Parliamentary Speeches

Mr. Speaker, the latest survey from the National Payroll Institute demonstrates how the Liberals are out of touch and Canadians are out of money. More than one in four employed Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque and would struggle to cover their bills if their pay was delayed by just one week. This is at the highest level in five years. Things continue to go in the wrong direction, and the Liberals continue to double down on the same failed approaches. Our Conservative plan is to save Canadians money by taking all federal taxes on gas, about 25¢ a litre, off until Canada Day next year. Will they finally adopt our plan?

Mr. Speaker, it is all talk and no results, because the data from the survey gets worse. It further confirms just how bad the cost of living crisis is for Canadian workers. Only 18% believe their income increases are keeping pace with the rising cost of living, and groceries are now the largest source of financial stress, which was cited by 55%, while nearly half of employed Canadians say they are worried about personal debt. How many more surveys and reports that show the struggle of everyday Canadians do we need to see before the Liberals reverse course and adopt our Conservative economic action plan to put more money in Canadians' pockets and help them afford to live?

Mr. Speaker, that was not even close to an answer. New documents reveal that the Prime Minister has spent $1 million on inflight catering since taking office last year. That is enough money to feed a Canadian family for 55 years. Let us look at the list: luxury butter cups, crème brûlée, Scottish salmon and smoked Gouda. With millions of people lined up at the food banks, would the Liberals agree to stop their luxurious inflight catering bills?

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry to add my contributions and views based on what I am hearing in my community, the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, as well as Cornwall and Akwesasne, and bring that to the floor of the House to make sure their voices are heard. As we discuss this piece of budget implementation legislation, it is important to acknowledge some of the breaking news today. The unfortunate news that we had from Stats Canada confirmed that under the Prime Minister, just 15 months into office, Canada has entered into a recession. We have now had two quarters of negative economic growth. We can look at the last four quarters, as a matter of fact, and we have had three quarters of negative economic growth. That is showing that despite the speeches, the photo ops and the good intentions that are always mentioned by the Liberals, we are seeing that their plan is failing to resonate when it comes to economic growth and creating jobs. We have seen tens of thousands of jobs lost so far in 2026. Sadly and very frustratingly, we are now entering into a recession, as confirmed by the government's own Stats Canada agency. Conservatives on this side of the House are going to keep advocating for a change in direction and for getting rid of the anti-development laws that are on the books, like Bill C-69, and some of the caps that have been put in that are prohibiting and inhibiting our natural resources from getting built. Let us remember that it was this Prime Minister who promised to move at unimaginable speeds to get things done. Here we are, seeing that it can take, in cases of getting a mine built, upwards of 25 years to get a mine permitted and built in this country. At the same time, we are seeing the idea or possibility of a pipeline out to the west coast, but we do not know a proponent, a start date, a route or the details. We are years and years away, because the Prime Minister and the Liberal government continue to put those anti-development laws in place. They are trying to weasel through certain exceptions, different side deals and MOUs. At the end of the day, we are seeing, again confirmed, a shrinking economy, not a growing one, despite the vast natural resources we have in this country. When it comes to a change in course, it is not just those anti-development laws; it is the change in our housing policies. Right across this country, we should be removing the GST on all new home builds and encouraging partnerships with every single province to take the HST off, which could provide significant savings, not just for first-time homebuyers but for all new home builds in this country. We need to invigorate and pump-start our housing economy. Again, the rhetoric was that the Liberal government was going to double house building in this country, to about half a million homes per year, which is what its own stats say is needed just to keep up with affordability and demand in the coming years. We are only at half that. As opposed to seeing new housing starts accelerate, we are seeing them, in many cases and over many months, decelerate, not grow. Our Conservative plan will continue to be on the table. We will continue to pressure the government in that regard. When it comes to the high price of gas, what we need to do is go further to provide inflationary and financial relief for Canadians. The Liberals are removing only one-third of the federal taxes for one-third of the year. What we are proposing is to remove all federal taxes, not just the federal excise tax but the seven-cents-a-litre fuel standard, which under the Liberals will be going from seven cents, currently, to 17¢ a litre in the coming years, and also to get rid of the GST that is charged on the price of gas. That could provide real relief of 25¢ a litre for the entire year, allowing Canadians to keep more money in their pockets to help with the rising cost of living. This is yet another contrast and another change the Liberals could make to combat the Liberal recession that we are now in. Of course, it is about the out-of-control spending. I hear, repeatedly, in Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry and other parts of eastern Ontario, particularly Prescott and Russell, where we have a lot of correspondence from, the frustration and the opposition to the $90-billion boondoggle that is Alto high-speed rail. The Liberal government spends $20 billion each and every year on consultants, many of them Liberal insiders who get repeated sole-sourced contracts, at a time when our federal public service has ballooned to higher levels than we had just 10 years ago. There is the $742-million gun grab, which is an absolute waste of law-abiding Canadians' resources and time. It is costing taxpayers money, and it is not going after the root cause of gun violence in this country, which is illegal and smuggled guns. Taking a law-abiding firearm owner's firearms away from them when they go up to the Cornwall Handgun Club, for example, is not going to tackle the crisis. The Minister of Public Safety has even admitted in leaked audio that their plan does not work, but there is $742 million that has gone down the drain in wasteful Liberal spending. It continues with the PrescribeIT program, which was $300 million spent on a software program. That was done by Health Canada, and it was supposed to digitize records. After pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the program, the Liberals decided that nobody wanted it and nobody used it. They had to shut it down, all while paying the CEO of that organization over $800,000 per year in an executive salary and bonuses. It is absolutely absurd, and it was a waste of taxpayers' money, once again. If that is not enough, Conservatives are digging up more wasteful spending by the Liberal government. No wonder we have such a high deficit and debt in this country. The Liberals are spending $200 million over the next 10 years on a gravel pit and concrete pad in rural Nova Scotia for a rocket launch service. The company was nearly bankrupt and almost shut down. It then got an injection of $20 million with a backdated contract retroactive to last year. This infusion of $20 million saw its key investors suddenly cash out with millions of dollars, and we have a gravel pad with a concrete pad on top of it that is costing $20 million per year. The lease of that land, just for the record, was about $15,000 per year. Where is the other $19.99 million a year going? Canadians have a right to know. When we talk about waste and about ways to lower our deficit, there are several key ways.There are the billions of dollars we Conservatives have been mentioning. That would be a common-sense way to get our finances under control. We see the massive deficits that the Liberals have included in their budget documents this year, and they are ongoing for the next few years. The Liberals have no plans to balance the budget. I looked at the numbers and did some rough math. They are looking to add $330 billion more to our national debt in the next five or six years alone. That is on top of the $1.3 trillion or $1.4 trillion already on the debt. These Liberals have added more to our national debt than every other government combined before it. That is how bad it is. I have said this repeatedly in my tenure in public life, and it bears repeating: The easiest thing for government to do in public life is to tell Canadians what it is going to spend money on. That is the easy part. The part that Canadians need to pay attention to, and where we are with this Liberal government, is how it is going to pay for it all. This is what we call a costly credit card budget, because that is exactly what it is doing. It is adding tens of billions of dollars each and every year. In this case, there is $67 billion in the spring statement that was just proposed and, like I said, $330 billion in new debt in the coming year. The thing we need to remember is that, when that goes on the credit card, there are public debt charges, which is the interest to service that debt. As a matter of fact, we spent $54 billion this year just to pay the interest on our national debt. That is not paying it down. It is just paying the interest on that proverbial credit card, and that interest is expected to go up to $59 billion next year. It will then go to $65 billion the year after that, and then on to $71 billion and $76 billion. Finally, in 2030, we will be spending $81 billion per year servicing our national debt. That is not sustainable and not the right way. Canadian households do not do that with their credit card and their home budgets. They expect, as Canadian taxpayers, government to do the same thing. It is ridiculous to see that the new Prime Minister has doubled Justin Trudeau's deficit. Whether it is the budget implementation act or the Liberals' efforts here on defence, we are seeing more bureaucracy, more taxes and more ineffective measures. Now that we are in a recession, under the Liberal Prime Minister, it is time to smarten up and change course.

Mr. Speaker, when I talk about our economy, I am saying that it is the Liberal government that is broken. Let us make it very clear: We are now in a recession. We have seen negative growth for two quarters in a row, and over the course of the last year, three of those four quarters have seen negative growth. That is the Liberal record. That is the reason we are criticizing the Liberal government and its record. It is clearly not working. Let us be very clear: We are the only G7 country now in a recession. All the other G7 countries are facing the same headwinds with tariffs, gas prices and oil prices. They are facing the exact same circumstances and headwinds, yet they are not in a recession. Canada is the only G7 country in a recession. That is the Liberal Prime Minister's record. When we criticize, we are criticizing the Liberal government's record, because as Statistics Canada is showing today, we are going into a recession. Clearly the government's plan is not working.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Lethbridge has an insightful question, and I thank her for the opportunity to reflect. Today, I am thinking, as we look at the struggles, that the data confirms that Canada is the only G7 country going into a recession. Canada is officially in a recession under the Liberal government. Today, I am thinking of the millions of Canadians who are relying on food banks. Under the government, we have seen food prices double over the course of the last 10 years. We have also seen rent and housing prices double, not just in Cornwall and Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, but in every part of the country. We are seeing the strain when it comes to housing. We are seeing the strain on our immigration system and the chaos there. We are seeing, when it comes to affordability, things getting worse. The Liberals have a big laundry list of all the things they claim to be doing to help with affordability, but affordability has never been more difficult for families to meet. Whether it is the House of Lazarus in Mountain, the Agapè Centre in Cornwall, or Saint Vincent de Paul in Cornwall or Alexandria, we have many people and organizations stepping up to help thousands of people in need in this country. Our goal, as Conservatives, is to change the trajectory, to get ourselves back out of the recession and have Canadians able to afford rent and food in this country. After 11 years, things have gotten worse, not better, under the Liberal government. That is the fact.

Mr. Speaker, deficits and money printing add to inflation, the inflationary fire being set by the Liberal government. We are seeing now our public debt at $1.4 trillion, and it is expected to go to $1.8 trillion by the year 2030. That is using the government's own summary statement of transactions when it comes to budgetary revenues and expenses. For 11 years, the government has borrowed and spent incredible amounts. We are seeing affordability get worse. We are seeing housing access get worse. We are seeing our immigration and government services getting worse. It leaves a lot—

Mr. Speaker, many people in our community know the decades of service to The Children's Treatment Centre by the legendary Angelo Towndale. I rise today not only to acknowledge his continued contributions but also to highlight someone else who is making a difference in the city of Cornwall and making lives better. His wife, Margaret Towndale, was recognized last week for celebrating an incredible 50 years of volunteering at the Cornwall Community Hospital as a valued member of the Auxiliary. For half a century, Margaret has been a constant presence every week, offering her compassion and unwavering commitment to patients, family and staff. Fifty years of volunteering is not just a number. It is a lifetime of kindness, generosity and quiet leadership. It speaks to a deep sense of duty and care that has touched countless lives in Cornwall and beyond. Margaret's service reminds us all of the impact one person can make. I thank Margaret and Angelo for everything. Their inspiration and dedication continue to motivate us all.

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and pleasure to rise on behalf of the good people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, whether they be in SDG, Cornwall or Akwesasne to give a summary of what their views are. I will take about 116,000 people's views and summarize them all in the next 15 or 20 minutes. I tried to get a pretty good pulse of the community. There has certainly been a lot of discussion about the legislation before us, with the Liberals looking to give themselves a majority on committees. How they got that majority has been the talk of the town in my part of eastern Ontario, to say the least, particularly in the last couple of weeks. I like to say I get my meals and miles in here around SDG on the weekends, going to different community events. Last Saturday, I was at King George Restaurant with a local resident having breakfast, talking and getting his feedback on some issues of the day. People at two separate tables asked me specifically what is going on with the floor crossings and how it is allowed to happen that the Liberals are going to give themselves a majority simply through floor crossings. This past weekend, I was in South Lancaster at a breakfast supporting the Guelph Medical Brigades and at some business openings and celebrations in Morrisburg and Winchester. I got a lot of feedback at the North Dundas Local Business Expo. Then, of course, I was at the Glengarry Agricultural Hall of Fame in Maxwell. I name-drop all of those places to show that there was a wide diversity of places I had the chance to go to this past Saturday alone. The feedback to me several times was concern about these recent floor crossings and how the Liberals have obtained their majority. People are dismayed by this. If I put to use my political science degree from Carleton going back a couple of years now, never in Canadian history have we seen this happen before. Just a year ago, the Prime Minister was given a minority government mandate. The Liberals were not given a majority but a minority mandate, meaning that they had to work with other opposition parties to pass legislation. At committee, they would not have a majority of seats, but, rather, a minority of seats. For the scrutiny of government legislation, the production of documents and efforts by the opposition party to hold the government to account, we were given key tools to do exactly that. I want to be very clear with Canadians. It was not the recent three by-elections that gave the Liberals their majority. The seats for University—Rosedale, Scarborough Southwest and Terrebonne in Quebec were already Liberal-held seats, and they remain Liberal seats. Whether it was one vote, 1,000 votes, 2,000 votes or 12 votes, the point is those three seats were Liberal seats and they remain Liberal seats. The only reason the Liberals are able to bring forward changes to the Standing Orders in Government Orders is because of floor crossings. Constituents and Canadians did not have a say in this. Canadians gave Liberals a minority government, in which they would have to work with opposition parties and the opposition would have key tools, including at committee, to hold them to account. Never before in Canadian history has a Prime Minister made a backroom deal by getting floor crossers to take them to a majority government. We talk about distrust in our institution and the frustration of Canadians at the ballot box. There are tens of thousands of people who voted Conservative and, in one case, voted NDP who, through no say of their own, but only after the fact, had members cross the floor, making their own selfish decision to do so. It has dismayed voters and taken away the valid votes of tens of thousands of people in the election that was held just a year ago. I will speak to those on the Conservative side who crossed the floor. Let me make it very clear that they ran under the Conservative leader, the Conservative platform and the Conservative plan. They knew exactly what that was and had no problem being on the ballot. They should remain in that case and maintain their word on that, but I will not say too much more on that. What is important about the legislation before us now, the changes to the Standing Orders, is committee composition. The Liberals now want to go from having a minority on the committee to adding two members from their side to give themselves a majority on every single committee. It is absolutely shameful. They argue that it is to advance their agenda. This is what they say, but here is the problem and here is the thing. If it is a budget bill that comes forward, it would go to the finance committee. If there is a bill on elections and we have amendments to the Election Act, that is going to go through to the House and procedural affairs committee, PROC. If it is a crime bill, it goes to the justice and public safety committee. If it is on natural resources, it goes to the natural resources committee. The transport committee looks after any bills that deal with transport, and so on and so forth. There are three things that show us how obsessed they are with taking complete control and squandering an opportunity for the opposition to have leverage to get documents, to get answers, to get ministers to appear at committee and to hold the government to account. They are not only taking majority stakes in those committees that I mentioned, such as finance, House and procedural affairs, natural resources and transport, but also taking majorities in our three oversight committees. Let us be very clear about those oversight committees. We have an amendment on the books that we are hoping the Liberals will agree to. It does not sound like they are going to because they, again, are absolutely determined to have complete control with 50.8% of the seats. They are going to have a much bigger sway, as they are going to take about 58%, as my colleagues have just mentioned, of the seats at the committee table. They are going to take over these oversight committees. None of these three oversight committees, be it public accounts, government operations, or the ethics committee, deal with government legislation. They are oversight committees that hold the government to account. They are chaired by opposition members. The public accounts committee goes through and scrutinizes line by line the government's spending. I spent some time on that committee in the last Parliament. One of the best parts was that it reviews the Auditor General reports. A very key part of the work of parliamentarians is to look at the independent Auditor General, see what they are saying about government audits, services and programs, and make suggestions and improvements to the way the government operates programs. This also gives the opposition an opportunity to highlight the shortcomings of the government. The government operations committee obviously looks after the operations and studies the operations of the government, as well as the financing, the spending and the plans going forward for that. Of course, it is one of the most important committees we have here, and it is a very busy committee because of the Liberal government we have in office. The ethics committee is tasked with eroding and eliminating corruption in government. That is a tall order for those parliamentarians on that committee. What we are saying through our reasonable amendment is that we should look to keep the structure as is for the three oversight committees. They do not pass legislation. They will not be blocking any legislation that goes through. They are pure oversight. They are key tools for opposition. They are key tools for accountability, and they are key tools for holding the government to account. We are going to keep the government doing exactly that. We are going to try our best with the tools we have, but we need as many tools as we can get, and we need the tools Canadians sent us here with in this Parliament, electing a minority government where the Liberals do not have full reign. This is important because they will filibuster until no end to block themselves from having accountability on a wide variety of topics. We need to look back no further than the last time they had a majority. They got a majority through the ballot box, not like we are seeing this time, with them getting it through floor crossings. We can take a look back at the WE Charity scandal. We can take a look back at the SNC-Lavalin affair, which was one of the ones I remember at the justice committee. Particularly, SNC-Lavalin was during the last majority government. It was a significant issue of corruption. It was a major political issue, and the Liberals did all they could at the justice committee to dither, delay and filibuster Canadians getting information and parliamentarians, particularly opposition members, getting access to testimony from relevant ministers who were involved and key documents that were involved. Canadians know what the end result of that has been. Majority or minority, it is always difficult to get answers out of the Liberal government because, if we look at the WE Charity scandal, that was the $912‑million contract that was given to Liberal friends, where former prime minister Trudeau and his family were given paid speaking engagements by that organization, which is a massive conflict of interest. The WE Charity scandal was blocked time and time again, filibustered endlessly, but it was a minority government that we tried to hold to account as best we could. We need as much accountability, scrutiny and transparency as we can possibly get when it comes to the Liberal government. Think of the arrive scam app, which was discovered through parliamentary committee. In a minority setting, we were able to force through the production of documents, getting key testimony and understanding the massive abuse of taxpayers' money under the Liberals' watch. An app and a program that was supposed to cost $80,000, and we were told could have been done over the course of a weekend, ended up ballooning over to $60 million. The more we dug on GC Strategies, despite the Liberals' attempts to block and swerve away and try to avoid the issue, it was in the minority setting that we were able to go and get answers and testimony from GC Strategies. We learned it did little to no work on many of the invoices it submitted, and it was an absolute scandal, which is the nicest thing I could say about that. In the scandal of the Winnipeg lab documents during COVID, the access to those documents was blocked and stonewalled. The House of Commons had to take the Liberal government to court, if we recall, to get access to those documents. The Liberals stubbornly delayed on that effort. In the last Parliament, again, if those scandals did not add up to be enough, we cannot forget the green slush fund and the $300 million given. Liberal insiders were appointed to the board. In an almost incestuous environment, board members were approving their own applications to the tune of tens of millions of dollars collectively given to each other and there were conflicts of interest galore. If not for the tools that we were given in the minority setting to uncover this corruption, I worry that Canadians would not have gotten the answers they needed in those situations. That is why it is absolutely essential that we do what we can, and we are going to fight to keep these committees as Canadians elected them, in a minority setting. Do not let a few floor crossers give a majority and steal the accountability that we need. We need to keep the committee structure as is because of what is going to be forthcoming in investigating Liberal scandals. Let us look only at the last couple of weeks, where we need more answers on Liberal spending. The $300-million PrescribeIT program was software that was supposed to eliminate fax prescriptions across the country. The Liberals spent $300 million of taxpayers' money before quietly attempting to throw the program away into the garbage, not to be used at all. Who made the decision to spend $300 million? Who got the money? How was this allowed to balloon to the cost that it did? Even after the Liberals renewed funding, it was a failed program and they still dumped tens of millions of dollars into it. Right there are 300 million reasons for why we need to have the proper parliamentary committee scrutiny to get to the bottom of this on the oversight committees and the others that are studying it. Of course, there is the other news. If $300 million of wasted money uncovered in the last couple of weeks was not enough, there is another $200 million in a recent deal signed for the Maritime Launch Services: $20 million per year over the next 10 years for a launch pad in rural Nova Scotia. The more we learn about this, the more it stinks. A former Liberal Nova Scotia premier is on the board and Liberal insiders were leading the effort to get this contract. Whenever members go out and take a look at this, it is a gravel pit with a concrete pad and a couple of sea cans that is getting paid $20 million per year to operate. Whenever questions are asked, there is nothing but stonewalling from the government. In the last couple of weeks alone, there is half a billion dollars of taxpayers' money with a lot of questions swirling around. Who got the money? Who made the decisions for these wasteful boondoggles? What are we going to do, in some cases, if we can get taxpayers' money back? How can we ensure that this does not continue to happen in our country? That is why the Liberals do not deserve the majority on committees. It is why they deserve the utmost scrutiny. That is why Conservatives are going to keep fighting day in and day out to get the accountability that Canadians deserve and to ensure good use of taxpayers' money. It is going to take all the resources we can get in the House of Commons. That is why I do not support the efforts to change the Standing Orders the way the Liberals are doing it. The Liberals deserve more accountability, more transparency and more scrutiny, not less, when they try to take a majority in the committees.

Mr. Speaker, do members know how Stephen Harper got a majority government? He got it from Canadians. He got directly elected by Canadians with a majority government. He did not have a minority government and then have floor crossers give him an artificial majority through backroom deals. We have talked about distrust, we have talked about hypocrisy, and we have talked about Canadians being frustrated with our democratic institutions. Actions like this give the institution and the Liberals a bad name. Stephen Harper earned his majority through the ballot box, from Canadians. The Prime Minister did not get a majority mandate from Canadians. He got it through backroom deals with floor crossers, and that is why Canadians are frustrated.

Mr. Speaker, I would agree. Liberal arrogance is on full display. I can put a marker down now that over the course of the coming weeks, months and years, however long this Parliament goes on, if these changes go into effect, we are going to see a number of filibusters and a number of attempts at committee to shut down investigations, shut down witnesses and shut down other things. We have seen it, for example, with the $300-million PrescribeIT program. The Liberals at the health committee, for weeks, have been filibustering all of that. We are going to look forward, and I am going to pin-mark this conversation, this thought, here tonight: the number of times we are going to see filibusters in an attempt to shut down debate or to vote down debate and vote down investigations into their corruption and wrongdoing.

Mr. Speaker, Canadians expect their government to live within its means. The Liberals' proposed $90-billion Alto rail project fails to meet that basic test. At a time when families are struggling with the costs of groceries and housing, the Liberals are asking taxpayers to take on tens of billions of dollars of new debt for a project with unclear timelines, uncertain ridership and no credible plan to control costs. Canadians have seen this pattern before: ballooning budgets, missed deadlines and taxpayers left frustrated, holding the bill. Conservatives support targeted infrastructure improvements that can move people and goods faster at lower cost and with less risk to taxpayers. I will also note the local concerns about what this means for the future of the Via Rail service in Cornwall and along the Highway 401 corridor where attempted cuts by Via have already been tried. This $90-billion plan is not a nation-building project. It is a boondoggle waiting to happen.

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a privilege to rise on behalf of the good people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry in eastern Ontario. I am proud each time I have the opportunity to take the floor to share some perspectives on the issues before us here in the House of Commons. Today we are dealing with an important piece of legislation, Bill C-25. I want to start with a bit of a backgrounder when it comes to amendments to the Canada Elections Act, my personal passion for it and why it is so important to get this right. I have had the pleasure of serving in the House for just a little over six years and have been on one parliamentary committee. I am not on a committee right now, but I served on the PROC committee in a few different iterations in time. It has a longer title: the procedure and House affairs committee. It was a real opportunity to learn a lot about the democratic process. If Bill C-25 is successful at second reading, which I believe it will be, it will be referred to that committee for further study. It is where witnesses would come forward and where certain amendments could be made to further improve the legislation. The PROC committee deals with the Canada Elections Act. I was involved in riding redistribution, which is an important part of our democratic process every 10 years. PROC deals as well with issues of foreign interference, which I will be talking about in my 20 minutes here on the floor today. PROC also deals with the relationship with the Conflict of Interest Act for members to educate themselves on and abide by, the Ethics Commissioner, the lobbying commissioner, of course the administration of this wonderful place that we call the House of Commons, working with the Speaker and with the Board of Internal Economy to make sure that this place functions on a day-to-day basis so we can do what is most important in our jobs: represent our constituents from 343 ridings all across the country. Election legislation and getting it right is also a bit of a personal passion of mine. By way of background, again, I have participated in this myself. I will be 39 years old this year, but I have been in elected office for 20 years, which is kind of hard to believe. I started off at the ripe young age of 18 in my first election. I say I was broken in gently into politics. I ran in three municipal elections, so I am very familiar with that process, having been a candidate in 2006, 2010 and 2014, and also with the important work it takes from the clerks of the municipality. In my case, it was in the Township of North Dundas, which was under the service at the time of the now retired clerk, Jo-Anne McCaslin. I have a real appreciation and respect for the people at the local level. Actually, at the municipal level, believe it or not, there is phone and Internet voting. There are no paper ballots available in the municipality of North Dundas. It has done it through online or telephone voting, which increased participation in municipal elections and was effective in doing that. I have also had the honour of being a candidate on a ballot three times at the federal level, in 2019, 2021 and 2025. With respect to the legislation before us, being a candidate is important. I valued being nominated as a Conservative candidate in Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry. Actually, one of the best experiences I had for understanding our Elections Act and the workings of Elections Canada was serving as a campaign manager, which I had the honour of doing six times. I was campaign manager three times provincially for my good friend and former provincial colleague, Jim McDonnell, who is now happily retired in Williamstown, and I had the honour of serving as campaign manager three times for my predecessor, Guy Lauzon, in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, as it was known at the time. Serving as a campaign manager gave me a great opportunity to work with the local returning office and the official agent, or chief financial officer, call it what we will, for the campaign process. Being involved in our electoral district association helped me understand the local aspect of politics and working with volunteers to bring a campaign together. It is absolutely essential we get the legislation right. It is a bill about the Canada Elections Act, a piece of legislation that is now nearly 26 years old. It does need some modernization to keep up with the times. As we talk about ballot integrity, the threat of foreign interference and the roles of new technologies and the challenges those bring in terms of security for our democratic process, it is absolutely vital that we get it right. There is an internal dynamic to getting this right that we are responsible for in the House, as well as providing the proper resources and legislation to Elections Canada, from its CEO right down to the frontline poll workers. As Canadians go into the voting booth, we want to make sure that we provide a process and resources that make it as smooth and as easy as possible to vote, so that when a Canadian goes in, there are poll workers there, the ballot process is fair and there is an integrity to the process so that Canadians can have confidence, and they should, at the federal level in Canada. We have a nationalized election system that has paper ballots. They are done the old-fashioned way, the way I like it. On election night, in tens of thousands of polling locations across the country, with tens of thousands of workers, those ballot boxes are opened and advance poll votes are counted by hand on paper, the way it should be at the federal level. This ensures a smooth process, but a lot of work goes into that process, into the experience that the elector has when they walk into a voting location of having a smooth process. There is also the stuff behind the scenes, and the political financing that we have in this country. It is important to get it right and make sure that we have that. We owe a great deal of gratitude to the poll workers who step up in every one of our communities and ridings across the country. From those who serve at the local polling station on election day or in an advance poll, to the staff who work at the local returning office in 343 ridings across the country, they have a very difficult and intense job to do. It is intense in the fact that they have to ramp up and conduct an election. Elections can be longer, but most have typically been 36 days. Sometimes, depending on the scenario and the setup, there has been a runway or a ramp-up to let people know to expect an election, but in the business we are in, we could have a snap election called at any time over the course of a mandate, so we have poll workers, staff and returning officers in our communities who could ramp up and do a very intense job in a short period of time. They have to ramp up and get a returning office. They have to staff up that office. They have to recruit hundreds and hundreds of advance poll and election day workers: not only recruit them, but train them, do the HR for all those processes and make sure they are equipped with the skills needed to have a smooth voting process. They have to take the nominations in for local candidates and go through and vet the signatures for nominations that go through, and then there is the post-election vote validation process. To do all of that in 36 days, which is generally the election period, and to do it times 343 ridings across the country, is quite the job. The geography of our country makes the job even more unique in the need to get it right. I have been interested in this, in my time on the procedure and House affairs committee, when we studied reports of by-elections, general elections and the election process. What is difficult to do, in a country as vast as ours, is to not have the process be too cookie-cutter. We need to have regulation and we need to have structure, but we also need to make sure we understand the difference between ridings. Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry is a rural riding, but not as rural and remote as, for example, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories or Yukon. We then go all the way to, for example, Ottawa Centre or Vancouver Centre. We have some ridings that are a couple of square kilometres, and in some cases a riding is thousands of square kilometres. That is the geography of administering an election. The returning offices, the staff, the training, the distribution of ballots, all of these issues continue to come up, and we need to work on that to make sure that Elections Canada can give that feedback to the procedure and House affairs committee, give it back to us as parliamentarians, about the important work they do and what we need to do. I just want to make a note as we talk about this legislation. I want to put this on the record, and, again, this is getting a bit nerdy in my personal passion. It is about what is not in this legislation, which has been proposed in previous attempts by the government and has been discussed as we look at ways of improving the voting process for Canadians. One thing that was not put in this piece of legislation is a change to the advance poll days and the number of hours for advance polls. Why am I mentioning something that is not in the bill? Frankly, I am glad that it is not. Sometimes something looks good on paper, related to improving the democratic process, but there is an old saying that it does not matter how flat one makes a pancake; there are still two sides to it. There has been a push to increase the number of advance polling days, for example, when electors can cast their ballots in advance of election day. While on paper it sounds good to add a day or two or three to give Canadians more days to do it, it would come with logistical challenges that I have raised before at committee and will continue to raise. I am not saying I am completely opposed to any increase, do not get me wrong, but we have to make sure we hear from Elections Canada staff about the ability to do two things. One is the ability to recruit workers. If we were to go from three or four days to six days of advance polls, we would have to have that same team working up to 10 hours a day. It is not just the hours that the polls are open. They need to report half an hour to an hour before. They are often there 15 minutes to half an hour after shutting down the location, driving back home, getting up the next morning and driving back to their polling location. I talked about rural and remote ridings, and some of those are very difficult to access and find workers for. To find somebody who is willing to give up three straight days for an advance poll is one thing. To have them give up four or six straight days, we would run into the ability to recruit effectively the number of staff, the tens of thousands of Canadians, who are needed to step forward to work for Elections Canada in these roles. That can be an unintended consequence. The second thing, which can be difficult as well, and why I am glad changes to advance polls have not been made at this time, is the ability to secure venues. In those longer ranges of time, there may be other bookings at those church halls, community halls, schools, wherever the locations may be. We may feel it is great that we have added x number of days, but at the end of the day, what happens, particularly in rural communities, in my experience, is that driving to a local venue can take 10 or 15 minutes, but when one in a rural community is not available and people have to drive another 15 or 20 minutes, that starts to disenfranchise voters from casting a ballot. We can say we mean well by adding more days, but all of a sudden, certain venues are not available, and we are actually making it more difficult for people to vote because Elections Canada cannot recruit enough staff, as I mentioned, or the closest regular voting locations may be not be available because of the increased period. I apologize for the technicality on this issue, but I wanted to put that in Hansard and note my concern. Again, I am not opposed to increasing it in the future, but it certainly warrants more conversation. I am glad to see, as we debate the legislation before us, that it is not included at this time. In this piece of legislation to amend the Canada Elections Act, there are various amendments and additions that would modernize several aspects. As mentioned, several of my Conservative colleagues here today are in support of this bill moving to the PROC committee for further study and to continue discussions on this. I will say, frankly, that Bill C-25 is a big improvement to changes to the Canada Elections Act compared with the last attempt, in Bill C-65. Members may not remember from the last Parliament what Bill C-65 was by its number. It was the NDP-Liberal pension protection act. In the midst of a variety of changes the government was proposing in its coalition with the NDP, the Liberals were caught blatantly trying to benefit themselves by pushing the election day back a couple of weeks. For those who might lose out on having their pension vested by a couple of days, they moved it back. It was a very selfish move on their part, one that rightfully did not resonate with Canadians very well. That bill, thankfully, did not advance. It died on the Order Paper when the last election was called. It was not a serious attempt by the Liberals and, at that time, their coalition partners, the New Democrats, to meaningfully, respectfully and with integrity make the various amendments and additions to the Canada Elections Act that are needed. There are several provisions in here that we can get behind. For example, there are new offences that would be added to this legislation. Before, there were no specific offences in the Canada Elections Act for intentionally spreading false election information, tampering with election computer systems, or using AI and deepfakes to impersonate. Now all three of those would be criminal offences. We have also added an extraterritorial application, so offences committed outside Canada would be captured and charges could be pursued in the event of nefarious actions by players outside Canada. Anonymous contributions would be banned. Before, cryptocurrency, money orders and prepaid payment products were permissible methods to make a donation to political entities or third parties. This loophole has now been closed. All three would be prohibited as contribution methods, closing anonymous and hard-to-trace funding channels. There would be changes to personal information disclosures. One of the things I did not know, until the suggestion came up to change it, was that returning officers' full home addresses were published in the Canada Gazette. Preliminary voters lists were distributed broadly to any party that requested them. Now, the listed address for the returning officer would be limited to the municipality and province. Voters lists would be restricted to qualifying parties only, namely those with House representation, those with prior candidates running again or those that had candidates in two-thirds of ridings in the last election. This is to make sure that data and that information would be protected as much as possible. On foreign interference, here is an interesting thing we talked about. To combat foreign interference, third parties were banned from using foreign contributions for regulated activities, but they were not banned from making those contributions. Leadership contests had no foreign funding restrictions. In the legislation we have before us, foreign entities would now be banned from contributing to third parties at all. Foreign funding would be banned from leadership contests, and foreign corporate activity would be more broadly captured, regardless of where it occurred. The most important piece of this proposed legislation is the attempts made to address the longest ballot committee's nefarious efforts to cause chaos and confusion in our ballots and in our democratic process. We saw this in the riding of Carleton in the last election. We saw it in the Battle River—Crowfoot by-election. We just saw it in the by-election in Terrebonne. These were attempts by a small group pretending to protest. These were not protests. They were an abuse of the democratic tools that we have in this country. The longest ballot committee would get people to go in, the same 100 people, to sign 100 people's nomination papers, and one person would serve as a financial agent for every single one of those people. All of a sudden, we would have a ballot that was three, four or five feet long with 100 candidates on it. This was an absolute disrespect of our democratic process. It was not a protest. It was done to cause chaos and confusion and disenfranchise voters from the process. We have an amendment now. I am glad to see that the Liberals have agreed with our call and have included in this proposed legislation that one person can only sign the nomination papers for one candidate in that riding. A person can only serve as official agent for one campaign. These changes would be put in to ensure that candidates on ballots are serious candidates, and are not just doing it for some form of political protest, causing a ballot to be cancelled and the name needing to be written in, or creating a ballot that is four feet long, as we saw in the last election. This not what Canadians want. They do not want a joke made of the democratic process. They want it to be respected. This specific change to ballot integrity, I believe, will go a long way. I will wrap up my comments just by saying it is important that we see this legislation advance to committee for further study and debate. I look forward to hearing those contributions from my colleagues on this legislation and others. I think it is vitally important that we get our Canada Elections Act right so Canadians can have full confidence in our electoral system.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the backgrounder on that. It is important that when we go to the procedure and House affairs committee after second reading, as the legislation I believe will advance through the House to that process, that we look at that, because there is always this balance, as my colleague alluded to. There are several changes in the bill to protect the home addresses of returning officers, for example, in the Canada Gazette, as well as making sure there is privacy and security when it comes to safely going through, maybe it is for a fundraiser, a political process to do all of that. I will let my colleagues on the procedure and House affairs committee listen to some of the witness testimony that may come forward on that. However, I am certainly open to making sure that we balance the privacy versus the transparency aspect in the legislation. Sometimes it can be a delicate balance, but I look forward to the debates and discussions on that.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from the Bloc, who I did serve with on the procedure and House affairs committee. I will say that, frankly, returning to the per-vote subsidy is not an issue that I find I am in agreement with her on. There are a couple of things to note that I think are important when it comes to political financing. Businesses, corporations and unions are barred from making donations to riding associations and political campaigns, which I think is the right decision. Donations are also capped at, I believe, $1,725 per year. It might be $1,750 if I missed the increase, or that will be coming up next year. I think that is a very reasonable number. We are not seeing, in contrast to the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries, donations of tens of thousands of dollars being used by businesses and wealthy people to influence the political process. Barring businesses, corporations and unions, and having only individual Canadians contribute up to a maximum of about $1,700 a year, is very reasonable. The tax credits that are provided to Canadians for making donations are generous but reasonable and are another incentive for people to make those donations. I believe that part of the democratic process is going out, fundraising and doing all of that, using those tools within reason. It is not going out and getting tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of dollars in donations from individual people or corporations. It is getting from individuals, through the democratic process, $25, $50 or $100, which helps create the viability and momentum of the grassroots aspect of our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly miss having Kenny in the House. He was a great colleague, like my colleague who just asked the question, from the class of 2019. Actions and circumstances of foreign interference were concluded to have taken place in several different forms by many. It is absolutely appropriate to have a foreign agent registry in this country. It was an effort that Kenny was very vocal on, and rightfully so. It is something the Liberals are dragging their feet on introducing. It has been several years since they promised one, and they are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the process. We are still not seeing that fully enacted. The sooner that could get done, the better for our democracy. I look forward to seeing it ASAP.

Mr. Speaker, I will say that, although it is a very serious issue, the way some of the memes and videos can be created with it is amazing. Sometimes it is humorous, but in respect to this legislation, it is very serious and we do need to tackle this. What is important to note in this, from my understanding of the legislation and the way that I read it, is that it is about deliberately misleading and giving false election information. Now, that is not going to limit the free speech of someone saying that a Conservative government would do X to reduce crime or a Liberal member saying that is false information. I do not believe it is going to do that. That is not what we are talking about. What we are talking about is a situation to make sure that we have very clear laws that state someone cannot use AI or a deepfake to pretend that they are a returning officer or a candidate saying that the voting location at the Ramada Inn has been cancelled today and is now over at this spot, or giving wrong information along those ends. It is very important, not only with AI and deepfakes but also with people using social media to abuse or confuse electors, that we make sure that anybody who does that type of activity is charged and convicted. We need to make sure the proper legislation is in place to allow those convictions to take place.

Mr. Speaker, I agree that AI is a major challenge. We are behind the eight ball and playing catch-up on that issue, as we are playing catch-up on foreign interference as well. These are major issues that we need to address. A criticism of the current Liberal government right now, and a concern that has been raised many times today, is that, on the Prime Minister's recent visit to China, he was signing a security agreement with the PRC's Ministry of Public Security to share information. That is a real challenge. It is going in the wrong direction. I know there will be a lot more discussion on that in the coming weeks and months.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's announcement earlier today in providing gas tax relief to Canadians is a half-baked measure. The Liberals, in contrast to our Conservative plan, are offering a third of the relief for a third of the year. This is at a time when we have seen gas and diesel prices spike significantly around the country and around the world. There is a saying that we can only control what we can control. It is very true that in the situation in Iran, with the war that is going on there, there is not much that Canada can contribute to that directly or cause for that, but what we can control is the amount of taxes that Canadians are charged at the pumps. Right now, that is 25¢ a litre on gasoline and 21¢ a litre on diesel in federal taxes. What the Liberals announced today is only one portion of relief from now until Labour Day. Our Conservative proposal, in contrast, is to provide real, meaningful relief at the pumps for Canadians, not only removing the federal fuel excise tax of 10¢ a litre. They have done that measure, but what they have not done is take off their latest, what I call, hidden carbon tax. They call it a clean fuel standard, but it is basically their new carbon tax of seven cents a litre in federal tax. They are keeping that in and, of course, the GST portion of that as well, which amounts to about eight cents a litre. We are getting a half-baked measure when it comes to this. What Conservatives are calling for, when it comes to gasoline and diesel, is to give the full relief of 25¢ a litre off the price of gasoline and 21¢ a litre off the price of diesel for the remainder of the year, 2026. That can provide a family of four about $1,200 more that they can keep in their pocket this year. Every time they fill up, they would save $20 at the pump. That is real, meaningful relief. There is a key part about this I want to raise. We can afford this because with the higher oil prices out there, the Liberals will be getting a windfall that is expected to be about $10 billion in extra revenue that was not anticipated because of these higher oil prices. If we completely cut the federal taxes on gasoline and diesel, it could be paid for simply by the extra revenues that are already going to be collected and Canadians paying higher prices as it is. Give Canadians real, meaningful relief at the pumps. Many may know my family history. My father and mother owned a trucking business for many years. My dad just retired from that business a couple of years ago, JED Express, which we have been proud to operate in South Mountain, Ontario, for many years, a few decades. I am very proud that my dad worked his way up and built a business from scratch, all the way into one of Canada's best-managed companies for several years running. My dad is happily retired now, playing pickleball and golf. I want to acknowledge our background in trucking and our history in that industry, something I grew up with around me. When we talk about being able to lower prices for Canadians on the cost of food and moving things around this country, our plan of taking 21¢ a litre, all the federal gas tax, off the price of diesel would make a tangible, more meaningful difference than what the Liberals are offering. The Liberals are offering to take four cents a litre off the price of diesel. That is going to be pennies to the billions that they will collect in extra revenues over the course of the next few months with higher oil prices. In the trucking industry, very often the way rates are determined is on a base rate provided by a trucking company or an owner-operator plus a fuel surcharge, which is the actual price of fuel on those given days. As opposed to taking four cents a litre off, as the Liberals propose, and we take 21¢ a litre off, that would drop the fuel surcharge, drop the cost of trucking and drop the cost of transporting food and goods across this country immediately. It is a meaningful way to lower inflation. When we have serious food inflation, it is a meaningful way to do that. I am proud to take my experience from the trucking industry and say that our Conservative plan would do more to lower costs for Canadians, for food and for getting things moved around our country. What we see from the Liberals all the time are half-baked measures. I will say this a different way and repeat the old line that I say in politics and in the work that I have done: Sometimes one needs to do a little R and D, rob and duplicate. We have actually seen the Liberal government do that, but to half-baked measures in extent. We have seen it with the consumer carbon tax, which the Liberals eliminated only after years and years of relentless Conservative pressure to axe the tax. The Liberals knew they were in such a perilous political position that they had to scrap it. This was after years of defending the rebates, years of claiming that the taxes they put on did not amount to any extra cost to people, and saying that they could just add these taxes on at the pumps and that the cost of things would not go up, inflation would not go up, the cost of fuel would not go up and the cost of business would not go up. Instead, what we are seeing now is a half-baked measure. The industrial carbon tax is in place, which just went up on April 1, and it is going to drive up the cost of doing business and drive up inflation in this country. Nobody believes that adding in taxes anywhere in the economy does not get passed on in the form of higher costs to consumers who purchase goods and services here at home. It was a half-baked measure to get rid of the consumer carbon tax and keep the industrial carbon tax. Furthermore, it was a half-baked “rob and duplicate” effort, because the Liberals brought in the so-called clean fuel standard. Right now, on the price of gas, it is seven cents a litre. The Liberals are refusing to eliminate it, and it is only going to get worse. Not only are they keeping that in place over the course of the next few months and going into the future, but it is also going to be increased from the current seven cents a litre to 17¢ a litre by the year 2030. That is something Canadians cannot afford, whether they are seniors, young people or parents driving their kids to hockey or soccer, just going out to get groceries or going back and forth to work. Heaven forbid that Canadians would want to take a family vacation. That seven cents a litre belongs in the pockets of Canadians rather than in the Liberal coffers this year. We have talked about half-baked measures. Meaningful relief is what we are not seeing from the government, which is not taking a serious approach to providing relief. The contrast could not be more clear. The Liberals want to provide a third of the relief for a third of the year, compared to what our Conservative position is on this. At the end of the day, it is important for Canadians to know that Conservatives are on their side, fighting for them and fighting for lower costs and lower gas bills in every part of this country. It is important to know that at the end of the day it is constant increases, the Liberal taxes on everything, that are making life more expensive in every part of this country. The Liberals stubbornly refuse to go the full way and provide full, meaningful relief. They are offering only a 10¢ reduction on the price of gasoline, when there was an opportunity to have a 25¢ reduction, taking all the federal taxes off. It is very frustrating to see that costs are going up over and over again. The cost of government is going up. The cost of Liberal deficits is going up. Inflation is going up. Our food inflation is the highest in the G7. We have the second-slowest growth in the G7. There was actually a drop in GDP in the fourth quarter of last year, and projections are not strong. What Canadians are going to see is a continued effort by the Conservative team to fight for real and meaningful relief. Our opposition day motion is clear that the Liberal plan announced does not go far enough to provide meaningful relief to Canadians. The Liberals could take off the fuel excise tax of 10¢ a litre, which they have done, but they could go further. They could take the GST of eight cents off. They could take the clean fuel standards of seven cents off. They could provide 25¢ a litre in relief. On diesel prices, that total is 21¢ a litre. That could help families and businesses at a time when they truly need it. We will keep standing up for affordability in this country and will let Canadians know that we are on their side.

Mr. Speaker, we fought for years on the side of Canadian farmers to axe the carbon tax, which the Liberals refused to do for years. It was only after relentless Conservative pressure and the Prime Minister's realizing his political situation that he decided to do so, only because Conservatives had advocated for that. Here is the thing with Liberals. They say that they have a clean fuel standard of seven cents a litre. It is going up to 17¢ a litre. That includes on the price of diesel, which is used a lot on Canadian farms. They say they all benefit from paying 17¢ a litre more in the coming years, with zero rebates and zero direct benefit to them. We have seen this game before: “Do not worry. Pay this extra tax, but there is no extra cost to the cost of farming or of doing business.” It is just miraculous. Now they know, and they claim that the consumer carbon tax did do that. It is about time they did the same thing for their fuel standard. It is putting farmers out of pocket big time.

Mr. Speaker, I am always open to new technologies and new ways of doing things. That is how the world evolves and how things have evolved for generations. Here is the problem with the approach of the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals, for which I will give an example. My colleague the member for Regina—Wascana asked a question in question period earlier this week about the electrification of the bus fleet in Regina. The federal government subsidized hundreds of millions of dollars for electric buses in Canada that do not work in the winter. They work for only three hours before they need a charge again. That was an absolute waste of taxpayers' money at a time when the technology is not there. I am all in favour of embracing technology and giving municipalities and businesses the option for them to choose what is best for them. That is number one. Number two is that when those technologies are not thoroughly thought through, it costs Canadian taxpayers even more.

Mr. Speaker, this is an opportunity to remind Canadians that our Conservative plan would provide gas tax relief on all federal gas taxes: the excise tax, the clean fuel standard and the GST, a total of 25¢ a litre of the price of gas for the entire remainder of 2026, not just until Labour Day as the Liberals are offering on just the one part at 10¢ a litre. That would provide a family of four with $1,200 in savings. The line I heard very often when I was growing up and becoming interested in politics, and what makes me a Conservative, is one I loved hearing years ago: Money is better spent by someone who earns it than by somebody who collects it. The money belongs in the pockets of Canadians to help them with real, meaningful relief from prices at the pumps.

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the decision made by the Cornwall Police Service this week to not participate in the Liberals' firearm confiscation program. Police services are already stretched thin, responding to real threats in our community, such as violent crime and illegal guns that have been smuggled across the border. Cornwall Police Service joined the OPP and the dozens of other services that have rejected this Liberal policy, saying that diverting officers and resources towards taking firearms away from vetted, law-abiding Canadians is not the best use of their time. Our police officers should be focused on stopping criminals and keeping dangerous weapons off our street, not administering a costly $752-million federal program that does little to address the root causes of gun violence. I thank the leadership and members of the Cornwall Police Service for being transparent about their concerns and for continuing to prioritize the safety of the people they serve. Canadians deserve policies that actually target criminals and strengthen public policy and public safety, not ones that burden local police and responsible firearms owners.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to receive many phone calls, visits to my office and emails from residents in Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry concerned about Bill C-9 and the Liberals' and Bloc's attempts to attack religious freedom and attacks on freedom of expression. Despite the censorship efforts of the government in the course of this past week, in team with the Bloc Québécois, to ram this legislation through, the irony is that they are censoring their own censorship bill by ramming it through. I wish to add the names of dozens of petitioners in my community who are speaking out against this. Whether they be Christian, Muslim or of other faiths, they remain concerned about the ability to read their own sacred texts and to be able to practise those teachings in a public or private setting. I stand behind them and firmly oppose Bill C-9.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise and table a petition on behalf of my constituents. I have had the honour of doing so on behalf of hundreds of constituents already, and today I am adding hundreds more names. The petition is on protecting the religious freedom in Bill C-9, which is very topical here today as the Liberals and the Bloc attempt to ram through that legislation. Canadians are concerned that the Bloc-Liberal amendments to Bill C-9 could be used to criminalize passages from the Bible, the Quran, the Torah and other sacred texts. The petitioners mention the state has no place in the religious texts or teachings of any faith community. I hear from residents over and over again about all the challenges we face in this country. Putting through this amendment, with all the effort that the Liberal and Bloc members are putting into it, is something I am not hearing. We need to protect religious freedom, and I am glad to add my voice and these petitioners' voices to that effort.

Mr. Speaker, what I look at is the record of the Liberals over the course of the last 10 or 10 and a half years. They brought in many pieces of major legislation and many strategies to try to make housing more affordable in this country. They had the national housing strategy and the housing accelerator fund, and now they have Bill C-20, which would add a fourth bureaucracy with Build Canada Homes. What has happened over the course of their record every time they have added a new piece of legislation or come up with a new strategy? The cost of housing in this country has doubled. The cost of rent has doubled. At a time when we need to get more shovels in the ground and build more homes, we are actually seeing that pace slow down. Forgive me if we do not want to give credit to the Liberals, because every time they reintroduce new legislation, their record is one of failure. On this side of the House, we are talking about doing things not legislatively, to add more bureaucracy, but by getting rid of it by taking the GST off all new home builds under $1.3 million. That is a concrete way we could lower housing prices immediately.

Mr. Speaker, if the past is any indication, we are in for higher costs when it comes to housing and rent, and more red tape and bureaucracy when it comes to the system of trying to improve housing in this country. Actually, my colleague and I both served in municipal politics at quite a young age, and this is one of the things the Liberals have broken their promise on. They could have done it in the budget, but they did not. They could have done it in this piece of legislation, and they have not. It is to address the cost of development charges by municipalities in this country. The Liberals promised during the election, as did the Conservatives, that they would cut in half the cost of development charges. The Liberals are breaking their promise, which is adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of housing in many cities. They need to keep their promise and not just add more layers of bureaucracy. That is not going to solve the problem.

Mr. Speaker, it is with profound sadness that we learned of the passing of Canadian radio legend Lowell Green. Lowell started at Ottawa's CFRA in 1960, and by the time he retired over 50 years later, he had become North America's longest-running open-line talk show host. Lowell will be remembered for promoting “common sense“ and his “island of sanity”, but it was not just the on-air achievements that made Lowell who he was. It was the many causes that he championed over the years. From launching a campaign to save the Centennial Flame here on Parliament Hill and a unity rally ahead of the 1995 referendum to being a co-founder of Big Brothers in Ottawa and the Help Santa Toy Parade, he truly made a difference in the lives of many people. He was awarded numerous accolades over the years by his peers, legions, Lions Clubs and other groups. We lost Lowell this month at the age of 89. Our thoughts are with his family, his friends and his colleagues as we mourn and celebrate a life well lived.

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. When I get the chance to talk about housing, as a former mayor for the township of North Dundas and warden in SDG, it is an issue that is near and dear to my heart, and not only because of my previous municipal experience. As we go out and talk to residents in our ridings, and I know it is the same for each and every member in this House, housing is probably one of the top national concerns in every single part of this country. I am going to be splitting my time with the hon. member for Richmond Hill South, and I know he will have some comments as well about the latest piece of Liberal legislation before us. What is important, as we begin this conversation on the latest Liberal attempts to address affordable housing, is that we look at where we are after 10 years. After 10 years of the Liberals in office, not just in Cornwall and SDG with the data from the Cornwall and District Real Estate Board, but right across this country, housing prices and rent have doubled. At a time when we need to build more homes and get more shovels in the ground, we are actually seeing red tape and taxes as a key part of the burden. We are actually seeing housing starts projected to fall in the coming years, which is going to make affordability and demand that much more challenging. When we look at this, according to the government's own data, we need to build about 450,000 to 480,000 homes per year, just to meet demand and keep up with affordability, every year until 2035. Right now we build about half of that. The Liberals have put this piece of legislation before us. Their solution is that one bureaucracy for housing was not enough, a second bureaucracy did not solve the problem, and neither did a third, so, as I guess they say in Liberal land, the fourth time will be the charm. We have the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Canada Lands Company and the department of infrastructure and housing, and now we would have Build Canada Homes, which would apparently be the bureaucratic solution to the problems we face in this country. When I went door-knocking in the last election, and when I go out and about and talk in our community, whether it is in the united counties, Cornwall or Akwesasne, and people talk about housing, not a single person suggests to me that the thing that would make the difference, make housing more affordable and get more shovels in the ground would be one more new housing agency or bureaucracy in this country. I did not hear that anywhere, but we did hear the stories of young people living in their parents' basements, wanting to have the dream of home ownership like their parents and grandparents did. It was the common consensus for young people in this country for decades that if they worked hard and saved up, home ownership would be achievable. They cannot even save now, because rent is so high and the cost of living is so high, but that dream of home ownership has eroded bit by bit, and here we are now with the government claiming that it is going to come in with billions of new dollars to try to address the problem. Here is the thing with this piece of legislation that we have before us with Build Canada Homes: The Liberals claim that it is going to help bridge the gap and get more shovels in the ground and homes built. However, their own data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation show that after this plan is taken into calculation, we are not going to see that. The government said it is going to build 5,200 homes per year. That was from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, but the CMHC numbers say that housing starts are actually going to go down. The Liberals spend billions and billions on bureaucracy, programs, photo-ops, announcements and claims that it is going to get better, but we are actually going to see a decrease in the number of homes being built. I would say it is surprising, but it is not surprising, because the Liberals just do not learn after 10 years. They are relying on the same failed approaches to get us out of this crisis in housing that we face. There is a way that we can do better on this. I am often asked what we do as a Conservative opposition. We are a loyal opposition. We look at the legislation, we scrutinize it, we support it where we can, we amend it where we can, and we vote either for or against it. That is what a loyal opposition does. We highlight the shortcomings of the government and propose our own solutions. I am often asked what Conservatives would do that could change the game when it comes to housing and getting more homes built in this country. There are four things I want to highlight. The first is that we could cut the GST on all new homes under $1.3 million. That is something that the industry says would spark an extra 35,000 to 40,000 new homes in this country every year. The most expensive part of buying a new home is not the labour and not the materials; it is actually government taxes and fees. Therefore, if we could take the GST off and work with provinces to take the HST off, in the province of Ontario that is 13% on a million-dollar home or on a home that is half a million dollars. It is hard to build one for half a million dollars today, but people could be looking at savings anywhere from $65,000 to $130,000 if we were able to take all the HST off. There is also the ripple effect. If, on a $1.3-million home, GST alone comes off, that is a $65,000 savings up front, but it also would save on the mortgage. There would be less to be mortgaged, less to be made in payments and less to be paid in interest. That would make home ownership instantly more affordable for Canadians, whether they are a first-time homebuyer or someone who is looking to build their dream home for which they have saved and worked so hard their entire life. The second thing we could do is tie federal infrastructure dollars to homebuilding. We would say to municipalities that they need to permit 15% more houses year over year, each and every year, so we can get the tide going in the right direction. We could tie federal funding, the billions of dollars from the federal government to support infrastructure, to actual results. We could say to municipalities that it would not be when they have a plan or an aspiration, or have done a study and intend to do something, but rather when building permits are actually permitted that the municipalities get paid. That is a huge incentive for municipalities. Further, if municipalities exceed that goal, Conservatives have said that we would bonus them. We could tie it to homebuilding, tie it to results and get municipalities on the right track, leading by example and permitting more homes that we need, to actually go up, in the right direction. The third thing is what the Conservatives have said and what the Liberals promised in the last election, but they have broken their promise. They said they would be cutting development charges by 50%. We said the same thing. The reality is that they have not done that. They have had a budget and a Speech from the Throne, and now they have this legislation, Bill C-20, before us which would mandate municipalities to do so. The Liberals have refused to take that step. Again, not only is it the GST and the HST on a new home build; there are development charges as well. These add up to the biggest cost: taxes and fees. Conservatives are saying to the Liberals, “Just keep the promise made during the election campaign. Agree with us, and let us cut development charges by 50%.” They have refused multiple times, at every opportunity in the last year, to keep their word and their promise with respect to housing. If this is a signature, cornerstone piece of legislation that they claim is part of their backbone to housing, that promise should have been in there, but it is not. The fourth thing we could do is end the capital gains tax on reinvestment in new housing in Canada, which would unlock billions of dollars in investment in our country's homebuilding sector. Here is an example of what we could do. If somebody builds a 10-unit apartment building and sells that building, as opposed to paying capital gains taxes on it, if they reinvest that money in another apartment building, reinvestment could happen, and the federal government could defer that tax. We would have more units, and more building would take place. We would get more results. It would be a rocket ship of an opportunity to get our housing and our homebuilding sector fired up and going in the right direction. We have before us another piece of Liberal legislation for a fourth bureaucracy: more bureaucracy, more plans, more studies, more photo ops and more good-intention announcements. It would lead to the same result we have had for the last year. The Conservatives will stand with the action plan I presented, and that would be the true way we could make homes more affordable in this country. After 10 years, the Liberals are recycling the same old ideas. It is time for a new approach under the Conservative plan.

Mr. Speaker, I want to apologize for that member. He does not get up and speak too much in the House too often. He needs to be reminded of the rules a little bit. The comment was interesting that the legislation would be giving the federal government and the Liberals a stronger, healthier relationship with provinces and municipalities. I am pretty sure they said the same thing regarding the national housing strategy that they had 10 years ago, which saw housing prices double. We had the housing accelerator fund that was going to be stronger and healthier. What happened? We are not seeing shovels get in the ground. We are seeing fewer shovels in the ground. We are seeing housing prices that have doubled. We are seeing rent that has doubled. That is their record. If we just give them the fourth chance in 10 years to get it right by using the same recycled approach, they say they will get a different result. That is the definition of insanity. We are not going with it.

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise to follow up on the question I raised a couple of weeks ago in question period about the serious strain that our auto sector is under and the serious threat we are under. Donald Trump has made it very clear that he wants to shutter the auto sector in this country. He wants to bring all the jobs that are here in Canada, the tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs, down to the United States. We have seen, sadly, over the course of the last year, 5,000 job losses. It has been devastating for Brampton, for Oshawa and for Ingersoll. The list goes on. Parts manufacturers have laid employees off and have taken their jobs and moved them to the United States. Here is an alarming number as to where the auto sector is today: In 2016, Canada built 2.3 million cars. Last year, that number dropped to 1.2 million. The number of cars being built in the country has been halved in the last decade. That is an alarming number and very dangerous when it comes to the threats that we face. What frustrates me very much is the latest Liberal plan, which they call their national auto strategy, that includes the EV rebates for vehicles under $50,000. Donald Trump, in the midst of this unjustified, illegal and wrong tariff war that we are under right now, is tariffing every single Canadian vehicle made here and brought into the United States. That is wrong. It is unacceptable, and we are fighting back against that. What is the Liberal strategy on this now? If we have an American-made EV that qualifies under that $50,000 threshold, that American EV, which is made in the United States, can get a subsidy to be built there and brought into Canada. That is absolutely ridiculous. We are in the midst of a trade war. I do not accept for a second the industry minister's Liberal talking point that we are in an integrated North American auto sector. We are not now, when we have a President in the United States who is unjustifiably tariffing every single Canadian vehicle going into the United States. It requires forceful push-back against that, and that should not include giving subsidies to American-made EVs being moved into Canada. Here is the reality. There is only one car made in Canada today that will qualify, the Dodge Charger. The last time the Liberals had the EV rebate, 99% of the EV rebates given were for foreign-made cars, including 31% from the United States. My question to the Liberal government continues to be this: Why are we giving a penny of Canadian taxpayer money for any vehicle, any vehicle at all, being made in the United States and being brought into Canada when the President of the United States is tariffing every vehicle coming from Canada into the U.S.? It makes no sense. It is the opposite of elbows up, and it needs to be scrapped. Will they do it?

Mr. Speaker, Canadians can see for themselves how clear the contrast is between the Liberal plan and the Conservative plan. The Liberals want to provide subsidies and give the opportunity for American-made EVs to be subsidized, built in the United States and shipped into Canada, but all while Donald Trump is tariffing every single Canadian vehicle going from Canada to the United States. Conservatives are proposing to scrap that part of the plan and take the GST off all Canadian-made vehicles so Canadians have a big incentive to buy Canadian and support our Canadian auto sector. We would take the GST off Canadian-made vehicles and support Canadian auto workers, while the Liberals have a $2.3-billion plan that is going to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to American-made vehicles coming into our country. It is completely unacceptable. It is the opposite of elbows up and needs to be scrapped immediately. Will they do it?

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise on behalf of the people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry to table a petition on behalf of residents of all faiths who have reached out with concerns and signed this petition about Bill C-9, specifically the attempts by the Liberals and the Bloc to ban religious teachings or texts of faith communities. They, too, believe that hate speech is wrong and should not be tolerated, but believe the Liberal government's efforts are misguided. I have heard from Christians, Muslims and other religious organizations, and I appreciate that they have reached out with their concerns. They state the government has no place in the religious teachings or texts of faith communities, and I hear this in the community at large too. Preserving the right to free speech means defending it when others are threatened with losing that freedom. The petitioners call on the House to protect religious freedom and the right to access, read and share religious texts, and to limit government overreach in matters of faith. It should not be up to the government of the day to freely decide what beliefs are appropriate. I am glad to table this in the House of Commons today.

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals providing billions in rebates for American-made EVs coming into Canada is anything but elbows up. This is at a time when Donald Trump is tariffing every single Canadian auto going into the United States. Furthermore, working-class Canadians are now being forced to subsidize $50,000 cars they cannot afford so wealthy people can buy them. In an affordability crisis, this makes no sense. In a trade war, this makes even less sense. When will the Liberals reverse course on this ridiculous policy that gives American-made EVs a subsidy and leaves Canadian workers paying the bill?

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry and be on the record discussing the latest Liberal legislation. This time it is their attempt to address ever-increasing grocery prices under their watch. The piece of legislation we have before us, first and foremost, is frankly an admission of failure. It was only two months ago that the Liberals tabled their budget with an $80-billion deficit, and here we are two months later, and they are adding another $12 billion over the coming years, and their latest rebate program would do little to address the core root issue of food prices and increasing costs at the grocery store. I think it is important, as I start my comments today, to provide Canadians a reminder, a lay of the land, of where we are when it comes to grocery prices and food prices in this country and the Liberal record of the last 10 years. When the Liberals came into office in 2015, parents with two children could go to the grocery store and, for $160 a week, they could get their groceries. Over the course of the last 10 years, we have seen grocery prices double in this country. After carbon taxes, red tape and endless deficits causing inflation, it now costs more than $340 a week for that same family of four to go to the grocery store. That is a double-digit increase, on average, every single year that the Liberals have been in office. It is more than 10%, on average, per year. It is a fact, and this is the government's own data from Statistics Canada, that it is going to cost the average family of four $17,600, on average, just to feed itself this year. That is an expected increase of $1,000 at the grocery store checkout for families this year. That is the reality of the record of the last 10 years and why we are in a situation where the government needs to offer more rebates to Canadians. It is because of its failed record, when it comes to food prices, and I will get into the reasons and what we can do to stop it in just a few minutes. We are also seeing this situation play out with the stats at food banks right across this country. There are 2.2 million Canadians using a food bank every month in this country, and as always, I am grateful for those local food banks that are working very hard in our community of SDG to support thousands and thousands of families and individuals in their time of need. Whether it is the House of Lazarus in Mountain, Agape in Cornwall, the Salvation Army and Saint Vincent de Paul in both Cornwall and Alexandria or the Community Food Share in Dundas county, they are doing an incredible amount of work in very trying circumstances. When I speak to those organizations, they tell me that the usage in the last couple of years has doubled and the increases are only going up and getting worse. As a matter of fact, the Agape Centre in Cornwall had some pretty eye-opening statistics when it had its annual general meeting last fall. It now uses over a million pounds of food to help people in the city of Cornwall alone. There were nearly 40,000 visits to its food bank and 31,000 visits to its soup kitchen and meal program, and it has helped thousands of individuals. When I did some rough math, I realized that nearly one in every 10 people in the city of Cornwall is using the food bank today. That is not sustainable, and it is a damning indictment of the record of Liberal governments after 10 years in office. The Prime Minister has been in office for the last year. Let us take a look at the specific record of the Prime Minister. Right now, under his leadership after one year, food inflation has doubled to 6.2% and is the highest of all the countries in the G7. We talk about this as a homegrown problem in our country because the Liberals try to blame everybody but themselves for the situation we find ourselves in, with the highest inflation in the G7. They blame tariffs and global factors, but let us make this very clear: Every other G7 country has those same issues of battling tariffs and battling global factors, but our food inflation here in Canada is only going up. The rebate that is being offered is far from a real and long-term solution. Conservatives have said we would let this pass, because at the end of the day it would be about $10 extra a week, when we break it down, for a grocery bill that often costs hundreds of dollars for individuals or families. This is an admission of failure because the Liberals just tabled their budget two months ago, and they are admitting now, just two months later, that they need to smash glass and spend an extra $12 billion over the course of the next couple of years to try to get it under control. This is only if someone qualifies. If someone does not receive the GST credit, they do not qualify for this benefit. There are going to be millions of middle-class families struggling to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads that are going to get zero dollars in rebates from this latest Liberal proposal. I do not give the Liberals too many compliments. I would give them a bit of a backhanded compliment, if I could. They are the best at announcements. They make everybody feel like the cheque is in the mail, that everybody is going to get it and that it is coming soon. The fact is that a majority of Canadians, and those in the middle class who are struggling to get by, are not going to get it. The Liberals did this with the rent rebate. We can remember they said they were going to send $500 to millions of Canadians. A very small percentage of Canadians qualified for and received that rebate. It is all announcement. It is rhetoric. It does not meet the reality of the moment that we are in. Conservatives have done a good job while the Liberals try to paint a rosy picture of what is going on. It is far from the reality. They have a lot of rhetoric that does not match the reality. What the Liberals are doing is not addressing the root cause of the issue. They are offering a rebate, but it is going to do absolutely nothing to slow down the rate of inflation. In fact, when we add $12 billion in deficits and spending, we are fuelling the inflationary fire that is causing the inflation of food, housing and other general expenses. I get asked what Conservatives would do. I want to be very specific with my time today and provide Canadians with an alternative. It does not have to be this way. We do not have to accept this sacrifice argument from the Prime Minister and say that this is just the way it is going to be, that Canadians need to accept that we have the highest food inflation in the G7, that there is nothing we can do about it and that it is not something the Liberals are causing. That is far from the truth. There are several things and several taxes the Liberals have in place on food that we could scrap immediately. Conservatives have said we are willing to support legislation and fast-track it through the House of Commons if it would tackle the root causes that we face in this country. One is the industrial carbon tax. The Liberals cancelled, finally after years and years of stubbornness, the consumer carbon tax. However, it is important for Canadians to remember that the industrial carbon tax remains in place. It taxes farmers, fertilizer, businesses and trucking organizations that are shipping our food all across this country. It is driving up the price. A key thing that I think is important for Canadians to know is about the latest carbon tax that is hidden and baked into the price of gas and diesel in this country. That is the new fuel standard tax. People do not have to take my word for it. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said the rules that the Liberals put in place in July 2023 have required that gasoline and diesel used in Canada meet certain reduction requirements. Right now, because of that, it is adding 7¢ a litre to the price of gasoline and 6¢ a litre to diesel. They have said that, by the year 2030, it is going to be 17¢ a litre on the price of gas and 16¢ a litre on diesel. Do members remember the phony rebates, where the Liberals said to not worry about the carbon tax and that people were further ahead because they got more in rebates? They have all admitted that was nothing but a scheme. There are zero rebates when it comes to the new fuel regulations and when it comes to the industrial carbon tax. Canadians are paying the bill when it comes to that. Conservatives have called to scrap the industrial carbon tax, scrap the new fuel standard and the fuel tax that they have in place. We are not stopping there. We have the food packaging tax and the plastics ban that the Liberals are imposing on Canadians. It is now estimated that the packaging tax on food is going to cost about $1.3 billion more because of all the red tape and regulations. At the end of the day, we can get inflation under control by getting our deficits under control. We cannot have endless $80-billion deficits in this country. We cannot continue to fuel the inflationary fire. Conservatives are going to get rid of the industrial carbon tax, the new fuel tax and the food packaging tax, and get inflation under control so we can get food prices under control.

Mr. Speaker, it sounds like gaslighting to me, because the reality is that, after 10 years, the Liberals have driven up food costs and housing costs. Housing costs have doubled. Food costs have doubled, and it was under their watch. Now they are pretending that they have the solutions to fix the very problems they created. Here is the reality when we talk about getting out of the way: It is getting taxes lower in this country. That is what Conservatives stand for; it is a key principle. We remember the carbon tax that the Liberals had in place for years. They said that people made money on the carbon tax because the government gave so much money back in the rebate. We had a Liberal member speak today and say that the Liberals cut the carbon tax to save people money at the pumps. They are finally admitting that their carbon tax cost money. The industrial carbon tax and the new fuel standard are doing the same thing and driving up the cost of food, the cost of trucking and the cost of groceries in this country. Those are examples of what we would do to get out of the way.

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, Conservatives are always in favour. The line I use is that money is better spent by someone who earns it than by somebody who collects it. For seniors, small businesses and all families in this country, the more money that stays in their pockets in the first place to afford groceries, to afford rent or a mortgage and those costs of living, the better off they will be. I am all in favour of measures, but when we talk about inflation, it is important that the Bloc support our effort as well to axe the industrial carbon tax and scrap the fuel standard. For those families out there paying 7¢ going up to 17¢ a litre more in gasoline with zero rebates, it is going to drive up their day-to-day expenses, and it is going to make food more expensive to ship in every part of this country. When we talk about lowering inflation, there are two concrete measures we can do to lower food prices and stop these massive increases we are seeing.

Mr. Speaker, I have used this line before so I apologize for the repetition, but it is like asking the arsonist to put the fire out, which is kind of what this whole situation is. The Liberals have created this mess over the course of the last 10 years, and now they are pretending to be the answer to all of these problems. We have seen this rebate program before, back in 2022 or 2023, give or take. The Liberals had this temporary rebate that was given back to Canadians. What did we see? It did not address food prices, which have only gone up by record numbers since then. We are seeing more Canadians use a food bank. At the end of the day, inflation is still out of control, and our deficits are still out of control. They have learned nothing over the course of the last couple of years.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of our Conservative team to provide my comments and feedback on the Liberals' 10th budget. The more they do it, the more they get used to doing the same thing: adding inflationary deficits to our national debt and raising the cost of living for families in every part of this country. I have served as a member of Parliament proudly for the last six years. Before that, I served in municipal politics for 12. When I was serving as mayor, as in this role, the one thing I always said is that it is an easy job in politics to tell people what we are going to spend money on; the hard part is telling Canadians how we are going to pay for it. There is one thing the Liberal government does the best out there. I will give the Liberals credit. I will give them one compliment in my 10-minute speech today. They are the best at photo ops and the word salad in all of the announcements. They make it sound like all of the things they are doing are actually making a difference in the lives of Canadians. The problem is when the reality comes back to them. What do we see? We see an increased cost of living. We see more difficulty when it comes to affording housing and affording food. Their record is absolutely atrocious. The most frustrating thing when it comes to all of this is their inability to pay for it. This is what I call a costly credit card budget, in the sense that with a massive $80-billion deficit, they are putting a massive amount of new money on Canada's credit card for future generations to pay. It is about printing more money. It is drives up inflation and drives up the cost of living when they do that. Again, this has been a pattern we have seen. The Liberals claim to be a new government, but it is absolutely not. This is the same failed approach we have seen for 10 years. Just look at the numbers right in the budget documents themselves. There is the projected amount of money we will spend in this fiscal year on public debt charges. That is just the interest to service our current national debt, which is about $1.4 trillion. The number is getting so high that we are into the trillions now. It costs $55 billion a year just in interest payments to service that debt. That is all the GST collected in the country. It does not go to health care. It does not go to roads. It does not go to housing. It does not go to fixing our broken bureaucracy. It does not go to improving service at the CRA. Every dollar in GST that is collected in the country goes to paying the interest on our debt. If we look at the projections, it is $55.6 billion this year, and it is projected, over the next five years, to go up to $76.1 billion. The Liberals will be adding $320 billion more to our national debt over the course of the next five years. Most Canadians can look at that and say that if we keep adding and adding to our credit card with no plan to pay it off, that is not sustainable. That is exactly what we are seeing here with the Liberal budget. A key part of the budget is homebuilding. We have a real problem in the country with getting homes built and affordable homes built. I want to take this opportunity to bring up, as all politics is local, the local context from Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, where it was just reported at a Cornwall city council meeting in the last month that, according to the deputy CAO, Cornwall today is “at a standstill”. That is the quote it used. In a city of 47,000 people, here is where the housing situation and housing starts stand. Only 12 building permits for houses and seven for duplexes have been issued in the city of Cornwall since May. That goes to show that buyers cannot buy, sellers cannot sell and, most importantly, builders cannot build. There are so many Canadians looking for home ownership and looking for new homes. We desperately need millions of new homes just to keep up with demand for affordability. Right in my proud part of eastern Ontario, we have a very sad circumstance where, at the end of the day, only 19 building permits for houses and duplexes have been issued since May. It is a serious problem. The Liberals keep announcing billions and billions of dollars. They keep creating new bureaucracies. Their latest one is Build Canada Homes. It is another bureaucracy that is adding administrative paperwork and red tape, not actually cutting it. Here is a fact about how proud the Liberals pretend to be about their housing programs. Their housing accelerator fund has failed badly in eastern Ontario. With red tape, municipalities like Cornwall, local townships in S, D and G and, more importantly, Cornwall and S, D and G housing services are banned from even being able to apply for funding. It has been years. The government has known about this but has not acted. It is blocking our communities from getting our fair share. Not only do we see slow housing starts in Cornwall, but we are seeing an inability for our city and the united counties of S, D and G to apply for help from the Liberal government. It is failure after failure, but there is a solution I want to highlight. Our positive, constructive Conservative solution has gotten excellent feedback from builders that desperately want to get more shovels in the ground. The Liberals have a lot of half-baked measures. They are only taking the GST off of new homes for first-time homebuyers. As we can see by the stats in Cornwall and across the country, we need to unlock more potential. What do we need to do? What Conservatives are proposing we do is a game-changer. It is a bold plan to take the GST off all new homes in Canada of up to $1.3 million. That is going to save the average Canadian homeowner up to $65,000. Not only that, but they will save money instantly on the purchase of their house up front, and they will save because they will not have to borrow as much. They could save roughly $3,000 a year in mortgage costs, further helping homes become more affordable in every part of this country. The experts who analyzed our plan say that not only is it a good one, but it is going to go even further. It is going to boost the number of new homes built each year, sparking an extra 36,000 new homes built in Canada, and it is going to raise an extra $2.5 billion in income tax revenue from trades workers and home builders at a time when we desperately need all of that. I am proud to stand on the floor to localize the frustrating challenges we have when it comes to homebuilding in the city of Cornwall, but also to highlight the constructive solutions we will be tabling, which are absent from the costly credit card budget of the Liberals. We have opposed this budget because the deficits are extremely high and there are the same old broken approaches when it comes to housing. I often get asked what I would do to lower expenses. As spending by the Liberal government is out of control, what would I save money on? There are two points I want to highlight very quickly. One is about trying to find the intelligence and reasoning behind why the Liberals decided, when they have an $80-billion deficit with no plans to balance the budget, to send $500 million to the European Space Agency. At a time when 2.2 million people are using food banks and people are struggling to get by, we are sending half a billion dollars over to Europe to send to space. We are creating European jobs at a time when we need Canadian jobs, with a 6.9% unemployment rate. The second point I want to highlight when it comes to wasting taxpayers' money is the continued boondoggle of the $742-billion gun grab from law-abiding, legal, trained and tested firearms owners in this country. We have to look no further than Cape Breton, where the pilot of the failed public safety minister shows his failures continue. He had a pilot in Cape Breton, and reports say that as few as 22 firearms were collected from it. Nevertheless, the Liberals want to spend $742 million, which the minister even admitted on leaked audio would not work, as the pilot does not target the people we need to go after: the criminals and gun smugglers in this country. Right there is $1 billion in savings just by using a little common sense when it comes to the budget. I want to wrap up my comments by acknowledging the many incredible people across S, D and G who are doing their part to help people in challenging times. I have spoken before about the Agape Centre in Cornwall, and now I want to highlight the amazing work the House of Lazarus is doing in Mountain. I had the privilege, as always, of talking with Cathy Ashby, the executive director, and her team there. They have seen a 100% increase in food bank use since 2019. It is not slowing down; it is only getting worse. The summer period alone this year has seen a 45% increase in food bank use. They now serve over 850 people. It is Canadians like those who volunteer and work at the House of Lazarus who are going to help us get through this challenge. I am proud of their work. I am proud of the great things they are doing to try help people in need in S, D and G.

Mr. Speaker, when our leader was the housing minister, housing prices were half the price that they are now. The Liberals have doubled housing prices, they have doubled rent, they have doubled mortgage payments, and they have never spent so much money to fail so badly. What do we see in the budget? What are the Liberals doing? They are doing the exact same thing. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the minister's office of the Department of Housing were not enough, so now the Liberals are adding a new Build Canada Homes bureaucracy as if the third or fourth one is going to make a difference. Our proposal and our contrast are clear. Taking the GST off all new homes being built in this country up to $1.3 million would save $65,000 up front and $3,000 on mortgage costs. Builders in my community and across the country agree that it would be a game-changer.

Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues said it best the other day. I think the Toronto Maple Leafs stand a better chance of winning the Stanley Cup than the Liberals do of meeting their own spending targets. I have zero faith when we look at what the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said: There is a 7.5% chance they are even going to meet their own fiscal targets. Just from their budget last year, regarding these fiscal anchors that they talked about, they have broken all of them. They are just getting worse in this, year after year after year. I will say this about the CRA's performance and how bad and incompetent the current Liberal government has been: It increased spending at CRA by 70%, and I am going to say that service at CRA got about 70% worse. I have never seen a government anywhere, federally, provincially or municipally, that has spent so much money to fail so badly.

“Hold my beer” is right. Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised during the election campaign that his deficit would only be $62 billion. Well, here the Liberals are a few months later. They finally get around to tabling a budget, and it is at $80 billion. They promised to spend less. They are not very good at math, because their deficit is now double what it was projected to be last year. It is absolutely ridiculous and unsustainable.

Madam Speaker, this week, we learned that the Prime Minister's company, Brookfield, has been and continues to be one of Canada's largest tax-dodgers. Tax experts revealed that Brookfield avoided paying a stunning $6.5 billion in Canadian taxes over five years through the use of offshore tax havens. While he was the chair of Brookfield, the Prime Minister set up three multi-billion dollar investment accounts in the Caribbean, claiming their headquarters was above a bicycle shop in Bermuda. Nobody believes that. He is shielding profits from Canadian taxes, and those are funds that could line the Prime Minister's pockets through future bonus payments. Canadians pay nearly half of their income in taxes and are rightly angered by seeing the Prime Minister dodging his share by putting his money in offshore tax havens. The question is simple. Despite being asked multiple times, why will the Prime Minister not confirm that he has no investments in offshore tax havens? What is he trying to hide, and why will he not come clean to Canadians over his latest ethics scandal?

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to follow up on my question from earlier this year about the Liberals' inability to follow through on Auditor General reports and actually improve service delivery to Canadians. It was just back in June that I asked a question about the F-35, and we found out that the original cost of the F-35 jets was estimated to be $19 billion. However, the Auditor General, after their audit, found that the figure was based on outdated information and that by 2024 the estimated cost had increased to $28 billion, almost a 50% increase. That also did not take into account several other elements needed to achieve full operational capacity, such as essential infrastructure upgrades and advanced weapons, which would cost another $5.5 billion. It is past the budget time frame and past the budget costs, and we are still lingering months later with an inability to move forward on that file. However, that is not the only report the Auditor General has that the Liberals keep messing up. I want to go back to reference another recent Auditor General's report, and that was on the performance standards of the Canada Revenue Agency call centres. This most recent report was not the first one that was done. The Liberals had their wrists slapped back in only 2017, a few years ago, about several aspects of their service delivery that were failing. The Auditor General came out with a scathing report at that time, talking about service standards and accuracy of information in several ways and giving recommendations as to what the Liberals needed to do to get CRA to give better customer service. It was back in 2017 that the then minister for CRA put out a statement that said: Our clients have a right to receive information that is clear and precise, when they need it. We have made strides to improve our service The statement goes on to say: However, there remains work to be done, and the Auditor General's recommendations will help us make the necessary adjustments. They had a three-point action plan, and they said: Beginning in 2018, our clients will see numerous improvements Fast-forward to today. The budget of CRA under the Liberals, since their time in office, has increased by 70%. I wish I could come here tonight and instead congratulate the Liberals and say that service got 70% better. Literally, when we look at it, service actually got about 70% worse, I would say. That is closer to the actual reality. In the second report under the Liberals with respect to the CRA, the call centres and customer service to Canadian taxpayers got astronomically worse. The Liberals had learned nothing except how to make the problem worse. Only 18% of calls met CRA's own service standard. The average wait time doubled. There were invoices paid with little or no validation, which is something we have heard before in the arrive scam investigation. Over 32 million calls were received, but only 10 million people reached an agent. This means that 22 million Canadians were redirected or hung up on. My question for the Liberals is this. How many more Auditor General reports is it going to take for them to get what I call their “deliverology” in shape, get CRA in shape and take all these other Auditor General reports, like with respect to the F-35, and get something done properly, on time, on budget and with good customer service? Canadians are not expecting too much from the government but are getting the worst deliveries we have seen in recent years.

Mr. Speaker, if the Liberals were truly intent on getting the best value for taxpayers' money, the recent CRA audit would not have a heading of “The value of the telephony service contract has reached $190 million from its minimum work guarantee of $50 million”. That is the heading because IBM was provided an original contract with a value of $50 million over 10 years, and now it is projected that the overall contract value will rise to $214 million through 2027, which is a quadrupling while service standards are dropping. As a matter of fact, the Auditor General says that when it comes to the IBM contract, “Shared Services Canada...should strengthen its contract management and conduct a full review of the...contract and its life cycle to identify lessons learned.” There are constantly lessons being learned by the Auditor General. The issue is the Liberals' inability to follow up and deliver that change. When are they going to not just talk a good game but actually follow through?

Mr. Speaker, hold my beer, as the expression goes, absolutely. We have seen the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer predict the deficits of the new Prime Minister, with the same old Liberal government and same old Liberal team adapting the same old failed approach of endless deficits, never-ending deficits with no plan to balance the budget. The deficits are at least double what Justin Trudeau's deficits were going to be, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Every dollar government spends comes from the pockets of Canadians. It adds to higher taxes, higher food costs, a higher cost of living and higher costs for housing. We are not seeing a good return on investment on the tax dollars the Liberals are spending. As we have in our opposition day motion, every dollar that leaves our country and flees in investment is fewer jobs and lower wages. On this side of the aisle, we are going to stand up for Canadian workers and for Canadian investments for a brighter Canadian future.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be Canadian. I am proud to stand up for Canada. What I am ashamed of and what I am criticizing is the Liberal government. That is what we are talking about here. Members will notice that the Liberals are doing everything they possibly can today to talk down their own former prime minister. They do not want us talking about Justin Trudeau anymore. The reality of the situation is that Justin Trudeau may be gone, but the new Prime Minister is making the situation even worse financially, with larger deficits and more spending. Our immigration system is in chaos, and there is no end to the housing crisis. We need to build more houses. We are actually seeing things slow down. There is example after example of these things. The Prime Minister did not just make any promise; he made the promise that he would get a deal with the United States, and he has broken that promise. He is leading us toward the same disastrous financial record Justin Trudeau had. It is not a new government; it is the same tired Liberal Party.

Mr. Speaker, there is a major problem with transparency on the part of this Liberal government when it comes to the country's budget and finances. There is a major problem with transparency when it comes to the Liberal government. I can speak longer than the 30 seconds I have to elaborate on that, but I will agree that we are seeing spending on consultants going up significantly. This was after the Prime Minister said that he was going to cap spending at 2%. The first bill he tabled increased spending by 8%, with billions of dollars more on consultants. Now it is $742 million on a gun confiscation program that the Liberals' own Minister of Public Safety said will not be effective. There are many examples of waste that have come from the government; if that money were back in the pockets of Canadians, maybe they could afford food.

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more on just how tone-deaf the Minister of Foreign Affairs was today when we were talking about the importance of the auto sector and supporting auto workers and mill workers right across this country. Her answer was not to worry, because the government was going to give them extra weeks of EI. This is absolutely out of touch. I could not have said it any better than the member did. Workers want a job. They want good pay, good benefits, a good pension, a reasonable home to live in and the ability to afford food to feed their families. It is sad that after 10 years under the Liberals, continuing with the new Prime Minister, it is the same old Liberal Party, and Canadians are struggling over and over again to get basic necessities. It is shameful that this is the country the Liberals have created after 10 years.