- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Dufferin—Caledon
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $136,309.03
- Government Page
- Oct/31/23 6:45:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the last time I was here, I asked a question about housing, talking about the Liberal government's absolutely abysmal record on housing. When one looks at the problem with housing, what one sees is that there are actually two elements. There is the building of units, and we know that building starts are down. They have announcements where they say they are going to build something, but no one can actually live in an announcement.
What they actually do at these announcements is find homes that are already going to be built and say that they will partner with the municipality and that the municipality will get a little extra money if it says they somehow contributed.
Their building homes strategy is a big nothing burger. It is an absolute failure.
Let us look at cost because cost is the other part that is making housing so unaffordable. We know that housing prices have doubled under the government, but let us look at interest rates. We know that interest rates are sky-high. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has said, many times, that the government's inflationary spending is like putting the foot on the gas pedal, as the Governor of the Bank of Canada tries to ease inflation by raising interest rates.
Interest rates are at absolute highs and this has tragic consequences for builders; they cannot build the units because interest rates are so high. It makes the cost of building them even higher. It drives up the cost of building and makes it even less affordable for Canadians to buy them.
Let me just give one little example. Right now, we have $186 billion worth of mortgages coming up for renewal in 2024. Let us say that one had a $600,000 mortgage coming up for renewal and an interest rate of 3%, which was not a great interest rate up until recently but is a very good rate compared to now. On a $600,000 mortgage, one's monthly payment until now would have been $2,500. Today, it is almost $4,000. That is a $1,500-a-month increase. These are the kinds of things that are crushing Canadians.
This Liberal government has done the impossible on incompetence. If one does not have a home, one cannot afford a home because the cost of a home has doubled. If one is renting or looking to rent, one cannot afford that either, because rent has doubled. If one has a home and one works so hard to save and actually have a home, when one's mortgage comes up for renewal, one cannot afford to keep one's home.
This government has somehow had the amazing incompetence to do two things: make it impossible for young buyers to buy a home and make it virtually impossible for people who have a home to keep the home. This is stunning incompetence on housing.
What makes it worse is that household debt in Canada is the highest in the G7. Remember that the Prime Minister said that they were taking on borrowing money so that Canadians did not have to? Well, they have had to because their inflationary spending has driven up interest rates so high that Canadians now have to borrow just to survive.
The most frightening stat I have seen just came out: 31% of Canadian households are having to find extra income just to make ends meet.
Look at what is going on in this country after eight years of this absolutely incompetent Liberal government. One cannot buy a home. One cannot keep one's home. One cannot make ends meet. People are actually having to take on side hustles to pay the bills. This is the catastrophic record of a tired, corrupt Liberal government after eight years.
I do not have time to get into the corruption. That would be an entire other late show, but let me say that housing and affordability is a disaster.
The government is responsible. Why does it not, instead of puffing up its chest and saying what a great job it has done, just apologize to Canadians for the mess it has made?
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- Oct/18/23 3:00:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised that interest rates were going to remain low and Canadians believed him, so they went out, bought homes and took out mortgages, but after eight years of Liberal inflationary deficits, interest rates are at a 30-year high, and many Canadian families are now finding that they cannot pay their mortgage.
In fact, the Business Council of Canada just said that governments cannot permanently run deficits without fear. Will the finance minister stop running her inflationary deficits so that interest rates will come down and Canadian families will not lose their homes?
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- Oct/5/23 2:40:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this will not be a happy Thanksgiving for many Canadian families because food prices are absolutely out of control, and the NDP leader just said that food inflation has outpaced inflation over the last 20 months, which is coincidentally the length of the Liberal-NDP coalition. What could be happening? The sad fact is this: Canadian families are having to make a hard choice between feeding their families and paying their rents.
Will the Prime Minister finally recognize the damage he has done to Canada and keep his promise so people can have an affordable Thanksgiving dinner?
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Madam Speaker, it is amazing that all of this was predicted. The affordability crisis we find ourselves in, runaway inflation and high interest rates were all predicted by the Conservative leader.
It is actually a shocking amount of spending. The federal government, under this NDP-Liberal coalition, now spends $176 billion per year every year more than in 2015. I hear from constituents when they raise that issue, and I ask, “What in your life is better?” No one can answer that. All of this spending has really driven the affordability crisis and has not helped the vast majority of Canadians.
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- Jun/6/23 2:18:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Liberal inflation is crushing Canadians. One in five Canadians is skipping meals, and food bank usage is skyrocketing. What is the Liberal government's response? It is a massive $60-billion inflationary budget deficit and carbon tax 2.
We all know the sequel is way worse than the original. Carbon tax 2 will add 61¢ a litre in tax to gas, making everything more expensive. Even Liberals are shaking their heads, and not just random former Liberals this time. Former finance minister John Manley has said that Liberal spending is making it harder to control inflation, and things are getting worse. The Bank of Canada is now signalling another interest rate hike.
Canadians, do not lose hope. The Conservatives are going to fight this budget until the Liberals agree to a plan to balance the budget. If they do not, maybe it is time to give them the boot.
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- May/30/23 5:48:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, two weeks ago, I had an opportunity to ask the government about whether the carbon tax causes food inflation. The point of my question was that, all throughout the food chain, the carbon tax is charged. Farmers will pay a carbon tax. In fact, by 2030, the average farmer will pay $150,000 per year in carbon tax, and they get absolutely no rebate on that. Of course, the cost of that carbon tax is therefore passed on to consumers.
However, it is worse, because the truck operator who comes to pick up the farm product from the farm to take it to a processor pays a carbon tax. The processor is then going to pay a carbon tax on the heat or the air conditioning or the operation of their machinery. The truck operator who picks it up from the processor is going to pay a carbon tax. When it gets to the grocery store, the grocery store owner is going to pay carbon tax because of heating, cooling, etc. Therefore, in the end, the people who suffer are Canadians who are trying to feed their families. What we know unequivocally is that food inflation is causing Canadian families to go hungry. One in five Canadians is skipping meals to make ends meet.
In my riding of Dufferin—Caledon, in the town of Orangeville, I look at seniors' usage of the food bank. We can think of this: Seniors who have worked their entire lives are now resorting to going to the food bank to be able to eat, because the carbon tax has so driven up the cost of food that they can no longer afford to feed themselves. The use of food banks is up over 80% in the town of Orangeville. These are the statistics from the food bank itself. All I have been asking the government to do is to admit that carbon tax is causing food inflation.
It gets worse. The CFIB has now stated that, in 2023 alone, the carbon tax is going to cost small business owners $8 billion. What they will get back in rebates is a mere $35 million. Many of these small business owners are also in the food industry. They own our small restaurants. They own our small grocery stores. They are also getting pounded with carbon tax. All these things drive up the cost of food, spurring the crisis in affordability. Seniors are using the food bank; one in five Canadians is skipping meals.
It is a very simple question. I have asked it many times. I say this with all seriousness: Confession is good for the soul. Why will the government not just admit that the carbon tax is causing food inflation?
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- May/17/23 3:03:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is incredible, he actually does not know how food ends up on his plate. The farmer pays a carbon tax, the truck that picks up the farmer's food pays a carbon tax to take it to the processor, the processor pays a carbon tax, the truck that picks it up from the processor to take it to the grocery store pays a carbon tax, the grocery store pays a carbon tax and then Canadians cannot pay for food.
When will the partisan hack finance minister finally understand that the carbon tax causes inflation?
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Madam Speaker, I listened to the member talk and what he did not mention at all is the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed in the United States and the government's response to that.
At the international trade committee, we heard over and over again that investment is going to evaporate in Canada unless changes are made. There are a couple of little sprinkles here, but the IRA was introduced in August and it is now December. Why has it taken the Liberal government so long to meaningfully respond to the significant risk to Canadian businesses as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act?
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- Sep/28/22 2:56:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, no, what we want to do is stop the government's tax increases.
The cost of living is at an all-time high, and interest rates are skyrocketing because of Liberal money-printing inflation. Before this Liberal disaster, a third of Canadians were within $200 of not making ends meet. What was the Liberal response? To raise taxes, both payroll taxes and the carbon tax, because taking more money from Canadians is really going to solve the affordability crisis.
Will the government start helping, stop hurting Canadians and stop these tax increases?
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