- Member of Parliament
- Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
- Conservative
- Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $91,173.06
- Government Page
- Feb/2/23 2:04:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today is Groundhog Day, and I am proud to represent Canada’s world-famous prognosticator, Wiarton Willie.
Before I share his prediction, I will share how Groundhog Day began for most Canadians. Their alarms went off, they rolled over, grabbed their phones and read about a Liberal sweetheart deal for McKinsey. The next day, their alarms went off, they rolled over, grabbed their phones and were shocked to see yet another McKinsey contract for millions of dollars. They went to bed that night thinking this nightmare had to end, but lo and behold, when they woke up the next morning there was another million-dollar contract for McKinsey.
We may think Bill Murray had it bad in the movie Groundhog Day, but after eight years and random Liberal after another random Liberal getting rich, it is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
The good news is that Wiarton Willie brought hope for Canadians this morning. In the great riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, he predicted an early spring, and he also predicted an end to the Liberal scandals and a Conservative win in the next federal election.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question. Obviously, with the doubling of the national debt under the current Liberal government to over a trillion dollars, the servicing of the national debt is going from $25 billion this year, the same as we put into our Canadian Armed Forces, our military, to, next year, close to $50 billion, the same as we do for health care transfers.
I would like my hon. colleague to expand on what we could actually do with that $50 billion.
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- Apr/5/22 4:08:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again, this is not an easy answer. It is justified, from my opinion, and we are obviously supporting putting 2% into our military, because as I explained in my speech, the world is a volatile place and people dying around the globe. I am not trying to take away from dental care or pharmacare, which are primarily provincial jurisdiction, but the point is that national defence is a federal jurisdiction issue, and it is what we should be focused on in the House.
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- Apr/5/22 4:07:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again, it is not an easy answer, but it is all of the above. We need to invest in our recruiting. Almost a decade ago, I tried to write a master's paper, and I failed miserably at that too, specifically about why we need to invest our best people within the Canadian Armed Forces into the recruiting system so we have that flexibility to recruit the best. As we all know, the huge labour shortages the country is facing, it is a shortage across most of the western world, so we have to get those right people.
The other key aspect the government could do to help fix this is on the procurement side. One of the things that we are actually lacking within the government, in my opinion, is enough expertise within defence procurement alone. If we can invest more to get those quality people into that, it would allow the procurement cycle to improve. By investing in training, investing in support for families and investing in our members, we can never go wrong.
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- Apr/5/22 4:05:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a brief response. I cannot even pretend to get into all the nuances and complexity of what the member is asking. I spent a year on an army defence procurement project. In my experience throughout my military career, the biggest challenge we had, and I think this probably exists in a lot of departments, was that we felt that if we did not spend it, we would lose it. The member's idea of carrying forward does not truly work, definitely not within DND.
When it comes to these defence procurement projects, the real challenge is the political interference. I believe this so much, and I do not mean they do it on purpose. It is because we can get into this idea of why this project is what we need. We can look at previous parties during different elections, with different campaigns and how they ran on certain things, but ultimately they need to get out of that. That is why I believe in non-partisan or bipartisan defence policy and foreign policy.
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- Apr/5/22 3:54:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise here in the House, not only on behalf of my constituents of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound but on an issue of such fundamental importance to all Canadians, that of supporting our Canadian Armed Forces and the need to meet our NATO commitment of 2% of our GDP.
I plan on taking a slightly different tack in my speech than likely many of the previous speeches that we have heard so far today in order to provide a more fulsome perspective from someone with over 25 years in the Canadian Armed Forces.
First, I want to thank every single sailor, soldier, aviator and special forces operator that has served, is still serving and will serve our great country.
Why do we need to invest this 2%? As has been clearly laid out in a number of the speeches, the world has changed. I would argue it has actually been very volatile for a number of years now, at least in my military career and in my lifetime, and it will continue to be that volatile and an ever-changing situation. Right now we are facing the absolutely existential threat of Russia to Ukraine and to our NATO allies, but China and terrorism are things that continue to be on the forefront of the frontier that we need to be able to address.
My colleague who spoke just prior to me clearly laid out the situation in Ukraine and how Russia was posing an immediate threat not only to Ukraine but to our NATO allies. I would like to provide some additional context to just how important supporting our Canadian Armed Forces is, and how we need to be adaptable and how we need to be resourced to do that.
When I first joined, one of my first operations was a domestic operation here in Canada during the ice storm in 1998. It was not something we prepared and trained for in a traditional sense, but due to the phenomenal training that our Canadian Armed Forces and our Canadian Army delivers, it was something our soldiers were well prepared for. My overseas missions were all under the NATO umbrella, with the exception of my final mission in Iraq, but I will get to that because there was a NATO connection there as well.
Regarding the complete complexity of what we need to do within the Canadian Armed Forces, we are over there keeping the peace, but we are also monitoring elections and working non-stop with international NGOs and supporting other nations on the ground, including, in some cases, when riots and other situations occur, being that support network to get them out of harm's way.
During my second tour in Bosnia, 9/11 happened, and I believe that fundamentally changed the globe as I am sure we could all acknowledge. It changed the dynamic and the ideas of what we were going to be able to do. It then ultimately led to the coalition of the willing to engage in Afghanistan, which then morphed into a NATO mission. I was there in combat in 2007, but ultimately it was our training mission in 2012 that was of much more importance. Unfortunately, we failed. We did not fail completely, but I do believe we failed in delivering on that, as we see now with the Taliban having taken over the reins.
However, when we look at Ukraine and the training mission that has been ongoing there over the last number of years, I would argue Canada has played a critical role in supporting Ukraine in that opposition to Russia.
When I was Iraq, again, although it was a U.S.-led coalition, I was part of the team that actually stood up the NATO training mission and went in and briefed the Canadian general and his team that was leading that NATO training mission into Iraq.
My whole point is that NATO fills this critical role in dealing with threats from around the globe. It is our obligation. We signed up for this at the Wales Summit, and as the Liberal member for Winnipeg North clearly stated in his speech, the strength of NATO and our collective ability to stand up and defend our respective sovereignty and, frankly, even to be able to afford a properly resourced military or defence is by doing it together. Canada made this commitment in 2014, and we need to abide by that international commitment in order to contribute to our part of international peace and security.
What does this 2% mean? It essentially means, as some of the other members have said here in the House, that it is pretty much doubling our current expenditures.
It is important for everybody to understand just how complicated that is going to be and the impact it will have on the force structure of our Canadian Armed Forces from both capabilities and capacity perspectives. As much as Strong, Secure, Engaged, or SSE, the current defence policy, has some strengths, it alone is insufficient to provide the necessary policy top cover.
I don’t profess to have all the answers, but I know that if CAF is properly supported, and this needed investment is made into our military, Canada and CAF will then be much more capable of responding, both domestically and internationally, to anything Canada and NATO requires us to do. As such, I am pushing and will push that, and I will explain a bit more on this later, we need to do a non-partisan, or at least bipartisan, foreign policy review we can agree on, which will then drive a future update to our defence review.
How will we do this? First, in order to spend this money and properly resource our Canadian Armed Forces and meet this commitment, the military's biggest challenge half the time is not having that predictable, stable funding. If we do not have this programmed and understand it, it is hard to expend the money. There has been a lot of commentary about where defence spending has lapsed. Part of the challenge with that is that when it lapses we will not be getting that same bang for our buck going forward. Right now the normal inflation is approximately 5.7%, but in some sectors of the defence industry, defence inflation is at 20% in one year. Therefore, if we were planning to buy 10 ships one year, but delayed that by one year, we would then only get eight. I am not professing this is simple.
When we are trying to balance a budget and make it so that we are not creating future challenges for the next generation, this needs to be done by working together. So many MPs have already stated the need for fixing our procurement system. This needs to be streamlined. We need one dog to kick, in my opinion, and I am not professing any violence to dogs, as I do like dogs, but my point is that there needs to be one person in charge of our procurement system in order to fix it.
As well, we need to invest in our people because they are the most critical resource within our Canadian Armed Forces. I already mentioned the importance of why we need that bipartisan or non-partisan foreign policy and defence review. It is important because it is the key to preventing political interference and delays within our procurement process.
I do not want to get into the capabilities or specific platforms because nothing drives me nuts more than hear politicians speaking about plane X or tank Y. We should be talking about capabilities in general, telling our Canadian Armed Forces and military experts what they need to deliver in Canada's interest on the international stage and then letting them come back to us with the best options available and specifically where we can properly spend this increase in our defence budgets.
We have already talked about NORAD modernization. I am confident, based on what I have heard so far today, that the Liberal government will include needed funding for NORAD modernization in the budget on Thursday. However, we have to focus on filling in those key gaps within NORAD versus just nibbling around the edges. One comment was made that we have to relook at ballistic missile defence. We have to put more money into our Arctic. We can look at surveillance, UAV capacities and better engineering capabilities. We can put more money into our people, our sailors, soldiers, aircrew and special forces. Special forces is another area we could spend more money. Cyber and strategic lift are also great ideas we can spend money on.
In summary, I think I have addressed the why of the motion, which are the threats and our obligation to get to 2%. The how is that it needs to be done through providing predictable funding, fixing the procurement system, investing in our people, investing in key capabilities, and ultimately having a non-partisan or bipartisan foreign policy and defence review.
The world needs a Canada that maintains its position as a trusted global security partner and a reliable member of NATO. Without increasing our military spending, the government puts this at risk. Meeting our NATO commitment of spending 2% of GDP today and into the future is essential.
Although in military planning hope is not an option, I hope all members of the House will support this motion.
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- Apr/5/22 1:16:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the parliamentary secretary being up front in his support of our Canadian Armed Forces and this motion.
My specific question for him is around his role as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement. If we are going to get that 2% spending, a large proportion of it is going to be through procuring the right equipment in a timely fashion. I would argue that historically, regardless of the stripe of government over the past number of decades, part of the reason we failed to expend all our defence money was because of political interference in our procurement process.
What is the member specifically going to do in his role as the parliamentary secretary to speed up and facilitate our procurement process for the Canadian Armed Forces?
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- Apr/5/22 1:03:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague on the other side for his interjection. For the most part it was really good, other than the partisan aspects of it, and I will not get into the personal side in the House.
Based on the member's speech, I think he fully recognizes the capacity and requirement needed by our Canadian Armed Forces and by Canada, considering how volatile the world is and how the global situation is so complicated. Based on his speech, my question is very simple. I think he should be supporting this motion today. Will he support this motion to invest and meet our NATO obligation if he truly believes it is important for Canada to meet our obligations on the world stage?
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- Feb/4/22 2:10:10 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in the House of Commons to speak on behalf of my constituents of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.
Like some of my other colleagues, I want to again take this opportunity to thank the member for Durham for everything he has done, not only for the Conservative Party of Canada during his time as leader in the House, but also for all Canadians during his time in uniform. I consider him a long-time friend. I have likely known him longer than anybody in the House, going back 30 years to our time in Royal Military College. There are very few Canadians who care more about Canada than the hon. member for Durham.
I regularly conduct surveys and solicit open feedback from my constituents. I believe one of the best tools we can use as members of Parliament is to really listen to what the concerns of our constituents are. That feedback obviously differs across this great nation. One of the reasons I became involved in federal politics was because of the ever-increasing rural-urban divide.
I am not trying to be an alarmist. I am just saying I am tired of seeing policies come out of Ottawa with an Ottawa-knows-best approach. Those maybe work great for the people who live in major urban centres, but they do not work for my constituents of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. They do not work for Canadians right across this great country.
Because of my military career, I spent time in the Maritimes, here in Ontario and travelled right across this great country. There is a divide, and that is one of the key things we need to recognize as parliamentarians and for the Liberal government to recognize. Liberals have to do a better job of listening to the concerns of Canadians, not just of those in the ridings that elected them.
There are three key things I received feedback on, among others, in the last number of months. Labour shortage is by far the biggest concern I have heard about in my riding across all sectors of our economy. Businesses just cannot find workers. There are multiple ways we can address that. When I look to Bill C-8, I do not see much in it that is going to address our labour shortage problems.
The second item is affordable housing. There is something in the bill about it, but I do not think it is going to accomplish what we need to do to address the problem. I will get into a bit of those details later. The other big concern I have heard a lot about is the national debt.
Let me put it in perspective. Even with our very low interest rates, with a national debt of over $1.2 trillion, it is my understanding, and I might be off by a billion or two but hopefully not, we spent $24 billion in interest on our national debt this past year. That is $24 billion. I just spent 25-plus years in the military. Our military budget is less than that. It is ridiculous that we are spending that much money.
With the amount of interest we are paying, which will continue to increase as this national debt ever-increases, we are now approaching an amount comparable to the public health care transfers to the provinces and territories. To me, that is unacceptable.
I grew up on a modest family farm. I have four younger brothers. We did not have a lot, but we really did not want for anything. Dad had good jobs at different times. He ran his own business for years. We grew up with a dad who did lots of work as a contractor and was paid using the barter system. He would take half a cow. I raised 700 ducks, a couple hundred chickens, a couple of hundred turkeys and 50 geese every year. Dad's idea of how to make ends meet was to get mom a Jersey cow for her birthday. Mom would get to milk that cow twice a day for the next decade. We never wanted for anything.
That is where I come from. It is where I get my true fiscal Conservative roots. I grew up in a way that, if we did not have the money in the bank, we were not getting it.
What is even more disturbing and concerning to me is that this excess Liberal spending is going to put us in a position where, down the road, all these great social programs and these great things that make Canada the great nation that it is will be put at risk. I am concerned that my eight-year-old daughter, by the time she is having kids or is a taxpayer, will be paying exorbitant amounts on income tax, free public education and universal health care. All of these will be potentially compromised if we keep going down this path of spending money we do not have.
As the PBO report stated, with respect to the economic fall update, and there is nothing new in Bill C-8, this stimulus spending is not required and it is not necessary.
I hate always being the negative person. I am going to address a couple of things I think are possible. I am saying this with the caveat that, when the bill gets to committee, amendments can be made and maybe there are aspects that should stay and aspects that should be removed.
The first piece I would like to address is the introduction of the new refundable tax credit for eligible businesses for qualifying ventilation expenses needed to improve air quality. I think this is a potentially good credit, especially in light of COVID. However, what I have a question on is that this credit has been brought in and is attributable to air quality improvements in qualifying locations between September 1, 2021, and December 31, 2022.
The challenge I have with that is that many businesses, including some in my riding, have already made these necessary changes. One business made this change almost immediately because they were stood up as a potential field hospital to deal with COVID. That business would fail to qualify for this credit. These businesses, on their own, being proactive, recognized early the health and safety advantages that were needed to take care of not only their employees but the greater community. Despite the financial stresses they were facing, they wanted to get ahead of the curve.
My question to the government is this: What was the rationale for picking the start date of September 1, 2021? Why was that date chosen? I would be interested to know if somebody on the government side could answer that or at least if I could get an answer during the committee as it reviews the bill. Can there be some flexibility on these start dates so that businesses that have been helping Canadians during this pandemic are not penalized?
The next piece I would argue, and it is always great coming from a big farming community, is this idea of a refundable tax credit for our farmers on the fuel charges. My push-back on this is that it is a solution, but it is not the one I think the government should be imposing. Why not just get rid of the Liberal carbon tax for our farmers? We successfully passed a bill last Parliament through the House that would have taken care of part of it. I am looking forward to that bill being reintroduced in this Parliament. Hopefully this time it will get unanimous consent and not just from the Liberal MPs who happen to represent rural communities and who could actually recognize the benefit of doing this.
The next and maybe final point I will try to get to is about housing and affordable housing. This 1% tax, if I have my numbers right, may, over five years, bring $600 million back into the government coffers. That is not enough. We need to do more. There are multiple ways we can address the housing crisis, but ultimately it comes down to a simple question of supply and demand. We have to have a plan, and it is not necessarily just throwing out a 1% foreign ownership tax to solve it.
The bottom line is that Canadians are in a position where they no longer can afford to pay their grocery bills, put fuel in their gas tanks or heat their homes, and until this government starts making concrete solutions and putting forth proposals that will do this for all Canadians, I think we will fall short. We are well behind where we need to be.
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- Dec/15/21 5:27:05 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, that is absolutely right.
There is a cost to putting people in jail. Ultimately, though, if people have committed serious crimes like the ones that have been listed, on which the government is proposing to reduce the mandatory minimums, the cost should not matter. We are not going to let people out of jail because we cannot afford it. There are lots of ways we can find the additional funding needed to ensure that we keep these hardened, violent criminals in our prisons.
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