Parliamentary Speeches

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to welcome back to Ottawa today a very special guest and a dear friend, the former member of Parliament for Miramichi, Tilly O'Neill Gordon. Before politics, Tilly spent her career as an elementary school teacher. We continue to learn from her today. Whether she is in the House or back home in our riding, she treats everyone with warmth, respect and kindness. Tilly is in Ottawa this week, reconnecting with colleagues and friends. She remains loved by her friends at home and here in Ottawa. On behalf of all members, especially those who had the pleasure of serving with her, welcome back, Tilly. I thank her for her service to Miramichi—Grand Lake and for always showing us what the real public service looks like to the people back home.

Mr. Speaker, in 2012, the Liberals accepted the resignation of Minister Bev Oda over a $16 glass of orange juice. Welcome to Mark Carney's Canada in 2025, where every Canadian now drinks $16 orange juice. The Prime Minister told Canadians that he would be judged by the prices at the grocery store. Well, let us judge. Families in Miramichi are trying to survive on about $300 a week for groceries. With Christmas only a few days away, families in my riding are putting items back on the shelf in silence. People in Miramichi are being forced to choose between heat or meat. They say that if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. This Christmas, Canadians are not being invited to dinner. The Liberal government is leaving them only misery and tariffs to eat.

Mr. Speaker, there is something happening in this country that the government does not want Canadians to know, but my constituents can feel it in their paycheque. They sure notice it at the grocery store, and it really hits home when they open their heating bill and swallow hard before they look at the number. For the first time in our history, thanks to the Liberal government, Canada is getting bigger and Canadians are getting poorer. That is not my opinion; it is the national scoreboard. It is what the numbers tell us. The government is supposed to be all about evidence-based decision-making. Well, I invite it to look at the evidence. This is what happens when the government that worships control forgets that freedom is the engine of prosperity. When the urban elite tries to run a country it does not understand, ordinary people pay the price. Bill C-15, the so-called budget implementation act, would not fix it; it would make it worse, hide it and excuse it. Common sense used to guide this country. Now it is lefty Liberal woke ideology, reckless, expensive, downtown Ottawa ideology, steering every direction and decision. The people who pay for this ideology do not live anywhere near the gated communities where it is dreamed up. The people who pay for this failed ideology work all day, every day, drink double-doubles and eat their grandmother's brown bread, while the folks who dreamed up the ideology work five and a half hours a day and drink goat's milk lattes while nibbling on their avocado toast. While my constituents get poorer, the Prime Minister takes another trip at the taxpayers' expense and avoids accountability here in the House. My grandfather used to joke, “Don't stay in one place too long; someone will put you to work.” It seems the Prime Minister has taken that advice very seriously. Since becoming Prime Minister just eight months ago, he has visited at least 18 countries, some of them twice: France, Italy, Vatican City, Belgium, Netherlands, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Latvia, Mexico, Egypt, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. He has visited the United Kingdom twice. Despite three visits to the United States and his promises of elbows up, the only deal Canada has been able to close with the United States since March is that former prime minister Justin Trudeau closed on Katy Perry. The Prime Minister travels the world talking about growth and does what bankers always do: turn our hard-earned equity into debt. He waves his hands. He quotes big numbers. He smiles on red carpets. He talks about growth, but it is the kind of growth we get when we fill a hot-air balloon with cheap air; it looks big on the outside, while the people inside can barely breathe. Real GDP per person, the number that matters to working people, has fallen two years in a row. Let us think about that. In one of the richest countries on Earth, after 10 years of Liberal leadership, the average Canadian is going backwards. Canada is a country running in reverse, and instead of taking responsibility, the government hands us Bill C-15, a bill built on the idea that if it spends enough more money, nobody will notice there is less in their pockets. Canadians notice. My constituents notice. While all this is happening, the government spends its time on buying back hunting rifles from hunters and farmers. A government of socialists who confuse Elmer Fudd with Al Capone cannot be trusted. They crack down on the wrong people while at the same time they reward the wrong people, every single time. They are lecturing working folks about what kind of car they are allowed to drive, pushing $70,000 and $80,000 electric vehicles nobody asked for, when what most families really need is to fix the muffler on their 2010 Impala that gets them to work every morning. The communities of Miramichi—Grand Lake seem like a long way from downtown Ottawa, but my constituents have sent me here to this town to stand in the House and tell it that this town, the government, has lost their confidence. The government has lost respect for the dignity of the hard work that ordinary Canadians, my constituents, take very seriously. The government regulates, mandates, restricts and lectures because it thinks Canadians cannot be trusted with their own lives. That is not governing; it is Liberal overreach. Unemployment is climbing. Participation is flat. Young people cannot find work. Families are cutting back on everything except fear. Instead of embracing their values, the drive, the ambition and the grit of hard-working Canadians, the government clings to ideology that punishes every effort and rewards bureaucracy, yet the budget and the implementation bill tell Canadians, “Don't worry; Ottawa will take care of it.” From what I have seen so far in this town, Ottawa cannot even take care of itself. Canada's tax burden sits at 34.8% of our entire economy, above the OECD average. People are paying more, working harder and getting less. Where I come from, we learn at a very young age not to take any wooden nickels, but that is exactly what the government is leaving in Canadians' pockets. Then there is the debt. The government can play games with the net debt and the gross debt all it wants, but Canadians get one bill at the end of the day, not two. Our debt sits at around 111% of GDP. One does not put out a fire by throwing more gasoline on it, but the budget does just that. Behind all that spending and behind every photo op and ribbon cutting is the cold truth the Liberals refuse to face: Canada has a productivity crisis. We are not running out of workers; we are running out of growth. Despite the fact the Prime Minister has bamboozled Ottawa and London bureaucrats for a living, Canadians know we cannot run a modern economy from a boardroom in Toronto or a cocktail reception in Paris. We build it in a machine shop, in a mill-yard, in a welding bay, by hanging drywall or by early mornings on a fishing boat on the small craft harbours in my riding that the government is allowing to fall into the water that surrounds them. Wherever real Canadians earn real paycheques is where the real economy is in this nation, and it is here where the government is failing every Canadian working man and woman. Other countries are pulling ahead while we are falling behind. Instead of a plan to build a stronger engine, this budget gives us more government, more bureaucracy, more slogans and more of nothing. For years, the government opened the immigration floodgates to asylum seekers while ignoring those who followed the rules, all of this with no matching plan for housing, health care or infrastructure. Last year, we added nearly three quarters of a million people to a country that cannot build homes fast enough. Then when the pressure became unbearable, the government slammed on the brakes. This is not leadership; this is panic, and the government is right to panic. It all stems from the mindset of a government that thinks it can shape a nation from the top down instead of trusting the bottom-up strength it has in its people. Now the Liberals show up with Bill C-15 pretending nothing happened, that our systems are not failing, that the country is not straining under the weight of the government's many mistakes. Meanwhile, ordinary Canadians are paying the price. In our justice system, the government has nearly lost control of our streets. In our education system, more and more private schools are replacing the public model. These foundations, which were built by earlier generations, foundations the government inherited, are eroding brick by brick. I want to be very clear. Canada is not a failing nation; Canada has a failing government. This country is not broken, but the people running it are breaking it. Bill C-15 is the government's attempt to pretend decline is normal, that falling living standards are normal, that a future smaller than our past is normal. Canadians know better. Decline is not destiny; decline is a choice. The Liberals have made that choice. They made it with 10 years of straight deficits. They made it with taxes that rise while paycheques shrink. They made it with an immigration system pushed past its capacity. They made it with productivity that falls while government grows. They made it with the debt piled onto the backs of children not yet born. This is what decline looks like before people wake up, and Canadians are waking up. Canadians know that Conservatives will build a country where hard work pays off again, where taxes are low and paycheques are strong, where the budget is balanced and the government lives within its means like every family has to, where new Canadians join a system ready to support them, not one buckling under policy made here in Ottawa by the kids in short pants, and where productivity rises not because Ottawa orders it but because free people, free markets and free enterprise are allowed to breathe again. It is a country strong enough to carry its past, ambitious enough to build its future and confident enough to say it chooses growth, chooses freedom and chooses Canada. The Liberals have made their choice with Bill C-15 and we will make ours. We voted against the budget and we will vote against this bill. We will stand for the working people who cannot afford another year of decline. We will offer this country something the government cannot: hope, direction, a plan and a future worthy of the nation we inherited.

Mr. Speaker, it seems the government has spent as much as it could since 2015, and the Liberals have kept deficit after deficit. Now with the new Prime Minister, they want to say they are a new government, but they are not a new government; it is the same circus, different clown. What we have going on here is that the Liberals are saying it is all about investments instead of spending. They are just manipulating words to make it look like they are not spending money but investing money. That is what they are trying to say. They are still spending money. We are still going to have deficits. My great-grandkids are going to pay for the deficits from the government's spending.

Mr. Speaker, there is a problem when the Prime Minister says he is putting in investments. If I invest in my house, I am spending money on it. At the end of the day, investments mean spending money. I was in a classroom yesterday with grade 12 students in Rogersville. There were 20 kids in the class, and 15 of them told me they did not know what they were going to do when they were done university, if they get to go to university and can afford to go to university, and what they were going to do when they get out of high school. They know they are not going to have a fair shot of owning a home in the future. They are worried about whether they are going to get a job when they get out of high school. They are worried about the shape the country is in right now. Those 20 kids said the Conservatives were going in the right direction.

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives always believe in investing in Canadians. What we do not believe in is saddling future generations with debt they will never be able to afford and with higher taxes, over and over. When someone says “investment”, they are spending. It does not matter which way they put it or how they shape it, it always means spending money. That is what the Liberal government is good at: spending money.

Mr. Chair, tonight's debate is not academic. It is not in theory, and it is not a matter of charts and tables on some Ottawa desk. Tonight's debate is about workers and small towns. It is about the people who built this country with their hands and who are watching their livelihoods get crushed because the government cannot get a deal. In my riding, in Miramichi, we do not need a briefing note to understand what is happening. We are living it. Earlier this year, because of the Prime Minister's failure, Arbec Forest Products announced a shutdown of its Miramichi mill, where 29 jobs were permanently eliminated and 113 workers were directly affected. That is 113 families and 113 paycheques. That is just one mill in one community in one corner of Canada. This is not just a Miramichi story. The pain from the government's failures runs across New Brunswick. In the northwest, in places like Perth-Andover, Nackawic and Woodstock, mills are fighting the same headwinds, the same duties and the same impossible math. If we were to talk to the contractors in Carleton County, the haulers on those back roads and the families whose livelihoods depend on the steady market, they would tell us that they are feeling the squeeze just as hard. When one part of New Brunswick's forestry economy gets hit hard, the pain runs through the whole province. Our province does not have Bay Street hedge funds to fall back on. We have mills, truckers, woodlot owners and communities tied together by work and by timber. When federal leadership collapses, it is not Ottawa that pays the price. It is the people in every corner of New Brunswick who depend on forestry to keep their towns alive. Across this country, the story is the same. It is a failure of the Prime Minister who promised elbows up. Because of the government's failure, we have seen more than 25,000 direct jobs vanish. It is nearly 90,000 total jobs when we count the ripple effects and the truckers, the mechanics and the suppliers. Every one of these losses sits on the conscience of a government that has gone 10 years without securing a softwood lumber agreement. It has been 10 years, three American presidents and not one deal. However, who did get a deal? It was Stephen Harper in just 80 days. It was not 80 years, but 80 days. The government has not even managed a deal in 3,650 days. The result is softwood lumber duties of 35%, with some producers facing more than 47%. Then, in October, as if that was not enough, President Trump slapped another 10% section 232 tariff on lumber and a 25% tariff on wood furniture and cabinets, which is set to rise as high as 50% next year. Combined, many Canadian producers now face over 45% in duties and tariffs. Almost half of their product's value is gone before it crosses the border. The U.S. Treasury has taken over $10 billion from Canadian forestry companies since 2017, which is money that should have stayed in rural towns, in mill upgrades, in workers' paycheques and in the real economy of this country. Instead, it is sitting in Washington in Donald Trump's pockets thanks to the failed banker turned failed Prime Minister. Unifor has said, “Forestry is in an absolute crisis...we're at a breaking point”. COFI has begged the government to show the same urgency for lumber that it shows for steel, aluminum and energy, and what did the government offer? It offered a $1.25-billion support package, which was announced in August. Not one dollar of it has delivered, and not one loan guarantee has been approved. There has not been one worker support rollout, not one timeline set and not one piece of diversification funding allocated. What that is called here at home is nothing. This is what the government has done; that is what it has delivered. Meanwhile, mills are closing and families are scrambling. Young people are leaving small towns because the work is drying up. This is not just a policy failure; it is a national failure of leadership. However, the Prime Minister does not seem too worried. He has been in 18 countries in eight months, but how many sawmills has he been to? He has walked plenty of red carpets, but not one log yard. He has shaken hands with foreign dignitaries, but not with one logger who just lost his job because Ottawa could not get a deal. Small towns like mine, places like Miramichi, Blackville, Doaktown, Rogersville, Chipman and Minto do not want a charity. They do not want photo ops or another press release. They want their jobs. They want a country that fights for them the way they have fought for Canada. What they see is a government that surrendered our leverage, our industry and our workers, and they see a government that insulted them with election slogans of elbows up. Conservatives reject that, and we know what forestry means. We know what it means to the men and women who put their boots on at 5 a.m. and work hard to build a nation. We are here tonight to say this crisis is real, the pain is real and this debate matters. We will not stop until Canada has the government willing to negotiate fair softwood lumber agreements and is willing to stand up to the United States.

Mr. Chair, there are two points that I thought of when the member asked his question. One of them was about what we do. We are not the government; we are in opposition. The Liberals are the ones who stood up and said they had their elbows up and that they were going to have a trade deal by July 21. They got absolutely nothing. The mill workers in New Brunswick, along with the rest of them in Canada, do not want a handout. They want their jobs. They want to get up in the morning, pack a lunch, go to work and bring their paycheques home to support their families. They do not want the government to support their families for them.

Mr. Chair, I agree with my colleague. When I look at Miramichi—Grand Lake, I look at the Doaktown mill. Doaktown has 800 people in the community. They have 165 jobs. We look at Chipman. There are 1,200 people in the community and 250 at the mill. That cripples those areas. When those jobs go, that is the end of those communities. Those people are moving out west. They are moving to different parts of the country or across the province.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised Canadians he would negotiate a win with the United States. When the Prime Minister took office, softwood lumber tariffs were at 14%; they then climbed to 35%, and now they are at 45%. Because of his failures, mills have closed their doors, and forestry towns are paying the price. In Miramichi, we have seen mill closures at Arbec Forest Products because the Prime Minister cannot close the deal. When will the Prime Minister put his big-boy pants on and finally stand up for Canada's forest industry?

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the people's House on behalf of the good men and women of Miramichi—Grand Lake. My constituents are honest people. They work hard; they follow the rules, and they expect their government to do the same. They believe the purpose of government is not to manage their lives but to protect their freedoms, the freedoms that their parents and grandparents fought to defend. That is why they see through the government's latest deception. Bill C-12, the so-called strengthening Canada's immigration system and borders act, sounds like something impressive. However, as in most Liberal bills, the title and the truth are strangers. The bill does not strengthen our borders. It strengthens the hands of a tired government that has lost control of spending and is losing control of our streets. It does not fix the broken system; it covers the cracks with slogans. It does not make Canadians safer; it makes them easier to watch, easier to tax and easier to silence. I come from a part of the country where words still matter. When a man gives his word, he keeps it. When he breaks the law, he goes to jail, not on vacation. The government has broken its word again and again to families who cannot afford a home, to victims who cannot find justice and to newcomers who did everything right and are still waiting years for an answer while illegal migrants go to the front of the line. The same government that cannot guard our borders now wants to guard our bank accounts. Of course the Liberal government wants to guard our bank accounts: It has not tabled a budget in 18 months, and it has spent all of its own money. The same people who cannot stop fentanyl from coming in want access to Canadians' private data going out. The government calls that progress. It is the fox guarding the henhouse. Let us talk about safety, because that is what is really at stake here. In my riding, we have seen the human cost of the Liberal government's failure in law and order. Families are shattered by addiction, my own included. No family is left untouched. In our communities, police are doing their best, but they have fewer and fewer tools to support them in doing their jobs and enforcing our laws. Fentanyl is flowing across an open border faster than compassion can bury the dead, yet the same government that refuses to jail fentanyl dealers wants to lecture the rest of us about fairness and kindness. Compassion without courage is cowardice, and the government has made a policy of cowardice. Catch-and-release bail remains the law of the land. Drug dealers and gun traffickers get house arrest. Meanwhile, law-abiding hunters and farmers are treated like criminals for owning tools their families have used for generations. This is not justice; it is a failure. My constituents know the Liberal logic has failed us for a decade now, but Conservatives are focused on real change and law that will protect law-abiding Canadians. That is why we are proposing a shift in the Criminal Code to reflect castle law, the notion that a person's home is their castle. We thought that might be easy to sell to the Prime Minister, given that he spent a good part of the last decade living in castles in Europe. Canadians do not want fentanyl traffickers watching Netflix on their couch. They want them behind bars where they cannot poison children. While the government lets criminals walk free, it punishes the people who play by the rules. The government punishes the same people who plough the roads at 5:00 a.m., coach a hockey team at 7:00 a.m. and still find time to shovel a neighbour's step before work. Those are the people the Prime Minister looks down on. Those are the people he calls “fringe”. He is focused on telling them what kind of car they can drive, but those are the people who built this country and who continue to build it. Let us talk about immigration. Conservatives believe that Canada is made stronger by those who come here legally, who work hard, who learn our languages, who share our values and love our flag. Immigration must be founded in law, not luck, and in fairness, not favouritism. Under the Liberal government, our system has become a revolving door for those who exploit it and a brick wall for those who respect it. There is no compassion in chaos. There is no justice in disorder. There is no sovereignty without security. Bill C-12 does nothing to fix any of this. It is a window dressing for failure. It is one more photo op for a government that governs by headline and has not tabled a budget in 18 months. My constituents in Miramichi—Grand Lake expect the Liberal government to spend as much energy dealing with the public safety crisis happening in our communities as it spends on recognizing the terrorist state of Palestine half a world away. The people of Miramichi—Grand Lake do not ask for much. They do not expect perfection. They expect honesty and hard work. They expect a government that protects their children before it protects its own image. They expect the Prime Minister to spend more time defending Canada's borders than defending his own reputation. Instead, they get a government that values surveillance instead of safety, mistaking kindness for weakness and patriotism for extremism. The truth is, the bill would give more power to the bureaucrats and less protection to citizens. It would not stop the drug flow, the repeat offenders or the crime in our communities. It would just tighten Ottawa's grip on loosening Canada's borders. Conservatives will not be fooled, nor will ordinary Canadians. We will fight for real security, the kind that guards both our borders and our freedoms. We will restore mandatory prison time for violent offenders and traffickers. We will end catch-and-release. We will secure our borders, protect our privacy and rebuild Canadians' faith in institutions that are supposed to serve them. The only thing more dangerous than a government that refuses to defend its borders is a government that no longer believes Canada is worth defending. However, there is hope. There is another path, one led by a man who understands that freedom and order are not opposites but partners. This man is the Leader of the Opposition, and under his leadership, Canada will again have borders that are strong, streets that are safe and a government that minds its own business instead of that of others. The people I represent are ready for that Canada, a Canada in which government protects what matters and leaves the rest to the good sense of the people. They are ready to trade slogans for strength, control for courage and Liberal wokeism for Conservative common sense, because they know the Liberal government has forgotten that freedom is not granted by politicians but is inherited by patriots. Bill C-12 is not a solution; it is exactly the problem. The bill is just another example of a government that has lost its way. On behalf of the people of Miramichi—Grand Lake, on behalf of every Canadian who believes in borders, law and liberty, I will vote against the bill. Only Conservatives will restore a Canada that is once again strong, sovereign and free, but not free for the taking.

Mr. Speaker, this is rich coming from the other side. The Liberals had a prime minister who called the RCMP racist. On this side of the floor, we respect all frontline workers, especially the police officers, men and women who go into danger every time they take a shift and get in their car. On this side of the floor, the Conservative Party respects all police officers and frontline workers across Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for giving me the opportunity to speak to the bill further. There is a lot here. The government has chosen to make the bill about a number of unrelated matters: immigration, public safety, law enforcement and, most concerning, the increased surveillance of ordinary, law-abiding Canadians. At home we have a saying: “If your dog barks at you, someone is feeding it.” Canadians are starting to wonder just exactly where the government's loyalty is. Is the government loyal to law-abiding taxpaying Canadians or fentanyl traffickers? Is it loyal to law-abiding taxpaying Canadians or repeat violent offenders? Is it loyal to law-abiding taxpaying Canadians or Hamas terrorists? Is the government loyal to law-abiding Canadians or illegal immigrants who arrive unannounced at our borders and claim asylum? The mistakes are starting to pile up. Every chance it gets, the Liberal government picks criminals over Canadians, and they have had enough of the Liberal government.

Mr. Speaker, it is funny to listen to the Liberal government talk about wanting an apology from the leader of our party and how terrible it is for the RCMP when the former prime minister of Canada called the RCMP racist. On this side of the floor, we always respect frontline workers and RCMP officers, especially in this day and age, with the bills the government has passed over the last 10 years, the trouble it has caused and the unsafe position it has put these police officers in. It is shameful.

Mr. Speaker, as we approach Remembrance Day, I am mindful of the sacrifices of those who served our nation. We remember their courage. We honour their duty, and we thank them for our liberty. I am ashamed that our government intends to restrict public expressions of faith in our military, or in plain terms, to ban prayer. It is cowardice to ask our sons and daughters to put themselves in harm's way but refuse them the right to express their faith in God. To deny those who provide our freedom the right to openly pray is an insult to those who never came home. Monsignor Hickey of the North Shore Regiment would tell us that a dying man on a foreign shore only asks for one of two things: His mother or his God. I urge Canadians to wear a poppy, visit a cenotaph, attend a ceremony and say a prayer. I urge Canadians to teach their children to pray and take time to explain to a new Canadian the importance of this sacred day. Please pray for those who served, for those who continue to serve and for our nation itself. Lest we forget.

Mr. Speaker, across Canada tomorrow, rallies are being planned to celebrate the martyrs of Hamas. Let us be honest about who they are celebrating. They are not martyrs; they are monsters. They raped, tortured and murdered nearly 1,200 innocent Jews on October 7, 2023, and now their supporters plan to dance in our streets. This is not free speech; it is hate speech meant to intimidate. This is not protest; it is glorifying terror. Eighty years ago, the world said “never again”. The Nuremberg laws showed us that hate begins where it ends. When people cheer for those who slaughter Jews, history is repeating itself in real time. If Canada cannot call evil by its name, then we have lost more than our moral compass: We have lost our soul. I will not stay silent. I say shame on the Liberal government; shame.

Mr. Speaker, it is great to be back. I want to welcome you and all our colleagues back for another session. I am pleased to have spent the summer back home in my constituency, Miramichi—Grand Lake. I spent the past few months connecting with friends, neighbours and constituents and listening to their concerns. Just last week I attended a standing-room-only public meeting called by the downtown Newcastle Business District in response to a public safety crisis in the heart of our small town. The situation in downtown Newcastle is an emergency. Anyone who attended the meeting recognizes that. All one has to do is take a drive through our community to see it. However, the emergency in Newcastle is not one of a kind. From speaking with and listening to my colleagues here in the House, I know nearly every community across this country faces the same serious challenges. There is a very real public safety crisis in our communities and across this nation: drug use and addiction, crime and vandalism, aggressive behaviour and harassment, and home invasions. A good many Canadians do not feel safe walking the streets, and they do not even feel safe at home with their doors locked. I would hope that no member of this House thinks that this is a well-done job. I would hope that we can all agree that something needs to change. However, the Liberal government would like Canadians to rest easy. The government was re-elected on promises to axe the carbon tax and negotiate a trade deal with the Prime Minister's good friend Donald Trump, but it has done neither. From where I am standing, it does not look like the Liberals have a real plan to honour their promises to Canadians. What is the Liberal Party's solution to the public safety crisis in this country? It wants to make it harder for people to get money from a bank machine and easier for the government to open people's mail. Bill C-2 would do little to address the very real problems facing our nation, but it would get the government recognition with the World Economic Forum. Tone-deaf does not even begin to describe it. It is no wonder that the Liberal government has failed to get a trade deal with our largest and best trading partner, the United States. The Liberal government has not addressed the very legitimate concerns that the U.S. government has raised over crime in this country and its export across our border to the United States. It is in this bill, in black and white: The Liberal government's response to the flow of illegal drugs and weapons across our border is to make it easier, more streamlined, for asylum seekers to enter the United States and avoid the proper means of legitimate immigration. The bill would even provide asylum seekers with government support to navigate our system. The bill would go on to allow government to keep a closer eye on our internet search history. For 10 years now, Conservatives have warned that Liberal soft-on-crime policies put Canadians in danger. We warned that fentanyl would rip through our towns; the Liberals did not listen. Now crime is up, drug deaths are up, and the Liberals are doubling down. This is one Canadian who is starting to think that when it comes to the complex challenges faced by our country, the Prime Minister does not even know whether to sit or wind his watch. I have to wonder whether the government does not know what it is doing or knows exactly what it is doing. It is becoming more difficult to give the Liberals the benefit of the doubt. Are they making well-intentioned bad decisions? Could they make this many bad decisions in a row, or does the bill reveal the vile contempt that the urban elite have for hard-working rural Canadians? The same contempt, voiced by Ruth Marshall from the University of Toronto last week, blocked this House from observing a moment of silence for a young father murdered in Utah last week for believing in God and encouraging others to do the same. In June, the Liberals rushed this bill into the House and dressed it up with a tough name, the “strong borders act”. The name is strong, but the bill is not. It is weak where it must be strong, and even worse, it is heavy-handed where it ought to respect the freedom of ordinary Canadians. Conservatives believe in real law and order, common-sense law and order, and that is why we oppose the bill. We will back any measure that truly stops drugs, guns and violence from infecting our communities, but I will not support legislation that would unnecessarily trample on the rights of law-abiding citizens. Where is bail reform? The bill would do nothing to stop the catch and release of criminals in our communities. I can say what my constituents think. In Renous, Doaktown, Nauwigewauk, Chipman or Minto, if someone sells poison to our kids, they belong behind bars or in the ground. If the government does not quickly address the crisis situation, things will only get worse. There are no mandatory jail terms for fentanyl traffickers in this bill, no new mandatory sentences for criminals who use guns. The bill does not demonstrate strength; it embraces weakness. While it would fail to get tough on real criminals, it would reach too far into the lives of ordinary people. It would let government agencies open our mail. It would force Internet companies to hand over our Google search engine results without a warrant. It would even take aim at the cash in our pockets. Canadians need to know that Conservatives believe in the free market. Cash means choice, and choice means freedom. It is not for Ottawa to decide how a grandmother in Red Bank buys her groceries, but this is how the Liberal government works. It is why I was elected by my constituents, so that I would speak about it in the House. The Liberal government ignores a problem until it explodes; then, instead of a simple fix directed at the problem, it uses legislative tricks to further a globalist agenda at the expense of Canadians' freedoms. To my mind, the bill is just more of the downtown Toronto crowd telling rural Canadians how to live, without the faintest idea of life where a handshake is still a deal and a man is measured by his word. I, for one, will not support the bill. I will fight for a Canada that is safe and free, and it does appear that I have a fight on my hands. I believe that criminals should face real consequences and that law-abiding people should keep the freedoms that our grandfathers fought and died for on beaches.

Mr. Speaker, it is no small wonder that the crisis in our communities and across our nation is getting worse. I mentioned last week that there was an emergency meeting in my riding called by the downtown Newcastle Business District. In addition to myself were provincial members, the mayor and the chief of police. No one in the crowd or on the stage suggested that if the government could just search our Internet history, the crisis would improve. No one suggested that if anyone had less cash in their pockets, there would be less drugs on the street. The government is so blind to its own ideology and agenda that it is punishing law-abiding Canadians and doing nothing that is actually required to fix the problems that have been broken for a decade of the Liberal agenda.

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives have laid out real solutions. We do not need to hire a team of university professors to sort this out. All the Liberals need to do is listen and dig the dirt out of their ears; hire thousands more border agents and give CBSA power to patrol our entire border, not just official crossings; install high-powered scanners at every crossing and shipping port to catch drugs, guns and stolen cars before they ever reach the streets; track who leaves the country so deportees cannot simply disappear; end catch-and-release bail and house arrest for violent offenders and scrap the so-called multi-murder discount in sentencing; and do it all while protecting the privacy and freedoms of everyday Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, we will back any part of this bill that would truly protect our borders and help police officers do their jobs, but we will not sign a blank cheque for a government that confuses heavy-handed intrusion with real security. Safety without freedom is not safety at all. Common sense says we can keep our borders tight and our streets safe without Ottawa dictating how to pay for our groceries and at the farmers' market. This is common sense. If the Liberals do not understand it, then they can hold my beer and let us get to work.

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand and speak in the people's House. In my riding of Miramichi—Grand Lake, we have great people, folks who do not ask for much from the government except to defend our borders, protect our streets and then kindly get out of the way. Now we have a Liberal government trying to tell us what kind of car we can drive. The government's plan to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 is not just out of touch; it is out to lunch. This is the kind of thing someone dreams up after a latte in a downtown Toronto espresso bar, not after a hard winter on the Plaster Rock-Renous Highway. This is the plan of an urban elite who are blind to the hard facts of geography, weather, industry and the dignity of hard work borne by everyday Canadians who work hard for a living. Let me put it plainly: Where I come from, a truck is not a toy. It is not a fashion statement, and it is not a mobility solution, as one Liberal minister so helpfully called it. It is a lifeline. It hauls the lumber, tows the boat and plows the driveway. It gets people's kids to hockey and their parents to the doctor. One cannot strap 10 sheets of drywall to the roof of a hatchback and call it progress. Unless someone has figured out how to get 500 kilometres out of a battery in -30°C with no charger in sight, I suggest the Liberals stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Any path to a cleaner-energy future must proceed at the pace of possibility, not ideology. The Prime Minister says he is all about progress. Well, let me tell people something about progress. Progress is not forcing a single mom in Blackville to buy a $70,000 electric car she cannot charge and does not want. Progress is not replacing the family mechanic with a government-approved software update technician. Progress is not shutting down the dealerships, the mechanics and the supply chains that keep rural Canada moving. If the government wants to build electric vehicles, that is fine, but it does not have to kill the combustion engine upon which our modern society depends. Let us remember that freedom is not about the right to vote; it is about the right to choose. Let us be real here: This is not about the environment. If this were about the environment, we would instead be debating a national charging network and a plan to build more reliable charging stations. If this were about the environment, we would be talking about grid resilience, rural access, battery disposal and the cost, both present and future, of electricity. Does the government have a plan where everyone in New Brunswick plugs their Liberal-mandated vehicles in at 6 p.m. in January? In Miramichi, our power flickers when the next-door neighbour turns the microwave on during the evening news. Our electrical infrastructure can barely stay ahead of current demand. What do the Liberals decide to do? Let us burn out the grid. Let us double electricity bills. Let us crash the system and blame it on the provinces. We know the Liberal government prefers Canadians to stay at home. We saw it during the pandemic, and we see it today in the federal civil service, still on Zoom, still on mute, still on break. Maybe that is the plan. Maybe the Liberals do not want people to drive at all. Maybe they do not want them to leave their homes or go to work or take their kids to the rink. Maybe they want Canadians to be at home, dependent, plugged in and powerless because the government has slogans, not solutions. Now, let me be clear about one thing: The government has a strategy. Just one month ago, in the middle of the federal election, the Liberals' promise was that they were going to pretend they were Conservatives and axe the carbon tax. That is what Canadians heard. What Canadians did not hear and what the Liberals did not say was that their real plan was to replace the tax with something even worse. They did not say they wanted to ban the very vehicles Canadians use to work, raise their families and live their lives. This was not a change of heart; it was a sleight of hand. The Prime Minister did not kill the carbon tax; he replaced it with something even worse, a carbon ban. He figured, why bother taxing the gas in people's trucks when he can just make sure they are never allowed to own one? The Liberals did not ban carbon pricing because they changed their minds. The Liberals abandoned it because they were blaming the very thing they used to tax. How very Liberal of them. They do not need to tax gas when their plan is to outlaw the engine that burns it. The only thing this plan is guaranteed to reduce is freedom, people's freedom to choose what they drive and to work where they want, live where they want and drive what suits their family and their job. It is typical Liberal government overreach, plain and simple, and here is the kicker: Hard-working New Brunswickers are not going to trade in a sturdy, reliable, rustproof pickup truck for a plastic pop can on wheels because some deputy minister in Ottawa wearing a turtleneck said so. People in Miramichi—Grand Lake do not take kindly to being told they are backwards just because they know how to run a chainsaw and change their own oil, and they sure do not want to be lectured by a Prime Minister who spent 10 years sipping champagne at the Bank of England. This plan is a slap in the face to rural Canada. This is a slap in the face to every tradesman, farmer, hunter and contractor in this country. This is one more example of the government thinking it knows better than the people it is supposed to serve. Let us not forget that once the government takes away people's ability to choose what they drive, it will not stop there. Today it is gas vehicles; tomorrow it is our furnaces, our wood stoves and maybe even our barbecues. We cannot call it a choice when there is only one option on the shelf. This is not a plan about lowering emissions; it is about increasing control. It is not about saving the planet; it is about control. This is not about climate; it is about compliance. The truth is that this ban will not save the environment, but it will make life harder, colder and more expensive for millions of Canadians. The people paying the highest price will not be the downtown elites or the Tesla crowd. It will be the diesel mechanics, the forestry workers, the young family in Doaktown trying to barely make ends meet. Through you, Madam Speaker, I say this to the government: Back off. Scrap the ban. Let Canadians decide for themselves. The Conservative Party does not fear the future; we believe in it. We believe in people, and we believe in choice. We know the best decisions do not come from Ottawa; they come from the ordinary Canadians who pay for and live with the consequences. The Conservative Party respects and has faith in the common sense of the people of Canada, because the only thing more dangerous than a government that wants to take away someone's truck is a government that thinks it knows better than the guy who drives it. If the Prime Minister wants to take away our pickup trucks, he had better bring himself a convoy.

Madam Speaker, for the last four weeks, I think, this side of the House has been listening to the member opposite get up, pat himself on the back and puff his chest out about all the good things the government has done. Well, the doom and gloom on this side of the House is coming from the doom and gloom from all the Canadians we spoke to, at every door we knocked on, about the last 10 years of the failed government that seemed to sneak its way in to get another mandate. The doom and gloom is on the other side, from everything the Liberals do and what they have done the last 10 years.

Mr. Speaker, our political family in New Brunswick suffered a loss with the passing of Judy Scott O'Brien of Durham Bridge. The daughter of the late Anita and Darrell Scott, she is survived by her husband Mike O'Brien, her brother Don and his wife Joyce, as well as nieces and nephews. Originally from Edmundston, Judy was a key resource for former premiers Richard Hatfield and Bernard Lord. While I did not know her personally, she is a very close friend of my family, and I am aware of her legend. Judy was colourful. She was fiercely loyal, and she was a hard worker. She kept and loved horses. Judy loved politics but also enjoyed her peaceful home in Durham Bridge and her trips to St. Martins with Michael. Please join me in offering condolences to the family and many friends of Judy Scott O'Brien.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in this House today to give my first speech since being elected back home in Miramichi—Grand Lake. I would like to congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, upon your election to office and offer you my promise to assist in maintaining decorum and order in this House. It is both humbling and an honour to sit in the chamber as a member of Parliament. While I am both proud and overwhelmed at the responsibility of this job, I take comfort in the fact that we would have no authority in this House whatsoever unless it had been given to us from above. As this is my maiden speech in the House, I respectfully ask for the opportunity to explain my purpose for being here. My grandfather, Pat, used to joke that politics was just a chance to wear out a good suit and hang around a lower class of people. Today, I think a great many Canadians share his cynicism of politics in our country. For my part, while my grandfather is no longer with us, I remind myself daily of the need to restore public confidence in the elected offices in our country. I am not a career politician; I am a tradesman and a contractor. My father, Mike Sr., died unexpectedly of cancer when I was in high school in 1992. I dropped out of high school and went to work, eventually building my own business in drywall and construction. I let my name stand for public office because I wanted to give back to the community and region that gave so much to me. I made only two promises to get here: that I would always be honest with my constituents and that I would always work hard on their behalf. Let me further say, for the record, that I will always be accountable to my constituents. I will always put the needs of my constituents ahead of my own and make best efforts to meet with them whenever they need it. I will vote with my conscience on questions of ethics. I know that at the end of the day, I only sit in this House, which is impressive and inspiring, by the will of the people and the hard work of those who supported me to get here. There are many individuals who deserve my thanks for helping me get here, too many to name, but I will mention just a few. To my wife Kathy, my children Mikey and Dylan, and our granddaughter Carter, without their love and encouragement, none of this would be possible. Frank Trevors, my campaign manager, took on an incredible challenge and saw it through to the end. Mark Donnelly is my official agent and great friend since we were kids. Tilly O'Neill Gordon, our former and much-loved member of Parliament, is a kind and sincere woman who laid the groundwork for my opportunity to sit in this chamber. Jimmy Whalen was by my side, door to door, and knows almost everyone everywhere in my riding. Andrew Dawson was a key part of my success in Fredericton and will continue to do so in Ottawa. MLAs Michelle Conroy, Kathy Bockus, Richard Ames, Daniel Allain and former New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs, who were all my colleagues the past three and a half years in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, contributed to my success then and now as well. To all my volunteers, and the list is growing very long, their long hours and dedication were instrumental in my success. Please let me spend a moment explaining where my riding is and how it is a part of our great nation. Geographically, my riding begins in central New Brunswick, where the headwaters of the Miramichi River form, and it follows those waters through the communities of Boiestown, Doaktown, Blackville, Renous, Sunny Corner and Barnaby River. My constituency contains the entire city of Miramichi, formerly Newcastle and Chatham. It continues on to Neguac, Baie-Sainte-Anne, Tabusintac, Rogersville, Richibucto and all points in between. It also includes the municipalities and communities that surround Grand Lake, the communities formerly known as Chipman and Minto, as well as Sheffield, Noonan and Maugerville. There are also several first nation communities in our beautiful riding: Elsipogtog, Esgenoôpetitj, Metepenagiag and Natoaganeg, which I will have open dialogue with, and I will work on their behalf for their interests as well. Miramichi has a long history of contribution to our great nation, by way of both our natural resources and our people. The timber from our forests and the ore from our mines have contributed to our proud national history. Lord Beaverbrook, who served as a member of Parliament in England during the Second World War and as a part of Winston Churchill's war cabinet, was born and raised in our woods and along our shores. Former prime minister R.B. Bennett lived and worked in Miramichi. Former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, whom I recognize, despite the best efforts of the hon. member for Beauséjour, as the greatest living New Brunswicker, is also an honorary Miramichier. As we have just finished an election campaign, and I have canvassed all the communities and regions that I have mentioned, please allow me to inform this House of the priorities of my constituents, which makes them my priorities. Of course, the economy, inflation and the cost of living are very front of mind in my constituency. Over the last decade, life has become unaffordable for the people of Miramichi—Grand Lake. It is hard to understand how the government proposed a spending bill of half a trillion dollars, which does nothing to help this very worrisome situation. The money the government proposes to spend is money it does not yet have and must steal from individuals and businesses by way of future taxes. It is troublesome, to say the least. This kind of reckless spending in Ottawa with numbers too large to comprehend takes hundred-dollar bills out of the pockets of the working poor and single mothers, and also from those on social assistance and retirees. It is becoming nearly impossible to find someone in these communities who is flourishing and living our great Canadian dream, if in fact the great Canadian dream still exists. I am surprised that the Prime Minister, during his time in England, never picked up on the lessons in economics from Margaret Thatcher: that the problem with spending other people's money is that eventually we run out of it. We are there now. Because of this, let me state in my very first speech in the House that I am a small-government, low-tax, “keep government out of our business”, free-speech, God-fearing Pierre Poilievre Conservative. While the government proposes to spend recklessly, my constituents in Miramichi—Grand Lake are very concerned about job security as it relates to employment at the federal payroll centre in Miramichi. During the recent campaign, PSAC, the union representing the workers at the Miramichi payroll centre, accused me and the Conservatives of planning to cut positions at the payroll centre, when it was the Liberals all along who planned to do so. For as long as I am a member of Parliament, I will fight for the workers at the Miramichi payroll centre. I will also fight for the federal government to address the very real concerns of our inshore fishers in New Brunswick. For many years now, the federal government has mismanaged the fishery and allowed tensions between native and non-native fishers to escalate on our waters. These issues must be addressed in real time if we are to create a safe, level playing field for all in this vital industry. For as long as I am a member of Parliament, I will fight and advocate for our small craft harbours and inshore fishers. The community wharves in Tabusintac and Bay du Vin are unsafe and in desperate need of attention from the federal government, whose responsibility they are. The member for Beauséjour injected millions into the wharves in Shediac and Pointe-Sapin, which were in his constituency. I hope I can get these wharves on his radar, as I know he has sincere respect and concern for our fishermen in New Brunswick, and they quite rightly respect him as well. I will advocate for much-needed improvements to the wharves in Tabusintac and Bay du Vin. Lastly, while on the topic of fisheries, no speech from Miramichi would be complete without mention of the Atlantic salmon. The Atlantic salmon have been in decline for two decades now. My constituents have been joking that with the job the government has done managing the Atlantic salmon population, perhaps the Liberal government could take over the responsibility for the black flies, in hopes that it could mimic these results with that most troublesome population. I will fight and advocate for the Atlantic salmon. This brings me to the end of my allotted time. I look forward to representing my constituents and contributing to the debate in this most esteemed chamber.

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives and Canadians know that if people pay more taxes to the government, the weather will not get better. Conservatives have been standing up for Canadians and against the carbon tax for more than a decade. The Prime Minister made a big splash in March when he told Canadians he would axe the carbon tax. After the Conservatives pleaded for years, finally his government removed the consumer carbon tax. Will the Prime Minister also repeal the industrial carbon tax so Canadian companies and industries can compete in the global economy, yes or no?