Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's strategy is to hide and divide: to hide from debate and divide the population. That is how he thinks he will cling to power, but here is the problem: He can run away from debating me all he wants, but he cannot run away from his own party. His former environment minister Catherine McKenna said that he had broken her heart. A Liberal senator, Paula Simons, said that he betrayed her, because he had assured her that the carbon tax was going to make people better off but later admitted that people heating with oil were made far worse off by his carbon tax, thus needing a pause from that tax.
Liberal Senator Percy Downe wrote a spectacular piece just yesterday, in which he said:
The opportunity for [the Conservative leader to form] government was created by a lack of fiscal responsibility in the [Liberal] government, and the damage it caused our economy is now showing up in the opinion [polls]. Within the Liberal Party, many members who are in favour of fiscal responsibility...have given up on this current iteration of the Liberal Party.
He goes on:
Originally, these centralist liberals assumed that [the Prime Minister] and his crowd needed to be educated on the economic issues of the day.
That naiveté was replaced with the realization that they were not a serious government when it came to the economy, that they simply didn’t care and would throw money at anything that crossed their mind. The resulting interest rate hikes, increasing cost of living, and huge debt didn’t seem to concern them.
The Liberal senator goes on to say that the Prime Minister should be fired and replaced with a new Liberal leader. Meanwhile, the incoming Liberal leader, Mark Carney, is now firing shots at the Prime Minister, claiming that he would not have allowed two classes of Canadians on the carbon tax question.
This is carbon tax chaos. Canadians are paying the price, and all of it proves that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. He is not worth the cost of heat. He is not worth the cost of food. He is not worth the cost of housing. However, apparently, he is worth the cost to the NDP. The NDP was elected by good, solid, decent working-class folks in places like Vancouver Island, Skeena—Bulkley Valley and Timmins. I have met these these people, folks who pack their lunch, get out of bed every morning, work hard and build our country. However, they have been betrayed by the NDP, which now works for the Prime Minister and has sold out the working-class rural people of this country who were the foundation of that party.
It now has a decision to make. The NDP leader says that he disagrees with the dual-class citizenship approach of the Prime Minister on the carbon tax. I am giving him a chance to prove it. We have a motion before the House that simply says to give everyone the same tax-free heat this winter. The NDP leader has already stated that he agrees with that point of view, but he has to check with his boss, the leader of the Liberal Party, the Prime Minister of Canada. Everyday people in Timmins, in Kapuskasing, in Smithers, British Columbia, and in countless other NDP communities will be watching on Monday to find out whether the NDP leader votes for them or for the Prime Minister. If he does not vote for the people he represents, why should they vote for him in the next election?
The good news is that the Conservatives do not work for the Prime Minister. We work for the common people and for the common sense of the common people, united for our common home: your home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.