Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what is in the bill and how it would actually move things forward as far as safety goes, particularly on the border. I hear from my colleagues on the other side that they listened to police officers over the summer. My question is this: What took you so long? All of these things make so much sense. Were you not listening for the past 10 years, or four years in particular?…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to be here tonight and to ask the questions that I did not feel were adequately answered back in June. I was talking about the increase in the amount Canadians were spending on food out of their weekly budgets. It was about $800 a year more being spent on food at that point in time. However, we can take a look at what has happened with the cost of food since then.…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the Canada Revenue Agency and corporate income tax return data from 2015 onwards, broken down by year: (a) how many corporate income tax returns were filed on paper and, of those companies, how many companies had a gross revenue threshold (i) exceeding one million, (ii) under one million; (b) how many corporate income tax returns were filed electronically and, of those companies, ho…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the Housing Accelerator Fund: (a) how much of the allocated $228,466,276 has been released to the City of Calgary to date; (b) what was the date and amount of (i) the first advance, (ii) each subsequent payment; (c) has this advance been fully disbursed; (d) what milestones have been achieved; and (e) how much of this funding has been allocated to create direct incentives for develo…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague who just gave a barnburner of a speech and a clinic to everybody in this House about what is wrong with this legislation. I will try to follow that. Before I do that, I want to thank everybody who is participating in this Parliament today, but I also want to thank everybody who got us here, specifically the volunteers in Calgary Centre who did a really good job in…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was interesting because, again, I do not think it addressed the bill at all. The big question we have here is this. Every expert has looked at the number of people this might open Canadian citizenship to as more or less a free pass. If the member cannot arrive at some number here about how many people we are inviting in for Canadian citizenship, then the bill is …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague to the House of Commons. As I told him in my speech, I have already been in committee looking at this bill. I would like to see it go to committee once it has the proper amendments put into it so it is presented as something we can debate at committee and we can discuss the pros and cons of it. If I could make a suggestion that would get it to committee very qui…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, that member continually brings up what happened 15 years ago, and then he spouts it off as if it is actually fact. He talks about reality. I am not sure that member recognizes reality. He talks about “cancel and delete”, yet we talk about the number of Canadians who were brought in during the Stephen Harper years. It increased substantially, and that member does not really seem to wan…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my colleague because I was going to respond in French. However, he used the word “stubborn”, so I think I am going to have to respond in English. Our job here is as His Majesty's loyal opposition. Members know that. There are gross holes in this legislation and the member knows that. He knows what happened at Roxham Road, and he knows how the Quebec government had to tw…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it was an Ontario Superior Court judge who ruled that the existing law was unconstitutional. I think that we should also consider the opinions of other judges who have ruled on constitutional issues since then. We should not rely on a single judge from a single court, namely the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Perhaps we should also consider the opinions of other judges who are mor…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague asked me that question because I am often focused on this country's economy. The number that the PBO came up with is about $20.4 million per year in additional administration costs to get this program across, if it is approved in this way. That escalates going forward, of course, and that means more cost to Canadians. We can think about that as it continues down, with chi…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I have an office in Calgary that is well known for its casework in immigration, and that casework in immigration is becoming more and more backlogged. The speculation on that is that the government is, pardon my phrase, ragging the puck so it does not have to deal with these issues. It can just drag things out, and hopefully people will eventually get the hint and move on. There are v…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, last week I asked the Prime Minister in this House whether he would finally show some accountability to the Canadians who are losing their jobs, struggling to pay their mortgages and turning to food banks in record numbers. I asked whether he would do his job and table a budget. What did we get in response? We got more recycled talking points, more deflection and no plan. Canadians de…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Well, Mr. Speaker, so it continues. Even the decline of the House and the parliamentary norms that were once expected by Canadians continues. The member across the way had notice of exactly what my question was about tonight; it was about the budget. We have repeated this several times in the House, and that was the question. She delivered her own speech based on narratives around labour and where…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, in this short parliamentary session, we are rushing through legislation to temporarily, partially, perhaps, override the very laws that have defined the Liberal government's decade-long war on development. Let us name them: Bill C-69, the “no new pipelines” act; Bill C-48, the tanker ban; the oil and gas production cap; and the industrial carbon tax. These laws have made Canada one of…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, but I have heard this speech several times today. It seems to be an excuse mechanism on why we do not need to deal with this as forcefully as we should. This was $65 million of taxpayers' money that disappeared to a group, which was previously at the bar of the House of Commons. I remember, at that point in time, the Liberal Party across the way wa…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I think you have to give some consideration to all the things that happen in the House. We are still reeling from the comments from the other side, so we are just getting our thoughts together. I hope you will entertain me while we get a little point of order and get some things happening again in the House. I really appreciate your entertaining my interjection here.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I can assure my colleague that the Conservative Party had no position on that debacle at that point in time. He should retract that comment and make sure that he is actually giving a speech that actually speaks to Canadians and not just to his own followers for a clip.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the average Canadian family is going to spend $800 more on food this year because of Liberal inflationary spending. The Calgary Food Bank organizers say that 65% of working Calgarians are now experiencing severe food insecurity. What affects this, of course, is bad government budgeting. Deficits lead to inflation, and the government plans to spend 8% more this coming year. The Liberal…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are delaying tabling a budget as it is expected to show a supersize deficit that will increase inflation even further; the higher the deficit, the higher the inflation. The price Canadians pay for food is dependent upon the government's budget. However, we should not worry; the government's budgets affect only Canadians who eat. Will the government stop driving up costs a…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, is it the minister's plan to masquerade Canada's debt problem with the reclassification of debt announced by the Prime Minister?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, what is the Government of Canada going to spend on interest payments this fiscal year?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the answer is $49 billion. How much did the government forecast to spend on interest in the year's estimates last year?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, how much did the government forecast to spend on interest in last year's estimates?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, to help the minister again, the answer is $46.5 billion. How much did the government miss that estimate by last year?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the answer, of course, is $2 billion more than it forecast in the estimates last year. How fast has that interest expense grown over the past 10 years?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the answer is $25.6 billion. It has nearly doubled in 10 years. Of the $49 billion, what does it represent for each of the 16.9 million households in Canada?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is $2,900 per Canadian household. How much did these Canadian households spend on interest on Canadian government debt 10 years ago?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the answer, of course, is $1,800 per household, so it has gone up significantly. The Parliamentary Budget Officer foresees the interest on Canadian government debt growing by around 10% per year for the foreseeable future. Does the minister see the economy growing by 10% per year?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, does the minister see the government's taxation revenue growing by 10% per year?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, given this, does the minister understand that he has inherited a debt spiral from his Liberal predecessors in finance?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, is it the minister's plan to kick this debt spiral problem down the road?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, that is a record stuck on skip, but Canadians are now facing the consequences of the Liberal government's economic drift. Oxford Economics says that Canada is heading into a recession with 200,000 more job losses and unemployment reaching 7.7% this year. Full-time workers are turning to food banks in record numbers, and mortgage defaults are rising. Meanwhile, the Liberal government w…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I challenge the member on the other side of the House who raised the point of order. Frankly, I gave a 30-second summation of a petition two days ago, and he stood up and interrupted that one because he did not want to hear it at that point in time either. If he does not want to hear summations of petitions, then let the summation be what—
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, last night, this House delivered a clear verdict: The Liberal government must table a budget. The Prime Minister is asking Canadians to blindly approve over half a trillion dollars in spending with no plan, no transparency and no accountability. The Prime Minister promised to cap spending at 2% and then shattered that promise and jacked it up to 8%. What do Canadians get in return? Th…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of Canadians who are lamenting the fact that there is no budget going into the summer holiday the government plans to take without presenting to Canadians how it is going to be spending their hard-earned tax dollars. The petitioners talk about this being the first time in Canadian history that a legacy government has not presented a spring …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of Canadians who are lamenting the fact that the government is going to go right into its summer holidays without presenting a budget to Canadians about how Liberals are spending their hard-earned tax dollars. This is the first time this has happened in Canadian history, especially with a legacy government.
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, it is one of the most fundamentally imperative jobs of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for the spending it is going to undertake. Right now the government thinks it is going to have a blank cheque for the next year, so it has to put its election promise on the table. However, now it is not actually being accountable at all, as 150 days from the time the governme…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Quebec on his return to the House of Commons. What a great achievement. I believe this is his second term in the House of Commons. Immigration is a federal government program that coexists alongside provincial government programs. I know that Quebec has a more elaborate program than some of the other provinces, but all the provinces still have to work …
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, welcome to the Speaker's chair. Today I will be splitting my time with the member for Long Range Mountains. It will be her premier speech in the House. For many of us, it is our first time rising in this House of Parliament. I want to welcome everybody to the 45th Parliament. I thank the voters of Calgary Centre for sending me here for a third mandate, in the 45th Parliament. I have m…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, every government has to make choices. The continuation of blowing Canadians' money is putting a burden on future generations of Canadians. It is putting a burden on inflation. It is creating a monetary mess in this country. We are going to have to address it. We do have to make choices, and yes, as the member will probably know, even my party during this election projected deficits fo…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, let me welcome my new colleague to the House of Commons. It is always great to have one's first speech the first time one is in the House of Commons. I apologize; I did not recognize the member. I thought it was the twin brother of the member who held that seat before him, who said exactly the opposite things in the previous Parliament, which ran this country up to a $1.3-trillion deb…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has lost control of spending and his cabinet. A former adviser to two prime ministers, Robert Asselin, has said the rising debt burden limits Canada's ability to act during future economic slowdowns and unforeseen circumstances. The Minister of Finance set a fiscal guardrail of a $40.1-billion deficit in her last budget, which looks drastically off the rails. This i…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that my colleague across the way misunderstood my question, but we are talking about real metrics here, not hoped-for inventions that will come along in the next little while. This is six years down the road the Liberals are talking about with this cap, in 2030 versus 2024, and a million-barrel cut from what we are producing now, which is a significant part of the economy o…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I really enjoyed my colleague's speech. I want to ask him a question because he did touch on carbon taxation and the effect it is having on our citizens and on our economy. A short time ago, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development gave a quote when he reported on one of his audits. He said, “The recent decreases to projected 2030 emissions were not due to cli…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the speech and I would just follow up on the last question. I do find the Prime Minister in contempt of Parliament, several times, since I have been here five years and not 19 like my colleague. If the NDP put forward a motion to find the Prime Minister in contempt, which NDP party does he think would show up, the one that actually is an opposition party or th…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, that is a minister who has never seen a cheque he did not want to sign of Canadian taxpayer dollars. Former Liberal adviser Robert Asselin also stated, “You can't pick and choose fiscal anchors as you go, and renege on a commitment you made only a year ago”. There is a huge disconnect here. The Prime Minister wants to spend his way to popularity and the finance minister is trying to h…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, my question from November 8 was on the doublespeak on the government's oil and gas production cut. The parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transport, at that point in time, responded by telling me that “[the] energy sector can increase its production while decreasing its emissions.” I actually agree with that part, and I point to the decrease in carbon emissions per barrel demo…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the first thing the government has to get right is the basics. For Canadians, that is food and shelter. After nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, these costs are way up. Housing costs have doubled; even more, basic food costs continue to escalate, and food bank usage is up 90%. “Let them eat cake” is not an effective strategy. Escalating deficits are the root cause of inflatio…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the member keeps trying to talk about putting band-aids on the wounds his economic policies are causing, but step one is to reverse inflationary policies and cancel the carbon tax, which hikes the price of food, fuel and rent. Food inflation has skyrocketed by over 36% in the past eight years. Higher deficits lead to higher inflation and a weaker Canadian dollar, leading to more inf…
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