House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 50% of the vote.
Questions on the Order Paper May 8th, 2017
With regard to debt and deficit forecasts: (a) what is Canada’s current annual debt and deficit forecast, broken down by year for the next 40 years; (b) does Finance Canada have debt and deficit forecast models in the event of a lowering of Canada’s credit rating; (c) if the answer to (b) is affirmative, what are the projections of the forecast models, broken down by revised credit rating?
Mr. Speaker, we are using words like “arbitrary” and “arrogant”. Following the introduction of Motion No. 6, the House erupted because of the dictatorial position that the government and the Prime Minister took, not only then but now, to take away the authority of opposition parties. That is not just my party but all opposition parties, so Liberals can have dictatorial authority over debate in this place and committee recommendations. The Prime Minister did a couple of trial balloons and talked to us during question period, which he can do, quite honestly, anyway. He just wants to do it on one day a week now.
Is the member concerned that Liberals are already prepared to ram this through because they have done the trial balloons to see what the Prime Minister looks like when he stands up for three-quarters of an hour?
Lambton—Kent—Middlesex Achievements April 10th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, April has been an important month to all of us from Lambton—Kent—Middlesex.
Scott Moir from Ilderton and Tessa Virtue from London won gold in the free dance, their third world figure skating championship title. Congratulations to Scott and Tessa.
If we go back 100 years, the Battle for Vimy Ridge on April 9 was a defining moment for Canada, and the strategic military advice of Sir Arthur Currie from Strathroy greatly contributed to the victory of our Canadian troops.
I had the honour of visiting Vimy, to walk on those same fields where Canadians shed their blood to fight for the freedoms of those around them and back home. It is an experience one never forgets, as I know all of us will never forget the sacrifices made by all of our Canadian troops through these 150 years of Canada's history.
Questions on the Order Paper March 24th, 2017
With regard to the NEXUS program, since January 27, 2017: (a) how many NEXUS card revocations have there been for (i) Canadian citizens, (ii) Canadian permanent residents, (iii) in total for Canadian citizens and permanent residents; (b) how many revocation decisions were made by the (i) Canadian government, (ii) United States government; (c) what were the reasons for each revocation in (a); (d) for dual Canadian citizens who have had their NEXUS card revoked, what is the breakdown of their other country of citizenship; and (e) for Canadian permanent residents who have had their NEXUS card revoked, what is the breakdown of their country of citizenship?
Ice Dance Gold Medal Winners February 21st, 2017
Mr. Speaker, Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue have done it again. They have won another gold medal at the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in South Korea.
I congratulate them on all their achievements: Olympic and world gold medals; competition medals, six out of six wins in this 2016-17 season alone; and most of all, being the inspiring role models they have become for young people across Canada.
I will join all residents of llderton, Scott and Tessa's skating hometown, in my riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, to cheer on this incredible ice dance couple as they compete in the world championships later next month.
I wish best of luck to Scott and Tessa. They truly are champions, on and off the ice.
International Trade February 13th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, the foreign affairs minister met with U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan. He stated that he had a really productive conversation about improving dairy market access. The minister herself called it a successful visit. We can assume he was not talking about more Canadian dairy products flowing into Wisconsin. How much dairy access did the minister offer to the Americans at this meeting?
Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act February 6th, 2017
Madam Speaker, I went over the bridge the other day, and there seems to be massive reconstruction on the old bridge. I know the member has worked hard, because he realizes the amount of trade that goes back and forth over that bridge every day. I believe it is $2 billion every day.
In terms of the auto industry, we always have to be able to compete. Being able to negotiate trade tariff barriers and those tariff lines is an important part for every industry.
Some of the challenges we have in terms of the auto industry and others are those things I just talked about that, quite honestly, the Liberal Party is doing to every family and every business which is going to make it very difficult to be competitive. The member mentioned some of our major trade partners have a carbon tax. I am not so sure about that. Right now we have NAFTA and the United States of America is not going to have a carbon tax.
We are going to have to make sure that our government starts to take away some of the impediments that are in place for our businesses.
Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act February 6th, 2017
Madam Speaker, the member and I may even have been elected the same year, I am not sure. In this place we do have differences of political opinions, but we do build great friendships. That is why this country is so strong not only in the diversity of the people we meet but in the diversity of the occupations that we come from.
In this agreement and in every agreement, as my colleague has said, if there is going to be a strategic partnership agreement, we have to make sure, and we want to make sure, we recognize those baseline values of Canadians and of the countries that we build trade agreements with, whether they be human rights or our responsibility to the environment.
In my riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, whether it is the manufacturing industry or the agricultural industry, we are leaders. We can look at the auto industry as leaders in this and see what they have done in their ability to make those great changes in the environment without a carbon tax.
Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act February 6th, 2017
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure, and quite honestly, an honour to stand in this great place to talk about something that has great potential, an incredible potential to create jobs, economic growth, and value for our country.
Bill C-30 is about implementing this great agreement, CETA. I cannot go ahead without recognizing the member for Abbotsford, the former minister of international trade. For six years or so he worked not only with the team on our Conservative side, but also with all members of Parliament to come together on this extraordinary agreement which benefits Canadians from one coast of this country to the other.
I also want to thank the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was the minister of international trade, for taking the agreement forward to this point.
As my colleague before me mentioned, agreements do not happen in isolation. Our chief negotiator, Steve Verheul, is an amazing guy in his abilities and the things he accomplishes around the negotiating table. I am from Lambton—Kent—Middlesex. I farmed. I was involved in municipal government. In fact, when I was in dairy, I bought many of the inputs for my dairy operation from Steve's dad, so he comes from great stock.
There is a whole host of things that happened to get CETA done. One of them was the unprecedented amount of co-operation and involvement that the stakeholders had in developing this agreement. Whether it was the provinces or the territories, whether it was the stakeholders in the commodity organizations, the businesses, if they were not at the table, they were sitting on the chairs right behind it. That is why this agreement has so much appeal across Canada.
The text of the agreement was agreed to in August 2014. We all knew it would take a couple of years for the 28 countries to translate it into something like 22 or 23 languages. We are now at the time of implementation not only here in Canada, but also in Europe, which we understand may be happening very shortly.
What does it mean? As I mentioned, there are 28 countries. It has an impact for Canadian manufacturers, agriculture, education, and for all the stakeholders who were involved in the negotiations. It would provide access to some 500 million people and economic activity of almost $20 trillion. It is estimated it would bring about a 20% increase in bilateral trade, and about a $12 billion increase to the Canadian economy.
For example, it would leverage about $1,000 for an annual family's income, but we have to understand that could be eaten up, because the Liberals keep bringing in new taxes. They just brought in a new CPP tax on employers and benefits. However, it has the opportunity to increase family incomes, and also create about some 80,000 jobs.
When CETA comes into effect, about 98% of non-agriculture trade tariff lines will disappear. For agriculture it will be 94% to 95%. Over a short period of time those tariffs will start to disappear.
One of the great things about trade agreements, and good ones like this one which we negotiated, is that they help to get rid of non-trade tariff barriers, those things that pop up between one country and another which sometimes are not directly related to trade but they become a political inhibitor to moving a product from one country another. For example, a shipment may go over to another country, but all of a sudden, they will find there is something wrong with it and it may be rejected and returned. That is a non-trade tariff barrier, and both sides, whether it is the European Union or Canada, want to try to eliminate as many of those as possible.
As I mentioned, the trade agreement has an incredible amount of potential benefit to Canadians. However, over the past 14 to 16 months, we have sat in this place, and a new government came in, so some of the advantages will take a hit. The Liberals promised that they would balance the budget in four years, but now that seems to have been misjudged by about 32 years. People who are 18 years old today will be about 56 years old before the budget is balanced.
What does that mean? That means that all the young people who are 18 or 19 today will be almost at the age of what someone might call “freedom 55” and are now going to be paying for this extraordinary spending of the government.
When the Liberals got elected they said they would have a $10-billion deficit. However, within a couple of months or so, the amount was out by, I think, 300%. It went from $10 billion to $30 billion. The deficit will be somewhere around $30 billion.
I think the parliamentary budget officer said it would be $20 billion if the government did not spend the money on infrastructure that it had talked about. The Liberals were going to lower the business tax for our businesses, which very much involved CETA.
My riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex is all small businesses. Agriculture is the dominant one. Those small businesses not only did not get the tax relief they were promised, but there was an additional tax charge for the Canada pension plan and a new carbon tax.
It comes down to credibility, accountability, and trust.
The agreement has all the potential of going ahead and being good for our families and our businesses, but if the government is going to bring in a carbon tax, in it will negatively affect every individual, particularly farmers, truckers, and businesses in my riding. For example, a guy who is farming fills up his combine every day. At the end of the day, it will cost him another $100 just for the fuel, not including the tractors that he has running beside the combine, and not including the truck. It is the same with the truckers. By the time they fill their trucks with fuel, it is going to cost them another $100 or so a day, when the carbon tax is in full implementation. In Ontario, of course, we have other costs that are a deterrent, for example, our high energy costs.
My point is this agreement has all the potential to help keep Canada the strong economic force that it is.
Agriculture obviously is the key industry in my riding. Whether it is pork, beef, grains, when I was on the international trade committee and the agriculture committee, they told us about the significance of this, as did the dairy sector. We negotiated a true benefit for dairy producers.
I see my time has just about wrapped up. In closing, I will say that we will be supporting this bill as we move forward on the implementation of CETA.
Questions Passed as Orders for Return January 30th, 2017
With regard to contracts under $10 000 granted by the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency since January 1, 2016: what are the (i) vendors' names, (ii) contracts' reference and file numbers, (iii) dates of the contracts, (iv) descriptions of the services provided, (v) delivery dates, (vi) original contracts' values, (vii) final contracts' values if different from the original contracts' values?