Government Orders
Madam Speaker, let us make no mistake, this is another Liberal costly credit card budget. This budget has record debt, record debt service charges and record spending. This is just more of the same failed approach we have seen for the last 10 and a half years since the government came into power and inherited a balanced budget. This is a failed approach that is continuing to fail. We have a defici…
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[For text of questions and responses, see Written Questions website]
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Yes, I did. If the member has a private member's bill to present, the Table was not notified.
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I thank the member. The Chair will take that under advisement and come back to the House as necessary.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to comment on comparisons that have been made between this new fund and the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We were told by expert witnesses at committee on Monday that the Infrastructure Bank was failed industrial policy and that the fund would be just more of the same. We have heard defence of the Infrastructure Bank. In fact, one of the Liberal members claimed t…
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Madam Speaker, it is a shame, because she must not have listened to my speech. I was very clear about the approach the Liberals should take and the approach they should not take. It takes a staggering amount of arrogance to judge and presume what is important to the opposition, and to say that we should not use an opposition day to oppose a terrible policy being proposed by the government and to p…
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Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, there was a lot in the member's speech, but I want to focus on one specific thing he said that was extraordinarily misleading. This is a talking point we have heard before. He claimed that Canada's total debt-to-GDP was 10%, unlike the United States at 110% or whatever. Does he believe that the entire asset base of the Canada pension plan is free-flowing cash that could be used to rep…
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Mr. Speaker, I really did enjoy the member's speech. We have had to spend quite a bit of the day trying to debunk some of what we have heard from the other side. Would the member like to take an additional minute or two to walk them through the difference between a sovereign wealth fund, where governments invest wealth that is accumulated from surplus, and simply tacking on another $25 billion to …
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals' new fund they have announced should never be called a “sovereign wealth fund”. A sovereign wealth fund is a fund that takes surplus government revenue, usually from resource export revenue, and invests that surplus internationally. That is what a sovereign wealth fund, by any normal understanding of the term, means. The government in fact even explicitly compared its n…
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Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member's speech. He talked about health transfers briefly. He also had quite a bit to say about debt service and the debt repayment, like how this $25 billion going into the sovereign wealth fund would be borrowed and charged to the taxpayer immediately, even if it is put onto a separate balance sheet. In the years ahead, we see that the increasing costs of…
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Mr. Speaker, the government inherited a balanced budget and then spent the last 10 years borrowing, spending, squandering and taxing hundreds of billions of dollars while home ownership slipped out of reach for the middle class and millions more cannot afford groceries. For the last 10 years, Canada should have been building pipelines, houses, ports and roads, but these Liberals built bureaucracie…
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Mr. Speaker, the cost of government drives up the cost of living. The more the government spends, the more things cost. Since 2015, the Liberals have doubled the debt while doubling housing costs and food bank lineups. The Prime Minister doubled Justin Trudeau's deficit, proving that he is just another Liberal. Can he commit that tomorrow's deficit announcement will not be higher than the already …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised economic strength, but Canada was the only G7 country with a shrinking economy at the end of last year. The Bank of Canada and the OECD predict barely 1% growth this year, and Canada has already lost 95,000 jobs so far. The Liberals have presided over the largest capital exodus in Canadian history, $1 trillion from 2015 to 2024, with two dollars of foreign …
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Mr. Speaker, in the member's speech, he talked about the importance of energy security and energy sovereignty. He was elected, I believe, when I was, in 2015. Almost literally the first thing that his party's cabinet did was to cancel the northern gateway pipeline, which was already conditionally approved. They chased all investors out of the energy east proposal. They chased out the private secto…
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Mr. Speaker, we saw today, probably in an attempt to get ahead of the opposition, the announcement that was made this morning, which, as the member and others have remarked, is a half-measure and a short measure compared with all of the other ways in which the government makes fuel and other things more expensive for Canadians. Today was an out-of-body experience with the government during questio…
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Mr. Speaker, many times in his speech and in comments after, this member seemed to be trying to equate the so-called clean fuel standard, as is their branding of it, with the removal of a toxin like lead from gasoline. It is an absurd comparison, and I would like him to really think about whether or not this is a proper comparison. The other problem that came up in his speech is how he repeatedly …
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Mr. Speaker, the government has spent the last 10 years setting the stage for today's rising unemployment. The industrial carbon tax, antidevelopment laws, bloated bureaucracy, staggering debt and deficits, failure to approve a single pipeline, failure to build any major projects, which it promised to do, and its failure to secure a trade deal, which it also promised to do, are all killing Canadia…
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Mr. Speaker, Algoma Steel is laying off 1,000 workers today, who will join the 108,000 full-time workers who lost their jobs in February. The Liberal government cannot blame outside factors. The rest of the world exists in the same global economy, but only Canada has a shrinking economy among G7 countries. When will the Liberals get out of the way and get rid of their taxes, antidevelopment laws a…
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Mr. Speaker, this morning's job numbers are a scathing indictment of the Liberal government's economic performance. There were 108,000 full-time jobs lost, the largest one-month drop since the beginning of COVID, and youth unemployment is now over 14%. We have the only shrinking economy in the G7, and we have the second-highest unemployment. Will the Liberals accept our Conservative proposals, inc…
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Mr. Speaker, talking about before the crisis, for 10 years, the Liberal government has passed antidevelopment laws, run up the national debt, driven down productivity, driven up the cost of living, bloated the bureaucracy, enriched Liberal insiders and made Canada the only G7 country with a shrinking economy. Today's job numbers are the result of a decade of failure and lost opportunity, and the c…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7, but new Statistics Canada data shows that Canada saw its economy shrink last quarter, the only country in the G7 to do so. After 10 years of deficits, inflation, higher taxes, anti-development laws and bloating bureaucracy, growth has stalled and Canadians are paying the price. While other countries build, the …
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Madam Speaker, his question takes us right into everything wrong with the government's approach to nearly any public policy problem out there. The Liberals build bureaucracies. That is what they build. They set up fiscal structures and financial structures that, at best, are oblique and, at worst, just send money into black holes. I fundamentally disagree with the approach of the government. I am …
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Madam Speaker, it is always fun watching the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader try to hold the opposition to account. That intervention says everything about these guys. First of all, he is ignoring all of the promises he has run on in four elections. He is now taking credit for a AAA credit rating that his government inherited from the previous government, which is under thre…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague, the member for Airdrie—Cochrane, commented on this in debate yesterday. For those watching who do not know, this structure they are cutting is one that was created to help veterans cope with the sheer complexity of systems that seem almost designed, in cases, to deny benefits. That is what fiscal discipline, if that is what they want to call it, looks like with the cur…
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Madam Speaker, I am just being heckled left, right and centre. I do not know what is with the Liberals today, but I will maybe leave it at that on the process and talk about things that Conservatives agree with in this BIA. This BIA contains policy reversals from the government that we support, like repealing the digital services tax, something that we fought tooth and nail in the last Parliament.…
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Madam Speaker, on the budget implementation act, I really have three things I want to talk about. I want to talk a bit about the process and the committee process that took us to what may be the last day that we debate this bill. I want to talk about some of the things that Conservatives agree with that are contained in the BIA, and I want to talk about those with which we disagree. I want to begi…
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Madam Speaker, before I begin, I ask for unanimous consent to share my time with the member for Calgary Centre.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a 605-clause bill. The member did not even have time to get into all the detail of the veterans components. I want to give him time to unpack what the Liberals have done with respect to the reimbursement of veterans. There is a 1998 law that the department has not followed for 28 years. The Liberals are losing in court to veterans who are suing them to get the proper compensat…
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my hon. friend, who is on the finance committee with me, wanted to comment on some of the other pieces of the bill that had to be amended at the finance committee. We have seen over and over again the government's penchant for consolidating power into the executive and removing the powers of parliamentarians. We had to amend this bill at committee to give more accountabili…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a petition that I would like to table on behalf of Canadians who are concerned about Bill C-15 and the powers contained in that bill that would give the government the power to override any of its laws, other than the Criminal Code, at the discretion of a minister. The petitioners think that this is an unreasonable overreach of government power that could exempt an individual o…
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, honestly, he perhaps misunderstood what I had said. I do not care for the voting app, so we do disagree, perhaps, on that, but I was not proposing its abolition. What I was proposing is the abolition of virtual participation. Arguments on the maintenance of virtual participation are often tied to the voting app, such as asking what happens if the voting app fails and someone needs to …
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Mr. Speaker, I had not considered that model, but that would accomplish roughly the same objective. I think the late show proceedings are a much better forum for debate than speeches because we get more back and forth and a response from the other side. I think the member raises an excellent point. Maybe another change, concurrent with what I recommended, is an expansion to an hour of Adjournment …
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Madam Speaker, before question period, I was talking about reverting to the practice of voice votes. Right now, the Chair simply asks whether a member of a recognized party wishes for a motion to carry or carry on division, or wishes to request a recorded vote. Then, the Chair looks to the officers of the governing party, the whip, or if the whip is not there, perhaps the parliamentary secretary t…
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Standing Orders and the practices of the House demand that when members have said something that is false or untrue, they be given the opportunity to correct the record. The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader accused the Conservatives of filibustering the BIA. This is patently false. All parties agreed to a work plan, including the…
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Madam Speaker, yesterday I talked to a mortgage broker in Calgary who said her clients are increasingly worried about their jobs and that layoffs are killing home deals. She said that construction and energy workers are among the most affected. The Prime Minister said that we are going to be an energy superpower and claimed that the Liberals are going to build over half a million homes per year. I…
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the comments and the direction of that question. To answer the specific one, I am not aware of any other legislature that has maintained this type of system. Debates are for the chamber. Work that members of Parliament do in their constituencies and across Canada is for those areas. Combining the two is doing neither effectively. As far as convenience goes, the primary re…
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join this debate. I am passionate about the Standing Orders. Before I get too deep into it, I am going to say that in Parliament, the Standing Orders are only as good as the chair occupants who preside over them and make rulings on them. Madam Speaker, you were the best of the four occupants in the previous Parliament, so I am glad to have you back in the chair. I am…
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Madam Speaker, in January the Canadian economy lost 25,000 jobs, while even more unemployed Canadians have given up looking for one. Job loss at a time of food and housing unaffordability is catastrophic. The Prime Minister promised the best economy in the G7, but under his watch, Canadians have the highest food inflation, the most expensive housing, the lowest per-capita GDP growth and $58 billio…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Standing Orders require the member to address the business at hand, which is the Standing Orders. This is a once-in-a-Parliament opportunity for parliamentarians to weigh in on how we govern ourselves, and I have not heard any recommendations about the Standing Orders, so I would ask you, Speaker, to direct him to—
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Madam Speaker, I agree completely with the member about it being important to return to voice voting. The system that was adopted disenfranchises members of Parliament and prevents them from participating in the vote determination process, where they would have their voice heard in a voice vote. However, it was her House leader at the time, Peter Julian, who was instrumental in giving us what we h…
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Mr. Speaker, last night at the finance committee, the member put some very good questions to the finance minister, and his responses were shameful. The minister did not answer, really, any opposition MPs' questions during his entire hour-long appearance. It was a shameful display from a minister unwilling to answer questions and explain his bill to Canadians. I want the member to have a chance aga…
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Mr. Speaker, 0.0% was Canada's GDP growth number in November. The fourth-quarter growth number is expected to be negative. Following 10 years of near-zero per capita growth, 2025 was another lost year for the Canadian economy. The Prime Minister promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7, but he has not repealed any of the government's anti-development laws and taxes. Conservatives have a plan…
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Mr. Speaker, I think the intervention from the member for Winnipeg North requires a little more unpacking. I will put it to the member for Peace River—Westlock that it is in fact the government. The member for Winnipeg North is the parliamentary secretary to the House Leader. The government House leader has tremendous control over the agenda of this place, and the fact that the government cannot g…
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Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-16, and in doing so, we need to first set out some of the context for why we are having this debate, how we got here and where we are right now as a society in Canada. One of the unfortunate outcomes of this past 10 years of Liberal government has been a measurable, significant rise in the incidence of crime in Canada. This is not an opinion. This is measured by…
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Mr. Speaker, it is funny how the member wants me to commit to a series of things that his own House leader has most of the control over, which is when a bill is going to pass in this place. I do not know when the Liberals are going to call the bill. We have already seen what they have done at the justice committee with Bill C-14, which was expeditiously referred to the committee only to languish t…
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Mr. Speaker, I did not really have time to go through all of the bill, as it is a pretty big bill, so I am glad the member brought that portion of it to my attention in this debate and is allowing me a moment to comment on it. Yes, we agree and stand with victims. Yes, we know there are many signs, and we never want to see scenarios where someone is murdered and everybody who knows the scenario or…
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Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent, succinct summary of exactly what has happened in this place over the last 10 years. That is exactly it. The Liberals create a problem, we propose a solution, they turn down our solution, they copy our solution, and then they blame us for it not passing fast enough. That is exactly what is going on in this place.
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago the government campaigned on a promise to “run modest...deficits of less than $10 billion...to fund historic investments in infrastructure” and then let the budget balance itself. For 10 years the Liberals ran increasing deficits, failed to build the infrastructure, ignored their promise and claimed that all that really mattered was declining debt to GDP. In 2024, the the…
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