44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I regret having to play fact check. First, on foreign direct investment, the five-year snapshot of the foreign direct investments in the last five years is upward of $1,141 billion, so over $1 trillion is an average. In the Harper years, it was almost half of that, $617 billion over a five-year period per year. On foreign direct investment, there is really no comparing the federal Liberal government to the Conservative government. The Conservatives were just not able to attract the same level of investment.
Second, I am not sure why the member wants to compare COVID-19 to opioid deaths. However, more Canadians did die from COVID-19, tragically, than opioids. Opioids have consumed far too many lives in this country and we need to find solutions for both treatment and more safe supply. It is not a simple solution. It is complex.
Last, the member opposite lives in a province with carbon pricing, which has effectively demonstrated an ability to reduce carbon emissions. He ran on it in the last election. Will he stand up and tell his constituents that he no longer believes in carbon pricing?
194 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, let me address the first and third questions to begin with.
The reason we have so much foreign direct investment is because of LNG Canada. In fact, much of the manufacturing and investments we are seeing in western Canada are related to pipelines and natural gas development. The natural gas development, which was the largest private sector investment in the history of Canada put forward by the Liberal Prime Minister, was exempt from the carbon tax. That is the only reason Liberals built it. It was because they knew that with carbon tax, it did not make economic sense for that project to go ahead. The Prime Minister and the premier of British Columbia decided not to apply the highest carbon tax in our country when that project went forward.
When that project is completed in the next five years, we are going to have an exorbitant number of skilled workers in northern British Columbia who will not have another project to go to because under the government's Bill C-69 from the 2015 Parliament, barely any single natural resource development project has been approved. We have to get more natural resource projects approved to supply Asia with clean LNG from Canada that is going to reduce global emissions and fight climate change.
216 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, my colleague has some complaints about the budget. Members of the official opposition do not like the budget, and neither do we. We think there are many things missing from this budget.
What are we going to do? We are going to respect Parliament and vote against the budget.
The Conservatives have been wrapping themselves in a cloak of virtue for some time, telling us that they have one, two, three or four conditions, that the carbon tax must be abolished, and so on. They are saying that as long as the government refuses to meet their conditions, not only will they not vote for the budget, they will filibuster it.
Everyone knows that this is all for show, just to waste time, and that they will never vote in favour of the budget. All they are doing is wasting parliamentarians' time.
To prove my point, I wonder if my colleague can give me just one example of a single time in Canadian history when the official opposition ended up supporting a government's budget, in one way or another.
182 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I will not be making any excuses for the Conservative Party. We are here to stand up to the government in order to help Canadians maintain their ability to enjoy a high standard of living. We must oppose this budget because it is not good for Canada.
49 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I share the member's concern about the opioid crisis, as does everyone in this Parliament. I was pleased that he did not repeat some of the misguided falsehoods that his leader has been putting out there in the media when it comes to safe supply in the province. I am sure, as a British Columbian, he is familiar with the words of the chief coroner and the provincial health officer who have said there is no evidential basis for linking an increase in opioid deaths to the safe supply that we are seeing.
Where the member and I really strongly agree is the need for treatment programs, that one of the pillars of responding to the opioid and toxic drug crisis is having free treatment on demand. Would he support a federal fund directed to establishing those kinds of treatment centres in our province?
147 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. We would support treatment on demand and that is one area where we see some collaboration between two parties in the House of Commons.
30 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals pat themselves on the back for their 2023 budget, but they should not. It is a budget that, at the end of the day, will hurt Canadians, it is short-sighted, irresponsible and ultimately incompetent.
Members do not have to take my word for it. The former finance minister, Bill Morneau, said the Liberals' fiscal policy was about “scoring political points” over good policies, specifically financial ones. He said the Ministry of Finance recommendations were disregarded in “winning a popularity contest”. Policies were made “on the fly”. Some things do not seem to be changing. That is to be expected from a Prime Minister who told reporters that he did not concern himself with fiscal policy because budgets balance themselves. It is incomprehensible.
Can members imagine what would happen to a small business or a family where there is no concern about how much is spent and how much is made? It would lead to hard times for them. They would go deeper into debt, and possible foreclosure and bankruptcy. The Liberals do not seem to care. They have doubled down on national debt. The Liberals and the Prime Minister have more than doubled the national debt since coming into power.
Canadians might ask what difference it makes. It very much affects the lives of all Canadians. We can look to how much everything costs and how much smaller the packages are. Everything has gone up. A family of four will spend $1,000 more after tax dollars on food alone. Even for those receiving rebates, they will spend many hundreds more on bread, fruit, vegetables and everything else.
The Liberals, when they saw the inflationary numbers and how they are impacting Canadians, said this was not good for them politically, so they raised interest rates by over 1,000% to cool things down.
What has that accomplished? Let us ask those who have been renewing their mortgages. It is thousands of dollars more per year just on mortgages because the interest rates were increased. I live in the greater Vancouver area. Homes cost $1 million, $2 million and up, and mortgages over $600,000 are just the standard. The fiscal policies of the Liberals are putting a squeeze on taxpayers.
The standard of living for Canadians is deteriorating. Canada has been sliding in the rankings as far as wealth is concerned. In 2019, we were in 10th place. In the past three years, we have gone down to 14th and are sliding. If we compare that to Taiwan, Israel and Ireland that are equal to us or have surpassed us in their per capita incomes, they do not even have the resources we have. We are a wealthy nation, but our fiscal policy is destroying us.
The government is more interested in the redistribution of wealth, making us dependent on government and killing wealth creation through taxation and regulation. There is a word for that and it is socialism. The regulations, red tape and bureaucracy are killing us. It is fiscal foolishness.
I have a couple of examples. One is the TransCanada pipeline. Kinder Morgan projected it to cost $6.7 billion. The Liberals got involved and the new cost for Canadian taxpayers is approaching $40 billion. It is like the Liberals have written a blank cheque. There is no fiscal responsibility.
A local example in my riding is the Harris Road underpass. It is an agreement between the CPR, Transport Canada and the port authority. It was projected four years ago, with an agreement, to make this underpass for $63 million. It has skyrocketed to $200 million and the project is on the verge of collapsing because of cost increases. Less than half of that cost is for actual construction. The rest is for management, enabling and management contingency. The bureaucracy is killing us.
There is one thing where the prices have been driven down, and that is the cost of street drugs with Liberal drug policies by both the Liberals and the NDP. It is killing lives. The price of hard drugs has gone down 70% to 95%. People are getting addicted and they are dying.
We need a change of government to get some fiscal sanity.
710 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/6/23 8:51:39 p.m.
- Watch
It being 8:52 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.
The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion will also apply to Motion No. 2.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
98 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/6/23 8:52:30 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, we request a recorded vote please.
8 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 3. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 4 to 14.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
69 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/6/23 8:53:18 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, again, we would request a recorded vote.
9 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 15. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 16 to 111.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
69 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/6/23 8:54:01 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, we request a recorded vote please.
8 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 112. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion Nos. 113 to 121.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
67 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/6/23 8:54:43 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, again, I would request a recorded vote please.
10 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
The recorded division on Motion No. 112 stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 122. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 123 to 125.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
71 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/6/23 8:55:32 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, again I request a recorded vote please.
9 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
The recorded division on Motion No. 122 stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 126. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion Nos. 127 to 232.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
70 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/6/23 8:56:16 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, no surprise, I request a recorded vote.
9 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
The question is on Motion No. 233. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 234 to 440.
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
72 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
