Madam Speaker, what we witnessed last night was the Conservative Party voting against giving Canadians, during the holiday season, a tax break on the GST, even though Conservatives campaigned in favour of it. Their very own shiny leader also retweeted the idea of having a holiday tax break on the GST during the holiday season.
The only difference was that that theirs was four weeks. Our is for eight weeks. There is no hypocrisy there, right? They are going to say, “Yes, we are against that, but we are in favour of axing the tax.” What do they mean by “axing the tax”? They are going to be getting rid of the carbon rebate.
They do not care about the environment but they are going to get rid of the carbon rebate. A vast majority of Canadians get a net benefit with the carbon rebate. Not only are Conservatives going to take away a tax holiday, but they are also going to be axing the carbon rebate. Then they spread all sorts of misinformation on both of those issues. That is why I say they know no shame. They do not have a problem saying that.
Fast-forward to where we are today. Why is the Parliament as dysfunctional as it is? It is not because of the NDP, the Liberals, the Greens and, to a certain degree, the Bloc. It is because of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Here is the truth of the matter. Six or seven months ago, there was an order in which, yes, a majority of MPs voted that unredacted documents would be sent directly from the House to the RCMP. The government opposed that. We only have a minority of MPs. We opposed it. Yes, we did, and it is because we did not think it was appropriate to give unredacted documents to the RCMP. The RCMP commissioner has said he does not want those documents. The Auditor General of Canada has said she does not support the documents being given to the RCMP. Other legal experts have said likewise.
What happened? The Speaker ruled that the matter should go over to the procedure and House affairs committee. What does the Conservative Party do? Conservatives move a motion that says we are going to have this issue go to the procedure and House affairs committee. It is a Conservative motion.
We have now had over 200 speeches from the Conservative Party of Canada on its own motion because Conservatives refuse to allow it to come to a vote. As a direct result of that, which I would suggest is borderline contempt of the House, the Parliament has not been able to do the things it needs to do to support Canadians, to pass substantial legislation, legislation in part that they support. I could focus on the word “hypocrisy” but I will refrain from that because of the limitations on my time.
We have a Conservative Party, through its leadership, that is more interested in its self-interest than it is in Canadians. Canadians are paying the price. We have anti-harm legislation to protect children from predators on the Internet, and the Conservatives do not want to debate it. We have legislation converting sexual allegations and charges from military courts to civilian courts. Everyone supports it. Even the Conservative Party supports that one. Conservatives do not want anything to do with it because they want to continue their filibuster.
Yesterday we had to get the support of the New Democrats to be able to have a debate on giving tax relief to Canadians. The Conservatives forced us to bring in closure and then they criticized us yesterday for bringing in closure. How silly is that? Should we be surprised?
The leader of the Conservative Party today was the parliamentary secretary to Stephen Harper, the only prime minister who has ever been held in contempt of Parliament. His point man was the leader of the Conservative Party today. Does anyone wonder why the leader of the Conservative Party has no problem at all being in borderline contempt on issues that are having such a negative impact on Canadians? The Conservatives should be ashamed of themselves.
This made headline news last week, about the Conservative caucus. The leader preaches to Canadians that we are going to have freedom. In fact, I actually brought a copy. I would like to quote what Conservative MPs are saying about the leader of the Conservative Party. They did not want to release their names, but a lot of Conservatives have gone to the media to express their concerns.
The headline is, “[The leader of the Conservative Party]'s office maintains tight control over what Conservative MPs say and do.” Here is the first paragraph: “After two years of [the leader of the Conservative Party] as their leader, many Conservative MPs say they are much less free now than they were before his arrival.” This coming from “the man who promised during his leadership run to make Canada 'the freest country in the world' maintains tight control over the actions of his caucus members.”
The article continues:
Conservative MPs' words and actions are closely scrutinized by the leader's office. Partisanship is encouraged. Fraternizing with elected officials from other parties is a no-no.
Those who follow these rules are rewarded. Those who don't often have to suffer consequences.
Do people want to know the consequence? They can check with the member for Abbotsford. The article continues with, “Some elected officials feel they come to caucus 'to be told what to do and what to think'”. It also states, “If the leader invents a new slogan, 'we know we'll have to use it'”. The Conservative source said, “If you repeat the slogans, you get rewarded,” and, “You are celebrated in front of the entire caucus for being a good cheerleader.”
Does anyone wonder why we get Conservative member after member standing up, repeating the slogans and the bumper stickers of the leader of the Conservative Party? They get a gold star for doing so. They think Canadians are stupid. They are a bit thick on substance, but they are a mile long when it comes to slogans. If we want a good sense of that, we can look at the propaganda and the garbage being sent from social feeds, which are consistently misleading.
That is the far-right Conservative Party today that is being conducted by the leader's office. Members opposite know this. If a member comes to talk to me on the side, or to other Liberal caucus members, they are being watched. They are not supposed to be talking to us. If they say something that goes against what the party might be thinking and they have achieved gold stars, those gold stars are going to disappear. They need to stick to the script.
During the last political panels I was on, both CTV and CBC, there was no Conservative. Why? They do not support mainstream media, because the mainstream media wants to hold them to account for a lot of the silly things that they are saying. It is much like the general attitude of the leader of the Conservative Party. The leader of the Conservative Party believes he is not required to get a secure clearance. We have the leader of the Bloc, the leader of the Greens and the leader of New Democrats all saying foreign interference is a very serious issue in Canada. Individuals have been murdered. There has been extortion. There has been political interference. In fact, there has been political foreign interference in the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, which ultimately saw him elected as the leader.
Every other leader in the House has recognized the value of getting a security clearance, but not the leader of the Conservative Party. If one wants to be an intern for the Conservative Party, they are required to get a security clearance, but if one is the leader, forget that. The bogus excuses the Conservatives give as to why he is not getting the security clearance are a bunch of garbage. It begs the question why the leader of the Conservative Party will not get his security clearance. I will tell members why. It is because there is something in his past that he is hiding and does not want Canadians to know about. Canadians have a right to know.
What is interesting about foreign interference is this. Do members remember last year at this time? If we think about what the Conservatives were yipping about 12 months ago, they were standing up and talking about foreign interference. However, they piped down awfully quick when they found out that there were Conservatives involved who are directly connected to the leader's office. Let us stop here on that issue. We have to change the channel awfully quickly.
Instead of dealing with issues of consequence to Canadians, whether it is the economy or good, substantial policy, the Conservatives continuously vote against them. They try to tell Canadians they care. Here are just some of the things that we have done. We brought in the disability program, the pharmacare program, the child care program, the dental care program and the national school food program. We can talk about the cuts to Canada's middle-class tax brackets. We can talk about the substantial increases to the GIS. We can talk about the 10% increase to those age 75-plus. There has been a litany of things, including the infrastructure dollars we are spending. This is a government that understands that a healthy economy is good for all Canadians. It builds our middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it. Consistently, the Conservatives are voting against it.
In 2023, Canada had more direct foreign investment per capita than any other G7 country. In fact, if we compared Canada to the rest of the world, we were number three. People outside of Canada recognize how wonderful Canada is, whether with respect to going through the pandemic or the worldwide recession. They recognize that our interest rates are going down and that the inflation rate is under control, and are better than the United States. However, we would never know it listening to the Conservatives. Instead, they want to proclaim to the world that Canada is broken. In fact, the biggest cheerleader for the United States supporting its efforts on a trade agreement is the leader of the Conservative Party.
Before I move on to that trade agreement, members will remember that the last trade agreement we had was with Ukraine. The Conservative Party is the only political party that voted against that trade agreement with Ukraine. By the way, Russia is one of the foreign influencers that is spending millions to prop up the Conservative Party of Canada, if not directly, indirectly. Is it any wonder that the Conservatives voted against the Canada-Ukraine trade deal? Was it for suspicious reasons, and I am trying to be nice, or was it a red herring? Do we think the Conservative Party is in a good position to negotiate with Donald Trump? Forget that. We have a great team. We have done it before. We have the expertise.
The last time around, what did the Conservatives say? They capitulated. They said, “It does not matter what we have to cave on; cave and just sign an agreement.” That is all the Conservatives wanted. We held back and we got a good agreement, and that is one of the reasons that Donald Trump wants to renegotiate. We will go to the table, but we are going to put Canadians first and foremost as we have done for the last nine years. Consistently, what we have witnessed from the opposition is no, no, no.