Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has had an epiphany. In an interview with The Chronicle Herald, a Halifax newspaper, he said that when people ask him for even more government money, he tells them that as soon as the government spends money, inflation rises by exactly the same amount. Why did I not think of that? Spending more money than we have causes inflation. Can these revelations coax him to a…
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Mr. Speaker, he has gone off again. He is losing control. Why is he so angry? It is because he just learned that Quebeckers and Quebec Liberals are abandoning him. Why is that? It is because there is a common-sense Conservative team that is going to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. The Prime Minister still has time to accept this common-sense plan and offer to cut c…
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Mr. Speaker, we have a common-sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. However, of course, the NDP is keeping the costly Prime Minister in office for another year and a half while people starve and are forced to live in tents. Those Canadians who have been able to hold on to their homes cannot afford a vacation, but maybe a staycation, so we are asking today t…
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Mr. Speaker, he did not hear the question, which was about day cares. It is true that because of decriminalization in British Columbia, nurses had to breathe in crack cocaine and methamphetamine. However, right now I am talking about Montreal, where the Prime Minister's policies mean that violent criminals are walking free and drugs are being used on the street next to a day care. I am going to as…
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Mr. Speaker, I think many Canadians would like to go back to a time when kids did not need police officers at their day care centres. After nine years, the Liberal Bloc is not worth the cost. The Bloc Québécois voted in favour of $500 billion in inflationary, bureaucratic and, yes, centralizing spending. This has left 60% of consumers saying that they are under stress. When will the Liberal Bloc r…
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Mr. Speaker, in a shocking article published in this morning's edition of La Presse, we read that children have to be escorted by the police whenever they leave their day care because of the homeless people in the area and the injection site next door. The day care director said, “It is not right for kids to need a police escort when they go out for walks”. Why is the Prime Minister, with the supp…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister likes to talk about austerity. I think that the Barnfield family of four in Calgary can tell him all about austerity, because that is what they are living right now because of his housing hell, his carbon taxes, and his inflation. They said, “we're having to choose between paying a bill or getting food, and that can be really hard. It makes things really difficult..…
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Mr. Speaker, “Not a chance” is what the president of the Residential Construction Council said when asked if the Prime Minister would keep his promise to build 3.9 million homes by 2031. Let us hear it from the Prime Minister. To reach that target, he would have to build 550,000 homes per year, so will the Prime Minister hit the target of 550,000 homes this year, yes or no?
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Mr. Speaker, that was a wonderful history lesson, except it did not answer the question. The Prime Minister promised he would lower housing costs in 2015; he doubled them. He promised he would double homebuilding; it actually went down and is still dropping. Now he is promising 3.9 million brand new homes by 2031. That means he would have to build 550,000 this year and every year. Once again, will…
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the Liberal Bloc is not worth the cost. Not only did the Bloc Québécois members vote in favour of $500 billion in centralizing, bureaucratic and inflationary spending, but they also want to drastically increase the taxes on gasoline and diesel for Quebeckers in the regions, unlike the Conservatives, who want to cut taxes. More specifically, we are proposing to give Q…
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Mr. Speaker, the question was not how quickly the Prime Minister could read off talking points written for him by his staff. The question was whether he is going to break yet another housing promise. Remember, he promised he would lower housing costs; he doubled them. He promised he would double the number of homes built; they went down. Now the Prime Minister is promising 3.9 million new homes by…
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Mr. Speaker, when the Conservatives were in power, the Bloc Québécois was nearly wiped out because we reduced the size of the federal government and allowed Quebeckers to be autonomous. They were truly masters of their own house. However, the Bloc Québécois is back because of the centralist policies of this Prime Minister. That is why these two parties are working in full collaboration. Will he fi…
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Mr. Speaker, when I was minister, we built nearly 200,000 houses and apartments. The average rent was $973. That is half of what it is today. Meanwhile, he is working in partnership with municipal officials to double the cost of housing. My common-sense plan requires municipalities to allow 15% more construction per year. If they exceed that percentage, they will receive a bonus. If they do not, t…
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Mr. Speaker, when I was housing minister, we built almost 200,000 houses and apartments, with the average rent being $973 for a one-bedroom apartment, but the Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled nine years after he and the NDP took power. What is he doing about it? He is giving half a billion dollars to the Mayor of Toronto, who has just jacked up homebuilding taxes …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister finally, for once, thought about monetary policy. He said, “As soon as you [spend more], inflation goes up by exactly the same amount. Right.” He is right for once. However, repeating the same costly promises that he has already broken does not change that fundamental monetary rule. Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that, yes, the economy is about numbers, that pe…
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Mr. Speaker, actually the number is closer to 200,000, but the Prime Minister has never been very good with numbers. The Prime Minister cites government-funded bureaucrats and Liberal academics to bolster his approach, which has doubled housing costs in just nine years, partly because he gives money to politicians and municipalities like Winnipeg, where they just blocked 2,000 homes right next to …
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Mr. Speaker, now I understand the logic. If the government spends money sending cheques directly to Canadians, that causes inflation, but if it sends money to the federal bureaucracy, that does not cause bureaucracy, unless it comes with broken promises and a lack of services. It is true what the Prime Minister said. Spending money that we do not have causes inflation. Will he acknowledge that it …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister calls his own words a “made-up excuse”. We cannot make this stuff up. The Prime Minister said that when people ask him to “send [them] more benefits or send [them] an extra thousand dollars a month”, he responds, “As soon as you do that, inflation goes up by exactly [the same] amount. Right.”
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Mr. Speaker, housing costs have doubled since he became Prime Minister. They were half when I was housing minister. Housing costs have gone up 40% faster than wages, a bigger gap than in any other G7 country. Why is that? It is because the Prime Minister is building bureaucracy and not homes. Why will he not accept my common-sense plan to require municipalities to permit 15% more building, sell of…
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Mr. Speaker, because of the incompetence of the Prime Minister and the Liberal mayor of Montreal, the wait time for a building permit has doubled and rents have tripled. In Ville-Marie, where the mayor is also in power, it takes 540 days to get a building permit. What is the Prime Minister doing? He is handing out another $95 million to build his bureaucracy. Why not impose financial penalties on …
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Mr. Speaker, when I was the minister responsible, the cost of housing was half of what it is today. The Prime Minister has not only doubled the cost of housing; he is spending money on growing the very bureaucracy that is blocking construction. I have a common-sense plan in Bill C‑356, which we will be voting on this afternoon. We are going to cut construction taxes, sell federal land and building…
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Mr. Speaker, when I was housing minister, we built 200,000 homes in one year, rent was only $900 and mortgage payments were half of what they are today. Fast-forward to the present, and the Prime Minister has given half a billion dollars to Toronto city hall to jack up new taxes on homebuilding. It is no wonder. When the president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, Richard Lyall, …
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Mr. Speaker, my common-sense plan to build homes would reward municipalities that speed up permits and punish the politicians who get in the way. The Prime Minister's approach has not only doubled housing costs, but built up Toronto City Hall with monstrous financial transfers so that it can block construction. There have been 50 new tent encampments added in the city of Toronto in six weeks. Ther…
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Mr. Speaker, the incompetence of this Prime Minister and the Liberal mayor of Montreal, who is blocking construction, has caused rents to triple in Montreal. We learned the worst today. Under the headline “Major holdup”, La Presse reported that, “since 2019, [building] permit wait times have more than doubled.” Why is the Prime Minister continuing to send $95 million to politicians and municipalit…
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Mr. Speaker, everything the Prime Minister said is false. When I was the minister responsible for housing, we built 200,000 new housing units. In Montreal, the average rent was $700 a month. Now it is $2,000. What is more, the wait time for construction permits has more than doubled. Why does the Prime Minister not follow my common-sense plan, which involves penalizing Montreal politicians by givi…
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Mr. Speaker, because of the incompetence of the Prime Minister and the Liberal city hall in Toronto, rent there has more than doubled over the last nine years. What is worse is that the Prime Minister's so-called housing accelerator fund has given half a billion dollars to Toronto, and only months later, the politicians in that city hiked up homebuilding taxes by 20%. Now 30% of all homebuilding c…
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Mr. Speaker, we know how to cut taxes. That is why we reduced poverty and had affordable homes nine years ago when common-sense Conservatives were in government. Since that time, housing costs have doubled. Mortgage payments have doubled. Rent has doubled. The number of homeless encampments in Canada is up by hundreds per cent. We now have one in four Canadians skipping meals because they cannot a…
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Mr. Speaker, we have voted against everything the Prime Minister has done to balloon the cost of living of Canadians, to increase food bank use by 50% over three years, to send one-quarter of all young people to the food bank in three months alone, one-quarter of all Canadians skipping meals because they cannot afford a home, a 38% increase in homelessness since 2019, 50 new homeless encampments i…
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost of mortgages, 76% of which will require higher monthly payments in the next three years, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, which monitors Canada's banks. This comes after the Prime Minister promised that interest rates would stay low for Canadians. Against this backdrop, the Bloc Québéco…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, after nine years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled since he took office. It is hard to believe, but on my last day as housing minister, in November 2015, the average rent in Canada's 10 biggest cities for a one-bedroom was $973. Can members believe that? It is now $1,893. The average down payment needed for a new home then was $22,000; it is alm…
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Mr. Speaker, of course the Conservatives want to cut. We want to cut taxes. The Journal de Montréal has declared that Quebec taxpayers are tapped out. It should come as no surprise that 75% of respondents to Léger-Québecor polls said that they were not getting their money's worth. The Liberal Bloc, however, wants to raise taxes. Why not at least accept my common-sense plan to suspend the gas tax t…
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost of mortgages, 76% of which will become more expensive over the next three years, according to the federal banking regulator, OSFI. This, after the Prime Minister said rates would stay low for long. We know that his massive government deficits have driven rates up two percentage points higher than they otherwise wou…
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Mr. Speaker, I am grateful the member points out that we have voted against every single policy that has caused homelessness to rise by 38%. We have voted against every single inflationary policy that has forced one-quarter of Canadians to skip meals because they cannot afford a meal on their table. The government has doubled the debt, increased inflation and blocked home building. Why is it that …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister doubled the national debt and raised taxes and inflation on the grounds that all that money would fund generous programs to eliminate homelessness. Since then, homelessness has increased by 38%, and one-quarter of Canadians are skipping meals because they do not have enough money. With the support of the Bloc, the government is consuming every penny Canadians have. …
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the homelessness and hunger. He doubled the debt, increased taxes and caused inflation, but he said it was all to fund generous programs that would end homelessness. Homelessness is now up 38%, and a quarter of Canadians are skipping meals because they cannot afford them. That is because his greedy government is consuming e…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, first of all, if the member thinks that parliamentarians have coverage that is too good, she could put forward a motion to cut it back. Instead, what she has done is propose to cut back drug plans for everyday Canadians, particularly unionized Canadians. Roughly 90% of Canadians have some drug coverage, but the bill that the NDP and the Liberals have put forward would require a sing…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in equal parts sadness and gratitude to honour the incredible life of a great Canadian, Rex Murphy. Rex was born a proud Newfoundlander. He became known as a pugnacious critic of those in power, even Joey Smallwood, and that was not easy in those days. He would go on to be a political assistant, for both major political parties in that province, and then a national voice…
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, it is clear that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. Homelessness is up by 38% and a quarter of Canadians skip meals because they cannot afford to eat. The Bloc voted for $500 billion in centralist, inflationary spending to hire an additional 100,000 public servants and double spending on consultants. It says it had no choice, because the government would shut …
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Madam Speaker, I know why the Bloc Québécois does not want the approach of the Harper years, because in the Harper years we reduced the role of the federal government, we decentralized powers and respected the powers of the provinces, which eliminated the Bloc Québécois. At that time, the Bloc Québécois had four seats. Quebeckers wondered why they needed the Bloc Québécois, and the Conservatives l…
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Madam Speaker, if the government does have more of a role, then that role has been to extend wait times and make emergency rooms even more full of people. Since the Prime Minister said he was going to get more involved in health care, wait times have doubled, so if he wants the power, he has to take the responsibility and explain why he has failed so badly. Then he talks about other grand federal …
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Mr. Speaker, the minister repeats the same costly promises the Prime Minister has been breaking for nine years. In a six-week period, 50 homeless encampments have opened in Toronto. Let that sink in. There are a total of 256 tent cities in Toronto alone. It was not like this before the current Prime Minister, and it will not be like this after he is gone. Will he admit that everything is broken af…
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is in the midst of an identity crisis. The Bloc Québécois is trying to go in two totally different directions. First, the Bloc Québécois claims to be a separatist party whose goal is to finally get rid of the federal government's control over the Quebec nation and the lives of Quebeckers. Then, according to its leader, the Bloc Québécois is a “progressive, sociall…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been making exactly the same promises for nine long years, yet the NDP-Liberal government has doubled housing costs, doubled the debt and increased the size of the bureaucracy by 50%. Now he wants to quadruple the carbon tax, all to deliver two million people to a food bank every single month. If government programs were really going to solve the problem he caus…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Bloc is a beautiful coalition. The Prime Minister, supposedly a federalist, is saying that the Bloc Québécois stands up for Quebeckers. Then we have the Bloc Québécois voting for centralist spending here in Ottawa. What is going on? Everything is backwards. Is it not time to forget about this senseless coalition and replace it with a common-sense Conservative government?
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Mr. Speaker, it is a school food program that has not served a single solitary meal, even though it was promised three years ago. What the Prime Minister is feeding is bureaucracy, not children. If all of his spending were working, then why is it that Food Banks Canada reported today that 25% of young adults had to go to a food bank in three months alone, and two million Canadians are lined up eve…
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years of debt, taxes and inflation courtesy of the Prime Minister and the Bloc Québécois, Canadians are hungry, literally. According to a report by Food Banks Canada, 50% of Canadians report that their situation is worse than last year. One-quarter of Canada's young adults have to rely on food banks. Why is the Prime Minister forcing Canadians to feed his morbidly obese gov…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's carbon tax applies on barns, on grain drying, on fertilizers and on off-farm vehicles. It costs literally tens of thousands of dollars for many individual farmers, all of which gets passed on. However, the Prime Minister, instead of defending his taxes, resorted to a really wacko and unhinged claim that, if Canadians just paid more taxes, there would suddenly be f…
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Mr. Speaker, normally the NDP leader is well worth ignoring, but I just cannot help myself. He says that the Prime Minister acts like he has no power to stop all these greedy CEOs from ripping off consumers. Who else has the power? Well, it is the guy who joined the government two years ago. He has been in power during the worst food price inflation in over four decades. Will the Prime Minister ag…
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Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has concluded that 60% of Canadians pay more in carbon tax costs than they get back in the phony rebates. One hundred per cent of middle-class Canadians pay more than they get back in the phony rebates. Now the Prime Minister wants to quadruple the tax, all at a time when he is preparing to hand over power to carbon tax Carney. Will the Prime Minister …
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Mr. Speaker, his school food program has provided zero meals, zero. It feeds the bureaucracy, not the children. Let us talk about austerity. In the past three months, 25% of young adults have had to go to a food bank. That is austerity. Some 50% of Canadians say they are worse off than they were last year and 25% are experiencing food insecurity. That is austerity. How is it that the government ha…
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