Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to congratulate you on your reappointment as Deputy Speaker. I know in the last Parliament there was a great deal of respect on both sides of the House for the work that you did in the chair. Thank you so much.
Since this is my first time speaking in this Parliament, I would like to thank the people of St. Catharines who put their trust in me. It is an incredible honour to represent such an amazing city in this place. Going door to door and hearing from the residents, it was a much different feeling this time around than the last, when we were running on adrenalin in 2015. However, hearing the concerns, addressing what we have done as a government, going to the polls and coming back with an increased margin really speaks to a lot of what our government has done. As the Prime Minister says, for all 338 of us, our time in this place is temporary. I want to thank the people of St. Catharines for the opportunity to represent them here again.
I also want to thank my wife, Charlene, and my children, Ethan and Hanna. This is not the most family-friendly job and it is difficult on all of our loved ones, on our friends and family. My three-year-old son is old enough now to tell me that he does not like his dad going to work. It is difficult to walk out the door for a week, but it is oftentimes the families that make the greatest sacrifice as we are doing what we love in this place.
I would also like to thank my team, Cass, Zach, Sam and Kelly, and all of my supporters and volunteers. We all know it is not a team of one that gets people elected. Members of Parliament are not always the easiest people to work with. To have members of a team behind us who have our back is an incredible honour. They do outstanding work for the people of St. Catharines. All across this country the people behind the scenes are the unsung heroes of what is going on.
Four years ago, I ran because I saw a great deal of poverty in my riding. I saw a great deal of concern. I did not like what I was seeing, and that is why I put my name on the ballot. Too many politicians in Niagara were saying that everything was all right, and I did not see it that way. We knocked on a lot of doors. We were elected, and the first thing we did was a middle-class tax cut, lowering taxes on the middle class and raising them on the wealthiest 1%. That had an impact on people's lives. We coupled that with the Canada child benefit, increases to the guaranteed income supplement for those who need it most and, as my hon. colleague mentioned, lowering the age of eligibility to receive old age security and the guaranteed income supplement back to age 65 after the increase by the previous government. Those policies prevented hundreds of thousands of people from falling into poverty. It had an impact.
I was happy to see announced today action on increasing the basic personal amount. It is something that we promised in the campaign to bring in as our first act in this Parliament. It will remove 700,000 people from the tax roll. It will help 20 million people save money. It will reduce poverty for tens of thousands of people and could save families $600 a year. We will make sure that it does not go to the highest income earners in this country. This is real action. This is continued action on poverty to help those who need it the most.
Too often we hear politicians say we need to give tax breaks to the wealthiest and the wealthiest corporations and eventually that will trickle down to the rest of us, to those who need it the most, but we have never seen that. What we have seen over the past four years is that giving money to those who need it most, either through tax breaks or the Canada child benefit, allows those people to spend the money in our economy. Those are people who are going to invest in Canada.
They are going to spend it right back, as opposed to saving it for perhaps a vacation or a rainy day. They are going to help stimulate the economy. This is an opportunity to do that again. I am happy to see the finance minister moving forward on that step. I am sure there will be support across the House for this.
Some members have indicated that there was no mention of seniors in the throne speech or no mention of action on seniors. This is going to have a direct benefit on those seniors who are making less than the 1%. For those seniors who do need assistance, it will be money right in their pockets, coupled with pharmacare, which my friend talked about as well. I am sure hon. members of the Conservative Party will take immediate action.
What I heard on the streets and at the doors of St. Catharines was that seniors are worried about pharmaceutical prices. They are worried about paying the rent or paying for pharmaceutical drugs. Action on pharmacare is a must. It will have a disproportionate impact on seniors, alleviating many of the costs that they face and many of the costs that they are concerned about.
I did mention my kids. What I would like to talk about in terms of the focus of my speech is climate change. It was just my wife and me in 2015, but climate change was always an important issue to me. Looking ahead and after the birth of my son and daughter, I look at this issue through their eyes. Everyone in the House will probably be fine, will probably be okay, but what are we going to give to the next generation? What are we going to give to the generation after that? I talked to a lot of seniors in my riding who agreed with that sentiment. Their time may not be long, but they wanted to know what I was going to do for their grandkids. How are we going to make this a better planet?
I challenged my opponents during the election to name a government that has done more in four years on the environment than our government. No one could provide me with an answer. I will challenge my colleagues on the other side as well.
We are moving forward on an ambitious plan. Does it mean our plan is perfect? Absolutely not. Does it mean there is more to be done? Absolutely. We are committed to doing that.
The residents of St. Catharines do not have to look far to see the impacts of climate change. In the last three years, we have seen two years of floods and one year of drought. We used to refer to 50-year storms, 100-year storms, but they are happening annually. We need to take action. It worries me.
I hear some of the language from members on the other side who believe climate change is man-made, but then they will use the language of denial. I just heard a member say CO2 has no borders. Does that not mean we need to take action right away? This is the type of language that stalls progress. This is the type of language that hurts our kids and our grandkids. This is the greatest crisis facing Canada. People may throw up their hands and say that is just a bunch of Liberal nonsense. When the chief of the defence staff was asked what the greatest security threat facing Canada was, he answered that it was extreme weather.
Small business organizations and the insurance industry all say we need to take action. Bond and rating agencies are reducing the credit ratings of governments that refuse to take action on climate change. The time is now. I saw in St. Catharines that this was the first election on climate change and the residents of St. Catharines spoke loudly that they want to see action, and we are here to deliver. I hope we are able to work across the aisle to deliver on progress that Canadians demand and deserve and that our children and grandchildren deserve.