Blaine Calkins

[Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2, September 23rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, that is spoken like a member of Parliament from an area that does not have energy workers in it. I represent a part of the country that actually has a large number, or at least used to have a large number, of energy workers. I know, for example, that the GDP alone of Fort McMurray is almost 6% of the national GDP. All of the businesses that operate there, the subcontractors that operate there and the employees who work for those companies all pay taxes into the general revenue of this country, which is distributed across the country, particularly to places like the Province of Quebec. I would appreciate a thanks instead of the rhetoric I just heard.

[Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2, September 23rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague across the way who asked that question that Conservatives have always been environmental stewards. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney is one of the greatest environmental stewards we have ever had sitting in the Prime Minister's chair. He has been awarded for this and Conservatives have always put forward a plan on the environment.

However, the issue right now, and where the current government is an outlier, is that virtually every other country that the member just listed in the OECD is reducing taxes and cutting spending to get this inflation under control. These guys are always late to the game. Just look at the border measures. Just look at everything the Liberals are doing when it comes to getting past the COVID restrictions. These guys would not know a good idea if it bit them.

[Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2, September 23rd, 2022]

—because Liberals actually do not care about Canadians who do not vote for them. That is the issue.

I would be happy to bring in all of my friends who happen to be dentists to talk about the decline in business once the oil and gas sector workers no longer had any disposable income. This is the problem, and I will get to it.

When a family is spending all of its money and the people who used to be able to easily provide for their families no longer have the resources they need, that is what puts them into this situation, that is what makes them desperate and dependent on government. That is actually what the Liberal government wants. I will go back to a great quote from Ronald Reagan, the former president of the United States, who once famously said, “Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.”

That is exactly what is happening with this piece of legislation. What is a $500 rent cheque going to do for somebody in Toronto or Vancouver who is now paying $2,300 to $2,600 a month for rent? The government is proposing to solve their housing problem by giving them one week's worth of rent while adding billions of dollars of debt onto our already massive national debt. This is not going to work. Economists are almost unanimous across this country in suggesting that any more spending by the government is surely to cause upward pressure on inflation and exacerbate the problem that we currently have.

The current government is not a solution-provider. The current government is problem-maker. There are more people in trouble in this country today than there have been in the entire time I have been here. They are in more trouble than they have been in 40 years with the inflationary pressure that we have. Interest rates are going up. Now people who borrowed money and the businesses that borrowed money during the pandemic have upward pressure on the loans they need to pay back. The pinch and squeeze is terrible for the people of this country. The problem is the government. It is not the solution.

[Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2, September 23rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, my next-door neighbour back home is a dentist, and he noticed a sharp decline in his business shortly after the Liberal government took office, because nobody had the money they used to have in their pockets because of the policies of the government. That is the whole point. I know the members are cheering for that loudly over there—

[Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2, September 23rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her eloquent speech and articulate thoughts in the House this morning. She is exactly right.

The government is proposing to be the solution, but it is actually the problem. The problem can never be the solution. We are witnessing, coming out of COVID, the massive inflation-induced problems that Canadians are facing, making their paycheques shorter. There is more month now left than there is money on those paycheques. Canadians are struggling.

I am not talking about Canadians who have always or have typically struggled. I am talking about Canadians who just a few short years ago did not need the government to do anything at all for them. They were business owners. They were working in the private sector. They had the ability to earn a living and make their paycheques cover their cost of living, pay for their homes, pay for their energy, pay for their food, raise their children, put them through school and even save enough for their retirements.

These are Canadians who just want their government to provide them with the services only it can provide and get out of their way. This is the mentality of the people I represent in the constituency of Red Deer—Lacombe. This is why Alberta, my home province, is one of the lowest-taxed jurisdictions and one of the provinces in this Confederation that creates wealth in abundance, or at least it used to create wealth in abundance, for everybody to share in.

The problem is the philosophy of the current government. In its rush to make everybody equal, it is making everybody equally miserable. This is the problem with the philosophy of the socialist-bent NDP-Liberal coalition. It does not work. History has shown us throughout time that this kind of thinking only leads to everybody being worse off.

This bill specifically talks about rent and the dental program. The reason the government believes it needs to bring these things forward at this time is that my constituents who used to be able to pay for these things on their own, who used to have jobs where their employer made those payments or had a dental care plan, no longer find themselves in that calibre of employment anymore. That is because of the ideology of the current government across the way and its ideological attack on energy.

I want Canadians at home to realize that, if they take a look around their home, everything they have was either made from, brought to them by or manufactured with energy. When we attack that energy with things like a carbon tax, it underpins everything we do in our economy. The government's hell-bent position from the very first press release it issued was to rework the northern gateway and energy east pipelines and basically cancel those projects. The short-sightedness for cheap political gain of critical energy supplies, not only within Canada but around the world, is showing itself today.

The Chancellor of Germany was just here and our government was too dim-witted to even know that he came here asking for help in the way he could without embarrassing himself in front of his own people. What did our government say in response to our friend, our NATO ally and our economic trading partner? It basically gave him the bum's rush out of town and said we would have some renewables for him in three to five years. Meanwhile, the good people, our friends, our western liberal democracy philosophical allies are going to be left in the dark by the current government, which cannot see past the end of its nose in its ideological crusade against oil and natural gas. I think 14 to 18 LNG proposals were cancelled, shelved or tabled because of the current government. That is the legacy we have.

I want to get back to how that is relevant to the citizens of my province and the citizens I represent in the constituency of Red Deer—Lacombe. Central Alberta is a hub of the service industry of the oil and gas sector in Alberta. We have numerous pipeline companies, service rig companies, drilling rig companies. We even have, hopefully, a formerly Russian oligarch-owned steel pipe company that was providing services to the oil and gas sector. These were good-paying jobs.

I have good friends who have had multi-million dollar businesses. The way to get rid of a $10-million trucking company in Alberta is to vote Liberal and just wait a couple years. There is nothing left at the end of it. That is exactly the story, sadly, of some good friends of mine back in central Alberta. That is the misery that has been inflicted on the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Albertans who are victims of this policy.

Now the good people of Germany and the rest of the free world are being held hostage by dictator energy in places like Germany, Ukraine and Poland. These are our friends, and they are being held hostage by the ruinous imperialism of Vladimir Putin right now. They are being held economically hostage. Putin has used energy as a weapon.

We could be energy independent. We do not need to import a single drop of gas or oil into this country. As a matter of fact, we have the third-largest proven reserves of oil in the world, and we have trillions of cubic feet of natural gas under every province and territory in this country. We could be supplying our friends, neighbours, allies and like-minded citizens in liberal democracies. That is small-l liberal democracies, because today's Liberals are not liberals. We could be providing that energy, relief and security to our friends.

The reason my constituents do not have the buying power they used to have, the reason my constituents are now in the same boat that many other Canadians find themselves in is that they do not have the security of that job they used to have, that well-paying energy sector job, a job with a company that actually could provide a benefits plan for them. I watched it happen. It has been absolutely disastrous and absolutely ruinous.

The problem I go back to is the philosophical bent of the government, which cannot see past the end of its nose. We can look at the pipeline policies and the unfair application of these things. For example, the upstream and downstream emissions on oil and gas that is produced in Canada are not applied to oil that is imported into Canada. Why the double standard?

[Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, September 16th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, it is truly a privilege to stand here today in commemoration of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, on behalf of the residents of Red Deer—Lacombe.

There are things that we always say to folks, such as wishing them a successful life and a long life. Rarely do we see people get both. Her Majesty the Queen certainly had a long life, and through her 70 years as the monarch, and her years prior to that as a princess, she certainly has been impactful. She was probably the most well-known person in the world, not just for a brief period of time, but for most of her life.

In her lifetime, the Queen witnessed the Dominion of Canada emerge from the chaos of the world wars, only to grow and become a fully-fledged nation. Despite these bold new steps, our ties to the crown have remained strong. Why would they not? If the role of the Crown is one of public service and duty of care to God and country, the Queen as monarch has surely fulfilled all of her royal duties, not only to her home in England, but also to the Commonwealth at large.

After the premature death of her father the late King George VI in 1952, the throne was hers. Just like that, at the tender age of 25, she was the Queen of seven independent nations and the head of the Commonwealth itself. A daunting responsibility if there ever were one, and that would go for any would-be sovereign, notwithstanding one so young, yet she excelled in her role.

A portrait of stability, Her Majesty guided the Commonwealth through many difficult years without sullying the reputation and prestige of the institution. In fact, the Crown survived the end of the British Empire, devolution and the troubles in Northern Ireland, among many other things, which all could have easily derailed a weaker ruler.

Through all of that, Queen Elizabeth II has emerged as the longest-reigning British monarch, eclipsing even her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria. Even more impressive, she was the second-longest reigning sovereign in world history, with only Louis XIV of France serving longer than her. With that many years on the throne, her popularity only seemed to increase, drawing from a pool of public confidence. In essence, she has left the Crown glimmering, untarnished by the events that would have derailed the career of many others.

Among Her Majesty's responsibilities as head of state was to partake in many international tours and delegations. This role brought her to Canada 20 times, both as the official head of state and, before this, as a princess when she visited in 1951.

A constituent in my riding, Sonja, vividly recalls listening to the queen's coronation in 1953 on a battery-operated radio as everyone in the nation gathered to hear the news, and she was very impressed at the time with Canada's new monarch. She would later attend the Queen's second trip to Edmonton, in 1959, to watch the parade on Whyte Avenue, an event she describes as one of the highlights of her youth. Sonja now has the unique distinction of having witnessed her third monarch, this one being King Charles III, and while royal visits do not typically incite the same excitement as they once did, royal visits and news still garner a particular amount of attention and excitement across the country, as I am sure she would attest to.

With all that being said, I, as the member of Parliament for Red Deer—Lacombe, would like to reflect on a small moment in time, which was, to be precise, June 28, 1990. On that day the Queen actually visited my riding. Although the original itinerary limited the royal couple's stay to Calgary, it was subsequently decided that the Queen would head up to Red Deer for a few hours to see the new pediatric ward at the Red Deer Regional Hospital.

There was a buzz of excitement around her visit to the city, and a large crowd gathered to watch her do a walkabout of the structure. The new ward was innovative with patient-friendly elements such as facades of streetscapes in the rooms, and having the Queen visit was a real endorsement for the new ward. She was also introduced to a local firefighter called John Cormier, who had swum the English Channel to help raise $34,000 for the ward's construction.

The firefighters as a group were key fundraisers for the ward, helping supply it with a special children's burn unit. When the Queen was signing the official guest book, she asked a couple of times where they would like her to sign. Since no one answered her, she just signed where she thought it would be appropriate. After all, she was the Queen.

In the afternoon, she attended a lunch at the Capri Centre, where she presented the first Queen Elizabeth II Scholarship in neonatology and pediatrics to Judy Raabis, the clinical coordinator at the pediatric unit at the time of her visit. This an annual scholarship that is still awarded to this day.

An interesting anecdote about her visit comes from Red Deer's most revered resident historian, Michael Dawe. It involves concerns around Her Majesty's travel plans. As Her Majesty was being flown up to Red Deer from Calgary, a security measure was imposed whereby all air traffic in the area was temporarily suspended, yet there was a particular provincial cabinet minister who was known for his tardiness and who arrived after the security measure had come into effect. The pilot for his flight radioed in for permission to land anyway and added for good measure that he was transporting, of course, a minister of the Crown. Much to the pilot's consternation, ground control radioed back to let him know that the incoming flight simply outranked him.

It has always amazed me to see how the Queen could find the time to visit some of the little communities in between the larger urban centres, a lesson that we as parliamentarians could learn from. Furthermore, it was the Queen who specifically directed that the events she attended should primarily be public ones, rather than private receptions. This trend echoed the sentiments of the last British governor general, the Right Honourable Harold Alexander, whose informal style at Rideau Hall had possibly impressed the royal couple upon their 1951 visit to Canada.

The 1990 visit marked the fifth time the royal couple had come to my home province of Alberta, and although several royals had visited Red Deer, Queen Elizabeth was the first and only one to visit Red Deer as a monarch.

In 2005, Her Majesty visited Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium. During this visit, I had the chance to be in the stadium with her due to my position at the time on the Lacombe town council. Alberta had turned 100 years old in Confederation in 2005.

Despite my limited interactions with her, I have a great deal of respect for Queen Elizabeth II, and I am honoured to be speaking here on her behalf today. I know many in this place have said that Her Majesty's reign was almost half the entire existence of Canada as a country itself. Well, Alberta has existed as a province in Confederation for only 122 years, and Her Majesty oversaw 70 of those. She has seen Alberta more than any other monarch could possibly have imagined.

She is the only queen that I, as well as so many Canadians, have ever known, and her loss will surely bring unforeseen changes to our nation. As a nation, we have the fortune of being a stable democratic country under her guidance, and a country that grew into its own under her watch.

I honour the Queen today, not only as a parliamentarian of a Commonwealth country but also as a proud Canadian. The future may be uncertain, but today we celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's importance to our collective past. May we remember Her Majesty's devotion to the Commonwealth and to a life of public service.

Godspeed to the Queen. God save the King. God bless Canada.

[Criminal Code, June 23rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives agree to apply the vote and will be voting against the motion.

[Criminal Code, June 23rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives agree to apply and will be voting in favour of the motion.

[Criminal Code, June 22nd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I represent constituents who also participate in airsoft activities. It is a small but important industry to those who take great enjoyment in it and have fun with it. It is great for exercise and a number of reasons. The fact that the Liberal government is actually not even differentiating between a toy gun and an actual firearm shows me just how little Liberals actually know or understand about actual firearms.

I would welcome any changes to this legislation that would extract those who legitimately want to use airsoft. If there are any mechanisms that are reasonable and make sense so that people who just want to go out and have a little bit of fun can continue to do so, they would have my support.

[Criminal Code, June 22nd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, this is an excellent idea and worthy of debate in the House. I look forward to my colleague in the Bloc Québécois tabling a private member's bill, or somebody in the House tabling a bill, to establish just such a thing.

As I said in my comments, I am checked as a law-abiding citizen every day to ensure that I am able to continue to legally possess firearms in the this country, yet we do not have a system in this country that would keep track of people who are prohibited from having firearms because of their affiliation and association with criminal gang activities and prior convictions.

This government, through Bill C-71, now Bill C-5 before the House, would make it easier for criminals to be out on bail, to be out on parole and to have zero time served in jail. At the same time, the only people it would make life difficult for, when it comes to firearms, are law-abiding firearms owners in this country. It is shameful.