Randy Hoback

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, we always have to review what works and what does not work. We should actually build on the mistakes and make things better. That is what a Conservative government would do. We learn from previous mistakes and build upon them.

That is one thing the Liberal government has not learned. It has made a pile of mistakes with the carbon tax. One would think it would back away from it and do something different, but it does not. The Liberals never learn from their mistakes.

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, one needs to look through the whole equation. Yes, they have had huge profits, but they are also paying out huge dividends that go to pension funds, and to communities in the surrounding areas and right across Canada. They pay for health care, roads and bridges. That revenue is coming into Canada and being distributed among Canadians, so that is good for Canada.

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, he is asking me to fix mistakes from the past. I cannot not spend the money the Liberals have already spent, but what I can do is do the right policy things that make our economy function in a fashion that will allow businesses to grow and prosper and families to be employed, and work its way out of the system and get back to a 2% or 3% point. If the Governor of the Bank of Canada was doing his job, it would not have become out of control as bad as it did, so let us call a spade a spade.

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see another member of the Liberal Party stand up to ask a question because this Parliament is broken, and only two members of the Liberal Party usually ask questions. The rest sit there. I give him credit for doing that, and I thank him for his comment on my marriage. It is very important to me.

The member talked about things that needed to be worked on in the Harper years, such as the environmental program. A good environmental program needs to balance the economy and the environment. We need to have results in both.

The government has maybe achieved a bit of results on the environment, but I would not even give it that, because if we look at its targets, it has not hit any of them. What has it done? It has doubled down on the carbon tax. What has the carbon tax done? It has actually pushed people out of the economy. It has made it unaffordable to heat their houses. It made it unaffordable to grow crops, and it has created a worse situation for people here in Canada.

That is the problem with the Liberal plan. It is a cult that the Liberals have. They have not looked at the big picture. They just looked at the little picture, and that is all they tried to solve, but they could not even get that right.

[Business of Supply, February 14th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see you acknowledge the member for Prince Albert to get up to speak in front of members today about the state of the Canadian economy and just how broken things are here in Canada.

Before I get started, I have to do one special thing. It is my anniversary today. My wife and I have been married for 36 years. I would not be here without her. I would not be here fighting for the constituents of Prince Albert without her sacrifices. She is making a sacrifice today by letting me be here to talk about something that is very important to the constituents in my riding, and I thank her dearly for that, as I am sure the people of Canada do.

In 2015, the government inherited an amazing situation for Canada. If we think back to what it looked like in 2015, it was the good old days. People could buy a house and afford it. They could get a mortgage and actually pay it off. People could go to a restaurant and buy a meal. They could go to the grocery store and fill their shopping cart. They could do a variety of things with their family, because their family was a strong mechanism. People could go on holidays. Both parents had a job. Let us look at what we have today and what we had back then.

We had a balanced budget. We went through a global recession in 2008 to 2011. We spent money on infrastructure. We took on deficits, but we paid them back. We got to a balanced budget in 2015, so we have proven that we can go through all sorts of different crises, global crises, like the ones the Conservatives faced, and actually pay it back and progress.

We had a united country from coast to coast. East and west were celebrating each other's victories. I used to take pride, and I still take pride, in a vehicle that is made in Ontario being sold in Saskatchewan, or somebody in Newfoundland buying bread made from wheat out of Saskatchewan. We worked together as a country. We functioned together. We were not divided. There was no city-rural division like the one we see today. Canadians were united.

Back in 2015, Canadians did not look at the government and worry about how the coming budget was going to impact them, as they do with this budget that is coming forward, because they know that the Liberal budget is going to impact them one way or another. That means the government has become too involved in the day-to-day activities of the Canadian lifestyle.

We had infrastructure being built. The port of Vancouver was functioning. It was one of the higher-ranked ports in the world, which it is not today. We had a health care system that was being rebuilt from years of cutting by the federal Liberals previous to the Harper Conservative government. We had a prime minister who had global respect. When he went around the globe, people respected him. They respected the country of Canada. We punched above our weight. We were principled in how we conducted ourselves with the global countries, in the global environment and on the global stage.

What do we have today? We cannot help but say that it is broken.

In 2015, if people wanted to get a passport and needed it today, they could pay an extra fee and actually get their passport today. What do we have today? If people want a passport and they are not travelling within six weeks, they are not even going to get looked at. If they need a fast passport, they can forget about that. Getting a passport is broken. People cannot get a passport.

If they have a problem with the CRA and want to talk about an issue because they want to make sure they are doing things right, they call in and sit on hold for three hours. They take a number, relay their question and are told that someone will get back to them in three weeks. That is customer service brought to us by the current Liberal government.

When we look at the things the government used to provide on an ordinary basis, it is now extraordinary. It is so disgusting and sad to see, because we know that in 2015, when these civil servants were working under a Harper government, they did their job. They knew what they were doing. They were happy in their job and functioned very well. They were not covering up expenses on hotel bills or spending time trying to hide ministers' expenses.

We had a government of honour. We had a minister resign because of a $16 orange juice. We had another minister who resigned because of an ethics breach and who came back into cabinet. They knew what the right thing to do at the time was and they did the right thing. The biggest scandal we had in the Harper government was the chief of staff paying back taxpayers for another member's unwillingness to pay. That was the biggest scandal.

When we look at the government today, what do we see? Things are broken, broken, broken. I was sitting in a board meeting with my constituents about three months ago and that is how one person put it to me, that things are broken. It does not matter what department one deals with, it is broken.

If we talk to Health Canada, it is broken. If we talk to passports, it is broken. If we talk to CRA, it is broken. If we look at our military and defence, it is broken.

If we look at our transportation system and airports, they are broken. The Port of Vancouver is now ranked second-last in the world for ports. It is broken. This is eight years of the Liberals' accomplishments, and they are broken.

Can one afford a house now? One sure needs to have the income to do it. We heard our Bloc friends talk about the shortage of houses. Well, in eight years, why is there, all of a sudden, a shortage of houses? What has been in the Liberal policy book to encourage housing to be built or continue to be built? It, in fact, did the opposite. It encouraged people not to build houses.

We can look at our business sector and competitiveness. We hear Canadian manufacturers and exporters talk over and over again about how we are losing businesses to the States and other jurisdictions because we are not competitive.

What is the reason for that? It is bad Liberal policy.

When we look at the policies under the Liberal government, they just have been added on, and they are the thousand cuts that have impacted our economy and our businesses.

What does that mean? When we do not have a strong business sector, like we had in 2015, what happens? The Liberal solution is to spend more. The government will fill the void. Instead of an employer in the private sector, or a small and medium enterprise growing its enterprise, what happens? They get choked and smothered out by taxes, regulations and overburdening federal government policies. They go out of business. They cannot get employees.

What do the Liberals do? They shrug and say, “Well, we can just write another cheque. We will just borrow some more money.”

We have seen that. We have got $15 billion in extra payments that went out that CRA says is not worth collecting. It is not worth collecting $15 billion. How can that be? How can it be that broken that it does not know where that money went, who it belongs to, who should have had it and who should not have gotten it?

How can it not go back and say, sorry, someone did not deserve this payment, so they need to pay it back or we are going to claw it back? How can they say that it is not worth it? That is a political answer. That is not an answer that has the value of Canadian taxpayers in mind.

We look at this federal government and how it goes about conducting businesses and the military. For example, the F-35s should have been bought in 2015-16. They probably should have been bought before that. I will admit that. As a member of the Conservatives, I thought we should have bought them sooner.

What did the government do? It bought some used piece of junk out of Australia to fill the gap, a gap that is now a serious concern because of what is happening in the globe.

Has it prepared this country for the future? Let us think about that. Have we hit any of our environmental targets? No. Are we prepared to have an efficient, functioning manufacturing base? No. Have we encouraged our SMEs to take on the free trade agreements that Conservative governments, and some Liberal governments, put in place? No.

We are seeing no activity in this economy that will grow. All we see is increasing government spending, deficit after deficit and out-of-control inflation.

Let us go back to the grocery store. When we go to the grocery store and look at people's carts, are they full? No. They are half empty. Why is that? It is because of inflation, which was created by this government.

When we go to go buy a house or take out a mortgage, can we afford it? That is the question that my daughter is facing right now. Kids in their 30s are looking at this and asking if they will ever be able to afford a house now. Well, what has happened in this government?

Houses have gone out of control because of the inflation it created, and they cannot say that it is a global thing when houses go up in price. House are made in Canada and sold in Canada. It is not a global recession item. When people cannot afford a house in Canada, it is because it has spent too much money, or printed too much money, and created inflation.

Also, the interest rates have gone up and, all of a sudden, their take-home pay is less, as they are paying higher mortgages. I should not say take-home pay, but their mortgage is consuming more and more of their actual income.

What have we got? We have a government that is tired and broken. When we ask it about the future, it is a continuation of being tired and broken. There is no imagination.

There is a better way. There is a way, and we proved it in 2015, where we had a strong economy, a balanced budget, and we could deal with climate change. They can deal with it and do it all at once. If they cannot do it all at once, then I would encourage the Liberal government to get out of the way, and we will do it for them.

[Income Tax Act, February 13th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I think this is such a great motion. There are so many times when we come to the House of Commons and listen to a lot of speeches that have zero impact for the people on the ground back in the riding. This is one example where it actually does have an impact back in the riding.

Can the member tell me how tradespeople in Saskatchewan will benefit from this type of legislation?

[Carbon Tax, February 9th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's carbon tax has had a devastating effect in my province of Saskatchewan.

On April 1, the carbon tax will increase the cost of fuel an additional 14¢ a litre. My constituents tell me their heat and hydro costs are already unaffordable.

A typical Canadian farmer will now face $150,000 in carbon tax alone, something their competitors will not have to pay. Our farmers are the most efficient in the world. As the world needs more Canadian food exports, the Prime Minister is making it impossible for our farmers to survive. He needs to stop punishing their ability to feed the world.

As carbon emissions continue to grow, money continues to flow from families, businesses and farmers. If our goal is to fight climate change by reducing emissions, it is obvious that the carbon tax is not the answer.

The Conservatives have a better way. A Conservative government will get rid of the carbon tax.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, October 7th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the new Conservative leader will put the people first: their savings, their paycheques, their homes and their country. After years of government mismanagement and the Liberal-made backlogs, it is time to get the gatekeepers out of our immigration system. Rural Canada, like the riding of Prince Albert, is in desperate need of doctors, nurses and other professionals who provide essential services to our communities.

As Canada faces a labour shortage crisis, we need new ideas to empower workers to fill our workforce gaps. Red tape and bureaucracy should not stand in the way of achieving one's career goals.

Conservatives are bringing hope to doctors, nurses and newcomers who are dreaming of coming to this country, with a system that guarantees that, within 60 days, an immigrant applying for work in their profession will get answers based on their skill sets, not based on where they come from.

There has been enough talking, enough rhetoric and enough broken promises. It is time to remove the gatekeepers, to get more doctors, more nurses, more skilled workers and more inflation-proof paycheques for our hard-working skilled immigrants.

[Business of Supply, October 6th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, again, it shows why there are no Green members elected in Saskatchewan, because they are not in touch with the agriculture community in Saskatchewan.

If the member is concerned about what is going on in the Port of Vancouver, I am too. When they are ranked second last out of 400 as a port for Canada, that tells us they have had bad policies and are not putting the infrastructure in place that is required for Canadian shippers, and the member is paying for it in her riding. There is no question about it.

If the government had actually put in the processes, had actually modernized the ports and spent the money in an appropriate manner, made it capable of taking on the next generation of ships that might be hydrogen-based, if it would do things like that, then we would actually see some results, but it has done nothing and the—

[Business of Supply, October 6th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, there are quite a few. Quebec has a strong agricultural base. It has some strong marketing boards. It has some great farmers and agricultural operations. Using more local food is definitely one of the options, when we can provide it from the farmyard to the grocery stores. That means making sure that there is shelf space for that locally grown food, and having the resources to see the manufacturing of our food products here in Canada or in Quebec instead of chasing them out of Canada because we have made it too expensive to do that production here.

What are we going to do? We are going to export the grain and all the resources to make the product and then we are going to import it back into Canada and buy it at retail. Does that make sense? That is the policy we are facing right now with the current Liberal government.