- Member of Parliament
- Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
Leader of the Opposition
- Conservative
- Carleton
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $61,288.13
- Government Page
- Jun/4/24 2:22:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has already proven that the Liberal carbon tax, just like the Prime Minister, is not worth the cost, saying that the vast majority of people are worse off under a carbon pricing regime than without. This is partly because of the economic cost that the carbon tax imposes. One of our members from Winnipeg asked the PBO whether the government had done an economic analysis of the cost, and he said yes, but that the government is blocking its release, referring to it as a “gag order”.
Why the carbon tax cover-up?
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- Mar/20/24 2:56:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost to our economy. Real per person GDP has grown more slowly in Canada than in all the rest of the G7. It is dead last. In fact, our per capita GDP is smaller than it was five years ago, which is the worst record since the Great Depression. The Parliamentary Budget Officer calculates that the carbon tax will blow an $18-billion hole in the size of our GDP, $1,000 in economic costs per family.
If he really thinks that is worth the cost, why will we not have a carbon election to—
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- Mar/19/24 12:39:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, no, it sounds like the government wins and the taxpayers lose. It takes in more money in direct tax revenues from the carbon tax than it pays back out in rebates. Worse than that, according to the PBO, the carbon tax destroys so much economic activity that it leaves people worse off than the direct carbon tax that they paid, and that is why, when we combine the economic and the fiscal cost to the average family, Canadians are losers.
However, the good news is that when common-sense Conservatives spike the hike and axe the tax, Canadians will be winners again.
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- Feb/28/24 2:39:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is doing neither at the same time. I should catch what he said: “on the face of it”, the carbon tax is terrific.
While the Parliamentary Budget Officer actually did the calculation of the full fiscal and economic cost for the average family, he found that every family in the middle class is worse off under the carbon tax. For example, in Ontario, the net cost for the average family, above and beyond rebates, is $627 this year.
How are they going to pay for that—
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- Nov/30/23 2:40:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, we have entered the next phase of the Prime Minister's economic misery. We have seen “just inflation”, and today we have learned that Canada is in a state of stagflation as our economy has shrunk by 1.1% in the most recent quarter while the American economy boomed at 5%. This is the result of high taxes, big deficits and crippling red tape. At the same time as prices are rising for Canadians, their wages are falling. The economy is now smaller than it was on a per capita basis five years ago.
Why is the American economy roaring while the Prime Minister's economy is snoring?
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- Nov/29/23 2:28:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, never has a Prime Minister been so ashamed to defend his own economic update, and we know why. Years after he said that there would be no consequences for doubling the national debt, we have learned that this Prime Minister is going to spend more next year on interest on the debt than he does on health care.
Once again, why does the Prime Minister want to give more to bankers than to nurses?
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- Nov/27/23 2:21:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he would make a good employment minister for South Korea.
As a side note, the Prime Minister told us there would be no consequences for doubling the national debt. In its economic update, however, the government now admits that next year, it will spend $52 billion, or $3,000 for every Canadian family, on interest on the debt. That means it will spend more on debt interest than on health care.
Why is the Prime Minister spending more on bankers than on nurses?
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- Sep/21/23 2:22:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do tell the occasional joke, but none of my humour meets with the joke that is the government's economic plan. It is a joke that has given us the worst inflation in 40 years, doubled the national debt, doubled rent, doubled mortgage payments and doubled the needed down payment for Canadians to get into a home. A Torontonian has to save 25 years for a down payment; they used to be able to pay off a mortgage in that time.
Will the Liberals reverse their disastrous inflationary policies so that Canadians can finally eat, heat and house themselves?
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- Jun/21/23 5:21:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Bay of Quinte.
We are living through the same economic and scientific experiment that politicians dust off every 30 years, as soon as the last experiment is forgotten. The experiment I mean is the one where politicians approach the economy like this: if it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it; and if it stops moving, subsidize it.
This is exactly this government's approach. The government has turned Canada into the second-slowest country in the world to grant building permits. Under existing regulations, it takes 25 years to approve a mining project. This country imposes more taxes on small and medium-sized enterprises, which is slowing economic productivity. Then the government turns around and tries to subsidize all these things.
Let us talk about housing, for example. Since taking office, the Prime Minister has been running a country with the fewest houses per capita in the G7, even though Canada has one of the largest land masses. This is because construction projects sometimes take 10 years to be approved. What does the Prime Minister do? He hands out subsidies and big cheques to municipal politicians, who then stand in the way of this construction. That is why Vancouver is the world's third most expensive city, and Toronto is the second most expensive. Canada has a lot of land, however. The average house cost is almost double in Canada what it is in the United States, which has 10 times the people to house on a smaller land mass.
The government blocked the construction of two pipelines but then subsidized a third. This means that it is against pipelines that are built by the private sector with private money, but it is in favour of pipelines that are subsidized by the government. As a result, $30 billion is being spent to subsidize a pipeline in western Canada that could have cost taxpayers nothing. Meanwhile, these kinds of projects are being built for free around the world.
The Prime Minister boasts about subsidies under Canada's critical minerals strategy for materials needed for electrification. At the same time, the government is blocking the development of those same kinds of mines in northern Ontario that could produce those same products. Why is this government blocking something with one hand and subsidizing it with the other? Why not do neither and just allow investors, workers and entrepreneurs to do it on their own?
The answer is that it would take the Prime Minister out of the equation. He may seem inconsistent, but he is actually very consistent, because in all of these cases, he forces people to go through him and through the government to do anything at all. He puts himself at the centre of everything that people can do in the economy. It is Canadians, ordinary folks, the people doing the work, who should be at the centre of our country.
There are real consequences and real costs to that. Over the next 30 years, Canada is expected to have the worst economic growth in the OECD. The cost of housing has also doubled.
Food prices are rising at the fastest pace in 40 years. When the government prevents the market from developing naturally and organically, just so it can subsidize it, that means additional costs for ordinary Canadians who are forced to pay more.
There is another way. We need to remove gatekeepers so hydroelectric dams can be built and materials can be mined for electrification. We need to produce more of our own energy here in Canada, instead of importing it from elsewhere, by cutting red tape and reducing delays. We need to encourage municipalities to cut their own red tape so that we can build affordable housing for average Canadians.
The correct approach is to give Canadians the freedom to create a better quality of life that costs less. It is just common sense. Together, let us bring common sense home to Canada. That is our goal, and that is exactly what we are going to do.
We are now living through an experiment. It is not an unprecedented experiment; it is tried about every 30 years, as soon as the last experiment is forgotten. It is the idea that if the government sees something that moves, it taxes it. “If it keeps moving, [they] regulate it. And if it stops moving, [they] subsidize it.” That is, of course, a quote I took from a famous American president who took the opposite approach, but it is the approach we are living with right now.
What is the result of a government that interferes in order to block Canadians from building things for themselves and then tries to subsidize that very building after the fact? The result is that the cost of everything is rising. The cost of government is driving up the cost of living. The government has produced half a trillion dollars of new money that bids up the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Now, Canadians face the real threat of a mortgage meltdown when those rates rise further.
We see this approach, though, played out again and again. For example, the government blocked two pipelines but then subsidized a third. It is not that it is against pipelines; it is just that it is only in favour of a pipeline that can be built with 30 billion tax dollars. The government blocked mines. It blocked all the mines in northern Ontario's ring of fire, and now it wants to subsidize those very same mines.
The government taxes small businesses and then claims it is coming up with subsidies to bail out those very same small businesses for the costs the government made them pay. The government claims its carbon tax works like this. It will take the money away and give it back, and somehow it will be worth more than when it left. Of course, we now know that everyday Canadians are paying vastly more in these taxes than they get back in return.
The experiment fails. Every 30 years or so it happens, and it is allowed to happen only because enough time has passed for people to forget its logical outcome. The logical way out of it is to take exactly the opposite approach; instead of taxing and blocking our industry and then subsidizing it, we should do neither. We should have real, sensible streamlined rules that allow us to protect our environment and public safety but allow our entrepreneurs, investors and industrialists to get things done. That is what we will do when I am prime minister.
Let us set some wonderful, ambitious goals. Why do we not set a goal? Instead of being the second slowest in the OECD to grant a building permit, why can we not be the fastest place to grant a building permit anywhere in the OECD? Why can we not approve a mine or a small, modular nuclear reactor in two or three years, rather than in 25 years? What do we learn in years 23, 24 and 25 that we could not have learned in years one, two and three of these projects?
Why do we not incentivize our municipalities to do what some are trying their very best to do? For example, the mayor of Walkerton just streamlined and sped up the approval of housing so he could have three 60-unit apartment blocks finalized in several months. The great Squamish people, right inside the city of Vancouver, do not have to follow Vancouver's bureaucratic rules, because they control their own land. They were able to speed up and approve 6,000 units of housing on 10 acres of land. That is 600 units of housing per acre. People will now have homes because the Squamish know how to do what so many local government bureaucrats do not allow, which is to approve projects and get them built.
That reminds me of the great Aubrey Moodie, who was the reeve of Nepean. Jack May went to see him on a Sunday morning before he got up to go to church, and said he wanted to build a car dealership and he had a piece of land. The next day at the local town hall, the lawyers sat down with the engineers. Within 48 hours, there was approval, and within 72 hours, there was construction. The car dealership is still standing safely there, 70 years later. That is common sense.
That way, we can build homes that people can afford, build businesses that pay higher paycheques, lower the tax burden on the backs of the hard-working people and let them bring home more of their paycheques. That is the purpose of the government; it is to make Canada work for the people who do the work, by bringing home lower costs, by eliminating the carbon tax and the inflationary deficits, by bringing home powerful paycheques with lower taxes that reward hard work, by removing gatekeepers to build homes, to allow first nations to develop their economies and to allow our people to develop their own industry. We need to bring in homes people can afford, by removing gatekeepers, freeing up land and speeding up permits to build and build. We need to bring home safe streets for our people, with consequences for repeat, violent offenders, not by targeting our lawful firearms owners. We need to bring home our freedom again by eliminating the censorship and centralized control the government has attempted to impose on the people.
In other words, when we say “bring it home”, it means using the House to bring the power, the control and the money back into the hands of the entrepreneur, the worker and the everyday extraordinary people who know better than anyone in this room how to chart their own course and live their own lives. It is common sense. It is the common sense of the common people, united for our common home: your home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.
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- Jun/7/23 8:33:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I was pointing out, this practice of so-called quantitative easing was not invented in Canada. In fact, it started long ago in Japan, which caused a massive gap to appear between the rich and the poor, because the Japanese government printed cash, inflated asset values, left the working class behind and inflated the wealth of the super-rich. This led to a long-standing slump in Japanese economic growth, because investors no longer had to invest in productive assets that would generate wealth for the Japanese economy. Rather, they could just sit on their property, their stocks or their bonds and allow the Japanese central bank to inflate the values. The Americans then replicated this idea of quantitative easing in the U.S. financial crisis. The result was a disaster. It was a decade of very slow economic growth.
Furthermore, there was a major expansion in the gap between rich and poor. While the working class in America was losing its jobs to automation and outsourcing, it was not enjoying any of the lower prices that those competitive forces should have provided because the central bank was neutralizing cost savings by inflating the cost of living by printing cash. We saw a massive explosion in the wealth of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, while the working poor in industrial states, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and others, found themselves more and more disenfranchised. Their wages were going down, yet their prices were going up. They looked around and saw incompetent CEOs and other financial sector insiders, the same ones who had caused the U.S. financial crisis, not going to jail where they belonged. Rather, they were getting richer and richer. Therefore, the working poor came to believe that the system had ultimately been rigged against them.
Now I bring this to the present, because the government claims that because all central banks were engaging in quantitative easing, we had to do it as well. The American federal reserve is our big, friendly neighbour to the south. The argument goes that if it does something, we have to do it too. However, that is provably false. In the 2008-09 financial crisis, the American government printed cash to buy government debt. They did something called quantitative easing. In Canada, we did not do that. Our government signalled to the central bank that it would not be authorized to participate in fiscal policy by printing cash to buy government bonds. Yes, we ran small, temporary deficits to get through that financial crisis, but we did it by borrowing real money, not by printing cash. That is why we rebounded faster than the Americans did. We had lower unemployment. We were the last in and the first out of the recession, and we never had inflation above 4%. We were back to our inflation target in a year. This proves that we did not need to do what the Americans did, just as our mothers taught us. Just because our friends are jumping off a bridge, does not mean we should do the same.
We know that the Swiss did not print cash during the COVID crisis. Rather, they used real money; when they ran deficits, they borrowed real money. They quickly returned to a balanced budget, and the result was the lowest unemployment, the lowest interest rates and the lowest inflation. This was despite the fact that their European neighbours all had massive inflation crises because their central bank on that continent had behaved differently.
All these experiences were laboratories to demonstrate the folly of the government's actions. I called this folly out on the floor of the House of Commons as early as the fall of 2020, when all that cash was moving into our economy and already beginning to inflate the cost of living. Core inflation was already rising and starting to break above the 2% target, yet they continued when it was clear that there was—
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- Jun/7/23 3:11:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, has he really sunk to the low of exploiting these fires for political gain to distract from his inflationary and high interest rate policies? Is that what it has come to? Is he so ashamed of his economic policy and record—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Sep/27/22 10:31:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the centre of my economic plan is to make government affordable so that life is affordable. The reality is that the cost of government has driven up the cost of living. The half-trillion dollars of inflationary deficits have meant more dollars bidding up the price of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes have driven up those costs further.
The Canadian dollar is and will always be our only national currency. It will be the only currency with which we ever do government business, pay taxes or receive benefits from the government. The problem here today is that this government has been ruining the purchasing power of that dollar by printing cash through inflationary deficits. It has given us a 40-year-high in inflation, which I predicted and warned this government would happen. I will make sure it never happens again.
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