Branden Leslie

Mr. Speaker, let me take members back in time a few years. When the Liberals introduced Bill C-69, they told us that the new process would make project reviews more efficient, predictable and timely. Now, eight years later, that sales pitch has not aged well at all. Now we have Bill C-39, and the government's own explanation says its approval system suffers from lengthy timelines that delay projects and create uncertainty for investors. That is quite an admission. What matters now is whether Bill C-39 would actually fix them. This, of course, is after the Liberals brought in Bill C-5, which was going to bring in sweeping legislative changes to allegedly build at speeds not seen in generations. We now have a Major Projects Office that has issued no new permits, built no new projects and created no new jobs other than government jobs, of course, over the past 18 months. In terms of Bill C-39, the first thing we should understand is the government's promise of a one-year federal review. That sounds simple, but it is not. The clock would not start when a company first brings forward a project. There could first be up to six months of planning. Then, the company would normally have up to a year to provide the studies and information government requires, and even that period could be extended. Only after government officials are satisfied that they have the information they need would the main review clock start. From there, the assessment report would generally be supposed to be completed within 300 days, followed by up to another 65 days for the final decision. Therefore, when Canadians hear “one-year approval”, they should not assume that means one year from the day a project enters the federal system to the day it actually gets an answer. A company considering a $10-billion mine wants to know something simpler: How long will it take from entering the process until it has enough certainty to put billions of dollars on the line? I will be splitting my time with the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. What happens if the government misses its own deadline? The project would not be automatically approved and the government could simply keep reviewing it. The only penalty for the government's delaying all this is that the minister would have to explain why the deadline was missed, and publish another proposed timeline. If the purpose of a deadline is certainty, how much certainty would it really provide if missing it simply produces some bureaucratic gobbledygook and yet another deadline further down the road? The second major change would be what the government calls “one project, one decision”. Today a company could spend years completing an impact assessment and then discover it still needs another round of federal permits before construction can begin. Bill C-39 would allow the environment minister to issue certain permits at the same time as the final impact assessment decision. For a mine that needs Fisheries Act, Canadian Navigable Waters Act or Species at Risk Act approvals, that could remove some back-to-back processes, but it would not initially include every federal permit. That leaves me with questions. Which permits are actually delaying projects today? How many would be covered properly by the bill? Which important ones would still remain outside it? If a company gets its impact assessment decision but still waits months for another approval, would we have achieved one project, one decision? The bill also would allow certain construction to start before the final decision where doing so is in the “public interest”. Anyone who has built something in rural Canada understands why that can matter: If they miss a construction season, a project could lose many months. If construction could happen while the rest of the assessment continues, time could be saved, but companies need to know early what qualifies. The nuclear changes would be more substantial. For nuclear projects, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would become the lead assessment body. Environmental review, public participation and indigenous consultation would remain. What would change is who would run that process. Instead of having the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada run one process while the nuclear regulator runs another, Bill C-39 would put the CNSC in the driver's seat, and the minister would no longer be able to send the project into another separate federal review. Instead, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would run the assessment, and once the project is approved, the conditions imposed during that review could simply become part of the nuclear licence the company must follow. In other words, rather than creating one set of conditions through the environmental review and another through the licensing, the bill would try to bring the two processes together. That could reduce duplication, but does the CNSC have enough people and expertise for this new and expanded role? Would projects get decisions faster, or would the bureaucracy simply look cleaner on an organizational charge? Changes for the Canadian Energy Regulator raise similar questions. Bill C-39 would make the CER the sole assessor for pipelines, designated power lines and offshore renewable energy projects. For pipelines, the bill creates two tracks based on how much entirely new corridor has to be built. If a pipeline requires less than 300 kilometres of new right-of-way, the CER would generally make the final decision itself. Today, the regulator can spend up to 450 days reviewing a major pipeline and making a recommendation, only for the file to then go to cabinet for a final decision. For projects below the new threshold, that extra cabinet step would generally disappear, but for pipelines requiring 300 kilometres or more of new corridor, cabinet would still need to make the final call. The CER would have up to 180 days to complete its review and recommendation, and then cabinet would have another 60 days to decide, followed by another 125 days for the CER to issue the final certificate and conditions. Those are significant changes, but where did these numbers come from? Why is it 300 kilometres? Why should a pipeline requiring 290 kilometres of new corridor be decided by the CER, while one requiring 310 kilometres still has to go through a cabinet approval process? Is that the threshold based on environmental risk or project complexity, or is it simply where the government just decided to draw the line? The same question applies to the timelines. Why is it 180 days? Why is it 60? Why is it another 125? Has the CER confirmed that applications can realistically be handled within those periods without stopping the clock more often? The 300-kilometre threshold is also not in reference to the total length of the pipeline. Let us imagine a 500-kilometre pipeline where 350 kilometres follows an existing corridor. If only 150 kilometres requires an entirely new right-of-way, the project would fall below the threshold, even though the pipeline itself is 500 kilometres long. The bill is measuring how much new ground the project must break, not simply how long the pipeline is. Then we get to the fine print. These clocks, they are not absolute. Parts of the process can still be excluded. Additional time can, and I fear most likely will, be added. If the CER or government misses deadlines, the project is not automatically approved. We need to determine whether these timelines will shorten the approval process or whether the clock will simply stop when the difficult parts begin for government. Another idea that deserves attention is the creation of the regions of national interest. Cabinet could designate an entire region and identify categories of projects that may qualify within it. This could matter in an area chock full of critical minerals or a major energy corridor. If government has already completed a regional assessment of water, wildlife and cumulative effects, later project reviews should not have to start from zero. This would not create an immediate fast track. Before a region can get such special treatment, the government would first have to complete a broader regional assessment. If the bill were to come into force, if it were to pass, the list of regions that qualify would be empty. The faster process would only become available later, after government has done the groundwork and designated a region. Who knows how long that will take, given the Liberal government's track record. Once again, implementation will determine whether this changes anything. After years of being told that the old system was efficient and predictable, we should not just accept that a new set of promises from the Liberal government is going to be the solution. We need answers because we cannot afford to get this wrong. Our country, our future and our prosperous nation are simply too important. Bill C-39 should be judged by a simple standard: Can a company with a project get a clear answer in a reasonable amount of time and then get to work? That is the test. Before Parliament passes this bill, we should be sure this legislation will pass that test.

Mr. Speaker, the government is correctly identifying the problems after we point them out. They are self-imposed problems, but the problem with the government is that all it ever sees is a nail to hit, and it always seems to hit it with a new bureaucracy. As my colleague outlined, whether it be housing, energy or anything else, all the government tries to do is build new government bureaucracies. It turns out, given that housing starts are down and that our oil and gas sector is struggling under this regime, it is time for a change. It is time for a Conservative economic agenda to get this country going.

Mr. Speaker, for millions of families, payday is no longer a chance to get ahead. It is simply the day to hopefully pay the bills. The National Payroll Institute says that more than half of working Canadians are spending every dollar they take home, leaving absolutely nothing to save, and only 18% say that their pay is keeping up with the cost of living. The Liberals seem to insist that their plan is working, but they are so clearly out of touch, and Canadians are out of money. Families are working harder and harder and falling further and further behind. When will the Liberals stop the pain and embrace our Conservative economic plan so that Canadians can afford to live again?

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise for the first time in this fall session. I would like to talk about what it means to be an average Canadian. We all know there is a moment that has become so familiar for so many Canadians. Someone pulls up to a gas station, they get out of their car, they put the nozzle in their tank and they just stand there watching those two numbers race each other. One number shows how many litres they are getting, and the other shows how much money is disappearing out of their bank account. For a lot of families, there used to be a point where filling up was almost an afterthought. If someone needed gas, they stopped and got gas, but today, people notice every single dollar. There are two ways to measure the cost of living. The government looks at it like a speedometer, but families live with the odometer. Let me explain that. The speedometer tells us how fast prices are rising today. That is the inflation rate. The odometer tells us how far prices have travelled from where they started, and that is the number that Canadians cannot simply reset. We hear that inflation is now around 3%, and that sounds like good news. Slower inflation is certainly better than faster inflation, but Statistics Canada tells us that grocery prices are still 29% higher than they were five years ago. The speedometer has slowed down, but the odometer has in no way gone backward. That is what Canadians are feeling right now. We could put a hundred-dollar bill on someone's kitchen table and ask what that $100 bought for that family five years ago. We can then ask what that $100 would buy for them today. Nobody buys groceries with the consumer price index. They pay with real dollars, and those dollars simply do not stretch as far as they used to. That is the context in which we are debating Bill C-38 today. The regular federal excise tax is 10¢ a litre on gasoline and four cents on diesel. Under this legislation, those rates would remain at zero until January 31. However, then something curious would happen. On February 1, half of that tax would come back, and on April 1, the whole thing would come back. We are debating tax relief today, while the date for taking that relief away is already printed on the calendar. Our Conservative caucus has indicated that we will support keeping this relief in place, but this debate did not begin just this week. In April, Conservatives brought a motion before the House calling for the federal fuel excise tax to be removed for the rest of 2026, along with broader relief from federal costs on gasoline and diesel. That motion was unfortunately defeated, 192 votes to 134 votes. The issue was again raised in May. Members can disagree about how far relief should go or how long it should last, but the record is there. I think there is something else we should understand about fuel, particularly for those of us who represent rural Canada. There is a tax that people pay that never appears on any government form. It is the cost of distance. If somebody lives in a major city, there may be days where driving is simply an optional activity. That is not the reality for folks living in rural Canada. There is no subway running past the farmyard. The specialist for medical appointments is probably an hour or more away. The hockey rink one plays at is in the next town, and the away games are even farther, in the town beyond that. The hardware store might be 30 miles down the highway, and the part needed to get a combine moving again is most likely farther than that. There may as well be a line in the family budget called “the driving tax”. It is not because the government literally charges it, but because geography does. Every appointment takes fuel. Every grocery trip takes fuel. Every trip to work takes fuel for the vast majority of the folks I represent. For many seniors, a car is not just a luxury; it is independence. It is church on Sunday. It is seeing their grandchildren on the weekend. A senior cannot move the hospital closer because gasoline got too expensive for them to go to their appointments. A farmer cannot move the field closer to their home farmyard. A trucker cannot make Winnipeg and Calgary neighbours all of a sudden. Distance does not negotiate with the household budget. We can also think about one litre of diesel put into a tractor in Manitoba, the tractor that helps produce the crop. Next, the combine is running at about $250 an hour during harvest just to get the crop off, then another litre goes into the truck to haul the crop once it is off. There is fuel used again to get it to the processor. A truck takes the finished product to the distribution centre, and then another vehicle eventually delivers it to a store. Much of that cost is actually borne and eaten by the farmers themselves, but the consumer is ultimately paying the rest of it when buying the finished product. That is what makes fuel different from so many other household expenses. The cost moves through the entirety of the economy. A contractor's truck carries tools to a job site. A delivery van carries somebody's order. A semi carries food right across this great nation. Fuel is buried inside the cost of moving virtually everything that we enjoy day to day. That does not mean that a 10¢ tax reduction magically cuts 10¢ off the price of bread. Of course it does not, but the cost of moving those goods adds up. Even the government's own announcement points specifically to trucking, agriculture, food, housing, construction and delivery businesses when explaining who would benefit from this tax relief. Earlier this year, the government conducted what was almost a real-world economic experiment. For years we had to hear the Liberals argue about whether taxes at the pump really made much difference at all. Then, in April, the excise tax came off, and according to the government's own figures, gasoline prices fell by roughly 11¢ a litre on the very first day: tax off, prices down. Nobody thinks that the Government of Canada controls the world's price of oil. It cannot control every refinery shutdown, war, or international disruption, but government does control the taxes that it adds on top of those prices, and Canadians can tell the difference. What worries me about the larger affordability debate is that we sometimes talk as though inflation's having slowed down has repaired the damage from the inflation that came before it. It has not. Inflation works a little bit like a ratchet. Prices can move up very quickly, and they rarely return all the way to the place where they began. We can think of an elevator as another example. Over several years, the cost of living has taken the elevator up. Now the government points out that the elevator is moving up a little bit more slowly, but the family standing several floors above where it started may be forgiven for not celebrating just yet. That is why the same things that Canadians complained about being expensive a few years ago are still expensive today: food, housing, repairs, travel, fuel and just about everything in our day-to-day lives. The crisis changes shape, but the accumulated bill remains, and that brings me back to the April 1 date day etched in the calendar by the government and feared by Canadians. There is something odd about telling people that relief is needed today, while at the same time scheduling the tax to return just a few months from now, April Fools, except it is not a joke for Canadians. That is essentially where this policy, as drafted, leaves the country. The relief does last a little bit longer, but then the meter begins running again. Meanwhile, the grocery bill does not have an expiry date, and neither does the mortgage. The farmer will not just get to suspend planting next spring until diesel becomes cheaper for them. The senior does not get to postpone a medical appointment until the price at the pump improves. Families have to live in the economy every single day. There is a broader principle here that we should all remember: When the cost of living becomes difficult, governments instinctively start looking for something new to create, such as a new program, a new benefit, a new application or a new bureaucracy to administer the new program that they dreamt up. Sometimes that may be necessary, but sometimes there is a much simpler question worth asking first: Could government not just take less? A dollar that never leaves someone's pocket does not require an application form from the government to get it back. It does not require some administrative department in Ottawa, and it does not require somebody to qualify. It is simply still their dollar, as it should be. Bill C-38 would provide temporary relief from one federal tax. The larger affordability debate is nowhere near finished, though, because Canadians do not experience the economy through a monthly Statistics Canada release. They experience it when they open their wallet. They experience it when they know that $100 simply buys less. They experience it when the drive to town costs that much more. They experience it when a litre of diesel works its way through a farm, a truck and eventually to their grocery store shelf. The speedometer may tell us inflation has slowed down, and that is a good thing, but families are still looking at the odometer, and they know exactly how far we have travelled.

Mr. Speaker, Canadians should be happy that we have His Majesty's loyal opposition to put forward good ideas that have been at times embraced by the government, such as the extension of the excise tax, or putting it on to begin with. I wish I had the Hansard record to count the number of times that the member defended the carbon tax as neutral for families and said that everyone was better off. He stands here and takes some sort of credit, like it was his idea. Give me a break.

Mr. Speaker, for all of us, one of the best and the worst parts of this job is hearing people's stories, because it is important that we know them, but sometimes they are very difficult to hear. I am sure we have all heard those seniors who say they are making $20,000, and we wonder how on earth they are living and how they are eating. We all go to grocery stores. We all try to drive to medical appointments, and there are things I outlined in my speech. It is heartbreaking to hear the challenges that these people are living with. We should be doing our level best, and this is one small thing. We need to control what we can control. We cannot control wars in the Middle East or the Strait of Hormuz being closed. We cannot control any of that. The only things that we can control are the taxes that we put upon Canadians and the way that we waste money here out of Ottawa. It is time that we do better for both, and lower taxes for Canadians so we can improve their quality of life.

Mr. Speaker, I support seniors living on fixed incomes, families and anybody who lives in my riding or across this country having the highest possible standard of life. We have vastly different views. As I outlined in my speech, the government sees any problem as an opportunity to create some big new bureaucracy, spend a whole bunch of money and then, when asked about the results, say, “We spent x amount of dollars”. People are struggling out there. Press releases saying they spent this much money do nothing to help feed Canadians, house them or keep them warm in the winter.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said affordability is the best it has been in decades, but normal, hard-working, everyday Canadians know that is simply not true. Meat Loaf famously once sang Two Out of Three Ain't Bad, but, surely, three out of four is not good. That is certainly true when it comes to economic decline, but that is exactly what the Prime Minister has given us. He has given us three out of four quarters of negative economic growth, making us the only G20 nation in a recession. What is the Liberals' response? They are downplaying it as nothing more than just a technicality. Will the Prime Minister reverse his costly policies that caused this crisis so that Canadians can afford to live again?

Mr. Speaker, we have a new top export out of this country. It is announcements and MOUs. Not that long ago, Canadians used to dream of buying a home. Now, under the Liberal Prime Minister, many are starting GoFundMe pages just to pay for essential items for life. In the last five months, 15,000 Canadians had to ask strangers online for help to pay for basic things. Food banks are overwhelmed and families are one emergency away from begging people for help. If the Prime Minister thinks his plan is working, he is badly out of touch with those paying the price. Will he finally admit that his affordability plan has failed, or does he now think GoFundMe—

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that the minister was not here during the last Conservative government. There are members across the way who were here, and they may recall the outrage whenever the Harper government used time allocation. If we look at the number of sitting days the Liberal government has had in place since it got its majority, it is on a vastly higher pace in the use of time allocation. I would like to read a quote from the debate on Bill C‑38. It said that the government has consistently demonstrated a lack of respect for democracy and the parliamentary process when discussing the use of time allocation. Who said that? It was the member for Winnipeg North. I am wondering if the minister could explain to us how the glass house he lives in is different now than it was 12 years ago when the member for Winnipeg North was yelling about the same issue.

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech. She talked about unintended consequences a lot, which was a bit strange for somebody who, just months ago, told Canadians that it was the Liberals making her communities less safe and that it was their “bail not jail” policies and legislation that favoured criminals over victims. In fact, that member said that criminals are making out very well under the Liberals. She was right. These policies have not changed. The only thing that has changed is where she sits. She also said that MPs who cross the floor should go back to their constituents for a fresh mandate. If she truly believes the principles she spent years defending, including that Liberal soft-on-crime policies have made her community less safe, when is she going to go back to constituents and find out who they want to elect to represent them?

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals did not drive our economy into the ditch by accident. They took every wrong turn and ignored every warning sign, and now they want to blame everyone else. After more than a decade of inflationary spending, red tape and anti-development laws, Canada is now the only G20 country in a recession. Families are not reading this in an economics textbook. They are living it at the grocery store, the gas pump and the kitchen table. A new United Way survey found that 60% of Canadians are anxious about their personal finances and 38% are struggling with food insecurity, and one in five say that all the food in their home was gone with no money to buy more. That is not a talking point. That is an empty refrigerator. Last year, a record 2.2 million Canadians lined up at food banks in a single month. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister spent nearly $1 million on luxury catering over 14 trips, enough to feed a family for 55 years. The Liberals can blame the mud, the road or the weather, but everybody knows that they have been behind the wheel. Canadians deserve a government that stops—

Madam Speaker, when a truck is stuck in a ditch, there are two ways to make the problem worse. One is to keep flooring the gas while pretending that spinning the tires means we are getting somewhere. The other is to just simply blame the mud, the road and the person who told us to take the turn in the first place, but to never admit that the driver could be the problem. That is where Canada's economy is today. The government has been spinning the tires for years, throwing mud in every direction and telling everyone that if we wait just a little bit longer, the country is finally going to start pulling ahead. However, now we can see what is really happening: We are not moving ahead but are in fact falling behind. The motion before the House says what millions of families already know: Canada has been driven into the G20's only recession. Scotiabank and the Bank of Montreal have both downgraded growth expectations. The Parliamentary Budget Officer's latest report shows slowing growth, a weakening financial outlook and a bigger-than-promised deficit. Those words can sound very far removed from real life, but that is exactly where this bad news lands. It lands on the mortgage renewal, the grocery bill, the repair that cannot wait and the credit card bill that was supposed to be paid down but is, in fact, bigger than expected. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has now put numbers to what Canadians already feel. She projects real GDP growth of only 1.1% in 2026 and 1.6% in 2027. That is not an economy that is charging ahead. She also says that the deficit is expected to rise from $36.3 billion to $72 billion. That is not simply a rounding error. It is the fiscal equivalent of promising to back out of the driveway but ending up going through the garage door. The government did not miss its promise by just a little bit. It missed it by billions and billions of dollars. It told Canadians that spending was under control, but eventually the bills come due. The numbers are a lot harder to spin than the speeches the Liberals offer are. Canadians were promised one thing, but the numbers now show something completely different. As usual, Canadians are of course stuck with the invoice. Then there is the fiscal anchor that used to be a point of discussion. That is the government's own promise to keep the deficit from growing out of control. It is supposed to tell Canadians that someone around the cabinet table still knows when to stop borrowing, stop spending and stop pretending that the budget will balance itself. The PBO says that there is less than a 1% chance the government will meet that promise. That is not a fiscal anchor; that is a lottery ticket, at best. No person could walk into a bank with a 1% chance of making their household budget work and call that responsible. No small business owner could tell their employees that there is only a 1% chance that the paycheques will clear and call that a plan. A weak economy shows up long before anybody gives it a name. It shows up when the job sites get quiet, when the bay sits empty at the shop, when the truck stays parked in the yard and when a young worker who was supposed to start Monday is told he cannot because there is not enough work. That is what slow growth means when it reaches the real world: fewer hours, fewer raises, fewer orders and fewer chances for young people to get started in their career. The government wants us to believe that this was all just unavoidable. It says there have been global pressures. Of course there have been. Every G20 nation has faced interest rate hikes, supply chain challenges, inflation, war, energy shocks and global uncertainty. The difference is that Canada is now being described as the G20's only nation in a recession. When everyone faces the storm but only one boat starts taking on water, maybe it is time to see what the captain has been doing. A country does not get rich based on how much the government spends. A country gets richer when people can build, invest, produce, hire, export, take risks and succeed. It gets richer when a welder can leave the shop on Friday and start his own business on Monday, or when a mine with Canadian mineral workers can be approved before the opportunity moves somewhere else. We have all the ingredients of an incredibly prosperous country. We do not have a shortage of ability. We have a government that keeps turning that ability into delays, higher costs, and smaller paycheques for Canadians. Imagine someone who wants to build something in this country. Imagine a shop in a small town, a mine up north, a grain terminal, a processing plant, a power line or an energy project. They start with an idea, workers ready to go, suppliers lined up and a belief that Canada is still a place where real effort can become something real. These investors then meet the process that the government has built. First comes the permit delays, then some new rule and the consultation that leads to yet another consultation. Then the financing gets more expensive throughout the time that passes. Investors then ask why the same project could move so much faster somewhere else. After a while, the question is no longer whether the project makes sense; the question is how long people are willing to bleed money before they simply give up. That is why the government's own consultation paper on getting major projects built is so revealing. After years of Conservatives, provinces, workers, industry and investors warning that Canada had become too slow and too uncertain, the government is now admitting the same thing but in writing. Its own paper says major projects could “face a complicated and time-consuming” process. It points to duplication and poor coordination between departments. It says, “mines, ports, pipelines, nuclear facilities, and transportation infrastructure [are] often slow, expensive, and confusing.” It even admits that “it has often taken more than five years for a project to receive the federal decisions” needed before construction can even begin. Bill C-69 was passed in 2019. The Liberals sold it is a way to restore confidence, to protect the environment and to help good projects move forward. In reality, it became simply a symbol of delay and uncertainty. The Supreme Court later of course made clear that the problem was not only in the delays that it caused. The act went too far, by allowing the federal government to turn limited federal interests into a much broader review of projects that often mainly fell under provincial jurisdiction. The Liberals amended the act and then claimed that the problem was somehow fixed, yet here they are again admitting that major projects still face a process that is slow, expensive, confusing, poorly coordinated and too often takes longer than five years. The Prime Minister wants to sound like a man who can get Canada building again, but the system he is now allegedly trying to repair was built, defended and celebrated by his own Liberal Party. Canada does not need weaker environmental standards. It needs clear standards, real timelines, and decisions that actually get made. Money goes where it is welcome. Jobs go where projects can move forward. Opportunity goes where people are allowed to build things. If the government keeps making Canada slower, more expensive and more uncertain, it should not be shocked when investments start looking for a different address. What Conservatives are saying is not very complicated: Reverse the costly and inflationary decisions that helped put Canada in this position to begin with; restore discipline and federal spending; stop treating borrowed money as a substitute for private sector growth; make Canada a place where major projects can actually get approved and built again; lower the cost of work, investment, energy, transport and homebuilding; stop punishing the sectors that pay the bills; and focus on paycheques, production, homes, food, energy, exports and opportunity. Canada is not poor, Canada is not weak, and Canada is not doomed. The country has everything it needs to succeed, except a federal government willing to stop making excuses and stop making success harder. We could be a country to which investment comes because approvals are clear, taxes are competitive, energy is reliable, workers are respected and projects move forward. We could be a country where the next generation inherits more than debt and more than just excuses. It starts with admitting that the current approach has failed miserably. The government made the bills bigger, the economy weaker and the deficit worse, and now it wants us to be impressed that it found some gentler words for its own failure. Canadians deserve better than a government that asks them to settle for less. We were not handed a small country, a poor country or a country that is running out of promise. We were handed one of the greatest nations on earth, blessed with resources, talent, courage, and people who still believe tomorrow can be better than today. What we need now is a government with enough faith in Canadians to let them build, work, dream and prosper once again. It is time to stop spinning the wheels and calling that progress. It is time to change course.

Madam Speaker, Canadians are thriving, despite the government. The member talks about this being just a technical recession. Are collectors just technically calling, asking for their money that has been loaned out? Is a mom just technically skipping meals so that she can afford to feed her daughter? Are these just technicalities? No. The crisis facing this country has been clear for many years. The government not only caused it, but refuses to accept that it is to blame for it. It is time to change course and recognize when the government is spinning its wheels and failing Canadians. Life has not been good for everyone. It is time to accept that and change direction. We can and must do better for the people we are here to represent.

Madam Speaker, I want to believe the Liberals have that in them. The last 10 years have not shown me that they have an ability to accept things as they are. It is like they do not talk to people who live in the real world and see the cost pressures they are facing. One thing that really bothers me is that in government, just like in life, it is okay to sometimes say, “We were wrong. We messed up.” We do not have to continuously hide behind the fact that things are not going okay and try to blame everybody else. The government should take a bit of responsibility. The other day, I heard a minister try to blame Stephen Harper. It is 11 years later. It is time to accept that things have not been going well because of the policies and accept the ideas that are coming collaboratively from the Conservatives to try to move this country forward. Change the policies and change course so that we can all be better off.

Madam Speaker, Canada led the way with this idea that we could borrow our way to calling something wealth. The idea of a sovereign wealth fund is a good one, if we are a country that is in a position to create wealth and has executed on the idea of creating wealth. Instead, we decided to keep our oil and gas in the ground as much as possible over the last decade. The idea of investing in projects in Canada is a good one. Financing it entirely based on debt and calling that progress is just another example of how the government seems to refuse to accept that things have not been going well for Canadians and that its policies are to blame. We can and must do better.

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister said he was going to build at speeds not seen in a generation. He knows that Bill C-69 and other terrible Liberal environmental policies are still on the books, yet the Liberals are taking their sweet time to fix the mess that they themselves created, so now they are bogged down in endless consultations and more of the same old gabfest. The Prime Minister has been in power for more than a year, and he still has not fixed any laws that prevent major projects from moving forward. When will the Prime Minister do what is necessary to scrap the Liberals' antidevelopment laws so we can once again build big things in this country?

Madam Speaker, our businesses thrive despite Liberal taxes and over-regulation. The Liberals know exactly why we cannot build big things in this country. They critiqued themselves in their own discussion document, finally admitting the truth. It states, “federal laws have rules that can make regulatory processes slow”. Simply put, it is the Liberals' own antidevelopment laws that are the problem. It is clearer than ever that this is all just a Liberal illusion. The Prime Minister wants to keep our oil and gas in the ground just as much as Justin Trudeau did. Does the Prime Minister have the courage to fix the mess the Liberals have created, or does he just hope that empty promises will get things built again?

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the legislation from my Conservative colleague from Manitoba, Bill C-263, the silver alert national framework act. I want everyone to imagine a cold winter evening in rural Manitoba. The sun has gone down in early evening yet again, and somewhere between the house and the road, or between a personal care home and the street, a vulnerable senior has gone missing. Maybe it is the father who has farmed the same land for 50 years, or maybe it is the grandmother who has raised children, helped raise grandchildren, volunteers at the church and still knows the names of half the people in town. One day, because of dementia or another vulnerability, that person walks out the door and does not come home when expected. For the family, the world changes in an instant. The shoes are gone, and the door is unlocked. Someone checks the garage, and someone checks the street. Someone drives the road that they know someone would take into town. Someone phones the RCMP. Neighbours start looking. People shine headlights into ditches, down lanes and around farmyards. In that moment, time is not a number; it is the space between what can still be done and what may never be undone. Hours matter. Minutes matter. That is why this bill matters so much. Bill C-263 would require the federal government to develop a national framework to support a coordinated silver alert system across the country. A silver alert is an emergency notification used to inform the public when a vulnerable older person, including someone living with dementia, has gone missing and when public assistance may help locate that person as quickly as possible. It is much like an Amber Alert, and having this system in place is common sense. The bill could help save lives. It is the kind of measure the House should be able to support across party lines. It deals with the safety and dignity of vulnerable Canadians and the peace of mind of the families who love them so much. The bill begins from a reality that every province is facing: Canada's population is aging, and dementia is becoming more common, unfortunately. More families are caring for parents, grandparents, spouses and neighbours who may still live with independence and dignity but who can also face moments of confusion and disorientation. Any of us who has had or currently has family members battling dementia recognizes how important that independence is, and the worry that comes with knowing how difficult it can be for them. The bill notes that nearly one million Canadians will be living with dementia by 2030, and more than 1.7 million by 2050. Those numbers are large, but behind every number is a family trying to keep someone safe. The bill also points to a rather terrifying fact: If a person living with dementia is not found within 12 hours of going missing, there is a 50% probability that they will be found dead by drowning or will suffer severe or fatal hypothermia or dehydration. In Manitoba, we understand what the cold can mean. We know what cold weather does to a person. We know how quickly a person can disappear from sight on a gravel road, along a highway, around a farmyard or at the edge of town. In Portage—Lisgar, our communities are unbelievably generous and neighbourly. When someone is in trouble, people will show up. When crisis strikes, they will bring trucks, flashlights, side-by-side, snowmobiles, local knowledge and whatever else is necessary to help. They know the roads. They know which yard has an old shed. They know the area somebody might turn to if confused. That community instinct is one of rural Manitoba's greatest strengths, but instinct needs information. Good people cannot help find someone if they do not know whom they are looking for, where they were last seen, what they may be wearing and whether or not a vehicle was involved. A silver alert is not a replacement for police. It is not a replacement for family. It is a tool that helps them move faster and together. One of the strengths of the bill is that it does not try to invent a new bureaucracy. It would direct the minister to develop a national framework that uses existing infrastructure for public alerts. Everyone already understands that when an emergency alert comes through their phone, they should pay attention. The bill says that we should coordinate when a vulnerable senior is missing and when the public can help make a difference. That is just common sense. The clock does not care which level of government owns which responsibility. When the risk is real, the response must be fast and coordinated, without unnecessary delay. The bill also respects the role of provinces. It would require the minister to consult provinces, and with police forces that issue the alerts. That is the right approach. The people closest to these cases must help shape the system in order to protect the people in need. Police know how missing persons investigations work. Provinces know their own emergency systems. Care providers understand the realities of dementia. The federal role should be to help coordinate, not dominate, provinces and municipalities. This is an important Conservative principle. We should not pretend every answer can be fixed by the federal government. The best answer here will come from coordination, standards, sharing best practices and respect for the people who are already on the ground doing the work. The bill also understands the need for safeguards. Public alerts are powerful tools because they are rare, targeted and credible, and Canadians take them seriously. If they are overused, people start tuning them out. If they are poorly designed, they can violate privacy or create confusion. Bill C-263 would make sure there is one clear, consistent set of rules for deciding when a silver alert should be issued so families and police are not left dealing with a patchwork system. That includes whether there are reasonable grounds to believe the missing person's health or safety is at risk and whether sharing information with the public is likely to help locate them. Importantly, the bill also calls for geographically targeted alerts as well as interprovincial alerts, because both are necessary. In a large country, a targeted alert can be more effective than a blanketed alert. If someone goes missing in southern Manitoba, the most useful alert may be directed just to a particular region, highway, town or a surrounding area. However, we also know that people do move. Vehicles cross borders and highways connect communities. A person missing in Manitoba could be headed toward Saskatchewan or anywhere along a route familiar to them. A coordinated system must account for that. The bill would also require privacy guidelines for the personal information that may be disclosed for the duration of the alert. An effective system must disclose enough to assist with the search, but not more than the situation requires. There is also a public education component. An alert is only as effective as the public response it creates. Canadians need to know what a silver alert means, what to look for, what to do and how to report information. In small communities, this can be especially important, because people notice the little details. They notice a person walking alone in the cold, thinking it is a little strange. They notice a vehicle stopped in an unusual place they would not normally see one parked. They notice when something just simply is not right. I also want to speak about the seniors at the heart of this bill. They are not just statistics. They are the people who built this country in very practical ways. In Manitoba, they are the people who raised families. They volunteered at legions, churches and community halls and kept our small towns alive. They are the people who showed up for others when it mattered most. When they become vulnerable, we should do our minimum and show up for them. I know MPs may come at this issue from different perspectives. Some will think of large cities where a person can disappear into crowds, a busy transit station or a bustling hub of the community on the street. Some will think of more northern, remote communities where terrain and weather can be absolutely unforgiving. I think of rural Manitoba, where distance can become a danger very quickly. The fear of losing a vulnerable parent or grandparent is not partisan, is not urban and is not rural. It is simply human. The bill would give us a chance to do something useful, not just symbolic, but useful. It would require a framework within one year. It would require the framework to be tabled in Parliament and published publicly. It would require a review of the effectiveness within two years. That would give Parliament a way to hold the government accountable for whether the framework is working, whether it needs updates or whether it is helping in the way it was intended. That accountability matters, because families do not need just another vague promise. They need a system that is well thought out, coordinated and ready for use. When a vulnerable person disappears, the first question should not be whether the system knows what to do. The first answer should be action. I will be proudly supporting this bill because it is the right thing to do for vulnerable seniors, for police and for our communities, like the one I represent in Portage—Lisgar. I urge all members across party lines to support this important legislation.