Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there was so much incoherence and drivel in that speech that I do not know where to start. I will start with this: Is it really the Liberal government's position that the United States wants no trade? Is that what the member thinks its position is? If the U.S. wants no trade, we understand why the Liberals are getting no deal on trade, if that is what they think the position is. Secon…
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the fantastic speech my colleague gave. He talked about EVs. The Liberal government says it has an EV manufacturing strategy. How can we have an EV manufacturing strategy when we do not really manufacture any EVs in Canada, only about 700 Dodge Chargers, and the government is going to let in a flood of Chinese EVs, which will undercut any domestic Canadian EV industry? I…
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Mr. Speaker, the industry minister has said some strange things, like we are going to build the cars the world wants and export them. For question number one, I wonder if the Leader of the Opposition has any idea which markets the industry minister might be talking about that we would export these fantasy cars to. For question number two, the Liberals talk about bringing investment into Canada wit…
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Mr. Speaker, I thought that was a fantastic speech by my colleague. What we continue to hear from the Liberals during this debate is our plan does not make sense, or this, that and the other thing, but we have actually seen no plan from them. We have seen production go from two million vehicles a year to 1.2 million, and then they talk about these programs, yet exports of autos are down 55% over t…
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Oshawa. What we have witnessed over the last decade of Liberal governance of this country is the decimation of the Canadian auto industry. There is no other word that appropriately describes the decline that the Liberals have allowed to happen to our once proud auto sector. Look at where we were under the last year of a Conservative gove…
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Mr. Speaker, we all have things we want. What Canadians want is tariff-free access. What is the plan for tariff-free access? We keep hearing about the Liberals doing this and doing that, but while they are doing this and doing that, auto production has gone from two million to 1.2 million. Since the Liberal leader became Prime Minister, auto exports to the United States are down 55%. Despite all t…
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the Liberals' plan is, and I do not think they know what their plan is. What is amazing to me is that the member over here, in his question, said that we never talk about tariffs, which is patently false. I have been talking about tariffs and the Liberals' failure to get tariffs removed for almost a year. Let us be very clear what the Liberals do not talk about. The…
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Mr. Speaker, when we all rise in this place to speak, we hope that we are going to be accurate. The member speaks a lot, but I think he hopes to be accurate as well. He read into the record that the Conservative plan does not include, for example, engines. That is patently false. If he took the time to read the plan, he would know the plan talks about vehicles and vehicle equivalents, which includ…
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Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievable. The Liberals' defence to overseeing the decimation of the Canadian auto industry is to have competing quotes. I have a quote from the Unifor local in Oshawa, the people who actually make the vehicles, who said that it is a great plan. Rather than talk about the plan or say the Liberals have a plan to get tariff-free access, the member tries to say there is a bad qu…
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No, Mr. Speaker, this will grow our auto production from 1.2 million vehicles a year to two million vehicles a year, and the parts ecosystem it puts into that is across the country. There are parts suppliers in Quebec that are going to benefit incredibly from this. There are parts suppliers in Ontario that are going to benefit from this. If we get our production up to two million vehicles a year, …
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about some auto facts. A decade ago before the Liberals took office, Canadian auto producers produced two million vehicles a year. After a decade of Liberal incompetence, that went down to 1.2 million. Now it gets worse, unfortunately, because since the new Prime Minister has taken office, auto exports are down a further 54%. It is a decimation. We have lost the Brampton p…
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Mr. Speaker, what is incredible is how they never tell us what their plan is on anything. What is the Liberal plan to get tariffs removed from the United States? What is their plan for CUSMA review? How close are we to any of these things? We never know, because the Prime Minister never tells us. The Liberals have no plan to get rid of tariffs, and it is embarrassing.
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Mr. Speaker, it is actually shocking how uninformed the industry minister is when it comes to the auto strategy. They announced their auto strategy, and auto exports, since they announced it, are down 32%. This is a decimation. The reason this is happening is that there are tariffs on our autos at about 15%. The Liberals have been completely incapable of removing the tariffs. They have no plan to …
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moved: That, given that, (i) auto production in Canada has halved since the Liberals took office in 2015, including another 7.8% since this Prime Minister took office, (ii) Canada lost over 5,000 jobs in the auto sector since the Prime Minister took office, (iii) exports of passenger cars and light trucks have fallen by more than 53% since the Prime Minister took office, (iv) unjustified American …
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Mr. Speaker, the last decade of Liberal government has been absolutely devastating for the Canadian auto industry. We have seen auto production go from two million vehicles a year down to 1.2 million, and even worse, this year we have seen auto exports decline by 55%. This is devastating for auto workers. Plants have closed. Many have lost their livelihoods. The Liberal plan for the auto sector se…
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know what is more troubling: the fact that she does not recognize that a decline from two million vehicles a year to 1.2 million is devastating or the fact that she talks about her plan, which includes exporting vehicles to Europe. More vehicles were stolen in Canada last year, including two of the justice minister's, than were exported to Europe. We have a plan to get tariff…
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Mr. Speaker, remember the sponsorship scandal? It was a bunch of Liberals running around with money in brown envelopes, handing it out to other Liberal insiders. Well, the Trudeau Liberals said, “That's too complicated. We have to get the money, then we have to get the envelopes, then we have to run around and hand it out.” Therefore they created the green slush fund and appointed the people to ru…
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Mr. Speaker, we care what happens in Canada as well. We want development. We just do not want corrupt Liberal development, because no matter which government it is, the Liberals find a way to engage in corrupt practices. Under the Chrétien Liberals, it was the sponsorship scandal, handing out money in envelopes. Under the Trudeau Liberals, it was creating a fund run by Liberals who gave the money …
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Mr. Speaker, next week, Kosovo will celebrate the 18th anniversary of its independence. Canada has had a long and proud friendship with Kosovo, and I am proud, as a Canadian, that we were one of the first countries to recognize Kosovo's independence. My wife is from Kosovo, and we spent part of our honeymoon there, where we enjoyed amazing food and I learned so much about their rich culture. Kosov…
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Mr. Speaker, the probe the Liberals ordered determined they needed to do another probe. I am sure there are a lot of things we could say about that. Here are the facts: The head of CUPE Air Canada came to committee when we were looking into this and asked what the Liberals were going to study next. Is water wet? He went on to say, about this study, “We called for action last summer, and instead we…
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Mr. Speaker, for almost two years, flight attendants told the government and parliamentarians they were working for free, and we believed them. Conservatives introduced a bill to fix the problem. Liberals did not believe them and ordered a study. After six months, the study determined that we need to do another study. This stuff can't be made up. Why will the Liberals not believe flight attendants…
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Madam Speaker, that has a pretty simple answer. Number one is that those are things available in the tax code; they are not a direct rebate. Those are totally different things. They are tax advantages that every company that operates in Canada gets. Number two is that they are actually operating in Canada, creating Canadian jobs, paying Canadian taxes and creating Canadian wealth. Vehicles manufac…
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Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday evening, I was in Toronto for the Unifor skilled trades conference. Those are the men and women who work in our auto plants to make sure the machinery and equipment work. When I told them that their tax dollars were going to go to subsidizing the purchase of American EVs, they were outraged and disgusted. They could not believe it was happening. It is …
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Madam Speaker, the challenge is that the government likes to pick winners and losers across a whole host of things. The problem with that is that governments do very few things well, the current government even less than normal governments. When governments are trying to pick winners and losers in industry, they almost always pick the wrong things. We could look at what happened with the battery p…
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Mr. Speaker, I know this member likes to raise his voice a lot, shout a lot and feign indignation at a whole bunch of things, but I have a serious question, which I have asked in question period over almost two weeks now, and I have not received anything that even resembles an answer. I suspect I will not get one now, but I will try again. We are in the middle of a trade war with Donald Trump and …
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Mr. Speaker, I have been meeting with auto workers for the past two years. It is how we came up with our policy to take the HST off of all Canadian autos. That was actually an idea of union workers. What is not their idea is to give their tax dollars to Donald Trump's America to build American vehicles. These Liberals will not answer this question: Why are they giving these subsidies to EVs made i…
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Madam Speaker, “We are in the middle of a trade war” is what the Liberals say in response to questions Conservatives raise every time there are more layoffs in the auto sector, in the softwood lumber sector, in the steel and in the aluminum sector. They repeat it to justify their failure to get a deal with the Americans on these tariffs. Let us be very clear about something right at the get-go: Th…
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Madam Speaker, it is kind of unbelievable to me that the member would ask that question. I think I was very clear that we would take the HST off every vehicle made in Canada. That would spur the automakers in Canada to invest in Canada. They might decide they are going to invest in multivehicle platforms at their remaining factories here in Canada so they can produce more different models of Canad…
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Mr. Speaker, I almost feel bad for the minister, pathetically trying to justify sending money to Donald Trump's America to subsidize the production of American EVs. The President has declared economic war on Canada. He has said he wants every single Canadian auto job in the United States, and under the Liberals, he is succeeding. The Canadian auto economy is being decimated. The Liberals' plan is …
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Mr. Speaker, the happiest person in North America when the Liberals announced their EV subsidy plan was Donald J. Trump. Let me explain. He has explicitly said he wants to take every single Canadian auto job and bring it down to the United States. Under the Liberals, he is succeeding; 5,000 auto workers have lost their jobs. The plant in Brampton that was supposed to build the Jeep Compass is now …
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Mr. Speaker, that is the same drivel the minister was trying to sell to auto workers three months ago. Nothing has actually gotten better. Let us start with how it started. They said they were the ones who could negotiate with Donald Trump. Let us look at how it is going: 700 auto workers have lost their jobs in Ingersoll, 3,000 auto workers have lost their jobs in Brampton and 1,200 have now lost…
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Mr. Speaker, it is really sad for auto workers to hear this secret plan. This secret plan for auto workers sounds an awful lot like “the cheque is in the mail” or “the dog ate my homework”. Do we know what is not secret? It is the 5,000 auto workers who have lost their jobs and now have to figure out how they are going to put food on their tables and how they are going to pay their mortgages in a …
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Mr. Speaker, for almost a year, Canada has endured an unprovoked economic attack by the United States and President Trump. Conservatives worked to fast-track Bill C-5, which was supposed to fast-track nation-building projects. Unfortunately, it has not fast-tracked anything. Not a single new project has been approved and not a single shovel has gone into the ground. There is an alternative. A Cons…
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Mr. Speaker, what the Liberals promised in the election was that they were going to fast-track nation-building projects, and that is one of the reasons Canadians voted for them. Unfortunately, they have not actually fast-tracked anything. Not a single new nation-building project has been approved. Not a single shovel has gone in the ground for any of those projects. We need a new approach. That's …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister recently flew to Davos, where he spoke to global elites at the World Economic Forum, and he said that a country unable to feed itself, fuel itself and defend itself has few options. Here at home, Canadians need action, not carefully crafted speeches. Food inflation is up over 6%, and a record number of Canadians line up to use a food bank every single month, despite…
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Mr. Speaker, yeah, except when Stellantis was at committee, its president said it is not in default of the contract. It is probably relying on the section in the contract that said it would guarantee 4,475 jobs, when at the time, the company had 8,000 jobs, and 4,475 jobs is about 3,500 fewer than 8,000. I know that is hard for the Liberals to comprehend, and that is why they feel as though when S…
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday at committee the finance minister condescendingly said that he was a lawyer and would be happy to explain the Stellantis contract. Well, one does not have to be a lawyer or even an accountant to know that 4,475 jobs is fewer than 8,000 jobs. The incompetent Liberals signed a contract with Stellantis that was going to pay Stellantis billions of dollars, and it guaranteed 4,40…
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Mr. Speaker, for months, Conservatives fought to get the Stellantis contracts released despite the gag order from the Liberals, and now we know why they wanted to hide it. The so-called jobs guarantee that the minister was bragging about in question period only a few weeks ago was for 4,400 full-time employees at Stellantis. That sounds okay, except Stellantis had 8,000 employees at the time the c…
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Mr. Speaker, do members want to know what is unjustifiable? What is unjustifiable is giving a multinational company $15 billion and having a jobs guarantee in the contract that allows the company to fire almost 50% of its workers. Let that sink in. The Liberals gave Stellantis $15 billion. It was allowed to fire 3,500 workers in Canada and still be in compliance with the contract. That is gross ne…
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Mr. Speaker, Stellantis is investing $13 billion of its own dollars into the United States to create 5,000 auto jobs. Meanwhile, the Liberal government gave Stellantis $15 billion taxpayer dollars, and they fired 3,000 auto workers. Let that sink in for a minute. This is what happens when incompetent Liberal ministers do not read contracts. This is not an investment; it is a corporate rip-off. It …
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Mr. Speaker, unlike that minister, I have actually read the contracts, and if she actually had a legal case to do anything about the 3,000 workers who were fired in exchange for $15 billion, the government would have sued, but it has not. All Canadians should know the extent of the incompetence of the Liberal government. The jobs guarantees in those contracts are not worth the paper they are writt…
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Mr. Chair, it is just another example of the abject failure of a Prime Minister who campaigned on knowing the American President and on knowing how to get a deal. All we see is that the deal promised by July 21 has not happened and that every single time the Prime Minister goes and visits the American President, things actually get worse; we get more tariffs on more products, and we get higher tar…
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Mr. Speaker, it is time for some facts on the Stellantis contract in the Brampton assembly plant. The fact is that the former minister of industry did not read the contract and, as a reward, was promoted to finance minister. The fact is that there is no job guarantee in this contract, or it could not have laid off 3,000 workers. The fact is that the Liberals gave $200 million to Stellantis with no…
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Mr. Chair, a lawyer who would not read a contract on behalf of their client would face a massive lawsuit, yet successive ministers are signing billion-dollar contracts but not reading them. It is beyond negligence; it is gross negligence. It is malfeasance, and it is causing devastating impacts in the auto industry. The Liberals say there is a jobs guarantee. Can someone explain it to me? If there…
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Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Windsor West. When we get into debates about issues like this, the absolute decimation of the Canadian auto sector, what we find is that Liberal members love to get up and talk about programs, funding envelopes and all these other wonderful things they are allegedly doing that are supposed to make things work, but let us talk about the fac…
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Mr. Speaker, that answer is unbelievable. We have a minister who did not read a contract, who admits he did not read the contract, and he was promoted to become the finance minister. The Liberals talk about a job guarantee for workers in Brampton, and there clearly is not. As Christmas approaches, 3,000 assembly workers in Brampton are out in the cold collecting EI. The Liberals talk about some co…
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Mr. Chair, they are devastated. Unionized workers in the auto industry are devastated, and they are terrified of what is coming down the pipe. I was speaking with people at GM in Oshawa, and there is a factory in the U.S. being retooled right now, the Orion plant, that is going to manufacture light-duty vehicles. Guess what GM manufactures in Oshawa: light and heavy-duty vehicles. As a result of t…
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Mr. Speaker, I am not a stock expert, but stocks go up for a variety of reasons. Dollarama is going up because Canadians are finding themselves squeezed. It is amazing how the Liberals never acknowledge it. They get up every day in the House of Commons and talk as though Canada is going through the biggest economic boom since post-World War II. They are so out of touch with reality. The reality is…
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Mr. Speaker, these Liberals like to try to call this a generational budget. I guess if we look at the generations of young Canadians it is going to take to pay off the massive deficit in this year's budget and the accumulated debt after 10 years of the Liberal government, it is in fact generational because it will take generations of Canadians to try to make a dent in paying it off. All of the deb…
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Mr. Speaker, that is patently false. That is number one. Nothing approaches the deficit these guys ran in 2021 and 2022. Nothing approaches that. The Liberals talk about things like dental care and the food program, and that is great. I am glad that the people who cannot afford dental can get some dental care and I am glad that some families that cannot afford to feed their children will get some …
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