NDP, have figured out that we are different in this place than those in the rest of the country.
It comes down to one simple thing. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many in our caucus, they have complete contempt for this place as an institution. They have complete contempt for Parliament. They see it as a nuisance. They see it as something that gets in the way of their ideological agenda.
Certainly, the government has proven over time that it has shown contempt for Parliament. There have been various motions that have been presented. I remember the start of the pandemic. One of the first orders of business coming into the pandemic was the proposal of a piece of legislation by the government that would have given it entire spending powers and taxing powers until January, 2022. Members can think of the consequences of that.
The government was effectively going to seize control of this place to make the opposition parties, and the millions of people who elected members of Parliament to represent them in this place, irrelevant at that point. It was going to seize complete control of Parliament, giving itself complete taxing and spending powers. If it had not been for the opposition, for the voices of millions of Canadians and the media at that time calling into question the government's motives, we might have been in a situation where it would have seized entire control of this place.
This is how little respect the Liberals have for Parliament. This is how little respect they have for our democratic institutions, and there were other cases as well.
Members will recall Motion No. 6 in the last Parliament. The government tried again to seize the operational control of this place, making the opposition irrelevant. Motion No. 11 was another one where we effectively had Conservatives debating Conservatives in extended evening sessions. The government did not even participate. The Liberals say it was to extend debate, but how can it be about extending debate, when they were not even participating in the process at all? Then of course, there is Motion No. 19, with which the Liberals would once again seize control of where this place will be in September and how it will operate.
Just a couple of weeks ago I sent a letter to the government House leader and the other House leaders, a letter the Speaker received as well, with what I thought were very reasonable and practical solutions on how this place can get back to some sense of normalcy. If we are not signalling from this place to Canadians that we are getting back to normal, then what type of message are we sending?
One of the reasonable and practical solutions that I proposed was to look at this in August or September. If some southern hemisphere variant is going to be here, as the government House leader and his partner in the NDP are suggesting, then why not revisit this in August and September? We have proven over the last couple of years that we have the tools, that we can flip the switch if we need to.
The government's argument is that we need certainty. Well, there is certainty. There is certainty in the land right now, because we are seeing the lifting of public health guidelines, masking mandates, vaccine mandates. I do not know what evidence or science the Liberals are looking at, but it is certainly nothing that they are sharing with us, our colleagues in the Bloc or any other parties so that we can make an informed decision. It is just an arbitrary method to completely seize control of this place, as is the pattern they have shown in the past.
As I said, it is really diminishing the value of our democratic institutions. This is a government, quite frankly, that does not want an opposition; it wants an audience.
The Prime Minister has shown his contempt for this place. He has shown his contempt for institutions and he has shown contempt for the opposition parties. There is no greater example of that than some of the scandals that have gone on, including the current scandal, with the lines of differentiation be damned between the executive branch and the government and our institutions that are supposed to function independently of government and the executive branch.
The government has proven time and time again that it is going to interfere in the institutions that Canadians hold so dear. We are seeing a diminishment in those institutions and we are certainly seeing a decline in our democracy.
As I said last night, even the pundits are suggesting that it is time to get back to normal here. Even the pundits are saying that this is done, that this is over. We need to return to normal to signal to the rest of Canadians that we are returning to normal, and if that is not the signal from this place, then what signal are we sending? We cannot live in perpetual fear. We cannot live in a state where the government is inciting this fear among its citizens. Let us look at where we are in September and make a decision then.
This week we could have been dealing with many other issues. I am going to suggest that this is a country in chaos right now, when we see what is happening with inflation and the affordability crisis that is facing Canadians, when we look at the passport situation and the fiasco that is going on there, when we look at other factors, not the least of which is what we are hearing out of Nova Scotia about the government, the Prime Minister's Office and the public safety minister's office interfering with an active investigation, not to mention the scandals that have gone on in the past. We could have been dealing with many issues other than the speculative issue that the government House leader and his buddy in the NDP predict may happen. We could have been dealing with and seized with these issues. We could have been providing solutions so that we can help Canadians who are facing this affordability crisis right now.
I would suggest the Conservatives have done that many times in the past. Over the course of the last several months, we have proposed solutions like lowering taxes, lowering gas taxes and getting rid of the carbon tax to make life more affordable for Canadians, and every single time, those proposals have been rejected by the government. We have proven time and time again that we want to find solutions and work to help Canadians, but in that time that the government has rejected our proposals since the coalition agreement between the NDP and the Liberals has taken effect, the NDP voted 95% of the time with the Liberals to reject those proposals.
This is a party that used to stand up for working families. The NDP used to stand up for principles. There were members in the party who actually had a moral compass system. They had values, and they stood up for what was right or wrong. Now they are standing up every single time with these Liberals, and they do that because of promises. This is a government that cannot deliver even the most basic services in this country, yet the NDP signed a deal with this government that proposes to bring about dental care and pharmacare. Now, let us think about that. The government cannot even deliver the most basic services, yet the NDP is depending on it to implement complicated systems. Boy, have they been sold a bill of goods.
As well, they have sold their values and their morals, the things they used to stand for in this place. They used to stand up for what was right and against what was wrong. They have sold those values on a wing and a prayer.
I have news for the NDP members. If this government cannot even deliver basic services to Canadians, how can it be expected to deliver on its promises in this deal as a coalition government? Canadians will be waiting a long time for that.
However, in the meantime, what we see from the NDP in question period is gross. The NDP is asking this government questions on accountability issues, yet supporting the government on every aspect of what it is doing at least 95% of the time. It is actually gross to see. The NDP could have followed the people before them, like Tom Mulcair, who used to stand on values and principles in this place and who used to actually act like an opposition, and others like Jack Layton and Tommy Douglas, who fought for working Canadians. Where has that NDP gone?
I will make a prediction right now that the NDP is heading into an abyss of irrelevance because of this deal that it made with the Liberal government that it continues to prop up. The NDP will continue to prop up the government on all of the issues of corruption, on all of the issues of cronyism, on all of the issues of political interference, on not fulfilling its promises and on not living up to what it promised Canadians, not the least of which was electoral reform. That should have been a signal to this government.
He does not like what I am saying, so he—
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- Apr/28/22 1:51:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank the hon. member for bringing up that point, because it gave me an opportunity to take a drink of water.
I certainly do not wear it as a badge of honour that I have spoken longer than the member, but I hope members have found that I have something substantive to say and not just ramble on.
I did some research, as I said. The hon. member for Winnipeg North, who rose and rises often on his points of indignation, was once sitting on the opposition benches, and it is sincerely our hope that soon he will be sitting up in the corner. If there are only one or two seats, he can sit up there. That is sincerely our hope. It is funny how, when the Liberals get in government, all of a sudden this righteous indignation that they have shown in opposition suddenly becomes a supportive view and they are arguing to justify their position rather than be accountable.
In 2013, the member for Winnipeg North, who is the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, talked about the extra cost of extended hours. I have not even touched on that. I have touched on the mental health aspects of our staff, the clerks, the administration and everybody who is associated. I have talked about the translators, but not the extra cost. Of course, the government does not worry about costs. It has not found a problem it cannot fix by throwing billions of dollars at it, so why should this be any different?
On extended hours, here is what the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader said on May 21, 2013:
I want to raise a specific issue. It was during the 39th Parliament that the previous clerk of the House of Commons told the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that the budget for Parliament can handle two weeks of extended sitting hours in June. However, if the extended hours were to continue for additional weeks, the government would likely have to seek Parliament's approval for more money.
I notice that the supplementary estimates (A) do not include a request to make any of the payments that will be generated by things such as overtime for House of Commons staff. I would argue that the government House leader seems to be responding to a Conservative crisis from last week and is getting anxious to leave a little early as opposed to going through the normal process.
That is the very thing I spoke about before. When he is in opposition, he is opposed to it, but when he is in government, there is no problem. The day this motion is approved, we will run the potential of extending hours, addressing the very issues that the member brought forward in 2013, but it is not a concern for him now. Why? It is because he is in government.
An hon. member: See what Peter said about that.
Mr. John Brassard: Mr. Speaker, I have some stuff that Peter said. I may get to them. I have six minutes. I hope the member is keeping time.
I will move to the former House leader of the NDP. This is part of this unholy alliance and the fact that they are working together on this. Nathan Cullen, the former NDP House leader, said this on extra cost, on the same day as the member for Winnipeg North: “The fact that they have not actually accounted for the money required to run Parliament for these extra hours for an extended time—a month, in this case—shows two things. One is that they do not really care all that much if they have to blow more money.” We are looking at two months.
Is it not ironic that the NDP and the Liberals likely are going to support this motion to extend the time, not just for a month but for two months, and all of a sudden money is not a problem? Worse yet, I would suggest, the mental and physical health of the family unit and the people who work here, not least the translators, is going be impacted by this.
I have some more nuggets. The member for Winnipeg North stood again on May 22, 2013, and said, “The government House leader, possibly and most likely, after serious discussions with the Prime Minister's Office, came to the conclusion that what we need to do is lose a little bit of focus on what is happening in the Prime Minister's Office and to try to maybe change the channel.” That sounds familiar.
It was a problem back then, but it is not a problem right now. They are facing numerous investigations, numerous things that they are going to have to deal with, not the least of which is the Winnipeg lab documents and the RCMP situation, which I mentioned before. They will give themselves the ability to shut this place down: shut it down, and let us all go home. Proroguing without proroguing, that is what they want to do with this motion.
I have another one. On time allocation in the House, on March 12, 2015, when the member for Winnipeg North was still sitting in the corner over there, where he is going to be soon, he said, “Never before in the history of our country have we seen a government abuse the rule of time allocation on legislation that Canadians are concerned about.” It is okay when he is in opposition, but when he gets in government the hypocrisy is palpable. This is what they do. I agree it is selective, but I picked some good nuggets here, and I have more.
The member for Winnipeg North spent a lot of time talking about the government on June 3. He said, “The government, by once again relying on a time allocation motion to get its agenda passed, speaks of incompetence.” I have spent the last hour and 20 minutes talking about the government's incompetence in moving forward its legislative agenda, and these are words that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has obviously said before, which is just perfect. He said, “It speaks of a genuine lack of respect for parliamentary procedure and ultimately for Canadians.” How ironic that the member from the government side now was saying exactly the same thing. Talk about hypocrisy. He sits here and he defends and justifies the government action to implement this strong-arm, sledgehammer approach in this place. It is laughable to think about it.
Do members want to hear another one? Now I know why I woke up at 6:30 this morning, so I could look at this stuff. On April 1, the member for Winnipeg North said, “The bottom line is that the government has failed to properly manage the legislative agenda of the House of Commons and as a direct result has become completely dependent on time allocation. That is not healthy for a democracy in Canada.” That is what he said.
I would suggest that what the Liberals are doing is not healthy for democracy. The reason why they are moving in this direction is that the NDP does not like time allocation. By extending and suspending debate, they are appeasing the NDP, but the other thing they are doing is putting themselves in a position, without a quorum call, where they can be at home in their PJs and their slippers watching the Blue Jays all summer and not have to worry about coming to work.
The opposition party will continue to work. Our colleagues, and I have spoken to the member for La Prairie and the Bloc, will be here as well, even if the Liberals and the NDP do not want to come here and be held accountable, to be able to justify, to be transparent and to work in this place to ensure that our democracy is not in decline. What Motion No. 11 does is cause a continuation and a further decline in our democracy, and we will continue to fight that.
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