44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 13, 2024 10:00AM
- Jun/13/24 10:29:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, the common-sense Conservative.
We just learned, moments ago, that the government has been keeping a $20-billion secret. Common-sense Conservatives have been demanding that the government release the real cost of the carbon tax, after the Parliamentary Budget Officer revealed that there was a report the government had been covering up and that he was gagged from releasing the report about the actual cost to Canadians. Now, because common-sense Conservatives brought forward this motion before the House, and because of our relentless questioning and the pressure that is weighing heavily on Liberal MPs, the government has finally relented and has released part of the information. It had to be pulled out like a rotten tooth, and rotten it is.
It is $20 billion per year in lost GDP, as a result of the carbon tax. That works out to $1,200 per family in extra annual costs for Canadians. Twenty billion dollars for 17 million families is $1,200 a family in higher costs that the Prime Minister has been covering up. Not once, in any tables that he released, which claimed that Canadians were somehow better off with the carbon tax and rebate, did the Prime Minister include these economic costs that he knew existed, because he wanted to continue to spread the falsehood. He wanted to tell Canadians that paying more for gas, heat and groceries would make them better off, just like he claimed that raising their income tax would make the middle class better off. Ninety per cent of middle-class income taxpayers are paying more now than they were paying nine years ago when he promised to cut their taxes.
Yesterday, we tested the Liberals' claim that only the $800,000-a-year investment banker, who is in the top 0.13%, would pay this new job-killing tax on home builders, farmers, small business owners and health care workers. We tested it by simply saying that if that were the case, the Liberals would amend their bill to say that anybody who is part of the 99.87% of the population would be excluded from any new capital gains taxes. The minister refused to do that because we all know that it would be plumbers, electricians, carpenters, farmers, small business owners and restaurant owners who would pay this Liberal tax increase.
What we are coming to understand is that we cannot believe a word the Prime Minister says about money or about taxes because at the end of the day, he has an insatiable appetite for other people's money. He wants to stuff the face of his morbidly obese government with the hard-earned tax dollars of working-class Canadians, and he has the full support of the greedy NDP to do it. The New Democrats believe that the people's money is their money, and they are here for one purpose: to help the Prime Minister vacuum up every single nickel that hard-working Canadians, including entrepreneurs, earn on the ground.
Common-sense Conservatives are exactly the opposite. People will notice that we take delight in the fact that, in this place, we do not fit in. We stand out as the only party that would axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
The Bloc Québécois voted in favour of a tax hike for Quebec entrepreneurs, farmers, doctors and home builders. According to the Bloc Québécois, Quebeckers should give more of their money to the massive Liberal federal government.
The Liberal Bloc is part of a centralist coalition. We are the only party that wants to allow Quebec entrepreneurs, farmers, doctors and small businesses to keep their money and be masters in their own house.
That is also the case with the Quebec City tramway. This project would cost at least $11 billion, or $28,000 per greater Quebec City family. If those families were asked if they wanted $28,000 or a tramway 10 years from now, I think it would be an easy decision for them. Quebec City residents prefer to have the money in their pocket. They want a third link to connect the two sides of the river.
That is what common sense is all about, and we are the only party that thinks this way. We do not want a white elephant. We want to fix the budget and axe the taxes. That is common sense.
Here we are today with the government again raising taxes and, again, making claims that are demonstrably false when we look at the government's own documents.
When I look at the capital gains issue, first, the government claimed that only 44,000 people would pay. That is a small number. They all live on a hill somewhere. Then, the government admitted that 300,000 separate businesses, most of them small businesses, would pay. Therefore, there are 300,000 businesses, but only 44,000 would pay. I find it hard to believe that each of these 44,000 people own six different businesses. In reality, those 300,000 businesses probably have millions of owners and definitely have millions of employees. All of them would pay the tax.
Then, the government members said that they were very concerned that welders are paying a higher tax rate than investors. We have a National Occupation Classification for a welder. We could say, in the law, that anyone who is a welder, as defined by the National Occupation Classification, is excluded, but the minister would not do that. I said to exclude the NOC for carpenters. She did not want to do that either. Why do we not exclude nurses? Nurses who invest in rental properties or who maybe have a family cottage they may want to sell could be excluded. We could look up the NOC code for nurses, and pop it right into the Income Tax Act. It could say that no nurse would pay that higher tax rate. The government was not willing to do that either.
In fact, we know that, because they want to tax nurses, carpenters, welders and electricians. They want to tax everybody. In fact, I went even further and asked why we do not just exclude everybody who makes less than $120,000 a year. The government did not want to do that either. It turns out that, if none of these people were affected by the tax, the minister should have said that it was easy and that she could have it drafted up this afternoon and could have it put in the bill with no problem, but of course she did not. She knows exactly what she is doing. She is putting her greedy hands in the pockets of working-class people and she is stealing their money, just like she did with the carbon tax, just like the government did when it raised income tax and just like it did in 2017 when it went after our small business tax creators.
The good news is that we have defenders of the taxpayers in this party. The tax fighters are all on this side of the house: the common-sense Conservatives. If someone out there is working hard, has seen their housing costs double, is worried about losing their home and has two or even three jobs just to avoid eviction, they might feel a loss of hope. The good news is that life was not like this before the current Prime Minister and the NDP, and it will not be like this after they are gone.
We are going to bring home the Canada that we knew and that we still love, by axing the tax system, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime. We would once again make this a country where hard work would pay off; where entrepreneurs would be incentivized, rewarded and honoured, not demonized; where we would not turn workers against business owners, but would turn workers into business owners; and where hard work would bring powerful paycheques and pensions that would buy affordable food, gas and homes in safe neighbourhoods.
That is what the common people deserve. The common sense of the common people is united for our common home. It is their home, my home and our home. Let us bring it home.
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- Jun/13/24 11:03:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I appreciate the member is tabling documents that we have not had a chance to see, but I will accept them. However, would the member table the documents on how much the toll fees for TMX are going to be and how much taxpayers are expected to cover off?
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- Jun/13/24 11:56:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government gave $34 billion to the TMX pipeline, but what it does not talk about is that it is so over-budget that no oil company can use it because of the toll charges that have to be charged per barrel of oil. The Canada Energy Regulator had capped the toll charges at 22¢ on every dollar so that 78¢ was going to be paid by taxpayers. Now Liberals are saying they are going to increase it to just under 50¢ per dollar.
In what credible world is it that the taxpayers of Canada will have to pay at least 50¢ on every dollar to ship raw bitumen to the coast on behalf of companies that are making record profits? This is the biggest scam and subsidy that I have ever heard of in promoting the burning of our planet, and yet the Minister of Environment is going along with it. I wonder what the member thinks of this.
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- Jun/13/24 2:45:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is no surprise that the Conservatives want to move on from the fiasco of two days ago when they voted for 0.13% of taxpayers and set aside the 99.87% of taxpayers who are not affected by a capital gains change. They want to stand up for people who have made $250,000 on investments in a given year, and they will not stand up for the electricians, the farmers and the janitors, who earn a paycheque every week and do it honestly.
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- Jun/13/24 2:50:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada's border services employees deliver important services that ensure Canadians are safe, secure and have timely access to goods coming from other countries. It is no secret that Canada's public servants have seen previous Conservative governments cut their jobs and cut services instead of giving them the respect they deserve by reaching deals at the table that are fair for them and reasonable for Canadian taxpayers.
Could the President of the Treasury Board share an update on her work to ensure a fair deal is made with our border services officers to maintain Canada's border security while ensuring respect for the work of our public servants?
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- Jun/13/24 2:51:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this week showed that the best deals are reached at the table and that the collective bargaining process works. The Canada Border Services Agency employees keep our country safe every single day, and I am pleased to announce in the House that a tentative agreement has been reached that is fair for Canadian taxpayers and reasonable for public servants.
On this side of the House, we will always stand up for public service employees, and we thank them for their work every single day in protecting our country.
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- Jun/13/24 8:14:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in his intervention, the member referenced the spending of people's money. I understand that to the extent of present Canadian taxpayers. We can talk about the amounts, but my question is about the present federal debt of $1.255 million and the ongoing deficits.
Who are the people whose money is being spent? My four children are all taxpaying citizens right now. Is he referring to my grandchildren who are not paying taxes yet? Are those the people he is referring to?
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- Jun/13/24 9:36:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the items brought up in the Auditor General's study on McKinsey was a concern that she brought forward, that the government had actually trained public sector employees to do a certain task, and then it ignored those trained employees, only to go out and sole-source a contract to McKinsey.
The system under the current government is clearly broken, whether it is paying off McKinsey, Liberal friends at Deloitte or KPMG, while at the same time ignoring the in-house talent. It is silly, and it should stop. The government should do a full review on every penny spent and given out to those management contractors. Instead of shovelling out taxpayers' dollars, it should be serving taxpayers and not its friends at McKinsey.
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