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Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Mar/23/23 2:51:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, these non-answers are eroding public trust in our democracy. The allegations from two separate national security sources state that a member in this House privately advised Beijing officials to hold off on freeing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two Canadians who were held captive for 1,000 days. For the 16th time, on what date did the Prime Minister first learn about these allegations against a member of his caucus?

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Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Mar/23/23 2:50:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Global News printed very serious allegations about a member who sits in this House. The allegations, according to two separate national security sources, stated that he “privately advised a senior Chinese diplomat in February 2021 that Beijing should hold off freeing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor”. For the 15th time today, on what date did the Prime Minister first learn of these allegations from security officials?

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Mar/23/23 10:36:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what we need to do is get the municipal gatekeepers out of the way and work with our municipalities so more housing units can get built in this country. As someone who came from the home-building industry, I think that, with more supply, we could bring down the cost of rents and provide more units in this country to address the shortage, which is not only driving people out of home ownership but also leading to more and more people wanting to leave. The largest portion of paycheques goes to housing right now. That is unfair to the newcomers and the Canadians who are living here. Conservatives would address that.

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Mar/23/23 10:35:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member's question gives me the opportunity to talk about the Conservative plan for getting more houses built in this country, including affordable housing. Our Conservative leader recently made a proposal with respect to the 15% of federal buildings that are completely empty in this country right now. We could convert those, by working with municipalities, into affordable housing and houses. We could create more units in this country. We also need to make sure we are getting the municipal gatekeepers out of the way so we can get more houses built. We need to get more people into more houses. There is a huge supply issue, which the Liberal government has failed to address after eight years. It has caused rents to double, and it is the same thing with mortgages. Conservatives would get more houses built in this country for those who are most vulnerable and need them the most.

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Mar/23/23 10:32:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am a little surprised. I should not be surprised, actually. The Liberals make it seem like it is never their fault, and it is indeed. It is the government's wasteful spending that has put Canadians in a position where they are pinching pennies. They are literally barely hanging on. We are seeing 1.5 million Canadians visiting food banks in a single month. One in five Canadians is skipping meals in this country today. When my family came here, we came here for a better future, like many other immigrants are coming today. However, because of the government's reckless spending with the support of its costly coalition partner, the NDP, more and more families want to leave this country, not stay here and contribute to it. The government needs to rein in its spending and support Canadians by lowering their taxes so they can afford to eat and to heat their homes.

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Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Mar/23/23 10:21:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today with another opportunity to warn the government about the course it is on. Winston Churchill is famous for saying, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, and he was right. We can just look at the Liberal government. High taxes, high inflation and corporate socialism are not an innovation of today's Liberals. It has been going on for years. This is a lefty obsession: raising the taxes of everyday Canadians, and then turning around and spending so much money that the government runs massive inflationary deficits and runs up the debt. The only people who benefit are the wealthy Liberal insiders and their corporations. In the 1970s, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau did this exact same thing. At the time, he spent more than all his predecessors combined, driving up Canada's debt and leaving in his wake nearly two decades of high inflation and high interest rates. Canadians are turning in their house keys, taking on more household debt just to survive and worrying about whether they can afford to heat their homes, buy groceries or gas up their cars. It sounds very familiar. It is another example of history repeating itself. We know that, just as in the days of Pierre Trudeau, the current Prime Minister created the inflation and cost of living crisis we see today with his out-of-control spending. While he got Tiff Macklem and the Bank of Canada to cover his massive deficits with money printing, he did nothing to address the inflation concerns or ease the inflationary pressures of higher taxes. Instead, the Prime Minister passes on the taxes. He takes from everyday Canadians and spends their money on high-priced consultants and Liberal insiders who get cushy government contracts. The concept of money printing and inflation is not even the invention of the Liberals of the 1970s. In the 1700s, French banker and economist Richard Cantillon observed that the rich and the insiders get all the benefits when the government increases the money supply. In those days, the rich and the insiders were the aristocracy closest to the French king. When a gold mine was discovered and the supply of gold increased, Cantillon saw that the value of gold did not increase, and neither did the wealth of the everyday people. Instead, the value of gold diminished. Instead of one gold coin purchasing a loaf of bread, it now took two, yet the wealthy gold mine owner and the landowner growing grain for bread were better off. They could keep spending money on luxuries, while everyday people fell further behind. Today, Canada sees the same thing happening. We are not just witnessing the 1970s repeat themselves. We are seeing fundamental economics return with a vengeance. Leave it to the Liberal government to ignore an at least 300-year-old lesson in inflation. Today's aristocracy is the ones benefiting from the $600 billion spent in the last eight years. These insiders enjoy privileged access to billions of tax dollars stashed away in Liberal programs like the Canada Infrastructure Bank or the Canada growth fund. These are the same insiders who will benefit from the so-called “just transition”, which will eliminate hundreds of thousands of good-paying, responsible Canadian energy jobs. They are the same insiders who will benefit from the $21.4 billion the Prime Minister is handing out to consultants like McKinsey, and from what his ministers are handing out to their besties in cushy contracts. These insiders are the same ones getting rich off the inflationary deficits and wasteful spending. Do not get me wrong. As a proud Albertan and Conservative, I support the free market and individuals' ability to make and use their money the way they want to. What I have a problem with is when the Liberal government takes more out of the pockets of everyday Canadians and in some quasi-corporate socialist way redistributes these tax dollars to the rich and the Liberal insiders. This is such a disregard for freedom, free enterprise and Canadians' money. The blatant payoffs to Liberal friends using taxpayers' money only make life more expensive for the rest of us. As the Leader of the Opposition has clearly explained to this House, just as Cantillon observed 300 years ago, it is this type of government waste that causes the people to suffer while the rich insiders have never had it so good. What is most frustrating is how the Liberals cannot see that the increasing cost of government is tied to the increasing cost of living. That is what I take issue with. In the study the finance committee overtook, despite the warnings and voices of everyday Canadians pleading with us to address the real issue, the cost of living crisis, the Liberal-NDP costly coalition joined forces to make recommendations that will not restore affordability. In our dissenting report, Conservatives were clear: The Liberal government must rein in its inflationary deficit spending and address its ballooning debt. We reiterated our calls for no new taxes and no new spending, including all planned tax hikes, such as the tripling of the carbon tax, the second carbon tax, the luxury tax, the escalator tax on alcohol, and the payroll tax increases. We called on the Liberal government to adopt the pay-as-you-go law the Conservative leader proposed, which was endorsed by the Minister of Finance in a letter to her own ministers last fall. The reality is that, after eight years of the current Prime Minister, Canadians are out of money and the Liberals are out of touch. We cannot saddle future generations with borrowing for current spending and deficits. Interest rates are the highest they have been since the 2008 global recession. One in five Canadians is skipping meals, out of money or accessing charities for basic needs. Newcomers are being driven out of this country. One in five newcomers wants to pack up and leave. The number one cause of that is the high cost of living in this country. Mortgages and rents have doubled since 2015. The average rent across Canada's 10 biggest cities is now over $2,200 a month, compared to almost $1,200 a month in 2015. Mortgages are now above $3,100 compared to $1,400 a month in 2015. All the while, Canada has the lowest homes per capita in the G7, and the lack of supply has home prices still inflated 30% above prepandemic levels. This is the result of eight years of out-of-control Liberal spending and increasing tax hikes. That is why Conservatives are calling for budget 2023 to reverse the economic mismanagement brought on by the Prime Minister. Canada needs to stop printing money and, instead, make more of what money buys; axe the damaging and failed carbon tax, especially for farmers, so they can produce the food that Canada and the world need; remove gatekeepers to free up and speed up permits for homes, so that people can afford homes and so that job-creating energy projects can get built, which will create paycheques at home in Canada. By addressing inflationary deficit spending and high taxes, we can bring home lower prices and more powerful paycheques so that hard work pays off again. This pre-budget consultation report fails to address the inflation and the cost of living crisis, and fails to provide real solutions. That is why, while I am on my feet, I move that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: the 10th Report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented on Friday, March 10, 2023, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Finance with instruction that it amend the same so as to recommend that the government create a “Blue Seal” National Professional Testing Standard to quickly license professionals, like doctors and nurses, who prove they are qualified, and that anyone who has passed the common national test for their profession would get a “Blue Seal” certificate allowing them to work in any province or territory that chooses to join the Blue Seal Standard.

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Context: House Hansard - 168 - Mar/10/23

Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Mar/10/23 12:14:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising today to table the Conservatives' dissenting opinion to the finance committee's pre-budget consultation report. First, I want to say that Conservatives thank the clerks and analysts, and all committee staff, for their work during this process. We also thank the witnesses who appeared or made written submissions. Conservatives dissent to this report because it fails to address the inflation and cost of living crisis created by increasing tax hikes and out of control Liberal spending. For those reasons, we cannot support the recommendations of the report. I would also like to add that Conservatives would like to see a better process put in place so that the finance committee could complete the pre-budget consultation process more efficiently and effectively, and that the recommendations of stakeholders and the committee are considered and reported to this place well ahead of the budget season.

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Context: House Hansard - 165 - Mar/7/23

Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Mar/7/23 3:01:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have the back pockets of Canadians, and we would never vote for policies that would make housing double. After eight years of their failures, rents and mortgages have doubled since 2015. Random Liberal Bill Morneau said that the government overspent. That made the Bank of Canada jack up its rates to counter that. Now the CIBC is saying that 20% of its mortgages are at a point where monthly payments do not even cover interest anymore. Therefore, will the most expensive housing minister in Canada's history stop patting himself on the back for a job well failed and admit that he broke housing in our country?

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Context: House Hansard - 165 - Mar/7/23

Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Mar/7/23 3:00:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of Liberal failures, the Liberals continue to break records, just not ones many can celebrate. Not only are one in five Canadians skipping meals, but food bank usage is at a record high. A Mississauga food bank saw a 41% increase in usage, serving more than 13,000 people in January alone. That is the average attendance of an Ottawa Senators' game. Why does the Prime Minister continue to brag and celebrate his failed policies that sent 1.5 million Canadians to a food bank, or was that his plan all along?

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Context: House Hansard - 164 - Mar/6/23

Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Mar/6/23 2:53:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we will always vote against failed Liberal policies that double home costs across this country. After eight years of the Liberals' failed policies, rents, mortgages and home prices have doubled, and home ownership is nothing but a dream for newcomers. Not everyone has a trust fund, such as the Prime Minister does, or can absorb all the tax hikes the Liberals keep causing for newcomers and Canadians alike. Will the Liberals finally take some responsibility, admit that they have caused this housing crisis and get out of the way so we can show them how to fix it?

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Context: House Hansard - 164 - Mar/6/23

Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Mar/6/23 2:52:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister's failures, home is where the broken heart is. Housing has become more unaffordable, unattainable and more broken than ever before. The Governor of the Bank of Canada admitted that it was the Liberals' overspending that caused eight consecutive bank interest rate hikes in one year, and now homes are more unaffordable than ever before. After eight years of the Liberals' failures, mortgage costs do not even cover interest payments. Will the Prime Minister take some responsibility for breaking housing and stop gatekeeping so we can fix everything he broke?

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Context: House Hansard - 162 - Feb/16/23

Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Feb/16/23 2:34:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister continues to peddle misinformation. His own budget watchdog has proved that Canadians get less in their pockets than what they have to pay for this failed carbon tax. He has missed every single emissions-reduction target that he set for himself, and emissions have gone up. That sounds like a failed tax plan to me. When will he stop with the misinformation, stop the virtue signalling and axe the failed carbon tax so Canadians can keep the heat on?

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Context: House Hansard - 162 - Feb/16/23

Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Feb/16/23 2:33:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the Liberal Prime Minister is scaring newcomers away. When they are not stuck in this Liberal-made backlog mess, one in five are saying that they are already planning on leaving. The number one reason, according to a new poll, is the high cost of living. This Liberal inflation is driving up the cost of everything and the Liberals will make things even worse for newcomers when they triple their failed carbon tax. When will the Liberals show some compassion and axe the failed carbon tax so newcomers actually want to stay, stop forcing them to leave, and keep the heat on?

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Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Feb/14/23 2:30:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the problem with that plan is that it is not an environmental plan. I looked for it and I could not find it. Can anyone else find it? Mr. Speaker, did you find it? What I did find was a tax plan that made gas, groceries and home heating more expensive. It is a tax plan that has not helped the Liberals meet a single emissions-reduction target, and they have made emissions go up. When will they stop their fake virtue signalling and cancel the failed carbon tax so Canadians can keep the heat on?

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Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Feb/14/23 2:29:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister's incompetence, home heating has become a luxury. He said he could not find a business case to provide the world with clean Canadian energy and cancelled pipelines, making the cost of home heating double in this country, yet he found a business case to shovel billions of dollars to his Liberal crony insiders, giving them cushy contracts. Now, Canadians are having to turn down the heat and wear blankets right before he triples his failed carbon tax. Will the Prime Minister come up with a real climate change plan and stop with the virtue signalling so Canadians can keep the heat on and take the tax off?

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Feb/14/23 10:31:31 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is too bad the NDP does not talk about government greed, the greed that actually is hurting Canadians. That is the tough part. New Democrats actually team up with the Liberal government to make sure home heating is more expensive, gas is more expensive and groceries are more expensive. Conservatives will make sure we axe the tax and make sure Canadians can keep the heat on.

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Feb/14/23 10:28:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, obviously what we are repeating is working, since that member repeated what we are repeating. It is definitely working. It is too bad the Bloc party will not stand with Canadians, will not stand with Quebeckers, to help lower the cost of living today that the collective parties have caused on Canadians. There is more pain today than ever. It is too bad they are not standing with those 1.5 million Canadians who are visiting a food bank in a single month, the one in five Canadians who needs to skip meals or the seniors who need to turn down the heat and use blankets because they cannot afford to heat their homes and buy groceries at the same time. Conservatives will continue to fight this unjust tax and make sure Canadians can keep on living and have the best way of life.

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