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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 329

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 11, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 329 - Jun/11/24
Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)
  • Jun/11/24 12:41:32 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-69 
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are poor, a theme that is all too common after nine years under the Liberal-NDP government. Canadians know that they could do all the right things: They could go to school, have a part-time job while they are going to school, make ends meet, get a job, and work and put in as much as they can to save up. However, at the end of the day, the government will do everything in its power to work against all that hard work. The Canadian experience, or the Canadian dream, that we used to have in this country used to include things that would seem very basic for any country. If people put in hard work, they could own a home, own a business and send their kids to a good playground or a school where they would not find such things as needles and crack pipes. They would be able to just walk down the street without fear of being mugged or fear of going through tent cities such as those we are seeing across this country. However, after nine years of the Liberal-NDP government, that experience is gone. Nine out of 10 young people say that they have lost the dream of home ownership. They see a Liberal-NDP government with a carbon tax scam, which has been increased once again. Because of this, single moms have to make decisions about skipping meals now. There is a woke, ideologically extremist government that will do everything in its power to make sure Canadians will never be successful. This is because we have an out-of-touch Prime Minister who has probably never had to fill his own car with gas or go grocery shopping on his own. I am not even sure if he knows how to open doors anymore. He probably needs to be retrained after next year, when he is not going to be prime minister anymore. The sad part is that the incoming Liberal leader is no different. It is Mark “carbon tax” Carney who is going to be crowned. The pain that the Liberal-NDP government is inflicting on Canadians does nothing to these trust-fund babies or these elitists, but it does everything to harm the middle class and workers. We do not have to look very far to see the pain the government has caused after nine years, with nothing but blind support from the NDP. On top of the tent cities, there are food banks with larger and larger lineups at them and with different demographics than there were nine years ago. In fact, people can have a well-paying job and still have to line up at a food bank. They could be a teacher or a nurse but still end up sleeping in their car because, after nine years, the Liberal-NDP government has doubled housing costs. The government spent $89 billion on housing. Rents and mortgages have doubled; in fact, rents are at the highest rate they have ever been in Canadian history. However, this is no surprise, because we have an out-of-touch Liberal-NDP government that has no clue. According to them, Canadians have never had it so good. However, none of the Liberal or NDP MPs or the Prime Minister actually talk to Canadians. They would rather rub elbows, as Mark “carbon tax” Carney does, with the elites of the world. They would rather do that than sit at a dinner table with everyday Canadians and workers, such as the ones who cannot afford groceries anymore, who are deciding whether they should get that extra grocery item or who are thinking about whether they can actually afford heat or rent this month. Kids are starving because of the cost of food. That is nine years of the Liberal-NDP government. The problem is that productivity in this country has declined once again, for the seventh consecutive quarter. GDP per capita tells us how productive the country is. I spoke on Bill C-69 just weeks ago; at that time, GDP per capita was at the lowest rate since 2016. The week before that, GDP per capita was at the worst rate since 2017. Today GDP per capita is worse than it was in 2014. Canadians have been hit with 40-year highs in inflation because of the Liberal-NDP government's out-of-control spending. They got the most rapid interest rate hikes seen in Canadian history. They got slammed by a carbon tax scam that only went up, did nothing for the environment and only made the cost of gas, groceries and home heating even more expensive. Not only did the government do that, but it also made sure that investment in this country fled. More than $200 billion of investment has already fled since 2016. That is the record of the current government; however, again, Canadians have never had it so good according to the Liberals. In fact, Canadians have had it so good that they want to leave. More Canadians are leaving each year now because of the high cost of living. The Canadian dream that everyone thought of or came here for, just as my family did, is gone, and the proof is in the numbers: the food bank usage, the people fleeing from here or thinking about leaving here, the number of bankruptcies and the insolvencies. I will give an example of a small business owner. Small business owners are the ones the government considers to be tax cheats. I have a friend in the GTA, who left everything back at home and took the big risk of coming to this country. He came at a good time, when taxes were low and rent was half of what it is today. That was under a Stephen Harper government. It was a time when people knew that they could put in hard work and get something back. He started his first job as a janitor in this country; now he is a very successful transport owner. What happened in that time, and what has happened to him now? He was able to save up. He was able to send his kids to a good school, and now they are a part of that business as well. Now he is being taxed more than ever before by the ideology-driven government. In this country, after nine years, success is vilified. If people make money, the Liberals are going to take it. Now my friend has been hit with higher carbon tax costs; he cannot find workers, because the government has broken the immigration system; and, on top of all that, extortion has happened to him. After nine years of the Liberal-NDP government, he is getting hit with every single bad policy: He is paying higher taxes, he is not getting the labour he needs so he can grow his business, and his success is not only vilified by the government, but now extortion is happening to him because the soft-on-crime policies of the current government have done that to him and his business. Now, this person's family lives in fear every single day. The family members live in separate hotel rooms. They have bulletproof windows on their house and cars. On top of that, they are now thinking about leaving. This is a story that is all too common in this country after nine years of the Liberal-NDP government. By every measure, productivity has gone down; that always affects the most vulnerable people and the middle class, the ones whom the Liberal-NDP government is supposedly always standing up for. However, hope is on the horizon; it cannot come soon enough. Under a common-sense Conservative government, we would turn this country around. That Canadian dream would be revered once again around the world. Under the leadership of the member for Carleton, we would axe the tax. We would get rid of the carbon tax for all and bring down the cost of gas, groceries and home heating. We would make sure business owners can keep that money, so they could invest more in themselves and in workers. \We would fix the budget. We would bring in a dollar-for-dollar law, so that a dollar spent needs to have a dollar of savings somewhere, and this would help lower inflation and interest rates. The current government does not understand this, because the Liberals think that budgets balance themselves. We would build the homes, not more of the bureaucracy that we have seen under the government, which has doubled the cost of housing in all respects. We would stop the crime by bringing back mandatory minimum sentences so that we can have safe streets and safe communities once again. Under a common-sense Conservative government led by the member for Carleton, we would bring home that Canadian dream once again. This is something that, after nine years, the out-of-touch Liberal-NDP government has destroyed.
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Context: House Hansard - 329 - Jun/11/24
Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)
  • Jun/11/24 12:53:52 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, we heard my colleague talk about small business. As the former small business critic for the federal NDP, I know that the Conservatives were literally invisible during COVID-19. They did not bring any new ideas to help protect workers or to help small businesses survive. The NDP brought ideas to work with the government and to make sure that we protected jobs. In addition, when it came to credit card merchant fees, we saw the big credit card companies raking over small businesses, but the Conservatives sat silent. It took years of the federal NDP putting pressure on the Liberal government to actually cap merchant fees so that we were in line with Australia and the European Union. We are bringing forward ideas to deal with the labour market crisis, such as child care, dental care and pharmacare. We heard from small business that child care is critical to unlocking workers that need to participate in the workforce. Why are the Conservatives blocking supports, such as child care, dental care and pharmacare, for small businesses?
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