Ben Lobb

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 19th, 2016]

With regard to the Cabinet retreat in Kananaskis, Alberta: (a) what was the total cost for the retreat; (b) for any government employees with expenses related to the retreat, what were their departments and titles, and their costs for (i) accommodations, (ii) airfare, (iii) land transport, including taxis, (iii) meals, (iv) all other claims; and (c) what were the costs related to individuals not employed by the government who were invited to attend the retreat?

[Excise Act, 2001, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again today with regard to this bill.

There is one thing I would like to correct on the record, namely, that it might be the second time that the member for Winnipeg North has misspoken on trade compliance with the WTO. This bill was specifically crafted so it would be WTO-compliant. I worked with experts in industry to make sure that it is compliant, because they did not want to get into the situation that beer and wine are currently in. Therefore, the reductions in excise tax are not targeted to a specific sector, but to all businesses in the distillery industry. If the bill happens to go to committee, it would be great if the trade officials could provide their take on it. I am sure that their take would be the same as mine.

It is also disappointing to hear the Liberal member for Winnipeg North talk about how lucky the industry is that the taxes have not gone up in 30 years. I hope that is not the Liberal position on all taxation. We should do our very best each and every time to reduce taxation. That said, there is a significant difference between the excise tax that brewers and vintners pay compared to the distillery sector. This bill would reduce it by a small amount to help businesses throughout the country survive and excel.

The other point that the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman brought up is that two years ago, the U.K. reduced its excise tax by 2%. The obvious thinking at the time was that less excise tax would be collected as a result, but the opposite was true, and the U.K. collected more excise tax. That is what happens when taxes are reduced. It provides more money to the people who manage their own businesses, money that they reinvest.

I have received emails and phone calls literally from coast to coast from Conservative ridings, Liberal-held ridings, NDP ridings, and maybe even a Green riding, where distillers are located. What do they say? They say they support this bill and ask why anyone would not support it. One distillery said that if this reduction happens, it would hire 30 people. Another distillery said that if this happens, its excise tax would be reduced by $50,000 and it would be able to hire another person.

This is what Conservatives are talking about: a chance to reduce taxes in a certain sector that would create economic activity by enabling companies to purchase plant, equipment, and materials, as well as hire more people. I can speak from my own experience in my riding of Huron—Bruce. Since the excise tax for wineries and breweries was reduced, we have had many more wineries and many more opening, employing many people. They are becoming more and more specialized each and every day. On the brewery side, there were zero breweries when I was first elected in 2008 and now there are five, with many employees and many growing opportunities.

The great thing about the Ontario example is that the LCBO finally woke up and is now working with small producers to first get their products on the local shelves, and, if there is success there, across the entire province as well. I can speak of one company, Cowbell Brewing, in my riding, which has its products on 100 to 200 shelves across the province. One of the things that enabled them to do that was the excise tax, which allows a certain degree of profitability in the industry.

I would ask my colleagues across the way to speak with small distilleries in their ridings between now and Wednesday to see if they support this or not. We have already contacted them. Members should speak to them to find out what they think. Instead of presenting a rubber cheque at some government funding announcement, this is an opportunity for them to provide a tax reduction that does not cost the government anything and that would create jobs.

It has been a pleasure to research the topic, introduce it in the House of Commons, and have a good debate on it. I am looking forward to the standing vote on Wednesday. Hopefully five or more of my colleagues will stand when I sit.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, June 6th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member asked a question around infrastructure. The previous government had record levels of infrastructure.

I wonder if the member for Edmonton West would comment on an issue with small rural municipalities, especially in Ontario, and in the one I represent. Municipality after municipality has received letters from Kathleen Wynne that the municipalities are too wealthy, that they have too much money and they are not eligible for infrastructure projects, for sewers, roads, bridges. It is outrageous.

I wonder if the member for Edmonton West would comment on that and maybe have the Liberals across the way send a message to Kathleen Wynne in Toronto to get going on helping rural municipalities across this province, and in other provinces.

[Privilege, May 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, my take-away from this morning, from the Prime Minister, was that he is indeed sorry. The other two things I took away from it are that he has learned nothing and that he is not going to change. That is my take-away from it.

I want to ask the member if he would explain to the House, if I had done the same thing as the Prime Minister did yesterday but grabbed the Liberal whip and elbowed a Liberal female member of Parliament, what might have happened to me today. I would probably be kicked out of caucus, and maybe asked to resign as a member of Parliament. I want the member to outline what might have happened if I had done the same thing in this House.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, right from the beginning this has been a rotten deal. We can go right back to the day the Liberals announced the technical briefing, which I was at. I think they gave us two hours notice on a Thursday or Friday, and they had the briefing at 1 Wellington. I left that briefing scratching my head, thinking this was a rotten deal.

The minister was at the meeting. If he had said that Air Canada was helping out Bombardier and in order for it to do that, the government would help Air Canada out a bit, then I think a lot more people in the House today would have a better feeling about what the Liberals are doing. This is quid pro quo, absolutely 100%, and I wish those members over there would say what it is.

We have talked about the review of the Transportation Act, and we have done this and that. We have explored it all. However, the Liberals are talking about jobs and growth for the Canadian economy. Therefore, will the minister stand and say that there will be no more Embraer jets getting serviced in Brazil? Will he say that there will be no more Boeing jets serviced in Ireland? Will he say that there will be no extra jets serviced in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and all the other ones? Is that what he is going to say? He is talking about jobs, but it does not sound like that to me.

Will he stand in the House today and say that this deal will not allow one more jet to be serviced in another country? Is that what he is going to do?

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I have enjoyed pointing out the inaccuracies with the Liberal member from Winnipeg. He made comments about the strength of Air Canada. I would point out that the last two years have been two consecutive record years for Air Canada, with this year being better than the year before. That is pointing in the right direction.

Could the member from Saskatchewan take a look at two things? One is on the annual report. For the last two years at least, Air Canada has referenced exchange issues on labour for maintenance. That would lead me to believe it should be doing more maintenance in Canada. The other one is this. We just went through a massive Transportation Act review by Mr. Emerson. Why not take a larger, broader look at it instead of this piecemeal approach at which the Liberals are looking?

[Criminal Code, May 16th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I listened to some of the speeches here in the House today and I would like to make a comment about the last member who spoke and not be too critical of him. I think his speech is a great opportunity for all members in the House and for hopefully Canadians listening at home, because of the utter lack of knowledge of what he speaks to. That is honesty from my perspective, and I am one member who observes this, but to allude to guns and safety on our streets and to reference that back to the term “variant” is ridiculous.

If we talk to detectives, whether from the Ontario Provincial Police, Toronto Police Service, or anywhere coast to coast, and ask them if the term “variant” would make our streets safer or less safe, they will scratch their heads and say that whoever brought that up does not know what they speak of.

The guns that are on our streets, in our inner cities, and even in rural places like mine that have not been purchased through legal means are the guns that are committing crimes in this country. There is no doubt about that. They come here through the border and go into our streets and commit the crimes.

I do not know if the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound mentioned this, but there are 162,000 guns that are listed in the reference table. There are over 4,000 recently classified as a “variant” and listed as prohibited or restricted. The bill would help streamline this. It would help to eliminate all the cases where people purchase a gun legally, with an acquisition licence—a legal store, a legal gun—and then find out later, because someone looked at it and made a determination that it needs to be prohibited at this point in time. We have seen examples like this.

It also highlights a flaw in the system, in which we see a Mossberg Blaze. There are two variations of a Mossberg twenty-two. That is not an assault rifle; it is a twenty-two. It can be used to shoot rabbits or whatever people need to shoot around their property. It was simultaneously listed as prohibited and as non-restricted. So any gun owner who knows this will see the utter stupidity in the system. Why was one classified as prohibited and the other classified as non-restricted? The one that was non-restricted had wooden features and the other had black plastic around it. That is how the determination was made.

That is an example for members of House to see why the whole issue of these classifications and reference tables needs to be fixed and streamlined. The member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound is serving it up here on a silver platter.

I heard other members say that we should look at the whole act and we will finally get it right. Canadians do not trust the Liberal Party for one second for any reform that has anything to do with the Firearms Act. It has been one disaster after another. In previous Parliaments, we saw many members, who had held certain positions for over a decade, flip-flop for the sake of Michael Ignatieff, and we know how that worked out. There might be one here in the House of Commons today.

Canadians do not have trust in the Liberal Party or the Liberal government to make any determinations on this. The member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound brings about a better way to make a little more common sense in guns and how they are classified.

Let us look at one issue that is not efficient, and the determination on a variant is as wide as the country. Not to criticize the RCMP, but on its website the classifications are listed and below that is a list of re-classifications. That tells us about how often guns get classified and re-classified, variants, and so on.

People should go to Cabela's, or local gun owners, or a shooting club and ask them what they think makes sense. They should ask people who have owned guns their entire life what they think. They will say that the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound is on the right track and that there needs to be a determination.

Some people in the House of Commons may think that buying a gun is wrong, but it is right, it is legal, and there is a process which Parliament and the RCMP have set up to establish the legal way to acquire a gun. There is a legal way to bring a gun into the country and to sell it, and that way is not efficient. The right thing to do is not to reject it on the first run-through but to look at it.

We know the Liberal Party wants to try to have rural members elected. The rejection of this bill is certainly not a good start. A member from Toronto brought forward his bill on the way in which farmers should handle their livestock, which certainly is no way to gain favour with rural Canadians. The Liberals should have an open mind and take another look at the bill. When they are back in their constituencies next week, they should talk to gun owners and to the people at places that sell guns. They should call a U.S. manufacturer and ask him or her what it is like to try to import a gun into our country.

Again, I want to go back to the Mossberg example. It is a .22, not a high-powered rifle. It is not an assault rifle. It is a rifle that would be used on a farm to shoot a groundhog out in a pasture so cows or steers do not break their leg when they are out grazing. That is what we are talking about. Whether it has black plastic around it or wood on it should not make it, as an example, non-restricted or prohibited. That is ridiculous. The inner workings of it are laid out very clearly as well.

I hope we have further discussion on this. I hope when we get back to the next reading of the bill, the Liberals will have taken a second look at it, talked and consulted with people, and understand the value perhaps in doing this. I also hope they understand that what the member from Winnipeg has said has no connection to what we are talking about today. Fighting crime our inner cities and rural areas and guns that were brought here illegally have nothing to do with the classification of a .22 rifle. It is unfortunate that those kinds of references are made in the House, but they do happen from time to time, incorrectly.

I am pleased to support the bill. I know the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound has been a long-time advocate for safe hunting, safe licencing, and safe purchasing. His father is probably over 80 years old and has owned a gun his entire life. He grew up on a farm and understands safety. That is what we are talking about, and I believe if we change this, we will improve.

As I said, 162,000 guns are registered here. In addition to that, 4,000 guns have been used through the variant classification. People who are trying to sell these guns in their business and people who are trying to purchase these guns do not want to be made into criminals just by the snap of a finger. The member from B.C. referenced that he owned a gun, the Swiss Arms gun, which was classified as prohibited, overnight. Other members in the House, who still sit here today, with the stroke of a pen, would have been criminals if it had come to that. That is not what we are trying to do.

I am a gun owner. I have taken the course. I have a non-restricted classification. To be honest, I am not so sure if I will buy a gun right now with the Liberal government in power. I will likely wait until the Conservatives get back in before I buy another one because I want to ensure my guns do not get taken away. I am pretty sure the member from Winnipeg does not want to take the gun I own away, but we never know with these strokes of a pen.

[Tourism in Huron—Bruce, May 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, spring is in the air, summer is around the corner, and Canadians from coast to coast are planning their summer vacations. I recommend the riding of Huron—Bruce to take their vacation. With over 100 kilometres of shoreline, featuring beautiful beaches, boating, and some of the most beautiful sunsets in the country, they should check it out.

With the Blyth theatre, Huron Country Playhouse, historical lighthouses, museums, renowned golf courses, hiking trails, biking trails, triathlons, the Kincardine Scottish Festival and Highland Games, the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival, Lucknow's Music in the Fields for country music, Dungannon tractor pull, the Walton motocross, camping around the riding in our beautiful provincial parks, and some of the best restaurants our country has to offer, Canadians should visit Huron—Bruce and make 2016 a summer to remember.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, May 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Guelph raised some interesting points. He is a nice fellow. I sit on the industry committee with him, and I like him enough to tell him that he is wrong.

I wonder if the member from Saskatchewan could give us a little more insight on the financial statements the member for Guelph was talking about. I am afraid that, at the end of this fiscal year, we are going to have a big addendum on the massive Liberal spending in the final quarter of this fiscal year. Maybe the Liberals would like to table a budget that shows what it would have been if the Conservatives had been still in government and what the financials look like with the Liberals now in government.

I wonder if she would talk about the Conservatives' balanced budget with a surplus and the Liberals' massive spending deficit.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, one of the significant differences between other industries compared to the distillery industry is that someone can operate a distillery in an industrial park in Concord, Ontario, or on a farm. It is really that broad.

There is a small distillery in Ontario, in Prince Edward county. There is one in Concord, Ontario, as I mentioned. There is one Grimsby, Ontario. There are larges ones in Windsor, etc. Tourism has seen the benefits of the wine industry, the beer industry, and the small breweries which have grown in recent years. This will increase tourism, there is no doubt about it. It will increase the experience.

When I was first elected, in my riding of Huron—Bruce there were no wineries, no breweries, nothing. There now are three wineries and two breweries. When people come to a riding like Huron—Bruce, they come for the theatre and the lake. Being able to visit a winery, or a brewery or even a distillery adds to the experience and people want to come back. Therefore, from a tourism perspective, it is a no-brainer.