Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on behalf of the good people of Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford.
I had some remarks prepared, but I have to respond to the previous member, who talked about diversification, pivoting and innovating. Many of these terms are referenced in the briefing members of Parliament received from Pacific Economic Development Canada last month. It talked about the regional tariff response initiative, the strategic response fund and the need for Canadian businesses, with support from the government, to diversify, pivot and innovate. We are not seeing that action, though.
Let me give members an example. Just a week or two ago, the Prime Minister went to British Columbia and talked about expanding the LNG terminal in northern B.C. It is a major investment. We learned that the Liberals will be using Chinese steel to build it. The Government of Canada said this is a major investment for our country and it is going to help us be better and more economically competitive. In response to the U.S. tariffs, the government set up all of these new funds I just mentioned, the regional tariff response initiative, the strategic response fund and the Canada diversification fund, and it was all to help Canadian businesses buy Canadian. There are specific funds for steel and aluminum to help them innovate, pivot to new businesses and do business in Canada, yet on the biggest announcement the government has made since the last election 18 months ago, the government is buying China.
This is the same government that is in cahoots with socialist extremist Premier David Eby and thought it was in the interests of British Columbia and Canada to build our ferries in China. BC Ferries is a cornerstone of our national transportation infrastructure network, and the ferries will be built in China. We have shipyards in Canada. I would much rather have them built in north Vancouver or at the Davie shipyard in Quebec, but no. The government chose China.
On the one hand, the Government of Canada is spending billions of dollars to supposedly support the forestry sector and the steel and aluminum sectors, but when it has a big, beautiful, massive project right in front of it, it goes to China. I believe that if the government wanted to help steel and aluminum companies pivot, like it said it did in the information members of Parliament received, and it wanted to help them innovate, it should have said it knows it does not have the capacity right now, but in the strategic interests of Canada, it will help those companies innovate and meet the demands of Canada's energy infrastructure. It had that opportunity, but it did not pivot. It cowered in the face of adversity at the expense of Canadian workers.
I want Canadian workers building LNG to the fullest possible capacity, but the Liberals decided to stick with their old processes, which do not uplift Canadian workers and do not stand up for Canada.
I said in this House earlier this week that the government needs to work with the Conservatives to stand up for Canada and bring in the structural reforms to our economy that will make us stronger in the long term. In fact, the government's tariff response initiative talks about that very point. We need to stand up for Canada and we need to help Canadian businesses do more work here, yet the government is not willing to do that.
Earlier today, I met with members of the community of Kingston who talked about capital gains rollovers on major investments in Canada. There is another major policy change that the government could be making in our taxation system to help Canadian businesses invest right here in Canada. Again, I encourage the member of Parliament for Kingston to hear the pleas of businesses in his own riding that are saying we need to bring in a structural taxation reform to do things better.
Now, let us go back to the steel and aluminum tariff program. Make no mistake, Canadian businesses are suffering. I met with probably over 100 businesses over the last four months when Parliament was not sitting, and they are scared. I am not saying everything the Government of Canada is doing is not working, but what was most alarming is that Naina Sloan, President of PacifiCan, acknowledged to members of Parliament that the government is not meeting its own timelines. There were announcements made in August on the tariff response initiative, many of those applications were made nine months earlier and the government has been slow in its response.
We want Canada to be more affordable, and the government and the ministers responsible need to work with Canadians to stand up for Canada, give us better responses, and demand better operational processes to ensure that programs are working effectively, because right now they are not.
My encouragement to the Minister responsible for Pacific Economic Development Canada, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Industry is to come forward and give this House an update, today, on how the tariff response initiative is going. The president of PacifiCan said that they are not meeting their own standards. It takes a lot of courage for a senior public servant to admit that, but she made those remarks because she is a true leader. She knows that we need to stand by our businesses right now. However, she is not getting that oversight from the minister responsible, and that is not okay.
I am aware of companies in the Fraser Valley that, because the government has not reached a deal with the United States, are still looking at moving their operations because they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. These are long-standing employers in aerospace and advanced manufacturing that are hit on both sides, by the American tariffs, the unjustified American tax increases through those tariffs and Canada's tariff responses. Some of these companies, although they have major global impact, are not very large. They kind of fall in the middle. They do not feel the government has been quick enough to help them and to work alongside them. Again, I would encourage the Government of Canada to work with those medium-sized enterprises that make up such an important part of our economy and to hear from them about how those tariffs are impacting them.
In conclusion, affordability is getting much worse. It is getting really bad, and no other statistic outlines that better than our birthrate stats. In 2015, Canada's fertility rate dropped from 1.6 to 1.26. In B.C., it has dropped to 1.04. People are not having kids in Canada anymore because it is too expensive. So many young families come to me to relay the lack of child care, the broken promises of the government and the cost of housing in British Columbia, and they say it just does not work. Kids costs a lot of money. People want to have more children, but our economy is not set up in a way that allows for that.
Just before I finish up, I will be splitting my time with a member from Oshawa.
My encouragement to the government today is to come clean about the tariff response initiative, to come clean about the true cost of living crisis that we are facing, to come clean about the deals it is doing with China at the expense of Canadian workers and businesses, and to pivot, just like the government documents say, to provide resiliency for Canadian companies and to provide new opportunities for steel and aluminum manufacturers to build LNG Canada phase two. We can do it. I believe in our economy. I believe that the government wants to do the right thing, but it needs to step up, grow up and do what is required to use Canadian steel on a Canadian project.