Mr. Speaker, as always, I want to thank the constituents of my beautiful riding of Niagara West for the honour of choosing me to represent their voices in Parliament.
I would also like to recognize the parents, teachers and students from Heritage Christian School who are in Ottawa today.
I spoke with many of my constituents over the summer and the overwhelming message for the Liberal government was to call an election. Why? These are some of the issues they brought up. There are skyrocketing prices for basic items like food and other groceries. Folks mentioned the price of gas, which keeps going up and up. In my riding, a car is a necessity, not a luxury. They said that taxes were making it impossible to pay the bills. With respect to the carbon tax, everyone wanted the horrible tax scheme scrapped. People were worried about paying for housing, which has doubled over the last nine years. They mentioned the rising levels of crime, car thefts and drug addictions.
Canadians want an election where they can choose a strong, majority Conservative government that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.