Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague's admiration of Stephen Harper and his government's admiration of Stephen Harper's policies. The first-time homebuyer program is a bit of a copy of the tax-free savings account, a great savings instrument for Canadians. I know the Liberals copied that to have something called the first-time homebuyer program, which would be great if people had money to…
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Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-8 at report stage. Bill C-8 has been a bit of a baby on our side over here. I actually helped shepherd this through when it was first introduced in the House, and we looked at it at finance committee for some time. We had a number of proposals brought forward at committee to try to make it a better bill. We are still trying to make …
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Mr. Speaker, I quite agree with my colleague from Drummond. Inflation is a problem in the Canadian economy. Inflation is caused by price increases and other factors, but the economy is also partially to blame for inflation. Consider the lumber shortage, for example. Lumber prices skyrocketed last summer, increasing by nearly four times. It was a real problem, which significantly increased the cost…
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Mr. Speaker, I remember reading an article from a well-known Canadian years ago that said the source of the money being brought into Canada does not matter: If it is dirty elsewhere, once it gets to Canada it will be fine. That is completely absurd, and a well-known Canadian wrote that. When we are inviting dirty money into Canada, we are inviting everything that is associated with that dirty mone…
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Mr. Speaker, almost three weeks ago now, I watched Canada's Minister of Finance deliver her budget speech in this place, and I listened to someone who represents the tone of the government and the doublespeak it continues to deliver to Canadians. However, let me begin with a compliment. One of my Liberal colleagues in the House asked me just prior to the budget what should be in the budget for it …
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Mr. Speaker, we must be dealing with two different sets of data. I appreciate that the member is writing his own press release here. In fact, the debt-to-GDP ratio in this country is much different from how the government explains it, because we do not include the provincial debt. I explained that in my speech. I hope the member was listening just a little, but he does not actually listen. Another…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. I agree with him. He is right in saying that we are not spending much money on international financial aid. Now there is a war on in Ukraine, and I think the government has said that it will give $500 million. That is a small share of the financial aid for the rest of the world.
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Mr. Speaker, the financialization of housing is an issue, of course, across the country, but we do have investors who invest in housing. I have read that 30% of the housing stock in Canada is actually owned by investors. These are not necessarily large investors, which is what people think of when they think about the financialization of the housing market. A lot of small investors have committed …
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, like many Canadians, I am blessed to have grown up with the descendants of Ukrainian immigrants who came to Canada after the pogroms visited on Ukraine by the Soviet regime after World War II. Those families and that culture are integral to our heritage. We all rejoiced when Ukraine joined the realm of free nations more than three decades ago. Witnessing the carnage brought on Ukraine…
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Mr. Speaker, Canada was once the world leader in carbon capture technology. We lost our position to the United States because the investments went where it made economic sense. Technology will always follow the opportunities. A carbon capture tax credit without EOR is simply words on paper, which will not produce what the world is demanding, lower-carbon Canadian resources. Will the minister live …
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Mr. Speaker, the world agrees that carbon capture storage is key to decarbonizing our fossil fuels, which the world will need for decades. Enhanced oil recovery produces low-carbon oil and is better for the environment. The Minister of Natural Resources claimed on the international stage that Canada will introduce a tax credit like the American 45Q. Guess what. The 45Q includes enhanced oil recove…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Natural Resources told delegates at the IEA meeting that he would be implementing a 45Q-type regime to capture carbon in Canada. The American 45Q tax credit has pulled investment away from Canada because it includes enhanced oil recovery, yet the same minister co-wrote an article saying that EOR should not be part of our carbon capture regime. There is one story for pe…
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Mr. Speaker, the International Energy Agency has stated that carbon capture, utilization and storage is the most near-term available technology to mitigate climate change. Deployment will amount to approximately 7% of the world’s GHG reduction targets. Canada was at the forefront of developing carbon capture. Billions of dollars have been spent by industry and governments to advance the technology…
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Madam Speaker, the oil sector contributes nearly $25 billion annually to the federal, provincial and municipal governments. It is one of the sectors that contributes the most in Canada, and I think that it is the largest sector in Canada to pay taxes. Some other sectors do not pay any taxes, like those that receive government subsidies.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague who is quite gifted in the area of economics. I love asking him questions. I love hearing him speak in this House of Commons, especially when he delivers a speech that is full of meat. I will ask him some questions that, I hope, will give him an opportunity to put some more meat on the bones of what he gave us here today. One of the things I like that he said wa…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to debate the motion. There is a lot in here that is economically needed, and I think members on the other side of the House will appreciate some of the metrics we need to put on the page about what we do going forward. I am going to start with a story. Eleven days ago, I hosted a town hall meeting in the community of Killarney-Glengarry i…
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Madam Speaker, I did hear what my colleague said, and I want to tell the member very clearly that he is in over his head with his comments. That is not the way it works in business. Businesses do not keep those on their balance sheets. They actually remit them to the government right away and the government puts them over to another organization called the CPPIB, the Canada Pension Plan Investment…
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Madam Speaker, I do not know where my hon. colleague on the other side of the aisle believes that I think the status quo is helping Canadians. I think the status quo is a disaster for Canadians. Yes, we do need to change the status quo considerably. There are sectors that have been protected during the pandemic by the government in charge of this. That sector needs to kind of make sure that it ste…
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Madam Speaker, it is great to have such a high-minded debate on such an important issue, and on this side of the House, we appreciate the member's comments referring to so many of our colleagues who made some important points about this motion. I thank him for repeating what we have said here. I am going to correct him with regard to CPP. CPP payments from the employers and employees are going up …
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Madam Speaker, it is my honour today to second the motion brought forward by my colleague from Halton Hills. I stand firmly with the rest of my party in condemning the actions of Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime against our allies in Ukraine, our democratic friends in Ukraine. Here in Canada, there are 1.3 million Ukrainian descendants. They are one of our most important allies in the world, …
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Madam Speaker, I am unfamiliar with my hon. colleague's timeline of 20th century versus 21st century. The solution is more environmental power to the world. It is more ESG, environmentally friendly, socially friendly and good governance, as we see investments in natural gas supply to an energy starved world. That starts with natural gas, and that is what has been held up by the government since it…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I think I understood the gist of it. Right now, it is very important that we make Canada's gas supply available to the world. Countries are currently getting gas from Russia, and there are needs in China. The Russian pipelines to China are very important for that country. We need to build pipelines so that we too can sell our gas to China. This…
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Madam Speaker, the most important thing to do right now is to make sure we are standing firm with the Ukrainian people in the plight they are facing from an aggressive neighbour that wants to defeat them. This is first thing we have to look at. How do we help them as much as possible? Part of that is the displacement of refugees that is occurring immediately. In my speech, my colleague will recall…
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Mr. Speaker, with an aggressive Russian invasion of Ukraine, European countries recognize how dependent they are on Russian gas supplies. Forty per cent of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, and Europe’s security now has a gun to its head. Coal plants are being brought back online, undoing years of progress on emission reductions. Energy and security analysts have been warning about this danger for y…
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Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting approach, but since the government came to power, Russia’s natural gas exports have increased 35% and Canada’s exports have declined. The result is that tens of billions of dollars have flowed to fund Putin's war machine. A decade ago, Canada had 14 LNG projects preparing to supply energy to an insecure world. Now, thanks to the government’s aimless policies, none…
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Madam Speaker, let me ask my colleague a question that is predicated upon 12 years of projects that were advancing on the west coast of Canada that one by one fell off the table once her government came to power seven years ago. They did so because of a regulatory environment that was punitive to building energy projects in Canada. As a result, they built energy projects in Russia. Can she take so…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On Monday I asked a question of the Minister of Natural Resources about oil that is being imported to Canada from Russia. He responded that crude was no longer being imported to Canada since 2019. I would like to table, with unanimous consent, documents from Statistics Canada that show in 2021 almost $400 million of oil was imported from Russia into Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada sends half a billion dollars per year to Russia to import its oil. The government has clearly chosen against building Canadian pipelines. The result was a decision by the Liberal government to instead fund the oppressive regime in Russia. The government boasts about giving $120 million to Ukraine and then sends half a billion dollars per year to Russia to fund Putin's war machi…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I want to ask my colleague about illegal money coming into Canada. He can tell us, as he did, that 50% of the funds come from outside Canada. As a result of the tracking already embedded in platforms we know where the money comes from, yet the law he proposes to support here has us looking into Canadians' bank accounts. I would like him to square that with me. What does this accompl…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments on this. I did listen to his speech, and the speaking notes were clearly prepared for him. Has the member thought about the mechanics of what is happening here regarding Canadians' financial accounts? I have great experience in getting the actual crowdfunding platforms approved in Canada. Everything the government is pretending it is doing with t…
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Madam Speaker, my apologies. I think the member across is exactly right. My question stands. Will the member across answer whether he would reverse his position on this if we prove that what the government is pretending is happening here is not in fact the case?
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Madam Speaker, I did notice a term in my colleague's speech when he talked about far right and far left. These are divisive terms. In here, we have to look at people as they are people, and make sure that we are actually listening to Canadian voices, wherever on the spectrum they may be, and make sure that everybody gets heard in this country. Stigmatizing some of those voices is not the right app…
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Madam Speaker, I rise today sombrely in the House of Commons to raise my voice against the government's invocation of the Emergencies Act. The first issue to address is the rule of law that we live under in this democracy. Outside, police are corralling the remainder of the protesters who have set up a blockade on Ottawa's streets. Last week, blockades at Canada's borders were disassembled by poli…
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Madam Speaker, yes, I am very thankful that the peace officers at the Coutts border crossing in Alberta were able to intercept what was obviously very destructive elements that embedded themselves within the actual protest organization. Once that was discovered, the whole blockade disbanded because they did not want to be associated with that. This is a problem wherever we are in the world, and it…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for his question. I completely agree with him. The government has not demonstrated to the House of Commons that such legislation needed to be implemented.
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Madam Speaker, I should point out that the Coutts blockade was somewhat disbanded and there was one lane open shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, there was an element there that actually was a problem. We know that. We know it was slowed down. I had not heard the number she referred to, the $864 million of commerce that was interrupted, but I did note in my speech how important it was to make sure t…
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Mr. Speaker, at least from my perspective, I am not sure the member is properly attired in the House.
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Mr. Speaker, I welcome my hon. colleague for Kitchener Centre to the House of Commons. I am going to gut-check him here. I know it is his first time being elected to the House of Commons, and he will find out that when he presents misinformation to the House, and some of us here actually know that information to be false, we will correct him. I will ask him about the $18 billion in subsidies that …
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Mr. Speaker, if I left the impression that it was for anything other than what he described, I am remiss and I apologize. If that is the way he took those remarks and if I misspoke in that respect, he is exactly right. It would be for foreign money that is coming into Canadian property. As I said earlier, it would actually be on top of a municipal tax that is applied to it, and a provincial tax as…
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Mr. Speaker, I think I understand most of what my colleague said. It is important to see what kinds of buildings are being built in Canada right now. Do the condos we are building meet the population’s current needs? We need to address the current gap relative to single-family homes, especially in cities. I hope I answered my colleague’s question.
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Mr. Speaker, the member is an excellent colleague on the finance committee and he comes up with some great proposals going forward. I think I did address in my speech, and I hope he heard it all, some of the solutions we have for bringing down the escalating prices of Canadian houses. One is to address money laundering. Money laundering by foreign buyers in the Canadian marketplace is excessive. I…
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Mr. Speaker, Mr. Siddall, the former head of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, did accept and did hire Generation Squeeze to give him this report. That is government money, a quarter of a million dollars. We are still trying to figure out if it paid a quarter of a million dollars for one report and another quarter of a million dollars for the second report. We have asked for that answer…
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Mr. Speaker, as I rise today, February 2, in the House, I want to pay homage and respect to my party leader, who resigned today from being party leader of the official opposition. Being in the job of party leader in an opposition party is an incredibly difficult job, and he has done yeoman's work over the past couple of years. In a time when Canada was locked down, expectations of what we needed t…
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Mr. Speaker, I am not a fan of a guaranteed basic income. I am a fan, frankly, of making sure that our monetary base stays relevant. As we inflate that monetary base, we effectively devalue the spending power of the money that people have. By devaluing that spending power, we are actually hurting the people who have to spend that money on basic goods. We should get ahead of it. If we do not debase…
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Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed the speech of my colleague from Winnipeg. There was one thing that he raised in that speech that I want to ask him some questions about. He talked about the federal tax rate going from 28% to 15% at the same time as the federal government, under the Chrétien Liberals in 1992, 1994 and 1995, actually reduced the contribution from the federal government from 50% of heal…
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Madam Speaker, I want to ask my good friend from Kings—Hants about some of the statistics he quoted, including the one about the best debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. Surely he has some better numbers than that, because that is clearly not the case when we look at the country as a whole and when we look at the nature of what he is talking about here. The member said Conservatives need to pick a lane. …
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With regard to the government’s price on carbon: (a) how much has been paid by the average household each year since its introduction in (i) each province and territory, (ii) urban, suburban, and rural locations; (b) how much has been returned to the average household in (i) each province and territory, (ii) urban, suburban, and rural locations; (c) what has been the average reduction in emissions…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, $500 billion is the amount the oil and gas industry has contributed to Canadian governments in tax revenue over the past 20 years. Canadians have spent the same amount of money, half a trillion dollars, importing oil at world prices from foreign suppliers over the past 30 years without any meaningful contribution to Canadian tax revenues. When I hear the word “subsidized” being applie…
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With regard to the Clean Fuel Standard and Clean Fuel Regulations: (a) has the government identified the expected sources of renewable fuel expected to be used in transportation fuels under the Clean Fuel Standard; (b) what is the expected carbon intensity of the renewable fuels to be used in transportation fuels; (c) what is the expected net impact on carbon intensity of transportation fuels; and…
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With regard to Canada’s National Housing Strategy: (a) how much money has been allocated to Calgary since 2017, broken down by year (i) through the Rapid Housing Initiative, (ii) through the Affordable Housing Innovation Fund, (iii) through the National Housing Co-Investment Fund, (iv) through the Rental Construction Financing Initiative, (v) in total through National Housing Strategy Funding Prog…
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