Andrew Scheer

Mr. Speaker, the long summertime drought of Thursday questions finally comes to an end. I know much relief is felt not just in the parliamentary precinct but across the land. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the government House leader back after what I am sure was a very busy summer for us all as we were out in our constituencies meeting with Canadians, hearing directly about their concerns and now bringing their issues back here to Parliament. I would like to ask the government House leader if during his travels this summer, he heard from Canadians who want to move past the rhetoric to results and who want the government to actually save them money. We know the government has conceded that gas taxes take a big bite out of the economy and hurt affordability. In order to save Canadians money, will he finally agree to the Conservative plan and not just have a temporary reprieve of the gas tax until January, as we saw with Bill C-38? Are there any plans for the government to make that last longer, all the way to Canada Day? Now that the government has conceded the principle that gas taxes hurt the economy, will it abandon the fuel standard tax and bring in legislation to repeal it? Finally, after all the photo ops, rhetoric and bluster, will there be a single new project that has gone through the Major Projects Office or benefited from the unprecedented powers of Bill C-5? Will we finally get to see things built, or was this summer of press conferences and MOUs just a bunch of political theatre?

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition, signed by over 215 residents in and around the Indian Head area who are protesting the closure of the Indian Head Research Farm. This research facility has over 100 years of data on soil, moisture and crop varieties. The current Liberal government is proving to be anti-science by shutting this site down. The petitioners call upon the Liberal government to save the jobs at Indian Head, save the research that is done at the facility and keep the centre open.

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick point of order. I hate to interrupt the hon. member's speech. Our ridings share a border, and so we are neighbouring members of Parliament. My riding goes all the way to Melville where her riding begins. I have enjoyed serving with her for the last decade or so, and it pains me greatly to have to bring up this point of order during her farewell speech. I will avail myself of the opportunity to hopefully ask a question or make a comment when she has finished her speech. However, earlier today, the Speaker ruled on the admissibility of this motion, which does have several knock-on effects, including what might happen at committee. I want to give notice to the Chair that we may come back later on today to make a submission on some of the dynamics and some of those moving pieces.

Mr. Speaker, I offer my sincere thanks to my colleagues for that accommodation. I think that any time a member is retiring after great service to their constituents in this House, it is appropriate that we show that kind of grace. I want to quickly extend all the very best to my colleague from Yorkton—Melville. We have worked together since 2015. We share a border and have many constituents who travel back and forth between her communities and mine. One of the things I admire about my colleague is her conviction and dedication to her core principles. I was given advice when I first got to this place that we should always know what we are willing to resign over or lose our seat over, that we should always know the limits upon which we cannot compromise, because those are our core values and beliefs. I believe Canadians respect that. They want to see people elected to the House of Commons who do not just go with the flow or read the polls and make decisions afterwards, but have a clear sense of who they are and what they are all about. The fact that her constituents kept sending her back to fight for them and represent them is a great testament to her character, her integrity and everything she brought to representing her constituents and speaking on their behalf in the House of Commons. Very quickly, I would like to wish her, her husband and everyone in her family the very best in her retirement and thank her for all she has brought to the Conservative Party of Canada, the official opposition in Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, I am tabling yet another petition from residents in and around the Indian Head area in southern Saskatchewan who are urging the government to reverse its terrible decision to shut down the Indian Head agricultural research farm. The farm has over 100 years' worth of data on things from soil conditions to moisture levels and all kinds of factors that affect the growing season. This centre has produced hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of economic benefit, not just to the agricultural sector in Saskatchewan but all across Canada, with the valuable research it has produced and innovations in everything from crop varieties to pest management. The Liberal government, which managed to find money for gender-just rice farming in Vietnam, cannot seem to find enough funds to keep this important centre open. The petitioners call on the government to reverse its terrible decision to keep the agricultural research farm open for generations to come.

Mr. Speaker, we have all been waiting since last Thursday for today's Thursday question, the time of the week when Canadian telecom providers have to scramble to add excess capacity as hundreds of thousands of Canadians tune in, anxiously anticipating what the government will bring forward in the chamber for the rest of this week and into next week. With the news that Canada is the only country in a recession under this Liberal Prime Minister's economic plan, will the government finally see the error of its ways and finally start to repeal the bad Liberal legislation that caused the problem in the first place? Can we expect, next week, to see legislation repealing the industrial carbon tax, which only applies to Canadian manufacturers and Canadian businesses? Will we see the Liberals bring in legislation to repeal the fuel standard tax, which adds at least 17¢ a litre to the price of fuel here in Canada, while American shippers and transporters do not have to pay that? Indeed, will they bring in a repeal of the west coast shipping ban, which prevents Canadian energy exports to Asian markets but does not apply to international traffic off the coast of British Columbia? Will they bring in a single piece of legislation to repeal the bad Liberal laws that are plunging Canada, the only G20 country, into a recession? Can we expect any of that relief next week?

Mr. Speaker, you join millions of Canadians who are anxious to hear the Thursday question. In fact, data centres all over the country are whirring into action as streaming devices carrying CPAC spring to life. It being Thursday, it is time for the government to update the House as to the business for the rest of this week and next week. In light of the fact that Justin Trudeau's radical environment minister has announced his resignation, and the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie is leaving, apparently, over a rift in policy, it would be helpful for the member to know if he is doing the right thing. Will the Liberals repeal all the radical antidevelopment legislation that the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie was so proud of? Will they repeal the “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69? Will they bring in legislation next week to repeal the shipping ban for Canadian exports off the west coast? Will they repeal the industrial carbon tax that drives away so many jobs and so much investment? In other words, will the government prove that it has actually changed its ways, or in fact, is it continuing with Justin Trudeau's radical antidevelopment, "no new energy" agenda? That would be in line with the Prime Minister's book he wrote about himself called Values, in which he called for Canada's natural resources to be left in the ground. In short, will the government bring in legislation to repeal those very bills and those very laws that drove out investment and shut down our energy sector for the past 11 years of darkness with Liberal governments?

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the question of privilege that the Bloc Québécois raised the other day. I would like to add a few comments for the Speaker's consideration. I think the specific situation described by the hon. member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères speaks to a worrying, broader trend with the Liberal government and its cozy relationships with corporate insiders. At the root of it is a Prime Minister who remains invested in Brookfield through what is called “carried interest”, despite that company's extensive presence in many fields where the Prime Minister and his ministers have control of powerful policy levers that can greatly influence Brookfield's asset prices and revenue streams. The House's ethics committee heard last autumn about Brookfield executives being able to call up the Prime Minister and secure private meetings with him. That is something the average Canadian certainly cannot do. The government's first major bill in the present Parliament, Bill C-5, was about empowering Liberal ministers to waive red tape for select insiders, rather than getting out of the way of economic development for the benefit of all Canadians. The Major Projects Office, established to provide a concierge service for the Liberals' approved insiders, is being staffed with friends of the Prime Minister from Bay Street whose salaries are being topped up by banking and corporate interests and who very well may stand to benefit from the decisions their loaned-out employees are making. The Prime Minister's approach to bureaucracies he does not like has not been to fix them to work better but to add another layer of bureaucracy and bring in corporate friends to run them. The list of examples goes on, including now the Bloc's observations about Air Canada's getting an inside track on changes to the handling of air passenger complaints. Of course, the Liberals' proposed fix for air passenger complaints is to replace Canadian public servants with European-modelled consultants, adding to the Liberals' unrelenting, multi-billion-dollar addiction to outsourcing as it hands out contracts, hand over fist, to well-placed, friendly consulting firms. There is an age-old saying in this town: “Whenever the Liberals are in office, it is all about who you know and the PMO.” That is probably more true now than it has ever been. These are issues that, quite honestly, vigilant committees need to stay on top of, though I know the Liberals' engineered majority on committees will make sure these issues will not see the light of day. That is why a question of privilege and the proposed referral to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs would be quite timely. I would urge the Speaker to find a prima facie case of privilege in this case so we can get the wheels in motion on a study about yet another apparent cozy corporate crony relationship to the Liberal government and its parliamentary proposals.

Mr. Speaker, the very first thing these Liberals did when they got their backroom deal majority was to stack the deck on committees, and now they are ramming through legislation and cutting off debate. This bill needs proper scrutiny, because it is a budget implementation bill that would add billions of dollars to the national debt. The last projection for this current fiscal year by the Trudeau government was that the deficit would be in the low thirties of billions of dollars. Now the deficit is more than twice that, with $30 billion of extra debt racked up on the national credit card. All this adds to more inflation. This is the same playbook the Liberals were running for 11 years: more dollars chasing fewer goods. Can the minister explain to the House why he thinks things will happen differently this time? We see the very same scenario. The Bank of Canada is buying government bonds. The creation of money, the money supply, the amount of money in circulation has been increasing at a rate of about twice that of the GDP. When we have more dollars chasing fewer goods, we get inflation, which is the worst kind of tax because Canadians have no say over it. Can the minister explain why he thinks things will be different this time?

Mr. Speaker, it being Thursday, it is time for the Thursday question. Maybe we should all pause and allow a bit of time for the millions of Canadians to run over to their televisions and turn on CPAC so they can catch the Thursday question here in the House of Commons. I would like to ask the hon. House leader for the government what the business for the rest of the week will be and, after our two constituency work weeks, when we will celebrate Victoria Day and hopefully spend some time with our constituents and families, if the leader of the government in the House can inform us what the business will be when we come back. I note that there is a lot of chatter in the public about energy regulations and impediments to natural resource development. We have the actual people who do the investments and do the developments and build the projects saying that the Liberal government is shackling them with unnecessary costs and regulation. The Prime Minister, who has had a year with his powers of Bill C-5, the Major Projects Office powers, has gotten absolutely nothing approved through that office. Will the government bring in bills to repeal the antidevelopment legislation that the Trudeau government implemented and that the current government, with the current Liberal Prime Minister, has kept on the books? Can we please start seeing legislation entitled “an act to repeal”?

Mr. Speaker, I have yet another petition from concerned residents of the Indian Head area on the closure of the research farm. The Liberal minister is trying to claim he can close this farm down and relocate it, but what he must not understand is that this particular site at Indian Head has over 100 years of soil data. This is an integral part of the agricultural research network across Canada. The centre itself provides jobs for the people in Indian Head. It also provides hundreds of millions of dollars in value to our agricultural producers because of the innovations and advancements it can make in crop health and pest and drought resistance. The petitioners urge the government to abandon its plans and reverse its decision to shut down this research centre.

Madam Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister is racking up billions of dollars on the national credit card. Canadians thought they were getting a different approach with the new Prime Minister, but it turns out he is just another costly Liberal. The more he grows the deficit, the more expensive things get. New data out this week proves that. Statistics Canada confirms nearly 10 million Canadians, or almost one in four, are living in food-insecure households. One in three Canadians are now borrowing money just to afford groceries. Life did not used to be like this in Canada. Instead of delivering a deficit even bigger than Justin Trudeau's, why does the Liberal Prime Minister not end the credit card budgeting so that Canadians can afford to live?

Madam Speaker, the last Justin Trudeau budget projected the deficit this year to be $31 billion. The deficit is $66 billion. That is more than double what was projected, not lower. The Liberals are spending more and Canadians are getting less, and now hard-working Canadians cannot even afford groceries. Here are some facts for the government. Food bank use has exploded to 2.2 million visits every month, up 100% since 2019. A third of those relying on food banks are children. Everything the Liberals brag about doing, they have tried before over the last 11 years themselves. Instead of driving up prices—

Mr. Speaker, this week's costly budget update shows the Liberals are continuing their decade of credit card budgeting: more costs, more debt, more taxes, just more of the same. It turns out the Prime Minister is not some kind of financial expert. He is just another costly Liberal. His deficit is double Justin Trudeau's. He is forcing Canadians to pay more in interest on the debt than on health care. What is the result? They have delivered the worst inflation in 40 years, the worst food price inflation and the only shrinking economy in the G7. When will the Liberal Prime Minister end his costly credit card budgeting so Canadians can afford to live?

Mr. Speaker, workers are tired of seeing their paycheques devalued by Liberal inflation. That is what workers are saying across this country. However, after nearly a decade of the costly Liberal government, Canadians are maxed out while the Prime Minister has maxed out the country's credit card. If we want to play the quote game, do not take my word for it. Even The Globe and Mail wrote, “the Trudeau government did all sorts of things that steadily made matters worse, fiscally and economically speaking, the [new Prime Minister's] government will do almost nothing to make them better.” Again, will these Liberals stop with the credit card budgeting so that Canadians can afford to live?

Mr. Speaker, this is meta-Liberal. The Liberals are stacking the decks on committees with this motion, and now they are moving closure and shutting down debate on that very motion. We had only a couple of hours of debate last week. There are many members who wanted to speak out on behalf of their constituents to raise the alarm on this undemocratic measure, and now the government is shutting down debate. The irony here is so thick that one could cut it with a knife. I have to note that the very first vote these new Liberal MPs will pronounce on will be a vote to shut down debate. Welcome to the Liberal Party of Canada. They can check their souls in at the door and follow whatever the whip tells them to do. Why is the government using this undemocratic tool to shut down debate to stack the decks on committees? Why does it continue to oppose our reasonable amendment to protect the opposition's role on the oversight committees? Those committees have nothing to do with government legislation. They provide the accountability the Canadian people voted for at the ballot box.