Diane Finley

[Privilege, April 6th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg said that he did not understand why the parliamentary secretary does not appear to be in favour of supporting this motion. I wonder if the member could speculate on the reasons the parliamentary secretary and indeed members of the Liberal government are saying that this is a very important issue, which we all agree it is, but the Liberals are not prepared to put some action behind those words.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Return, March 20th, 2017]

With regard to all the fuel consumed by the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence for each fiscal year from 2014 to present, and all organizations that are included in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence’s mandate: what is the total (i) amount of gasoline consumed, (ii) amount of money spent on gasoline consumption, (iii) amount of diesel fuel consumed, (iv) amount of money spent on diesel fuel consumption, (v) amount of jet fuel consumed, (vi) amount of money spent on jet fuel consumption, (vii) amount of natural gas consumed, (viii) amount of money spent on natural gas consumption, (ix) amount of propane consumed, (x) amount of money spent on propane consumption, (xi) amount of high-heat coal consumed, (xii) amount of money spent on high-heat coal consumption, (xiii) amount of low-heat coal consumed, (xiv) amount of money spent on low-heat coal consumption?

[Taxation, March 10th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I will take that as a yes.

Now the Liberals claimed that they would spend $8 billion on infrastructure, but yesterday, the parliamentary budget officer said that they are short a whopping $2.5 billion in that promised spending. Given that the Minister of Finance enjoys increasing taxes and spending Canadians' hard-earned money, I ask the finance minister, what taxes will he be raising or introducing to vacuum even more money from Canadians to pay for this shortfall?

[Aerospace Industry, March 10th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, Swedish authorities have just arrested a Bombardier employee who has been accused of aggravated bribery. Before handing over taxpayer dollars to Bombardier, I hope that the Liberal government did its homework and checked out all of Bombardier's operations as $375 million is a lot of money and this money does not belong to the Liberals, it belongs to Canadians.

My question is simple: Did the Canadian government have any knowledge of this Swedish investigation when it was giving Bombardier the money, yes or no?

[Seniors, March 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, during the election campaign, the Liberals promised to run a modest deficit of only $10 billion. That was one promise they broke immediately. They also promised that they would not eliminate income splitting for seniors. We all know that the Liberals always break the promises they make to Canadians.

Will the Minister of Finance tell us today that he will not eliminate income splitting for seniors?

[Seniors, March 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, under the previous Conservative government, we introduced a low-tax plan for seniors that removed almost 400,000 of them from the tax rolls. As part of this plan, we increased the age amount tax credit by $2,000 for low- and fixed-income seniors.

The Minister of Finance has indicated that everything is on the table to bring in more revenue for the government to waste. Will the Minister of Finance commit to not slash the age amount tax credit, and instead protect our seniors?

[Foreign Investment, February 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister defended his approval of the sale of Canadian seniors' care facilities to the Chinese, claiming that it would create jobs for Canadians. Today we learned that nothing could be further from the truth; there are absolutely no new jobs attached to this deal. Clearly, pleasing Chinese billionaires is more important than Canadian jobs and Canadian seniors. How can he justify selling Canadian medical facilities companies to his friends in Beijing with no guarantee of benefits to Canadians?

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, February 21st, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I do not know what it is like in B.C., but in Ontario we have organizations called conservation authorities. I have worked very closely with the ones in southwestern Ontario. Their primary purpose is protection of the watershed areas. They determine who is allowed to build, how close to a flood plain, and indeed how they define the flood plains. They, in my experience, have done a very fine job of protecting and conserving our waterways and habitat in those areas right across Ontario for many years.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, February 21st, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I think that the hon. member is dealing with some alternative facts. It was in fact our previous government that made Nahanni a national park. We expanded the protected areas in this country by almost 60%. That is a significant commitment to conservation right across Canada. That included not just inland parks with forests and those waterways, but also coastal areas that were at risk right across this country, from coast to coast to coast.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, February 21st, 2017]

Madam Speaker, one of my favourite childhood memories is the centennial of Canada in 1967. The whole country was excited about Canada's birthday. We hosted Expo 67, which was considered one of the best world expositions ever anywhere in the world, and the whole country was seized with Bobby Gimby's song, with the “Ontari-ari-ari-o” song, and with visiting every part of Canada. I know my family and I had the opportunity to travel to the east coast and back for the first time, and really took some time to do that. We also at the time visited some national parks along the way. As well, later we headed west. Canada's parks, national parks in particular, are truly a treasure and they are something that we really need to be supporting however we can, and encouraging people to visit.