Erin O'Toole

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, my friend is one of my favourite Newfoundland and Labrador MPs. He speaks up for the things he believes in, and I respect that.

He seems to suggest that the recession was a big surprise in 2008-09 as there was a global banking failure and the entire global community was working on a response. The key distinction is when a deficit was run in the midst of the biggest global meltdown since the 1930s, Prime Minister Harper had a plan to get out of deficit. The current Prime Minister is running a deficit that is double what he promised Canadians. Now his own department has said that it will not be balanced by 2019; it will be more like 2030. Therefore, there is no plan.

The difference between the $4.5 billion spent this week to buy a 60-year-old pipeline is that the Prime Minister created this issue. I think my friend from Newfoundland will appreciate this joke when I use it. The Prime Minister killed northern gateway arbitrarily, passed laws that killed energy east, and Trans Mountain is on the brink. The Prime Minister is a serial pipeline killer, and someone needs to stop him.

The difference with Hibernia is that there was not a private sector player at the time when there was distress to a large investment that would help a region. They are very different circumstances. The Prime Minister is now spending our money to get out of a problem he created.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak today to Bill C-74. Once again, as with many speeches I have given in this place, I rise with a bit of a sense of irony.

Budget implementation bills are often complex because they implement the budget and execute measures in a number of areas of law and regulatory action, so they tend to number in the hundreds of pages. My friends in the Liberal Party used to decry the use of omnibus legislation, but here we are with Bill C-74, once again an omnibus bill subject to time allocation. These are “assaults on democracy” in the words of my Liberal friends when they were in opposition, and now they are statecraft for getting things done in the chamber. They are becoming very adept at it, setting records in the use of time allocation per day.

Nonetheless, at this report stage debate I am going to reiterate some of the concerns I have with the budget. They are fundamental economic concerns that all Canadians should share.

I am going to highlight one quote from the Minister of Finance, taken from near the end of his budget speech, which we all listened to here. In many ways it typifies the problems with the Liberal Party and its approach to governing and its reckless abuse of the public purse. Near the end of his speech the finance minister said, “With this budget, we are doubling down on our plan to invest in the middle class and in people working hard to join it.”

Most Canadians, even those who do not follow politics that much, have heard that trope many times, that platitude that “we're here for the middle class and those working hard to join it”. Today in debate the Minister of Environment almost accidentally kept spouting that phrase. It is something rote in their learning.

The Fraser Institute has confirmed that most Canadians have seen less under the Liberal government. They have seen tax increases despite some of the changes made to the child care benefit. If we look at the total tax burden on Canadians, the elimination of tax credits for young people in sports and music, the elimination of the transit tax credit, higher income taxes, changes to the tax treatment of dividends, the carbon tax, EI and payroll taxes, we see that the Liberals have raised taxes dozens of times indirectly or directly. We even joke that they tax our Saturday night, because there is now an automatic tax on wine, spirits, and beer, and they are taxing Uber rides home. The Liberals are running out of things to tax. That is why most Canadians are actually not better off under the Liberals. They are far worse off.

What is troubling about the minister's quote is his use of the word “invest”. That is his euphemism for spending. The word “invest” appeared 456 times in the minister's budget speech and document. Why should that concern Canadians? It should because it means there are 456 areas within the scope of government where the Liberals are increasing spending.

The rate of increased government spending is absolutely reckless, a 20% increase in spending in just over two years, accounting for $58 billion in new money. As the Auditor General has shown through his reports and from reports by Finance Canada, very little of that actually went to infrastructure. Are Canadians 20% better off?

When the government is running huge deficits in the midst of a recession, do we see logic to any of this increased spending? That number does not even reflect this week. This week we bought a pipeline. That is another $4.5 billion.

We are approaching a level where the Liberal government, which is just past half of its mandate, has put a more than 20% increase in spending by the public purse.

In my last speech I turned around the minister's phrase, “We're going to double down on investing.” Double down on spending is what he was saying. I joked about the Liberal double-double. Most Canadians love their double-double, cream and sugar, but the Liberal double-double is doubling the tax burden and doubling deficits.

We remember the Prime Minister assuring Canadians that he was going to run a deficit as prime minister, but never more than $10 billion. It was a Liberal double-double: two years of $20-billion deficits while raising taxes. Therefore, Liberals are bringing in more revenue by taking more from Canadians, small businesses, entrepreneurs, households, and seniors, and yet they are even outstripping what they are bringing in. It is truly astounding.

Now we can factor in their decisions with respect to the resource economy and being forced to buy an asset because they cannot find private sector buyers. Confidence in the Canadian economy and the ability to get projects done here is shrinking, so the government now feels that it should replace the private sector. That has put another $4.5-billion burden on taxpayers.

What was not in the budget, despite all the purported investments—remember I said that he used the term “invest” more than 400 times—was investment, or spending, or provision made for NAFTA or U.S. trade changes. There was zero money allocated for that. Most Canadians, when they look at budgets, forecasting, or spending, have a rainy-day fund in case something goes bad or there is an unexpected problem. The government knew there were risks related to NAFTA, it knew there were risks related to steel and aluminum tariffs, and yet it allocated zero for that risk.

We have already seen the impact of the Prime Minister's inability to get a deal on softwood and the tariffs applied there now. Tonight, in a few hours, we are going to see tariffs applied on steel and aluminum. It does not have to be that way. NAFTA and provision for the NAFTA negotiations were mentioned on a couple of pages in the budget document, but there is no actual plan for a contingency. For a government that spends the money of Canadians so cavalierly, to have allocated zero to risks associated with trade is troubling. We are seeing that play out today.

The Conservatives have tried to work very closely with the government on NAFTA. In 10 months or so, I have asked maybe six or seven questions on the most fundamental economic agreement for Canada. In fact, I have praised the minister, particularly his efforts in January with respect to auto parts, but the Team Canada approach means that the Liberals have to listen to the team that actually negotiated the NAFTA trade agreement and was able to secure deals that respected supply managed farms and small businesses that kept us competitive. The very team that wants to help is being ignored, particularly when it comes to linking trade and security, which both Democrats and Republicans want to do. In this budget, there is zero provided for a response to the tariffs that will be setting in on our steel and aluminum industries. It was terrible that the Prime Minister went to these communities and insinuated that he had dealt with it. He went on a victory tour, and here we are with no deal.

I also raise the fact that Liberals are rushing through this budget implementation bill when the very things they are doing in it are not complete yet. Of course, the bill is full of tax increases, and one of the special ones the Prime Minister is looking at is in part 3 of this bill, the excise tax provisions for cannabis. That really seems to be the only legislative agenda the Liberals want to keep on track: the legalization of marijuana. In this bill, they are already planning the excise tax regime. The only problem is that marijuana is not yet legal. In fact, the Senate has been proposing changes with respect to home-grown cannabis. In this omnibus bill that the Liberals are rushing through with time allocation, there are provisions on other related legislation that has not even passed yet.

Why the rush, particularly when the Senate is dealing with it and we have heard concerns from chiefs of police and pediatricians with the Canadian Medical Association? With the current government, it is a matter of damn the torpedoes: use time allocation and omnibus bills to get it done. The key thing is that when they say they are going to invest, Canadians had better get a hold of their wallets.

[International Trade, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the government has focused on non-trade issues at the NAFTA table and there is no U.S. trade contingency plan in the budget, and then the Prime Minister went to the president's hometown to deliver a speech that many viewed as a critique of the president. So far, the Prime Minister's plan has failed Canadians.

Will the government agree to sit down with the Conservative Party and let us work together to help these workers?

[International Trade, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are not partisan when fighting for Canadian interests. The families impacted by this decision do not want more platitudes from the Liberals. They want a plan. The Prime Minister has known for months that this was coming. He did nothing. The Conservative Party has been working with the government. We are Team Canada, but Team Canada needs a plan.

What is the government's plan to fix this tariff issue?

[International Trade, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, today our thoughts are with the families of steel and aluminum workers in Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. The Prime Minister went to these communities on a victory tour. He personally promised those families that he had fixed the issue. He walked into those communities as a saviour.

Today the Prime Minister is a failure. What is his plan to fix this tariff issue?

[National Defence, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour today to pay tribute to the 60,000 Canadians who work in the defence and security industries. These are the jobs equipping our military and first responders. Many of them are here for the CANSEC annual conference in Ottawa, and many of these employees are also veterans.

I was also proud to meet with Janna and the volunteers from Women in Defence & Security yesterday. It now has over 2,000 members working across this country in aerospace, defence, and security in high-skilled, highly trained jobs. They are our leaders. They are our builders in these sectors. I congratulate WIDS.

One of its members is a classmate of mine from military college, Christyn Cianfarani, a former naval officer, veteran, and now president of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries. Christyn is leading this conference and bringing together great industry and great jobs for Canadians.

I want to thank them for kitting out our military with the equipment it needs.

Best wishes for the rest of the CANSEC conference.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed, not just because we are reaching the 40th time the government has used time allocation, but also in the minister who continues to rely on platitudes, such as “the middle class and those working hard to join it”, “the economy and the environment go together”, and “better is always possible”. Is better possible? This omnibus bill before Parliament that does not even have portions of other legislation it refers to approved by our legislature yet.

I would refer the minister to part 3, excise taxes for cannabis. We know that legalization of marijuana is the one promise the Prime Minister really wants to keep this summer. These excise tax provisions in Bill C-74 are being rushed through before the cannabis legalization has even passed. The Senate is still looking at removing home use, and that sort of thing.

How can the minister suggest to this House that this bill should be rushed through when its component parts are not even passed yet?

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Flamborough—Glanbrook is passionate and knowledgeable, and he is absolutely right. The environment is more than just GHG target goals, which can be met in two ways. They can do it the wrong way, which is taxing seniors and people who have to commute, or they can work on stepping down the emissions of large emitters, a much more practical way that is not a carbon tax. However, the Liberals seem focused entirely on a tax.

That ignores entirely particulate matter, hazardous chemicals, and cleanup of sites such as Sydney and in our Arctic. It ignores sustainable practices in wildlife and in forestry. We should be proud of an entire and total environmental package. That should be part of our sustainable development goals, not just as a nation but as a society.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, certainly I think Canada should govern on its own, and where we can work collectively with multilateral organizations, including the UN, we should, and we should take some guidance and some education from them and share in a number of goals.

However, I have seen, including in the debate on Bill C-47 today, that the Liberals, in their pursuit of the Security Council seat, almost seem willing to outsource our legislative agenda to another body. I would remind the member that this month the UN committee on disarmament is going to be chaired by Syria. The only country to actually use chemical weapons is now chairing the body to prevent the use of chemical weapons.

What we should do is work on the sustainable development goals, but also take ownership of our own house. The polluter pay principle does that.

When it comes to the 90 agencies the member mentioned, I do have some concerns. When the Auditor General says that the government cannot manage a project in a fashion that would be acceptable to the levels set by the Auditor General, we should be worried when we are foisting more challenges on more departments. Therefore, while I share the sustainable development goals we have, my concern is we have to be able to deliver. We own our own responsibility, and we should not think that signing on to something globally negates our ability to legislate here in Canada.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, May 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting debate in that there are rare occasions when I agree with the government. There are elements of Bill C-57 I am in agreement with, but I am going to talk about some concerns about the ideological creep of the Liberal Party into the legislation of Canada. By “ideological creep”, I do not refer to any hon. members. I refer to a creeping barrage of ideology that is actually not rooted in science. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change is seemingly unaware of global concerns with respect to some of the things being put in legislation.

Why I agree with elements of Bill C-57 is that they are rooted in the work of the last Conservative government. In 2008, as my colleague from Perth—Wellington mentioned, the Conservative government passed it. There was a lot of good work done by John Baird at that time, and it has been continued. That is the basis of the Federal Sustainable Development Act. It is based on the sustainable development goals the United Nations started with the Rio declaration, right through to the UN agenda 2030. We certainly see a benefit to many social and economic considerations going into the sustainable development goals of a country.

When looking at an environmental plan, considering economic aspects of that plan, the impact on communities, and social development is prudent as one is planning. There are many departments within the federal government planning to meet the sustainable development goals articulated by the UN, and they are coming up with plans to do that.

I would note that the government has appointed a commissioner, who I wish well in her role, Ms. Julie Gelfand. We all wish her well in terms of working with federal government departments, particularly the Department of National Defence, which has large tracts of green space and lands in Canada, to make sure that we minimize the impact on the environment, make our operations sustainable, and operate with the future in mind of handing over the country we inherited to our children. There is a lot of agreement on that, and I will agree with those goals in this legislation.

I have three areas of concern I am going to keep my remarks to, because I do not like spending too much time on agreement with Liberals in this place. My friends will start questioning my loyalty.

The first area is the typical Liberal approach. There has been concern expressed by my colleague, the member for Abbotsford, and others that it seems the minister is going to continue to expand the paid advisory councils the government will rely upon. We know, going back to the days explored by Justice Gomery, that when there are gatherings of advisers, on a range of issues, being paid and being dependent on contracts and the goodwill of the government, it actually breeds a lack of accountability. We have already seen that, with the Prime Minister being the first sitting prime minister in Canada to have been found to have violated ethics legislation that governs this case. The finance minister has two pending investigations.

We do not think there should be that approach, with these friends of the Liberals being paid advisers. That should be arm's length, and we should rely upon Ms. Gelfand and her department to provide that advice. We have exceptional civil servants, so I do not like the approach we see the Liberals resorting to too often.

I commented that there are elements I said I agree with in Bill C-57. They are certainly rooted in the work done by the Conservative government, such as instilling the polluters pay principle and a number of tangible things that will have benefits. They will show that everyone in our country, including corporations, will need to be good and responsible stewards, and those principles enshrine that.

However, there has been a lot of window dressing from the government when it comes to the environment. We almost groan when we hear the minister say that the environment and the economy go together. It has just become rote language. However, I want to show how it is now also window dressing.

The minister herself said, in debate on Bill C-57, that the bill “would shift focus in the Federal Sustainable Development Act from planning” to reporting results. If we are looking at reporting results when it comes to our environmental goals and sustainable development, what were the comments of Julie Gelfand in her first appearance at committee on Bill C-57, and later, her comments with respect to the government's environmental plan?

If we are trying to say reporting results is what the government wants through this legislation, what did the Commissioner for Sustainable Development report on the government's progress on the environment? Here is her report on results:

We concluded that Environment and Climate Change Canada...measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions contained in this plan had yet to be implemented.

She went on to confirm that the government “did not make progress” with respect to any of its greenhouse gas emission targets. This is another case of the Liberals talking a very good game—whether in legislation, whether in debate outside of the chamber—but if we look at results, which is what the minister wants the bill to do for all departments of the federal government, we see they are failing. The commissioner actually reported a failing grade to the government.

If we combine that with the Auditor General's most recent report, which says that under this government there is basically no ability to implement projects, it should concern all Canadians. I know it concerns many of the civil servants who have had trouble getting paid and families having to help out their children, but it is a fundamental thing when the Auditor General in such strong language calls out the Liberals' inability to actually implement projects.

I hope the minister moves beyond the rhetoric of “the environment and the economy go together”, because we want to see results. Rhetoric we get enough of. We want to actually see some tangible results, and if Bill C-57 can do that, I am very happy that it will be part of our sustainable development discussion for the next number of years.

My final concern is the ideological creep that I see with the government, because in a similar fashion to Bill C-55 on the oceans act, this bill also creeps the precautionary principle into federal legislation. The old approach of the Conservative government enshrined the polluter pay model, and it is very obvious what that is: if there is an impact on our environment that is negative and it is clear who the polluter is, the polluter will pay to remediate that impact on our environment. The polluter pay principle is in this legislation, but Liberals are inserting the precautionary principle, and that is troubling because it is pseudoscience. The precautionary principle actually says, “Let us not wait until we have final scientific evidence to make public policy; let us just make it if we feel good.”

I will illustrate this with a quote. I know the front bench of the Liberal Party enjoyed their trip to see President Obama. They were downright giddy. What did Obama's chief scientific adviser say about the precautionary principle? He said that the precautionary principle, for all its rhetorical appeal, is deeply incoherent.

If we are talking about sustainable development and goals, we should be talking about science-based evidence. That was something the Liberals used to say in opposition a lot, but now in several pieces of federal legislation they are enshrining a policy principle that is not rooted in science. It is rooted in rhetorical appeal. It is rooted in feeling good. It is virtue-signalling, something we see every day from the government.

We should see a science-based approach. Whether it comes to sustainable development, our oceans, or marijuana, we should not be legislating and regulating because of an ideological view. While I support the goals of Bill C-57, it is this creeping barrage of Liberal ideology that they are secretly inserting into things. They have a condescension of the left that is troubling to people who have worked in the private sector, people who rely on science and evidence, as I do. Their attitude is that if we do not agree with them, we are somehow un-Canadian, or wrong, or as the Prime Minister says, we are being partisan. Is it partisan to ask for science before making decisions?

I would say in overall support that I am happy that there are elements to work together on, but I would like to alert Canadians to this ideological creep of the Liberal Party, which will set Canada back in the long term.