Mr. Speaker, who are we? Are we a nation that is defined by a collection of grievances? Are we a nation where one set of rules applies to one citizen and another to someone undermining that very sense of citizenship?
Nations are defined and defended by knowing who they are, their history, their traditions and the laws that shape their societies and their culture. When a government undertakes a political project to revise a national history and its identity with Marxist philosophies, grievance culture and borders open to those who are here to actively undermine the people through extortion or through terrorism, that is a state-sponsored attack on the very concept of Canada itself.
In this speech, I want to lay out three main points: first, fairness in health care; second, equality before the law; and third, the defence of our national identity and sovereignty.
Let us start with a system that is already at its breaking point: health care. Six million Canadians cannot find a family doctor. That is not a number on a page. That is a senior down the street. It is a single mom waiting for hours in an overcrowded emergency department. They are our family members, our friends and our neighbours. Thirty weeks is how long the average Canadian must wait to see a specialist. That is seven months of waiting, seven months of pain and seven months where life hangs in the balance, yet the Liberal government chooses to prioritize people who do not even belong here. Rejected asylum claimants are getting health care benefits that Canadians themselves cannot even access, deluxe benefits like vision care, physiotherapy and supplementary services, and that is where the real outrage begins.
The Liberals opened the border, and then they abandoned screening, rubber-stamped soaring asylum claims and let the backlog spiral completely out of control. Now Canada's health care, housing and job markets are at their breaking points. Their backlog of asylum claims has exploded by over 2,900% since they took office in 2015. The Liberal interim federal health program cost $211 million four years ago. Today, it costs $896 million. By 2030, it is projected to cost $1.5 billion annually for people who have already been rejected as asylum claimants, people who have never paid taxes and people who have no legal right to be here.
At the health committee, Conservatives discovered that providers are charging up to five times the provincial rate for services for these individuals. Meanwhile, our own people wait months for a specialist. Seniors wait for procedures that could literally change their lives. Families wait in emergency rooms because they cannot find a primary care physician who could keep them out of those emergency rooms, which would be a great relief to our health system and our hospitals. What do the Liberals do? They write blank checks for people who are not even contributing members of our society. Generosity without fairness is not generosity; it is betrayal.
Before the new year, I had a neighbour write to me deeply concerned about the federal budget and public health care. She told me she was worried that the federal government had said very little about improving our health care system. She asked me, in no uncertain terms, how we would help to ensure that Canadians got the care they needed. Her concerns are not unique. Her story is one of millions. That is why we are presenting a motion that would restore fairness. Rejected asylum claimants would receive emergency life-saving care only. Canadians come first, full stop.
The soaring costs and abuse of the Liberal IFH program are no accident. They are the predictable result of a Liberal government that has broken our immigration system. Hospitals are full. Emergency rooms are overflowing. However, the Liberals do not raise alarm bells. They open the floodgates to more people, more arrivals, more strain and more chaos.
Tax season is coming, and this is a fair question for anyone who is working their butt off and cannot get ahead: Where is all this money going? They cannot buy a home. They cannot get health care in a reasonable time. They can hardly afford to put food on the table, and Liberals keep telling them everything is fine. No, it is not.
A government's job is not to micromanage our lives or pick our pockets to fund its failed experiments. A government's job is not to put foreign nationals, criminals and terrorists ahead of its own people. It is to put Canadians and Canada first. Conservatives will ensure health care is available to Canadians first. We will review federal benefits provided to asylum claimants to identify savings for taxpayers. We will stop overwhelming our communities with numbers the system simply cannot handle.
We are a generous nation and Calgary is a generous city, but generosity requires discipline. Compassion requires fairness. If we cannot care for our own people first, we are not governing. We are failing our citizens.
Then there is the law. Under the Liberal government, foreign nationals here on asylum can commit crimes and, in some cases, avoid meaningful consequences because the system prioritizes process over justice. If we have two people charged with the same crime, one is a Canadian and the other one is not, and the consequences are not equal, that is unacceptable.
Let us be clear about how this problem manifests in real life. When someone files an asylum application, it can trigger automatic stays of removal, meaning they get to stay here until their case is reviewed. Across Canada, there are reported cases of individuals charged with violent offences, trafficking and gang-related crimes who, by filing asylum or refugee claims, remain in the country longer, sometimes for months or even years.
In British Columbia, law enforcement uncovered organized extortion rings where multiple suspects used refugee claim filings to halt their removal. They tied up enforcement resources and frustrated victims for months. Their legal status keeps shifting and enforcement is stalled. When it comes to assault, theft, fraud and extortion, Canadians face immediate consequences, while foreign nationals can delay, postpone or even avoid sentencing for years using asylum claims.
This is a loophole that rewards lawbreakers and punishes Canadians. When someone is charged with a crime, they should face the full weight of the justice system with no loopholes and no preferential treatment because of where they filed paperwork. Our motion calls on the government to immediately expel foreign nationals who commit serious crimes, with no soft landings, no loopholes and no special carve-outs.
We are calling for stronger enforcement. When violent offenders, gang members or organized crime suspects are caught, they must be removed. Communities cannot flourish when criminals exploit loopholes in the law. Families cannot feel secure when the system is rigged against them. Canadians deserve a justice system that works for them first. If someone break the law in Canada, whether they are a Canadian or a foreign national, they should face the consequences. That is equality before the law. Our people expect nothing less.
Let us look at the numbers and the costs. We are spending $896 million in health benefits today and $1.5 billion by 2030 for people who are not taxpayers and have no legal standing to be here. Where is it going? The Liberals have failed to answer. The Conservatives will demand every dollar tracked, every service justified and no more blank cheques. Every taxpayer dollar spent must go to service Canadians first.
We are not talking ideology here. We are talking about the Canadian promise: an affordable home, an affordable life, health care when someone needs it and safe streets. We are moving this motion to restore fairness, restore order and restore trust. Rejected asylum claimants get emergency care only. Foreign criminals face full consequences. Fairness is not sacrificing our neighbours so that someone from outside the country can get better care than them.
What do the Liberals want me to do? Should I go back to my riding and tell a grandmother that she has to wait seven months for care while someone who is not even from here, who could be illegal, a criminal or a terrorist, gets better care before her? What am I supposed to tell an immigrant who comes to this country to build something new, who through the sweat on their brow and the pain in their back has contributed to building up this country? What am I supposed to tell that immigrant when those who follow are exploiting the broken Liberal system? Am I supposed to tell them that playing by the rules did not matter?
Let me conclude with this: Who are we? The danger of creating one set of rules for one and another set of rules for the next is that it attacks the very idea of our national sovereignty, the very idea of our national identity and the very idea of the nation we seek to build together.
If I could carve something onto the desk of every border official, every bureaucrat, every judge, every legislator and every academic, it would read that Canada is the third-oldest democracy on planet earth. We are heirs of the British Magna Carta and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. We are an inheritance forged by first nations and newcomers, the scars they endured together through wars, depressions and hard times, and the promise they built together. We are a constitutional monarchy where the laws are written by the people and their democracy, not the ruler by diktat. We are a promise, and ours is a promise to keep.
For the millions in this country who do not respect that this is the core of our national identity, the core of our national sovereignty and the core of who we are and what we are here to defend, then comes the uneasy task of demanding that the government members remove those who they, themselves, brought in.
