Blaine Calkins

[Income Tax Act, June 4th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I disagree very much with the previous three speakers, so much so that I am not even sure I am going to refer to the notes that I have in front of me, but let me see if I can make some sense out of the nonsense that I have heard and the falseness of the arguments that have been presented about this very important Private Members' Bill.

In recent years, we have seen crime rates rise across Canada and that crime is getting more severe. This is especially true in rural Canada. In 2017, the crime rate was 23% higher than in urban centres. In some parts of the country, particularly in the Prairies, it is staggeringly higher: between 36% and 42% higher. While provincial governments have responded with concrete measures to tackle this serious issue, the Liberal government has not only refused to take any meaningful action, but has actually made the situation worse.

I want to thank my colleague for Prince Albert for introducing this Private Members' Bill, Bill C-234. This bill seeks to create a non-refundable tax credit for home security measures. It is unfortunate that this bill is necessary, but the Liberal government refuses to undertake the necessary reforms to our justice system, something that no one from the Liberal Party, the Bloc or the New Democratic Party wants to talk about. This is necessary to protect rural Canadians. The issue is the justice system.

We need to do what we can to support Canadians in their efforts to acquire and put in place the devices and mechanisms so that they can feel safe, or at least have some semblance of feeling safe, in their homes.

During a recent study, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women heard testimony from two women who had been repeat victims of rural crime. These women spoke about the toll it takes on a person's mental health when they are constantly worried about being victimized over and over again. They spoke about how repeat offenders from outside their communities target them because they know that help from law enforcement is a long way away, and that if the police come to the scene the criminals are already usually long gone.

They told us how the vast majority of people in their communities have been victims of crime, often more than once, and that many people do not even bother reporting crime anymore: They do not see the point because the justice system continues to let them down. They also spoke about how these criminals are more often armed with firearms and are not afraid to use them, yet shamefully the Liberal government is cracking down on farmers and hunters and law-abiding firearms owners while softening punishments for criminals who use their firearms illegally.

The idea that Canadians are giving up on the idea of justice should be of deep concern to all members of Parliament. When people see that the system does not work for them, they lose confidence in it. When that system is the police and the courts, the consequences of inaction are dire. It is already starting to happen: An Angus Reid poll from January 2020 found that confidence in the RCMP, local law enforcement and the criminal courts has been declining steadily since 2016. The same poll noted that in 2020, 48% of Canadians said they noticed an increase in crime, while only 5% of Canadians thought there had been a decrease.

People may be wondering how we got here. I grew up on a farm. When I was a young man, we were not particularly worried about crime at all. We could leave our doors unlocked when we worked in the fields or went into town. We could leave keys in the ignition of our pickup trucks with the windows rolled down when we parked in town to go into a store for a few minutes. We did not wake up at night scared that someone was armed and prowling around our yards looking to help themselves to our property. The only problem we really ever had was that once in a while, somebody would come into the yard, pull up to the gas tank and fill up their car.

However, the world is a different place now. For the past five years or so it has been getting worse. When it comes to rural Canada out west, the Liberal government does not get it or simply does not care, as we have seen from the member for Kingston and the Islands. He never mentioned crime, which is what this bill is all about. He never mentioned the justice system, which is what this bill is all about. He never mentioned that businesses can write off all of the things that this bill proposes to do, but private citizens cannot. He never mentioned those things at all.

Very often it seems that rural Canadians are the last of the Liberals' worries. Policies that are touted as landmark achievements of the government are typically at the expense of rural Canadians: the carbon tax, the tanker ban, the no-more-pipelines bill and the gun grab, just to name a few.

Another extremely damaging policy that has contributed to the increase in rural crime is Bill C-75 from the last Parliament. Bill C-75 took a number of very serious offences and made them hybrid offences so that they could be dealt with through a fine or a minimal amount of jail time. It also made the requirement that bail be given at the earliest opportunity with the least onerous conditions.

My colleague's legislation was brought forward, in part at least, in response to the Jordan decision by the Supreme Court of Canada. This decision clarified that the timeline for a trial to begin is in order for the Crown to uphold the constitutionally protected right to trial in a reasonable amount of time.

One would think that if the justice system was backed up with numerous serious cases, to the point where trials were being thrown out, the logical decision would be to increase the capability and capacity of the justice system to appropriately deal with it.

This would have allowed accused individuals to have their right to a fair trial upheld in a timely fashion and kept public safety and the administration of justice as a key objective for the security of Canadians.

Instead, the Liberals took the path of least resistance and decided to clear up backlogs of serious offences by giving prosecutors the ability to offer light sentences for serious offences. They also ensured that more people got out on bail just for good measure. The Liberal government, through its changes, took the already quickly revolving door of the justice system and made it spin even faster.

For rural communities, this meant that offenders who regularly target residents would be back on the street shortly after being arrested. In rural Canada, where a small RCMP detachment can be responsible for a vast geographic area, the government has created an almost impossible task. Instead of getting tough on crime, which I vividly recall our current Attorney General of Canada referring to as “stupid on crime”, the government decided to put criminals' needs ahead of victims and their families in rural communities.

It is important to note that those tough-on-crime policies that the Minister of Justice smirked at were hugely successful at reducing the crime rate and the crime severity index and in instilling confidence in our justice system. Instead of doubling down on our Conservative formula and putting public safety at the heart of the justice system, the Liberal government has now also introduced Bill C-22. This bill slashes punishments for a number of serious firearms-related offences and ensures that all of the offences that the Liberal government hybridized in Bill C-75 are now eligible for conditional sentencing, which basically means jail time in one's house.

My constituents are absolutely shocked at the Liberal government's decisions to put the wants and desires of criminals above the needs and safety of law-abiding Canadians. Instead of providing them with assurances that the government understands the issue and that they are working to restore confidence in our justice systems, the Liberals have done the complete opposite.

That brings us back to Bill C-234. This bill is starting down the path of trying to correct what the Liberals have broken since forming government in 2015. Since that time, we have seen crime increase in frequency and severity, yet the Liberals have taken no meaningful steps to curtail it, only to exacerbate it. That is why my Conservative colleagues and I have formed a Conservative rural crime caucus to come up with solutions to this epidemic that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General cannot seem to be bothered with.

The legislation that we are discussing today is a great first step in addressing the rural crime epidemic. It will help Canadians get the tools that they need to protect themselves and their homes from criminals by providing a non-refundable tax credit. Tools like security gates and other access control devices to keep the yard safe could help deter criminals by preventing access and making it harder for criminals to target a rural property. Cameras and alarms could help provide valuable information that law enforcement could use to hopefully identify and catch these criminals, even if they are not able to respond while the crime is in progress because they are so far away.

While this bill is an important step, Conservatives understand that it cannot be our only step. Deterring criminals to find a less prepared victim is not a permanent solution. To that end, I was pleased to introduce my private member's bill, Bill C-289, back in April. It seeks to create an aggravating factor for targeting people or property that is experiencing increased vulnerability due to its remoteness from emergency police or medical services.

My bill would also seek to make existing aggravating factors for home invasion more inclusive of rural properties and face the realities of rural crime. Last, Bill C-289 would ensure that a judge would give careful consideration as to why an offender did not get bail when the judge is considering extra credit for time that was served before the trial.

Rural crime is a complex issue. Given the unique challenges posed by geography and more humble resources in many of the communities, it requires a thorough, multi-faceted approach, and the federal government needs to be an engaged partner. In fact, over a year ago, there was agreement for the provincial and federal government to create a pan-Canadian working group on rural crime. We have heard nothing about this since then from the Liberal government. While the governments across the west in the provinces have been quick to back up these words with action, we have seen no movement from the Liberals at all. The provinces have done an admirable job, but we cannot escape the reality that this is an issue that requires federal leadership.

This should not be a difficult decision for the government, so it raises the question of why the government is so opposed to doing the right thing. Is it because the government really has no understanding of the challenges facing rural Canadians? Is it because rural crime is disproportionately an issue based in the west and the electoral math does not portray it as a worthwhile initiative when there are plenty of policies that the government still wants to enact? Is it because the Minister of Justice is so blinded by ideology and so committed to his hug-a-thug plan that he is willing to let rural Canadians bear the cost of his inaction?

Canadians have a right to life, liberty and security of the person. For rural Canadians in many parts of our country, the Liberal government is not creating the conditions for those rights to be realized.

[Health, June 4th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister has announced that next week he will be travelling to Europe for in-person meetings. He has been able to attend these types of meetings virtually for the last several months.

I do not doubt that he is itching to travel abroad and put himself an ocean away from parliamentary scrutiny, but there are countless businesses that rely on customers crossing the border that are not being extended this same courtesy.

Which hotel will the Prime Minister be staying at when he returns home or will he just have the taxpayers of this country pay his new $5,000 fine for him, as he walks past the rest of us with his nose in the air?

[Public Safety, May 27th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, the notion that the government respects law-abiding firearms owners like hunters and sport shooters is laughable. The member opposite has helped the minister and the Prime Minister scapegoat law-abiding firearms owners and demonize anyone or any organization who stands up for law-abiding citizens.

The proof is on the Public Safety website. On the landing page for its anti-firearms campaign is the title, “Reducing gun violence together”, followed by, “Violent crime involving firearms is a growing threat to public safety across Canada. The Government of Canada is taking action to address the issue — and you can, too. Together, we can keep guns out of the wrong hands.”

Immediately next to that is the picture of a man in camouflage, a blaze orange vest and a cap, with a bolt action rifle over his shoulder and binoculars in his hands, otherwise known as a hunter. Next to that image is one of a woman with earplugs in and shooting glasses on, otherwise known as a sport shooter. The message in not even subtle. Liberals think law-abiding firearm owners are the problem. It is shameful, and the Liberals should be embarrassed.

[Public Safety, May 27th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the proceedings virtually to seek clarification from the Liberal government on the response from the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to my question regarding the government's firearms buyback program. Unfortunately, when asking this minister a question, one almost never gets an answer or gets an answer to a completely different question.

Contrary to what the Liberals like to claim, many of the firearms that were banned were rifles and shotguns that are used around farms for predators and pest control, for putting food on the table through hunting or for legitimate sport shooting activities. I have heard from many Canadians whose favourite grouse gun or target-shooting rifle has been banned. These Canadians feel demonized and stigmatized by the Liberals for having the audacity to lawfully acquire a firearm and safely operate it in the first place.

When this ban was first announced, I asked the minister for clarity about the fate of the Nine O'Clock Gun. Manufactured in 1816, it is a 12-pound muzzle-loaded naval cannon in Vancouver's Stanley Park that clearly fits this minister's gun ban. He was so confused by his own regulations that he seemed to think I was talking about a modern-day grenade launcher. It is clear this minister is shockingly out of touch with which firearms actually pose a problem to public safety. We know that these are not the firearms that are being used in gang shootings and organized crime.

Law-abiding firearms owners are among the most heavily scrutinized and vetted Canadians in our country. If people are licensed firearms owners, their names are checked daily against the criminal record database to ensure they have not committed a crime, but that does not seem to matter to the Liberal government because its crusade against hunters, farmers and sport shooters is driven by ideology and not a desire to increase public safety.

If the Liberals were actually interested in public safety, they would not be eliminating minimum penalties for several serious firearms offences. They would not be passing legislation to ensure that actual criminals spend the least amount of time in jail possible, even if they are repeat offenders. Instead, they are focusing on taking firearms from people who embrace the outdoor way of life to provide for their families or who enjoy sport shooting. It is far easier for the Liberals to go after law-abiding citizens who pose no threat and already go above and beyond to follow the law than it is to go after hardened criminals who are actually terrorizing Canadian communities.

The Liberals like to say they are strengthening gun control, but that is simply not true. If they were actually strengthening gun control measures, there would be a public safety objective they would be trying to achieve. Instead, they are simply trying to score cheap political points. They are going to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on a firearms ban and seizure that will do nothing to reduce violent crime. The real objective of the government is to have a flashy fundraising email that the Liberal Party headquarters can put out in an attempt to fill its coffers for the election it so obviously and desperately wants.

Meanwhile, as the Liberals count the dollars rolling in after misinforming their donors, Canadians will not be any safer. In fact, they will almost certainly be worse off, because all of the money wasted by the Liberal plan could have been allocated to programs that would help reduce crime, like social diversion programs, addictions treatment and greater resources for front-line officers and border agents.

Given how long the minister wore a gun on his hip, one might think he would know the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Why does he not?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 11th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I think that is an excellent question. I would point out to my colleague from Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola that, in the budget, the Liberal government is supporting carbon capture and sequestration but not carbon capture, utilization and sequestration.

There is a major project in my constituency right now that produces net-zero oil, and it is creating jobs, wealth and economic opportunity here. However, because of this current Liberal government's ideological bent to stop everything that involves the use of oil and gas, the technologies, the innovations, and the expertise in Alberta, western Canada and in any oil-producing provinces will get short shrift from this government. Its ideological bent is to do anything and everything to stop the oil and gas sector.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 11th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague should know that over 98% of Canadians currently have access to a pharmaceutical plan, either through their employers or through provincial programs offered to seniors and those living with disabilities. If my colleague wants to work constructively on a plan that would help the other 2% of Canadians who do not have access, he would find me to be a willing partner.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 11th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois need to understand that for federal transfers to the provinces to work and pay for the things she is asking for, the Government of Canada needs to grow the Canadian economy. The Alberta economy has contributed disproportionately, in a positive way, to the overall budget and to the the federal government's balancing of the books, to the tune of several hundred billion dollars in the last few decades alone. If the member and her party would just stop attacking the oil and gas sector in western Canada and promote the use of pipelines, there would be enough resources for all of us to share in equitably.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 11th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply suggest that Canadians should not believe that the Liberals' expensive ideas in budget 2021 are needed to fix the previous Liberals' bad ideas. What we need is a budget that gets our Canadian economy back on track, gets people back to work and gets us through the pandemic, rather than one that relies on support programs. The best solution for this is a free market economy, with people with real jobs driving our economy forward, not a Liberal government driving us further into debt.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 11th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be in the chamber today to speak to Bill C-30, the Liberals' budget implementation act. It has been more than two years since the government has tabled a budget, and the expectations of Canadians were high. With all the platitudes, like “build back better”, the government had increased expectation and set the stage for something that we were led to believe would be momentous. Unfortunately, the Liberals once again fell back to their default setting of over-promising, overspending and underachieving. Plain and simple, this budget is a letdown for the hard-working Albertans in my riding of Red Deer—Lacombe.

It is reasonable that a number of essential COVID-19 support programs that many Canadians rely on are being extended. This is only fair considering they are necessary because of the failings and mismanagement of the pandemic by the Liberals in the first place. However, while Americans are able to attend stadium sport events and mass gatherings because of a successful vaccination and therapeutic drug strategy, Albertans have just been placed under the most stringent public health measures so far. The Liberals' failure to procure an adequate number of vaccines is devastating, not only to those who will undoubtedly get COVID, but to all Canadians who are being forced to sacrifice more for longer than our friends and families in other countries.

The budget completely fails to lay the road map for how the Liberals plan to get out of the pandemic and get back to life as we once knew it. That is job number one right now, and it was missed entirely in this budget. It is clear that the Liberals have no plan to get back to normal. Instead, they came up with creative solutions to try and mask their failure by trying to compare Canada's first-dose vaccination rate, with our four-month gap between doses, with those of our G20 partners, which are following the manufacturers' instructions on timelines for administering the second dose. Maybe that should not be surprising. After all, this is a government that is well practised at spin, starting with its ethically challenged Prime Minister.

The Liberals' failure to prevent variants of concern from entering Canada and their failure in acquiring vaccines are not just health related. The longer it takes for us to begin the post-COVID recovery, the further we will fall behind.

While the Liberals may be spending money like it grows on trees, which is easy to do when one is printing money to offset spending, the reality is that only the private sector can lead us out of the pandemic, and private sector investment is going to flow to the jurisdictions that welcome it. Unfortunately, with so much uncertainty about when we will be on the other side of the pandemic and with a budget that does nothing meaningful to cut red tape or improve the business climate in this country, Canada is not and will not be prepared for the necessary private sector investments.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance has made it clear that the government sees the current quagmire of misery that Canadians are living in as a window of political opportunity. This budget shows us exactly what kind of opportunity the Liberals are seeking: an opportunity to shore up their political fortunes for re-election. This budget is full of unnecessary, unproductive spending and electioneering that the government is trying to disguise as stimulus.

The Minister of Finance promised that they would spend up to $100 billion in stimulus, but only if it was necessary. With many economists speaking out and telling us that stimulus spending of that magnitude was not necessary, I was hopeful that the Liberals would pull in the reins on their spending spree. However, when it comes to the government, the devil is always in the details.

We know that the full $100 billion has been allocated even though the Parliamentary Budget Officer has made it clear that a significant portion of it is not actually stimulus at all. I guess no one told the Minister of Finance that if she does not need the whole $100 billion in stimulus, she should not spend it, because it is borrowed money. It certainly does not mean the government should spend the rest supporting political or ideological goals instead of economic ones.

The Prime Minister is set to rack up more debt than every prime minister preceding him. The real issue is that the Liberal government does not even seem to see this as a problem. Time after time we see the government brag about the size of the investment instead of the quality of the return on the investment. That is the problem when a government is all talk and no substance. The Liberals value the press releases more than the result reports, and they clearly plan to continue this trend with budget 2021.

The Liberals promised that they were going to build back better. Well, for central Albertans, this is a plan that will ensure that we build back poorer, as sectors of the economy that Albertans rely on have been largely ignored in this budget, if not outright attacked.

Small businesses that are a critical part of our economy and our communities have been let down. While some much-needed pandemic relief programs were extended and loans remain on offer to those able to shoulder even more government-forced debt, the lack of certainty is crippling. Last year, 60,000 small businesses failed and another nearly 200,000 are in danger of closing now. Small businesses in the tourism sector have been especially devastated.

A single mom in my riding who has been a self-employed travel agent for 30 years recently had to go out and start looking for a new career. This is in large part because the government did not ensure any safeguards for small, independent business people when they were dealing with the airlines. Their commissions are now being clawed back by airlines for services rendered months or even years ago.

In 2020, countless community events were cancelled because of COVID-19, events that our communities rely on to bring in tourists. Many of these community events are once again faced with a fast-approaching deadline to decide what 2021 is going to look like for their events and their businesses.

My riding is home to the Ponoka Stampede, Canada's largest seven-day rodeo. Losing an event like the Ponoka Stampede is not just a loss for the competitors or spectators. It is a loss to the community and surrounding areas, which would otherwise benefit from the event. The estimated economic impact for the local area is $150 million every year. That is a lot of money anywhere, but especially in a rural community like Ponoka with a population of just 7,200 people.

We are getting to a point where organizers need to make these tough decisions again, but the government has not given them the certainty they need to make them. We can see how that ripples across the community. Just last year in Red Deer, the Black Knight Inn closed its doors after running successfully for nearly 45 years.

Guides and outfitters are another part of the tourism sector that have been left behind by the government. With many businesses getting 90% or more of their clients from the United States or other foreign countries, times have been tough for the industry, causing spinoff problems related to food security for local communities and wildlife management. These businesses have lost nearly all of their clients and have no way or ability to pivot to clients from the domestic market.

The budget implementation act has no mention of the tourism relief fund committed to in the budget, which many of these businesses could certainly use. We would expect that a fund geared toward helping businesses adapt their services to public health measures and start to recover would be implemented right away. While funding for Destination Canada could have been helpful in promoting our world-class hunting and fishing opportunities to other Canadians, the government quietly stopped letting lodges access the fund for this purpose a number of years ago.

The agriculture sector was also essentially forgotten. Throughout the pandemic, it has become routine for the government to point to the original set of business risk management programs, which were in need of a overhaul long before the pandemic, as somehow now a solution to the problem. The proposal to refund a portion of the carbon tax on natural gas and propane for vital activities like grain drying is a pittance of what farmers pay to run them. Hopefully, we can get this corrected through the private member's bill of my colleague from Northumberland—Peterborough South, which would remove the carbon tax from a broader list of farm fuels. The Liberals, I might add, recently voted against it at second reading.

When it comes to the oil and gas sector, there was literally no support whatsoever. In fact, we can see the next step shaping up in the Prime Minister's plan to phase out the oil and gas sector entirely, through the proposed changes that ensure several types of fossil fuel powered energy equipment are no longer eligible for accelerated capital cost allowance deductions. In other words, the Liberals are driving away investment.

When it comes to Alberta's energy sector, the budget is also ensuring that the modest money that is being committed for carbon capture is not eligible to companies that perform enhanced oil recovery. During past challenging economic times, Canada's energy sector has been able to be an integral and central part of our recovery.

Instead of working to empower our world-class oil and gas sector, which abides by the strictest environmental standards in the world, the government prefers to increase the pace with which they are mothballing this industry. They work to end the Canadian industry and ironically welcome oil from places like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, which lack our commitment to environmental standards and human rights.

This budget is extremely frustrating to my constituents. A recent survey in Alberta by ThinkHQ Public Affairs suggested central Albertans are more likely to report a negative financial impact from the pandemic. It is about 57% in the place I call home compared with 46% for the provincial average. With these realities, we would think that if the government is going to spend money to stimulate our economy, it would ensure that industries important to local economies in places like central Alberta are included.

I do not know what would matter to the government. It simply does not seem to care about the needs of central Albertans. I look forward to the day when a Conservative government once again takes care of the needs of all Canadians.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 26th, 2021]

With regard to government statistics on the effect of the pandemic on the workforce: what are the government's estimates related to how many Canadians, in total, have left the workforce since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic?