SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Michael Barrett

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $133,355.09

  • Government Page
  • Mar/21/23 7:18:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals checked with their friends around the world and they have decided that Canadians have never had it so good. With respect to the inflation rate at 8.5% in Europe or 10.1% in the U.K., as the parliamentary secretary offered, those numbers and those words do nothing to fill the bellies of hungry Canadians, who cannot afford to eat because they are being crushed by the inflationary policies that have come to pass after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister. Canadians are looking for relief and the Liberals can offer it to them. Their carbon tax is not lowering emissions, but it is lowering Canadians' prosperity. I caution people against diminishing the concern that 40% of Canadians have about losing their job. “Lots of jobs were created”, the Liberals reply. The uncertainty, the concern and the inability to meet their financial commitments have Canadians up at night because they are concerned. They are looking for a government that is responsive to those fears and those concerns, and this carbon tax is not helping Canadians get ahead. It is not helping to provide a cleaner environment. The government needs to scrap its carbon tax.
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  • Mar/21/23 7:10:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this evening to talk about the struggles that Canadians are facing with affordability. We know that to be able to afford to feed their families, heat their homes and put gas in the car to get to work, Canadians need to have a job. We start out at a point where, after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, four in 10 Canadians are actively afraid they are going to lose their job, and 50% of Canadians are on the brink of insolvency. After eight years of the Prime Minister, the average price of groceries for a family is up around 15% on a week-by-week basis. Canadians are spending thousands more on groceries this year than they did last year. After eight years of the Prime Minister, there is no relief in sight. When Canadians look down the road and look at what is to come on the calendar, they see tax increases: tax increases on April 1, and more tax increases when the Liberals plan to triple their carbon tax on everything. In my office, I regularly receive a particular type of correspondence from Canadians. Actually, at church two Sundays ago, Chuck wanted to share with me his natural gas bill. I just cannot believe the tax that he is paying on top of the tax that he is paying. He is wondering if it is legal that the government is charging tax on tax. What everyone is wondering, when they are looking at these bills that they are sending to my office, asking what we can do to help them, is how they are going to be able to get through another year. We have presented the government with several options it could choose from that would help make life more affordable for Canadians. Scrapping the carbon tax on everything is the first and best way for the government to have a positive impact on the affordability crisis that is facing Canadians. The price of homes has doubled under the government. The Liberals will say that no one has spent more, but no one has spent more to achieve less than the Liberal government has. It is a devastating picture when we look at the impact of the policies of the Liberal government. The prescription is clear: The government could cap new spending and it could cut taxes, starting with scrapping the carbon tax. That is what we are asking. That is what we are asking the government to do, and it is what Canadians are asking of it. Canadians need a break. It is time to bring those savings, that relief, that affordability home for Canadians. That is what Canada's Conservatives are offering, and that is the bare minimum that we expect from the Liberal government. With that, I think my time has expired. I look forward to the response from the government.
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  • Mar/9/23 6:44:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, no government has ever spent so much to achieve so little. What did the Liberals get for the piles of money they threw on the inflationary fire? What is the result for Canadians? The cost to rent an apartment has doubled. The cost of a mortgage payment has doubled. The dream of home ownership has evaporated. That is the legacy of the government. It literally took the Prime Minister years to answer the request from provinces to meet to discuss health care funding. It took years for the Liberals to come up with support for the provinces. If this is what help looks like, Canadians are crying for them to stop. Raising taxes when Canadians are struggling is the very last thing they need. They need help, not hurt.
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  • Mar/9/23 6:36:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are in a cost of living crisis in Canada, and we have heard one of the driving factors for that crisis is the contribution to inflation of things like the carbon tax. It is a tax on everything. That is not the only area where the government is ignoring the serious situation Canadians find themselves in. One can take a look at the lack of prudence the government is approaching the taxpayer dollar with. Canadians work extremely hard, and when they have to remit that hard-earned money to the federal government, they expect that it is for the purpose of furthering the national interest and for basic services only the federal government can provide. When one looks a little closer and scratches just beneath the surface, one will see an absence of care or concern for where that tax dollar comes from. It comes from the pocket of a Canadian who, like the average Canadian family, is paying more than $1,000 in increases in their grocery bill this year. That price would be higher for Canadian families if many Canadians were not skipping meals to help drive down their grocery costs. The government has not found a tax dollar it is not prepared to waste. Now, it is not using the increase in tax revenue it is getting from inflation to do things like reduce wait times for passports, although we have seen people camping outside for them. It is not doing it to improve services at our airports when we have seen people stranded and delayed in just unprecedented wait times and disruptions to our airline industry. We are not seeing it with improvements to the interdiction of firearms at our borders and to end gun smuggling from the United States, although we have seen the scourge of gun violence being perpetrated with smuggled firearms across Canada. The government is also spending wild sums of money on projects with no care or concern for where that dollar comes from, like the $54 million it spent on arrive scam. That app was supposed to cost many orders of magnitude less than it did, and it did not even work right. It arbitrarily detained Canadians in the thousands. We recently learned that the Prime Minister was charging $6,000 per night for his hotel room in London, and he did not just stay a single night. Meanwhile, Canadians are struggling to keep the heat on, feed themselves and put enough gas in the tank of their truck to get to work or their minivan to get to a doctor's appointment or an after-school activity for their children. The government needs to approach the serious issue of the affordability crisis we are facing in Canada, and it needs to hold up the mirror and ask itself: What is it doing to make life more affordable for Canadians? Where is it going to find the savings? When is it going to stop raising taxes?
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  • Feb/17/23 11:23:06 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, well, I do not think the people who cannot afford to feed themselves or heat their homes, the people who have experienced their rent or mortgage doubling, the 20% of Canadians who are skipping meals and the 1.5 million Canadians who are lined up at food banks would say that it is going well. However, that is the tactic of the Liberals. They tell us that even though people cannot afford to feed themselves, they have never had it so good. Let them eat cake, the Prime Minister says. The Liberal member for Louis-Hébert said, “Time to stop with the division and the distractions”, distractions like that one. “It’s time to choose positive, not coercive methods. It’s time to unite.” That is what Conservatives will do, from Victoria, B.C., to Victoria-by-the-Sea. When are they going to follow our lead?
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  • Jan/31/23 6:06:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was certainly not an answer, and there were no lessons to be taken there. This is coming from a government that just had a fifth occurrence of one of its cabinet ministers breaking ethics laws in this country. We have corrupt ministers, which includes the Prime Minister, who have been found guilty of breaking ethics laws: the Prime Minister twice, the intergovernmental affairs minister, the former finance minister and now the international trade minister. There are lots of savings to be had, and the handouts, freebies and high-priced consultants the Liberals seem to favour, instead of looking after everyday Canadians, is what they should turn their attention to. They should take after everyday Canadians and stop the corruption. Are they ready to do that?
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  • Jan/31/23 5:58:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here this evening to discuss an issue that Canadians are very concerned about. That, of course, is the cost of living. Life seems so unaffordable for so many these days. We have folks lining up at food banks in record numbers. A third of those users are children, which works out to about 500,000 children using food banks in a single month. People are telling us that they cannot afford to heat their homes. They are skipping meals and reducing their grocery orders because they cannot afford to feed their families. That is the backdrop to what took place and started on January 1, a year of tax increases from the Liberal government. Payroll taxes went up on January 1. Workers and employers are paying more. We know that the Liberals are continuing their march to triple the cost of gas, groceries and home heating. The carbon tax is going up on April 1. Then we have what will affect most especially our restaurant industry and hospitality sector, the alcohol escalator tax. That will go up this year as well. There has been a rising cost of living and rising taxes under the Liberal government. After eight years under this Prime Minister, Canadians are getting less and they are paying more. They are looking to elected representatives from across this country for some relief. We have proposed straightforward steps to the government that it can take. I hope that it takes note of these as we prepare for the presentation of the budget in a few weeks. To introduce new spending, one needs to find new savings. Where are we going to find those savings? We could start with the increase in consulting fees at 50 times more than before. That is one spot. McKinsey & Company has received more than $100 million in contracts from the government. We do not know exactly how much but more than $100 million. What are the virtues that it brings? Certainly not its ethics or international reputation because it has proven to drag Canada's down. At a time when so many Canadians are hurting, it is so important that the government pay close attention to what Canadians are looking for: relief. Let us stop the tax increases and not introduce any new taxes. For any spending that the government plans it needs to make sure that it finds savings to match. Is the government ready to provide that relief to Canadians today?
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  • Dec/8/22 2:31:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they absolutely got tens of billions of dollars into the hands of prisoners and the deceased very quickly. That is wasted money. It is money that the Liberals need to account for. At the same time, we have heard from Ipsos polling this week that the majority of Canadians are scared they will not be able to put enough food on the table or put gas in the car to get to work. Four in 10 Canadians are worried that they are going to lose their jobs in an economy under the Liberals. They have created a Canada where Canadians are afraid every day. Will they end their wasteful spending so that Canadians can feed their families and heat their homes?
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  • Dec/8/22 2:30:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have taken wasteful spending to the next level, whether it is tens of billions of dollars in wasteful COVID benefits, $54 million on the arrive scam app or $6,000 a night for a luxury hotel room for the Prime Minister. The Liberals have no problem reaching into the pockets of Canadians, taking their money and throwing it on the inflationary fire they lit. Life has become unaffordable under the mismanagement of the Liberals. Will they stop their wasteful inflationary spending so that Canadians do not have to decide whether to feed their families or heat their homes?
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  • Dec/5/22 6:38:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that households in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario will see a net loss with the federal carbon tax, including with any cheques that the government sends back to Canadians trying to fool them by taking money with the left hand and giving a little bit back with the right hand. This scheme is not going to do what this government claims it is going to do. It is not going to provide the environmental stewardship that it claims, nor is this government a model of that, as we have seen with the dumping of sewage in the St. Lawrence River, which runs through my community. What we are looking for is a plan from this government that makes life more affordable for Canadians. That means it is not going to introduce new spending unless it finds savings, and it means that it is going to need to axe its carbon tax.
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  • Dec/5/22 6:30:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk about some of the policies the government has put forward and, frankly, its lack of action with respect to the finances and the financial troubles Canadians are facing. We are facing 40-year-high inflation. Canadians are making tough choices between heating their homes and feeding their families. It is unconscionable that with these record-high prices that Canadians are facing at this time, the government is planning to triple its tax on everything: gas, groceries and home heating. Why will the government not relent? Why will the Liberals not put aside their pride and do what is right for Canadians? The prices Canadians are facing at the grocery store are unbelievable. The government has an opportunity to give them some relief by cancelling the carbon tax. Staples like soup are up near 20%, and potatoes are up nearly 11%. Dry or fresh pasta, which people used to stock their cupboards with for tough times, is up 32.5%. The government needs to take a look in the mirror and make some hard decisions. It needs to cancel its carbon tax. It needs to commit to not undertaking any new spending for which it has not found savings elsewhere, and it needs to commit to not introducing or increasing taxes. However, the Liberals seem determined to do the opposite of those things. It is incredibly frustrating for Canadians to hear that driving to work and driving themselves or a family member to a medical appointment are behaviours that need to be corrected. That is what the Liberals have said. There is no subway that runs in Victoria-by-the-Sea, Prince Edward Island, and there is no LRT in Vancouver Island or in the north. In Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, there is certainly no mass transit for folks to be able to correct that bad behaviour that the Liberals say they are undertaking by just supporting themselves, putting gas in the truck so they can get to the job site or putting gas in the car so they can take their children to an extracurricular activity. It is very simple: The government needs to axe its carbon tax and allow Canadians to have some breathing room, to not have to make those dire choices about skipping meals. Nearly one and a half million Canadians went to the food bank in a single month, with 500,000 of those food bank users being children. These are the stark choices Canadians are having to make in this economic climate. The government has all the cards, and there is a quick one that it can play. It is the wild card. The government can axe its carbon tax and make life more affordable for Canadians.
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  • Dec/5/22 6:15:02 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-32 
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join in this important discussion about the future of Canada, the finances of this country and the economic update as part of the Liberals' costly coalition with the NDP. This makes the price of goods that Canadians buy and the interest that Canadians pay unaffordable. The cost of the Liberal government is driving up the cost of living. The more the Prime Minister spends, the more everything costs. There are inflationary deficits that the government continues to pursue unabashedly, and it has driven inflation, particularly food inflation, to 40-year highs. For two years, in spite of what the Governor of the Bank of Canada said, Conservatives, including the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the hon. member for Carleton, said that we would see a period of inflation that many Canadians had not seen in their entire lifetimes. At the same time, the finance minister and the Governor of the Bank of Canada said the real risk was deflation. The votes are in, and it looks like the member for Carleton was right. We are in a period of inflation that is going to make it a really tough winter for a lot of Canadians. We have a few solutions that the Liberals can pursue, which are very straightforward. They are only going to need to use the front side of a piece of paper when they write these down as they diligently take notes. First is to stop the taxes. Second is to stop the spending. There should be no new taxes when Canadians are having a tough time managing the day-to-day and week-to-week household costs. When Canadians are making choices about heating their homes or feeding their families, the government is planning to raise taxes. What is the government's plan? It is not just to raise them, but to triple them. Canadians are getting their home heating set up for the winter. They are filling their oil tanks. They are filling their propane tanks. They are getting their first natural gas bills, and it does not look good. They are really worried about what it is going to look like in January, when they need a refill. They are not going to be able to fill the tank all the way back up. These are scary times, especially when food prices are skyrocketing. I hear the members opposite giggling and laughing. Canadians are having a tough time. They are not able to pay. Grocery prices are going to be $1,000 more for the average Canadian family next year. They are not going to see wage growth to match that on top of all the other rising prices. We knew before the pandemic that half of Canadians were teetering on the brink of personal bankruptcy and teetering on the brink of insolvency. They are going to have no emergency or rainy-day funds. It is a question of whether or not they can buy a week's worth of groceries. Are they going to put a full tank of gas in their car to get to a job site? The carbon tax is one that punishes Canadians. The Prime Minister said it was designed to change Canadians' behaviours. They use their cars to drive to work. That is a behaviour we want Canadians to continue; we want people to work. They use their cars to go to medical appointments, to go to school and to take their children to sports, like hockey, dance or basketball. These are not behaviours to be corrected. It is a way of life. Imagine Canadians driving to the hunt camp as part of their annual tradition, part of our Canadian culture, to go hunting. They are going to drive their cars to get there. The carbon tax is going to hammer Canadians at a time when they can afford it the least. The Prime Minister has not shown that he is serious in addressing the housing supply crisis, and this is evidenced in the fall economic statement. The price of homes has doubled under the Liberal government. For the price of rent, we are looking at $2,600 per month for a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver and $2,300 for the same in Toronto. Meanwhile, six out of 10 renters do not qualify for the inflationary cheques that the Liberals are sending out. Those few renters who are eligible will see that $500 vaporized by the effects of Liberal inflation. Let us think about what the challenges look like on a day-to-day basis for Canadians. Grocery prices are up 10.8%, the highest in 40 years. What does that look like? Eggs are up 10%. Margarine is up 37.5%. Dry and fresh pasta are up 32%. Fresh fruit is up 13%. Soup is up 19%. These are staples that people depend on. They are not able to stock the cupboards for a rainy day. The impact the inflationary policies of the government are having on Canadians is affecting businesses as well. We know, from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, that one in six businesses are considering closing their doors. Sixty-two percent of small businesses still carry debt from the pandemic. They are feeling the effects of inflation as well. All of their operating costs continue to rise. The carbon tax, again, is one that affects every business. It does not matter what service they are providing. All of their inputs are going up. These Liberals have put these hard times on Canadians. We look at the legislation they present in this place, and they want to say one thing and implement legislation that does another. They say that they have Canadians' backs, but that is not reflected here. It is much like when they say they are not going to ban hunting rifles and shotguns used by farmers and hunters, which are not a risk to public safety, as they are in the hands of well-vetted, law-abiding, trusted firearms owners. The government says that it is not going after them but introduces legislation that does just that. It targets them instead of targeting gangs, criminals and weapons smuggling. It is like a bait and switch, which is what we can expect from it nearly every single time. Instead of creating more cash, which is the plan that the Liberals have, they should focus more on how we can create more of what cash buys. Fuel is a great example. We see that, in western provinces, we have ubiquitous natural resources that are the cleanest, most ethically produced in the world, but instead, these Liberals would prefer to get dirty dictator oil. To say nothing of the environmental impact of bringing it across the ocean, the actual extraction process does not match the environmental standards that we have here in Canada, the environmental stewardship that is shown by natural resource companies in this country and the Canadians who work in that resource production, the human rights protections and standards that are in place for these companies that are extracting natural resources in Canada. I appreciate having the opportunity to speak to this very important issue, and I hope there are some good questions.
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  • Dec/2/22 11:31:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that word salad will not fill the bowls of Canadians. In fact, many Canadians cannot afford to fill their bowls with salad because the price of lettuce, under the Liberals, has tripled. They are punishing people for the crime of trying to feed their families, trying to drive to work and trying to just get by. What are Liberals going to do? They are going to triple down by tripling their failed carbon tax. They are completely out of touch with everyday Canadians. Do they want some economic advice? Do they want to know what a plan looks like? Stop raising taxes on Canadians. Will they cancel their failed carbon tax?
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  • Dec/2/22 11:29:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canadians are being crushed by just how expensive life has become under the Liberal government. Groceries hit a 40-year high, which drove nearly 1.5 million Canadians to food banks. The cost of home heating has skyrocketed to the point where Canadians have to choose between heating and eating. The price of diesel in the Maritimes spiked to over $3 per litre. Now the Liberals are going to continue to raise their tax on everything. Will the Liberal government stop forcing its failed carbon tax on Canadians?
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  • Dec/1/22 2:06:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians have been struggling, and Liberal inflation is driving up the cost of everything from home heating to buying a tank of gas to buying groceries for one's family. The government is committed to making life more unaffordable by raising taxes on the necessities of life for Canadians. It is forcing record numbers of people to turn to food banks to feed their families. In fact, 1.5 million Canadians used food banks in a single month. While that is a staggering statistic, every single one of those people is barely getting by. These are folks who are teetering, because the Liberal government has made life so unaffordable, and it has become personal. I recently met with Alee at the Brockville food bank, and she told me that the need has truly never been higher. Therefore, if people are able to, please consider giving to the local food bank this season. The Liberal government needs to remove the tax on home heating so Canadians do not freeze in the dark. It needs to end its inflationary spending. Canadians deserve better than what they are getting from the Liberals. They need hope, and that is exactly what Canada's Conservatives are going to provide.
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  • Nov/30/22 3:07:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, all the supposed supports the Prime Minister is talking about are being vaporized by inflation. It is crushing Canadians. The Prime Minister continues to crush them with his plan to triple the carbon tax. It is going to punish Canadians for living their lives, for buying groceries, for heating their homes and for driving to work. While food bank usage is at a record high, a third of food bank users being children, the Prime Minister is sipping champagne in a $6,000-per-night taxpayer-funded hotel room. The Liberals are out of touch and Canadians are out of money. When will the failed Prime Minister cancel his failed carbon tax?
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  • Nov/1/22 11:56:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for New Brunswick Southwest. It is important that we are all able to speak to this important issue today and have as many voices as possible. Canadians are facing a cost of living crisis and the cause was made right here in Canada. The $54-million arrive scam is one of a litany of examples of how the cost of government is driving up the cost of living. The more the current Prime Minister spends, the more Canadians are finding things cost. We are seeing higher prices. Canadians are very concerned as they get that first fill-up of home heating fuel, propane or oil, or their first natural gas bill. When they look at that they see taxes on taxes. They see the carbon tax on there and they are concerned. What are these bills going to look like when they get a fuel delivery in January? What is the government doing to help control the expenses that Canadians have? Is it committed to cutting taxes? No, it is raising taxes. Is it committed to getting its spending under control. No, it is not. Is it being accountable for the spending that it has undertaken? That is what we are doing today. We want accountability. We want an audit. An audit is something the government should be able to vote in favour of. When we look at what was spent and look at the public accounts, 40% of the deficit spending the current government undertook was not related to the pandemic. It will say the Conservatives voted in favour of helping people who needed help during the pandemic. We are not talking about that spending. We are talking about the waste, the excess and the insider deals, and there was an awful lot of that. If we can believe it, when we read the public accounts that were published last week, every single minute of last year the government incurred more than $170,000 of new debt. That is staggering. If two income earners in a family were each making $40,000 to provide a living for their family, they could not put a dent in one minute of the debt the current government racked up that year. It is unbelievable. Because of that, Canadians are going to pay higher prices for everything. We know they are paying higher prices for their homes. We know they are now going to pay higher prices for their mortgages, on the interest they pay, as well as on credit cards and lines of credit. We know that rent is going up to $2,600 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver and to $2,300 a month for the same in Toronto. It is more important than ever that Canadians extract accountability from their government. For it to spend $54 million on this failed app is an egregious number, but I fear the number is much higher. We are hoping to find that out. It does not even know where all of that $54 million went. When members of the House asked the government for information, it came back and listed some of the contractors. However, there are tens of millions of dollars in subcontracts for which it is not willing to say who did the work or what work was done. Of the ones we do know, and the list was short, it claimed that it paid $1.2 million to a company that claims it did not do any of the work, nor did it get a penny for it. The government said that it was a mistake and that it was actually someone else. It is bizarre the government was so quickly able to say it made a mistake but did not know where the money actually went. When we are dealing in millions of Canadians' dollars, it is really important to know where we are sending the cheques. When it came to the support measures some Canadians needed, it was less careful. It sent cheques to prisoners, an an example, people convicted of crimes, and to people who did not need the help and who were gainfully employed, making great salaries with great benefits and great pensions. One needs to wonder why the Liberals were so cavalier with these particular millions. Did they go to someone with an inside connection? We have seen before that folks who appear on the Liberal list end up getting cushy order in council appointments and fat government contracts. I will remind the House of course that we saw a half-billion dollars try to get shovelled out the door to the Prime Minister's buddy at the WE organization, but Conservatives caught it. We saw when the Prime Minister was found to have broken ethics laws. He was happy to take a vacation to billionaire island, but we caught him. It is really about accountability. We found, through the work of members here and a referral to the Ethics Commissioner, that the Prime Minister had inappropriately interfered in the criminal prosecution of his buddies at SNC-Lavalin. This is another company that does quite well under the Liberals. Recently, while Canadians are facing this cost of living crisis, there is scrutiny about this $54-million boondoggle. I have talked to, face to face, dozens of CBSA officers, who signed up to protect our country and our borders and to interdict weapons smuggling, drugs and human trafficking, and they are getting asked to be IT support for an app that does not work. They did not find it enhanced their ability to keep Canadians safe. It slowed the lines down. It slowed the movement of people. They can look at a certificate. If the government demanded proof of vaccination, if that was its decision, misguided as it may have been, it could have done that and those customs officers could have verified those documents the same way they verify a passport, without a $54-million boondoggle with all kinds of pork to Liberal insiders. While that is going on, the Prime Minister jet-sets on one of his many travels and does it in style, of course, with a private taxpayer-funded jet and stays at the finest hotels and charges it to the taxpayer. One thinks he had to go to London and it was important he was there. What does one think a hotel room, one room, should cost for a night for a prime minister?
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  • Oct/31/22 3:01:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' reckless spending is driving up the cost of living for Canadians. It was $6,000 a night for the Prime Minister's hotel room that was charged to taxpayers, and $54 million for the arrive scam with a complete snow job on who got paid. Meanwhile, folks who are getting their first home heating oil or propane delivery are afraid they will not be able to afford a mid-winter fill up. With the costly coalition of these NDP-Liberals, food bank use is at an all-time high as Canadians choose between heating and eating. Will these Liberals end their inflationary spending?
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  • Oct/18/22 3:48:30 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-31 
Madam Speaker, the minister knows that Ontario, as an example, has five programs that help low-income children access dental care. Dental care is a program that should fall under a provincial mandate for health. I am very curious as to why the minister would not have collaborated with the provinces to enhance the programs instead of creating another program, more bureaucracy, more red tape, duplication and triplication of programs. Instead of helping more people in a more streamlined way, the Liberals just seem to be adding more layers of red tape when they could just be helping Canadians.
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  • Oct/7/22 11:42:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this morning I took part in the annual Food Bank Fill Up for the Brockville & Area Food Bank. The executive director Hailie Jack tells me that food bank use is at an all-time high. With food price inflation at 40-year highs, even monetary donations are not going as far as they should. Canadians just cannot afford more taxes from the Liberal government, so will it today commit to cancelling its plan to triple the tax on gas, home heating and groceries?
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