Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, that is an interesting response. Surely our tourism minister knows that travel is a discretionary activity. Adding 41¢ a litre to gas through the first carbon tax will not help. A second Liberal carbon tax of 17¢ will hurt as well. If we add GST to that, we have a tax on a tax on a tax. Canadians need tax relief, not another tax. When will the Liberal government axe the tax and help…
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Madam Chair, under the first two streams of the government's rapid housing initiative, the government committed $2.5 billion to projects. How much money was allocated to construction in the Niagara Region?
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Madam Chair, does the minister know what the average rent is for a one-bedroom apartment in Niagara Falls?
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Madam Chair, the minister refuses to answer questions. The answer to that is $1,495. Does the minister know the estimated wait time for an adult in Niagara Falls who is waiting for an affordable one-bedroom unit?
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Madam Chair, again the minister refuses to answer, and it is a failure of the government. According to Niagara Regional Housing, the answer is a wait time of 21 years. That is unacceptable. Does the minister know the estimated wait time for a senior in Niagara-on-the-Lake who is waiting for a new, affordable one-bedroom unit?
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Again, Madam Chair, he is not answering the question. Again, according to Niagara Regional Housing, the answer is 12 years. Does the minister know the estimated wait time for a family in Fort Erie who is waiting for a new, affordable four-bedroom unit?
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Madam Chair, the Liberals' programs are failing. Again, according to the Niagara Regional Housing, the answer is eight years. Minister, under the first two streams of the government's rapid housing initiative—
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Madam Chair, the program is not working. The answer is $10.5 million out of $2.5 billion. Can the government answer how many new, affordable housing units have been built in the Niagara Region through this program?
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Madam Chair, the minister fails to answer the questions. He does not even know the details of the rapid housing initiative and how many units were built in Niagara. The answer to that, out of the $2.5 billion, is only 42 units in Niagara. Do the government and minister know how many households in Niagara Falls were on the centralized housing wait-list last summer?
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Madam Chair, again, according to Niagara Regional Housing, the answer is 4,500 households as of July 2022. Does the minister know how many households and Niagara residents are on the Niagara region's affordable housing wait-list?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his comments regarding budget 2023 and the budget implementation act. He has spoken to a lot of the issues, but has not really spoken to the issue we are dealing with today, which is housing. Perhaps he can respond to some of the issues we are bringing forward. The government's approach with its national housing strategy, this “everybody g…
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Mr. Speaker, Canada's tourism industry and Canadians who enjoy travelling are under attack by the current Liberal government's out-of-control spending and taxes. A recent report found that six in 10 Canadians are scaling back their summer vacation plans, while a quarter say they cannot even afford a vacation. While Canadians struggle with affordability, the Liberal government continues to raise ta…
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his comments, but there are consequences to this government spending the cupboards bare. I wonder if the member could speak to whether he is as disappointed as I was, when I reviewed budget 2023, that there was no mention of the wine replacement program. In last year's budget, the government identified that it would be generating $390 million because of the ex…
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Mr. Speaker, the government, through the excise tax, placed a new tax on our Canadian grape and wine sector. In fact, it showed in last year's budget that it would be generating $390 million because of this new tax. What happened? Because of its escalator clause, we were forced to pay this tax. It promised a compensation program, a replacement program, but that replacement program of two years and…
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Mr. Speaker, before budget 2023 was presented, our Conservative leader made three demands of it: one, that it end the war on work and lower taxes for workers; two, that it end inflationary deficits that are driving up the cost of goods; and three, that it remove gatekeepers to increase the building of homes in Canada. Sadly, none of these three Conservative demands were met, and for that reason I …
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's questions about the work that the colleague from Niagara Centre has been doing. However, the member for Niagara Centre has been working on that for eight years. Only now, and after pressure from the United States that it was going to stop funding certain aspects of that money that is included in that $420 million, has this government finally realized i…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned U.S. President Biden. The largest thing the government had to respond to was the Inflation Reduction Act tabled in the United States. We are talking $390 billion over 10 years. Let me note some of the comments we received when I was at the international trade committee on what it takes to respond to that. Catherine Cobden, the president and CEO of the Canadian S…
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With regard to the government's plan to increase the tax on alcohol as of April 1, 2023: has Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada or the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario conducted any analysis on the negative impacts this increase will have on Niagara wineries, and, if so, what are the details, including the findings?
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is powered by tourism. That is the theme of this year's National Tourism Week. In my community of Niagara, some 2,800 tourism-related businesses employ 40,000 residents who rely on tourism for their paycheques. In 2019, Niagara welcomed more than 13 million visitors, generating $2.4 billion in receipts. We are Canada's largest tourism leisure destination. However, Canadian tour…
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Madam Speaker, like my hon. colleague, I have aerospace companies in my riding. I have Airbus Helicopters. Throughout the country, Airbus employs 4,000 people, including 250 in my riding alone. Airbus Helicopters has been in my community for almost 40 years. Dwayne Charette, the president and COO of Airbus Helicopters, spoke during committee hearings on this specific issue. He identified the disco…
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of a Liberal government, groceries, gas and home heating are getting more and more expensive. If that were not bad enough, on April 1 taxes on gasoline are going up 14¢ a litre, while the escalator tax on wine, beer and spirits is also set to rise by 6.3%. That is no cruel April Fool's joke. In Niagara and across the country, these taxes will punish wineries, craft b…
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Madam Speaker, it is going to have a tremendous impact. I probably have the largest number of wineries and grape growers in the country, as well as the largest manufacturing plant in the country, with Arterra. Now I am just bragging, but I have a lot to brag about. I would like to thank—
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Madam Speaker, my colleague and I may disagree on other politics, but the one thing we can agree is that 100% Canadian-made wines are to the benefit of everyone throughout this country. When the Conservatives were in power in 2006, they implemented an excise exemption for 100% Canadian-made wines. The sector grew from 300 wineries to over 700, employing 9,000 people. This new escalator tax puts th…
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Madam Speaker, speaking about breweries, for example, Canadian brewers directly employ over 20,000 Canadian workers, many in unionized positions with an average compensation nearing $40 per hour. That is according to Statistics Canada. What are we doing by putting disincentives to their products being sold and putting their jobs at jeopardy? That helps nobody. We want to create an environment that…
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Madam Speaker, when I was elected, the first issue that I spoke to, and the first question I asked in the House of Commons, had to do with the WTO challenge that Australia brought about because of the escalator tax and its impact on the Canadian wine sector. The government failed to act. We told the government in 2017 not to act on putting forward that escalator tax. It did so, and it did so to th…
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Madam Speaker, Canadians work hard for their paycheques, and they earn every cent of their income. That is their money to spend or save as they see fit. It is not the government's money to take through tax-and-spend inflation. At least, that is the way we Conservatives see it, which is in stark contrast to the high-tax Liberal government, which craves more and more taxes to continue feeding and fu…
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With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) transferring refugees to Niagara Falls, Ontario, from the province of Quebec: (a) when was the first transfer of refugees from Quebec to Niagara Falls; (b) since the date of the first transfer, how many refugees have been transferred from Quebec to Niagara Falls in total; (c) what is the monthly breakdown of the number of refugee t…
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Madam Speaker, when my colleague talks about the jobs that the government has created, he fails to recognize the impact of COVID on tourism and hospitality communities such as Niagara. During COVID, 40,000 people almost immediately lost their jobs. The sector is still struggling to recover, and regressive tax policies such as the escalator tax are preventing people from getting their full employme…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his comments and the direction he took in talking about the actions we can take, for example, on the enforcement side. The member spoke about the CBSA urgently needing to update not only its collective agreement but also the number of employees who are working at border facilities. In Niagara, for example, when we did the ArriveCAN study, Ma…
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, Canadians are out of money and they cannot afford to eat or to heat or house themselves. In fact, a recent StatsCan report found that a quarter of Canadians are not able to cover an unexpected expense of $500, yet the Liberal government continues to pile on new taxes, hike up existing taxes and double down on its wasteful spending, whic…
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Mr. Speaker, when our Conservative leader first spoke before the fall economic statement was introduced last November, he made two very clear and simple demands on behalf of our Conservative Party. First, we wanted the Liberal government to stop the taxes. This included cancelling all planned tax hikes and the tripling of the carbon tax. Fast-forward a few months to February, and it is clear that …
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Mr. Speaker, in my remarks earlier, I talked about the Auditor General, who found that $4.6 billion went to ineligible individuals, and we estimated that at least $27.4 billion in payments to individuals and employees should be investigated further. Among the individuals who received money and should not have, $1.6 billion went to people who quit their jobs; $6.6 million went to people who were in…
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Mr. Speaker, well, first of all, as Conservatives, we all believe that every company, every organization and every individual should pay their fair share of taxes. Let us begin with that. Again, some of the decisions made by the government benefited those who did not need the support. To my colleague's earlier question about eliminating the types of programs and funding for those organizations tha…
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with him 100%. We should be supporting those energy sources that are sourced here in Canada, done by Canadian workers. Just building on what he said about this notion of moving to a cleaner and cleaner economy, the Independent Electricity System Operator in Ontario estimated that it would cost $400 billion to get it to a carbon-neutral 2050 in Ontario. How are we going to do t…
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Liberal government, Canadians are suffering greatly. The proof is everywhere we look. Crime is skyrocketing, our bail system is broken and there are Liberal scandals aplenty. On matters of the economy, hard-working Canadians are being squeezed by the government's actions or lack thereof. On one end, Canadians are being pressured by inflation, which is being d…
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With regard to Parks Canada and the financial management of national parks, since 2015: (a) what are the names of each national park, broken down by province or territory; (b) what is the annual amount of funding received by Parks Canada from the federal government, broken down by year; (c) how much annual funding does each national park receive from Parks Canada, broken down by year; (d) what is …
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With regard to the Tourism Relief Fund (TRF): (a) how much of the $500-million fund has been disbursed to the tourism sector as of October 25, 2022; (b) what are the details of all funding provided through the TRF, including the (i) recipient, (ii) location, (iii) amount provided; (c) how much funding has been distributed, broken down by province or territory and by type of tourism related busines…
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With regard to the Tourism Relief Fund (TRF): (a) how much of the minimum $50 million of the TRF's regional priorities funding has been disbursed to the indigenous tourism sector as of October 26 and 27, 2022; (b) what are the details of all funding provided through the TRF for indigenous tourism initiatives, including, for each instance, the (i) indigenous ownership status of each recipient, (ii)…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have failed and made life easier for violent criminals by repealing mandatory minimums. Many of these mandatory minimums were implemented by the Prime Minister's father. They have failed to stem the tide of illegal handguns coming across the border, including the four bridges in Niagara. It has been mentioned before that violent crime is up 32%. Statistic Canada now repor…
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Mr. Speaker, before the Minister of Finance introduced Bill C-32, the fall economic statement implementation act, on November 3, the Conservative leader made two clear demands on behalf of our party. First, we wanted the Liberal government to stop the taxes. This included cancelling the planned tax hikes and the tripling of the carbon tax. Second, we wanted the Liberal government to stop the spend…
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Madam Speaker, looking at the government's own financial document, the recent statement, it shows the actual service levels for the debt it has created. Let us remember that Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, and Tiff Macklem, the current Governor of the Bank of Canada, said that inflation was caused by that extra $200 billion that was not related to COVID spending, which the …
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Madam Speaker, I mentioned what we are supporting. If governments are looking to spend, the policy we would be putting forward is this: For every dollar spent in new spending, one has to find a dollar in savings from other departments and other types of spending. That is to be used for the programs people deserve. Let us think about this. We are spending almost $45 billion on interest to service t…
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Madam Speaker, we can debate whose wine is better. One concern I mentioned in my remarks just now was the excise tax. In April it will be going up almost 7%. That will be hitting our wineries and our producers and hurting them tremendously. Another thing happening at the end of March is that the two-year replacement program for the ending of the excise exemption will end. That was $166 million pro…
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Mr. Speaker, this morning I was pleased to meet with members from the Hotel Association of Canada who travelled to Ottawa this week as part of their annual day of advocacy. The contributions of the hotel sector to our tourism economy are significant, and I saw first-hand how badly this sector was devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic in my tourism community. This was unnecessarily prolonged by the g…
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Madam Speaker, the residents in my riding of Niagara Falls are suffering under 40-year high inflation caused by this government's reckless policies. While the Liberals make more false promises for a better tomorrow to distract us from the issues of today, none of the problems they have created, which Canadians now face, are getting fixed. Immigration applications are jammed. Passport applications …
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With regard to the purchase of Canadian flags or lapel pins depicting the Canadian flag or the Canadian coat of arms, which were manufactured outside of Canada, since January 1, 2020: (a) what specific merchandise was purchased, broken down by individual item; and (b) what is the breakdown of the purchases listed in (a), including the (i) item description, (ii) price per item, (iii) country of ori…
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Mr. Speaker, the member talked about maintaining public confidence in our system. Perhaps the member could further elaborate about public confidence in our justice system, after seven years of Liberal policies that have eroded the public's trust.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support my new Conservative leader and the results he is getting for Canadians. Less than one month after the election, the federal Liberals threw in the towel and gave up on defending the disastrous ArriveCAN app. For many months, medical experts have told MPs that ArriveCAN could have been scraped as early as this past spring. Instead, the Liberals held on and continue…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' continued use of the ArriveCAN app destroyed any chance of recovery this summer for our Canadian tourism sector. Canadians are struggling and deserve so much better, so they can be excused for being upset when the government committed $54 million to the disastrous ArriveCAN app. Canadians simply want to know two things: Who got rich at their expense and when will we scra…
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Mr. Speaker, this morning I had the pleasure to meet with members from the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. Tourism matters. It enables economic development and job creation. My community of Niagara Falls is the number one leisure tourism destination in all of Canada, generating some $2.4 billion in receipts. More importantly, it employs almost 40,000 workers. The recovery of Canada's visit…
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