Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to address the House tonight. I want to start my remarks by talking about the kind of society we have been and the kind of society I would like us to be.
I recall that when I was elected in the 2015 election, which was right on the tail of the Harper years, various indicators showed that our country was doing well. At the time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had won the election on the promise of “Well, maybe things are good, but we think we can do even better.”
At the time, I recall making an argument in the House about the strength of our society being shaped so much by our commitment to equality of opportunity and by the fact of Canada's combination of the policies we had and being a society where taxes were low, development was encouraged and economic activity could be pursued. It was also a society where there was a baseline of social programs in areas such as health and education that were available to everybody. This combination of a baseline of social supports and an environment in which new ideas, new investments and new businesses could start and grow was the right combination for facilitating a high degree of social mobility.
Somebody who came from a less privileged background could still reasonably aspire to be among the most successful in our country. This potential, this hope, could animate the dreams and imaginations of the next generation. This was a source of strength for our country, of prosperity, of opportunity and also of social cohesion. People saw themselves as having a kind of equal opportunity, an equal ability to pursue the Canadian dream, regardless of the background they came from.
I believe it is so important that we be, and restore our commitment to being, an opportunity society where people of all backgrounds and of all ages, particularly young Canadians, regardless of the family they came from and regardless of the circumstances, can have big dreams and can make those dreams a reality.
However, what I hear today when I talk to young Canadians is a great deal of frustration, loss of hope, and a sense that we have become divided as a society. We have become on the one hand a nation of people who already own their home, and on the other hand a nation of people who have no hope that they will ever own their home. We have become a nation of, in some cases, people who are doing well and who respond to our social media posts about people struggling by saying, “Well, I'm not struggling”, but then there are many Canadians who are struggling and who do not see the hope or the possibility of getting ahead anymore.
This is because 11 years of government policy has favoured elites and favoured incumbent holders of power at the expense of the people striving to get ahead. It has also pushed jobs and home ownership out of reach for more and more young people. We have become less of an opportunity society, and as a result, we have become more divided between those who are already at a certain level or position economically and those who struggle to even imagine that they could achieve the basic things that we associate with being able to achieve the Canadian dream.
The basic things that a young person seeks from a material perspective starting out are to be able to have a good job and to be able to afford a home. That foundation of job and home is the basis on which people are able to start a family and achieve those not just material but also critical personal goals in terms of having the children they want to have, building the life and setting up the future they want to be able to provide for the next generation. However, more and more young people struggle to find a job, cannot afford a home and are delaying family formation. Now we see that this is leading to a failure, in many cases, for people to achieve the family goals they want.
If we look at this statistically, the number of children people say they want on average compared to the number of children people are having on average demonstrates that many young Canadian families are not reaching the goals they have identified as wanting to pursue, which is much more than a material tragedy. It is something much deeper and more profound that is being lost. We see frustration, anger, hopelessness and increasing division as a result of the way we have declined in being an opportunity society.
The hope of the Conservative Party is to fight for those who are struggling and give voice to their concerns, but also to propose constructive policies that will restore the sense of hope and opportunity that has defined our country. We are shaped in every region of the country by a certain frontier spirit, a sense that through struggle and striving, an individual should be able to get ahead, have a home, have a job and provide the beautiful and simple things that their family is seeking.
While saying that there is so much more to do to restore that opportunity society, I note that the debate tonight highlights some areas in which Conservatives are winning the debate about key issues facing this country. Conservatives have for 10 years made arguments about the need to build nation-building infrastructure and about the destructive implications of the carbon tax, and we have won those debates. It does not mean that our proposals about repealing unjust taxation or building nation-building infrastructure have been fully implemented in government policy. We are still seeing many failures in terms of government action, but it is clear from the conversation, from the things being said back and forth, that we have won those debates.
We have also won important cultural debates. It was not that long ago that Liberals were constantly running down our heritage and history, attacking figures like our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. Stephen Harper's celebration of the Canadian victory in the War of 1812 was criticized by the Liberal establishment as promoting extreme militarism or some nonsense like that. Today, the government is saying more that recognizes the positive legacy of people like Isaac Brock and Sir John A. Macdonald. We can see that on some cultural issues and economic issues, Conservatives have been winning debates and advancing arguments. I welcome that. Sometimes Liberals talk as if it is some big political win that they have conceded major arguments that Conservatives have been making, but I am proud of the fact that on economic and cultural issues, Conservatives have been making the arguments and moving the ball forward.
We are doing it on the affordability issue as well. Conservatives have put forward proposals for tax relief for Canadians in terms of gas taxes, and tonight we are debating government legislation through which the government is saying, although not quite directly but by implication, that Conservatives were right. These are the kinds of measures they are putting forward because we have won those debates.
Conservatives can take pride in the fact that we are winning these arguments, but also recognize that there is more work to do, because the government, although piecemeal in conceding certain arguments, continues to have a broadly statist agenda when it comes to development. The Liberals continue to think that the big ideas, the big initiatives, the big push to get things done must be controlled through the centralizing power of government, whereas Conservatives believe in unleashing opportunity for everyone. We believe in rebuilding the opportunity society.
For instance, we supported the idea of having some exceptional circumstances for major projects to be able to move forward. However, what we proposed as a better path was reforming the impact assessment process in general so that proponents of projects large and small did not have to come cap in hand to government, and anyone with a big idea could see a path to getting it done.
While we are seeing some Conservative victories in terms of winning these arguments, there is so much more work that needs to be done to undo 11 years of damage under the Liberal government and to restore the opportunity society that all Canadians, particularly Canadian young people, are seeking.