44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 20, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/20/22 12:23:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame.
I rise today to discuss our party's opposition motion introduced by my colleague from Calgary Forest Lawn.
Since the Liberal government is so out of touch with reality, our party felt it was essential to present this motion today to give Canadians a break during this very important period, when inflation remains high and interest rates continue to climb.
The current government likes to boast about its latest announcements, such as day cares and dental care, but it fails to realize that it will literally leave many Canadians out in the cold this winter. Some of my fellow citizens will need to choose between heating their home this winter and putting food on the table.
As we noted in our motion, one in 10 Canadian homes is heated by propane or oil. These Canadians actually do not have the financial means to chose another option, but the government will continue to treat them like second-class citizens, tripling the carbon tax over the winter. What a wonderful Christmas gift from our Prime Minister.
The gap between urban and rural areas has only grown under the leadership of this Prime Minister. He does not seem to understand that Canadians in rural areas are not second-class citizens. They want to prosper too, but his government is letting them down every time, whether a lack of cell coverage, defective Internet or this irrational tax that will triple during our country's coldest season. In the regions, there is no choice but to use a vehicle, whether to go to work, do grocery shopping or drive children to various activities. This tax is stifling them even more.
When housing prices have never been higher, food prices have not been as high since 1981 with an inflation rate of 11.4%, the government thinks it is the time to increase the carbon tax even more. I suppose these inflationist polices were passed on from generation to generation.
Do members know who the prime minister was in 1981? It was Mr. Pierre Elliott Trudeau. I remember it well because my spouse and I were a young couple with three young children. With high interest rates and inflation above 10%, we had to make difficult choices. Luckily, we had our parents to help us make ends meet. They were very difficult times. We can see the cycle repeating itself.
We all know that government members will stand up and say that inflation is a global phenomenon, but this made-in-Canada inflation cannot be blamed entirely on Putin and COVID-19. Decisions are being made at the Liberal cabinet table. It is obvious to me that those folks are completely out of touch with reality and what is really going on.
I can assure this House that the numbers would be a lot better if a Conservative government were in power. The Conservatives have been proposing solutions all along, but none of our suggestions have been taken seriously, because they do not revolve around taxing Canadians in order to recover funds to pay for the reckless spending and deficits the likes of which we had never seen before the current Prime Minister took office.
The costly coalition with the NDP has turned into a nightmare, as the New Democrats continue to prop up the government and try to convince Canadians to support it. A government that stands up for Canadians would never triple a tax in the winter or raise taxes on Canadians' paycheques.
Canadians work so hard. Why take away even more purchasing power at a time when they need it so much?
In my riding, residents have a hard time making ends meet. In Beauce, like everywhere in Canada, people work hard. They own and operate businesses and help their neighbours. In my riding, the unemployment rate is currently 1.8%. People are exhausted. They are tired of seeing the federal government dig deeper and deeper into their pockets at a time when they need their hard-earned money the most.
Surely the government will tell me about its $10-a-day day cares or the dental care they are currently imposing on us. First, I must say that Quebec has had its own day care system for many years now. Second, I can guarantee that a single mother in my riding would prefer to keep the heat on in her home or put food on the table to feed her family than have her children's teeth cleaned right now.
All that is part of the agreement of convenience with the NDP. Before the costly coalition was established, I had never heard the Liberal Party talk about dental care. It is all just a scheme to continue undermining democracy with this coalition that no one in Canada asked for.
As indicated in the text of our motion, the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador wrote a letter to the Prime Minister asking for this same exemption, and our party has worked to do the same. This government's carbon tax makes no sense, particularly in relation to home heating. No one will turn down the heat in their home in the winter when it is bitter cold to reduce carbon consumption. I think people instead need to heat their homes to survive.
Our party tabled under private members' business a bill similar to Bill C‑206, which was not passed due to the needless election call last year. Bill C‑234, which is currently in committee, will help farmers keep their livestock and animals safe and warm during the winter. That bill has the support of all the parties, except one. We can guess that it is the Liberal Party.
In closing, I would like to reiterate my opinion: This winter, Canadians should not have to choose between heat and food. The Liberals must open their eyes and see the damage they are causing. Maybe they should listen to several of their colleagues in the House, and our party, because they are about to commit a serious mistake on January 1, 2023.
The leader of the Conservative Party and our united caucus will not stop until the Prime Minister has heard us. We are here for Canadians, and even more importantly, I am here to protect Beauce. I hope that the government will both hear and understand my message today.
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- Oct/20/22 1:23:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Hastings—Lennox and Addington, also known as H, L and A. The member is also known as the daughter of the former member for that riding. His name is Daryl, and he is at home watching, so it is a family business here.
Today, I am pleased to rise to support this motion from my colleague from Calgary Forest Lawn, which would see the House lend its agreement to the comments by the Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador calling on the federal government to exempt all forms of heating fuel from the Liberal carbon tax for all Canadians.
Indeed, all four premiers of the Atlantic provinces have written to the Prime Minister urging him to stop punishing Atlantic Canadians with this punitive tax upon a tax this winter season, especially as they have already faced the highest inflation rates, Liberal just inflation rates, that they have seen in decades.
It is the highest inflation since the Prime Minister's father bungled the failed national energy program in the 1980s. Let us take a walk back in time. It is worth resting on this point for a moment. There is an eerie parallel between the failed initiative of the Prime Minister's father with the national energy program, and where we find ourselves today.
We have record inflation, a looming economic recession, western alienation and a government so blind, so out of touch and so reckless, that it truly believes it knows better than Canadians on how to spend their own money. As serious and as concerning as this type of arrogance is, there is hope.
The failed national energy program of the senior Trudeau set the stage for the election of the strong, stable Conservative majority government of Brian Mulroney. The government's mismanagement of the economy and its zealous punishment of its own citizens who work in the oil and gas sector, as well as those who rely on this sector to heat their homes, is creating the perfect storm, which will see Canadians choose another strong and responsible Conservative majority government. This time, it will be led by my hon. colleague from Carleton, our honourable leader.
My constituency of Miramichi—Grand Lake is the largest federal electoral district in New Brunswick. At 17,420 kilometres, it is more than double the average size of other districts in my home province. It is actually three times larger than the entirety of Prince Edward Island.
My constituency is rural. It is extremely rural, and it is vast. I believe that the Prime Minister has probably read some short books about life beyond the limits of the major Canadian cities. I would imagine they were cartoons. I am sure he believes he understands the plight of everyday Canadians and their families from the CBC News, which blindly endorses and reaffirms the misguided decisions of the government as a regular part of its editorial control.
Let me tell the Prime Minister and all the members of his government that my constituents and Atlantic Canadians, by and large, will quite rightly rely on oil to heat their homes this winter, and they want and need the government to understand that fact. They want and need the government to put people before politics and remove the Liberal carbon tax from heating fuel, which has already nearly doubled in price in the past two to three years.
In rural New Brunswick and across Atlantic Canada, Canadians have few choices when it comes to heating their homes. Many, if not most, use oil as the primary source to keep their homes and families warm. Natural gas is not an option. As we have seen with the devastation of the electrical infrastructure across the Atlantic provinces after tropical storm Fiona, even electricity is not always reliable.
It is one thing to lose electricity for days, or even weeks, in September or October. However, if this happens during a Canadian winter, between November and March, homes will freeze, plumbing will fail and homes will get destroyed. In many cases, oil is the only safe and reliable option to keep one's home and family warm through the Canadian winter in rural Atlantic Canada. I know that the government and the Prime Minister at least value the homes of Atlantic Canadians.
I wonder, if the Prime Minister had his way, whether he would still have Atlantic Canadians locked in their homes, for their own safety of course. Perhaps he might consider chipping in with the Atlantic Canadians on their share of his carbon tax to help offset the cost of keeping these home detention centres warm this coming season, just in case he needs them one more time. It is frustrating for me to stand in this House, time and time again, and explain the realities of rural life to the government.
I understand that, as members of the House, we all represent different constituencies and geographies, none being more important than the other, but there is a reality to Canadian life. Our country is large and vast, and a great many Canadians live in rural settings. They understand what choices work for them and their families, and they do not need the Liberal government taxing them in a punishing sequence for choosing the only available option that is safe and can be relied upon. Canadians are better to choose for themselves.
The Liberal government has made enough decisions for people who did not want them to begin with. The government has mismanaged the economy in such a way that the price of heating oil has already more than doubled on its watch. Other necessities, like food and certainly the cost of building or maintaining homes with repairs, has at least doubled. The punishment of Liberal inflation never ends for Canadians, but their pain is the government's gain. For every item or service in our economy that is subject to the federal portion of the HST and has doubled in price, the government is now collecting double the tax on these items than it would have only a year or two ago.
To be fair, to any normal responsible government, this additional tax revenue would be a windfall and help to allow a budget to balance itself, as the Prime Minister likes to say, but I understand the government has a severe spending problem. Even this doubling in revenue is not nearly enough for them. They have, in fact, caused inflation. Much of these high percentages we have are caused by the government's inability to have monetary policy and manage the books of this country.
I revert to the fact that the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, a Liberal friend of the government, has publicly called on the Prime Minister to exempt home heating oil from the Liberal carbon tax. This is not Ottawa Liberals whispering to themselves that it is time for the Prime Minister to move on. I can understand why the Prime Minister, with no serious job prospects of his own on the horizon, would ignore these Liberals, but a sitting and popular Liberal premier in Atlantic Canada, in Newfoundland and Labrador, speaking about it aloud in the news is a whole different story.
I implore the Prime Minister, even if he does not listen to the Ottawa Liberals urging him to walk the plank, to at least listen to this one Liberal who has the courage of his convictions to try to explain these bread and butter issues to the federal government, which is so very out of touch. Premier Andrew Furey from Newfoundland and Labrador has made the decision to have the courage of his convictions, and we applaud him for that.
I proudly support this motion to remove the Liberal carbon tax on home heating fuels. This is what my constituents have told me to do, and now I have relayed their concerns to the House. The tax grab by the Liberal government will increase heating costs by over 20% for working Canadians, and as the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador has rightly said, it will create “undue economic burdens” on Canadians who do not have the resources to cope with this burden.
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- Oct/20/22 8:42:30 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Brandon—Souris.
Five minutes to talk about mental health is certainly not enough time. I appreciate the grace and vulnerability that has been shared tonight. I also appreciate that every single member in the House has been touched by mental health. I appreciate that everyone acknowledges that this is a crisis.
However, my frustration and anger is at a bubbling point, just like many Canadians around this country. We do not need more advocacy. We need leadership. This week, 31-year-old Burnaby RCMP officer, a member of the detachment's mental health and homeless outreach team, just three years into her career, Constable Shaelyn Yang was fatally stabbed while attending a homeless campsite before 11 a.m., in broad daylight.
I want to tell the House what our Prime Minister said. This is a quote from yesterday in question period:
We need to do more to step up on our mental health funding, as the hon. member before mentioned.
He was referring to the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George, who has been an advocate and has done great work. The Prime Minister went on to say:
We need to make sure that we are giving our frontline police officers the tools to be supported as they encounter difficult situations. We need to make sure they are not the only mental health workers out there accessible to so many people. Unfortunately they have been. They have been extraordinary at it, but we need to provide better support. The provinces and the federal government need to work together to fund more mental health supports.
That is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—
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