- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $133,355.09
- Government Page
- Apr/18/23 2:44:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government does not get to pick the questions that get asked, but it would be nice if the members would finally give us an answer.
Let me do some quick math for the government House leader. The Prime Minister stayed there for nine nights. It would cost $9,000 per night for any other Canadian. Did the Prime Minister pay the full cost of $81,000 to stay there, or is this just another example of the Prime Minister being part of this elite class where he passes costs on to Canadians but incurs no costs himself?
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- Apr/18/23 2:43:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, everyone agrees that a prime minister should be able to take a holiday, and everyone agrees that the cost of security was reasonable. Everyone also knows, now that we have heard a direct answer on the cost of the flight, what the Prime Minister did.
What we do not know is if the Prime Minister did the reasonable thing and paid for his own accommodations, which every other Canadian would have had to do. Did the Prime Minister pay the cost of a $9,000 per night villa when he went on that trip?
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this place and speak to the important issues facing Canadians. Of course, the budget implementation act, and the implications it will have for Canadians going forward, are of the utmost importance. In the context of the affordability crisis Canadians are facing, we could not be talking about anything more important.
The opposition House leader, the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil, articulated well the issues we have with a government that introduces omnibus legislation. It really demonstrates its lack of focus on the issues that are most important to Canadians, and that is why separating these issues is important.
If we put into two buckets the issue of affordability and the issue of lunar crimes, it is important we hive those off. I want to talk about affordability, but it is important to note that when we talk about the aspiration the government is putting forward, with respect to enforcing the Criminal Code of Canada on the lunar surface, it is really important we manage expectations here.
We have some challenges as a country. We have seen them. They have been discussed in this place. We had a great example with even the rules that govern members of this place. There is the Conflict of Interest Act for members. The Prime Minister took a trip: He did not take the space shuttle, but he travelled by jet and then he travelled by, and this is important to underscore, private helicopter to accept a gift valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars from an individual who had dealings with the government. It was a lobbying business with the government, and we could not even address that as a country.
There has been a lot of conversation even of late that included documents we obtained under access to information laws that detailed the RCMP's struggle with its decision on whether to pursue an investigation that would ultimately lead to charges. The only piece of the test that was missing to lay a charge was to determine whether the designated public office holder, in this case the Prime Minister, had received written permission from the head of the department to accept the gift. We heard confirmation from the Prime Minister that, in fact, the written permission was not given. That is instructional to the RCMP on how to address the issue of whether an investigation, and ultimately charges, should follow.
That is an issue dealing with the Criminal Code, and fraud on the government specifically, and enforcing those laws. We have all the resources and infrastructure here in Canada on planet earth, yet the government looks afar and to the skies to see about enforcing the Criminal Code on the moon.
Let me turn to affordability, because we are in a situation where Canadians are having a terrible time. I spoke about basic affordability earlier today, when I addressed the House. The decision families are facing across our country today, from Victoria by the sea in Prince Edward Island to Victoria, British Columbia, all the way to the North Pole and all points in between is how they are going to make ends meet. They must decide if they are going to buy nutritious food for their families or heat their homes in one of the world's coldest climates. That is an impossible choice.
Summertime should be a time for parents to pick which summer activity or program they are going to enrol their children in. Instead, they are saying they cannot afford the gas to drive their children to these events, to say nothing of whether they can afford the gas to get to work. That is an impossible position we are putting families in. This is a feature, and not a bug, of what the government has put forward. We know that, given the opportunity to give Canadians a break, give them a GST holiday and not increase the carbon tax, the Liberals said no. They want to discourage what the Prime Minister described as a bad behaviour. That bad behaviour is driving a car in a rural community, driving a truck on a farm and heating a home in one of the world's coldest climates.
In this budget implementation act, the affordability question that is facing Canadians is unbelievably important. I hear from people who have these struggles in their daily lives, and they just do not understand who the government members are talking to who is not making this real for them. The issue does not just affect families. It affects single individuals. It affects seniors. They just cannot make ends meet.
We will hear from the government members that inflation is a global phenomenon and that the price of fuel is being affected by Russia's illegal war of aggression in Ukraine. That does not do anything to feed the families of Canadians. Our net debt-to-GDP is best in class, is what we will hear from them. People cannot feed their families with word salad. This is what my constituents are so concerned about. This is what Canadians who are writing to me are so concerned about. The government needs to focus.
The Liberals are sitting across from an opposition that is able to do more than one thing at a time, which frustrates them. We are able to talk about more than one issue, while the government is going to have the House sit until midnight and put up a paltry number of speakers or no speakers on these issues. We are able to do that, but also to advocate for issues that are important to Canada, that represent Canada well on the world stage and that stick up for our friends and allies and the global order of peace and security, with democracies supporting democracies just like the conversation that was adjourned by the government with the help of its partners in the NDP-Liberal coalition, the NDP. The Liberals refused a standing vote on having Taiwan join the WHA and the WHO. Why was that?
We pronounce the importance of issues by having standing votes in this place all of the time. It sends a very strong message. We are going to be here until midnight. We are going to put up speakers. Conservatives will ask other Conservatives questions about why the government is failing Canadians on these important issues and why the government is ignoring what is important to Canadians. We are prepared to put in the work, but the government wants to, at the same time, jam a bunch of things into one bill and pass it through the House as quickly as possible. It moves closure more than anyone ever has, and then gets cute with Motion No. 11 and changes the rules of this place, which is usually only done by consensus, and sets a terrible precedent. It will have a choking effect on democracy.
After the stunt the Liberals pulled with our motion on Taiwan, with these omnibus bills and the repeated closure motions that they move, while I am on my feet, I move, seconded by the member for Kildonan—St. Paul:
That this House do now adjourn.
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