44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 27, 2023 10:00AM
- Apr/27/23 11:27:23 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I found my Conservative colleague's speech very interesting. It was really a typical Conservative speech, where the member rants and raves about debt. The Conservatives are saying that the federal government spends too much, that Canada is going into debt and that things are going to be hell for our children.
It is true that the government has done nothing but run deficits since it took office. We agree with that. However, the long-term projections tell a different story. Because of its fiscal capacity and minimal responsibilities, in a few years, the Canadian government could end up with no more debt, while the provinces go bankrupt. That is an acknowledged fact.
I would like to know whether my colleague can recalibrate his speech based on that information. It seems as though his speech was all about the federal government's finances being in a catastrophic state when, in reality, it is the provincial governments' finances that are in dire straits because the federal government is not helping them and is keeping all the money for itself.
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- Apr/27/23 11:42:02 a.m.
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I know the hon. member did not get all her speech out, but maybe we can finish that up in questions and comments.
The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon is rising on a point of order.
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- Apr/27/23 12:27:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the speech by the member opposite this morning. By the sound of it, he was supporting some progressive ideas that he had hoped to see in the budget.
My question is simply this. Can we expect to see, in the next Conservative platform, things like aggressive emissions reduction targets, support for unions and workers, pharmacare and electoral reform? I am curious what his response would be.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-47, especially since I have here with me the Minister of National Revenue, who came just to hear my speech, as well as two of my loyal squires.
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- Apr/27/23 1:57:37 p.m.
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Madam President, I would advise my colleague to go back and listen to the speech on housing given earlier by my colleague for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.
I do agree with her. Affordable and social housing is essential. Apart from that, what I wanted my colleague to take away from my speech is the fact that our health care system is still falling apart.
I would point out to her once again that her leader agreed to maintain the minimal funding that the Liberal government granted to our health care systems.
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- Apr/27/23 3:26:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, at a time where Canadians are struggling with the cost of living, Conservatives provide no solutions. That speech was a prime example of that. There were no ideas or concrete things that could be done. Instead, they have just been calling for cuts to pensions and employment insurance, which Canadians rely on, and they are urging for pollution to be free again.
It is reckless to suggest the ideas they have been suggesting, such as crypto, but one thing I was really happy to see was that the Conservatives were able to give unanimous consent to have the grocery rebate passed so Canadians could receive it. I know the member just mentioned the grocery rebate was not a good idea, so I am wondering why she provided unanimous consent to provide Canadians the grocery rebate? I would like to know why she thought it was a good idea that day.
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- Apr/27/23 4:59:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in her speech, the member talked quite a bit about housing. Both of us are from British Columbia, where there is some of the highest housing costs in the country. At committee, when the housing minister was there, a Conservative asked him if he considers our housing situation in Canada a crisis. He would not acknowledge that we have a housing crisis in Canada.
I am wondering if the member can comment on that and what her thoughts are on the fact that the housing minister does not consider that we have a housing crisis in Canada.
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- Apr/27/23 7:01:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly think that speech should be watched by all Canadians. We are in very serious times. We are dealing with a war in Ukraine that has upended inflation. We are dealing with a climate crisis.
I find it telling that the Conservatives are telling us toxic nursery rhymes about how much they hate mice and how much the world would be better if we all hated mice. This is a party that believes the world is flat and does not believe there is a climate crisis. This is a party that believes that its leader is entitled to a chef and groundskeeper, that is paid for by the taxpayer, and he lives in a mansion, when he has a house that is only half an hour away from Ottawa.
What I find concerning is that the Conservatives want to present these toxic fairytales, rather than talk about the serious issues we need to address in this nation and whether this budget is doing that. There are some great things in this budget. There are real problems in the budget, but if the member is happy reading nursery rhymes, then he is probably very happy in the Conservative caucus.
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- Apr/27/23 7:03:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to commend the member for Regina—Lewvan on having done a great job reading somebody else's speech. It is always interesting when people choose to use the words of others, rather than their own words in this place.
I thought maybe the member for Regina, of all places, might have a better handle on the Mouseland story, in which, of course, the mice are working people. I take his criticisms of mice running government as being quite demonstrative of the Conservative position over the years in respect of working people and whether they should be allowed to control their own destiny, which is the point of the Mouseland story.
I know he talked a lot about inflation. He talked about fat cats. Perhaps he will know that 25% of every inflation dollar spent by Canadians in this economy has gone not just to the oil and gas industry but to the profits of the oil and gas industry. That has not been shared with workers. That $18 billion in extra expenses by Canadians has gone to the oil and gas sector, and only $650 million of it actually went into the pockets of workers.
What does he think about that?
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- Apr/27/23 7:51:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the speech tonight included the word “profits” many times. I heard the words “massive profits”, and profits were getting bashed around quite bit there. For someone who has been in business for over 25 years and has been involved in businesses that had zero profits, I know that profits are usually a good thing.
I would like to ask my colleague how we differentiate and when we differentiate between good profits and, as he keeps saying, massive and bad profits. Where do we draw the line? How do we decide on that?
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- Apr/27/23 8:06:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. We have been serving together on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics for some time now, and I tend to really value his judgment.
I would like to ask him the following question. In his opinion, with all the experience he has, is this a good budget or a bad budget?
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- Apr/27/23 10:58:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is great to be able to follow the speech from the member for Red Deer—Lacombe, who is one of my mentors in this place and one of the first members of Parliament I ever met.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: That's scary.
Mr. Arnold Viersen: Madam Speaker, the Liberal member across the way is saying that is scary. I am not sure who his mentor is, but I assure him the member for Red Deer—Lacombe has been a great mentor to me in this place, and I want to thank him for that.
I do not say this often, but the Liberals have got something right in this budget. Members might be surprised to hear that from me. I hope the people at home will stay on to listen a bit longer to my speech, because the Liberals got something right on page 92. If one checks out the budget booklet that was handed out in this place, page 92 mentions “Getting Major Projects Done”. I cannot agree more with that.
This country has a deficit of major projects getting built. Under Stephen Harper, under the Conservatives, there was a great focus on developing our natural resources, on building things and on being a country that made things, built things, got our resources to market, that ensured our grain was moving on trains, all these kinds of things.
The Liberals are finally admitting in the latest budget that this is a country that cannot get things built and they are going to need to pay special attention to getting major projects built. A case in point is the Trans Mountain pipeline, a pipeline that was approved under a Conservative government. It is a pipeline that was ready to be built. A private company was going to use its own money to build it. The Liberal government came along and said it would buy it, so it bought the pipeline for $6 billion and figured it would cost another $6 billion to build it. We are now at over $30 billion spent and that pipeline is not built. This is a case in point that the Liberals cannot build major projects.
We have seen over 15 different pipeline projects and LNG projects that were ready to be built and going through the approval process back in 2015 when Conservatives were in government all disappear off the books one by one as companies took their money and looked elsewhere.
In my own riding of Peace River—Westlock in northern Alberta, the Carmon Creek project was a major oil sands development by Shell. It was a $5-billion project, if my memory serves me well. Shell, in 2015, had already spent $2 billion on that project and cancelled it. It walked away from the $2 billion it spent in northern Alberta, took the rest of the money and invested it in a new project. It was fascinating to watch. A week after it cancelled the Carmon Creek project, it announced it was pursuing an oil development project in Kazakhstan.
That just goes to show the world noticed Canada was not open for business. Since then we have seen a dramatic reduction in the production of all the things Canada produces.
I want to point out the way Liberals think. It is an interesting way of dealing with things. Their measure of success is how much money they spend on things. It sounds good. I get it. The Liberals will say they spent a certain amount of money on something. Especially when it is in the billions of dollars, one thinks that if that much money was spent, it is great, but what they never reference is what we get for that.
A case in point brings me back to the Trans Mountain pipeline again. That pipeline was going to be built by private money with no money from the government. The Liberal government bought the pipeline and is now spending taxpayers' money to build that pipeline. The money that was spent there is not a success at all. We could have had that pipeline built in Canada by a private company that would be paying tax revenue to Canada. The amount of money the government has paid to build pipelines in this country is not a success. No matter how big the number is, it is never going to be a success. It uses that for a whole host of different things.
When we point out to the Liberals that our border is not secure, they say they are spending more money than the Conservatives ever did on security. It is a fascinating thing that the border used to be much more secure. We did not have problems with people running across the border when the Conservatives were in power. When the Liberals came to power, that became a problem. They have spent more money on border security and have less of a secure border. That is not success. It is paying more and getting less. That is the worst.
I once made a speech in this place about what kind of car we are buying. The Liberals will tell us that they spent x amount of dollars or lots of money buying a particular car, but they never tell us what kind of car they bought. If they bought a Rolls-Royce for that kind of money, we might say “Oh, good job”, but if they bought a K-car, we would say “Oh, we are getting ripped off here.” They never tell us what kind of car. They never want to talk about that side of the equation. That is really what we are after here.
We have also seen record 40-year highs in inflation. I want to note that the member for Winnipeg North was saying that since this budget was introduced, inflation has gone down. If we are driving away from town at 100 kilometres an hour and we slow down to 80 kilometres an hour, we are still moving away from town. The inflation rate is like the speed we are going at. Therefore, when the member says that the rate of inflation has slowed down, that is great, but the inflation would actually have to go negative for a time in order for us to return and get the prices of things back to what they were two years ago. We would have to go to a negative inflation rate. Therefore, when they say that the inflation went from 6% or 9% down to 4% or 5%, it is great that the inflation is heading in the right direction, but it actually has to go negative for a time before we are going to get the prices of things going back.
If we want to head back to town, we actually have to stop, get to zero kilometres an hour, turn around and head in the other direction. It is quite misleading when the Liberals say the inflation is going down. The inflation is the speed of things or the rate of things; it is not the direction in which we are going. We need to turn the inflation around. We need to ensure that Canadians' paycheques can buy the things that Canadians need to live. Money is the measure of things and not necessarily the value of things. Probably the fundamental difference between Liberals and Conservatives is our view of money.
I also want to talk a bit about the carbon tax and its inflationary impacts on Canadians. I have talked to folks from across the country, and particularly in my riding, about how the carbon tax is just killing everybody's ability to get to work, buy groceries and heat their homes. I talked to people at the big lumber production facilities in my area, and the amount of carbon tax they pay in a single month is just astounding. Some of these facilities use a lot of electricity, and the carbon tax on that is astronomical. Therefore, when the Liberals say that most Canadians are getting back more than they pay, that is not true. Even if that were true, still the major industries that we deal with in this country are paying the carbon tax on electricity that our competitor countries that are producing the same products are not. We are importing those products across the border without charging that carbon tax on them. We are putting ourselves at a massive disadvantage.
Finally, I want to talk a bit about the strike that is happening right now. The Liberal government has increased the public service dramatically. It nearly doubled the cost of the public service over that last eight years. Never before have we seen such a big strike in Canadian history. We have never had the public service go on strike like this before, so we are very concerned about the fact that the government would spend so much more money on the public service and yet still continue to get a strike out of the deal. We need to support our public servants. We need to back them up. We need to not use them as fodder for political scandals that happen in this place. We have seen, over and over again, that when the Prime Minister runs into trouble with his own ethical scandals he throws some public servant under the bus and skates away from the issue.
Therefore, we will be opposing this budget. We will be putting forward a Conservative vision of Canada and we look forward to facing the Canadian public in the next election.
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- Apr/27/23 11:24:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I also found the speech interesting. In terms of revisionist history, I just wanted to clarify with the member across the way. I am not saying the Liberal government has done a good job of putting forward and using the Phoenix pay system, but I am pretty sure the Harper government brought that system forward.
Could she explain that for me?
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