- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $115,195.70
- Government Page
- Oct/18/23 3:03:33 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, there is going to be a wave of mortgage renewals in the coming months. The Royal Bank of Canada, for one, will be renewing 41% of its mortgages. Non-stop interest rate hikes will make that difficult. Inflation is driving mortgage costs up by 30% every month. After eight years of the Prime Minister, everything is broken.
Can he explain to people how they are supposed to pay their mortgage and not end up homeless?
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Mr. Speaker, I am here to talk about the fall economic statement, which was presented last week.
For the past seven long years, the Liberals, with the shameful complicity of the NDP, have succeeded in breaking the spirit and morale of Canadians by making them poorer than they have ever been in the history of our country. When asked if I would like to share my thoughts on the fall economic statement, I did not think twice.
As members of Parliament, we are well positioned to see what is actually happening on the ground, and I wonder why the members opposite do not see how people are suffering, as we do on our side. When the Minister of Finance says that cancelling a Disney+ subscription is a good option to reduce the debt burden and make ends meet at the end of the month, it is clear that the Liberals are totally out of touch with reality.
I will give some examples. When the Liberals came to power in 2015, a litre of gas cost $1. Now, on average, it costs $1.67. This does not even take into account the increases that are expected in the new year, when this Prime Minister raises the carbon tax for a third time.
In 2015, the average price of a house in Canada was close to $300,000. Today, the average price of a house is over $746,000. This is 40% more expensive than in the United States. The Prime Minister has said he does not think about monetary policy all that much, and I have a feeling the Minister of Finance does not either. The economic update released by the Liberal-NDP coalition does not address the cost of living crisis created by government spending, which is out of control. The Prime Minister's inflationary deficits have driven up the price of groceries, gas and home heating. Canadians have never paid more in taxes than under this Prime Minister.
To reduce the cost of living in Canada, the Conservatives had two clear requirements. It was not complicated. First, we implored the government to not create any new taxes. We asked it to cancel all planned tax hikes and to not triple the carbon tax. Second, we warned the Liberals that they had to stop all new spending or ensure that any new spending was matched dollar for dollar in savings. In other words, to spend a dollar, they would have to save a dollar. What was so complicated about the Conservative Party's requests for this economic update? Nothing, it was just common sense.
I cannot show the document that I have with me, but we saw in this economic update that none of the Conservative Party's demands were met. For that reason, we cannot support this inflationary update.
The Liberals claim that they had no other choice than to double the debt. They have accumulated more debt than all previous prime ministers combined. Let us recall the 2015 election campaign. The Prime Minister, who was then the leader of the Liberal Party, said that the Liberals would have a small deficit of $10 billion the first year in office and another the second year. After that, they would balance the budget. They promised to make massive investments in the country's infrastructure.
It was a good marketing strategy. They promised to run up a deficit to invest money, and people thought that it might not be such a crazy idea. We all saw what happened. After their first four years in office, they had accumulated $100 billion in additional debt and no major infrastructure project had gotten off the ground in Canada. We fell for it from the beginning.
Then, the Prime Minister tried to make us believe that all of the spending in the past two years was related to the pandemic. However, today, we know that 40% of the new measures were not. We are talking about $205 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Officer did a study that showed that $300 billion of the $500 billion was used to implement pandemic-related measures. There again, we could look into all of that spending because there was no reason for some of it. Regardless, we know that, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's assessment, $205 billion in spending had nothing to do with the pandemic. What is worse, we do not know what that money was used for. Half a trillion dollars was spent in two years on top of the government's usual spending.
How did we get into this mess? The inflation rate is so insanely high that interest rates had to be pushed up to control it. Meanwhile, ordinary people are being bled dry.
Additional costs are related to things such as houses and mortgages. People with variable mortgages get hit first. Every time the interest rate rises, their mortgage interest rate goes up. The principal does not change, but the interest rate jumps.
People who have to renew their mortgage these days will have to pay an average of $7,000 more in interest per year for an average family. That is a chunk of change.
Our friends across the way used to love talking about how they were working for the middle class and the people who wanted to be part of it. What we have seen in recent years is the opposite of that. They have made the middle class poorer, not richer, and people are ending up in financial trouble.
The Bank of Canada announced that it had no choice but to raise the interest rate in an attempt to fight inflation driven by inflationary measures. That will make things even worse for people.
There was nothing in the fall economic update suggesting the government plans to do anything to keep all that under control. The only thing on the agenda is taxes, taxes and more taxes. We have been talking about the carbon tax for two months now.
Yesterday, I was pleased to see a report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which polled businesses across the country. One of the main conclusions is that the businesses confirm that the carbon tax is a major problem for transportation. All the costs associated with that are causing prices to go up and the consumer is left paying the bill. The CFIB is asking on behalf of its members to not increase the carbon tax. The Conservative Party is not making this up. Businesses across the country are saying that this absurd and that it needs to stop.
I am not even talking about food banks. Last month, there were 1.5 million visits to the country's food banks in just one month. That is a record number of food bank visits in the history of Canada.
I have endless examples, but the main thing I want people to remember from my remarks today is that ultimately, this economic update, which is about 100 pages long, simply repeats measures that were voted on last fall. There is nothing really new here. The Conservative Party's simple demands, which we know were backed by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, were not considered. Furthermore, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's assessments confirm what we are saying.
We are not making things up just so we can make speeches and blather on. We are stating economic realities that are easy to understand. Canadians who have to pay the bills at the end of the month understand this full well. They look to their government, which does not seem to get it. People are looking to their MPs and asking them what is going on and what they can do to help the economy make a smart recovery. That is our job.
The Conservatives are in opposition for now, but not for very long. We do not know how much longer we will be in opposition, but as long as we are, we will make sure Canadians know we are asking the right questions and making the right recommendations to the government to build a good, strong economy so that people can get up in the morning feeling happy to go to work and knowing they have enough money to treat themselves once in a while, not wondering if they will have enough money to pay the bills at the end of the month even though they have a job.
There was nothing new in the fall economic update. Nothing has changed, and that is very disappointing.
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- Oct/25/22 11:08:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable.
The subject today on opposition day is the motion moved by the Bloc Québécois. Is the issue raised in the motion relevant?
I could say yes, the same way Canada's intervention in support of Ukraine is relevant, or the treatment of the Uighurs by the Chinese Communist regime is relevant. There is no shortage of important topics in the House of Commons. Everyone has their own opinion on various topics, and the relationship with the monarchy is no different.
The real question is, is it essential that this issue be debated at a time when Quebeckers are more concerned about the impact of inflation on their lives?
Inflation and interest rates keep going up and up, even though the Prime Minister and the Governor of the Bank of Canada said not so long ago that there was no need to worry. I wonder how many people and young families decided to buy a house or a new car because interest rates were really low and they had been reassured by their Prime Minister, who was spending taxpayer money recklessly while saying that it was the right time to do it, that interest rates were low and would remain low for a long time. This was an extremely dangerous attitude that is now being confirmed as a disaster.
Let me get back to the Bloc Québécois.
What are the Bloc members doing today? They want to talk about the monarchy and changing the Constitution that has governed the country for over 150 years. The Bloc used to be the farm team for the Parti Québécois, but it has found a new vocation as the Parti Québécois's big brother. After throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the last Quebec election, the Bloc troops returned to Ottawa disappointed, having only succeeded in getting three Parti Québécois candidates elected. The leader of the Bloc threw his full political weight behind his separatist friends, but the result was very disappointing. That too was a disaster. In a sign of the times, Quebec chose a government that is prioritizing the economy and growth, rather than division.
Quite simply, the Bloc claims to speak for Quebec's National Assembly. In the recent election campaign, the Bloc went up against the Coalition Avenir Québec, the party now forming government. Now, the Bloc members are claiming to be the political arm of the National Assembly, whereas in truth, they represent three members of the third or fourth opposition party, which does not even have official status. They do not represent the CAQ government. Is there anyone left who believes in the Bloc Québécois's strategy?
When a party is searching for a purpose, a reason to exist, what could be better than talking about the Canadian Constitution?
If we pay attention, we see that the Bloc Québécois is proposing that we sever ties with the monarchy. However, what are they proposing instead? Are they suggesting that we swear allegiance to a president of the republic of Canada? In that case, the Bloc's next motion would be about severing ties with the republic.
As we can see, the Bloc Québécois is searching for a purpose. The Bloc members are looking for an excuse to justify their presence in the House, which they call a foreign parliament.
An hon. member: That is true.
Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Madam Speaker, one of my Bloc colleagues just said that it is true. He considers himself to be in a foreign parliament. That is the background for our speeches. I am not making it up. This form of belligerent rhetoric is the Bloc Québécois's standard discourse.
The fact remains that today's motion is part of a long tradition of political spinning by the Bloc. The Bloc members get up in the morning and wonder what could get people talking today, what would make a good headline. They find an issue they can spin in a way that will make the news and be fun for them. They try to figure out how they can make the federal parties look bad, meaning the Liberals, the Conservatives and the NDP.
As I always say, the easiest job in Ottawa is being the leader of the Bloc Québécois. They just have to spin issues and will never have to shape the country's destiny. Today, the Bloc Québécois chose to spin an issue so as to help their Parti Québécois friends in the National Assembly.
My priority is to influence the Liberal government so it looks after Quebeckers' future properly. The current economic situation and the imminent recession require that federal elected representatives who believe in economic success from coast to coast work together for that common goal.
The rhetoric from the leader of the Bloc Québécois is not going to impress anyone whose mortgage is getting so big that the only option is to give the keys to the bank.
No one is interested in that rhetoric when groceries cost 11.4% more, when families have to cut back on their meals and when food banks are struggling to meet demand. To use a very Québécois expression, we wonder, “What planet are they living on?”
Did the people who voted for the Bloc expect their members of Parliament to be this disconnected? In the last provincial election in Quebec, I expected to see several Bloc members take up the baton of sovereignty and jump into the fray. If they want a country, they need to work from Quebec City. Instead, they chose to stay on the bench and pray hard for the junior team to win. It was a wasted effort, however, as only three members of the Parti Québécois managed to get elected. The dream of a country called Quebec is just that: a dream.
As a result, they needed to find a purpose. What better way than wasting an important day in the House of Commons proposing that we create a republic of Canada so they can come back later with another motion to abolish the republic? The Bloc strategy is very easy to understand, and I have just lost 10 minutes of my time explaining it. I would have preferred to find ways to help Quebeckers pay their mortgage and put food on the table for their children.
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