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Member of Parliament

Randy Hoback

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Prince Albert
  • Saskatchewan
  • Voting Attendance: 60%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $168,935.37

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 26 - Feb/8/22
Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC)
  • Feb/8/22 5:56:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to get up in the House for the first time this year to talk about my home province and the importance of this motion to the province of Saskatchewan and its people. To make my colleagues in the Liberal Party aware, I will not take the full 20 minutes, because, as one of the sayings I had in my previous life in sales goes, when everybody is saying yes, maybe we are better off just shutting up, getting on with it and getting it done. I know it is nice to hear that. It has been interesting listening to the debate in the House. The member for Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam is from Asquith, Saskatchewan. My wife is from Asquith. The Summach family that used to work with Flexi-Coil is from Asquith too. I know that town very well. There are other members who have a relationship with Saskatchewan, and Saskatchewan has exported some wonderful people. It is nice to see them showing up in other parts of the country and coming here to the House of Commons and taking on that Saskatchewan spirit. I am sure they are all Riders fans too. Otherwise they could not have come from Saskatchewan. I will point out that CP and CN are very important to our province. Saskatchewan is an exporting province. We grow more than we could ever consume, so we have to export it. We have to get it to port and they have been there. If it were not for them in the past and going forward into the future, we would not have the province we have today, a vibrant province, and the economy we see in Canada and Saskatchewan, with the growth we are having and the great people who come from there. They are very important to us. However, in the same breath, $340 million goes a long way in a province. I know that money has been collected and the Province has spent some of it, but do members know what it was spent on? It was spent on hospitals, road crossings, schools and highways. These are the key basics that we need in our province or anywhere else across Canada for the economy to thrive and grow. These are things that give us a better standard of living, a higher quality of living. Furthermore, the people who utilize these facilities are CN and CP employees, so everybody gets the benefit. When we pay taxes, it is not always a bad thing. In fact, on the farm, we used to kind of joke that if we were paying taxes, we had a good year. It is a good sign and means that we are doing well. In this situation, there was preferential treatment that had run its course. CP had said that it no longer deserved it, and the Province of Saskatchewan unanimously agreed that it had run its course. For CP to come back now and say that it does not want to pay taxes is kind of rich since all the benefits it has received from our province far exceed the $340 million it is asking for. If we think about how much that rail line pulled out of the Province of Saskatchewan, it was billions of dollars over the years and it established the company. A good reason the company is here today is the grain shipments and forestry shipments coming out of western Canada and Saskatchewan in particular. I look at this as righting things and making sure that everything is done properly. It is about making sure that things are fair. That is what we are doing here today. I always like to see parties come together and agree. We have seen that here today and I have enjoyed it. Even the member for Winnipeg North was agreeing with us today. Now, he had some comments, but he is from Winnipeg North. Having said that, this goes back to my original point: We see agreement. I talked to the Minister of Justice, and he was on board with this. His only concern with the unanimous consent motion was that we needed to have a day to talk about it, and I agree with him on that. When he explained this to me, it made a lot of sense. This is a constitutional change. This is a big deal, and we do not do this lightly. I want to thank the member for Regina—Lewvan for bringing forward this opposition day motion so we could talk about it, think it through as a group of colleagues and ask if there are any downsides or upsides. That we actually came to the same conclusion just shows us that the House can work together. I wish more people in Canada could see the House on a day like today when it is functioning properly. I wish more people in Canada could see committees when they function like this, because this happens a lot. Of course, they never see that, and it is unfortunate. I want to thank all the parties for being good partners with us folks in Saskatchewan, for helping us get this done and for doing something that is important for the people of Saskatchewan. If it is important for the people of Saskatchewan, it is important to the people of Canada.
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