- Mar/22/24 11:31:42 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years under the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister and his carbon tax scam, Calgary food bank usage has skyrocketed 50%. Albertans pay $2,900 into this scam and only get $2,000 back. There is a really bad Liberal math joke in there that just does not add up.
Yesterday this costly coalition voted to hike the carbon tax by 23% on April 1. Why is their obsession with the carbon tax more important than the 70% of Canadians who are telling them to spike the hike so they can feed their families?
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- Mar/21/24 5:02:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the House we often hear that the carbon tax does not apply to people in Quebec. We hear that quite a bit, but the Governor of the Bank of Canada said that this affects everybody all across Canada. What he meant is that today's inflation rate is 2.8%. A huge chunk of that, 0.6 percentage points, has to do with the carbon tax scam. If we were to eliminate that or axe the tax, as Conservatives would say, the doubling of mortgage rates could probably come down because it would lower inflation and interest rates could start coming down. That is how big an effect it has on housing and the inflation that we see today.
I wonder if my hon. colleague could talk a little more about how much of an impact the carbon tax scam has on Quebeckers.
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- Mar/21/24 4:26:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the member on many of the falsehoods he stated, and not even with my own facts. The Prime Minister's own hand-picked Parliamentary Budget Officer said that more Canadians are worse off because of this carbon tax scam, and there is more and more proof. An average Alberta family will pay $2,900, but the rebate is only $2,000. In Ontario, where the member is from, an average family will pay $1,600 in this carbon tax scam and will only get $1,000 back. The PBO has debunked everything the member is saying, and I will remind the Liberals that it has not helped emissions come down.
When 70% of Canadians and premiers, including the premier in the Liberal leader's province and a Liberal premier in Atlantic Canada, have asked the government to spike the hike because families cannot afford to eat, heat and house themselves, why is the Liberals' radical ideology about this carbon tax more important than those 70% of Canadians who are asking the government to spike the hike? Why do they not let Canadians decide, in a carbon tax election, whether they want to keep this carbon tax scam or scrap the Prime Minister and go with a common-sense Conservative plan?
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- Mar/20/24 2:22:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister and his carbon tax scam are not worth the cost as Canadians get poorer. Two million Canadians visit a food bank in a single month, with a million more projected to this year, yet these climate zealots will hike the carbon tax 23% on April 1, making the cost of everything more expensive.
The PBO proved that Canadians pay more into this scam than what they get back in these phony rebates. Seventy per cent of premiers and Canadians reject this carbon tax scam, including Liberal premiers. That is why our common-sense Conservative leader is calling a no-confidence vote on the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister to spike the hike.
Will the Liberal lapdog NDP and inflationist Bloc stand with the majority of Canadians and common-sense Conservatives to call on the Prime Minister to spike the hike, or will they continue to support the scam? It is time for a carbon tax election so that Canadians can scrap the Prime Minister, and Conservatives can axe the tax.
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- Mar/19/24 5:07:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Calgary Nose Hill for so eloquently reminding Canadians that common-sense Conservatives would spike the hike and axe the tax every step of the way.
Ronald Reagan once said, “When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. And...the bill comes in two ways: higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident.”
After eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, Canadians are left with that bill, when they got 40-year highs in inflation due to the current government's doubling of the debt, which was supported by the NDP, that led to the most rapid interest rate hikes seen in Canadian history, and it is only getting worse. That also led to the doubling of rents and the doubling of mortgages. Now, it takes 25 years just to save up for a down payment on a house, when just before the current Prime Minister, one could pay off a mortgage in 25 years. That is what happens when we have a fiscally irresponsible Liberal-NDP government.
After eight years, more is going toward shelter costs off the hard-working Canadians' paycheques than ever before. In some cases now, because of the government's uncontrolled spending, it can be 60% to 80% off Canadians' paycheques every single month going into just housing costs. That is why today we are seeing students living under bridges and people with good-paying jobs having to live in their cars.
Now, more than ever, people are going into food banks. In some cases, double-income-earning families are going into food banks because they cannot afford the cost of gas, groceries and home heating going up day by day because of this carbon tax scam. Groceries will be up another $700 this year because the Liberal-NDP government is going to tax the farmers, the transporters and the retailers. What they do not understand is that at the end of the day, all those costs get passed down to the Canadians who are buying the food. Now, at food banks, we see empty shelves and long lineups. In fact, the lineups have now become so bad that the police have had to intervene, helping to hand out food and to control some of those lineups.
This is after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government. Many newcomers came to this country with the promise of the Canadian dream that they could afford a home, could afford to buy groceries and could have a safe future, but after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, life has never cost so much. There is crime, chaos and disorder all over the streets, and the dream of home ownership is dead, especially for nine out of 10 young people, who will never be able to afford a home because of the current government's out-of-control spending.
In fact, this carbon tax scam does not give more back than what Canadians have to pay into it. That was proven by the Parliamentary Budget Officer in his reports, and yesterday, when he came to committee, he proved again that Canadians are poorer because of the carbon tax scam. In fact, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, on multiple occasions, proved that axing the tax would put a massive dent in the inflationary crisis we see today.
Of the current inflation number, 0.6 would be taken off overnight. For hard-working, struggling Canadians today, that means the Governor of the Bank of Canada could start lowering those interest rates sooner, which means interest rates for mortgages could go down and rents could go down. However, with the continuous spending and the ideological obsession with making sure they cause economic pain with no environmental gain by the Liberal-NDP government, Canadians do not see a hope for gas, groceries and fuel prices to come down. That is unfortunate.
There are two million Canadians going into food banks in a single month, and this year alone, a million more will go because of the cost of food. The Liberal-NDP government will do nothing to help that and will cause more pain to hard-working Canadians.
Of the newcomers, 84% say that they do not even know why they came here. That Canadian dream is a nightmare to them now. The hope of owning a home and the hope of having a safe future for their kids are gone, and on top of that, they cannot afford groceries. There are moms we hear about who are rationing their food and who are making sure their kids are fed but are having to starve themselves. I have been to those food banks where I have seen this happen.
In fact, when we talk about no environmental gain and all the economic pain, we do not have to look further than Alberta. The Liberal government says that people get more back in these phony rebates. On average, an Albertan family will pay $2,900 into the carbon tax scam. The rebate is $2,000. There is a Liberal math joke in there somewhere because the numbers do not add up.
I remember the first time I ran for federal office. It was in 2019, and I went to the door of a single mom in a corner house with a for sale sign on it. I will never forget that conversation. I went to the door. I told her who I was and what our plan was. She told me to hang on and ran to get her Direct Energy bill. With tears in her eyes, she said that she had a for sale sign on her house because she used to work in oil and gas. She was a single mom and was laid off from her job, so she had to sell her house in order to feed her kids and to just survive. It was because of the anti-energy, anti-Alberta agenda of the Liberal-NDP government that she was laid off from her job.
She then showed me her Direct Energy bill and asked me what the carbon tax was. She had always heated her home, and she questioned why she was being punished for doing something she had always done. She could barely feed her kids, and they were just taking more and more money from her. That is exactly what the carbon tax scam is. It is more pain for everyday Canadians, with no environmental gains. The Liberal-NDP government's own environment department says it does not even track how many emissions go down because they cannot. It is a scam. It has been a scam all along.
Common-sense Conservatives will address the cost-of-living crisis by axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime. In the meantime, we are going to continue to call on the ideologically obsessed, carbon tax-obsessed Liberal-NDP government to axe the tax, scrap the scam and spike the hike.
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- Mar/19/24 5:01:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to check. I do not think the member is wearing a tie.
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- Feb/26/24 3:30:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives are presenting a dissenting report. The committee report does not recommend reducing the out-of-control deficit spending by the Liberal-NDP government, which has driven up inflation and interest rates. It does not address Canada's GDP, which has been declining since September 2022 and is lower than it was in 2018. It also does not recommend axing the carbon tax scam or reversing any of the Liberals' other tax increases.
Canadians are in a cost of living crisis and are getting poorer. After eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, the Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost. Common-sense Conservatives will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
We would like to thank the committee staff, clerk, analysts and witnesses for their work on the pre-budget consultations.
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- Feb/12/24 2:12:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, this Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost or corruption of his arrive scam app, which we did not need and which did not work. The Auditor General found that this app was the worst NDP-Liberal mismanagement she has ever seen. The $80,000 app turned into a $60 million scandal, at least. It is impossible to determine the actual cost, thanks to this Prime Minister's complex corruption. At least $12 million went to Liberal insiders who did no work.
This Prime Minister continues to demonstrate that he and his arrive scam app are not worth the cost or the corruption. The SNC-Lavalin scandal saw strong women getting kicked out of the caucus for standing up to his corruption. The WE scandal saw another minister take the fall for the Prime Minister's family getting paid off.
As the RCMP continues its criminal investigation, another cabinet minister could get thrown under the bus to cover up the Prime Minister's crime, chaos and corruption. After eight years, Canadians cannot afford any more of this costly, corrupt Prime Minister.
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Mr. Speaker, going back to the point, the Conservatives know how to balance a budget. They know it does not balance itself.
They also know that they do not need to spend on the backs of Canadians like the government did, like giving $237 million to a Liberal insider MP and jet-setting around the world while the country is falling apart.
We know what responsible leadership looks like. We know how to balance a budget. They need to get on board, do the same and stop causing pain to Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, congratulations to the member for Kingston and the Islands. He finally admitted it. The Conservatives actually balanced the budget. Let us give him a round of applause, everybody.
I thank him for admitting that, something that his government—
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Mr. Speaker, the costly coalition strikes again. The fall economic statement gave us a window into the government's ongoing spending problem and the uncertain economic future that Canadians are bracing for. Liberal-made inflation continues to be a reality for Canadians and their families, while Liberal spending continues at a record pace.
After this Prime Minister spent more than all prime ministers before him combined, the finance minister had an opportunity to get her government's spending under control, listen to Canadians, stop new taxes and cancel the tripling of the carbon tax. There was hope that the finance minister would hear the plea to follow the wisdom of the Conservative leader that a dollar of savings would be found for every new dollar spent.
This update shows that the Prime Minister's addiction to spending shut her down. What is unfortunate is that it means Canadians will continue to pay record prices for groceries, gas and home heating. It means mortgages, loans and rent will all cost more, and it means Canadians continue to fall further and further behind.
It is like our country is being pulled back into the days of Pierre Trudeau, a prime minister who also inherited an excellent fiscal position and stable economy but then spent everything in the treasury and more, adding billions to the national debt. One deficit after another increased Canada's debt by 1,000%, and the deficit in his last year in office was over $37 billion, which is roughly $90 billion in today's money and eerily like last year's deficit. Canadians were also hit with high Liberal-made inflation and high interest rates caused by that spending. As a result, it took 13 years for the federal government to be pulled out of the deficit tailspin left by that government.
We are seeing the same pattern re-emerge as this Prime Minister adds hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt. Liberal-made inflation continues, and interest rates caused by his out-of-control spending are rising. The Liberal government took over from the Conservatives, who balanced the budget and left the finances in good shape. Conservatives shepherded Canada through the 2008 recession without record-high spending or inflation. The inflation rate under the previous government never reached 4%, despite the recession and wars in the Middle East.
In contrast, before even one COVID case was detected in Canada, the Prime Minister had already added $110 billion to the debt. He then proceeded to spend and spend and spend, to the tune of half a trillion dollars in just the last two years. Liberals told Canadians that their enormous spending spree was to protect people from COVID. We learned that almost half of the $500 billion was actually not even related to pandemic measures and supports. Even the part of those hundreds of billions of dollars that was COVID related is also very questionable.
In budget 2022, the government continued to add to the debt with a $90-billion deficit as it announced $30 billion in new spending. This was at a time when inflation was at 6.7% and climbing, and stakeholders such as the Conference Board of Canada warned that new spending on this scale would add further fuel to this inflationary fire.
Since fiscal year 2014-15 and all the way to 2020-21, the government's program expenses have increased by 113%. The bureaucracy has also grown to almost 400,000 employees, costing taxpayers $60.7 billion. The government loves to claim it was creating jobs, but it turns out it did it for its bureaucracy, using money it got from Canadians struggling with Liberal inflation. What the government's economic update does not show Canadians is how the Liberals plan to return to fiscal stability or how they will rein in their spending. It instead reannounces several billion dollars from the 2022 budget and adds over $6 billion in new spending.
The PBO, economists and the Conservative leader have all warned the government that its out-of-control spending is driving up inflation. Now Canadians are getting hit from the left with inflation, as well as being squeezed by higher interest rates hiked by the same Bank of Canada that has kept printing money for the Liberals to spend.
Hard-working Canadians and their families are not even getting by, and any support the government proposes is evaporated by inflation, taxes, and higher mortgages and rents. Grocery inflation is at a 40-year record high as prices increased 11.4% in September. That has led to one in five Canadians skipping meals and forced 1.5 million people to visit a food bank in just one month. One-third of those food bank users are children.
It is not only grocery inflation that is eating up Canadians' paycheques. Home heating bills are also soaring. Natural gas prices were hit with 37% inflation, and other fuels increased by 48.7%.
The solution proposed by the finance minister is for families to cancel their Disney+ subscription. How out of touch does one have to be to tell Canadians that billions and billions of inflationary spending is a good thing and they should not worry if they cannot afford to eat, heat their home, or go to work, because cancelling their $14-a-month subscription will fix everything.
This is from a minister who makes way more than the average Canadian, kept her job during the lockdowns, voted to keep COVID measures in place long after the rest of the world opened up, and fed the Prime Minister’s spending addiction with taxpayers’ money. People in my riding and many parts of Canada cannot even afford Internet, let alone Disney+. They choose between heating their homes, feeding their kids, and paying for rent or their mortgage.
I grew up in an immigrant family that had very little. We knew, though, that if we worked hard and kept dreaming of a better future, we could one day achieve the Canadian dream. I know that through hard work and the grace of God, I am lucky to be standing here in this place, representing the community I grew up in and knowing my family is going to be okay.
That is not a luxury that many other Canadians and newcomers have. In a developed country like Canada, it should be possible for anyone, no matter where they come from or what their last name is, to work hard and get back what they are willing to put in. Unfortunately, the reality today is that dream is gone.
Conservatives have stood in the House week after week, demanding on behalf of Canadians that the government stop new taxes and cancel its plans to triple the carbon tax. Even after the Bank of Canada's governor said the carbon tax added to inflation, and even after the inflation numbers showed home heating costs increasing by ridiculous amounts, the costly coalition voted against our motions and responded to questions with condescending statements that ignored Canadians’ pain.
Liberals insist that spending more money and raising taxes is the solution to the fire they started. The left also loves to talk about so-called greedflation, but the real greed here is the profits the government is making off the empty stomachs of Canadians. The government is now making more revenue as inflation drives up the tax dollars the government brings in.
Canadians are hurtling towards a long, cold and hungry winter, and the other side does not look encouraging, yet the minister wants everyone to believe that Canada will be fine while all the spending, inflation and high interest rates wreak havoc on our economy. The government and the Liberal insiders might be fine, sitting on all the taxpayer money, but the people who paid those taxes are already paying the price.
Even more frustrating for Canadians is that this update had the opportunity to do what is right and stop the out-of-control spending, the taxing and the virtue signalling, yet none of that was done. Savings were not found to pay for new spending. The tripling carbon tax, payroll tax, second carbon tax and inflation tax continue targeting Canadians while loading up government coffers.
It is time to stop flooding the economy with government money and create more of what Canadians’ money buys: more homes, more energy and more food here at home. With the Conservative leader as prime minister, a Conservative government will remove gatekeepers. We will build more homes and affordable energy projects and let Canada’s world-class agriculture sector grow the food the world needs. Canadians are out of money, and the costly coalition is out of touch. While the Liberals continue to fail Canadians, Conservatives will fight to restore the Canadian promise and make hard work mean something again in this country.
For these reasons and more, I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-32, an act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022, and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022, because the bill brings in new inflationary spending that is not matched by an equivalent saving, and does not cancel planned tax hikes.
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- Feb/5/24 2:30:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we will continue to vote every single time against all measures that make Canadians' lives even harder and even more expensive.
Conservatives are on the side of Canadians who are having to go to food banks more than ever before and for whom the cost of gas, groceries and home heating is more expensive because of the Liberals' carbon tax scam. The Liberal-NDP government is immune to the pain it is causing Canadians, because it is always working for Liberal insiders and consultants.
Why does the government not scrap the scam and axe the tax to bring down the cost of gas, groceries and home heating?
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- Feb/5/24 2:29:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal-NDP government continues to scam Canadians with its carbon tax. It said it would reduce emissions; it did not. It said Canadians would get more in the phony rebates; they do not. It plans to increase the carbon tax scam in April, making the cost of everything go up as two million Canadians visit a food bank in a single month, a third of whom are children. After eight years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost.
Will the Liberals stop their plans to increase the carbon tax scam on April 1 that will make the cost of gas, groceries and home heating even more expensive?
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- Feb/1/24 7:14:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me begin by thanking my good friend, the member for Bay of Quinte, for bringing this private member's bill forward that is going to help Canadians.
The fast and furious finance minister speeds through the streets of Alberta but is as slow as a snail when it comes to legislation that actually matters. I thank my good friend from the Bay of Quinte for waking up the Liberals and hopefully waking up the finance minister to pass this legislation to help many Canadians and hopefully get our economy back on track.
Canada has a problem. Our country is getting poorer and so are our people. Since September 2022, the GDP per person has been declining. In fact, the real GDP per person was lower in the third quarter of 2023 than it was in the second quarter of 2018. That means five years of Canadians' wealth has been completely wiped out and the economy is less productive. Why is this important to the debate this evening? Because, fundamentally, getting GDP per person back on track relies on getting Liberal red tape and regulations out of the way and making the economy more competitive.
Philip Cross, the former chief economic analyst of Statistics Canada, has raised concerns about Canada's lagging productivity growth, pointing out that Canada's GDP per person growth rate is the worst since the Great Depression. In the past decade, productivity has only grown 4.3%, as opposed to the U.S., which saw a 47.4% growth rate. In fact, according to the OECD, Canada is last among developed countries for GDP per person growth, a statistic that the Liberal government even included in budget 2022.
William Robson, CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute said just this past December that business investment in Canada has not been this bad since the Great Depression. He pointed out that since 2015, capital per worker has been dropping while our population continues to climb, a situation that will lead to an even less productive and less wealthy economy.
Compared to the U.S., from 2014 to 2021, the Fraser Institute found that business investment per worker in Canada declined by 20%, while in the same period, U.S. investment per worker increased almost 15%. This context is important to this debate because it once again highlights the desperate need Canada has for more competition in all sectors of the economy.
According to the competition commissioner, Canada's already concentrated industries, such as banking, airlines, railways, telecommunications and groceries are only getting more concentrated. He noted that the barriers to entry are too high and too expensive. The red tape, the gatekeepers and Liberal anti-competition, anti-innovation, anti-modernization policies have shut down companies from around the world coming to Canada and from the private sector restarting growth in the economy.
Ninety-three per cent of all banking assets in Canada are controlled by the six biggest banks: RBC, TD, BMO, Scotiabank, CIBC and National Bank, as well as HSBC, which is being bought out by RBC. This has resulted in cookie-cutter services being offered at virtually the same price at all major financial institutions. Businesses and people want financial services that are tailor-made to their needs and that are accessible, easy to use and affordable.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business recently published a study that shows that overall satisfaction by businesses in banks varies by size. Smaller businesses tend to trust credit unions and smaller financial institutions more as there is better customer services and more connection to their own communities, while medium and bigger businesses rely on larger financial institutions for access to larger amounts of financing. The options that these businesses have in finding the right institutions with the best services are shrinking.
Compared to the U.S., Canada has 34 domestic banks versus roughly 4,844 domestic American banks. That means there are roughly 121,000 Canadians for every bank, compared to just 66,000 Americans for every bank in the U.S.. In the U.S., there are almost 4,800 credit unions, while in Canada there are only 200.
Competition in any sector is vital to lowering the cost of the goods we buy and the services we use as consumers. More importantly, it also leads to innovation and modernization that will allow Canada's industries to compete globally. That is why consumer-led banking is key to the success of innovation in Canada's financial sector and for bringing home affordable banking solutions for all Canadians.
There are examples globally of this modernization actually working to bring home lower bank fees, better services and more economic growth. The prime example is the model of the U.K., where since 2017, the growth of consumer-led banking has been exceptional and, in fact, has saved businesses and individuals over 18 billion pounds, thanks to lower or no banking fees whatsoever.
The British government brought in consumer-led banking as a market-based fix for an overly uncompetitive financial sector, and between 2018 and 2023, the number of fintechs in the consumer-led banking space jumped from four to 295. There are more than seven million users of consumer-led banking in the U.K. and, as of 2022, they had made 68.2 million payments using this technology. For those users, banking and transaction fees are zero. This modernization has added billions of pounds to the U.K. economy, created thousands of jobs and created real competition in the financial sector.
Globally, the consumer-led banking market has grown to $128 billion as the U.K., most of the EU, Norway, India, Australia, South Korea, the Philippines, Brazil and Mexico bring consumer-led banking online. The U.S., Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan are joining Canada in reviewing or setting up a consumer-led banking system. The success that the U.K. has had with this modernization, and the fact that major economies and trading partners with Canada are bringing consumer-led banking online, should be an indication that Canada needs to get the ball rolling.
However, more importantly than that, we see the benefits that consumer-led banking can have for people and businesses: the savings, the access to financial services and the freedom of choice. Fintechs in Canada are already building up the customer base, the technology and the services that will be important to making a modern banking system work. Questrade, Wealthsimple, Neo Financial, EQ Bank, Borrowell, Intuit and others are already building the components to offer competition, choice, and low-fee, tailor-made banking options to all Canadians.
In fact, credit unions are wanting to partner with fintechs to offer better services and products to their customers, but fintechs and credit unions need the government to get out of the way and let consumer-led banking go ahead. There are more companies that want to come to Canada, like KOHO, which just applied to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy to be considered a schedule 1 domestic bank and have access to the Canadian market.
After the Liberal-NDP government rammed through the RBC-HSBC merger without actually thinking of the Canadians who would be impacted by the decision, it is good to see that there are still fintechs and financial companies out there that want to do business in Canada. As common-sense Conservatives look to the future without the Liberal government and the fast and furious finance minister, our side is working with Canadians and businesses to develop real solutions that will bring home competition and productivity growth.
We need to focus on these common-sense solutions for Canadians and all newcomers. It benefits not only the people living here but also the many who will come here looking for a better future. When they come here, they get hit with Liberal-NDP high inflation, high taxes and a high cost of living. At least we can do this for them so they will have the freedom to move around their data and have more competition, which would lead to better products in the future.
It is clear; the common-sense Conservative team is going to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. Let us bring it home.
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Madam Speaker, what we voted against, what will continue to vote against and what we always have voted against is a punitive carbon tax that the NDP-Liberal government is more than happy to put on Canadians. It is so ideologically obsessed with the carbon tax and ensuring people pay more for carbon that it wants to do that to the war-torn country of Ukraine. It does not want to help anybody. The fact that those parties have helped to try to cripple our energy sector is only empowering Putin to use the money from his energy sector to fund his war. Shame on them.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the member that the recovery after the pandemic was harder than what people thought. The Conservatives have been saying all along that when there are too many dollars chasing too few goods that is exactly why a lot of the businesses are suffering today, let alone everyday Canadians. The government continues to spend.
Let us remind everyone that 40% of the pandemic spending had nothing to do with the pandemic in the first place. Money went to organized crime through the government. Money went to people who literally were dead, to people who did not live in Canada and to public servants. The government is spending more and more money, yet it is not helping small businesses. It is raising their taxes. It slammed on a second carbon tax that applies without any rebate whatsoever. These types of things are stifling the economy.
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Madam Speaker, first, we are going to cut the number of Liberal seats and replace them with Conservative seats so we will have a strong Conservative government. We are also going to cut waste, waste like the $35-billion Infrastructure Bank that has built zero projects. The government have padded the pockets of Liberal cronies and insiders with that.
We are going to cut things like the arrive scam app that cost $45 million, which went to, once again, Liberal insiders, and the $1-billion slush fund that is under investigation for the same reasons. We are going to cut the woke policies. We are going to axe the carbon tax to bring down the cost of gas, groceries and home heating. The $20 billion that has gone to Liberal consultants to cover up the cabinet's incompetence will be cut as well. That is just the beginning.
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Madam Speaker, before I get started I would like to say that I am splitting my time with the hon. member from the soup-and-salad bowl of Canada, Mr. Lake Simcoe himself, the hon. member for York—Simcoe.
Thomas Jefferson reportedly said that democracy would cease to exist when you took away from those who were willing and able to work and gave to those who were not.
Speaking from my own experience, coming as an immigrant to this country, my family, like many, came here looking for that Canadian dream that so many are coming to Canada for still. However, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, we know it is not worth the cost. We see now, more than ever, that it is harder, whether for a Canadian or for a newcomer, to survive in this country. It is so much so that more than 400,000 people left Canada just last year. That is not a good sign for any country to think that it can prosper when 400,000-plus people are leaving. I look at the reasons that people are leaving or wanting to leave, and the number one cause is the cost of living. Number two is that their credentials are not being recognized. Both are issues that Conservatives have plans for.
I do not believe that anyone moves to this country thinking that their government will work against them, but when they get here they are proven wrong, time and time again, by the Liberal-NDP government. Their paycheques are attacked; their civil liberties are attacked; their freedom is attacked, and their freedom of speech is attacked over and over again by the Liberal-NDP government. It makes them rethink why they came to this country in the first place.
This is because everything does feel like it is broken here. People are getting taxed more. Their paycheques do not go as far as they used to. They are working harder. They are working so much that many people I have talked to are working two or three jobs. If I talk to anyone in any riding, one thing I am seeing as being more and more of a trend is that more people are picking up Uber jobs or Uber Eats jobs or Skip the Dishes jobs on top of the jobs they are already working. I remember, when growing up, that people would pick up taxi jobs or a job on the side just to make extra money above and beyond whatever their savings were. However, it is sad to see that after eight years of the current Liberal-NDP government, that is a must now, even to pay for the basic necessities just to live here in Canada.
The inflation that was caused by all the spending by the Liberal-NDP government, which continues to spend, made interest rates go up in the last 19 months at the most rapid pace seen in the last 20 years. In fact, the intensity of those rate changes is actually the highest in Canadian history. Because the government spent and wasted so much money, the Governor of the Bank of Canada had to tackle that inflation by raising interest rates.
The government's own housing department officials say that they have no faith in the current government to build the homes that are needed today. In fact, CMHC said in a recent study that homebuilding was actually down 7%. When we look at some of the factors, we see that builders are not building and buyers are not buying, because of those high interest rates. They went up once again, because of the overspending of the Liberal-NDP government.
When we look at Bill C-59, we see that the only thing the government has included with respect to housing is that it changed the housing department's name and increased the funding for more photo ops. There is no concrete action that would be taken to help with housing affordability. After eight years, we have seen rents double and mortgages double, and even the down payment needed for a house has doubled in just eight years.
Canadians pay today over one-third of their income in taxes, and the rest goes to housing, with little or nothing left for groceries, gas and home heating. This is very concerning. People are making their shelter payments, but all the other payments are starting to go more and more onto Canadians' credit cards. Utilities and groceries are going up. Even though people are paying more for groceries, they are getting a lot less in groceries than they used to.
This is because of high taxes, like the carbon tax that made the cost of gas, groceries and home heating go up, which the Liberals plan on quadrupling this year. The household debt in Canada, in totality, is more than the Canadian economy. This is not a good sign for a country where we want people to come and be successful and prosper. We are missing out on a lot of talent that could come here, with new energy and new investment, because Canada is not affordable anymore. It is not a place where people can come and be successful.
Canadians have record credit card debt, and over half are only $200 or less away from going bankrupt. The fact is that more and more people are putting more onto their credit cards. We are hearing horrific stories where students are living under bridges. Working people are living in their cars because they cannot afford housing. Mothers are putting water in their children's milk and parents have to choose less nutritious food because they cannot afford groceries. We are hearing about seniors who are having to wear blankets inside their houses because they cannot afford heat them and have to turn down their heat. That is how they have to get by because of this punitive carbon tax the government continues to raise.
Bankruptcy and insolvency are up. All the increases for small businesses are crippling owners, who are the backbone of our country. The IMF also warns, because of the interest rate hikes, that Canada is most at risk in the G7 for a mortgage default crisis. More than 70,000 mortgages a month are now being renewed, sometimes at double the rate. That could mean anything from a $400 increase to a $1,200 increase. This is not sustainable. With the recent inflation numbers, where inflation is above the target rate, the Governor of the Bank of Canada has been clear that there is a fear of these rates staying higher for longer, which means the pain will be higher for longer. There is no hope in sight. There is no light at the end of this inflationary crisis tunnel we see right now.
When we look at the economy today, after eight years we are in a worse position than we have ever been before. In fact, Canada's economy has contracted, whereas our U.S. partner's has grown. This is because of the bad restrictive policies of the Liberal-NDP government, which have stifled any type of economic growth in our country, let alone productivity or any type of investment that should be made in Canada. Canada is a lot less competitive because of its tax regime, which has held back the country.
The GDP per person is a determining factor for how successful each person is in Canada, and it has been declining since September 2022. Canada is last in the OECD for GDP per capita. GDP per capita today is lower than it was in the last half of 2018, which means five years of the wealth of Canadians has been completely wiped out.
Taxes are high. The tax code is too complicated. Taxes have been taken from working Canadians and their families for Liberals to give to their insider friends, consultants, bankers, bondholders, Liberal Bay Street buddies, bureaucrats and woke multinational corporations to advance the Liberal virtue signalling and its unjust job-killing transition.
Canadians are being forced to go to food banks more than ever because of the productivity gap and more taxes. While the Liberal-NDP government thinks the government is the solution, we believe people are the solution, and we need to give them the freedom to spend and to earn the way they want to, not restrict them.
Once we have a strong Conservative government under our Conservative leader, we are going to bring home those powerful paycheques again and an economy that is strong like it once was before, where the GDP per capita works for more and more people and where powerful paycheques will become a reality, because what people earn, they will be able to keep more of it in their pockets. We are going to keep it simple by doing four things to bring it home. We are going to axe the tax, we are going to build the homes, we are going to fix the budget and we are going to stop the crime.
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- Jan/29/24 3:01:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first, we will cut the number of Liberal seats in the House and replace them with a common-sense Conservative government.
Let me give the fast and furious finance minister some free non-consultant advice. Why do the Liberals not cut woke policies and axe the carbon tax to bring down the cost of gas, groceries and home heating, and pass Bill C-234 for our farmers? Why do they not cut the $20 billion the Prime Minister gives to Liberal consultants to cover up the incompetency by his own cabinet?
After eight years, we all know the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. When will the Liberals fix the budget to bring down inflation and interest rates?
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- Jan/29/24 3:00:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in just two years, the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister has doubled the interest payments on his explosive debt. That is more tax dollars going to bankers, bondholders and his finance minister's Bay Street buddies than to health care. After eight years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost or his waste, like the $35-billion Infrastructure Bank that has built zero projects, yet lined the pockets of Liberal cronies.
When will the Prime Minister cut the waste, cut the corruption, fix the budget to bring home lower prices and bring down inflation and interest rates?
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