Andrew Scheer

[Business of Supply, September 23rd, 2025]

Madam Speaker, the member makes an unfounded allegation that I could be biased when all I did was read statistics. Math has no bias. Numbers have no prejudice. They come into the world because of calculations.

Let me look at some of those calculations. Spending on consultants has gone up 37%, from $19 billion to $26 billion. Spending on bureaucrats by the Liberal government is up 6%, from $59 billion to $63 billion. There is no bias in that. Those are just numbers that we take from departmental websites and estimates and things like the Parliamentary Budget Officer's dispassionate, independent analysis of government spending.

The government members talk about how many Canadians are being affected by their policy. How about every single Canadian being affected by the inflation crisis that the current government caused?

[Business of Supply, September 23rd, 2025]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for sharing his time with me today.

This is another engineered distraction on the part of the Prime Minister. He is trying to distract from his terrible record. Even though he has been in the role of Prime Minister for only a short time, he has an abysmal record and is desperately trying to change the channel for that. Let me just explain how I know this. It is an engineered distraction, because the Prime Minister has never expressed opposition to Bill 21 in Quebec.

We can look at the official submission. I have here a copy of the factum of the intervenor, the Attorney General of Canada. For anyone in the gallery or at home watching the debate, or any of the press, and trying to decide how to frame the conversation, let me read the opening line. This is the Attorney General of Canada's officially putting before the courts the position of the Government of Canada, the Liberal government, on Bill 21.

It is part I, section A, paragraph 1, line 1. I just want to stress that, because it is the opening statement, the thing that the government leads with in its court submission: “In accordance with his role as intervener, the Attorney General of Canada takes no position, on any basis whatsoever, on the constitutional validity of the provisions of the Act respecting the laicity of the State.” It takes no position on any basis whatsoever. That is the government's position.

One might be left wondering what the purpose of the engineered distraction is. It is to distract from the terrible cost of living crisis that the Liberal government started creating 10 years ago, with tax hikes on hard-working Canadians and small business owners, the massive layering of regulations on the productive parts of the Canadian economy, the barriers to investment, the barriers to getting things built and the ban on shipping Canadian energy to other countries, while foreign oil and foreign resources come into our country.

Let me just go through a few of these crises so members can properly understand why the government is so desperate to have this debate instead of a conversation about the hardships that Canadians are facing. The Prime Minister famously said that he would be judged on the prices at the grocery store. That is what he said during the election campaign. What has happened to prices at the grocery store? Food inflation continues to rise; it is now 70% above target. Food prices are 40% higher since the Liberal government took office.

The Prime Minister is making the Trudeau debt crisis even worse. Remember, Justin Trudeau racked up more debt in the short time he was in office than all the other prime ministers combined. Consider World War I, World War II and the Great Depression; Canada faced all those crises, but it took Justin Trudeau to massively rack up the debt.

Since the Prime Minister took office, federal spending is up 8.4%. Do people remember what he promised during the election campaign? He put in writing, in black and white, when he was going to voters for their vote, a written guarantee to them that he would cap the deficit at $63 billion. Spending has gone up by 8.4%.

The Prime Minister had the King of the United Kingdom come all the way from London. The King graciously accommodated that request and came to the Senate and read the throne speech. In that throne speech, there was a commitment to cap spending at 2%. Just 48 hours later, the government tabled its spending estimates and blew past that. What was the point of inviting His Majesty all the way across the ocean to come read the speech if it was not even worth the paper it was printed on? Let that go down in history as the shortest-lived Liberal promise ever: 48 hours, a new world record.

I am embarrassed on behalf of the government. I know the Liberals are not embarrassed, because one has to have shame to be embarrassed, but I am embarrassed for them that they had His Majesty come over and participate in that kind of bait and switch for Canadians.

Let us talk about the take-home pay crisis. The first people who suffer when inflation rears its ugly head are people who live paycheque to paycheque, people who have shift work, people who have to have second jobs to make ends meet. This is because when the government creates an inflation crisis, there are some winners and there are a whole lot of losers.

The winners are the people who get the new money first: the asset managers, the hedge fund operators and the big banks. They get the new money before anybody else does, so they can buy up assets before prices go up. However, the hard-working person in a hotel, the plumber, the mechanic and the people whose wages do not keep up with inflation have to start paying all the increased prices before they are able to secure any kind of pay increase. Their paycheques have to go further. They work harder and are able to buy less.

Since the Prime Minister took office, there are now 86,000 fewer Canadians who even earn a paycheque. That is because 86,000 people have lost their jobs just since the Prime Minister took office. He promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7; Canada has the fastest-shrinking economy in the G7. Unemployment in the GTA is now 9%, with 365,000 people out of work. The youth employment rate is 53.6%. This is the lowest it has been in almost three decades. This means that just about half of young people in the workforce who are looking for work do not have jobs. The youth employment rate is the lowest in almost three decades. Canadian household debt is the highest in the G7. Bankruptcies are rising at the fastest pace since 2008.

It is not just the cost of living crisis that is causing so much hardship in Canada and that the government is trying to distract from; we have a crime crisis as well. We have a Liberal government that decided to instruct judges to give bail to some of the country's worst, most violent and repeat offenders. What does that mean? It means that now, when someone is being arrested for the 14th, 15th or 20th time, when they get booked by the police, they get back out on the street, often the very same day.

I have heard from police associations that say they will arrest somebody at about 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock in the evening whom they had already arrested that morning. Those dangerous and repeat offenders have been let out by the federal government, and Canadians are sick and tired of it. However, rather than take real action like adopting the Conservative “three strikes and you're out” policy, and rather than apologize to Canadians for all the lives that have been shattered by the criminals the government set free, the Liberals are blocking and obstructing legitimate attempts to fix the bail system and to bring in tougher penalties for dangerous and repeat offenders.

This is what the Liberals are doing. They have engineered a distraction from their terrible record: their terrible record on cost of living, their terrible broken promises on fiscal responsibility and their terrible record on public safety, letting crime and chaos reign in our streets by putting the rights of dangerous offenders ahead of the rights of law-abiding Canadians.

It is shameful, but the Prime Minister is employing the same tactic as his predecessor, Justin Trudeau: dividing to distract, distracting from his terrible record, and he is proving to be just another Liberal.

[Business of Supply, September 23rd, 2025]

Madam Speaker, I have a quick question for my colleague.

Is this the first time the government has tried to deflect attention from its terrible record on the cost of living and crime? For the past 10 years, I have noticed that every time the situation in Canada gets worse, especially when it comes to quality of life and the cost of living, the Liberal government finds a way to change the channel.

Does my colleague agree that this is the government's MO?

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, we had a fantastic meeting, and we heard loud and clear that as long as there are not new major pipelines built in Canada, as long as there are not new major energy projects, companies will have to continue looking to the U.S. to make their products. As long as the tariffs are in place, Canada is even more vulnerable to this situation. When I tour energy facilities all over western Canada, I see parts, component pieces and heavy equipment vehicles, all manufactured in Ontario. The link between manufacturing jobs in southwestern Ontario and development in western Canada or in Atlantic Canada is obvious to everyone who is not a Liberal.

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, let us be very clear: Canada can help lower global emissions by developing our own natural resources. The two go hand in hand.

After 10 years of a Liberal government's vetoing natural resource projects and chasing away foreign investment, those investment dollars have just gone to other countries, countries that do not have anywhere near the same environmental standards as we have here in Canada. Take LNG alone; by exporting more LNG, we can help other countries get off coal-fired electrical generation. That is what the Conservative plan is all about with technology, not taxes. We can help lower global emissions while developing more of Canada's natural resources.

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I know we do not debate points of order, but I think it is so telling that the first moment of this debate kicked off with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change's admitting that what he said on Friday was not true and that emissions are not going down under the Liberal government's plan but are in fact going up. He has to make up some kind of hypothetical qualifier to get away from accusations of deliberately misleading the House.

Four major pipeline projects, including access to tidewater, were built under the previous Conservative government. The current Liberal government inherited a proposal list with 18 LNG facilities that it has completely blocked or sat on. The Liberal government cancelled the northern gateway and energy east projects, which would have taken western Canadian oil to displace foreign oil imported from other countries. It is clear that if Canadians are hoping to develop the natural resource sector, it will not be with a Liberal government.

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2025]

moved:

That the House call on the Prime Minister to immediately repeal the oil and gas emissions cap, which in effect is a production cap.

Mr. Speaker, there is breaking news today, really good news for some. TC Energy just announced that it is investing $8.5 billion in the energy sector. In fact, it said it is betting big on the energy sector. The bad news is that it will be in the United States. That will be $8.5 billion from a Canadian company investing in the United States instead of investing it here in Canada. That is $8.5 billion that will put people to work, pay royalties to state governments, create thousands of jobs in spinoffs and, of course, provide Americans with safe and secure energy sources.

I remember when TC Energy was called TransCanada Corporation. After 10 years of Liberal policies that absolutely devastated the energy sector here in Canada, it decided to take the word “Canada” out of its name, and now it is known just as TC Energy. The Commonwealth of Virginia will have a major pipeline built by Canadian companies. That could have happened here, but not now.

Before I go on, I should just mention that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk.

Let us be very clear about why the investment is not coming to Canada. It is because there is a production cap. The Liberals like to call it an emissions cap. It is, in fact, a production cap. If members take away one thing from today's debate, it should be this: If members say yes to the cap, they are saying no to a new pipeline. It is as simple as that.

Let us think back to the election campaign, when the Prime Minister was desperately trying to convince people that he was going to do things differently from the previous Liberal government, the Trudeau government, to which the Prime Minister was a senior economic adviser. When he needed Canadians' votes, he was pretending to be in favour of energy sector developments. He said all kinds of things during the campaign, but as soon as the votes were tallied, the Prime Minister showed himself to be just another Liberal. He has broken those promises and broken all those commitments. He has a long history of opposing energy developments.

The Prime Minister cheered on and congratulated the previous prime minister, Justin Trudeau, when Justin Trudeau vetoed the northern gateway project, which would have taken western Canadian energy to a deepwater port in northern British Columbia, opening up billions of dollars' worth of market access in Asian countries and growing countries with increasing demand for oil and gas, such as India, Japan and Korea. All of that was killed when Justin Trudeau vetoed the northern gateway project, and the Prime Minister cheered him on.

It is completely impossible to build another pipeline as long as the cap stays in place. If the cap stays, no new pipelines will ever be built. It is increasingly clear that the Prime Minister has performed a complete bait and switch, saying something during the election, changing the rhetoric of the Liberal Party, but delivering the exact same policy as the previous Trudeau government.

TC Energy is not the only company building in the United States. Enbridge is as well. Enbridge is building two pipelines in the U.S. Again, these are Canadian companies with strong, proud histories of getting things built in Canada that have to go offshore into the United States to get new projects built. What does that mean for Canadians? It does not just mean lost jobs. Remember, oil and gas production in western Canada fuels the entire country's economy. I should point out that this is an issue not just for western Canada; I know that other colleagues will be speaking to the motion, colleagues from Atlantic Canada too, where their hopes for economic growth are underpinned by the ability to develop their abundant natural resources.

The world is consuming more and more oil and gas. Pipelines are being built in other countries. In fact it is ironic to note, and Canadians should never forget, that while the Prime Minister was cheering on Justin Trudeau and advising him to cancel Canadian energy projects, his company, Brookfield, was investing in other countries to build pipelines in other countries and develop other countries' natural resources. Of course that was fine for his shareholders, and those projects would be even more economically viable in other countries if Canada did not produce its own natural resources.

If Canada develops its own natural resources and we build pipelines here in Canada, then Brookfield's investments in pipelines in other countries will be worth less because it will face increased competition. That is something Canadians should never forget about the conflicted Prime Minister.

It is not just the direct jobs that oil and gas production creates. Every paved road we drive on, every hospital we or our loved ones might have to visit and every school a child goes to is in some way, shape or form funded by natural resource development. When companies invest, they create jobs along the production site. Those workers support local economies, and the royalties gathered by the provincial and federal governments pay for important social services.

Maybe policies like the production cap are the reason that over $50 billion of foreign investment has fled the Canadian economy, right at a time when we need to be firing on all cylinders to respond to the unfair U.S. tariffs. We need more and more money flowing into the Canadian economy to develop our natural resources, to bolster our GDP and to put Canadians back to work when their jobs are disrupted by trade disputes, but instead the government is continuing the attack on the oil and gas sector, the attack on the natural resource sector.

Let us be clear about a few things. Not only will the emissions cap keep investment dollars out of our economy, but it also means that Canada will continue to sell at a discount to the United States. Members may have heard on CBC the Polish ambassador's explaining where Poland is getting its LNG from. When the host asked if it was buying its LNG from the United States, the ambassador had to stifle a laugh. He chuckled and said that not all LNG it is buying from the U.S. is American; some of it is Canadian. Of course, the U.S. buys it from Canada at a deep discount and then sells it to Poland at a big profit. We are literally subsidizing the American economy by means of the Liberal government's policies.

Conservatives have a better idea. Instead of pipelines being built in countries that have terrible human rights records, instead of royalties being paid to governments that do not share our values and instead of people being put to work in other countries, let us bring those dollars home. Let us bring those investment dollars to Canada so Canada can provide the world with a clean, ethical, safe and reliable source of energy. Let us put the steelworkers in Regina back to work building the pipelines. Let us put the engineers back to work. Let us put the blue-collar workers back to work, workers who tap a well and see it all the way through to completion. Let us support our hospitals, schools and roads with the royalties paid by these companies.

Greenhouse gas emissions do not need a passport to travel around the world. If oil and gas production is going to increase, Conservatives believe that we should see it increase here at home, because we know that we can extract our natural resources with the highest environmental standards and the lowest emissions intensity and that Canadians will see the benefit of that.

To conclude, Liberals have a choice. They can vote in favour of our motion and lift the emissions cap, the production cap, or they can say today that they oppose new pipelines, that there will never be a pipeline built under the Liberal government. They could at least be honest with Canadians and provincial premiers, who are desperately clinging to hope that the government might reverse the Trudeau policies. If they vote in favour of the motion today, they would effectively be saying that there will be no new pipelines in Canada under the Liberal government.

As for the list the Liberals came forward with in Bill C-5, let us be clear that giving the power to selectively enforce Canadian laws when it comes to new energy projects will not matter as long as the production cap is in place. As long as the emissions cap is in place, it does not matter what they do with the powers they have given themselves under Bill C-5, because nothing will be able to flow through any kind of project they might support.

The key to energy independence and abundance and to getting off the U.S. market and diversifying our customers and natural resources is to lift the emissions cap. The Liberals have a choice. We call on them to support the energy workers in this country and pull their emissions cap.

[Business of the House, September 18th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, it being the first Thursday after the summer holidays, I want to welcome my counterpart, the government House leader, and ask him if he could inform the House as to what the business will be for the rest of this week and into next week.

I will make two quick points. We have extended an olive branch, in the spirit of co-operation and non-partisanship, that we would quickly pass Conservative laws to end the catch-and-release system that the Liberals created and impose tough penalties for dangerous and repeat offenders. We could pass that legislation very quickly and get it off to committee and to the Senate so we could finally put an end to the crime and chaos that Liberal soft-on-crime policies have caused.

Second, my colleague, the shadow minister for employment and jobs, has asked the government if it would schedule an emergency take-note debate on the issue of youth unemployment. This is something that is affecting young Canadians in every corner of the country. There are a lot of bleak reports out there about young Canadians who are giving up on the hope of finding a job leading to home ownership and starting their life and family. I think it is an excellent suggestion by my colleague. I am wondering if the government House leader agrees that this is an urgent issue that needs to be debated and when he will schedule that debate for the House to participate in.

[Public Safety, September 18th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, is that the best they can do, that one day they might get around to doing it? The evidence is in. Their plan is what caused the crime and chaos plaguing our communities. They deliberately changed laws to let thousands of dangerous and repeat offenders back on the street. Now they are admitting that they were wrong, but they are obstructing any efforts to fix the problem.

Thousands of Canadians' lives have been shattered, and too many Canadians have paid with their lives for Liberal mistakes. If they will not stop obstructing Conservative plans to fix what they broke, will they at least look the families of those victims in the eye and just say sorry?

[Public Safety, September 18th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of passing catch-and-release laws that let dangerous offenders free just hours after getting arrested, the Liberals are still obstructing efforts to undo these laws. They voted down our motion, shut down Parliament, called a snap election, went on summer holidays and still have not even started the process of fixing what they have broken, so the Conservatives will do it for them. Our plan will end catch-and-release and give 10-year jail sentences to anyone convicted of three serious offences. We could pass these laws today.

When will the Liberals stop obstructing Parliament and pass the Conservative “three strikes and you're out” law?