44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 30, 2024 10:00AM
- May/30/24 12:42:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to split my time with my colleague from Oxford, who I promise will deliver a barnburner in his speech.
Today is another day, yet another occasion, that we are hearing in this place how the Prime Minister and his NDP enablers are just not worth the cost. After nine years of the Liberal-NDP government, it is no longer a stretch to say that Canadians are being robbed not only of the luxuries they used to enjoy, but also of their hard-earned money and the bare necessities of life. We all know that the biggest thief of all is this costly coalition's tax-and-spend regime, a regime that takes from the poor and gives to the rich, that does nothing to help the environment and that leaves Canadians with less and less money at the end of every month.
The out-of-control Liberal taxes already stole Christmas by putting up the cost of home heating and groceries, not to mention Christmas presents, which were simply out of reach. Ruining Christmas vacation was not enough for the Liberal Prime Minister, for his cabinet or for his NDP enablers. Now, they are coming for one's summer vacation too. Thanks to the Liberal-NDP government, it is simply too expensive to take a holiday with one's family, to go on a road trip somewhere or to enjoy everything the nation has to offer. There is not even anything left to spend, to begin with, because the cost of rent and mortgages are all up. They have doubled. Grocery bills have skyrocketed, and life, everywhere we turn, is just getting more expensive. Members do not have to hear it from me. They can just talk to anybody in their own neighbourhood, which I think the Liberals have stopped doing.
Some of my fondest memories from my childhood involve packing up the car, hitting the road and exploring someplace new with my parents. For me, seeing the beauty of Canada from the car window started this love for Canada that I still have to this day. We came to this place and so many others, stopping along the way, anywhere an old book would tell us there was something to see. As an immigrant family, there was an innate sense of pride for my family to be able to explore freely the land that was now ours to explore.
Fast-forward to the world today, where these days, families will not be able to have that experience. In fact, we hear about that every single day. This is all because of a greedy government that cannot keep its hands off our wallets. Sacrificing holidays with families, much-needed time off, even things like meals or just the things we used to have, seems like a new norm in this country. Canadians from coast to coast have just one message for the Prime Minister, which is to just stop.
Today's motion would do exactly that. It would stop the Liberal regime's, forgive the pun, highway robbery from taking place at the gas pumps across the country. On average, the government takes 30¢ at the end price of a litre of gas in the form of the GST, the carbon tax and the excise tax, not to mention all the hidden costs because of the resource zealots and their anti-resource laws, and the red tape at every step of the way to drill oil, to refine it, to ship it and to sell it. On the docket today, we are calling for the government to give Canadians some temporary relief, to help save them 30¢ on every litre of gas they pump by axing the GST, the carbon tax and the excise tax, charged every time drivers fill their cars.
In just a few months, this would save the average family over $650. That is what it could do. This is money that could pay for one of those hard-earned summer vacations people have been dreaming of, after a long year of work and after nine years of the Liberal-NDP government.
Imagine the relief not only for families, but also for small businesses and for communities right across the country, as we unleash a new wave of tourism in places like the beautiful B.C. interior, northern Ontario and New Brunswick, which are all places where people have told me just how much this would help.
These are places that suffer not only during the summer, but also all year round with the carbon tax. We know that, particularly on the east coast because the Prime Minister actually gave the east coast a break. He actually admitted his carbon tax was costing too much by giving relief to those on the east coast, to those the Liberal minister said that we should have voted in more Liberals if we wanted to see those tax breaks given elsewhere in the country. The Prime Minister actually did that.
These are places where people have no choice but to drive to work, to buy groceries transported by a truck and to heat their homes with oil. All year round, they are punished by the Prime Minister and his NDP-Liberal government, just like people everywhere, from coast to coast, 80% of whom the PBO says pay more to the government than they get back in their so-called rebates.
That brings me to my next point. What happens after the summer holiday? It is hard to believe that in just a few months, which I do not really want to talk about, we will be turning in our shorts and going back to coats. If the Liberal-NDP government has its way, it will carbon tax until the cows come home, with no chance of relief. In fact, the tax will go up again on April Fool's Day 2025. However, with a common-sense Conservative majority government, Canadians would have relief not just this summer but also all year round. We would axe the carbon tax so that families could afford to feed, to heat and to house themselves.
Conservatives would axe other taxes and clawbacks, too, so workers could keep more of their hard-earned money. They could spend it, instead of having the government spend it for them. We would cap the inflationary, out-of-control borrowing and spending here in Ottawa so that grocery bills and mortgage payments could finally be within reach and so that somebody without rich parents or a trust fund could take a summer vacation.
Every day, Conservatives stand in the House of Commons, as the only party of all the parties that advocates for ordinary, hard-working Canadians whose government takes more of their money each and every day. Every day, we take that message to Canadians, but every day, the Liberal government and its NDP partner in crime stand and say no. They stand and vote for more taxes on every single Canadian. They do not just say no to us; they say no to any common-sense agenda. They are saying no to millions of Canadians who stand with us, too. They are actively thumbing their noses in the faces of so many who just want to get by, like the two million every month who use a food bank, the mother who puts water in her kid's milk or the carpenter who fixes his boots with duct tape.
The show of arrogance and incompetence is striking. It tells us just how out of touch the Liberals have become after nine years in government. They stand and promote a big, fat tax on almost everything that Canadians do and buy as not only an affordability measure but also the centrepiece of the Liberals' ideological crusade. If we ask Canadians, they would tell us that they are not better off. In fact, I have not run into anybody who is better off today than they were nine years ago.
On this side of the House, we have a real agenda. Conservatives are going to axe the tax. We are going to build homes. We are going to fix the budget, and we are going to stop the crime. It is a common-sense plan to fix what the Prime Minister has so broken after nine years of being here. That plan starts right now and right here this summer. Liberals could vote for this today. We will continue the fight for everyone being left behind after nine years of the Liberal government. The choice is clear. It is for the only party that would axe the tax for Canadians, that would build homes for Canadians, that would fix the budget for Canadians and that would stop the crime for Canadians. We are the only party, out of all of the parties in the House, making any sense at all. If anyone does not believe me, they can go outside of this place and ask nine out of 10 Canadians. They would say that they are not better off.
Today, tomorrow and every single day, in government or in opposition, Conservatives are going to continue to stand up for Canadians. All we want, for once, is for the Liberals to have some compassion, even some courage, to have a free vote, to vote for this motion and to give people the summer vacation that they want and that they deserve.
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- May/30/24 12:55:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was a great intervention from my colleague. I have a quick question.
One of the numbers that she brought up was how much the average family would save by having the carbon tax, excise tax and GST rebate over the summer. We also know that there are reports that the average family will be spending $700 more on food this year, so the costs just keep going up.
How big a difference would the tax holiday make to families?
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- May/30/24 2:11:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, at every door, in every conversation and in every phone call, it is the same comment over and over again: life is too unaffordable. How did it get this way in Canada?
We know that it is the inflationary spending, the taxes and the deficits of the Liberal-NDP government that have driven up the cost of literally everything, and that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost.
Canadians are crying out for some relief. That is why, in our motion before Parliament today, common-sense Conservatives are calling on the government to suspend all gas and diesel taxes for the summer, until Labour Day. That would be $670 in savings for a typical Canadian family, enough to take a road trip, to go camping or take a day trip to one of the many outstanding local attractions across our country, which is the stuff that memories are made of.
It would give some relief and some hope, until a new common-sense Conservative government, under the leadership of the hon. Leader of the Opposition, can axe the tax on everything, everywhere, for good.
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- May/30/24 4:21:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to challenge my colleague on something. Throughout her speech, she spoke about the Liberal government's out-of-control spending.
I would like to point out to her that the Conservatives are adding a new expenditure of $1.4 billion over three months, which is rather ridiculous.
How can she assure us that, if this money is spent, it would go to those who need it most? Usually, it is the more fortunate who spend the most money on gas with their fancy cars.
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Madam Speaker, after nine years under the Prime Minister, Canadians are being forced to cancel their summer vacations, as the Liberals' tax-and-spend agenda has made even a simple road trip unaffordable. Parents can barely afford basic necessities, much less a summer vacation. The Prime Minister may be able to jet off on a $230,000 luxury vacation, but most Canadians are having to scale back and cancel their summer plans after the Liberal carbon tax made gas and groceries unaffordable.
Like all MPs in the House, I am getting emails and calls from moms and dads who are struggling to pay their bills and put food on the table. I am hearing from seniors who worked for decades to save for their retirement, only to see inflation eradicate their income and their financial security. As someone who represents a large, rural constituency, I know how the carbon tax disproportionately impacts the people who call Westman home.
At a time when life is costing far more for my constituents, the Prime Minister's recent budget does nothing to bring the relief families desperately need. As the costs of groceries, gas and home heating continue to increase, the NDP-Liberal government fails to listen to Canadians.
I am glad to be splitting my time with my colleague from Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.
As my constituents back home know, the Liberals have voted down numerous calls from our Conservative team to scrap the carbon tax. Instead, the Liberals increased it even more, despite the financial hurt Canadians are feeling. The reality is that more and more families are struggling to afford basic necessities. When people find themselves in financial troubles, as they are today, even simple pleasures end up falling by the wayside.
For many, a summer vacation is not a big, dramatic, expensive getaway. It could be a long weekend at the cottage, a week-long road trip or simply a few days of camping. It is a treasured opportunity to get away from business as usual, unplug and recharge with loved ones. Kids need time with their parents and grandparents; they need the chance to experience the outdoors and appreciate the beauty of our great country here in Canada.
Unfortunately, thanks to the NDP-Liberal coalition, the Prime Minister was able to hike his carbon tax by 23% on April 1, further driving up the cost of everything. The fact is that 70% of Canadians oppose this tax hike; moreover, 70% of the provincial premiers have asked the Prime Minister to stop this painful tax increase, and for good reason.
Canada's Food Price Report predicted an additional $700 annual increase in food expenditures for the average family this year over 2023. The most significant increases range from 5% to 7% in the categories of bakery, meat and vegetables. Last year, food banks had to handle a record two million visits in a single month, with a million more visits expected in 2024. Homeless encampments are now common in every city across Canada, and their number continues to increase.
The decline in the Canadian economy since 2019, created by the Liberal Prime Minister, means Canadians are now poorer by $4,200 per person. While the American GDP per capita has grown by 7% since 2019, Canada's has fallen by 2.8%. This is the single largest underperformance of the Canadian economy in comparison with our United States neighbours since 1965.
We have already seen the real-world impact of this in our own backyard. In Brandon, the Samaritan House food bank gave out nearly 36,000 hampers last year, a dramatic increase of 12,000. As I have said in the chamber a few times, this was 50% above its normal annual average. This is in line with trends across the country, showing that families are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. We recently found that more than 50,000 Manitobans are now regularly using a food bank. That is the highest number ever recorded.
While we can get bogged down in statistics, we must never forget that we are talking about people: our relatives, our neighbours and our friends. Food banks are being used by full-time workers more and more. In some communities, one in six visitors says they are employed, which is an 82% increase over 2016. That number continues to grow. More than 60% of visitors are first-time food bank users. It is heartbreaking. There are hundreds and thousands of Canadians who have been forced to stay in line in food banks only because the NDP-Liberal coalition is determined to make life equally miserable for all Canadians.
Let us be clear: The rising cost of food and other necessities cannot be divorced from the NDP-Liberal government's tax-and-spend policies. The carbon tax alone is driving up the cost of everything. It is contributing to the cost of growing our food and other expenses along the entire food supply system. It gets passed down until everyday Canadians get stuck with the bill.
Despite numerous claims by the Prime Minister and his radical environment minister, the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer confirmed that families are seeing a net loss under this ideological policy. People pay more in the carbon tax than they receive back from the rebate. Conservatives have been pointing this out for years. Nothing is more insulting to the millions of Canadians trying to heat their homes in the winter than when the Prime Minister decided to temporarily pause his carbon tax on only 3% of households. It is no wonder that provincial governments are up in arms.
The most recent example of how out of touch and stubborn the Prime Minister can be is his position on Bill C-234. This is a Conservative bill that aims to remove the carbon tax for farmers, thereby lowering food costs that are passed on to consumers. Instead of using an opportunity to lower food prices by passing the bill, or at least letting it pass with no political interference, he did everything possible in the House of Commons and the Senate to delay change and undermine it. Moreover, the Liberals and their NDP coalition partners decided to hike the carbon tax by 23% in April. That was just one step in their plan to quadruple the carbon tax over the next six years, making everything more expensive at the worst possible time. At the same time, their inflationary spending and ever-increasing taxes are already taking their toll, and paycheques are not going as far as they once did.
While the NDP leader is trying to save what is left of his political legacy, we must not forget that every NDP member voted 23 times to keep the Prime Minister's carbon tax in place. I will not stop calling on them to do the right thing and support our Conservative motion this time.
This year, the Prime Minister's carbon tax will cost Manitobans an extra $1,750. This summer alone, it will take more than $600 from family budgets. These costs add up, and even the most basic summer vacation plan suddenly becomes out of reach for people. The constituents of Brandon—Souris are disproportionately affected by the carbon tax. The riding covers more than 17,000 square kilometres. It is the ninth-smallest riding in Canada. Brandon—Souris is roughly the same size as three Prince Edward Islands put together. That may be hard to picture for the finance minister, who lives in downtown Toronto. The Liberal government needs to start realizing that its policies affect rural and urban Canadians quite differently.
We know the Liberal carbon tax is playing a role in raising the price of everything, so we are fighting to axe the tax and bring relief to Canadians. Let us save $603 this summer for Canadians. They need it. People know better how and where to spend their own money, and the Prime Minister must recognize this fact. Let us put a pause on the carbon tax, the federal gas tax, and the GST on gasoline and diesel for the summer. We must do it now.
If we want to help young people, families and seniors deal with the rising cost of living, I implore all my colleagues to vote in favour of our Conservative motion. A future Conservative government will axe the tax on everything for everyone in a carbon tax election, but until that can happen, the Prime Minister must adopt this common-sense measure to give Canadians a break this summer.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting here in the House, the whole idea, whether the NDP-Liberal costly coalition likes it or not, of actually having a robust debate, especially when there are significant differences of opinion. Of course, that is why we are here tonight. We on this side of the House believe that legislation should be debated, and debated robustly, in spite of the fact of the trickery and antics used by the costly coalition to move closure on the bill.
On behalf of Canadians, I say that it has become fascinating to me that the notion that the House is spending other people's money has been lost, and this is a $2-billion bill where we would spend the money of taxpayers. I think we should do it with great caution. We should be prudent when we are doing it, and we should be doing things that we hear from taxpayers are important to them.
When we look across the country and hear about the things that are mentioned in the bill, we know that that is not happening. Therefore, when the hon. NDP member who is standing behind me says that what we are talking about is this or that, or some other foolish intervention, then what we end up with is just wasting more time. He has been here long enough to know the rules, or he should know the rules.
We know that when the bill was introduced there were only 10 hours of witness testimony and five hours of debate on clause-by-clause on it. Why is this important? When we begin to look at the pharmacare bill, we see that some of the amendments that were introduced originally were related to having Canadians understand that the bill really relates to only two classes of medications: contraception and medications and products for diabetes. That does not mean that those two classes are not important; they are. They involve important health states that often need the intervention of a prescription, but it means that the bill is no more than that at the current time.
It is interesting that the government, on canada.ca, puts out a list of medications that may or may not be covered by the bill, which creates hope for Canadians. Canadians will say, “Well, these are the medications that are going to be covered.” Many different groups come forward and ask, “Well, why not this and why not that?” Probably one of the most influential medications in the history of diabetes treatment besides insulin is Ozempic, but it is not on the list. People will say, “Well, why is it not on the list?” Then, of course, the government talks about the bill and says, “Well, that is not really the list; that is just a list. It is any old list.” Why did it publish it on its website, on canada.ca? Are those things important? Absolutely, they are.
When we talk about definitions, folks listening in at home will say that some of them are self-evident. They are not self-evident when we are dealing with $2 billion. For example, what is the definition of “universal”, “single-payer” and “first dollar”? Those definitions are incredibly important, so that the 70% to 80% or so of Canadians who have private insurance can be at least somewhat reassured that they would not lose private coverage.
That is the largest, most expansive and most distressing concern that we on this side of the House have. I would suggest that reassurances from the Minister of Health are just not enough for Canadians. To say, “Oh, trust me” is kind of akin to that old saying, “I'm from the government and I'm here to help”, which we all know is a difficult pill to swallow.
There was another interesting thing that, in our limited time, we did learn in committee. There were two experts. One was actually there in person and one was on Zoom, and they were both touted as Canada's experts on pharmacare. I was glad they were not in the same room, as we never know what might have happened, but that being said, the most fascinating thing was that, even though both of them are experts on pharmacare, neither one of them was actually consulted on the bill. They did not give any input whatsoever on how the bill should come to be, what should be in it or what should not be in it, and for me that is somewhat distressing.
Another somewhat distressing thing that is referenced in the bill is the committee of experts, the group that would be put forward to decide exactly which medications and which devices would be covered. Again, there are several amendments related to that. Things such as regional representation and professional representation were once again simply dismissed by the NDP-Liberal costly coalition. That creates significant problems for us on this side of the House, and it is exactly why we believe we need to be here this evening. When we know it is not a plan, not a blueprint, but is a plan perhaps to create a plan, that again creates distress on behalf of Canadians.
We know that people value the private coverage they are fortunate enough to have at this time, and we know that employers are happy to offer those benefits to their employees as a condition of their employment. Sadly, about a million people do not have coverage for medications. We on this side of the House believe there could be better ways to give them that than offering the pharmacare idea.
When we begin to look at the state of health care in this country at the current time, we know there are problems with the system we have. When one cannot access primary care, it is incredibly difficult to have a lab test done, to see a specialist or to have a diagnostic imaging test done. I say it is difficult because what happens is that people end up going to emergency rooms and urgent care centres to have some routine things done or even to have their prescriptions refilled. When we begin to look at that, in the words of former Canadian Medical Association president Dr. Katharine Smart a couple of years ago, the system is actually on the brink of collapse.
If anything, in the last couple of years we know that things have become even worse. There are now approximately seven million Canadians who do not have access to primary care, which means, as I mentioned, that they have to go to urgent care centres or emergency rooms, or go without care, which is the worst state of affairs.
Some of the other estimates would say we are 30,000 physicians short in this country. When we graduate about 3,200 every year, it seems almost an impossibility to make up the shortage. I always to try to help Canadians understand it. It is kind of like having a car that does not have any wheels on it, but wanting a new stereo in it, which is not terribly helpful. It is perhaps not a great analogy but it is something to try to help Canadians understand what is going on.
The other part is that we know that wait times in the system, if one is so fortunate enough to be able to access it, are the longest they have been in 30 years, three decades. If one is fortunate enough to have a family physician, the wait time for having specialist care is over 27 weeks, six months. We know that people on waiting lists are dying. Somewhere between 17,000 and 30,000 people are dying every year waiting for treatment in this country. The system itself is in absolutely poor shape and falling apart.
The difficulty we also see, again, is government members' being champions of photo ops. They talk about their dental program, which has significantly disappointed many Canadians. We now know that provincial dental associations are taking out ads warning people about the extra costs and the lack of ability to find a dentist.
Liberals promised a $4.5-billion Canada mental health transfer, which has never come to fruition at all. They promised affordable housing, and we know they are building less housing than before. They promised $10-a-day day care, and of course one cannot access it.
What we have is a government that is great at announcements and very bad at actually making anything happen. We know, on this side of the House, that Bill C-64 needs significant amendments and significant debate. On behalf of Canadians, we need to be incredibly cautious with how we are spending other people's money.
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- May/30/24 6:43:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives say they want to save money, but they are spending $400,000 on this debate tonight, which is about meaningless motions that basically delete the entire bill. There is not a single contribution the Conservative Party and Conservative MPs have made to pharmacare.
We know the Conservatives were wrong on dental care. Some 120,000 seniors, in the first three weeks, benefited from dental care across the country. Two million seniors have signed up, with tens of thousands more each and every week. Pharmacare would help six million Canadians with diabetes and nine million Canadians who buy contraceptives.
Is that not why Conservatives are wasting this debate and $400,000 of taxpayers' money tonight? Is it not because they fear the supports the NDP is providing for the Conservatives' constituents across the country?
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- May/30/24 6:44:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let us be clear. I do not fear anything the NDP members have to say or think. I think that is important. They fear spending money on anything except democracy. All they want to do is ram legislation through, in their costly coalition partnership, with respect to things they sadly do not understand. The only other thing the NDP members want to spend money on is delaying the date of the election by one week so that many of them can access their pensions, which is money spent on behalf of Canadians.
When we look at those kinds of things, those words do not ring true with any of us in the House.
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- May/30/24 7:58:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am well aware that the member has had a long career and that he lived through the Harper regime, the most expensive regime in Canadian history. Some $116 billion was given to the big banks to increase their profits. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, $30 billion a year went to tax havens thanks to Mr. Harper and his team. Of course, there was also all the money given to CEOs in the oil patch.
The costly Conservatives spent a lot of money on the rich and affluent. However, now we are talking about pharmacare, which will help people in his riding. It will help 18,000 people with diabetes who are struggling every month to pay sometimes up to $1,000 for their medication.
The question I want to ask my friend is very simple. Why are the Conservatives so keen on spending money on billionaires, CEOs and banks, but do not want to give a penny to people struggling to pay for their medication, such as diabetes medication?
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- May/30/24 8:00:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague, who was here when I was part of an excellent Conservative government, that the national debt was around $500 billion. It is now over $1.25 trillion. That alone is costing Canadians an enormous amount. Right now, the Liberals are spending more on debt interest than on health transfers. We are paying a huge amount of interest. The 7% that we pay on goods and services goes toward paying the debt instead of toward health care.
That is because the NDP is forcing the Liberals to overspend.
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