- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72
- Government Page
- May/7/24 5:06:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, clearly the country is in desperate need of infrastructure replacement, and not just from a rail standpoint.
The difficulty I have with the budget, frankly, is that it does not necessarily focus all of its attention on that. I see a lot of debt and a lot of deficit. I see problems for future generations that are going to be caught up in many of the issues that the budget faces, not the least of which is the ability for young people to have hope for their future. They are being weighed down in mountains of debt and deficit as well. We need to control spending.
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- May/7/24 5:03:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thought I made a pretty substantive argument as to why, in some cases, the budget was not going to work for Canadians. If the hon. member wants to sit here and hurl insults, it is his prerogative to do so.
The fact is that we do not know. In the absence of seeing any of the contracts that have been signed, either through Stellantis or Volkswagen, the only thing we know is that there are billions of dollars' worth of government subsidies being applied to these plants, on the credit card, by the way, because, again, we are at $1.4 trillion in debt. Just last week, the finance minister announced that she wanted to increase that debt ceiling by another $295 billion to $2.1 trillion.
Why does the government not provide confidence for Canadians and show just where the work is going to come from? All we are hearing right now is that there are a lot of temporary foreign workers, non-Canadians, who are going to be working in the plants. Show us the proof; that is all we ask.
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- Mar/19/24 4:04:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the cost of living is currently on the rise across the country because the NDP has supported so many of the Liberal government's policies.
I do not think he heard what I was saying before, which is that there are families in this country who are paying more in the carbon tax than what they are getting back. According to the data from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in Ontario, the province that I live in, the fiscal and economic net impact on a family is $1,820. I have no reason to not believe the Parliamentary Budget Officer; he is an independent officer of Parliament whose job is to assess this data and give us the information according to the data he assesses. This means the family is paying more than it is getting back in the carbon tax.
The fact is that there are premiers in this country who are now calling on the government to stop the carbon tax, to axe the tax on April 1. They are listening to their constituents, as I am doing, and 81% of my constituents have told me that they do not want this carbon tax to occur. They certainly do not want to pay for future increases that are going to happen under the Liberal government's plan.
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- Jan/31/24 6:17:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think Canadians were sold a bill of goods with the Canada Infrastructure Bank. I do not believe it is $10 billion; I believe it is much more than that, $35 billion in fact. If the member wants the answer, I can give him the answer. It is $35 billion, and I would question how many of those projects have actually been built and how much has gone towards executive bonuses.
It is no secret. The hon. parliamentary secretary makes it out to be some dark secret that we are going to cancel the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Maybe we will put in a better program, or, worse yet, maybe we will balance the budget, as the hon. Leader of the Opposition has said, with a dollar-for-dollar scenario. Every household does that. If I am going to spend a dollar here, I am going to find a dollar of savings there.
After all the consultants, all of the wasted spending and all of the corruption that has gone on with the government, I am sure we are going to be able to find many dollars to help fix the budget.
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- Apr/27/23 8:07:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question.
I tried to lay out, as best I could, the reasons I cannot support the budget. There are many of them, not the least of which is the carbon tax and the disproportionate effect it has on the people and the businesses I represent in Barrie—Innisfil.
One of the things that is extremely concerning for me, which was not really in the budget, related to the Canada summer jobs program. We saw that cut by a third this year, yet we see contracts, to companies like McKinsey and others, to the tune of $21 billion in total contracts. Why are we taking away from the future and work experience that young people are getting to apply down the line, yet outsourcing and putting a priority on government contracts for friends and connected insiders of the Liberal Party?
I am really disappointed in the Canada summer jobs program and the cut in funding. I know many of those people who would benefit, particular the kids, are really disappointed.
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- Apr/27/23 7:54:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the people of Barrie—Innisfil, in this case, to speak about the budget. It is not lost on me that game five of the Leafs is on tonight. I understand that the score is 1-1 at the first intermission. I am pretty certain that my mom and everybody in this place are the only ones hearing me speak tonight, because many are watching the game.
With respect to the budget implementation act, it is not going to be a surprise to the other side, and certainly not a surprise to many of the constituents who voted for me, that I will not be supporting the budget. There are many reasons not to, and I am going to highlight just a few tonight, along with how the budget would directly impact the businesses and residents of Barrie—Innisfil.
The sheer magnitude of the numbers speaks volumes about a government whose spending is completely out of control. As a result of the spending, the billions of dollars of deficits and the trillions of dollars of debt being created, future generations are going to be impacted by the decisions that are made today, for many generations to come, including my children. Quite frankly, I am very concerned about their future. I am concerned about the future of many young people in my riding of Barrie—Innisfil, many of whom are becoming despondent. They are angry that they have been lied to and let down by the Prime Minister, who, in 2015, made all these promises, particularly to the younger generation. They are not now finding themselves angry or upset, but despondent, because many of them are not going to be able to afford the types of things that even their parents and grandparents have been able to enjoy. Worse yet, the burden of debt and deficit is something that this generation and future generations will pay for for a long time.
The magnitude of the numbers is just staggering. The numbers are staggering with respect to what this budget sets out, not just as current expenditures but also future expenditures. Cumulative spending for the next five years is at a record $3.1 trillion. If these numbers are to be believed, remembering that in the fall the Liberals promised a balanced budget, and if they do not add in any more spending for the rest of the term, they would add $130 billion to the debt with these projected deficits. The national debt would rise to a record $1.3 trillion, with a debt ceiling, in the Financial Administration Act, that is set at $1.8 trillion. We are rapidly approaching that debt ceiling. I know many members have spoken about this, but the Prime Minister has actually doubled the debt, more than all previous prime ministers combined, as a result of the spending. That is a scary proposition.
We often talk about the interest on the national debt because it has an impact on services that government provides. It is about $44 billion today and will rise to $50 billion in five years if the government's interest rate calculations are correct. This is a government that has not been very good at predicting interest rates. There is the famous video of when the Prime Minister was asked by Glen McGregor of CTV about the potential for rising interest rates. He had almost a stunned look on his face and suggested that interest rates are low and are going to remain low.
We have seen, I believe, eight interest rate increases over the last year, which are having a dramatic effect on affordability for people, whether it is variable-rate loans or mortgages, or mortgages coming up for renewal. We are into a three-year cycle of mortgage renewals and people are going to be awfully shocked when they renew and see how much more those mortgage interest rates are going to cost. In fact, many people are now paying more in interest and not even paying down the principal as a result of renewing, adding to the existing affordability crisis. The projection numbers in this budget are staggering.
I was supposed to make this speech on Monday, but because of some procedural things, here we are on Thursday night. The other day, in preparation for tonight, I had an opportunity to speak with my staff. As members of Parliament, as everyone knows, we are on the ground. We talk to our constituents at events we attend and we see what is happening, but when I am in Ottawa, it is really my constituency people who are receiving the phone calls and getting the emails from seniors and average, middle-class families in Barrie—Innisfil who are concerned.
I asked them what some of the messages were that people were telling them on the phone. They were very similar to what I hear when I am out in public, which is that paycheques are thinner, that people are not making as much as they once were. A lot of that has to do with increased taxation, but it also has to do with payroll tax increases, increases in the CPP and EI for example, which eat it away.
Grocery prices have doubled. Gas bills have tripled, in large part because of the carbon tax. I am going to speak about that in a second. The other thing they said is that hydro rates have gone up. All of that is adding to the affordability crisis for people in Barrie—Innisfil, not just individuals, families and households, but also businesses. We get phone calls from businesses talking about these increased costs, particularly in the agriculture sector, which forms a large part of my constituency in Innisfil. I have talked to producers and wholesalers, who are telling me about the cost of the carbon tax on their gas bills and how it is increasing their production costs. Of course, those costs are going to be passed on, through the wholesalers and producers, to the end consumers, which means that we are going to continue to see increases in grocery prices down the line.
Social agencies are struggling as well. In Innisfil, we had a tremendous, compassionate individual whose name was Troy Scott. Unfortunately, he passed away as a result of COVID. He was the local Foodland owner. After his passing, the Town of Innisfil decided it was going to honour his memory by having Troy Scott community fridges placed strategically around different areas in the municipality. This is how bad the food insecurity crisis is: As soon as those fridges are filled, they are emptied. There are people coming on a daily basis who, because of the food crisis and the fact they cannot afford to buy food, are seeking food from these fridges because it is free. We have a very benevolent community filling up those fridges, but they are being emptied just as quickly. Other social agencies are struggling. There is something structurally wrong in this country right now, a G7 country, when Canadians are feeling an affordability and inflation crunch like never before, particularly as it relates to food insecurity and housing affordability and attainability. It is a big problem that needs to be fixed.
One of the main reasons why I cannot support this is the continuation of the carbon tax that the budget implementation act calls for. We asked the government to deal with this from an affordability crisis perspective and to axe the carbon tax because of the impact it is having on Canadian families, businesses, wholesalers and producers. In 2019, the government ran on a promise of $50 a tonne. A year later, it announced that the carbon tax was going to go up to $170 a tonne by 2030. That is going to increase prices beyond what people can afford in a community like Barrie—Innisfil, with a lack of significant mass transit and connectivity from community to community. We have the GO train, which gets people to Toronto, but most people drive to work. They either drive to work within the GTA or they drive to Barrie. It is costing them money every time they fill up their car or turn on the furnace or the air conditioning in their home. That is adding to the cost of life. Groceries are being impacted by it as well. The government has said it is adding money to the pockets of people, but the PBO has countered that.
The other thing concerns Lake Simcoe. It is mentioned in this budget, but is part of a broader lakes program. We have asked for specific funding. The government, in 2019, stood at the end of Bayfield Street and promised $40 million for the Lake Simcoe fund. It has not sent a dime yet, which is another broken promise. I am not certain that Lake Simcoe is going to be a priority. I hope it is.
This budget adds a lot more pain than gain to Canadian families, particularly those I represent in Barrie—Innisfil. That is just part of the reason why I cannot support the budget.
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Mr. Speaker, within the budget, the government has committed $80-plus billion in tax credits toward investing in a newer, greener economy. In the budget, it is very clear that it is there. It is not a secret, but with the announcement of Volkswagen creating a new plant near St. Thomas, Ontario, there is a tremendous amount of secrecy, in terms of what that $13-billion investment would actually be going toward.
I am wondering, if it is no secret what the tax credits are in the budget, which are coming from hard-earned taxpayers' money, why there is this level of secrecy in terms of this contract with Volkswagen. Should Canadians not know what that deal is all about, considering the fact that the government would be spending that money on that investment?
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- Apr/18/23 11:14:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the areas I want to focus on in the budget is specifically with respect to Lake Simcoe. I know the government has allocated a multi-million dollar fund for freshwater lakes and watersheds across the country.
One of the things that we are focused on locally, and I would consider the member to be part of that in central Ontario, is specific funding for Lake Simcoe and the reinstatement of the Lake Simcoe clean-up fund. As we know, a previous Conservative government invested close to $60 million and saw measurable improvements in phosphorus and fish habitats were coming back.
There were numerous councils around the Lake Simcoe watershed that passed motions asking for direct funding for Lake Simcoe. Why would that not have been specifically indicated in the budget as a direct funding mechanism for Lake Simcoe?
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- Apr/25/22 1:30:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the latest report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which I know my colleague would have read, it calls into question the ability, and it is a fair question and I say this respectfully, of the CRA to actually go after these tax dodgers, as the NDP calls them. There is still a problem that exists there that needs to be addressed.
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- Apr/25/22 1:21:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues' passionate discourse on this and the fact that they were more or less agreeing with what I was saying. When the Liberals were out selling the budget and travelling around Canada contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, the Parliamentary Budget Officer issued a report on Friday that was quite troubling with respect to the budget. He flags several downside risks in the recent federal budget, the biggest being big-ticket campaign promises that have yet to make an appearance in the government's fiscal forecast.
What they've forecasted is in the budget, but there are things that are not forecasted that are going to cause some significant costs later on. The PBO's largest concern is expenditures looming outside of the budget, including some of the Liberal campaign pledges and lobbying by provinces for big increases to health care transfers.
On the spending side, he said there could be a significant delta. This is the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux. He went on to say some of those election promises were slated to start up in the current fiscal year, most notably the commitment to increase annual payments to seniors receiving the guaranteed income supplement. He said many of these costs, including a promised increase to Canadian mental health transfers, do not appear in the budget. Universal pharmacare, which is of course a large part of the NDP-Liberal alliance, could cost billions of dollars a year. The Liberals pulled up short of a commitment to a full-blown program during the campaign, but the agreement struck with the NDP last month says that the government will make continuing progress toward such a program. However, there is no forecasted cost to that. Those costs will come up later on.
When the Parliamentary Budget Officer is warning about this particular budget, then I think all Canadians should heed those warnings. As I said earlier, I spent the last couple of weeks in the riding, and I heard from a lot of people. I know the Liberals' argument, because I have heard it a couple of times this morning, has to do with some of the geopolitical problems happening around the world being a cause of current inflation, whether it is supply chain issues or others. However, as I said at the onset, this was predicted to happen when the money printing presses were going at full steam a year and a half to two years ago. Even then, people were concerned about the cost of living. Some emails I received August 25, 2021, almost eight months ago, begged me to do something about this, if not for them, then for their future children. They say the government needs to fix this broken situation as it relates to housing.
One from August 25 reads, “I'm not sure who I would send this letter to, but I wish to express my concern with current rental and housing shortages in Barrie and surrounding areas.” This is a serious issue and many people are struggling as a result. I know there are billions allocated toward housing, but there have been billions allocated in the past, and we have not seen any measurable increases.
There are affordability projects right now that are waiting for approval from the government. I wrote a letter to the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion three or four months ago. Still, no decision has been made for an already existing project that is waiting to go through the rapid housing initiative. It is to be a joint partnership between Simcoe County and what we hope would be the province and the federal government, but we have not heard anything at this point. There are a lot of announcements, but the list is long.
The emails and texts about the anxiety and the affordability crisis people are facing right now are long. Adding on billions and billions of dollars for more long-term, unsustainable programs, from the affordability standpoint, is awfully difficult for Canadians.
The last thing I will speak to is my profound disappointment about Lake Simcoe. In 2019, Conservatives were promised $30 million for the re-establishment of the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund. Just two or three days before the election in the advance polls, the then deputy prime minister, the now finance minister, came to the shores of Lake Simcoe promising $40 million for the reinstatement of the Lake Simcoe fund. Just a couple of days after the election, my colleagues and I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister about it.
In this budget, only $19.7 million was allocated, and it is not for direct funding for Lake Simcoe. It is to be spread across the country. There was $60 million spent to clean up Lake Simcoe. We saw measurable improvements. I am extremely disappointed that the commitment made in 2019 was not lived up to in this budget. We are going to continue to fight for Lake Simcoe.
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- Apr/25/22 1:16:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to get up this afternoon, on the first day back after a couple of weeks back in our ridings, to speak about the budget. It reminds me of that old adage that people of integrity expect to be believed, and when they are not, time will prove them right.
Time is certainly proving us right on predictions that were made a year and a half to two years ago, when the money-printing machines were going at full force to provide the types of supports that were needed for COVID. There were predictions on this side at that time, and right across the spectrum economists were predicting that inflationary pressures would begin to increase. We are now seeing those inflationary pressures affecting Canadian families in a way that they have not for a generation.
I have been in my riding for the last couple of weeks, as all members have, and received emails, phone calls and text messages from the people of Barrie—Innisfil, who are quite concerned about the inflationary pressures that are happening within my community and in communities across Canada. This morning I happened to be watching the finance committee, and the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, was on there. He was asked a point-blank question by our shadow minister of finance: “Can we still consider inflation as transitory?” His answer was no.
We are entering into a period of permanent inflation, it seems, and we know, based on Statistics Canada, that last month it was at 6.7%. We can think of the impact that has on Canadian families and the families I represent in Barrie—Innisfil. The price of everything is skyrocketing. The prices of gas, home heating, consumables, groceries, commodities and the necessities of life are increasing dramatically right across this country, and the expectation, according to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, is that this inflationary period we are in is going to be lasting for a long time. This is going to further impact affordability for families, further erode their retirement savings and really dramatically impact their ability to pay for things, especially at a time when they can least afford them.
We heard, even in the last couple of weeks, in some of the surveys that came out, about how Canadians are desperately clinging to affordability. In many circumstances, over half of Canadians do not have enough money at the end of the month to pay for the things they need, the necessities of life.
This budget actually increases government spending. There are certain things that are sure in life, and the one thing we can count on is that this budget is going to pass. Because of the coalition between the NDP and the Liberals, the New Democrats have signalled that not only are they going to support this budget, but they are also going to support subsequent budgets.
We can sit here and criticize, and I have some things that I want to bring up specifically with respect to the budget as it relates to local issues in my riding of Barrie—Innisfil, but when we want to get an assessment of what people think about this budget, we can go to the experts.
People do not have to listen to us; they do not have to listen to the government or the other opposition parties. They can listen to what respected economists are saying about this budget and the impact it is going to have on Canadians. Don Drummond, who is a former senior Department of Finance official, former TD Bank chief economist and current Queen's professor, said this:
If I were in the business world I’d be extremely depressed, because we are at some point going to have to turn to how we fund all this spending, and it would seem the go-to funding source is corporate income tax.
It was the first seven words, “If I were in the business world”, that caught the eye of another expert, who said:
The problem is, we are all “in the business world,” whether we like it or not—as workers, consumers, and taxpayers. Tax business, and you tax almost everything we consume and most of the services we depend on.
Those services will be hardest hit as a result of this. We have spoken about this many times. The impact of this type of continued spending is that taxes go up and services get cut. It is that simple, especially entering into a period in which we have higher interest rates. Even the—
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- Apr/1/22 11:22:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, no one ever imagined a time when a family or seniors would be punished financially for simply driving their car to earn a living or to visit their grandchildren, yet gas prices are up again today because of the 25% hike in the carbon tax. The Liberals have a choice in the budget next week. They can be fiscally responsible like the Chrétien–Martin Liberals were or they can continue to take their marching orders from their radical NDP partners and be completely out of touch with Canadians, according to Ipsos.
What will it be: a Chrétien-Martin Liberal budget or an NDP-Liberal party budget?
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- Mar/31/22 4:06:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a great question and the answer lies in the report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. While the Liberals say that 60% of Canadians will get more back in the carbon tax, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that 80% will receive less than what they pay in carbon tax. This is a fallacy that is spread by members of the Liberal government. They stand up here in the House and tell people things that are not exact.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer answered that question, and the people of Barrie—Innisfil are not getting back what they are paying in carbon tax. In fact, it is costing them more.
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