Eric Duncan

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.