- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Subcommittee on Review of Parliament’s involvement with associations and recognized Interparliamentary groups
Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
- Conservative
- Lambton—Kent—Middlesex
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $149,801.69
- Government Page
- Jan/29/24 8:02:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the report from the public accounts committee entitled “Protecting Canada's Food System During the COVID-19 Pandemic”.
In this report, we learn that the NDP-Liberal government spent $515 million, more than half a billion dollars, in various funding envelopes “increased risk of food insecurity”. This is the key question: How much food security did Canadians get for more than half a billion dollars? Well, the short answer is that Canadians got less, not more, food security. They are getting less, thanks to policies of the NDP-Liberal government, which continue to increase food production costs, food transportation costs, food spoilage and food prices and reduce food supply, food variety, food freshness and food security.
First, I ask members to cast their mind back to the pandemic. During the NDP-Liberal COVID lockdowns, despite Conservatives sending a warning, along with Canadian producers, processors and suppliers, the NDP-Liberal government failed miserably to plan ahead. It had no plan for getting temporary foreign workers nor seasonal agriculture workers in and out of Canada when and where they were needed. There was no plan for bringing workers into Canada for greenhouse producers starting in January 2021 nor for field producers throughout their planting and harvesting seasons. At the end of the season, some farmers were even faced with the challenges of workers who were not able to return to their home country, for example, Trinidad and Tobago, and there was little or no diplomatic help available for those Canadian producers. That was an epic fail thanks to the NDP-Liberal governing party. Sadly, it does not end there.
For the past two years or more, food prices have increased by 8%, 9% or more year over year. Vegetables are seeing the biggest price increases. As a result, Canadian families are cutting back on purchases of vegetables and other healthy foods for their children, and about 20% of Canadians are reporting skipping a meal each day. Food banks across the country are seeing record numbers of visits by Canadians to the tune of over two million families. This is the very definition of food insecurity.
The costly coalition of NDP-Liberals has been sleeping at the wheel as Canadian families pay more and more for the necessities of life. With the carbon tax one and carbon tax two combined by April Fool's Day 2030, the Prime Minister and his NDP-Liberal government want to charge Canadian farmers and truckers 61¢ for every litre of fuel they put in their farm implements and trucks in carbon tax. It is not rocket science. It is basic math that the NDP-Liberals just do not seem to get. If it costs more to grow food and it costs more to ship food, it is going to cost Canadian families more to buy food.
The Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, said that the carbon tax announcements that have it going up, that increases inflation each year. The lead author of Canada's Food Price Report 2023, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, has pointed out that the carbon tax has made business expenses go up. Up and down the food chain, Dr. Charlebois points to a “compounding effect” as the supply chain is exposed to increased costs from the carbon tax. Again, if it costs the farmer more to grow food and truckers more to ship food, it is going to cost Canadians more to buy food.
How do we solve the problem of rising food prices and this Prime Minister's costly coalition? Well, first things first, we need to axe the carbon tax.
The leader of the opposition and those of us on this side of the House want to offer Canadian families relief from the carbon tax. We want to put an end to possibly the most out-of-touch-with-reality, regressive, punitive and unfair tax Canadians have been asked to pay.
However, there is more. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change has added plastic to the list of toxic substances. Yes, members heard that right. Plastic is a toxic substance according to the environment minister. Although the courts recently struck down the NDP-Liberal government's single-use plastics ban, the environment minister has another evil trick up his sleeve.
Last August 1, the environment minister issued a notice for his proposed ban on primary plastic packaging, meaning the packaging for produce and meats that we see in the grocery stores. At meetings of the agriculture committee on December 7 and 11, 2023, I asked the chief executive officers of Walmart Canada, Loblaw and Metro what the impact would be for them and their customers if this ban were to be implemented. The CEOs of both Loblaw and Metro said that, if the NDP-Liberal government proceeded with a ban on primary food packaging, it would increase food costs by approximately $6 billion a year, severely impair competition, threaten the availability of food and increase spoilage, meaning more food waste.
Primary plastic packaging serves as a hygienic barrier to contaminants; it delays spoilage, extends best before dates, reduces waste and optimizes perishables' nutritional value. Plastic packaging is lightweight, and it reduces the amount of fuel used in transport compared with other alternatives. What most consumers do not realize is that the job that plastic does for fresh fruit and vegetables is done long before it ever hits the grocery store shelves.
According to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, on average, Canadians spend about $1 billion per month on fruit and vegetables. Only about 12.5% of the fruits and vegetables Canadians consume are produced in Canada. Canadians consume seven times as much imported fruit and vegetables as domestically produced fruit and vegetables. I am sure part of that is because of our weather patterns here.
Imported produce can take weeks to reach us by ship. Plastic packaging plays a crucial role in keeping food from overripening and spoiling before it gets to Canada.
At this time, there is no cost-effective alternative solution to plastic packaging that is available on a global scale. If the NDP-Liberal government were really and truly concerned about food costs and food security, one might think that it would conduct a regulatory impact analysis. However, one would be wrong.
At the agriculture committee on November 30, 2023, I asked the deputy agriculture minister if a regulatory impact analysis on a primary plastic packaging ban for produce had been done. She testified that it had not. This is irresponsible.
The Canadian Produce Marketing Association, or CPMA, did a regulatory impact analysis of the proposed primary plastic packaging ban. It found that the NDP-Liberal environment minister's ban on primary plastic packaging could increase the cost of fresh produce by 34%. It could also reduce the availability of fresh produce for Canadians by more than 50%, including the near total elimination of all value-added products, reducing market value by approximately $5.6 billion.
The ban could increase fresh produce waste by more than 50%. Furthermore, it could increase the production and release of greenhouse gases from the produce supply chain by more than 50%. The environment minister should take note.
Another finding from the CPMA impact analysis suggests that increased fresh produce costs will lead to reduced availability and reduced consumption, therefore increasing health costs by over $1 billion each year. Furthermore, the ban will have a disproportionate impact on the cost and availability of fresh produce in rural and remote regions of Canada.
When presented with the consequences of the NDP-Liberal environment minister's ban, almost two-thirds of Canadian consumers expressed concern.
Finally, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association's regulatory impact analysis reported that the proposed regulations will lead to an increased risk of food safety incidents and food-borne illnesses.
In short, the NDP-Liberal environment minister is painting a target on the back of every single Canadian with the threat posed to their health and well-being by his ill-advised, non-evidence-based, irresponsible ban on primary plastic packaging.
As I conclude, I want to move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
“the 14th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts for further consideration, with a view to recommend that the agriculture sector be exempt from any federal carbon tax in order to maintain food-security and preparedness for future emergencies.”
It is always an honour to rise here on behalf of the people I represent in Lambton—Kent—Middlesex and the farmers and producers who produce the great-quality food that we feed Canadians. I want to thank them for what they do.
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- May/19/22 4:08:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just as with most problems in this country, Liberals are the cause. Over the past seven years, it feels like they have removed common sense from the dictionary.
They will try to deny it, and they will try to shift blame. They have blamed out-of-practice travellers for the delays, backlogs and travel-associated horror stories that we see coming out of Canadian airports right now, even for domestic flights. Certainly, their globally outdated mandates, red-tape-bundled policies and general lack of compassion is not at fault.
They are vindictive. They are smug, and their leadership is power hungry. The government is the root of the problem.
If I have not been clear enough already, the rest of the world is moving past the pandemic. Even Canada's provinces have learned to live with COVID, but our federal government has not. This is no longer about safety. It definitely is not about common sense. It is about control. Once the Liberals took control, they did not know what to do with their new-found power, and Canadians have suffered long enough for their half-witted initiatives. It is way past time for Canada to return to prepandemic rules and service levels for travel.
Lack of staff is not an excuse. They have had plenty of time to plan for reopening, just like they have had years to plan for passport renewals, another thing the Liberals have dropped the ball on hard.
I am hearing from many constituents about the delays they are experiencing at the passport office, how people wait for hours in line to get to the door just to be told to go home. They then phone, and the phones ring and ring, but they never get answered. I am also being told that Passport Canada is no longer accepting electronic documents and is telling people to go to their MP's office to print the documents. Where is the common sense in that?
It gets worse. It gets a lot worse, and I wonder who or what the government will blame next for the mistakes this time.
The provinces have dropped their mask mandates, yet federal buildings still require people to wear a mask regardless. People wait in those long lines at passport offices, sometimes for hours, get to the door and then they find out that they are required to wear a mask in order to get service.
When they get inside to find out they need a mask, the federal offices have none to give them and there are none to be found. What is a person supposed to do? People are sharing masks. Multiple people, strangers, are using the same mask because the government refused to have a plan.
I am no doctor, but I am pretty sure that wearing a used mask from someone else is far worse than not wearing a mask at all. It seems like the Liberals prefer to have conflicting, arbitrary rules that cause outrage and confuse people.
Do people want more proof of Liberal political theatrics? The drama teacher in charge is ready to act stern and frighten Canadians into compliance. Afterward, when the cameras are all turned off, he is happy to rip off his mask, smile, socialize and jet set around the world just as though restrictions no longer exist. There is one set of rules for the people in power, and one set of rules for the rest.
The rules are different for people like Julie from my riding. She did the responsible thing. She applied for her family's passports months in advance of their trip, but since then, Service Canada has delayed responding to her inquiries, sent her for new passport photos multiple times and told her that she needs to pay $95 per person just to speed up processing times.
The government is using backlogs caused by its own incompetence to extort Canadians who played by the rules. It is simply shameful and unbelievable, and again, there is no common sense. If members thought that passports was a wild ride, it gets far worse.
Let us take a look at what the Liberals have been doing to boaters. Southwestern Ontario is bordered by the Great Lakes, and my riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex sits on the beautiful southern shores of Lake Huron. Other parts of my riding are along the St. Clair River and Lake St. Clair.
As boating season starts, boaters are wanting to go across the river to Michigan. Before the pandemic, the number of small vessel reporting sites was 400. That number has now been cut to 84. As boating season opens up, boaters will have to travel out of their way to report their vessel.
Do members not believe me? Constituents like John have written to me to say that, instead of taking their boat across an 800-metre wide river to get to and from my riding and Michigan, the CBSA wants them to reroute for 76 kilometres round trip just to check in. This is ridiculous.
John has calculated that it would cost him over $1,200 per trip just to meet this requirement. He has even calculated that this will create an extra 1,140 kilograms of carbon emissions just for one trip for him. The hypocrisy is that the government is pretending to care about the environment and Canadians but, in practice, it is needlessly adding emissions.
I just found out, minutes ago, that the government actually announced that it is going to reopen those reporting sites, but that is only after Conservatives pushed it for common sense and to lift these restrictions from the boaters.
Federal restrictions are being made and enforced without common sense. These mandates unfairly punish Canadians, and the government is giving no indication that it will ease off any time soon. It has consistently missed the mark on marine travel, from Walpole Algonac Ferry in my riding, which was shut down due to marine transportation not being included in cross-border travel exemptions earlier this year, to those recreational boaters who are not going to have points of access entry this spring. Canadians are being left behind. Continuing temporary closures for over two years is unnecessary, costly and irresponsible.
When I previously asked the minister if they will allow CBSA's regular points of entry to be reopened, he laughed. I will spell that out again: Liberal ministers are laughing at the pain they are causing Canadians. They are taking joy in the prospect of crippled tourism and empty rural small town shops during what would normally be a busy season and the busiest time of the year, which will hurt small businesses in communities such as Mitchell's Bay, Port Lambton, and Wallaceburg. This is not a joke.
The behaviour displayed by these ministers was despicable and very telling of how little a priority the concerns of my constituents are to the Liberal government.
Did members know that Canada is the only country in the world where non-vaccinated people are not allowed to travel domestically? Let that sink in. That is not okay. Requiring a type of passport for Canadians to travel domestically, creating second-class citizens, needs to end. The government is going out of its way to punish fully vaccinated travellers, no matter if they cross by land, sea or air.
I have had personal experience with this when waiting in line for security at airports, watching people struggle with delays and fighting the mandatory use of the barely functioning ArriveCAN app, something that the government insists on using.
Remember how I mentioned earlier how it would only take paper documents? Well, now it wants an app, something that is totally digital, which is another decision that spits in the face of common sense-loving Canadians.
Liberals refuse to compromise. They will not give people the choice to use paper or electronic documents. That would make too much sense.
At the land border crossings, what is happening late in the evening? Well, there is one overworked stall that is still open. Americans do not know about the ArriveCAN app when they are crossing and the requirement to use it. The government has failed to explain to them and to advertise to would-be border crossers of this requirement. This makes for frustration and delays for tourists coming to support our economy and for Canadians returning home.
For example, I spoke with a senior couple in my riding who are fed up with how little is being done to help them. They are in their 80s, and they are very cautious. They care about the rules, and they want to try to follow them. They asked their son for help to buy a phone, their very first smart phone, something that they were forced to buy, because they were excited to resume day trips across the border.
When they put the ArriveCAN app on, it was not working and they did not know what to do. They told me that they took time and drove down to the store to see if the young clerk could help them. Unfortunately, though, they all tried, and it still did not work. They returned their new phone, they shelved their excitement and returned home wondering why the government would make visiting loved ones for a day so hard for them.
I know that Conservatives are asking for the Liberal government to do something that is very difficult for them, which is to finally adopt some common sense and listen to Canadians instead of to themselves. People want their lives back and one way to start giving them this is to return to prepandemic rules and service levels for travel.
Everything the government touches is an absolute failure. On behalf of all Canadians disappointed with how their plans are being ruined, I will ask this: If Canadians do not have a smart phone, can they get a smart government, or at least one with common sense?
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