Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, let me get this straight. While 1.5 million Canadians go to a food bank in one month, the Liberals answer to that is to triple the carbon tax on food production. We have farmers from across Canada in Ottawa this week begging the Liberals for some sort of sanity and to drop this tax. Thanks to the opposition, Canadian farmers will get some relief from the carbon tax on natural gas and …
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Mr. Speaker, the only help the Liberals are offering Canadians is the triple threat: they have tripled the debt; they are tripling the carbon tax, and in less than two years, they have tripled interest rates. This is a threat that Canadians cannot afford. Soup is up 30%. Bread and potatoes are up 17%. Margarine is up 38%. These are not luxury items from a Liberal cocktail party. These are staples …
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Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the Prime Minister has become too comfortable with the luxuries he has not earned. He does not understand the burdens that are on every Canadian, burdens that the Liberals are tripling by tripling the carbon tax, tripling the debt and now tripling the interest rates. Will the Prime Minister end his planned tax hikes on food, fuel and home heating, or is he yearning fo…
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Mr. Speaker, farmers across Canada are wrapping up their harvest and there is a sense of pride and accomplishment, but also stress, stress because the Liberal-NDP carbon tax coalition is taking an average of $45,000 from the pockets of every single Canadian farm family; stress because Liberal inflation is driving up interest rates, making it harder for farmers to manage their debt and putting thou…
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Mr. Speaker, food prices are up 11% and Canadians are struggling to put healthy food on the table because of Liberal inflation. The Liberals could throw Canadian families a lifeline by cancelling their planned tax hikes on food, fuel and home heating. Instead, it seems the Liberals are determined to increase the cost of living with bad policies like failing to establish a Canadian vaccine bank for…
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Madam Speaker, as I said, we agree with the portion of the motion about CEOs paying their fair share. As we said, every Canadian should pay their fair share. His colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, in his opening speech asked why the Conservatives are moaning about taxes all the time. Well, what our constituents are telling us every single day is that the tax increases by the Libe…
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Madam Speaker, it a difficult task to follow the leader of the official opposition, but I will do my best to carry on with our message about the NDP opposition day motion, which I also agree does not go far enough. It does not put a lot of the blame on the inflationary crisis we face where most of it belongs, which is on government spending. We cannot say that CEOs, corporate Canada or global comp…
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Madam Speaker, I would argue that the Conservatives, especially under the leader of the official opposition, have been talking about affordability every day in this House for the last two weeks. I do appreciate the motion brought forward by the NDP, but it is the Conservative Party that has addressed and highlighted that Liberal policy, Liberal tax hikes and planned new tax hikes are making life u…
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Madam Speaker, as a brief answer, we are not the government. The Liberals are. If the member has an issue with tax havens, he should take it up with the government.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for highlighting that Saskatchewan has only Conservative MPs, because they are the ones standing up for their constituents and Canadian farmers. I would be remiss if I did not say that we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the end of the Canadian Wheat Board, which I know my constituents are very happy with. The hon. member, in his presentation, tal…
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Mr. Speaker, Michel and Jeannette farm in beautiful Embrun, Ontario, but a quarter of their fuel price was carbon taxes. If the Liberals triple that carbon tax, they have said they are going to be paying $18,000 a year. Now, unlike what the Prime Minister is saying, that is not revenue-neutral. They will get pennies back through the Liberal rebate. I have heard from farmers across the country who …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister realizes that they will not succeed. The biggest threat facing our farmers is the triple threat offered by the Liberals: fertilizer tariffs, higher interest rates and higher carbon taxes. This has put thousands of family farms on the brink of insolvency. Even Canadian consumers understand the threat of the triple threat, as grocery prices are up 10%, which is drivin…
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Mr. Speaker, it truly is an honour to speak in support of our opposition day motion for the Liberals not to increase the carbon tax. I want to read a couple of quotes from agriculture producers I met with this summer, including a farmer in Ontario who told me the only threat to the success of his family farm is Liberal government policy. A Saskatchewan farmer said, “When it comes to farming, I fee…
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Mr. Speaker, I speak to farmers every single day. I am not sure if my colleague can say the same, but here is where the Liberals are so out of touch. We have the Liberal Minister of Agriculture saying farmers are in support of a carbon tax. We have the previous Liberal minister of agriculture saying farmers are in support of a carbon tax. However, I can tell members that I have not talked to a sin…
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Mr. Speaker, I would have to question the premise of his question that this is one of the tools the government has that is working. It is obviously not working. Emissions under the government have gone up every single year, despite it increasing the carbon tax, so I am not sure what data he is looking at that says the Liberal carbon tax, which is supported by the NDP coalition government here, is …
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Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague, and if she keeps talking like this, she may as well cross the floor and join the Conservative Party. In all seriousness, I do want to thank her for supporting Bill C-234. I agree with her. I do believe that is how this came about. However, it was not flukey weather, it was winter, and our farmers face winter every single year. When temperature…
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Mr. Speaker, farmers in Prince Edward Island have been sending me photos of collapsed buildings, livestock without shelter and acres of crops under water. P.E.I. farmers are still reeling from the Liberals' self-imposed export ban on potatoes from last year and now, with harvest set to begin this week, another potato crop is in jeopardy. Their financial and mental health is deteriorating and many …
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Mr. Speaker, conversations are not enough, and they cannot be the fallback position of AgriStability and advance payment programs, because we know that the impact of this hurricane has been profound. Farmers in Annapolis Valley have significant losses in the apple orchards. They cannot meet the threshold of many of these programs. Even if they did meet the threshold, they do not get payments for m…
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Mr. Speaker, the new Conservative leader will put people first: their homes, their paycheques, their retirements, their country. By contrast, under the Liberals, Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, fuel in their cars and heat in their homes. Rising housing prices and interest rates have made the dream of home ownership impossible for young Canadians. Our seniors are watching their r…
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Mr. Speaker, the biggest threats to Canadian farmers are the Liberal government and its devastating policies. The minister is misleading Canadian farmers in the House, and she knows it. For example, the Liberals said that the carbon tax would be revenue neutral, and they know that it is not for Canadian farmers. In fact, a Grain Farmers of Ontario study showed that they get less than 20% of their …
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Mr. Speaker, the price of groceries is rising at a forty-year high, and the Liberals are fuelling food inflation with nonsensical fertilizer policy and tax hikes on farmers. Food security and affordability are critical issues for Canadians, and our farmers offer a solution by growing affordable and sustainable food. Instead, the Liberals are attacking our producers with nonsensical fertilizer poli…
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With regard to the government's financial and other participation in the Canadian Food Policy Advisory Council: (a) what is the total amount of funding given to the members of the council to date; (b) who are the current and past members of the council; (c) what, if any, trackable metrics have been met by the council; and (d) which, if any, of the council's proposals have led, or will lead, to gov…
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Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Liberals, Canada will be the first jurisdiction in the world to put warning labels on ground beef and pork. Imposing these warning labels means a single ingredient, wholesome protein, that most Canadian families rely on will be unaffordable. How nonsensical is this? They are putting on a warning label despite the fact that once this food is cooked, it does not exceed the…
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Madam Chair, my colleague is exactly right. We now know that this is going to cost Canadian farmers about $150 million. We support sanctions against Russia. It is very important that it is held accountable for its illegal actions. However, we do not want those actions to be paid for on the backs of Canadian farmers. We have asked the Liberal government to exempt that tariff on any fertilizer from …
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Mr. Chair, the minister talked in his speech about the importance of fertilizer. Not only is it access to fertilizer, but I think the other issue about fertilizer is affordability. We have seen the cost of fertilizer in many parts of the country go up 100%. Canada is the only G7 country on the planet that is charging a 35% tariff on Russian fertilizer. Many times we have asked the Liberal governme…
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Madam Chair, I had the honour of travelling to Guatemala a couple of years ago before COVID with the World Foodgrains Bank. What is really impressive with programs such as that is that it is not necessarily always about the money. It is about going to those communities and teaching them how to grow their own food, providing them with the assets, resources and technology they need to grow their own…
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Madam Chair, I am really happy that my respected colleague asked that question because it gives me the opportunity to reiterate the fact that there is, what I will call, a misconception that Canadian agriculture is the problem, when I would profess that Canadian agriculture is the solution. We have seen how Canadian farmers have improved their operations and the technology and innovation that has …
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Madam Chair, if farmers can find ways to be efficient and more cost-effective while protecting their land and improving their yields, they will do it. They use fertilizer as efficiently as possible through programs such as the 4R stewardship program. To my colleague's question, it is critically important that if farmers are using less fertilizer, yields will go down. It is a simple fact. When we a…
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Madam Chair, he is exactly right. Through this illegal invasion of Ukraine, Canada is seeing we have two very important geopolitical tools in our tool belt, and those are energy and agriculture. We should be doing everything we possibly can to build those two industries up to play a critical role around the world. Unfortunately, the government is taking a much different approach to those two criti…
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Madam Chair, my colleague has incredible experience in agriculture. One of the other things we have been talking about today is the impact the carbon tax is having on Canadian farmers. The idea of that is to transition farmers into using a different fuel for grain drying and heating barns and buildings. What other fuel source are the Liberals asking farmers to transition to? Does it actually exist…
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Madam Chair, I want to say at the beginning of my intervention that I am encouraged by the words of the minister that the Liberal government now understands the importance of things like fertilizer and gene editing and seed technology and the role they will play in the future for food security, because I would think we are in the midst of a food security crisis. This is not something that will hap…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention. I certainly have a lot of respect for his experience. From his experience as a prosecutor, what kind of message does he think it sends to criminals, as well as to the victims and their families, when we have bills like Bill C-21, which attacks law-abiding firearms owners, and Bill C-5, which would lessen mandatory sentencing? What kind of mes…
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Mr. Speaker, here is a fact. On April 28, the public safety minister said, “It is also a fact that we invoked the Emergencies Act only after police forces agreed.” We do not believe him, Canadians do not believe him and police forces do not believe him. They do not believe him, because this never happened. No police force ever asked for the Emergencies Act to be invoked. What has happened, and thi…
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Mr. Speaker, what is wrong is that the Liberals froze bank accounts, discarded our democracy and ignored our Charter of Rights, all predicated on a fabrication. Invoking the Emergencies Act was an unprecedented power grab, all based on misinformation. No police force ever asked for the Emergencies Act to be invoked. The fact is that the public safety minister has been caught misleading Parliament …
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Mr. Speaker, thunderclouds rolled over the foothills of southern Alberta, bringing desperately needed rain for the grasslands of the foothills. It was a perfect backdrop for a celebration honouring a legendary cowboy. The stories of John Ware are almost too fantastic to believe. He would stop a steer head-on. He would lift small cows and he would break horses that others thought were unbreakable. …
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' front-of-pack warning labels on ground beef and pork, something no other country in the world is doing, put our food security and our vulnerable supply chain at risk. Grocery costs are up 10% and almost a quarter of Canadian families are skipping meals because they cannot afford food, but the Liberals want to put a $2-billion bureaucratic burden on a wholesome protein, m…
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Simcoe North. We are talking about an affordability crisis in the House today. I am very confident that I am not the only member of the House who is getting dozens and dozens of calls and emails every single day from constituents who are very concerned about their ability to put food on the table, put fuel in their cars, heat their hom…
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Madam Speaker, I really do appreciate the NDP dance on this issue. With their proposals to increase the carbon tax because it is not doing enough and needs to be higher, they should be celebrating really high gas prices, but now they are trying to dance around it because now the politics are against them. Canadians have to pay more than $2 a litre, likely in his riding, and they have to figure it …
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Madam Speaker, I agree, but I think the part that we are missing here is that there is an assumption that Canadian producers are not doing everything they can to protect their land, their water, their soil and their livestock. They want to be as efficient as possible, because that is how they remain environmentally sustainable and socially sustainable, but the one critical point is to remain econo…
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Madam Speaker, they were going to find those new resources only because of the tariff put on Russian fertilizer by the Liberal government. Again, we are not arguing that there should not be sanctions on Russia, but they should be sanctions that actually impact Russia and its economy. This tariff is only punishing Canadian farmers. If we have realized anything through COVID, it is that we must dive…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to call into question my colleague's comments that the carbon tax is revenue-neutral. We know from the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report that this is not true, and I want to give the hon. member an example. Through Bill C-8, Canadian farmers are getting $1.70 for every $1,000 of eligible expenses as part of their carbon tax rebate. Some of them are paying more than $19,000 …
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Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure I have this right. First, the Liberals impose a tariff on fertilizer that only punishes Canadian farmers. Second, they ignore any plea for an exemption on the fertilizer purchased before March 2. Third, they are offering no compensation, meaning that higher taxes and input costs are crushing Canadian farm families. How many other G7 countries are enforcing a fertil…
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Mr. Speaker, please allow me to actually answer the question for the parliamentary secretary. The answer is zero. Canada is the only country punishing its farmers with a tariff on fertilizer. Our G7 allies are doing everything they possibly can to ensure that their farmers can increase their yields in a time of global food insecurity. Here, the Liberals are beating our farmers down with increased …
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-275, An Act to amend the Health of Animals Act (biosecurity on farms). Mr. Speaker, I am introducing a bill as an amendment to the Health of Animals Act. This is very fitting with what we have seen across Canada with the spread of avian influenza, the possibility of diseases like African swine fever, and what we have gone through it in my riding with BSE. These …
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Mr. Speaker, it has been more than two years since the start of the pandemic, but Canadians are still reporting high levels of anxiety and depression and are struggling with their mental health. More and more countries around the world are ending their vaccine mandates and travel restrictions and getting life back to normal, but here in Canada many Canadians are still faced with hardship and heart…
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Mr. Speaker, could the Prime Minister tell me if he is beginning consultations for a tariff on urea?
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Mr. Speaker, I guess we now understand why the Liberals are refusing to answer questions on a fertilizer tariff. It is because they have no idea what we are talking about. In fact, stakeholders in meetings with ministers have been told that the Liberals had no idea that Canadian farmers actually purchased fertilizer from Russia. Now we are the only country in the world that has a tariff on fertili…
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With regard to the Federal Ministerial Coordinating Committee on PEI Potatoes: (a) what are the (i) dates, (ii) locations, (iii) ministers in attendance, for each meeting of the committee which have occurred since January 26, 2022; and (b) what was accomplished, if anything, at each meeting in (a)?
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Mr. Speaker, I am sure all of us in the House are used to vigorous debate during question period, but there is a line that should not be crossed, especially when it comes to using unparliamentary language. The Prime Minister used an obscenity, and it was not “fuddle duddle”, in describing the official opposition. I would ask the Prime Minister to stand and apologize for that language.
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Mr. Speaker, ciamar a tha sibh. May is Gaelic Nova Scotia Month, a time to celebrate Gaelic history, culture, language and contributions, not just in Nova Scotia but across Canada. Gaelic speakers were among the first explorers and settlers to our country. It was the mother tongue of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. When the Scots first immigrated to Canada, Gaelic was the thi…
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