Pierre Poilievre

[Housing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, three devastating reports in one day demonstrate the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost. First, we had Food Banks Canada and the Salvation Army that said that record numbers are forced to go to food banks and that over half of people are worse off than they were a year ago. Now the PBO says there is more homelessness. There is more homelessness and hunger.

The Prime Minister has three explanations: One, he can blame the rest of the world for his mistakes; two, he can promise more of the spending that caused the problem or; three, he can own up and admit that he caused the misery Canadians are living.

[Housing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are already experiencing austerity, according to a report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who showed that since the Prime Minister's promise to end homelessness, it has in fact increased by 38%. The number of homeless people in Quebec has increased, going from 3,000 to 10,000. Yes, it is true, he is spending a lot more money and that is making everything more expensive.

When will he realize that a morbidly obese government in Ottawa is never going to end homelessness?

[Housing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister brags about his billions in spending. People cannot live in “billions”. They live in homes, and his billions build bureaucracies that block those homes. In 2015, there were 284 homeless people in Halifax. Now, there are 1,211. There are over 30 homeless encampments in Halifax alone. Ten years ago, there were 3,000 Quebeckers who were homeless. Now there are 10,000.

Why is it that the more he spends, the worse things get?

[Housing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, we know that, after eight years, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled. Today, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a damning report that showed that after the Prime Minister promised he would eliminate chronic homelessness, it has actually gone up 38%. The number of people living in unsheltered locations is up 88%. This is after he spent half a billion dollars on homelessness programs.

If it costs half a billion dollars for him to drive up homelessness, how much would it cost to drive it down?

[Carbon Pricing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to be too clever for the Prime Minister, but he is the one who made the argument that high taxes would stop forest fires, and now he cannot tell us how high the tax would go to put all the fires out. He went on, now, to say that his tax is revenue neutral. One does not have to be too clever to read the government's own published documents, which show that he has collected $2 billion more in taxes than he has given back in rebates. That is why 100% of middle-class Canadians pay more than they get back.

Once again, will he tell those middle-class people how high the tax would have to go for the fires to stop?

[Carbon Pricing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister did not answer my question. Now he says that his taxes are going to make Canada a high-tech wonderland. Before his claim was that it was going to stop forest fires. It is he who made the link, not me. Obviously, I think the link between the two is absolutely ridiculous. His tax is not an environmental plan; it is a money-collecting plan. It is a plan of government greed.

I will ask the question again. The Prime Minister wants to hike the tax to 61¢ a litre. If it gets that high, and people are all starving in the streets, will that stop the forest fires?

[Carbon Pricing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's carbon tax applies on barns, on grain drying, on fertilizers and on off-farm vehicles. It costs literally tens of thousands of dollars for many individual farmers, all of which gets passed on.

However, the Prime Minister, instead of defending his taxes, resorted to a really wacko and unhinged claim that, if Canadians just paid more taxes, there would suddenly be fewer fires. I thought that water and not taxes put out fires.

Can the Prime Minister clarify how high his tax would have to go for forest fires to stop?

[Carbon Pricing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's wacko carbon tax obsession is not just costing Canadians at the pumps; it raises the cost of home heating and groceries, because, of course, if we tax the farmer who produces the food and the trucker who ships the food, we tax all who buy the food. It is a housing tax, because it raises the cost of building materials that go into homes.

With the report out today that 25% of young people had to go to a food bank in just three months, will the Prime Minister accept the common-sense Conservative bill to take the tax off the farmers who produce our food?

[Carbon Pricing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has concluded that 60% of Canadians pay more in carbon tax costs than they get back in the phony rebates. One hundred per cent of middle-class Canadians pay more than they get back in the phony rebates. Now the Prime Minister wants to quadruple the tax, all at a time when he is preparing to hand over power to carbon tax Carney.

Will the Prime Minister confirm if carbon tax Carney will follow through on his plan to hike the tax to 61¢ a litre?

[Innovation, Science and Industry, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, normally the NDP leader is well worth ignoring, but I just cannot help myself. He says that the Prime Minister acts like he has no power to stop all these greedy CEOs from ripping off consumers. Who else has the power? Well, it is the guy who joined the government two years ago. He has been in power during the worst food price inflation in over four decades.

Will the Prime Minister agree with me that his carbon tax coalition is nothing more than an anti-competitive price-fixing scheme that is costing Canadians at the grocery store?