Mr. Chair, it is an honour but sad to stand up to speak on behalf of Skeena—Bulkley Valley. My riding has been affected by mill closures for the last seven years at least, and when the Prime Minister talked about the last time he spoke to President Trump about a trade deal, his response was, “Who cares?” I would ask the Prime Minister to talk to all the workers who have lost their jobs, talk to all the families that need the support of these jobs, talk to municipalities and communities, and talk to society to see if they care, because I definitely care.
In fact, I had to dust off my old speaking points from the B.C. legislature from when I was arguing the same thing. We need to save jobs, not shut down the forestry mills in B.C. What happened with the mills shutting down B.C.? We exported more raw logs overseas. We should be doing more manufacturing, but anywhere from 15 to 30 mills have shut down in B.C. alone in the last seven years. That affects families.
The student who wants to graduate from where she went to school her whole life has to think about moving and leaving her friends. Corporations can get up and leave any time they want. In fact, a lot of them move to the United States for lower taxes and fewer regulations. People cannot do that. Corporations can, and the banker Prime Minister knows this. He is the elitist banker.
The Prime Minister says that it is not a “burning issue” to talk with the President of the United States regarding trade. That is being out of touch. That is not having any sympathy or any empathy for the Canadians who rely on jobs, whether they be in mining, forestry, LNG or pipelines. Brookfield has the luxury of hiding $6 billion in a tax haven in Bermuda. A lot of us do not have that luxury. A lot of the people in B.C., especially in Skeena—Bulkley Valley, are burning through their savings. This is not right, and it is not fair for the Prime Minister to say, “Who cares?” and that there is no “burning issue”.
Why did the slogan change? The Liberals went from “elbows up” to “Who cares?” which is so insensitive, especially in Canada when we are talking about two million people now going to food banks, 700,000 of them children. This should not be happening in a first world country like Canada. We are rich in resources, but we are poor in leadership. That is sad. That is a shame. We owe the next generation better than that, and I am not even talking about the generational debt the government has incurred.
The Liberals are talking about investments. That is not investment. They are introducing new money. It is not the same as printing money, but the concept is the same: When we bring in new money without addressing the GDP, inflation goes up. This is what we are taught in high school. I am surprised the banker does not know this, but what does the Prime Minister say? When the Liberals are talking about investing $500 million of Canadian taxpayer money in a space agency in Europe whose campus, just by coincidence, is owned by Brookfield, he turns around and tells Canadians they have to sacrifice, meaning they have to sacrifice their jobs as mill workers, auto workers and steelworkers.
Canadians have to sacrifice, and by the way, they have to pay more taxes. There is a hidden tax through the industrial carbon tax and another hidden tax with the International Maritime Organization, which the government intends to vote in favour of. It does not having the courage to tell Canadians face to face about this international tax. The taxes would not go to a Canadian organization.
Canadians need help. They need jobs. They do not want handouts. I come from the Indian Act. I worked for 20 years to get our band away from Indian Act funding. Its paternalistic nature actually makes people dependent.