- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $133,355.09
- Government Page
- Oct/21/22 11:41:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what Canadians do not find helpful is that the Liberals have no intention of telling the truth, so here are some facts for them.
They said the app would cost $80,000, and it ended up costing $54 million. Then CBSA and the Liberals, the ministers, signed off on payments, saying that companies like ThinkOn Inc. and Ernst & Young received payments from the government. These companies never received a dime, so money is missing.
I have two questions for the Liberals: Who is lying, and who got rich?
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- Feb/13/23 2:51:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling to afford to feed themselves, all the while the Prime Minister is treating himself to $6000-per-night luxury hotel rooms and having Canadians pick up the tab. Now we know that he had his officials cover it up.
After eight years of the Prime Minister, Liberals are out of touch, and Canadians are out of money. Will the Prime Minister repay Canadians the $6,000-per-night he spent on the luxury suite that Canadians had to pay for?
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- Feb/8/23 3:08:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, Liberal insiders have been lining their pockets while Canadians have been lining up at food banks. McKinsey, one of those insiders, is the very same company that helped turbocharge opioid sales. It was involved in government corruption scandals the world over and, of course, helped the Government of Saudi Arabia track down and punish its opponents. That is the company that the Prime Minister gave $120 million of taxpayer money to.
Will the Prime Minister finally take responsibility for giving Canadians' tax dollars to a corrupt company, or will he get out of the way so—
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- Feb/3/23 11:32:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government is very unsure and we get new numbers often. I expect that we will get a new higher number on Monday. However, we will be unsure if we can take the government at its word, because it continues to shovel money out the door to its insider friends at McKinsey. Public servants said that they have been treated to some colourful presentations, but not much else. After eight years of the Liberals, they are more than happy to keep shovelling that money, with no value to Canadians.
The question still stands, and we did not get the final and full answer: Can the parliamentary secretary tell us how much money they gave their insider friends at McKinsey?
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- Nov/1/22 12:07:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, well, stupid is as stupid does, as they say.
When they are covering for a Prime Minister who claims that he is seized with a climate emergency but burns more jet fuel in a single vacation on his taxpayer-funded jet than a Canadian family spends in an entire year in its carbon footprint, we know that this is a very unserious government that is out of ideas. While it is out of ideas, Canadians are out of money, and they need accountability from the government. That is why we are here. That is what we are going to get.
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- Nov/1/22 12:06:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader asking how much I think it should be. I know it should not be $6,000 a night. The fact that these apologists are not demanding accountability speaks volumes, and that is why they are going to vote against this motion.
I look forward to when the parliamentary secretary stands up in about 30 seconds and says he will call for accountability because he believes in transparency, but that is not what he is going to say. We know that because that is the pattern. They spend Canadians into the poorhouse. Canadians are lined up at food banks in record numbers, and what do these Liberals say? They say, “Let them eat cake.”
We want accountability. That is exactly what we are going to get.
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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/25/22 2:53:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what this side of the House and the Conservative leader said was to not give a half-billion dollars to the Kielburgers. This side of the House has said not to do insider deals with people like Frank Baylis or the government's buddies at SNC-Lavalin.
We are hearing the same old, tired talking points from the Liberals while they are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars of Canadians' hard-earned money, when they can barely afford to heat their homes. Liberals are out of touch and Canadians are out of money. When will Liberals give Canadians a break?
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- Oct/25/22 2:52:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, $54 million was wasted on the arrive scam with millions of dollars missing, $680 million spent on vaccines that were thrown in the garbage after a reckless procurement process and now $400,000 spent on luxuries and hotel rooms for a weekend in London. The Liberal government has no problem wasting the hard-earned tax dollars that it takes from everyday Canadians.
When will the Liberals cap spending, cut taxes and give Canadians a break?
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- Oct/24/22 2:49:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it was the minister's office that signed off on the documents telling Canadians that they paid for that work. Now we know it is not true. Millions of dollars are missing and it is millions of dollars over budget. With the track record that the Liberal government has, Canadians know that it cannot be trusted. Whether it was the WE scandal or SNC-Lavalin, Canadians know that Liberal insiders will always get the track.
Which Liberal insider got this one? Who got rich off the Prime Minister's $54-million ArriveCAN scam?
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- Oct/24/22 2:48:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a company has come forward saying it did not receive a dime of the missing million dollars in the ArriveCAN scam, proving the Liberals provided false information to the House and to Canadians for spending on this app. Are the Liberals going to give Canadians the details of the real contracts for ArriveCAN, or are they going to wait for more companies to come forward and tell us that even more money is missing?
Where are the missing millions? Who got rich?
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- Oct/21/22 11:40:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, yesterday The Globe and Mail revealed that the Liberals are claiming millions in payments to vendors for their ArriveCAN boondoggle that never actually happened. It was a $54-million app, with millions unaccounted for. Canadians are left wondering if there are more fake ArriveCAN payments listed. First it was ThinkOn Inc., then, later in the day, Ernst & Young came forward to say the government is claiming false billing.
Do the Liberals want to revise the figures they signed off on?
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- Oct/20/22 3:02:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we heard some responses from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, but we did not get an answer.
This is very clear. The Liberals said the app was going to cost $80,000, and then they said they gave this company $1.2 million out of a total $54 million in this boondoggle. The company they say they gave $1.2 million to said they were not given a dime.
We asked who got rich and the Liberals do not know the answer. Here is a new question for them: Who is lying?
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- Oct/20/22 2:58:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, CBSA is concerned and Canadians are concerned because the Prime Minister's scandal-plagued record speaks for itself. This app, when it started out, was supposed to cost $80,000 and the expenses ballooned to more than $54 million. It wrongly quarantined and forced into house arrest 10,000 Canadians.
It is a boondoggle. It is a failed app. The government lost $1.2 million. Who got rich?
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- Oct/20/22 2:57:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, news broke this afternoon that one of the companies the government says it gave $1.2 million to for its ArriveCAN boondoggle says that it did not get a dime. Where is the $1.2 million? Who got rich?
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- Oct/7/22 11:43:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what Canadians need is an about-face from the Liberal government on its wasting of Canadian tax dollars, like it did on the $54-million ArriveCAN app. Tech experts are confounded by its costing more than a low seven figures at worst. We know the app was not based in science. It was all based on dividing and stigmatizing.
If Canadian tech experts do not know why the government spent this much money, what we want to know, what Canadians want to know, is which Liberal insiders got rich on these contracts?
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and be able to contribute to the debate we are having today on affordability. It is very timely, because Canadians are experiencing the result of the practices that this Liberal government has undertaken, which have really fuelled the inflationary fires that are burning across Canada. What we are experiencing is a made-in-Canada inflationary crisis. The more this Prime Minister spends, the more things cost. It has been referred to as “justinflation”.
The proposals that the government is bringing forward will not address this inflation and in fact are going to add to the inflationary pressures that Canadians are facing. Its inflationary deficits are driving up taxes and costs at the fastest rate in more than my lifetime. Year-over-year inflation is higher than it has been in 40 years.
For two years, Conservatives have been warning the Liberal government about the consequences of its actions and how much it would hurt Canadians, and it is hurting Canadians right across our country.
What we have heard from this government this week is not the announcement of a dental plan. We heard a plan that the Liberals have concocted that is going to satisfy part of the deal with their coalition partner in the NDP to keep them in power, to prop them up. It is another example of the Prime Minister's failure to meet his promises, all the while printing more cash and borrowing more money that is going to stoke inflation.
I would like to note for everyone following the debate and for hon. members in the House that dental care programs for low-income children exist in all provinces and territories, save for Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, in addition to the 70% of Canadians who already have coverage.
It is important that we look after the health care of Canadians, and they have been doing this thing in Canada for a long time, since before I was born, where health care was a provincial responsibility. It was solely the jurisdiction of provinces. If there is a plan to meet with the premiers to discuss health care and the Prime Minister wants to do that, the premiers will be delighted.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Michael Varrett: Mr. Speaker, I hear that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader wants to contribute to the debate, and I hope that when he rises in questions and comments, he is prepared to tell the House and all Canadians that the Prime Minister is going to answer the call that the premiers have been making for two years to meet with them to discuss the state of health care in Canada.
Now, if the Right Hon. Prime Minister found his way to that meeting, he would hear that they are not looking for a dental care program. That is not what the provinces are asking for right now. However, if the Prime Minister is considering another line of work and interested in running to be a provincial premier, I am sure he can explore those job openings and see what is available. I hear that the Liberals' sister party in Ontario is looking for someone, so perhaps the member for Papineau could find a spot in Ontario.
However, this promise is only more inflationary spending. It is not a dental care program, and it is outside the jurisdiction of the federal government. The level of government that is responsible is not looking for the federal government to execute on it.
The Liberals have also talked about housing, which is so interesting, because Canadians could be confused. However, I think it might be intentional, that the government is looking to confuse them, because the Liberals love to talk about how much they have spent on housing.
No government has ever spent more on housing than this Liberal one, they will tell people. If we measured success by how much the Liberals spent and not by how many houses were built, they would be the international galactic champions of housing. Unfortunately, what we have seen is the doubling of house prices under the Liberals.
The result of that is that 30-year-olds are living in 400-square-foot apartments that they are paying $2,300 a month for, if they can find an apartment, and if not, they are living in mom or dad's basement and their dreams of home ownership are slipping away, if they have not been crushed already. In Vancouver, it is $2,600 a month for rent. In Toronto, it is $2,300 a month for rent.
Six in 10 Canadians will not qualify for what we will call the inflationary spending cheques. The few renters who see that $500 one-time boost, which represents less than a week of rent in the average housing unit in Toronto or Vancouver, are simply going to ask, “What is next?”
I am glad they are asking what is next. The Liberals have pumped more money into the economy, and they have created more inflation. That is what we have heard from big banks and from economists, that what they are doing is inflationary. It is going to diminish the value of the dollars that people earn, including those cheques that they just received, which will not go as far. Of course that does not speak to the fact that we are now going to have to pay interest on the money the Liberals borrowed to send those cheques that are going to diminish their spending power.
It is a terrible situation that the Liberals are perpetuating. There are solutions, and I look forward to sharing those with members as we move through this conversation today. What is it that we need to solve?
First, let us take a look at one of the major pain points that Canadians are feeling every month: food prices. Canadians are facing 10% food inflation right now. It is the fastest that it has gone up in over 40 years. What does that look like for the average Canadian family? It is between $1,200 and $2,000 more per year that they are spending on groceries. It is an extra $2,000 haircut that they are taking before they even spend a dollar.
These are some of the items this is having a dramatic effect on: butter is up 16.9%; eggs, 10.9%; fish, 10.4%; breads, 17.6%; pasta, 32%; fresh fruit, 13%; oranges, 18.5%; coffee, 14.2%, and the list goes on and on. Let them eat soup, some might say, but that is up 19.2%.
While Canadians are struggling just to put food on the table for their families, furnaces are clicking on across the country as we speak. As the mercury drops, people are going to look to heat up their homes. We live in one of the world's coldest climates. Heating is not a luxury here, just like for many folks in rural and remote communities, driving their car or truck is not a luxury. It is part of how they have to live, to get to work or to doctor's appointments, or to get groceries.
The carbon tax is punishing Canadians for behaviour that the government says is bad, should be discouraged and needs to be corrected. The Liberals are going to tell us, in their questions and comments, that members are forgetting about the money they send back.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has already said that the claims the government makes that Canadians get more back than they pay in do not work. This is some kind of weird Ponzi scheme the government has cooked up, and it is just that, a scheme. Canadians are not getting more back than they pay in. They are worse off, and emissions continue to go up. Tree planting from the government has stayed the same. That is that it has not planted any, but it has promised to.
Canadians would expect that, when Canadians are feeling that pain of the carbon tax going up and the price of food going up, they could ask what else the government could do. It is going to increase taxes on paycheques in January of this coming year. There is no break in sight for Canadians, and the government members will say that it is not a tax.
Let us get real here. If it looks like a tax, sounds like a tax, and Canadians take home less money at the end of the month, then it is a tax. That is exactly what the Liberals are proposing for January 1.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Michael Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I hear some excitement coming from those joining us from home. Canadians are rising up. We can hear in the House of Commons that they have had enough. They are at a breaking point with these prices. All the while, the job creators and the makers in our communities, not the takers but the makers, are the small businesses. We hear all the time that they are the backbone of our economy. I could not agree more. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business reports that one in six businesses are considering closing their doors and 62% of small businesses are still carrying debt from the pandemic.
We have this risky situation that the government has created and is perpetrating on Canadians where everything is more expensive. It is more expensive to do business, more expensive to feed one's family and more expensive to get to work. These hard times that have come do not need to be this way. However, following an election that was called in a very cynical move by the Prime Minister to exploit the divisions that had been created, there was a Parliament where a coalition needed to be cooked up so the government could stay in power. Therefore, Canadians are not seeing that real relief.
What does that look like? Seniors are having to delay their retirements. The home ownership we talked about is disappearing because people do not have any time to dream about home ownership. They are too busy trying to come up with the money to pay their $2,600-a-month rent. People are worried.
Conservatives are offering hope for Canadians, which is a big contrast to what they have seen from the government, particularly over the last year. We are going to focus on Canadians' paycheques and make sure they are able to take home that money they worked so hard to earn. We are going to focus on making sure taxes are not going up. It is not very difficult because we know that anyone who does not run a deficit in their home every month has to make choices about what they are able to put in their monthly budget. If we add something, we have to take something away. If the government is going to propose new spending, what is it going to stop doing so that it can afford it and so that Canadians can afford it?
I have heard a very interesting line from the government during the last two years. It is that it has taken on debt so that Canadians do not have to.
I do have some news: That debt is borne by Canadians. They will say interest rates have never been lower, but that is not the case. We now see interest rates that are marching on. It is not free money. Canadians are going to have to pick up the tab for it. We need the government to make sure Canadians can see a light at the end of the tunnel that promises some hope.
We are going to have to scrap the old way the government has been doing things. We are going to have to look at what it is that Canadians really need. They need to heat their homes, feed their families and dream they are going to be able to do better than the generation before them, but that is not what has been put on offer by the government.
Lower taxes are something I hope we can all agree on, as well as making sure that everyone can afford a home, not just spending a lot and calling that a housing plan. I would hope that is something we can all agree on.
We need to address the root cause of what is driving this inflation in Canada so that people are not experiencing this crushing inflation on the cost of their food. Let us say that next year global inflation starts to recede and is at 5%. They are still paying 5% more on the 10% that it went up the year before. It is time to stop the damage that is being done.
We hear often that it is a global phenomenon that they had no control over, but it is cold comfort to people across the country when the Liberals throw their hands up and say, “Well, it's pretty bad everywhere else. We're kind of better than the other guys.” Whether one lives in Victoria-by-the-Sea on Prince Edward Island, Victoria in British Columbia or on Victoria Island in Nunavut, that word salad will not fill bellies. It is getting a lot tougher to do that as food prices continue to march up. They need to see action, not excuses from the government. What is that action going to be? I really hope the plan is not just higher taxes. I really hope the plan is not to borrow more money to dump into a housing plan that is not building more homes. They are driving up the prices.
We are going to focus on Canadians. We are going to focus on their paycheques. We are going to focus on their dreams of home ownership. We are going to focus on their retirement because that is the dream that we all have. That is the dream that people have when they come to this country. We want to keep that dream alive. What the government is proposing today is not help. It is a distraction. It is just more for the government.
An hon member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Michael Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I hear a voice. It sounds like a member who is as upset with the government as I am is trying to join in. It seems they could not even afford the gas to come to the House of Commons today.
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- Apr/4/22 3:57:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a great opportunity to talk about how we have all of the provinces and territories across this country who have basically been asking for an agreement from the federal government to plan out what the investments will be in our health care system. While we have a global pandemic, the government is unwilling to make a commitment to the provinces and territories on what their funding is going to look like.
Instead we have an introduction of them going to throw $2 billion at it because there are backlogs in surgeries, in diagnostic screenings and care appointments, but the provinces want stability. They want planning. They want prudence, something that we are not seeing from the government.
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- Apr/4/22 3:46:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to discuss this important issue. I want to thank my hon. colleague from Simcoe North for his great insights on this report from committee and follow up on one of the themes he touched on, which is affordability. This really is the greatest crisis facing Canadians this year.
The government has had a couple of mandates and is going into its seventh year. The member talked about how, if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. There was a time when the finance minister would be known as the “minister of no” because everybody has an ask at budget time.
Every community has an ask. I have a list of them from stakeholders in my community. As the shadow minister for health, I have heard asks from stakeholders. Everyone has an ask of the finance minister and the government, but we have to look at the full picture of what the greatest needs are facing Canadians today. That does not mean the asks people make are not important; it means we need to prioritize.
What are we looking at as a country? We have seen unprecedented amounts of spending over the seven years since the government came to office. During COVID‑19 there were unbelievable and extraordinary amounts of money spent, some of which was absolutely necessary, but there was also other money spent that was questionable, at best, because the accountability was lacking. While all this money has been spent, and this week's budget is probably at the printing press today, if not already boxed up, the impacts of that document and those policies on Canadians will be far-reaching.
The member for Courtenay—Alberni, in questions and comments to my colleague, talked about the burden individual Canadians are facing with respect to their personal finances and that over half of Canadians are within $200 of not being able to pay their bills, with one-in-three Canadians being technically insolvent. That situation is not going to get any better when we know that increased prices at the grocery store are going to affect the average family to the tune of an extra $1,000 this year.
The policies of the government are driving up other prices as well. We know we live in one of the world's harshest climates. We are all very proud of our great country, but it is also really cold. Heating our homes is not a luxury. However, a tax has been put on home heating, which is making Canadians choose between heating their homes and providing nutritious food for their families.
That was already a tough choice before we had the pressures of an increased carbon tax. With natural gas up nearly 19%, it becomes an impossible choice. I have already talked about the increased food prices, but we know those prices are going to go up even higher. With the carbon tax that went up on Friday, the price of everything will go up.
These are really tough choices Canadians have to make between keeping the family warm or keeping it fed, to say nothing of being able to, in many parts of this country, put gas in one's car to be able to go to work, a medical appointment, a hockey practice or a dance practice. It has become unaffordable to even get there. Many people in my community are telling me they are unable to fill up the gas tanks in their work trucks on Monday mornings. They have to wait until they get paid by suppliers during the week, and are asking for money upfront because they cannot afford the increased gas prices.
They cannot carry it on their own. That is their livelihood for these contractors, who work in the community using their pickup trucks. This is true for everyone who relies on personal vehicles when they do not have public transportation. That is true for the vast majority of those in my community and those in the communities of many members in this place.
When the government looks at what the course is going to be for the next year, and very big spending commitments have been made with the fourth party in this House, its new partner the NDP, we have to wonder what that will look like for Canadians. What pressures is that going to put on affordability in their lives? It is incredibly stark.
When we talk about Canadians heating their homes and feeding their families, we presuppose that they have a place to live. More and more Canadians are not going to be making those choices about their own homes, and if they can find a place in competitive rental market, they are going to be renting homes. The dream of home ownership over the last six, seven years under the government has slipped further and further out of reach, again because of the policies of the government.
The government needs to think through what the implications are on the price of homes. Home prices have doubled during the government's time in office. What steps has it taken, aside from using the amount of money it spends as a metric of success instead of asking what it has done to make housing actually affordable for more Canadians? That is not the question that seems to be asked. We see how much it can spend to show Canadians that it has been in motion and, therefore, has made some progress, trying to confuse Canadians in the process.
Is there a path to balance that is going to be proposed in the budget on Thursday? What are the fiscal anchors? What certainty can Liberals give to Canadians that there has been some temporary pain, but there is a path back to the same type of budgeting that we have to exercise in small businesses, our homes and personal lives, something that is sustainable, because what we have seen is not sustainable?
I touched quickly on the expenses that the government has taken on during COVID-19. One that was in the news this weekend was the money spent on the Covifenz vaccine made here in Canada. The government spent $173 million on this, but we are not going to see it going to COVAX this week, and we are not going to see it as a recognized vaccine that Canadians can receive and then travel internationally. We are not going to see that this week.
Why is the $173 million that Canadians spent on this not going to be worthwhile for them? It is because the government failed to do its due diligence. This vaccine is not even receiving approval from the World Health Organization because of the failure of due diligence by the Liberal government and its partners.
What I am hoping for is prudence, that the government is going to be meticulous and careful with how it spends money, because we have seen anything but. It wildly spends money and uses that as a measure for success instead of the success of individual Canadians and how they are able to live their lives, prosper and support their families. Conservatives are looking to the government for some fiscal sanity and some responsibility.
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- Mar/23/22 4:57:23 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, it is pleasure to rise today and take part in this important debate on the economic and fiscal update. I of course listened with great interest and I always learn a lot from the detailed research that my colleague from Edmonton West does before he makes any interventions in this House. It is very important that we have that perspective, and I thank him for it.
Since the start of the pandemic, we have seen record sums of money spent to address a once-in-a-century and a once-in-many-lifetimes event. It is very important to take stock of how the money was spent, and the effect that the spent money will have going forward is incredibly important.
We have heard a lot over the last few days about the federal mandates. While opposition members, members of the public and members of the media have asked the government why it has not aligned its health restrictions with the restrictions that have been guided in all of the provinces by their chief medical officers of health, we have heard a lot about the stats as they relate to health care.
I think that is really important. While the science does tell us in all of the provinces across Canada, because there is only one science, that it is safe to end the vaccine mandates and safe to lift mask mandates, the information that the government points to speaks to hospital capacity and speaks to screening and diagnosis that has not happened as a result of the pandemic.
We have seen, over the last two years, a 20% reduction in cancer screenings. We know that almost half of patients have had cancer screenings and care appointments either cancelled outright or postponed. When that happens, we have to look at another very important statistic, which is that a four-week delay in treatment increases the patient's risk of death by 10%.
We have this tremendous problem in our health care system. Tremendous amounts of money are being spent by the government. As was laid out by the previous speaker, my colleague detailed some of the areas the government prioritized in terms of spending money. What would it look like for diagnosis and treatment if the government prioritized its spending, in partnership with the provinces, on health care?
We are discussing $70 billion of cash today. It is printed money and borrowed money. Canadians will pay interest on that money, and it will fuel inflation. What do we get for it? The previous speaker, the member for Edmonton West, talked about the government spending $50,000 on having someone create a new IPA, a new beer flavour. What could we have done in even one hospital with $50,000? We are talking about a 10% increase in fatalities when treatment is delayed by only four weeks. I think that is a really important frame. We talk about the effect of this spending on Canadians. That is what it could look like if it was directed in a different way.
The government talks about the room it has to borrow and the room it has to spend, but what is it doing for everyday Canadians? If it is not for share buybacks and not for executive bonuses, what is it doing for everyday Canadians? We know the effect of this rapid spending and the pressure that it is adding onto everyday Canadians' budgets because of the inflation that it is fuelling, and people are making impossible choices.
Heating or eating, that is a call I got in my constituency office many times. People cannot afford their home heating bills. They cannot afford the increased grocery bills. Now we have seen, over the last few weeks, that other global pressures, added to the taxes the government has put in place, are pricing Canadians out of even being able to put fuel in their cars to get to work or to take their children to a medical appointment or a recreational activity. It is really hard to see where the priorities are for everyday Canadians when we look at some of the spending we have detailed.
It has been an impossible two years for Canadians. We see the inflationary pressures that are created. We know that it is debt and interest on that debt that will be paid by future generations. In the next couple of weeks, we are going to see increases in taxes again. The skyrocketing prices in every area of life that Canadians have are unsustainable. We know that it is more than one in two Canadians who cannot afford their groceries. They are cutting back every week. We know that it is families across this country who cannot afford $1.80 or two-dollar a litre fuel.
Our national debt is $1.2 trillion, and what do we have to show for it? As the chief medical officers of health in 10 provinces across this country are saying we can drop the mask mandates and end the vaccine mandates, two years later, two years after the official opposition asked for it, after Canada's Conservatives called for rapid tests, the government is saying, “Let us buy some rapid tests.” I would say the government is a day late and a dollar short, but it is two years late and billions of dollars more than we have to spend.
Canadians are in a tough spot. For many things, necessary spending, necessary commitments were made by the House over that two-year period. Then we can look at the shameful waste and missed opportunities that the government had. Again, I will talk about health care. Prepandemic, hospitals operated at between 95% and 130% capacity across the country. Now the government is saying hospital capacity is at 100%. That is where it was before the pandemic. What is the spending that the government has committed that is going to solve these legacy issues? It is not solving legacy issues.
Pork barrelling, pet projects, executive bonuses and share buybacks, that is going to be the legacy of all of this spending that members in this place, their children, grandchildren and their great-grandchildren are going to be paying the interest on before we even get to talk about paying the principal on that debt.
We now have the government partnering with another party that has made unaffordable promises and that is going to balloon the spending by hundreds of billions of dollars. Canadians just cannot afford an NDP-Liberal government. Canadians deserve accountability. They deserve a path back to fiscal responsibility. It is the responsibility of any credible government to do that.
We are just not seeing the results for the money that it spent to date. We are not seeing a real plan for the money it is planning to spend going forward.
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