Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for New Brunswick Southwest.
Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on putting your name forward, going through the process and on your recent appointment. I also want to thank the voters of Battlefords—Lloydminster. They have given me a strong mandate. They sent me back to Ottawa to represent them to be their voice, the voice of rural communities, the voice of the taxpayers and families.
I know every single one of us in this place would not be here without our supporters, without our volunteers. I want to thank them because they are a very important part of helping us get here.
I am not too sure how many of my colleagues know, but over the summer, my husband and I welcomed a brand new baby girl. It is very important for me to express my thanks to my husband Adam and my children Annabelle and William on the birth of Victoria. Their love and their patience go a long way, especially in the middle of a campaign. We all know how sometimes we are not even home for dinner or sometimes to sleep, especially in a rural riding like mine. It is so big and I have to travel from community to community in order to reach constituents. I also want to honour my family members for their support in my desire and ability to serve in this place and be a voice in the nation. I am so appreciative of that.
On the note of door knocking, I spent a lot of time in the riding over the summer, sometimes with the baby in tow. Two weeks after I had her, I was out at events with baby in tow. The things that I heard at the door were sometimes quite sad. In conversations with people, I would ask how they were doing and they would say, “Well, I haven't been laid off yet. I still have a job. I was laid off six months ago and I found another job but I haven't been laid off from it yet.” That is the anxiety and anguish that is being felt in my riding in Saskatchewan. It is the same thing in Alberta. People genuinely are scared about whether they are going to wake up and go to work and still have a job.
I live in a very unique city. I have mentioned before in this place that my city actually borders Alberta and Saskatchewan. Half of the residents live in Saskatchewan and half of them live in Alberta. It makes it quite a mess because we are one municipality. It gets very difficult when we have different provincial regulations covering one place.
There is a company that employs hundreds if not thousands of people within my riding. The day after the election, October 22, the company laid off 60-some people in my community. That is not including the hundreds of layoffs that happened in Calgary with the same company.
I want to put that into perspective. I do not know if I fully understand going into work one day, thinking it is going to be a normal day and then being told to go home. What kind of conversation would I have with my husband? “Look honey, I was laid off today. I am not sure what we are going to do. I think Christmas is going to look different. I am not sure if we can afford to have the kids in hockey or in dance anymore. Things need to be different.” That is the reality where I live. People, with the struggles that they are dealing with day to day, feel ignored and just wonder if they are going to be able to get by.
The Prime Minister made a point of meeting with the premiers of the provinces. He also met with some of the mayors. The mayor of my community was very proactive. He reached out to my office and asked if we had a number for the Prime Minister because he wanted to talk to him. I found the number for the PMO, gave it to the mayor and he made a call. To his surprise, the Prime Minister called him back.
I am glad that the Prime Minister took the time to call him back. The mayor stressed that it is important for smaller cities to have a voice as well, not just big city mayors, and important that he hear what is impacting them, especially being in a western province like Saskatchewan. The mayor expressed to the Prime Minister the struggles of the people in my community and my region in not being able to get their agriculture products to market, for example, their canola, and not being able to get their energy products to market. The Prime Minister said that he understood.
What was troubling for me is, was that hope? Was it false hope? Was it a facade? Was it real? Was that conversation real and genuine? People today want authenticity. They want to be listened to. They want to be heard, actually heard.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that the government needs to listen harder and that it has been sent a message from Alberta and Saskatchewan that it needs to listen harder. I had a little bit of hope. I thought that this was great and wonderful, and that the government knows something is not right and is going to take the time to listen better and maybe turn some of that listening and consulting into action.
Then came the throne speech, and unless I missed it, I did not hear mention of the Trans Mountain pipeline. I know one thing that would definitely help the constituents in Battlefords—Lloydminster is being able to get gas to market. We heard a lot about the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, and also Bill C-48. Are those bills maybe some of the reasons some people are being laid off, because the atmosphere and environment for energy investment just are not there and it is too restrictive? I did not hear anything in the throne speech on how we are going to help get our oil to market, and maybe lessening the restrictions that have been created in the environment that we have.
Also, what is the government's goal right now to help farmers get their products to market? In my riding, there is a lot of farming, whether it is grain or cattle. Farming is one of those things that is year-round as there is always work to be done, but in the off-season, a lot of those farmers are hauling oil and water. They are trucking. They are doing things to pay the bills while they are not able to actively farm. It was really disappointing to hear that the government understood about not being able to get the beef and the canola to market and then hearing that the agriculture minister missed the deadline to file.
It saddens me because I thought the government was listening harder. I thought, in good faith, that because of those conversations and phone calls the Prime Minister was having with premiers and mayors across the country that something would come out of it. I am so sorry to say that my disappointment with this throne speech is just overwhelming in that real actions were not taken to help reduce and alleviate the western alienation that is happening.