Parliamentary Speeches

Mr. Speaker, he wants to compare that with the Conservative record. I gave him a chance. I told him that when the Conservatives left office, the average monthly payment on a new house was $1,400. I asked him to tell us what it is today, and either he does not know or he is too afraid to admit that it has gone up to over $3,100. That is over a 100% increase. When the Prime Minister took office, a two-bedroom apartment in Canada's 10 biggest cities, on average, was $1,100. How much is it today?

Mr. Speaker, he would have us believe that Canadians have never had it so good. Let us ask the nine in 10 young people who believe they will never own a home, or the 35-year-olds living in their parents' basements because they cannot afford the new doubling of the average down payment, mortgage payment or rental cost. Speaking of paycheques, when he took office, someone only needed 39% of the average paycheque to make monthly payments on the average house. That number has risen to 62%. By every objective measurement, things are more expensive and Canadians are taking home less. How did he spend so much to achieve so little?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is trying to talk about everything but the housing questions I asked. It is easy to understand why. When he took office, housing was affordable, and now it is impossibly expensive. In fact, it is much more expensive than around the rest of the world. Vancouver is now the third most overpriced housing market, and Toronto the 10th worst, in the world. They are worse than Manhattan, Singapore, London and countless other places with more people, more money and less land. In fact, the average house price last year in the United States was almost half less than it is here in Canada. Why is housing so much more expensive here than elsewhere in the world?

Mr. Speaker, I asked the Prime Minister why mortgage payments have doubled under his eight years, why rent payments have doubled under his eight years and why Canadian house prices are about 72% more expensive than their American counterparts, even though it has 10 times the population on even less land. He could not answer any of these question. The answer, according to Scotiabank, is that “Canada has the lowest number of housing units per 1,000 residents of any G7 country. The number of housing units per 1,000 Canadians has been falling since 2016”, right when the Prime Minister took office. Why has the Prime Minister continually given billions of dollars to municipal government gatekeepers but blocked the construction of Canadian homes?

Mr. Speaker, no, actually the disagreement is that under our government housing was affordable, but under this government it is eye-poppingly expensive. That is the disagreement. Let us just look at the facts. Canada has the fewest houses per capita of any country in the G7, even though we have the most land to build on. Why? We rank 64th in the OECD in the time it takes to get a building permit. Government red tape adds as much as $650,000 to each house in some cities, and the Prime Minister has made it worse by giving gatekeepers that block building more money. Why?

Mr. Speaker, we do not have to imagine what prices would have been were I making the decisions, because when I was the housing minister, the average mortgage payment and the average rent payment were half of what they are now. We do not have to imagine that; it is called history. The Prime Minister's solution is to continue to spend billions of dollars. He spent $89 billion on housing affordability to double mortgage payments, double rental costs and double the needed down payment. How did he spend so much to achieve so little?

Mr. Speaker, when we look at his promise to make it easier for Canadians to get homes, since that time, the payments have actually doubled. We listen to him rattle off the billions he has spent to achieve that failure, and he kind of reminds me of that shady contractor who promises he will build a brand new home, but the cost just keeps going up and up, and the house never actually gets built. That is exactly where young people are today, stuck in their parents' basements, their dreams crushed because they cannot get themselves homes and start families. Instead of siding with the gatekeepers and sending billions of dollars more to those bureaucracies, why will he not get them out of the way to bring the homes Canadians can afford?

In other words, Mr. Speaker, we should forgive him for failing because he fails expensively. What we propose is actually to incentivize home building. Why does the government not link the number of federal infrastructure dollars a big city gets to the number of houses that actually get completed? That would incentivize them to get the gatekeepers out of the way. We could bring in penalties for big-city bureaucrats who block construction and boost infrastructure dollars for those who get out of the way. Why will he not pay for results instead of paying for failure?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says that Canadians should not worry about the fact that our young people are living in homeless shelters while they go to school or that they are condemned to tent cities or their parents' basements, because all the politicians are getting along and that is what is important. As long as we go along, get along and have wonderful meetings and conversations, he believes we should not worry about the poverty the gatekeeping policies are causing. Why will the Prime Minister not link federal infrastructure dollars for cities to the number of houses they allow to be built, fine those gatekeepers who block and give bonuses to those who build, so that we can have more affordable homes for our young people?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has failed to make housing affordable, even after $89 billion, precious tax dollars, have been spent on that failure. I have suggested to him that we should link the number of dollars a big city gets to the number of houses it allows to be built, in order to incentivize more building. He does not like that idea. He does not like results. Here is another idea: We build transit stations with federal money. In the most successful transit and housing jurisdictions on earth, there are apartments next to those stations. Will the Prime Minister require that every federally funded transit station have high-density apartments so that our seniors and young people can live right next to the bus or train?

Mr. Speaker, the difference is that, like housing, we actually got it built. What I am proposing is not to dream about housing around transit, but to actually require every single federally funded transit station be pre-approved for high-density housing so our young people and our seniors can live right next to the bus and train. He does not like that idea, but how about this one? He has 37,000 buildings, many of them largely empty, big, ugly buildings. Why does he not sell off 15% of them so we can convert those into affordable housing for our young people?

Mr. Speaker, the only ideas the Prime Minister has put forward on housing are to double the rent, double the mortgage costs and double the down payments on the backs of hard-working Canadians who are paying more tax than ever. On April 1, he wants to raise the cost of housing even more by increasing the cost of home heating, a monthly expense that goes with owning a home. This is at a time when seniors are already choosing, making the heartbreaking decision, between eating and heating. He wants to triple the carbon tax. Will he cancel his plan to raise taxes on our seniors, our workers and our farmers and get his hands out of their pockets?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's carbon tax costs families more than they get back in rebates in every single province it applies in, according to his own Parliamentary Budget Officer. Now we learn from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that “Despite collecting billions in carbon tax revenues, the federal government has returned less than 1% of the promised proceeds to small businesses”. This job-killing tax is driving up the costs on small local businesses that support communities right across the country. Will the Prime Minister tell us how much an average corner store owned by a ma and pa would get back in rebates for all the carbon tax they are going to pay on their heat?

Mr. Speaker, from corner stores to car mechanics, they have to pay this carbon tax. I asked the Prime Minister how much they get back. He would not answer because, of course, the answer is zero. It is a gigantic tax grab. It is also a tax on food. When one taxes the farmers who make the food and the truckers who transport it, one taxes the people who eat it at the end of the supply chain. Carleton Mushroom Farms, just half an hour south of here, employs 100 people. Their carbon tax bill for the month of July was $9,000. Does the government they expect them to put that on customer's food bills?

Mr. Speaker, it is not a climate plan. It is a tax plan. He has not met a single emissions target since he became Prime Minister. All he has managed to do is suck more money out of the pockets of Canadians. It is enough to make a man drink, but he is taxing that too. I have in my hands a letter from Canadian breweries workers. These are union workers who say Canada is experiencing the highest cost of living increases in a generation. This is squeezing family budgets and making workers in the brewery sector nervous about their jobs. They are calling on the Prime Minister to cancel his planned tax increase on beer and spirits. Will he listen to these union workers and cancel the tax hike?

Mr. Speaker, he is raising taxes on gasoline, heating, electricity, food, family income, on all sorts of things, and now he is raising taxes again, this time on beer and alcohol. The unions that represent the workers who produce these alcoholic beverages in Canada say that this will impact their jobs, their wages and the cost of living of all Canadians. Will he finally listen to the unionized workers and announce that he will cancel this tax hike for Canadians?

Mr. Speaker, it took the Harper government only three months to get the Americans to back down and pay back and stop collecting illegal tariffs on softwood. When the Prime Minister took office, the Americans smelled weakness and they slapped those tariffs right back on, and then what happened? He backed down. The Harper government got an exemption to buy America laws. Within months of the Prime Minister taking office, the Americans slapped it right back on again, and he backed down again. He is now even saying that he cannot protect our borders against illegal border crossing without the permission of the United States president. Will he announce resolutions to these problems tomorrow, or will he just back down again?

Mr. Speaker, we knew that the Prime Minister would back down, and that is exactly what he did. He signed an agreement that allowed the Americans to maintain illegal tariffs on our softwood lumber, hurting our forestry workers. He capitulated again on buy America, which gives an exemption to Mexico but not to Canada. He also said that we need the Americans' permission to protect our border. That is something that we never needed before. Will he finally stand up for Canada, yes or no?

Mr. Speaker, he is the one who accepted all of Mr. Trump's demands. Mr. Trump signed an agreement with the Mexicans. The Prime Minister accepted it as it was presented to him, without any changes, including tariffs on our forest products. When the Conservatives were in power, we were able to fix that problem in three months. He has had eight years to fix the problem, but so far, no luck. After eight years, will he finally be able to do what the Conservatives managed to do in three months?

Mr. Speaker, a former Conservative government obtained an exemption to the buy America policy under the Obama administration. The Americans slapped it right back on again when this Prime Minister took over. He then signed a deal that allowed the expansion of buy America from being just projects at the state level to projects at the federal level. The Mexicans got an exemption. Will the Prime Minister finally do what the Mexicans and Prime Minister Harper did and try to get an exemption from buy America tomorrow?

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to really fathom how badly the Prime Minister has capitulated on buy America. Let us get it straight: Harper got an exemption to buy America in the Obama era to protect our construction workers and their paycheques. This Prime Minister allowed Trump to slap buy America on, and then he signed a deal that would allow the expansion of buy America from being just at the state level to the federal level. Now, the Mexicans have an exemption from buy America, and we do not. This is a catastrophic failure for our construction workers as a result of the Prime Minister's weakness. Will he get a deal to end buy America for Canadians tomorrow?

Mr. Speaker, it is a fact that buy America remains in place today on Canada and that it has been expanded under the Prime Minister to include the federal government, something that was specifically exempted from the earlier NAFTA. However, Trump demanded it and the Prime Minister was in the habit of backing down to everything Trump demanded. We thought that when Trump was gone, the Prime Minister would have an easier time, but now Biden is pushing him around. Putting partisanship aside, I think we as Conservatives can all agree that we do not like any Prime Minister, including the Liberal Prime Minister, to be pushed around like this by an American president. Will he end it tomorrow?

Mr. Speaker, now he calls single mothers polluters because they buy groceries. He calls farmers polluters because they use fuel. He calls seniors polluters because they heat their homes. This is from a guy who, we just found out, for one of his four government-funded mansions, spent $8,000 a month on utilities to heat the pool and the sauna. He flew 17 times in one month, including one 10-minute flight because he did not want to drive an hour from Waterloo to Toronto. Why does the Prime Minister not stop his high carbon, high tax hypocrisy and cancel this tax?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has backed down and flip-flopped after weeks of pressure from the Conservative Party to allow just one of his aides to testify about how Beijing helped the Liberal Party in multiple elections. He is delaying the truth. He has appointed a friend, neighbour from the cottage and member of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation to produce a report that will take months. Will he finally end the cover-up and launch a public inquiry today?

Mr. Speaker, it took weeks of pressure for the Prime Minister to back down and flip-flop, but allow only one of his top advisers, one of the key people involved in the campaigns that Beijing helped the Liberal Party win in multiple elections. However, what we really need is the full truth. He has named his neighbour, family friend, ski buddy and member of the Beijing-financed Trudeau Foundation to look into the matter, which is nothing more than a delay. Will the Prime Minister allow Canadians to get to the truth and prevent this from happening again before the next election, with a full public inquiry now?

Mr. Speaker, data out today shows that food prices are exploding. Anyone who has been to a grocery store already knew it, but what is the Prime Minister's solution? He wants to raise taxes on the farmers who produce our food and the truckers who ship it, which means more expensive groceries at the grocery store. It is part of his plan to triple the tax on heat, gas and groceries. The Prime Minister loves to jet around at other people's expense, burning fossil fuels. Will he show some decency and some compassion for the people he has harmed and cancel the April 1 tax hike?

Mr. Speaker, $185 will not even cover a week's groceries for the average family after food prices have exploded under the Prime Minister. If he thinks our farmers are doing such a great job fighting climate change, as I do, then why does he have to tax them again with a big tax hike on April 1? It is worse; it is not just food he is taxing. He wants to increase home heating costs and gas prices, a full 14¢ a-litre tax, a tax that he wants to triple. Will the Prime Minister cancel his planned April 1 tax hike so that Canadians can afford to eat and to heat and house themselves?

Mr. Speaker, today, I am announcing that the Conservative Party is willing to let all its staff testify about Beijing's interference. The members of the Liberal team, a party that received help from Beijing, should do exactly the same thing. Katie Telford was in charge of the Prime Minister's leadership campaign and headed several campaigns for the Liberal Party during two elections that we know were subject to interference. Will the NDP leader let her testify, yes or no?

Mr. Speaker, we now know, from leaked intelligence reports, that the Liberal Party received help in multiple elections from the Communist government in Beijing, which wanted to keep the Prime Minister in place. We know that his top campaign officials, such as Katie Telford, would have been aware of this help, and we need to know exactly what she knew and what the Prime Minister knew. Only she can answer these questions, but only the leader of the NDP will decide. He has the deciding vote. The question is this: Will he help his boss, the Prime Minister, cover up, or will he vote for the Prime Minister's chief of staff to testify? Which is it?

Mr. Speaker, the question was for the NDP leader. I do not know, but if he is part of the government, he should be able to get up to answer questions. I do not know why he is hiding behind his Liberal bosses again. His job is to work for the people, not to work for the Prime Minister, but now we are hearing rumours, and they are unconfirmed, that he is going to help the Liberals cover up this scandal by blocking the Prime Minister's chief of staff from testifying about what she knew about Beijing's assistance to the Liberal Party in multiple elections. Will the NDP leader stand up to answer the question? Will he help the Prime Minister cover up, or will he stand up for the truth?

Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, waiting lists for medical treatment have doubled to 26 weeks. Some 6,000 Canadians do not have family doctors, and we rank 26th among OECD countries in terms of physicians per capita. We have 10,000 immigrants and other Canadians trained abroad who are qualified physicians. When will the Prime Minister work with the provinces to establish a test and a licence so that we can tap into the pool of all those brilliant doctors?

Mr. Speaker, it does not matter how much money we spend. As long as we are banning 19,000 foreign-trained doctors and 34,000 foreign-trained nurses from entering into the profession, we will not have enough people delivering the service. We have had a national testing standard for the trades for 70 years in this country, but nothing similar exists in the professions. There is the Red Seal program for the trades. We should have a blue seal for the professions. It should be merit based, based on what people prove they can do in a national test, and it should allow them to practise across the country. Will the Prime Minister get up to make it happen?

Mr. Speaker, once upon a time there was a group of candle makers who had concerns about the competition they were facing. They said, “We are suffering from the unfair competition of a foreign rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price.” Who was that competitor? It was the sun. The sun was firing beams right through the windows of homes. It was providing competition to the candle makers. Their solution was to call for a law that would force people to close “all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull's-eyes, deadlights, and blinds—in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses”. The candle makers' solution to too much competition was to ban windows to keep the sun out and force people to buy their products. That is exactly what we are getting from the large corporations that want more profit and less competition. Since the inception of the Internet, the big companies that once dominated the news, the arts and other cultural industries have had to become more competitive because other people have been able to enter their field. Previously, this was impossible. An individual in a basement could not produce music and make it available to listeners, because it had to pass through a government-regulated broadcasting system. Now, competition is wide open and people can produce their own products without having to go through big companies like Bell, Corus, Rogers or CBC/Radio-Canada, which dominated the market when it was regulated by the CRTC. We are now seeing an amazing reduction in the costs associated with culture and news. Usually, when industries say they are experiencing problems, it is because costs have increased, yet today, costs have decreased significantly, by almost 100%. It used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce an ad for a movie. Now, a teenager with a small computer can produce the same movie ad at no cost. This also applies to the news. We are hearing that the media is in trouble, but why is that? Production costs have dropped dramatically. Distribution costs are almost zero because there is no need for printing or for all the infrastructure required to physically distribute a publication. It is now automatic thanks to the Internet. The cost of marketing has plummeted because consumers can get the news or learn about a cultural product automatically, without any advertising, just by going on the Internet. With costs having come down so much, news agencies should be celebrating, so why are they so angry at the status quo? It is not because their costs have gone up. It is because competition has increased. The windows are open, and now sunlight is pouring into the houses. Fresh air can come in. It is not just a small group of privileged gatekeepers who get to control what Canadians and others see and hear. The people can decide for themselves. We are hearing that the other parties are against the web giants. Bill C-11 does nothing about the web giants. Once this bill passes, all cultural products will still be offered by the web giants. They will not be affected. It is simply the type of products offered on those same platforms that will be affected. Instead of algorithms giving the audience what they want to see, that audience will see what the government wants them to see. This is not about taking profits away from the web giants. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and the other platforms will continue to dominate. Instead, the rules by which these platforms operate will simply change to favour content chosen by the government. Web giants are totally fine with that. They are happy. Now the big broadcasting and culture corporations will join them and reap the benefits. They will use their political weight to get preferential treatment in government-manipulated algorithms. If we give that power to a government instead of leaving it in the hands of consumers, where it is now, what are the consequences of that? Those with political power will have more say over cultural and news content. Why? According to Bill C‑11, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, a state body, will decide how the algorithms suggest content to Canadians. Accordingly, people who influence this government agency will have a greater say over their Internet presence. Who are these people? The rich, obviously, the very rich, because poor people cannot hire lobbyists. To be discovered on the Internet today, creators need to produce content that people want to see. Then, when people see it, the algorithm will recommend it to others. With Bill C-11, however, in order to get discovered, creators will need to have a lobbyist who can go to the CRTC to convince it to promote their content. A 14-year-old girl who plays guitar in her basement and makes fantastic music will not get discovered, because she does not have a lobbyist. She will not able to get her content on every phone and computer in Canada because she has no influence over the CRTC. Her content, by law, is not Canadian, because “Canadian” means being registered with interest groups recognized as Canadian productions. Bill C-11 does not define Canadian content. The content produced by the girl playing the guitar in her basement will not be considered Canadian content. In contrast, CBC content that is copied and pasted from a CNN story in Washington focused exclusively on American politics and produced in the United States will be considered Canadian content, because the CBC, a large corporation, produced it. Those with political power will have a greater voice on the Internet, which will obviously reduce diversity. The Internet has given us access to enormous diversity. Before the Internet, if artists wanted to sell their music, they had to have space in a store. That space was limited, and it was only accessible to the most popular groups in North America. Now physical space is no longer necessary, since the Internet is not a physical place. On the Internet, there is unlimited room for everyone. Let us imagine we feel like listening to something unique, like klezmer, which is Jewish jazz. In any given city, there may be only about a hundred people who like klezmer. Before the Internet, this type of music was not popular enough to be available locally. Now it is available online. What the government is proposing is a system in which public servants will determine what is Canadian enough, and, once again, that will be what comes out of large corporations that will have had the opportunity to lobby the government. That will reduce the diversity of voices and concentrate power among oligopolies. If members do not believe me when I say that lobbyists will take control, I will prove it. When a government grows, more and more money is spent on lobbying. There is one thing I agree on with the New Democrats: businesses and corporations like to make money. When the government controls the economy, corporations invest in their ability to influence the government so they can benefit. I will give members a few figures. Since this government took power, government spending has risen by 55%. That is a huge increase. What does this mean in terms of lobbying? There has been an increase of over 100% in lobbying-related communications. According to a study done by a U.S. firm, the more the government in Washington spends, the more corporations spend on lobbying. If the money and economic power lie with the government, lobbyists are a good return on investment. When companies realize that earning money on the Internet depends on CRTC support, there will be a huge increase in the number of lobbyists paid hundreds of dollars an hour to control what Canadians can watch and listen to. Politicians will set the criteria for what Canadians can watch and listen to. Decisions will be based on a consensus within the government. Instead of Canadians deciding what to watch and what to say, politicians and public servants will manipulate the algorithms to their advantage. It is incredible that the Bloc Québécois supports giving this power to a federal agency in Ottawa. It is a woke agency, here in Ottawa, that will determine what Quebeckers can watch and listen to. The Bloc Québécois is not a pro-independence party but a pro-dependence party. It is not a sovereignist party, it is a centralist party. We, the Conservatives, will never force Quebeckers to listen to the words of a federal government in Ottawa or to submit to its dictates. We will give Quebeckers the freedom to have their own voice. When I am prime minister, Quebeckers will be masters in their own house by making their own cultural choices. We will never force Quebeckers to listen to a woke bureaucracy in Ottawa, which knows nothing about Quebec culture or Quebeckers. We believe that freedom should be paramount. I will stand for the position of prime minister to ensure that Canada becomes the freest country in the world by giving back to Canadians, including artists, control over their lives. There can be no freedom without freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our Conservative government will scrap this bill so that Canadians can choose their own path, guaranteeing that our system will be one of the freest in the world, instead of trying to replicate the Chinese dictatorship that the Prime Minister has said he admires so much. We will continue to fight to prevent this bill from passing. The Conservative government will repeal it as soon as possible. The Conservative Party is the only party in the House of Commons to defend Canadians' freedoms and their culture by making it possible for them to create it. It will be the Conservative Party that will restore common sense in Canada. Once upon a time there was a group of candle-makers who talked about a grave threat to their industry. They said we were “suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price”, to quote Frederic Bastiat. Who was that competitor? It was the sun. The sun was firing beams right through the windows of homes in French villages across the countryside, which was providing daytime competition to the candle-makers, who therefore did not have as much in profit as they would have otherwise had absent this competition. Their solution was to ban windows to keep the light out. That way they could sell more candles for use throughout the day with less competition coming in from the outside world. That is exactly what we are getting from the large broadcasting and entertainment corporations, the oligopoly that dominated the voice of Canadians for far too long until the windows opened and we got the Internet. The Internet opened up competition. This is ironic because we hear today that the news media is in trouble. They are hemorrhaging jobs and opportunities. They say that the cultural sector is suffering. What do they say is the cause of the suffering? It is that the cost of marketing, production and distribution has plummeted. Colleagues heard that right. Because costs have gone down, the industry is suddenly suffering. Actually, it is not suffering. News media has never been more vibrant and more alive than it is today, but it is not the establishment, oligopolistic media that dominates the voices around Parliament Hill. Those voices are suffering. They are losing audiences because Canadians have a choice, for a change. For the longest time, the oligopoly in this country, which is controlled by Bell, Rogers, Shaw, now Corus, and a few other powerful corporate players, was able to use its might with the regulator to ensure its dominance across the air waves and into the homes of Canadians. It was able to use a large moat. That is to say that the difficulty of getting into the market comes from the fact that they used to have to produce paper and ink to send their product into homes, but now all of those things have been knocked down. The windows have been opened. People can enter the marketplace with very few barriers, so those powerful oligopolistic corporations are trying to reinstate the barriers. In other words, they are trying to block the windows to keep the light and the fresh air out so they can dominate the candle-making or, in their case, the news and culture-making business. They do not want more Canadian culture. What they want is more control over Canadian culture. On one side are the corporations that want economic control over news and culture, and on the other side, the government wants political control over news and culture. Therefore, we have this alliance of big government and big business ganging up on the customer, forcing, through this legislation, the customer to consume content they would not otherwise be interested in. Right now, the big tech platforms' interest is very simple. They are interested in making money. Let us be blunt about it. How do they do that? They feed people the content they want to see. That keeps people on the platform longer. When this bill passes, those platforms will still be interested in making money. They will make just as much money because nothing this bill does would shut down Netflix, YouTube, Facebook or anything else. They will still be the dominant platforms. What would change is that instead of having algorithms that give people things they want to see, algorithms would give people things the government wants them to see. The government would operate through the CRTC, a large, woke government agency that would then manipulate algorithms to promote so-called Canadian content. What is Canadian content? The government cannot tell us. It suggests, for example, that Canadian content is a CBC article that is plagiarized in Washington about American politics. That would be an American-made story about American politics, but it would be Canadian content because it would be provided by the state broadcaster in Canada. A single mother who produces a video about raising funds for her kid's local sports team would not be Canadian content because it would not be on the approved list established by the CRTC. In other words, a local Canadian story by a Canadian about local Canadians would not be considered Canadian content because the mother is not a news agency or registered with any of these so-called cultural bodies. Therefore, she will be pushed down the algorithm and given a smaller voice while more powerful corporate voices gain predominance. We know that this is public choice theory. Those with money turn that money into influence, which they turn into more money, more influence, and so on and so forth. If people do not believe me, look at the amount that companies are spending on lobbying right now. Government spending is up 55% since the government took office. That is correlated to a nearly 100% increase in the number of paid lobbying interactions that have happened here in Ottawa as recorded by the lobbyist registry. A company out of the United States did a similar study in Washington showing that the bigger the government spending there, the more corporations spend on lobbying the U.S. capital; there is nearly a perfect correlation between those two things. Why is this the case? It is because if we have a bigger and more powerful government in the economy, then those seeking profit will invest in influencing that government in order to turn that influence into more money. That is exactly what would happen here. A small group of broadcasting corporations would have all the influence, as they had in the writing of this bill. They would be in the CRTC office every day asking for the algorithm to be tweaked a little bit more so they can end up in the newsfeeds or YouTube streams of Canadians more than their competitors do. It would be a race for political power rather than a race for better cultural products. In other words, instead of pleasing the audience, they would get ahead by pleasing politicians and bureaucrats. That is what happens. The privileged elite would have more control and a greater voice, and the people on the ground would have less control. Ironically, this would run against everything that the parties across the way claim they want. They claim they are for diversity. “Diversity is our strength,” says the Prime Minister. However, by giving a small oligopoly control over what Canadians see on the Internet, the bill would obviously mean less diversity because it would be only the programming that they favour. Do members think the ethnocultural publications would get the same deal from the CRTC that the CBC, Bell Canada, Rogers and other telecommunications behemoths would get? Of course they would not. The small Punjabi paper in Surrey does not have a lobbyist in Ottawa that can work on the CRTC. Those in a Jewish community may like klezmer, which is wonderful Jewish jazz music. Specialty cultural products like that might not have a big enough audience to generate political power at the CRTC. Under the current situation, at least through the tap of their thumb, they can get the music they want. However, that music would not be considered Canadian enough by the corporations who would generate the algorithm with the CRTC, and therefore, those more diverse and unique voices would be shut out and deprived of online oxygen. Thus, there would be less diversity. They claim they want to take power away from big corporations, and yet this bill would do precisely the opposite. It would concentrate power in the hands of a small number of broadcasting and telecommunications behemoths: the ones who have been lobbying so hard for so long to get this bill passed. They claim that they want more artistic expression, and yet the artistic expression of people who are not part of the established cultural scene would be snuffed out altogether. Even great Canadian artists who have never been associated with conservativism have spoken up against this bill. Let us look at the words of Margaret Atwood, who actually said that this bill represents “creeping totalitarianism”. That is exactly what it is. When the government decides what the people can see and say, freedom of expression will not have long to live in this country. In this party, we believe in subsection 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “2(b), or not 2(b)? That is the question”, and Conservatives have an answer. We will repeal this antispeech censorship law and restore freedom of expression on the Internet right across Canada. Inherent in this bill is the same old elitist mentality of the ruling class, that they know better: If Canadians are left to their own devices, they will consume the wrong kind of culture. Our Liberal friends would tell us that Canadians are just not sophisticated enough to make their own decisions about what to see and hear. There is a smarter class of more cultured, cosmopolitan types who understand culture in a way that the 37 million Canadians who do the work of the nation do not; therefore, we should have this cultural elite embedded in our bureaucracy, interlinked with our large corporations who would decide on their behalf. The assumption is that somehow these elites are more virtuous. What is more virtuous about them? What makes them so special? If they are the ones watching over the system of culture, who watches the watchmen? Who controls the controllers? These rules are made for the rulers and not for the common people. Canadian culture comes from the bottom up, not the top down. To the suggestion that Canadians are not sophisticated or cultured enough to decide for themselves, what evidence is there that the groups of politicians in this chamber, bureaucrats over at the CRTC or lobbyists in the broadcasting corporations who would make the rules under this law are more sophisticated, culturally advanced and smarter? I, for one, believe that if we want smarts and sophistication, we should look to the mechanic who can take apart and put back together an engine block; the electrician whose meticulous fingers send lightning through copper wires to illuminate our homes; or the farmer who is able to read the weather, soil and commodity prices to bring food from his field to our fork. Their minds are ever more advanced and capable of deciding what is and what is not good culture. We in this House of Commons are servants and not masters. It is not our role to dictate from above what the people think, see and hear, but the contrary. They have the org chart upside-down. They think it is Prime Minister, then House of Commons and then the people on the bottom. Actually, it is the other way around. It is the people; then the members in this House; and then the Prime Minister, which means “first servant”. That is how our system was designed. Therefore, Conservatives will always stand for the common sense of the common people and united for our common home. Let us bring it home: their home, my home, our home. Let us bring home freedom of speech for all Canadians.

Madam Speaker, we oppose all the censorship in the bill, 100% of it. I will repeal all of it. I will let the people decide what they want to see and say on the Internet. One example is that the government claimed the bill would not affect “user-generated content”, or in plain language, the stuff that everyday people post on their Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other forms of content made by everybody we know in our neighbourhoods across this country. The Liberals said that it would not affect any of that and even put in an amendment originally in the bill that said worry not, user-generated content would be excluded. Then, in the 11th hour, they reversed their decision because we know that is what they wanted all along. This was never about protecting Canadian content. They admit that they do not even know what Canadian content is. The bill is about controlling the people. That is what the government is about, and that is why we will defeat the government and repeal the bill.

Madam Speaker, first of all, the hon. member is not entitled to talk about Quebec culture, because he wants Quebec culture to be controlled by the federal government in Ottawa. That is not a sovereigntist or separatist position. It is a centralizing position that the Bloc Québécois is supporting. The hon. member therefore is not entitled to talk about Quebec culture. Second, he is not doing anything to stop the multinationals. YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will continue to control the platforms, even after the bill is passed. It is simply a question of determining what content will be available on these platforms. In his opinion, the content should be chosen by the federal government and its woke agency here in the nation’s capital.

Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party is the only party that supports our artists. Without freedom of expression, there can be no art. If there is no freedom of expression, there is no culture. If the other parties want to censor freedom of expression, it is because they want to censor artists. With regard to profits, I repeat that the bill does nothing to rein in Google, Twitter or Facebook. Under this bill, these web giants will continue to dominate the digital world. If the hon. member wants to end that oligopoly, I would support that and I am ready to discuss it. However, this bill does not do that. This bill takes power away from audiences and gives officials and politicians in Ottawa the power to control what Canadians see and hear online. That is censorship.

Yes, Madam Speaker, that is quite easy. In applying the Broadcasting Act to the Internet, which is obviously trying to put a square peg into a round hole, it gives the broadcasting regulator the power over what content appears on the Internet. That is the whole purpose of the bill. I do not have enough time to list all the clauses in the bill that would give the bureaucracy the power to control what people see and say on the Internet and, therefore, violate their freedom of expression rights found in the Charter of Rights, under section 2(b).

Madam Speaker, I am going to let Margaret Atwood answer that question. This is what she said. She described the CRTC as “the shadowy body that lurks in the background... They're secret. How many of them are there, or what do they do actually?” Furthermore, and directly to the member's question, she stated, commenting specifically on this bill, “All you have to do is read some biographies of writers writing in the Soviet Union and the degrees of censorship they had to go through—government bureaucrats. So it is creeping totalitarianism if governments are telling creators what to create.”

Mr. Speaker, today we learned that the RCMP is investigating two alleged Chinese police stations, this time in Quebec. The Prime Minister has known about Beijing's interference for the past 10 years, when Beijing gave the Trudeau Foundation $200,000. He has known about these threats for years. He has had plenty of time to consult. I want a date, please. When will we have a foreign influence registry?

Mr. Speaker, the question was on what date the Prime Minister will bring in a foreign influence registry. This is something his own top public servant has suggested and something he has discussed with the Australian Prime Minister, an idea he has known about for years and could have consulted on all of that time. One has to register if one wants to lobby on behalf of the food bank, but one does not have to register if one wants to manipulate our democracy on behalf of a foreign dictatorship. That is the case after eight years of the current Prime Minister. Eight years is long enough. There has been enough talk. On what date will we have a foreign influence registry?

Mr. Speaker, I asked a second time for the date for a foreign influence registry, and he refuses to answer the question. Here is another question. The Prime Minister's department prepared a briefing that said there was a “large clandestine transfer of funds earmarked for the federal election from the PRC Consulate in Toronto”. Will the Prime Minister commit to returning any of the funds the Liberal Party, its local associations, his leadership campaign or any Liberal nomination contestants received from the PRC?

Mr. Speaker, the question was whether the Prime Minister will commit to the Liberal Party, his leadership campaign or any other branches of his party returning any funds they received from this “large clandestine transfer”. This information was in a briefing note that he received from his own department. He has known about this for months. Once again, will the Prime Minister commit to returning any money that his party, his leadership campaign or any other branch of the Liberal Party got from the PRC?

Mr. Speaker, so he will not commit to giving back any money that his party got from this “large clandestine transfer”. Instead, he delays, as he has been doing. He has known about this for seven years, and now he has these processes that have no time frame. They could go on for years without us getting answers or action. He knowingly allowed this to go ahead in two successive elections, and now he is delaying. What is to stop it from happening again in the next election if we do not get answers before that election happens?

Mr. Speaker, we are proud to have voted against every Liberal policy that doubled the cost of rent and monthly mortgage payments. When the Liberals came to power, people could rent an apartment for $900. Now it is $2,000. A mortgage that used to be $1,400 is now over $3,000. Inflationary deficits are increasing mortgage interest rates, and the gatekeepers are blocking construction. When will they reverse these disastrous policies?