SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 314 - May/21/24

May/21/24 10:58:56 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in response to the question of privilege raised by the Conservative Party, I would like to present the Bloc’s position and thinking on the fact that the Speaker of the House released a partisan message. This is the third instance where there is clear evidence that the Speaker of the House lacked judgment and breached his duty of impartiality. Unfailing impartiality and sound judgement are the foundation of the office of the Speaker and are required of a Speaker, and yet this is the third time we face this kind of situation. The Bloc Québécois made its position clear in December. It said that the events in which the Speaker had been involved at the time proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the Speaker did not have the skills required to continue in his role. What we are seeing today, unfortunately, is a repeat of what happened before. Therefore, it would seem that the Speaker, who issued his mea culpa at the time, simply does not understand the role he has to play. This is obvious, and it should come as no surprise that the Bloc Québécois is unfortunately maintaining its position and calling for the Speaker in question to step down. As everyone can see, House debates are becoming increasingly acrimonious. That is why we need someone at the helm who can command respect and has the skills required to control the debate, which tends to get overly heated in this chamber. The responsibility of the Chair has become increasingly important in view of the climate that has taken hold in the House. Obviously, we all know that the Speaker, who is the member for Hull-Aylmer, was well known for his partisanship at the committee level. That went without saying, and there was nothing wrong with that. He had a job to do, and his partisanship was not out of place in committee. However, there is no place for partisanship in the role of Speaker. We simply raised the flag when we saw him assume the speakership for the first time. We wanted to let him know we would be watching him, and we hoped he would show impartiality. What we are seeing, unfortunately, is that he is the wrong person for the job. I have nothing personal against the Speaker and neither does the Bloc Québécois. However, with all due respect to the Speaker, he does not belong in the chair, as evidenced by the fact that 150 members expressed their loss of confidence in the Speaker back in December, mere months after he was elected to the position. At the time, the NDP said that this must not happen again, but now it has. That is very worrying. What really worries me is that the three events we all know about may be just the tip of the iceberg. That is the problem. We know that he showed obvious partisanship and lack of judgment on three occasions, but he may have done so more than three times. We do not know. That is what worries us. Whenever he rises in the House, we always have nagging doubts about the decisions he will make, his behaviour and what he does outside the House. What does he say when he speaks to people on behalf of the House of Commons? It is impossible not to think about that. There are only two ways to put our minds at ease and ensure that, whenever the Speaker rises, he does so competently and with absolute respect for the House. Either the House implements a mechanism for him to leave the Chair, or the Speaker resigns, as a true statesman would. In all honesty and impartiality, that is the question I keep coming back to. I wonder what it will take for the NDP and the Liberals to say that enough is enough.

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Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

May/21/24 11:03:30 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is, of course, very worrying. The New Democratic Party is very concerned. We would like to reserve the right to come back at some point in the future. As with all questions of privilege, it is important for us to take the time to look at this very clearly.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/21/24 11:03:43 a.m.
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I thank the members for their interventions. Knowing that the decision back in December was to bring the substantive motion forward, I do understand the concern brought forward here. We will go back and look at this attentively and, of course, wait for further interventions on this as well.

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Ms. Michelle Ferreri (Peterborough—Kawartha, CPC)

May/21/24 11:04:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House of Commons and speak on behalf of the people of Peterborough—Kawartha. It is an even bigger responsibility as the critic, or shadow minister, for families, children and social development. Without families, without healthy families, without healthy children, we have a serious problem in this country. There is no doubt whatsoever that there are some serious problems in this country. I will be 45 years old in two weeks, and in my time living here, I have never seen Canada in the state it is in now. I have never seen kids struggle in the way that they are struggling. I have never seen seniors struggle in the way that they are struggling. Every member in the House would know this if they were door knocking, which is part of our job when an election comes, to knock on the doors of people, to listen to them, to hear them, to take the emails and to take the phone calls. I have never seen such genuine misery and fear in my life. I originally come from a very small community. It is called Douro. Douro is what I always call the foundation of Canada. It has four corners. It has the elementary school. It has the church. It did have a town store, a general store, which was like a mercantile. Sadly, it burned down. The town hall was right beside it on the same corner. It also has a graveyard. I want to also mention that I will be splitting my time today with the hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South. We are, as they call us, the Peterborough pistols. The community of Douro really represented what Canada is. It is this community where, when one needs help, one's neighbours show up. There is the community centre where one has the weddings, events, hockey games and soccer games. There are the schools. Everybody knew everybody, and everybody helped everybody. Slowly, the erosion of the country has happened. It is no coincidence that this has happened in the last nine years under the leadership of the Prime Minister. I want to tell members a surprising stat. This is officially the longest-running minority government without an election in Canadian history, surpassing Lester B. Pearson's government in 1968. Why is that? It is because of the leader of the NDP. Why is this because of the leader of the NDP? It is because the Prime Minister knew he was tanking, knew that his gaslighting was no longer working. He took Canadians and he spoke about sunny ways, sunny days, and that things would never be better. Canadians caught on, really quickly, when they realized that they could not afford the interest rates, that they could not afford to keep their mortgages and that they could not afford food. They cannot afford food and are spending $700 extra a year in groceries. Two million Canadians a month are using a food bank, and 33% of those are children. The Otonabee-South Monaghan Food Cupboard operates in what will soon be my riding, but is now in my colleague's riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South. She came to my office last week and said that they have seen a 100% increase in the usage of food banks. She said that they are not the most vulnerable. These are working families that are doing everything that was asked of them. They go to work, and they cannot afford to feed their kids. They cannot afford to feed their kids. I think it is deeply upsetting because we have never had people work so hard and feel so hopeless. We have the worst GDP in the G7. People want to say that it is the sign of the times, that it is everything. They want to blame it on everything. This is about leadership. I often say that politics is very much like parenting. Parenting is a very perfect metaphor for politics. It is one's job as a parent to give one's kids the tools and the knowledge to go and thrive. One should never be on the field with one's child. One should be there to help them. If one does everything for them, what happens? They do not learn how to do it. Right now, we have a government, and a coalition, because the Prime Minister knew he was going to lose. He knew that everybody was catching on to the misery and chaos he had created, such as increasing crime and victims no longer having rights. Last month we had victims' rights week, and there was not one mention from that side of the House about victims' rights. The government has made sure that criminals have all the rights they need and that they get transferred to medium security without anybody being told. It secretly did that. It transferred Luka Magnotta and did not tell the public. It does not worry about victims or retraumatizing people. Because the Prime Minister knew he was going to tank, he got the leader of an opposition party to sign a coalition with him, and then continued to gaslight Canadians in the hope that nobody would catch on. Everybody has caught on. Nobody believes anything the Liberals say. They are frustrated and exhausted. People ask me why, every day in question period, they do not answer anything, but just deflect, not answer the questions and pretend everything is perfect. There is no better example of this than child care. The Liberals' whole marketing program was that child care is great. I visited a local child care facility in my riding last week that is run by an amazing woman. She is single mom who decided to bring kids into her home to care for them and help offer flexibility to the parents who need to work. She said that the cost of food is out of control if one wants to feed kids healthy food. We all know that what we put in our gas tank determines our overall productivity and ability to function. She said that the cost of food is just unbelievable. I think the most shocking thing for me is that people will write to me and say that they are so embarrassed because they make $100,000 and still cannot pay their mortgage and feed their kids. They are having to cut back on sports. Then their health is compromised. Their mental health is compromised. The health of these kids is compromised. I spoke to a grade 10 civics class last week. These kids were very sharp. They were in tune. I said that I thought that social media has caused a lot of problems in the world, especially for young people. They were pretty dialed in and knew a lot of things. They said that they did not think they would ever own a home. They do not even know why they go to school. They do not even know what to do. They do not want to stay in their town because there are no jobs and no housing that is affordable. These kids are 15 years old and are burdened with adult problems. They were genuinely concerned. I think there is a real problem with acknowledging the facts, but here are some real facts to change the course we are on. If we tax fuel, every single thing goes up. The carbon tax is the demise of an already crushed society that cannot afford to live. It is like punching someone just a little more while they are down. It is wild. If we talk to farmers, especially small business owners who, for the record, are the whole backbone of this country as small businesses make up 98% of this economy, they are being destroyed every single day. When we increase the tax on small businesses, these people, who are not swimming in gobs of money but who are trying to make a living and provide a service to families or themselves, cannot do it. They are shutting down. If we go downtown in any major city in this country, we can see the out-of-business sales and closed restaurants. Why is that? It is because of the Prime Minister, who got into a coalition with that guy for power and control, has doubled down on an ideology that we cannot make our own decisions, that the government knows what is better for us and will do it for us, which is going to cripple us and make it dependent on us. It is baffling and so upsetting because we are here and we are—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/21/24 11:14:16 a.m.
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The hon. member's time is up. I have given her some signals. She can add on throughout the questions and comments period. Continuing with questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has the floor.

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Secretary

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

May/21/24 11:14:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting to have the contrast between the Conservatives and the Liberals. I made reference to the Prime Minister being in the city of Winnipeg. We talked about a national food program and making sure children are eating. The Conservatives stick to spin after spin. There are concerns, and we are very much aware of those concerns. There is a CTV report that I googled while the member was speaking. It says that, in comparison to other nations, Canada is ranked the second-lowest nation. It is referring to inflation rates. Canada is not an island. We continue to fight inflation, which is at 2.7% today. We continue to fight it. In comparison to the rest of the world, Canada is doing reasonably well. There is room for improvement but, news flash for the Conservative Party of Canada, Canada is not broken. Canada is doing exceptionally well, especially in comparison to other nations. Will the member get real and be more honest and straightforward with Canadians on the facts?

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Winnipeg
Ctv

Ms. Michelle Ferreri

May/21/24 11:15:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for pointing out the significant contrast between Liberals and Conservatives. After nine years of the Prime Minister, housing prices have doubled, the use of food banks is at record high levels, opioid deaths are at a record high, criminal activity is through the roof and domestic violence is through the roof. This is a great example of gaslighting. Maybe the member should just go outside, knock on a door and talk to his constituents to see that they are not okay. This is because of Liberal policies and their lack of leadership.

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Gaslighting

Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

May/21/24 11:16:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is fascinating to hear Conservatives talk about children going hungry and that Canadians cannot afford to feed their families. I hear this from the Conservatives all the time. However, that member stood up and voted against a national school food program for children. Canada is the only country in the G7 without a school lunch program, a food program. This would be a solution, but Conservatives do not believe in solutions. Conservatives believe in trying to gaslight the entire nation on this. I would like to ask the hon. member why she voted against it, and why she supports a leader whose chief of staff has set up a shell company for lobbying, six of whose employees are lobbying for Loblaw, the people who are making record profits while our families cannot afford to eat.

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Ms. Michelle Ferreri

May/21/24 11:17:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really curious about that NDP member, who has decided not to run again because his constituents have told him enough, and also his leader, who signed an agreement to prop up the Liberal government, and whose brother is a lobbyist for Metro. I find that very interesting. To the member's point about why we would not vote in favour of that, why would we vote in favour of more bureaucracy? Under the Prime Minister, bureaucracy has increased 40% and customer service has decreased. That school food program is $2.50 a kid, and there is no food in it. It is pure bureaucracy. If the government does not fix this carbon tax and quit driving up the cost of food, people will not be able to feed their families. I ask members to do the right thing, make sense and stop doing these nonsense marketing schemes that would not feed anyone. An hon. member: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/21/24 11:18:00 a.m.
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I want to remind members that, if they have anything to contribute, if they want to ask additional questions or if they have additional comments, to please wait until the appropriate time.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)

May/21/24 11:18:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canada's GDP per capita is now the worst in the G7. These Liberals keep talking about how we have never had it so good. What is more accurate? When the member talks to her constituents, are they talking about the fact that we are suffering economically or that Canadians have never had it so good?

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Ms. Michelle Ferreri

May/21/24 11:18:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is precisely right. That is why it is just so baffling. The Liberals should go outside and talk to someone, actually talk to the people. This is not rocket science. They should go to the grocery stores and the food banks to see these working families that cannot afford to pay for groceries, which have skyrocketed under the leadership of the Prime Minister, propped up by the NDP leader. That is what it is all about, power and control, and driving up the cost to make Canadians dependent upon them.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)

May/21/24 11:19:23 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not think it has ever been said in the House of Commons that this place is lacking hypocrisy. There is usually enough hypocrisy in this place to go around, but the motion brought to us by the NDP is just abounding. It is even overflowing. It is even too much hypocrisy for the House of Commons, which has certainly seen enough of it in our history. The NDP is talking about corporate greed and grocery prices. Meanwhile, the leader of the NDP's brother, Mr. Singh, is a lobbyist for Metro. I could not believe that the NDP member who rose with respect to the motion actually mentioned the fact. He gave away the story when he said that the most profitable large grocery chain in Canada was Metro. This is the firm that for which the brother of NDP leader lobbies. Therefore, no one is making more money. No one is profiting more from a grocery perspective than Metro, the company for which the brother of the leader of the NDP, Mr. Singh, lobbies. It is unbelievable, the hypocrisy and the chutzpah to bring this into the House, to go forward with the fact that somehow they do not have any responsibility. Meanwhile, as the member for Peterborough—Kawartha just said, the current government is the longest surviving minority government in Canadian history. The NDP-Liberal government has continued to prop this up, so we have seen this record profit under the NDP-Liberal government. It is not a Conservative government in power. We are seeing these record profits of these grocers under the NDP-Liberal government. Therefore, we have more hypocrisy. However, let me back up and explain why this might be happening. The reality is that socialism fails every time it is tried. Of course, we are all aware of the tremendous failures, the suffering and the millions who died during the Soviet Union. We have seen the suffering in Cuba and Venezuela. However, I want to bring three concrete examples of where socialism has failed. One is the U.K. After World War II, it embraced socialism. It went full hog into socialism. It nationalized nearly every major industry. What happened? Initially it was not that bad, but then Margaret Thatcher's old adage came into being, “eventually you run out of other peoples' money.” That is the problem with socialism. The United Kingdom became known as the sick man of Europe, because its economy was so behind, which brought the standard of living down further and further until Margaret Thatcher came to office, brought free economics, and brought the U.K. back on the economic road map. The second example is an interesting one, Israel. Israel also embraced socialist policies shortly after World War II. It embraced very socialist collectivized farming. Some members might be familiar with the term “kibbutz”. These were socialist farming agricultural places. Initially, it was not bad, because they were carrying this money that had come from before. They were initially spending their money, so they grew debt. However, what happened was that Israel's economy began to shrink and shrink badly. In fact, it was not until around 1980 or so that eventually it adopted free market policies and went from one of the lower economic growth countries to leading the developed world, from 2000 on, in economic growth. Once again, we see socialism fail. A third example is the world's biggest democracy, India. India initially, after World War II, also embraced socialist policies and once again found it to be an unmitigated disaster, lowering the standard of living. Then, it embraced a free market economy and, lo and behold, the market increased. This is repeated all over again. What is happening in Canada is not new news. We had the Liberal government take power in 2015. The Liberals were coming off a great legacy of the Harper government, when housing was affordable, when Canada was a world leader in GDP per capita and when Canada was strong on the map. Then time went by and the debt, the leveraging and socialist policies had their corrosive effect on the economy over and over again, bringing down our economy. Then a realization happened. I do not know whether it happens for all the members; maybe some of them live in blissful ignorance or just deny the truth. However, the reality is that eventually it comes to the effect that these policies do not work. We are seeing that now in Canada, just like we did in the U.K., Israel and India. Wherever there are these socialist policies, a legacy always follows. First is high unemployment; we are now creeping up to 6.1%. Second is a lack of prosperity. Third is an increase in inequality ironically enough, given all the talk of equality in the House. Fourth is incredibly slow economic growth, which drives down the economy and economic life. For the folks who are in government, the challenge then becomes this. They see that their policies have created nothing but failure. What do they have to do? They have to create a bogeyman. They have a straw-man argument and they have to place the blame on something else. They divide, as they did during COVID, and they distract. They will do everything possible to not look at their record. That is what is going on here. We have seen the NDP leader, whose brother is a lobbyist for Metro, the large chain with the largest profit margin of all Canadian grocers, out there blaming big grocers. I am not saying Metro is innocent; it is certainly not. However, the hypocrisy of that party to go after grocery chains when the leader's brother is a lobbyist for Metro, the most profitable large grocery chain in Canada, is unbelievable. With that, I would like to bring an amendment to the motion. I move: That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: the 19th report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented on Monday, May 6, 2024, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Finance with instruction that it amend the same so as to recommend a more efficient alternative to address food insecurity among Canadians this summer by calling on the government to eliminate the carbon tax, the federal fuel tax, and GST on gasoline and diesel between now and Labour Day.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/21/24 11:28:22 a.m.
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The amendment is in order. Questions and comments, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the government House leader.

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Secretary

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

May/21/24 11:29:05 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I am sure the member is aware, the government fully understands and is aware of the importance of food security. It is one of the reasons we made changes to the Competition Act and it is one of the reasons we brought in things such as the grocery rebate. We have brought in a number of measures. One of the interesting things in the federal budget is the national food program to provide food for children going to school. Approximately 400,000 children would benefit by this. Could the member explain why the Conservative Party will be voting against that program?

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

May/21/24 11:29:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, according to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the carbon tax is responsible for 0.8% of inflation, or about one-third of inflation. We could dramatically reduce the cost of food today for children, for seniors and for everyone who is going hungry. Food banks have never been so busy; they have never had such a stretched demand. Why do we not cut the carbon tax today and let people eat?

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Mr. Ryan Williams (Bay of Quinte, CPC)

May/21/24 11:30:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member talked about the leader of the NDP and his brother who is with Metro. We always wonder why we do not hear about Metro in here. We hear about Loblaws all the time. However, the government is equally as complicit in grocery prices. Last October, the minister of innovation stated that grocery prices would come down in a matter of weeks or months. The government passed and received royal assent, on December 15, 2023, on the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act. The government has an act called “affordable groceries”, which was passed on December 15. I wonder if the member would comment on this. Have grocery prices gone down? Has the government done anything at all to lower grocery prices?

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

May/21/24 11:31:09 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, unfortunately, the answer to that is no. Often when I am talking to constituents, they will tell me they cannot believe how much one bag of groceries costs. They will go to grab a couple things for dinner or grab a couple things for the weekend, and have one bag. That one bag used to be $20. Now it is $50, $75 or even $100 just to fill one bag of groceries. It is incredible and there is a way to fix it right away. We can eliminate a third of inflation today by getting rid of the carbon tax.

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Mr. Larry Maguire (Brandon—Souris, CPC)

May/21/24 11:31:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wonder if my colleague could comment on the gross domestic product. We sometimes take for granted that we are a well-developed country, yet we do not have a very good track record when it comes to the latest announcements about our gross domestic product, particularly in the G7, never mind the G20.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

May/21/24 11:32:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it really is quite sad where our GDP is per capita. The GDP per capita actually puts us dead last amongst G7 countries. Why is that important? Because it is not just a number. GDP per capita is a measure of what Canadians make and what they deliver in terms of services. The more products we make and the more services we deliver means the more goods, the more bounty, the more prosperity across this nation. The real nub of the issue is the fact that when prosperity shrinks, as it has over the last 10 years, which is Canada's very own lost decade here, it hurts the most vulnerable the most. The folks who have big trust funds, like the Prime Minister, will be okay. It is the people who are going to the food banks in Otonabee, in Cobourg or in Port Hope who are suffering because of these socialist policies that are failing Canadians.

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