Dean Allison

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 6th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, as a matter of fact, just this past Friday, I was at a round table on poverty with people from the community, which gave me an opportunity to hear from people who are struggling. They shared their stories about how they are having a hard time paying their property taxes and rent; they are having a hard time paying for their groceries. The fact remains that, ever since the government came into power, people have been struggling as they have at no other time in history.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 6th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, some things we will commit to are getting spending under control, making sure that how we spend money is transparent and making sure we get value for our money.

Quite frankly, the member and his party are the ones propping up the government. At the end of the day, they can raise any concern they want; they can huff and puff or do whatever, depending on what their concern is. However, they still support the government and the bad decisions the Liberals make on a regular basis.

If we are looking for ways to help people, one way would be to learn to live within our means, so we can continue to make sure that our cost of living comes down. Interest rates can then follow after that.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 6th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, one thing my colleague talks about is the hundreds of millions of dollars they are spending, and my challenge with the government is its competence level. At the end of the day, the government has no problem spending money. The challenge is actually getting results.

We do not have to go back very far. There was a previous question talking about the fact that the government had spent all this money under COVID and all these other kinds of things. I want to remind the member that there was a sole-source contract for $720 million for ventilators, and $237 million went to one of their former colleagues, Frank Baylis.

We talk about spending money. We also need to keep in context accountability, transparency and making sure that we are getting the job done. Any government can promise to spend money; the current government is awesome at spending and making promises. What it is terrible at is actually delivering, and what it is absolutely incompetent at is managing taxpayers' money in a responsible way.

What happened to all those ventilators? Some are still in their packaging and still on docks, and they are actually being sold for six dollars for their parts. This is the height of incompetence.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 6th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, as always, I am honoured and proud to stand in this place and speak on behalf of the constituents of Niagara West.

I want to start by reading a quote. It states:

One of the biggest pressures on people right now is housing. Young Canadians – particularly Millennials and Gen Z – are being priced out of their communities. Families are finding it difficult to get a good place to settle down. Rising rents and the high cost of buying a home are making it more difficult for younger generations to find a place to call their own. We need more homes in Canada, and we need to keep them affordable.

Where did I find this quote? In one of the government's news releases last week.

After nine years of bungling the economy, inflation, taxation and housing, the government finally has acknowledged that what it has been doing is not working. It is acknowledging that it has done generational harm to millennials, gen Z and other younger folks. It is that simple and it is written down. The government has admitted it in that very statement.

What the Liberals say after are their usual promises about to be broken. By the way, they are recycling their promises from nine years ago. If they have not been able to get things done in nine years, who is going to believe that they will be able to get things done now? Absolutely no one.

At this point, Canadians no longer believe the Liberals. Millennials and gen Z do not believe them. Why? According to reports, nearly 60% of retirees are supporting their adult children financially. What does this do to the finances of their parents? Of course, it is having a negative impact.

Whether younger or older, the Liberals are making everyone poorer. How much poorer? The average Canadian family is poorer by $3,687. Families that used to donate to food banks are now going to food banks for themselves. We have record visits to food banks, two million visits in a single month.

To make matters worse, Canada will spend $54.1 billion to service its national debt: $54.1 billion is a lot of money to pay just on interest; $54.1 billion is more money than the government is sending to the provinces for health care. This was entirely self-inflicted. The Liberals will blame the world, they will blame Conservatives and they will blame everyone and anyone they can think of. They call them horrible names. We know the Liberal playbook and Canadians are wise to it as well.

It is time for the government to take responsibility for the financial mess it has created, a mess that many Canadians can no longer endure. People are leaving Canada. Immigrants come to our country and realize it is impossible to afford a life, and oftentimes leave and take their skills elsewhere.

The Liberals admitted their failures in a statement, so there is no backtracking anymore. It has been nine years of abject failure on the housing file and many others. Young folks cannot afford to buy a home. Most have given up and think of owning a home as only for the rich. Eight out of 10 believe that owning a home in Canada is now only for the rich. This is a staggering statistic.

It is the first time in Canada when young Canadians will be worse off than their parents were, and it is not just now. Unless a younger person purchases a home, they are unlikely to build significant equity. This would result in much smaller retirement savings down the road. Therefore, young folks may be worse off for the rest of their lives because of the Prime Minister and his policies. It was not this way when the Prime Minister was elected in 2015, and it will not be this way when he is gone. Let us be frank: If the Liberals caused it for the past nine years, they do not know how to fix it. It is very clear, and their record speaks for itself. It is a photo op government, but that is where it ends: at photo ops. Conservatives will be the getting-things-done government in due time.

Still on the topic of housing, interest rates are also a major factor as to why folks cannot buy homes. Last week at committee, the Governor of the Bank of Canada once again confirmed that the Prime Minister's spending is “not helpful” when it comes to bringing down inflation and lowering interest rates. That is just a toned-down way of saying he should stop the spending. That is what the Governor of the Bank of Canada really wants to say, but he cannot because of the political waves he would create. However, Canadians are wise and can read between the lines. The fact is that $61 billion in new spending is making inflation worse and causing interest rates to stay higher for longer. This spending is the equivalent of pouring fuel on the inflationary fire.

Folks watching at home should keep in mind that inflation is just another tax on them. It is not enough that the Liberals increased the disastrous carbon tax by 23% and will make sure to increase it every year on April 1. They cannot help themselves, and this will only make things worse with inflationary budgets.

If the government members do not believe me, they should listen to their fellow Liberals. What are some of their Liberal pals saying about how things are going? According to one article, former finance minister Bill Morneau said that this budget is a “threat to investment [and] economic growth” and companies will “think twice about investing in Canada.” Another Liberal, David Dodge, former governor of the Bank of Canada, said that the budget is the “worst budget since...1982.” Former Liberal finance minister John Manley told the Prime Minister that he was pressing on the inflationary gas pedal with his spending, which ballooned interest rates.

I mentioned the carbon tax. Let us go back to that for a second. The carbon tax is the government's notoriously bad signature policy. Almost every provincial premier has publicly come out against it. The carbon tax makes everything more expensive without having any impact on the environment. What is happening with this? The government hiked the carbon tax, but emissions still go up. According to the government, if carbon taxes go up, emissions should go down. That is false. That is not the case, and that is not true. What is true is that the carbon tax is just another cash grab for the Liberals, and everyone knows it. The Liberals just refuse to admit it.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has also been very clear that the majority of Canadians will pay more of their money in carbon taxes than they will get back in rebates. In other words, the Liberals take more than they give back, and they expect Canadians to thank them for this rip-off. Canadians are wiser than the Liberals think. Seventy per cent of Canadians are against the carbon tax, because they see it for the scam that it is.

The Prime Minister and his party, though, through their disastrous policies of the last nine years, are playing with people's lives and do not seem to care that folks are hurting. They are hurting badly. The Prime Minister has doubled their rent, their mortgage payments and the down payment necessary to purchase a home. He is making Canadians pay higher taxes for food and heating, while doubling housing costs. Family budgets are broken. There is nothing extra, or even a negative amount, at the end of the month when all the bills are paid.

Conservatives have had three demands for the budget: axe the carbon tax on farmers and food; build homes, not more bureaucracy; and cap spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation. All three are common-sense policies. All three would make life more affordable for Canadians, but the Liberals refuse to do any of them.

Are Liberals too blinded by the ideology of big ballooning government gone out of control to see that what they are doing is hurting Canadian families and their wallets? They are also hurting small businesses, investment and productivity.

One knows that things have gotten very bad when, among Canadians who do not own a home, over seven in 10 say that they have actually given up hope on ever owning one. That is not the Canada I know.

Business insolvencies surged by 87% year over year in the first quarter of 2024, while consumer insolvencies rose by 14%. BNN Bloomberg reported, “The Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals...said that's by far the largest year-over-year increase in business insolvencies in 37 years of records.” The association's chair, André Bolduc, said, “A perfect storm of economic challenges is brewing, with high mortgage renewal rates, soaring rental prices, and elevated costs of everyday necessities”. He added, “The high cost of servicing debts is also compounding the financial strain for many Canadians and leaving them grappling with insurmountable debt burdens.”

What the government has given Canadians is consistently increased carbon taxes, high inflation, more taxes, more inflation, housing shortages, a housing crisis and a cost of living crisis. When does this financial debacle end? One thing is for sure: It will not end with the current government and the current Prime Minister at the helm.

Their disastrous policies have to end with an election, which would allow for a strong, stable majority Conservative government. We are ready to go on day one. There is a lot for us to fix. The government has created this mess, and it will not be easy to clean up, but we are committed. Our leader is committed.

I would like to add an amendment.

I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-69, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 16, 2024, since the bill fails to implement a commonsense budget that would:

(a) axe the carbon tax;

(b) build the homes, not bureaucracy, by requiring cities to permit 15% more home building each year as a condition for receiving federal infrastructure money; and

(c) cap the spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation, by requiring the government to find a dollar in savings for every new dollar of spending.”

[Cost of Living, April 11th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, last weekend, I was out door knocking in my riding of Niagara West, and next door, in the riding of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek was our Conservative candidate Ned Kuruc.

The topic that came up most was the cost of living. Folks at the doors said that the basics are getting too expensive and that things are getting worse. Many cannot pay their monthly bills. They are getting further and further behind. It is difficult to pay the mortgage. It is difficult to pay the rent. Grocery prices are through the roof. Gas prices continue to go up. Utility bills for home heating are getting ridiculous. When all is said and done, paycheques do not cover the bills at the end of the month.

Most people said that the policies of the Liberal government and the Prime Minister have put them in the financial position they are in. Higher carbon taxes, inflation caused by reckless spending and high interest rates all create the perfect storm to drain the family budget. However, if we were to ask those guys across the aisle, they would deny causing any of it. It is mind-boggling. They have been in government for more than eight years, and they are responsible for all of it.

For my constituents of Niagara West, the Liberals are just not worth the cost.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 8th, 2024]

With regard to the government's purchase of COVID-19 rapid tests, since January 1, 2020: (a) which specific companies did the government purchase these tests from; (b) how many tests did the government purchase from each company; (c) how much was each company paid by the government for the tests; (d) where is each of the companies in (a) headquartered; and (e) in what city and country did each company manufacture the COVID-19 rapid tests?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 8th, 2024]

With regard to the government's purchase of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning January 1, 2020: (a) which companies did the government purchase PPE from; and (b) for each company in (a), (i) how much equipment was purchased, in total and broken down by type of PPE, (ii) how much was each company paid by the government for the equipment, (iii) where is each company headquartered, (iv) in what city and country did each company manufacture the PPE?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 8th, 2024]

With regard to the government's purchase of COVID-19 vaccines, beginning January 1, 2020: (a) which companies did the government purchase the vaccines from; (b) for each company in (a), (i) how many vaccines were purchased, in total and broken down by type of vaccine, (ii) how much was each company paid by the government for each order placed, (iii) where is each company headquartered, (iv) in what city and country did each company manufacture the vaccines; and (c) what is the breakdown of each vaccine purchased and how many were (i) distributed domestically, (ii) distributed internationally, broken down by country, (iii) not used or destroyed due to expiration or other factors?

[Questions on the Order Paper, April 8th, 2024]

With regard to the government's COVID-19 vaccine mandates: since August 13, 2021, how many people were denied Employment Insurance benefits for the sole reason of their COVID-19 vaccine status?

[Petitions, February 7th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I want to present a petition that deals with mental illness and MAID. The petitioners say that mental illness is complex. It can include suicidal thoughts and other symptoms, and people really should be provided treatment and support and not offered MAID.