Parliamentary Speeches

Mine is on the question of privilege.

Madam Speaker, I believe that men are required to have a jacket at all times in the House. There are certain wardrobe requirements, and I believe wearing a T-shirt borders on being disrespectful to the House.

Madam Speaker, I believe that the parliamentary secretary for finance was in the House without a jacket on, which I do not believe is—

Madam Speaker, I will be brief. Having been at the finance committee, I know the violation of privilege happened. This is totally separate and distinct, as I mentioned earlier in my point of order, from the point of order on the allowance of amendments at report stage. Points of privilege are, of course, incredibly critical to the functioning of the House. If the rules and the privileges are viola…

Madam Speaker, I certainly respect any ruling you might make, but I did have my hand up prior to your saying that we would go to orders of the day after this. I would like my point of order heard before we—

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order before you make your decision on how to group report stage motions on Bill C-47, budget implementation act 2023, no. 1. Before I get to the specifics of my request, let me say at the outset of my appeal to the Chair how disappointing it is that the debate on the budget has been shut down at every stage of the legislative process so far. In its rush, the go…

Madam Speaker, I will jump ahead in my remarks here in order to expedite things, given your continued patience. I will start here and, I promise, get to my point relatively quickly. This little bit of context is important and germane to my point. I am just going through the facts here. On May 29, beginning at 4:30 p.m., the Chair was empowered by a programming motion to put every question necessar…

Oral Questions

Yes, it is working, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, mine is on the same point. Please give the member—

Madam Speaker, my point of order is a little different from what the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan was saying, but I look forward to hearing his comments with respect to that. I was literally stating the facts, which I believe, on a point of order, I am not only allowed but also obligated to do. Facts that I am describing are critical to the argument because, in order to introduce an …

Madam Speaker, as always, I appreciate your patience on these matters. It is normal, of course, for a government to table a budget and then get a bump in the polls, but this budget is so unpopular with Canadians that the Liberals actually dropped in the polls after the finance minister tabled it in the House—

It is a different point of order.

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, there is contempt. There is contempt for the lack of democratic process in this Liberal budget. That is what there is—

Oral Questions

Madam Speaker, my point of order is with respect to the Minister of Tourism. I had intended to raise this issue earlier. The Minister of Tourism, in responding to a question, said, “it is so nice to have so many friends from the blue team from Alberta”. This is doing indirectly what he cannot do directly. Of course, members cannot comment on the presence or absence of a member.

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, Philip Cross, former chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada, testified before the finance committee that Canada has had its lowest GDP per capita since the 1930s. Yes, that means we are languishing in the worst economy since the Great Depression. The reason is the Liberals' war on work. Excessive taxation and regulation is punishing our entrepreneurs and our workers. Parents and …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I just have a brief point of order. I know the member is very passionate, but he has been yelling for an extended period of time, and our interpreters could be hurt by this. I would just ask him to maybe—

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I think that was a fantastic and fair question, and that is why we supported the amendment put forward by the NDP. We will continue to support that. Obviously, the residential schools and the stealing of indigenous children are absolutely beyond the pale, so inclusive of that or exclusive of that, Conservatives believe entirely that children should be raised as their parents and the…

Private Members' Business

Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.

Private Members' Business

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in at report stage with further amendments.

Government Orders

Can I have unanimous consent to table this after my speech?

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I just want to start out my speech tonight by talking about something that is related, although perhaps not directly on point, if I could have the indulgence of the House. An incredibly sad story came out of my riding in recent days. Vienna Rose Irwin, age two, was discovered in an open well outside of a day care in my riding. She had obviously passed away. I just want to take this …

Government Orders

I know.

Government Orders

Exactly. Madam Speaker, I just want to walk members through a couple of the actual numbers. Let us say that we have a parent who is earning $45,000 and a second parent who wants to go back and earn $20,000. Their participation tax rate, as I outlined it earlier, if they live in Newfoundland and have one kid, is 38%. I have a lot of these, but I am just going to go through and pick a couple of them…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I thank the member, first off, for extending her sympathies. I appreciate that, and I appreciate a lot of the member's response, but I just want to address a couple of points. One is that we want to enable and empower grandparents, and there is nothing in the legislation, to be clear, that would stop them from looking after kids, but if we were able to reduce the cost of living; red…

Routine Proceedings

With regard to tax revenues collected by the Government of Canada: (a) how much does the government collect in tobacco taxes annually; (b) what is the amount of federal tax revenue that is lost annually from the sale of illegal, untaxed tobacco; (c) how does the government track and monitor the sale of illegal, untaxed tobacco in Canada; (d) what resources are presently committed by the government…

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, it went up from 42% to 43%, which is odd because, in this very House, the Minister of Finance said, “On this point, let me be very clear. We are absolutely determined that our debt-to-GDP ratio must continue to decline and our deficits must continue to be reduced. The pandemic debt we incurred to keep Canadians safe must be paid down. This is our fiscal anchor. This is a line we will no…

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, the key number there is per capita. The growth rate is 0.8% over the last 10 years. That is the worst since the Great Depression. We have record-high deficits. We have record-high debt. We have a slowing economy and record-low economic growth. This is very disappointing.

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, what has been the growth rate per capita, the GDP growth rate? What was been the per capita GDP debt growth rate in the last 10 years?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, will she provide an allocation of the $12 billion unallocated in the budget?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, speaking of parliamentary budget officers, our current Parliamentary Budget Officer said he was troubled by the lack of transparency, specifically with respect to $12 billion in unallocated funds. Will the Minister of Finance agree to provide an allocation of that $12 billion?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, during COVID, from 2021 to 2022, and then the next year, from 2022 to 2023, the debt-to-GDP ratio went up. Is that not correct?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, what was the debt-to-GDP ratio in 2021-22?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, what will be the national debt at the end of 2023?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, I want to start out with some serious discussion. I believe we had a serious discussion at the finance committee. We are in perilous economic times. We are facing high inflation, high interest rates, increasing unemployment, record-high housing prices, low growth and record food bank usage. I would just like to start to get some basic answers, some straightforward answers to some straig…

Private Members' Business

moved: Motion No. 1 That Bill C-281, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing, in the French version, line 19 on page 2 with the following: “droits de la personne;” Motion No. 2 That Bill C-281, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing, in the English version, line 15 on page 3 with the following: “rules of the Senate or the Standing Orders of the House of Commons for responses to” Motion No. 3 That Bill …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded vote.

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, that is great news. I look forward to having the finance minister for two hours, as she just said. That is terrific. What we do not look forward to is the Liberal budget bonanza that is going to drive Canadians $4,200 deeper into debt per family. What will they get for that? Higher energy costs, higher food costs and a lower standard of living. Will the finance minister finally come t…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, we welcome the finance minister back to the House. However, let us be clear in that what we are asking for is two hours of her time. That is a billion dollars a minute. We have real problems. According to a university report, we have the third-largest increase in total debt-to-GDP ratio, which has resulted in one of the lowest GDP growth ratios. In fact, going forward, we are projecte…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the quieting of that childish temper tantrum. The Liberal budget bonanza is driving Canadians further and further into debt. Each Canadian family is being driven down, to the cost of $4,200 a month. What are Canadians getting for it? They are getting higher energy and food costs. I am going to repeat this question one more time. Will the minister appear for two hours…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are out of money, while the Prime Minister is out of touch, and soon he will be out of a job. Why is that? It is because the Liberal government is driving up the cost of living through its inflationary spending and higher taxes. It used to be that Canadians who worked hard and made the right decisions would get ahead in this country. Unfortunately, more and more Canadians ar…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. There was some surprise when I told the Liberals that in fact some Canadians are facing 50% to 60%. Therefore, I would like to table a document from the C.D. Howe Institute that demonstrates that many low- and middle-income Canadians—

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, in most jobs, if one showed up only a handful of times in the first five months of work, one would be fired, but that is exactly what the Minister of Finance has done. Then she has the audacity to ask Canadians to cough up $490 billion but will not appear in front of their representatives for two hours. We know she has time, because she spent hours last weekend schmoozing with Liberal…

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling through the effects of inflation, high interest rates and slowing economic growth. Canadians need a finance minister who will stand up and explain to them why they can no longer afford a home, why families have had to cancel vacations and why millions are having to visit food banks. Instead, we have a finance minister who has spoken in the House only seven tim…

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, today is Great Lakes Day. We are reminded of this incredible resource that Canada shares with our largest trading partner, the United States of America. These bodies of water have played an incredibly vital role in our shared economy. Roughly 25% of Canada-U.S. trade happens in the Great Lakes Region; that amounts to over $270 billion. In fact, according to the Council of the Great La…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure and honour to rise in this House. Of course, today we are speaking about the budget implementation act, Bill C-47. Before discussing the substance of this act and why I, and I believe most Canadians, must oppose it, I have to explain the broader economic context in which it falls. I will endeavour to explain the challenges that our country is facing. Those ch…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, Tiff Macklem, in response to my question, wrote to the finance committee and said that half a percentage point of inflation was directly related to the carbon tax. That means that if we want to reduce inflation by 20% today, we can get rid of the carbon tax.

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech, and it was great. Also, I must say that his mother is a very good cook, so a shout-out to Helen out there. We have the GST rebate, which the Liberals call, in a gimmicky way, the “grocery rebate”, but is not the real solution to making life more affordable getting control of this government's out-of-control spending, because the more this government …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, the challenge is that those benefits do not come from air; they come from taxpayers, and my constituents are tired of paying the bills for the government. Not all that money comes back to Northumberland. There are sticky fingers here in Ottawa that keep a large portion of that money. That money is better to keep in the pockets. I believe that a Canadian can spend the money better on…

Statements by Members

Madam Speaker, today is a good day for the cause of human rights in Canada. Bill C-281, the international human rights act, has passed in the foreign affairs committee. Bill C-281 would help hold human rights violators accountable, raise awareness of prisoners of conscience, prevent genocidal regimes from broadcasting their propaganda on our airwaves, and it would help eliminate the vile cluster m…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, it was an absolute pleasure to work with that member on the rail caucus. I think we are doing great work there. I can tell members that because of those last eight years, just listening to several experts from Transport Action Canada, the rail system with Via and otherwise is in a state of disrepair because of the government's inability to get anything done.