Government Orders
Madam Speaker, it is a great honour to ask my hon. colleague a question. He has given so many years to this place in the service of his community. In the United States, the President as well as the Secretary of the Treasury, Ms. Yellen, have actually taken responsibility for underestimating inflation. Why is it that no one in the government, cabinet or the executive branch, has acknowledged that t…
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Madam Speaker, perhaps this will expose a slight difference in approach between the Conservatives and the NDP on this issue. We believe that cutting taxes at the pump by the government will reduce prices for consumers, as evidenced by some actions by provincial governments, including the Government of Alberta and the soon-to-be Government of Ontario. I do not believe that increasing taxes on compa…
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Madam Speaker, yes, inflation is a global problem, but guess what? All of the countries where inflation is a problem are countries that did the exact same economic, monetary and fiscal policy expansion that we have seen, and that is why there is an inflation problem.
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Mr. Speaker, all of those countries measure inflation differently, and perhaps it would not hurt the government to admit just a little bit of humility instead of being blinded by ideology, and recognize that the facts on the ground have changed and that it needs to change course to provide immediate relief to Canadians. We have heard time and time again that the government is providing zero relief…
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Mr. Speaker, what do the Federal Reserve, President Biden, treasury secretary Yellen and the Bank of Canada all have in common? They have all taken responsibility for underestimating inflation. Secretary Yellen said she was wrong about inflation and President Biden released a plan to fight inflation just last week. Where is the government's plan to provide immediate relief to Canadians and combat …
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Mr. Speaker, the first printed recipe for butter tarts was published in the cookbook of the women's auxiliary to the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1900 in Barrie, Ontario. Today, there are hundreds of varieties and infinite butter tart possibilities. There are a million and one ways to make and eat a butter tart, but just one truly great place to enjoy them. That is at Ontario's Best Butter Tart Fest…
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With regard to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), real estate transactions and a report in the Toronto Star on May 30, 2019, about tax evasion in the real estate markets in Ontario and British Columbia: (a) how many Canadians (individuals, companies or corporations) have been identified as having evaded taxes through real estate transactions; (b) how many non-Canadians (individuals, companies or cor…
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Mr. Speaker, when the government is asked about inflation and the cost of living, it continually downplays the real struggle that Canadians face while referring to the strength of the economy. However, now reports confirm what Canadians are feeling. In March, the economy grew by just 0.7%, in April the economy nearly stalled and inflation is at 30-year highs. What does the Minister of Finance have…
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Mr. Speaker, the tourism sector is on its knees. Communities across this country and in Simcoe North are depending on the influx of tourists to get back on their feet, but businesses and communities should not have to also deal with the federal government getting in the way of what should be a strong recovery. The latest revelation from the CBSA, that almost 80% of small vessel crossings will rema…
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Mr. Speaker, as gas prices soar across the country, the government's response is tone deaf and even at times condescending. It shrugs off astronomical gas prices, even though federal taxes contribute to inflation. It says the carbon tax rebate outweighs the cost, but we know that is just not true. The majority of Ontario families are worse off, businesses that ship goods are worse off and farmers …
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With regard to expenditures on public relations or media training, or similar type of services for ministers or their offices, including the Office of the Prime Minister, since January 1, 2019: what are the details of each such expenditure, including the (i) date of the contract, (ii) amount, (iii) vendor, (iv) individual providing the training, (v) summary of services provided, including the type…
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With regard to transcriptions or transcripts procured by the government since January 1, 2016, and broken down by department or agency: (a) what is the (i) date of the proceeding or event, (ii) location of the proceeding or event, (iii) description or summary of the proceeding or event, (iv) main participants speaking at the proceeding or event, (v) subject matter of the proceeding or event, for e…
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With regard to the Canada training credit (CTC): (a) how much has the CTC cost the government, or is currently forecasted to cost, for (i) 2019–20, (ii) 2020–21, (iii) 2021–22, (iv) 2022–23, (v) 2023–24; (b) how do the actual costs, or currently forecasted costs, in (a) compare to the projections in budget 2019; (c) for any costs in (b) that are lower than the projections in budget 2019, why have …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like my friend to speak a little more about the theme of paternalism that we saw in this budget. The Prime Minister seems to be adding strings attached with funding that is supposed to be going to provinces for what is within provincial jurisdiction. I have said in this House before that we could sometimes mistake the Prime Minister for wanting to become a premier instead of a…
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Mr. Speaker, in 2015, the government was elected on a promise to make housing affordable, but since then the average Canadian house price has increased by 100%. In Orillia, it is up 300%. The government's solution is to throw a few more billion dollars at the wall and see what sticks, but the shiny new tax-free home savings account will not be available for at least one year. Then people will have…
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Mr. Speaker, the government's budget rewards failure. The failing Infrastructure Bank gets more money and an expanded mandate. The Liberals are using the same broken model for the $15-billion new innovation slush fund. The underwhelming supercluster program gets a sweet renewal and, of course, the government has ignored inflation warnings and increased the carbon tax, punishing farmers and Canadia…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise, as it always is, in this chamber to talk with my colleagues. We are talking about the budget today, so it is helpful, before we ask the question, to set where we are and then ask this: Does the budget meet the expectations that Canadians had? Gas prices have almost never been higher. Our food prices are going up and up. Retail prices are continuing to incre…
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting. I am not really sure the member actually listened to my speech. I said that the government is not planning to increase health care transfers, but if we want to talk about the $2 billion and all the other money that is provided to provinces with strings attached, this budget drips with paternalism. There are no more fearful words to hear in a province than when the…
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is completely right. If we look at the number of individuals who could use this new tax-free home savings account, which is just another marketing ploy, it is about the same number of people who can use the homebuyers plan. Actually, not that many Canadians can afford to do that every year, so this relief is not going to help a significant number of people. I just …
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. It is important to consider what the economy is willing to invest in. I know that our finance committee is considering studying things related to the green economy and how we might support that. We have not seen that study, but I would welcome a discussion at least around how this could impact inflation. I would say one of the most important th…
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Mr. Speaker, this budget adds about $1,400 in debt for every person in the country. Why is the answer to the government's problems always to add spending and debt? Canadians are waking up today without relief from higher food or gas prices, and to find out they owe $1,400 more per person. Why do the Liberals want to saddle the future generation with this extra debt?
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Mr. Speaker, these good fiscal managers are increasing government spending by 25% over prepandemic levels, but guess what? The government is benefiting from inflation. It is making $170 billion more than it projected just last year, but who is getting the benefit of that? It is not Canadians. There is no relief for food or higher gas prices. What does the government have to say to struggling Canad…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my friend. I very much liked my hon. colleague's speech. I thought he did very well, especially in the first half of it. I would like him to expand a little more on the paternalism that we saw in the budget. We could be excused for thinking that the Prime Minister might want to be a premier of a province after reading the budget. He is getting involved in the jur…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his intervention and his comments, especially as they relate to greater co-operation in the House and the tone that we take. I think that is very important. I would like to mention that I have enjoyed working well with my colleague on the finance committee. As he referenced, we did make an amendment to government legislation. I hope I can look for…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for talking about this issue again in the House of Commons. Of course, it is very important that we think about our fish harvesters and those who are very close to insolvency. We absolutely need to be there to help those who are nearing bankruptcy. At the same time, there are Canadians across the country who are very close to bankruptcy, so when…
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moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented on Monday, March 21, 2022, be concurred in. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to members this afternoon. I would like to mention that I am splitting my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. The world is different now than it was just a year ago. We have an unprovoked invasion and …
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Madam Speaker, I certainly hope we can have an honest conversation about health care. The government campaigned in 2015 that the health care funding formula was broken. What do we have? We have the continued use of Prime Minister Harper's health care funding formula. It is time we have a good conversation with our provincial colleagues about that, and I look forward to hearing more about that in t…
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Mr. Speaker, last week, the former parliamentary budget officer indicated that this is not the environment in which we want to do deficit spending. The economy is in recovery, and unemployment is low, while the Bank of Canada is struggling to deal with inflation we have not seen in 30 years. Does the Minister of Finance realize that additional spending risks making inflation worse, yes or no?
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Mr. Speaker, I guess if everything is so good, why do we need to keep spending? The government's only answer to every problem is to spend more money, but now the chorus of warnings is growing. Just last week, Scotiabank said that spending commitments undermine the government's ability to tackle inflation. Even Stephen Poloz and a former Liberal finance minister agree that now is not the time for s…
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Madam Speaker, the question is not whether child care is good or not. We had a debate in the last election about different child care policies. The question is, what are the priorities of the government? If it has so many priorities, then it really does not have any at all. If we want to talk about how to fund child care, we should not be taking on additional debt to fund operational costs of gove…
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Mr. Speaker, do members know who benefits from inflation? It is the government. Next week the federal government is going to announce record revenues from higher taxes, higher oil prices and inflation. Canadians want to know how the Liberal-NDP government is going to use this windfall. Will it provide relief to Canadians through tax holidays? Will it reduce the size of the deficit, or will it just…
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Mr. Speaker, it is estimated that this new NDP–Liberal agreement will cost taxpayers upward of $40 billion by the end of the term. Last week, Scotiabank said, “The finance minister risks further undermining Ottawa's credibility in...tackling [runaway] inflation.” That is because when inflation is more than double the 2% target, and with where we are in the business cycle, additional spending will …
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this motion put forward by my colleagues and the member for Burnaby South. Before I begin, I would like to mention I am splitting my time with the hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup. I was very encouraged when I heard about this motion today and that we were going to talk about a public beneficial ownership registry, which is ba…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question, which allows me to point back to his own government's data. In 2016, we raised the top marginal rate on the highest income earners in Canada. What happened? The government told us that we were going to get about $3 billion in extra taxes. What did we get? We received less than $1 billion, which is a third of what we were expect…
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Madam Speaker, to clarify, while I find some portions of the NDP motion acceptable, I do not think we can support the motion in its entirety as it is currently written. I do not believe that growing the size of government is going to address the cost-of-living crisis. My submission would be that we need to let consumers take these excess profits from companies in the form of lower prices. In fact,…
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to answer this question again. We look at the federal budget from 2017 and it talks about how much revenue was gained from the tax increase on the wealthiest Canadians. It was one-third of what the government projected, so it received far less revenue than it thought it would because people left. If we increase taxes on large businesses that can easily shift profits and…
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With regard to the Shared Equity Mortgage Providers Fund that launched on July 31, 2019: (a) how many applications have been (i) received, (ii) approved to date; (b) what is the total value of funds distributed to date through the program; and (c) how many units have been built under the program?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. It is wonderful working on the finance committee, and I am learning a lot from him. With respect to the interest charges on debt, we absolutely need to worry about this. One of the justifications for the government's spending using deficit financing early on in its mandate was that interest charges were so low. They to…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for that very good question, and I agree with her. I think that the government is underfunding health care transfers to provinces. In 2015, the incoming Liberal government ran on a platform to increase provincial transfers, but it has not. In fact, it has increased certain amounts of money, but then tied strings or attached some conditions on what that money …
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Mr. Speaker, it is very nice to see you in the chair. I hope we will see more of you there. It is a pleasure working with you at committee, but it is nice to see you in the chair today. It is nice to intervene with my colleagues on Bill C-8, the economic and fiscal update implementation bill, but before I get to that, it seems rather appropriate to acknowledge the devastation that we see in Ukrain…
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Mr. Speaker, I understand that the hon. member makes a number of interventions and I find many of them helpful, because it allows me to answer some of these questions quite clearly. We would not know where all of the money is that is collected, because the government does not really, in a transparent way, show us this. It also does not indicate the cost of administering the carbon tax and rebate p…
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Mr. Speaker, according to Angus Reid, 53% of Canadians cannot keep up with the cost of living, and things are going to get worse. The next budget will introduce significant amounts of new spending and make inflation worse for Canadian families, and on April 1, the government is increasing the carbon tax on gasoline by almost nine cents a litre. Every day, we hear more stories of Canadians telling …
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Mr. Chair, I have been hearing from some constituents, including one who actually just passed through one of the border crossings from Ukraine into Poland, and one of the things he mentioned to me was the lack of supplies and necessities to support people at the border, such as blankets in the cold elements. Many of the individuals fleeing are women and children. I am wondering if the hon. member …
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Mr. Speaker, it is discomforting to stand here today. It is a sad and dark time for our country. Unfortunately, this does not overstate current events. I have watched with concern the lawlessness paralyzing Ottawa and key border crossings in Ontario and other provinces. Never before has the Emergencies Act been invoked. It has sat on the shelf during some quite challenging moments in our country. …
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the same press conference yesterday, and what I heard the chief of police say was that it was helpful to have the emergency measures act. I know we like to debate semantics a lot in this House, and I am sure we will for the rest of today and into tomorrow, but something that helps to accomplish something is different from something being absolutely necessary to use. I th…
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Mr. Speaker, I say thank you to the hon. member and I look forward to the day when I can stand in this House and respond in the member's first language of French. I hope to be able to do that by the time I leave this place. It is very important for all Canadians to recognize that we have become very polarized in the media. My hon. colleague brought up the media. We can choose which views to insula…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question and for mentioning the great work of the former member for Simcoe North, Bruce Stanton, whom I hold in great respect. Again I think it comes down to proportionality. We saw court injunctions used quite effectively. A young woman went to court and received an injunction to stop the trucks from honking their horns, and that day it stopped for a…
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Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of COVID, all the parties came together to support relief programs for Canadians and businesses. Now the economy is opening up, but the government's money printing press is still humming. Experts are now warning the government what members of this side of the House have been warning for some time: that the government’s future spending plans will lead to more inflation…
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Mr. Speaker, I feel like a baseball player who steps up to the plate after somebody has hit a home run, but I will do my best to follow the hon. member for Carleton. It is my honour to rise today and speak to Bill C-8, which is the economic and fiscal update implementation act of 2021. The bill touches on several different topics, but I would like to focus on a few critical elements related to far…
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know if it was just luck, but I am quite happy to answer another question from the hon. colleague, as he asked a question of me on my last speech. Talking about carbon tax is really cold comfort to a farmer who is paying $13,000 a month in carbon tax. Where is that money coming from? I would like to ask this member about the farmers he has spoken to. This is what we are talki…
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