Parliamentary Speeches

Madam Speaker, I would encourage all Canadians to give generously and help in any way they can. We congratulate the government for the announced response it made. However, we will follow up to make sure there is delivery. We do not want this to be “A” for announcement but then “F” for follow-through, which we have seen before. We want the government to deliver, and we will be watching carefully, like hawks, to make sure that the people of Atlantic Canada are not let down again. I note the work of the great member for Foothills, who is a southern Albertan but who has become the greatest champion in Canada for the P.E.I. potato farmer. I think we should give him a round of applause. The member has been championing the P.E.I. potato farmers, and all across P.E.I. they sing his praises every day. I know he will not let up until the P.E.I. potato farmers are back up and all of their crops are able to be exported to markets all around the world.

Madam Speaker, we have to recognize the difference between fighting climate change and promoting the import of oil from overseas. The strategy of the other parties, the Liberals, the Bloc and the NPD, is not against oil. It is in favour of foreign oil, which comes from overseas. We import 130,000 barrels a day. Roughly 40% of the oil consumed in Quebec comes from the United States. The Conservatives believe that as long as oil is being used in Canada, that oil should be Canadian. We are the most responsible party, the most environmentally sound, and we will continue to support our energy industry from coast to coast to coast in Canada.

Madam Speaker, again there is no question that the Liberal climate policy has failed. The Liberals have missed every single target they have set. In fact, they said that if they brought in this carbon tax, they would hit the targets. They did not hit a single target. Now they say they have to triple the carbon tax and cost Canadians thousands of dollars. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has reported that Canadians are paying far more in carbon tax costs than they are getting back in these so-called rebates. In many provinces, including the member's, there is no rebate at all, even though there is a federally imposed carbon tax that will triple in his province whether the provincial government likes it or not, unless, of course, there is a new government that fights climate change with technology and not taxes.

Mr. Speaker, we, as the official opposition, join the government in offering our thoughts and prayers to anyone affected by this crisis, and we offer our full collaboration with the government to help in any way we can to serve the people who are affected. This week, the Fraser Institute published a report showing that Canadians are spending more on taxes than on food, clothing and shelter combined. Now, with 40-year highs in inflation and house prices having doubled, Canadians cannot afford to pay any more. Will the government cancel its planned tax increases on paycheques, gas, heat and groceries?

Mr. Speaker, with Canadians now spending more on taxes than on food, clothing and shelter combined, and with this coinciding with 40-year highs in inflation and 40-year highs in food price increases, with reports of students in Toronto forced to live in homeless shelters, the government's plan is to raise taxes on paycheques, gas, heat and other essentials. In fact, it wants to triple the carbon tax. Now is not the time for a tax hike. Will the government cancel these planned tax increases?

Mr. Speaker, we are happy that the government has backed down from requiring people to use the disastrous ArriveCAN app or follow the unscientific vaccine mandates just to cross the border, but the inconsistency remains. The government now admits that it is safe for an unvaccinated person to get on an airplane or work in a government office, but unsafe for that same person to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces. This is obviously unscientific and contradictory. Will the government follow scientific consistency and give our brave men and women their jobs back?

Madam Speaker, in my 18 years in politics, I have never seen Canadians suffer as much as they are suffering now. I just criss-crossed the country and met a lot of people. In fact, 93,000 people registered for my events. I make a point of listening to all their stories, and I never leave the room until I have spoken to everyone who wants to meet me. I heard some heartbreaking stories. We are talking about young people, 35-year-olds, who have done everything they were supposed to do. They earned a degree and they are working hard, yet they are still living in their parents' basement or in a small, 400-square-foot apartment because the price of housing has doubled since this Prime Minister took office. Our housing bubble is the second largest in the world. Yesterday we learned that the percentage of Canadians who own their own home is at its lowest level in over 30 years. When the Prime Minister took office, Canadians were paying 32% of their income on average to maintain a mid-size house. Now, the average family has to pay 50% of their income just to keep their house. This increase is due to higher costs, but also to an increase in interest rates, which this government had promised Canadians would not happen for a long time. It told Canadians not to worry, to go ahead and take out big loans, since interest rates would remain low for a long time, and there would never be any negative consequences. Now we are seeing interest rates rises 300 basis points, or 3% in simple terms. This phenomenon is not only affecting the housing sector, it is also affecting the price of food. I will take this opportunity to read out some headlines, because even the media is starting to notice a problem. “Rents are so high in Toronto that students are living in homeless shelters.” “Inflation: Child hunger a major concern in Canada amid skyrocketing food prices.” “GTA food banks say they're facing the highest demand in their history.” “Nearly 6 million people in Canada experienced food insecurity in 2021, U of T study says.” People can no longer pay for food. Some single mothers are even watering down their children's milk because they cannot afford food. As for gas prices, I met a young man who works in the mines in northern Ontario, and he told me that he could not go see his dying parents in Thunder Bay because diesel was over $2 a litre. He was not able to say goodbye to his own parents. What is the Prime Minister doing to respond to this crisis? First, he is trying to divide people by attacking them because he thinks that if Canadians are afraid of one another, then they will forget that they cannot pay their bills. The Prime Minister is keeping in place vaccine mandates that every other country has lifted. He is still insisting on the use of the ArriveCAN app, which really does not work. He is trying to divert people's attention away from the cost of living by dividing Canadians and creating problems and division. The next part of his plan involves increasing income taxes and taxes on gas, heating and food. The first thing the official opposition has called for since I became leader is for the government to do away with the tax hikes so that Canadians can keep more of their paycheques in their pockets and so that energy, gas, heating and other costs become more affordable. That is our role, here in Parliament, to turn pain into hope. Canadians need hope. The comment I heard most from the people who attended my events was “Thank you for giving us hope”. For the first time, people believe that things can improve, and they will. We can change things. The first thing we need to do is axe all the tax hikes, but we also need to control spending. Today's inflation is the result of a spendthrift government. The government's spending is increasing the cost of living. The $500-billion inflationary deficit increased the cost of what we buy and the interest that we pay. Inflationary taxes are increasing costs related to our businesses and our workers who provide products and services. The more the government spends, the more things cost. That is “Justinflation”. We can reverse this trend by introducing legislation to limit government spending. This will subject politicians to the same economic rules that families have to follow. When a family increases spending in one column of their budget, they have to cut spending elsewhere. They have to find a dollar to spend a dollar. The same principle should apply to governments. During the Clinton years, the United States passed a law that helped Americans balance their budget and pay down $400 billion in debt. It was, at the time, the largest debt repayment in the United States. As soon as the law was struck down, Americans were plunged back into a deficit. This is proof that we need to put legal limits on politicians' spending and that politicians should have to follow the same spending rules as single mothers and small business owners. Furthermore, instead of just printing more money, we need to produce more of the things that money buys, produce affordable food, energy and natural resources here in Canada, and we need to build more houses. We need to remove the barriers that the Prime Minister has put in place. Let us start with food. The Prime Minister increased farmers' taxes. That increases the cost of fertilizer and of the energy needed to produce food. Now he wants to limit the use of fertilizer. That will require farming more land to produce the same quantity of food. Tractors and other equipment will have to cover a larger area, burning more diesel and other fuels. More food will have to be imported. Bringing this food from other countries to Canada will again require using more energy. Did we not learn during the COVID-19 crisis that it is irresponsible to rely on other countries for what we need? We should be able to grow our own food here, in Canada. Our farmers are the best in the world. We should remove the barriers that the government has put in place. We will cancel these taxes on farmers, scrap the government's plans to reduce the use of fertilizer and eliminate the paperwork that is so expensive for our farmers. Second, we will provide incentives to our municipalities to cut their red tape. At present, Canada has the lowest housing units per capita in the G7, even though we have the largest land area. That is ridiculous. That is why housing prices in Canada are the second highest in the world relative to household income. With regard to home ownership, Vancouver is the third most expensive market in the world, and Toronto is the sixth. A Conservative government will tie the dollar amount for infrastructure in big cities where housing prices are too high to the number of houses built. This will encourage them to cut red tape and reduce the cost of building permits so that more housing can be built. Every time a federal government funds a public transit station, we will make sure there is intensive densification in the surrounding areas so that young people can live in homes and apartments next to public transit. Third, we will sell 15% of the 37,000 federal buildings so that they can be converted into housing and create millions of homes that our young people could buy in order to start a family. Instead of importing foreign energy, we will get rid of laws like the ones arising from Bill C‑69 and others to allow energy to be produced here in Canada. This will create jobs and make the cost of energy more affordable. It will increase Canadians' purchasing power by raising the value of our dollar. When our energy sector is strong, our dollar goes up. The value of the dollar is tied to our purchasing power. When the dollar is low, it costs more to buy anything on international markets. Let us strengthen our dollar, produce our own energy and end oil imports. By the way, where are the Liberal and NDP environmentalists to protest the foreign oil we are importing? Why are we funding dictators? We should be funding Canadians' paycheques here at home. Finally, we want to give Canadians back control of their lives, in the freest country in the world, where the dollar keeps its value so that Canadians can have the life they work so hard to build. We should be a country that rewards hard work, a country where people can keep more of their money. We need to reform the tax system so that hard-working Canadians who contribute to the economy can keep their hard-earned money and provide better for their families. We should be a country that encourages and supports those who work hard, take risks and help build our country. It is good to be back in the House, but would it not be nice if our young people could have a home? That is what we should be working towards. Unfortunately, yesterday we learned that the rates of home ownership are at their lowest levels in a generation. House prices have doubled under this Prime Minister. In fact, when this Prime Minister took office, the average family could afford their monthly housing costs with 32% of their paycheque. That has rocketed up to almost 50%. Vancouver is the third-most overpriced housing market on planet Earth. Toronto is the sixth. We have the second-worst housing bubble on planet Earth. No wonder nine in 10 young Canadians say that they cannot even dream of affording a house. Now, from housing to food, we see the headlines. Even the media has noticed: “Rents are so high in Toronto that students are living in homeless shelters”; “Child hunger a major concern in Canada amid skyrocketing food prices”; “GTA food banks say they're facing the highest demand in their history”; and “Nearly 6 million people in Canada experienced food insecurity in 2021, U of T study says”. Then there is energy. I met a young man in northern Ontario who said that he could not afford to put the diesel in his car to go and see his dying relatives one last time, who are hundreds of miles away in Thunder Bay. I met a working man, an energy worker ironically, in St. John's, Newfoundland, who said that the rising cost of gas meant he could not afford to replace his boots so he was taping them up with duct tape. Canadians are suffering, and why is this happening? The cost of government is driving up the cost of living. Half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits means more dollars chasing fewer goods, leading to higher prices, bidding up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes drive up the cost of businesses and workers to make our goods. The more Liberals spend, the more things cost. It is just inflation, and Canadians are paying the price for it. What has been the Prime Minister's response? His first response was to attack the people who were suffering, to call them horrible and disparaging names, to divide and distract. His strategy is simple. He thinks if people are afraid of their neighbours, they will forget that they cannot pay their bills, so he keeps in place divisive and unscientific vaccine mandates to shut truckers out of their ability to transport goods across the border and soldiers, who have served our country bravely and loyally, out of their jobs. He does this all to stigmatize and attack so a single mother who is putting water in her kid's milk might forget, he hopes, how badly she is suffering under his watch because she will be afraid of her fellow citizens. It is time to replace fear with freedom. It is time for us all to unite. The Prime Minister's second approach has been ever predictable. He wants to raise taxes with a new tax hike on paycheques that will take effect on January 1, meaning that Canadians will take home less of what they earn. Small businesses will have to pay a higher cost for every single person they keep on the payroll, forcing many to make the painful choice of laying people off. A few months later, on April 1, April Fool's Day, he will continue to carry out his plan to triple the carbon tax. He wants to increase gas taxes, home heating taxes and, indirectly, food taxes because, of course, food requires energy. This is going to make things worse. The Conservatives have made the demand that the government must cancel all its tax increases on our workers and our seniors so that their paycheques go further and their energy becomes affordable. We in this House have a duty to transform the hurt into hope. That is what Conservatives will do, because things can get better. There is nothing wrong with Canada, with our country, that cannot be cured by what is right with this country. We have the answers that will counter this inflation and reinforce the purchasing power of Canadians. We will call for a cap on taxes so that Canadians pay no more to the government and can keep more for themselves. We will call for the government to cap its own spending, and it can do this by simply following the same rules that everyday families follow. If a family decides it wants to build a porch in front of their house, they cancel their vacation or, better yet, they go out and find a deal on lumber and look for a way to keep their vacation costs down so that they can do both but for the same budget. This is how small businesses function as well, but not government. The great Thomas Sowell said that the number one law of economics is scarcity, that people always want more than there is to have and that the number one rule of politics is to ignore the number one rule of economics, because politicians are the only creatures in the universe who do not have to live with scarcity. The birds in the trees, the fish in the seas, all must make maximum use of limited resources, but the politician just passes the cost on to someone else in higher inflation, debt and taxes. A “pay-as-you-go” law would force politicians to make the same either-or trade-offs that everyday Canadians make in their lives. The principle is very simple. If the government brings in a new dollar of spending, it should find a dollar of savings to pay for it. All of the existing spending that is in the budget goes ahead into the future, but when the government steps into this House to introduce a new measure, it should accompany it with savings to pay for it. The government did this in the United States during the 1990s and that allowed the American government to balance its budget, pay off $400 billion of debt, have booming job growth, record-low unemployment and a massive increase in prosperity, but as soon as it let the law lapse, it went right back into deficit, proving that politicians need the same legal limits on their spending that families follow every single day. Our families have been pinching their pennies long enough. It is time for government to pinch its pennies, too. Instead of just creating more cash, why not create more of what cash buys? Why do we not grow more food, build more house and produce more Canadian resources right here in our country instead? Let us start with houses. As I have said, we have the fewest houses per capita of any country in the entire G7, even though we have the most land on which to build. Why? Local government gatekeepers stand in the way. In Vancouver, the cost of government gatekeepers, that is permitting, delays, consultants and taxes, is $600,000 for one unit of housing. It is about $350,000 in Toronto. This prevents people from owning a home. I propose is this. The government should link the number of dollars big overpriced cities get for infrastructure to the number of houses that actually get built, so we have an incentive for them to remove the gatekeepers, lower the costs and increase the speed of building permits so we can get more houses. Let us require every federally funded transit station be pre-approved for high-density housing around it, so our young people do not even need to own a car. They can live right next to transit. Let us sell off 15% of the underutilized and overpriced 37,000 federal buildings, so we can convert that into housing. Let us create millions of new homes, so our newcomers, immigrants, young people and working-class people can re-establish the dream of home ownership. Let us put an end to importing overseas oil into this country. Where are the protesters? Where are the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberal protesters standing in Saint John, New Brunswick to greet all those big tankers coming from overseas? They say that they are against oil, but they have no problem if that oil comes from foreign dictatorships. There are 130,000 barrels of overseas oil every single day arriving at our shores and taking our money back to their countries at the same time. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister violates his own sanctions against Putin by sending back a turbine so the Russians can continue to pump gas into Germany, so the Germans can fund the Russian war against Ukraine. It is incredible. Those members are against pipelines in Canada, but in favour of maintaining the turbines for Russian pipelines that fund foreign wars. Meanwhile, we have 1,300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that could be used to free Europe from its dependency on Putin, meanwhile bringing back paycheques to this country. We have the ability to produce it cleaner than anywhere else on planet earth. In fact, the shortest shipping distances to both Asia and Europe from North America are right here in Canada. What else do we have in Canada that allows us to liquify natural gas so it fits on a ship? Cold weather, which is our most abundant natural resource. That actually lowers the cost of liquefying natural gas by 25%. With Quebec, Newfoundland and British Columbia hydro, we can do it emissions-free. Why do we not ship our clean Canadian natural gas to Asia to shut down coal-fired plants there and ship it to Europe to break European dependence on Putin? Let us turn dollars for dictators into paycheques for Canadians. Let us make work pay again in our country. Let us stop punishing people for the crime of getting up early in the morning and putting in a hard day's work. According to a Finance Canada document, if a single mother with three kids who earns $55,000 a year goes out and earns another dollar, she loses 80¢ of that dollar to government clawbacks and taxes. If she makes $25 an hour, she takes home $5 of that. No one should work for $5 an hour. That is below minimum wage, and yet our tax and benefits system punishes her for trying to work a little harder so maybe her kids can go to camp in the summer or maybe they can join the little league team. We should reward hard work in our country. We should set out to reform our benefit and tax systems, so that every time someone works harder, takes another shift, earns a bonus and gets up a little earlier they keep more of what they earn. My parents raised me to believe that it did not matter where I came from; it mattered where I was going. It did not matter who I knew, but what I could do. That is the country I want my kids to inherit. I want this to be a country again where it does not matter where people start off. If they work hard, if they take risks, if they study, if they learn, if they build and if they contribute, they can achieve anything they want. Right now, people do not feel that way, but hope is on the way. We are going to bring change to our country. We are going to put change back in your pocket and we are going to make this the freest country on earth.

Madam Speaker, the only way for all Canadians to avoid inflation is for the government to stop causing it in the first place. The Canadian dollar is the only national currency and will always be the only national currency of our country. Unfortunately, the government is devaluing the purchasing power of that currency. With a half-trillion dollars of inflationary deficits, it has driven inflation to its highest levels in 40 years. It has doubled housing prices, which has reduced the purchasing power of the dollar in terms of real estate by half, That is what we have to fix. We need to reinforce the power of the Canadian dollar by cancelling the inflationary deficits and inflationary taxes that have caused this inflation crisis in the first place.

Madam Speaker, the member is right about the fact that the Liberals are creating new programs when they cannot even manage the existing ones. Our health care system is already in crisis, and the federal government has done nothing to fix it. The government is doing nothing to protect our borders from people crossing illegally and from gun smugglers. This government cannot even issue passports. Why should we believe that this government can manage the housing crisis and dental benefits? A government that cannot assume its existing responsibilities should not be taking on new ones.

Madam Speaker, the member is quite right to say that Canadians are suffering under the policies that he is supporting. He is a part of that costly coalition. Everything that is happening in Canada is the paradise for which the NDP has been dreaming of all these years. They are now realizing all of the policies they always wanted. Basically, we have an NDP prime minister. What has that given us? Forty year highs in inflation, double the housing prices, record-low home ownership rates, people who, like the member said, cannot afford the basics of life. That is the consequence of that costly coalition of bigger government and smaller citizens whereby Canadians are carrying this heavy load. Here is the question. Why would we trust the government to create new programs when it cannot run the programs it already has? It cannot protect our borders. It cannot keep out the guns. It cannot stop the crime even though the Criminal Code is a federal responsibility. It cannot even deliver a passport. How can we expect it to run our lives?

Mr. Speaker, it is no surprise that institutional investors have been able to outbid everyday working-class Canadians for housing. Why? Because the government flooded the financial system with $400 billion of newly created cash. When it pumped that cash into the financial system, it went into mortgage lending. Who is preferred to borrow that money? Wealthy, well-connected institutional investors. They got their hands on that money and they used it to bid up housing prices out of the reach of the working class, meaning that young people, who not long ago would have been able to afford a home, are now permanent renters. We need to change this system. We need to stop the money printing, ensure that we have a financial and monetary system based on hard, sound money. Finally, we need to incentivize local government gatekeepers to get out of the way, deliver faster and more affordable building permits, so we can get houses built for our youth.

Madam Speaker, the Liberals are like the Bourbon dynasty: They learn nothing and forget nothing. They are right back to the same policies. Pierre Elliott Trudeau ran monstrous money-printing deficits. Of course, that led to 12% inflation, 12% unemployment and then ultimately 19% or 20% interest rates. If we combine unemployment and inflation, we get the misery index. It reached a record-smashing 24% under the first Trudeau, which delivered the highest suicide rates in Canadian history in 1983. My earliest memories are of that time, and my parents suffered because, while they were school teachers and did not lose their jobs, they got hit with those interest rate hikes just like everyone else and lost their rental properties. We ended up having to move to a smaller place because of that. We were among the lucky since we were able to get into a home. We are following the same policies. We have 40-year highs of inflation. Inflation is higher than at any time since the last Trudeau. If we do the same things, we get the same results. The good news is that after Canada was liberated from Pierre Elliot Trudeau, we spent a lot of years doing the exact opposite: shrinking the size of government, reforming our taxes, opening up our economy and standing up for working-class people. That is exactly what we are going to do again, and we are going to get even better results next time.

Mr. Speaker, it is good to see the Prime Minister here on a visit to Canada to refuel his private jet. However, here on the ground, in Canada, things are not going well. According to the Financial Post, rents are so high in Toronto that students are living in homeless shelters. Food banks are facing the highest demand in history. This is the worst time to increase costs for Canadians. Will the Prime Minister cancel his tax hikes on gas, heating, food and paycheques?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has effectively admitted that his carbon tax has not worked and, therefore, he needs to triple it. According to the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, the forthcoming hike in the carbon tax will mean that the total cost increase for a Newfoundland senior living in the countryside, on their heating bill, will be 80%. Canadians cannot afford that, but just for clarity, if someone is a Newfoundland senior, how much will their home heating bill rise as a result of the forthcoming hike in the Liberal carbon tax?

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Liberal Party has an opportunity to respect the fact that heating one's home in January and February in Canada is not a luxury, and it does not make those Canadians polluters. They are just trying to survive. This from a Prime Minister who burned more jet fuel in one month than 20 average Canadians burn in an entire year. Will the Prime Minister ground the jet, park the hypocrisy and axe the tax hikes?

Mr. Speaker, we will not support tax hikes on Canadians. Speaking of tax hikes, they plan to raise taxes on paycheques. Now, yesterday, the finance minister claimed that all the EI tax hikes they would collect would go to EI benefits. In fact, I looked it up. Over the next three years, they are going to collect $10 billion more in EI taxes than they pay out in EI benefits, allowing the Prime Minister to grab up the difference and use it to feed his insatiable spending appetite. Canadians cannot afford a bigger bite off their paycheques. Will the Prime Minister cancel his tax hikes on Canadian paycheques?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is quite wrong. Today, payroll taxes on the average $60,000-a-year worker are about $700 higher than when we left office and, by the way, we left with a balanced budget. Now he wants to raise those taxes even further, a bigger bite off of Canadian paycheques at a time when inflation is at a 40-year high, when students are forced to live in homeless shelters and when home ownership rates are at the lowest level in a generation. Does he not understand that now is the worst time to raise taxes? Will he cancel those tax hikes?

Mr. Speaker, what an honour it is to have the legendary heroes of the Summit Series among us today. It is an honour to welcome to the House today members of Team Canada for the 50-year anniversary of their victory over the Soviet national team in the 1972 Summit Series. It was the year 1972 that the Cold War spilled into the world of sports. In July, American and world chess champion Bobby Fischer had defeated the Soviet champion and number two world competitor Boris Spassky. In the Munich Olympics, the American basketball team lost a bitter and still-contested gold medal game against the Soviet Union. However, neither of these events produced the drama or the lasting glory that the Summit Series did. The series pitted, for the first time, the best Canadian professionals, though some of them looked too young to have been there, against the Soviet players who were, at the time, underestimated but preparing quietly for a surprise. It was to be a true test of hockey supremacy, played under the shadow of a much deadlier contest for global supremacy. The Canadian Department of External Affairs suggested that the encounter could be called a “friendship series”. Thank goodness the players ignored that and had the good sense to compete fiercely. Although most commentators and most Canadians expected the series to be an easy one, after a shocking 7-3 loss in game one in Montreal, it became clear that the series would not be a friendly exhibition of Canada's superiority. As the losses mounted, the pressure on our players grew, the low point being the series' game four in Vancouver when some of the crowd rained boos down on their defeated heroes. Canadians simply could not understand how these NHL all-stars, these legendary names they knew so well, could be outscored by a team of Russian amateurs. The Canadian fans had not yet realized what had become clear to the Canadian players: These Russians were actually really good. They were playing a different game than the NHL players were used to. It was a game of speed and finesse, of long-lead breakout passes and pinpoint cross-ice accuracy. By the end of the series, the names of those faceless Russians would be household names in Canada. We know them now. We knew them then and now many of them play in the leagues on this side of the ocean, or at least their children and grandchildren do. They have names and faces Canadians would come to know and respect in international tournaments and in exhibitions pitting Soviets against NHL competitors. By the time the Canadian team left to train in Europe ahead of the four games in Moscow, the idea of a “friendship series” was long dead. From this side of the Cold War, knowing how it ends, we can afford to look back objectively, but in the moment, and at that time, the series had become, to borrow the name of the 40th anniversary documentary, the Cold War on Ice. The 1972 series was the first time the term “Team Canada” was applied to a Canadian hockey team. In the minds of Canadians and fans following the series around the world, and on both sides of the Iron Curtain, Team Canada versus Team Russia had become us versus them. There were two styles, two different ways of life and two fundamentally incompatible ideologies and systems of government. It was democracy versus totalitarianism, communism versus free enterprise and freedom versus repression. Clichés never tell the whole story, but they often tell the most important part. This is true of the stories we are told today of the 1972 series. Before the series, we told ourselves that we were the best hockey country in the world and that our way of playing was the only way to play properly. During the series, we realized that this was not quite true. For having lost those four games and having seen the competitive grit and the finesse of a team of a different style, we learned that we needed to up our game. In the last game on home ice, the frustration of Canadian fans in Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum erupted as boos rained down from the bleachers. Team Canada lost, falling 4-2. In a now iconic post-game interview, the legendary Phil Esposito pleaded with Canadians. To quote the elder Esposito brother, he said he was completely disappointed and he could not believe it. He said, “Some of our guys are really down in the dumps...We know we’re trying...They’ve got a good team and let’s face facts. But it doesn’t mean that we’re not giving it our 150 per cent, because we...are. Every one of us guys, 35 guys, came out to play for Team Canada. We did it because we love our country”. On foreign ice, in front of hostile fans, with their backs against the wall, down two games, Team Canada rallied to win the last three games, each by a single goal. Each of those winning goals was scored by the great Paul Henderson. His name is immortalized in Foster Hewitt's frantic play-by-play call that erupted through hundreds of thousands or probably millions of televisions and radios in classrooms and workplaces across the country: “Henderson has scored”, and the crowd goes wild. The ladies and gentlemen in the audience would not have been so pleased of course, but those here on the other side of the world would have applauded and cheered with such a vibrating and powerful force that it would have been heard all around the globe. It is a call that still thrills us all half a century later, even those of us who were born after 1972. We have only heard the echo of those cheers but still revel in the legacy they represent. When we hear those calls and we see those names, the names of those who are here today, Yvan Cournoyer, after the winning goal, for example, it takes us back to a different time and a different world. It was 17 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Just a few months before the wall fell in May of 1989, a 20-year-old Alexander Mogilny would become the first Soviet star to defect to the west to play in the NHL. He was charged with deserting the Soviet Red Army, in which he was nominally an officer. Shortly after that, a crumbling and cash-strapped Soviet hockey system and Soviet Union would come crashing down as well. Two years after that, in 1991, the Soviet Union, which in 1972 had appeared almost invincible, officially came to an end. I say almost invincible because this Team Canada showed that they were anything but. That is something the Canadian spirit brings alive in hockey, but also in all aspects of our lives. I think what is so special about the gentlemen gathered here today is that every single Canadian can see their own triumph in this legendary win. They have made us all proud. They have given us one of the defining moments of Canadian history. In fact, I think if any Canadian were asked to close their eyes and dream up the most Canadian moment, it would be hard to think of anything more Canadian than the '72 Summit series victory. Therefore, on behalf of all Canadians I wish them a great congratulations and thank them for their contributions to our national story. May we all live up to their incredible example of grit, determination and victory.

Mr. Speaker, today we learned that the percentage of Canadians who have their own home is at its lowest level in 20 years. It was after this Prime Minister came to power that housing prices doubled. When he came to power, the average family could pay monthly home-related bills with 32% of their paycheque; now it is 50%. The government wants to make matters worse by increasing taxes on paycheques, fuel, groceries and heating. Will the government cancel these tax increases so that Canadians can buy or keep their own home?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. Deputy Prime Minister for her kind words and her congratulations. I look forward to being able to congratulate more young families on the ability to buy their own homes. It is nice to be in the House, but it would be nice for them to be in a home. Unfortunately, house prices have doubled under the government's policies. In fact, the share of the average Canadian's paycheque needed to pay the average monthly bill on housing has gone from 32% to 50%, and the government's solution is to raise paycheque taxes, gas taxes and other taxes. Will the government not cancel the tax hikes so Canadians can pay their—

Mr. Speaker, the answer is neither. Guess what Canadians paid in 2015 in EI if they earned $60,000? It was $930. Guess what they pay now? It is $948. That is an increase. Furthermore, if we look at total payroll taxes, they have gone from $3,400 to $4,100 under the government. That is a $700 increase, and the government plans to raise EI premiums, that is the paycheque tax, on January 1, along with other taxes. Why will the government not cancel these tax hikes so Canadians can pay their bills?

Mr. Speaker, in fact, EI premiums do go into general revenues when they go into surplus, and that is what the government plans to do. It plans to raise both EI and CPP premiums, the paycheque tax, right at a time when we are facing 40-year highs in inflation, all-time highs in increased housing prices, 40-year highs in food price inflation, and record food bank use. This is the last time that anyone should be raising any tax. Will the government back down from its planned tax hikes on paycheques and on energy?

Mr. Speaker, now the Liberals would have Canadians believe they have never had it so good. I guess if one is jetting around the world singing songs in a beautiful lobby, that might be true, but the 30-year-olds stuck living in their parents' basement because the Liberals have doubled housing prices might disagree. Those who cannot fill up their tanks with gas might disagree. Those who are among the four in five families that have cut their diets because they cannot afford food might disagree. The last thing they would want is a tax hike on their paycheques and their energy use. Will the Liberals therefore cancel those tax hikes?

Mr. Speaker, I am here today to honour the victims of the recent violence in southern Saskatchewan and particularly the James Smith Cree Nation: 10 lives lost, 18 lives changed forever, a community shattered, and a province and country in shock. We are here to honour the victims by remembering them, supporting their community in their grief and committing ourselves to doing whatever is necessary to make sure this kind of outrage never happens again. No death is solitary. Every death leaves a hole in the hearts of a family and a void in a community. This is especially true in rural and remote regions, where people rely on each other to survive and where so many people are related through blood and marriage. As Mark Arcand, whose sister was among the victims, put it, “This is how it is in our country.... It's all about relationships. It's all about family.” The violence two weeks ago took the lives of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, neighbours, friends and familiar faces. Each one of them was known and loved. Let us pause to honour them by offering our respect to each of them by name: Bonnie Goodvoice-Burns, aged 48, a mother, grandmother and foster mother who died trying to protect her son, Gregory “Jonesy” Burns, who was also killed; Lydia Gloria Burns, a first responder who was attacked while responding to a call to help Bonnie and Gregory Burns; Carol Burns, who was visiting her two children, one of whom, Thomas Burns, also died; Earl Burns Sr., a veteran who had already survived an attempted stabbing by the same perpetrator seven years earlier; Lana Head and her partner Christian Head, who together leave behind 10 children and more grandchildren; Robert Sanderson, a father whose son was also injured in the attack; and Wesley Petterson, a 78-year-old widower from nearby Weldon, Saskatchewan. There are 10 enormous holes in the James Smith Cree Nation and surrounding communities. As one headline put it, “everyone lost someone”. Healing takes time. It is a journey. The families and friends left behind have a long journey ahead of them, but I have faith that strength will carry the James Smith Cree Nation through. It is the same strength that has helped that community survive and work through the immense trauma of history over many years. The reason I have faith and hope is that while evil is real and strong, faith, hope and love are stronger. Where we can help, we will. I know the federal government is working with local community leaders. I note that the minister has been to visit and I thank her for that. I offer my party's full support for any government actions that bring healing to the community, especially for the children who have seen what no child should ever see, and for those struggling with mental illness or addiction problems, who will find these times especially trying. We can honour the victims and survivors by providing more effective recovery services to more people to help them get out of the cycle of violence and toward hope and healing. That is the least that compassion and respect demand of us. However, we must not allow our compassion to tempt us into complacency and stop us from asking the hard questions about our criminal justice system. This tragedy was not a random act of fate. It was the result of a string of failings stretching back more than a decade. The question that Chief Wally Burns asked when he learned about the perpetrator's criminal history should be ringing in the ears of everyone in the House: “Why was this guy released when he was dangerous?” I also agree with Brian Burns, whose wife and son were killed, when he said, ”There needs to be some kind of an inquiry. The families need answers.” As a husband and a father, I can only imagine the sense of deep betrayal he must feel when he thinks about the callous negligence of our criminal justice system, which let this violent criminal out to recommit offences again and again, not just in this case, but for more than a decade. The perpetrator, who I am deliberately not naming, had been charged with over 120 crimes in 47 cases over the last 14 years. He had been convicted 59 times. There are likely more, but his youth record is sealed. At least two of those previous victims were also victims of the most recent violence: his in-laws Earl Burns, who died, and Joyce Burns, who was wounded. The first time, back in 2015, he was charged with attempted murder, but he was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser offence and was only sentenced to two years less a day in prison. It has also been reported that he assaulted the mother of his children five times between 2011 and 2018. He never received more than a two-month sentence for any of those assaults. Each time, he was set free to attack again. What happened in northern Saskatchewan two weeks ago should be a national wake-up call. The James Smith Cree Nation was not only the victim of a violent criminal, but also the victim of a broken criminal justice system. We all agree in the possibility of redemption and in rehabilitation. We believe that, if someone makes a mistake and does their time, they should have a second chance at being part of society, but when someone commits one violent offence after another so that they number in the dozens, at some point they must stay behind bars for the protection of the public and out of respect for their victims. A system that allows a violent criminal to reoffend over and over again with impunity does not deserve to be called a justice system. Leaving victims vulnerable to repeat attacks by a violent felon is not criminal justice. It is criminal negligence. I agree with Brian Burns. I want to know how this could have happened, and most importantly, I want to know how we can make sure it never happens again. We will not honour the victims and the community if we do not listen to them. We must listen, and then we must act. There must be a top-to-bottom review. We need to know why criminal charges against this violent felon were so often stayed or withdrawn; why the parole boards repeatedly recommended his release despite deeming him a threat; why his sentences were so short, even after third and fourth violent convictions; and why Correctional Service Canada did not deem him sufficiently likely to reoffend, even after more than 50 convictions in 14 years, and failed to recommend against his statutory release. A thorough review is important because the devastation experienced by this community was not an isolated incident. Since 2015, violent crime has increased in Canada by 32%. The violent crime severity index is up 18 points, and there were more than 124,000 violent crimes last year than there were in 2015. The violent crime rate is up in all 13 provinces and territories. Clearly, something is wrong and getting worse. We need to know what it is, and we need to fix it. There are no words that can adequately capture the devastation that the James Smith Cree Nation has suffered and, indeed, the pain all Canadians felt at the stories of this unthinkable horror. The stories were of violence and an ongoing manhunt, but soon after the stories changed and we began to hear stories of the lives of the victims. These are the stories that had been previously filled with laughter, often amid personal struggle, and stories of a community bound together by bonds of love and support, now united by grief. They are the stories of people who are, in Mark Arcand's words, “broken but not defeated.” Today we offer our respect to the departed and the survivors. In words that can only imperfectly convey sorrow, we offer our sympathy, but if we have only words, then we will have failed the James Smith Cree Nation again. It is time for these failures to end. It is time for our words to transform into actions, and it is time for all of us to rally in support of this wonderful community and its beautiful members as they heal and recover from these terrible events.

Mr. Speaker, the minister says that the Conservatives would leave Canadians to their own devices, but housing prices have doubled. In fact, when the Prime Minister came to power, the average Canadian could pay for their housing with 32% of their paycheque. Now that cost eats up 50% of their paycheque. The price of food is rising faster than it has in the past 40 years. Canadians have no more to give, but the government wants to raise payroll taxes as well as gasoline and heating taxes. Will the government stop these tax increases so that Canadians can pay their bills?

Mr. Speaker, all of that will be vaporized by inflation, which is costing families over $2,000 in extra costs, and that does not include the increased interest rate prices that people are paying on their mortgages. In fact, the average family used to pay its housing bill with 32% of its paycheque every month. Now it is 50% after seven years of the Prime Minister in power. What is his solution? It is to raise taxes on paycheques, with higher EI and CPP premiums that will shrink paycheques, and it is to put higher taxes on gas, groceries and heat. Why will the Liberals not cancel these tax hikes so that Canadians can keep a roof over their heads?

Mr. Speaker, people cannot even afford to have a family in the first place, because they cannot get out of their parents' basements or out of 400-square-foot apartments after housing prices have literally doubled in this country under the Prime Minister. Now, with rising interest rates, which the government promised would not happen any time soon, families have to spend 50% of their income, the highest in over three decades, just to keep a roof over their heads. The solution from the Liberals is higher taxes on gas, groceries and paycheques. Will the Liberals follow the Conservative demand and cancel all of these tax hikes on workers and seniors?

Mr. Speaker, the government worked to double the price of housing in this country and give us the second-worst housing bubble of any country on planet earth. Now Canadians have had the costs they must pay for monthly housing bills go from 32% of their paycheque to 50% of their paycheque. What is the Prime Minister's solution? It is to reduce their paycheques by taking a bigger bite out of them with higher payroll taxes. He also wants to raise gas taxes, home heating taxes and, indirectly, the price of groceries, by tripling the carbon tax. Will the government cancel these tax hikes so that Canadians can afford to eat, and to heat and house themselves?

Mr. Speaker, the House of Commons is reflecting on the exceptional life of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of Canada, our Queen. For about seventy years she was our head of state, and beyond that she also served the Canadian people. She was a role model for all those shouldering public service responsibilities. Her sense of duty reminded us that, for all the pomp and circumstance, the real work of governing is not glamourous. It often requires putting aside egos, keeping our heads down and keeping on with the job. Her humility reminded us that government is not about us; it is about those we serve. We are, indeed, servants and not masters. The Queen had a special place in our hearts and we had a special place in hers. She spent more official time here in Canada than in any other country, save the United Kingdom. She first visited Canada as Princess Elizabeth in 1951. It was on that trip that she said, “From the moment when I first set foot on Canadian soil, the feeling of strangeness went, for I knew myself to be not only amongst friends, but amongst fellow countrymen.” She would visit Canada over 20 times as the Queen. She was present at so many of our most important occasions: the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, the centennial Expo in 1967, the 1976 summer Olympics and the patriation of our Constitution in 1982. As we reflect on Her late Majesty's life and service, we reflect also on the enduring nature of the institution over which she was the Crown. On her visit to Canada in 1951, then Princess Elizabeth planted an oak sapling in Vancouver. Seventy-one years later, that sapling has grown into a mighty and stately oak whose canopy provides relief from the sun or, it being in Vancouver, perhaps more likely shelter from the rain. The oak tree has long been a royal symbol. It is a symbol of the British constitution, whose forms we inherited and whose conventions we follow in this House. In Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, he wrote the constitution was a spreading oak tree, under whose protective shade the British could peacefully and securely enjoy life, as is only possible for those who live under ordered liberty. In Burke's day, the Crown was already a largely symbolic institution. The Civil War had made Parliament supreme more than a century earlier. The conventions of cabinet were established and are similar to what they are now today, but there were voices who thought it was time to set aside the monarchy. Burke understood, however, that the key to stability, civil peace and freedom was not to scrap the Crown, but to keep it free from day-to-day politics. When each of us entered this place, this Parliament of ours, we entered a place rooted in a historic compromise between Crown and commoner, a compromise that was forged over centuries through bloody conflict, but also through peaceful evolution. The authority of the Crown may in a sense be fictional, but it is also functional. The separation of symbolic authority from political power allows partisan politics to be contested fearlessly without threatening the enduring constitutional order. Parties and politicians come and go; the Crown endures. The division of duties or the “org chart”, as we might say in workplace lingo, is simple: The Crown preserves parliamentary democracy and the commoners practise it, as we do here in this place. Where does all this come from? Well, it is at least as old as the Magna Carta itself. In 1215, the barons gathered in the fields of Runnymede outside of London to confront the King. They were angry at being overtaxed to fund royal adventurism overseas and frustrated by arbitrary excesses of royal power at home. They were determined to rein in the Crown's authority. The barons forced King John to sign the great charter, the Magna Carta, which spelled out the rights and freedoms that the Crown must honour. This was and is liberty under the law. Over the next 800 years, those liberties would be gradually extended, improved upon and given not only to citizens of the United Kingdom, but to all of those who inherited British-style parliamentary democracy. Though the system is 800 years old, it is only one generation deep. If one generation throws it away, all may lose it forever. That is why the work of Her Majesty in preserving that liberty and that system is such a treasured gift to us all and to many more yet to come. As Burke put it, it is a “partnership...between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born”. We are the living generation and we have a duty to pass on to our children what Diefenbaker called the “heritage of freedom” we inherited from our ancestors. This is an inheritance of all Canadians, not just those of British lineage. I myself am not of British descent, but I recognize that this tradition and these liberties are my own, just as our first French Canadian prime minister, the great Wilfrid Laurier, did more than a century ago. When visiting France in 1897, prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier stated, on behalf of all French Canadians, that he was loyal to England and to France. He said, “We are faithful to the great nation which gave us life, we are faithful to the great nation which gave us liberty.” He explained this to a French audience. It is our glory in Canada. When the Queen spoke at the patriation of our Constitution in 1982, at a ceremony not far from where I stand and all members sit today, she said: The genius of Canadian federalism...lies in your consistent ability to overcome differences through reason and compromise. That ability is reflected in the willingness of the ordinary people of French-speaking Canada and English-speaking Canada, and of the various regions, to respect each other’s rights, and to create together the conditions under which all may prosper in freedom. In his inaugural address, King Charles III stated that he was raised with the greatest respect for the precious traditions, freedoms and responsibilities of our unique history and our system of parliamentary government. I congratulate the new king on his responsibilities, and I look forward to serving, here in Canada, all Canadian peoples, as he, too, devotes his life to service. It is with a heavy heart but heartfelt thanks, and with confidence in the future, that I say Godspeed Queen Elizabeth II, God save the King and God bless Canada.

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are calling for the government to lift all federal COVID-19 restrictions and restore personal and health freedoms. Canadian provinces and businesses, along with other countries like the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Israel, have lifted all of their COVID-19 restrictions. The government says it is following the science and admits that it is now safe to sit next to someone who has not been vaccinated on a plane. However, it claims that it is dangerous for a trucker, travelling alone, to cross the border without being vaccinated. That is ridiculous. I agree with the people who signed my petition to lift all the COVID-19 restrictions.

Mr. Speaker, not once, not twice, but 13 times did this public safety minister claim that the police told him to suspend people's civil liberties with the Emergencies Act. Not only did the cops say that this is not true, but yesterday two of his fellow ministers, including the Deputy Prime Minister, said that it is not true. Today, the Prime Minister refused to say that his public safety minister had acted honourably. If his fellow ministers do not think he is honourable and truthful, why is he still in cabinet?

Mr. Speaker, disrupting people's lives? This is a Prime Minister who disrupted the lives of tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands, because of a personal medical decision. Everything the government has been saying about our truckers has been false from the very beginning, starting with the claim that they would spread a virus even though they were in a truck all alone all day long, and ending with the recent claim that the police had asked for the Emergencies Act. Now that the government has admitted that the public safety minister stated falsehoods, will the Prime Minister do the honourable thing and fire him?

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-278, An Act to prevent the imposition by the federal government of vaccination mandates for employment and travel. Mr. Speaker, today I am taking another step to give Canadians back control of their lives with the prevention of government-imposed vaccination mandates act. This bill would ban the government from imposing vaccine mandates as a condition of travel or employment. If the bill passes, the government would no longer be able to require federal workers to get vaccinated in order to keep their paycheques and jobs. It would also ban the federal government from requiring vaccines in order for people to travel. In other words, it would allow all Canadians, regardless of their personal medical decisions, to continue to work in the federal sector or travel on trains, planes and other federally regulated modes of transportation, regardless of whether they are vaccinated. We are an outlier here in Canada today. Most countries have removed mandates for travel, including the U.K., Germany, Italy, Thailand, Poland, Argentina, Chile and many others. All provinces have now removed vaccine mandates. The five big banks have done likewise, and public sector unions have even begun legal actions to remove these discriminatory mandates. I have met countless people and heard endless tragic stories of people separated from family members by their inability to get on an airplane or people languishing without a paycheque, despite having a spotless track record serving their employer over many years. These mandates have become nothing more than a cruel attempt to demonize a small minority. They are absolutely unnecessary and without any scientific basis. I call on all members of Parliament to end this discrimination and give people back control of their own personal medical decisions and their bodies by passing this bill banning the federal government from imposing these mandates and allowing Canadians to take back control of their lives. (Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Thornhill put forward a Conservative opposition day motion on ending COVID-related restrictions on travel. Consistent with my prior two votes on February 14 and March 24 in favour of ending all vaccine mandates and COVID restrictions, I logged into the app to vote in favour of this motion and in favour of ending COVID travel restrictions. I did attempt to make the vote, but for technical reasons, the app did not register the vote that I made. I believe it had something to do with the uploading process, but somehow that vote did not get registered, and so I ask that the House update the record to show that I voted in favour of the motion from the member for Thornhill to end COVID travel restrictions.

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have lost control of their own lives. Whether we are talking about the individual who lost their job because of a medical decision, the single mom who cannot afford to feed her children because of food inflation or the 32-year-old who is living in his mother's basement because of real estate inflation, people cannot pay their bills because the government is making life too expensive. The cost of government is raising the cost of living. The more the government spends, the more it costs Canadians. Inflationary taxes are increasing the cost of producing goods and services. Inflationary deficits are increasing the number of dollars needed to buy every product. Let us stop inflation, lower taxes and give power back to ordinary Canadians, not just bankers and politicians, so they can control their own money. Let us make Canada the freest country in the world to give Canadians control of their own lives.

Madam Speaker, there is indeed an emergency in this country. Indeed, there are a series of emergencies. There is the emergency of the family whose 14-year-old daughter has attempted suicide after two years of isolation from sports, social interaction and other healthy activities that sustain a happy and heartful mind. There is the emergency of the federal public servant who, for unrecognized medical reasons, cannot get vaccinated and is now deprived of an income and a job. There is the emergency of the trucker who was hailed as a hero while driving our goods and services across international borders unvaccinated for over two years, who suddenly was declared a public health threat and deprived of his job as well. There is the emergency of the 32-year-old still living in his mom's basement, because under the pretext of COVID, the government printed so much money that it now costs $836,000 for the average house. There is the emergency of the single mother trembling as she walks down the grocery aisle because she cannot afford a basket of affordable goods, because the government has inflated her cost of living. There is the emergency created by the regulatory gatekeepers who keep people in poverty by blockading first nations people from the ability to develop their own resources and blockading immigrants from the ability to work in the very professions for which they are trained and qualified. These are the emergencies we should be addressing, but instead the Prime Minister has created a new emergency. What is his motivation? Of course, it is to divide and conquer. How did this all start? Let us remember that the Prime Minister suddenly imposed a brand new vaccine mandate on the very truckers who had been free to travel across borders without a vaccine, and he did it at a time when provinces and countries around the world were removing vaccine mandates. He did it to a group of people who are by far the least likely to transmit a virus, because they work and sleep all by themselves 22 hours a day. Media asked his health minister and his chief medical officer for evidence supporting the decision. Neither had any. In fact, the medical officer said it was time to return to normalcy, yet the Prime Minister, in spite of all these facts, brought in this new mandate to deprive people of their living, because he knew that it would spark in them a sense of desperation. If he could deprive them of their incomes, they would be so desperate that they would have to rise up and protest, and then he could further demonize them, call them names, attack their motives, belittle them and dehumanize them in order to galvanize the majority against the minority. This must be the political opportunity his Deputy Prime Minister spoke about when she described what COVID represented to the government. The Liberals have attempted to amplify and take advantage of every pain, every fear and every tragedy that has struck throughout this pandemic in order to divide one person against another and replace the people's freedom with the government's power. At the beginning of the pandemic, it started immediately. The government attempted to ram through a law that would have given it the power to raise any tax to any level for any reason without a vote in Parliament. It tried to pass Bill C-10 to strip away free speech online. Thankfully, Conservatives blocked it from doing so. The Prime Minister's authorities have said they want to track Canadian cell phones for the next five years. Now this, the Emergencies Act, is the latest and greatest example of attacks on our freedom. Ostensibly, it was meant to stop blockades, which had already ended before he even brought forward this legislation. In Alberta, in Manitoba and at the Ambassador Bridge, those blockades were ended peacefully, in some cases with protesters hugging the police officers and bringing the matters to a successful close, so that goods and services could resume. Instead, in that context, the Prime Minister brought in a law that not even Jean Chrétien brought in after 9/11 killed dozens of Canadians in a terrorist attack, that not even former prime minister Harper brought in when a terrorist murdered a Canadian soldier at the war monument and came running into Centre Block spraying bullets in all directions, and that not even the current Prime Minister brought in when blockades by first nations were standing in the way of those who were attempting to build the Coastal GasLink pipeline. For the first time in this law's three-decade history, the Prime Minister brings it in to address what he says was a protest in front of Parliament Hill. Ironically, this power goes beyond any of the protests and/or blockades the Prime Minister claims to want to address. For example, it would allow governments and banks to seize people's bank accounts and money for donating to the wrong political cause. One journalist asked the justice minister if small sums donated, for example, to support an end to vaccine mandates could get someone's bank account frozen. The minister did not deny it. Instead, he said that people who make donations of that kind should be very worried. To freeze people's bank accounts is not just an attack on their finances but on their personal security. If their bank accounts are frozen, they cannot buy food, they cannot buy fuel, they cannot pay their children's day care fees and, under this law, they can face this personal attack without being charged with a single, solitary crime. The Prime Minister says that this is time-limited, yet his own finance minister said she wants some of the tools to be permanent. He said it will be geographically targeted, yet his own parliamentary secretary for justice said that “the act technically applies to all of Canada”. The rules apply everywhere and indefinitely. Finally, there is nothing in the act that limits the kinds of financial actions that could lead to people's accounts being frozen, and if they are frozen unjustifiably, the act specifically bans people from suing either the bank or the government for that unjustifiable treatment, opening the door for people who have nothing whatsoever to do with either the blockades or the protest having their bank accounts frozen without cause. The Prime Minister says he wants to do this to remove the blockades, blockades that have already been removed. He says he needs these unprecedented powers in order to bring our country's order back to the pre-protest period, although across this country that has already occurred. I say to the House that I oppose this unjustifiable power grab and, as prime minister of Canada, I will ensure that no such abuse of power ever happens again. However, I say that we should end some of these blockades. Let us—

Madam Speaker, we can remove all of the blockades. Let us remove the mandates and restrictions that are blocking people's livelihoods today. Let us end the blockades on freedom of speech that the government is trying to erect with its online censorship bill. Let us end the regulatory blockades so that builders can provide affordable homes, first nations can develop their economies and escape poverty, and newcomers can actually work in the professions for which they were trained. Let us remove the inflationary taxes, deficits, and money printing so that people's wages can again buy them homes, food and fuel. Let us remove that blockade. Let us put people back in control of their lives by making Canada the freest place on earth: free to speak, free to think, free to work, free to worship, free to own a home and build one's own destiny. Let us bind up the nation's wounds with compassion and respect and unite our country for freedom.

Madam Speaker, am I concerned about the people who have been harmed by blockades? Absolutely. That is why I am so disappointed the Prime Minister caused these blockades in the first place. I am concerned about the businesses that were affected and I am also concerned about the governmental blockades that remain in place today, the attacks on the freedoms of Canadians to have a job, go to work, frequent restaurants, raise their kids and have their kids smile and have that smile seen again. Those are the blockades we now need to focus on eliminating and what I will continue to fight for.

Madam Speaker, the answer is yes. In addition to taking action to deal with the problems the protesters raised, the Prime Minister could have avoided provoking these protests from the start. He is the one who attacked the jobs of the truckers, public servants and others, even as the rest of the world was lifting these restrictions and vaccine mandates. Now he can take action to lift these restrictions and allow people to work and return to their workplaces. He should have stood up in the House of Commons to reject this unjustifiable power grab and give back to Canadians the freedom they are entitled to.

Madam Speaker, from the very beginning I stated that every single person who acts inappropriately, makes racist comments or engages in unlawfulness or blockades should be personally responsible for their conduct. That is something I would uphold as leader and as prime minister. I would not tolerate any of the racist behaviour we have seen from the current Prime Minister, whether it is his ugly racist past, the racist manner in which he has treated numerous members of his caucus who have spoken out against him or whether it is continuing to give a billion dollars to the CBC, an organization that 500 employees have said is systematically racist. I will not tolerate any of that racism in my future government.

The minister wants us to trust his government to regulate what Canadians see and say online. Let us look at how the government uses the powers it has. This very week, it decided to invoke the never-before-used Emergencies Act, an act with vast powers. It was not used after the attacks of 9/11. It was not used when a gunman came into the parliamentary buildings after shooting a Canadian soldier dead. It was not used with the blockades of the pipeline in British Columbia. These powers will allow the government to invade the privacy, the freedoms and even the bank accounts of Canadians. That is why the Conservatives will fight it all the way. The Conservatives will fight against this abuse. The government has abused the freedoms of Canadians. Why should Canadians now trust that same abusive government with the power to censor what Canadians see and say online?

Mr. Speaker, everyone has a story, and I have been hearing a lot of sad stories lately. The story I hear most often from Canadians is that people think they are losing control of their lives. It is not just the pandemic. This story is also about 30-year-olds living in their parents' basement because they cannot afford the $800,000 price tag on a typical house in Canada today. They have done the math, and they know they may never be able to buy a house. Their story is even sadder when they see big investment firms and the very wealthy raking in money the government printed and buying houses and real estate in their communities, then renting those houses to renters who may never be able to own their own home. I talked to a young woman. She started a business in the winter of 2020. Again and again, governments shut her business down. Her entrepreneurial dream was killed by government policies. I have talked to immigrants who come here with degrees in medicine or engineering but cannot work in their profession because of bureaucracy at the local level. I have talked to indigenous people who want to use their natural resources to create jobs and lift their young people out of poverty, but who have been prevented from doing so by governments. I have also talked to indigenous people who want to be able to own their own home, but who cannot because of rules imposed by Ottawa, by a system that prevents this from happening. Finally, I have heard stories from Canadians who were targeted for their personal choice. I myself am vaccinated, and I encourage others to do the same, but I understand that other Canadians have made a different choice. Before we insult them, maybe we should listen to their side of the story. Maybe they had a bad experience with medication, or a doctor gave them the wrong medication. Maybe they have an unrecognized medical condition. Maybe they had experiences in other countries where governments lied to the public for nefarious reasons, and now they are suspicious every time a government tells them to do something for their own good. The thing to do would have been to listen to the stories of Canadians who have hesitations, to have the humility to say that we understand that they are scared and we are here to answer their questions, and to try to change their mind because they are still part of our Canadian family. Instead, our government took the insulting position of attacking those very people. Despite his own record of racism, the Prime Minister wanted to insult others, people he does not even know. He tried to get truckers fired, people who work in a truck all alone for 22 hours a day. These people are being targeted by a vaccine mandate even though they might be the least likely to come into contact with others. That is why the protests happened here on Parliament Hill. However, there is something positive. Freedom is on the march. We see it across the country. In Alberta, at midnight, the vaccine passport was lifted. We saw—