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Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was budget.

Last in Parliament April 2014, as Conservative MP for Whitby—Oshawa (Ontario)

Won his last election, in 2011, with 58% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, gender analysis is done with respect to not only the items that are in the budget, but with respect to various proposals that are considered for the budget, ideas that are put forth, some by the opposition parties and some by people outside of government. There is a process that is followed with respect to all those proposals, including the—

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, it is done quarterly in the Fiscal Monitor.

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, we have actually created a gateway fund.

What the Liberals did is what they usually did during their 13 years. They talked about something they might do down the road. Speeches were given but they never got around to doing it. They never got around to actually advancing the funds.

The road to somewhere is paved with good intentions and they are there now and they earned their spot in opposition.

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, spending with respect to the pine beetle has been in excess of $200 million so far.

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, I was just having that discussion today with the minister responsible about issues relating to housing. We transferred, as the member probably knows, $900 million in a trust with respect to affordable housing for the provinces.

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, the commitment is to keep the rate of growth of spending within the rate of growth of nominal GDP on average, and that is what we intend to do.

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, we have created the tax-free savings account. The way that will work, starting January 1, 2009, unless it is defeated by the Liberals because they seem to think the tax-free savings account is not a good idea to help all Canadians save money tax free, but once that money is in a tax-free savings account, Canadians will be able to accumulate capital gains on a tax-free basis.

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, while the member opposite is having fun creating figures, Canadians know and I might as well confirm that not only did the Canadian economy generate close to 400,000 new jobs in 2007, the vast majority of them were in high paying sectors.

The loss of manufacturing jobs is being offset by job gains in sectors with equivalent and higher employment quality. That is from the chief economist at CIBC.

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, the business tax reductions through 2012-13 in billions of dollars is $50.5 billion. The GST reduction through that time is $72.7 billion. The personal income tax is $64.9 billion. The grand total of all of that is $188.1 billion in tax reductions.

I understand condescending and perhaps obnoxious, from listening to the member, but the one thing I do not understand is an alleged record by NDP governments as strong fiscal managers. I am old enough to remember a government in British Columbia and I am certainly old enough to remember because I was part of the government that replaced it, the one that was led by the member for Toronto Centre in Ontario.

I can remember in 1995, before the government changed, which is what the member considers strong fiscal management, where the government had to pay $1 million an hour in interest on the accumulated public debt in the province of Ontario, where we had a government that thought it could spend its way out of economic difficulties, where we had a government, not unlike the Liberal government opposite here now, that thinks the solution to the problem is to increase taxes, increase the tax burden on people, run a deficit, yes, that is right, and run up spending. That is the way the member for Toronto Centre governed Ontario from 1990 to 1995 and it is the way the Liberal opposition wants to take us back to the good old days.

I congratulate the member for Burnaby—New Westminster on having illusions at 11 o'clock at night that NDP fiscal policy is good fiscal policy for Canada.

Business of Supply May 28th, 2008

Mr. Chair, only an NDP member could talk about governments creating jobs. Actually, governments do not create jobs. Governments create the conditions that help encourage job creation by the private sector, but the private sector is not something the member for Burnaby—New Westminster would be particularly familiar with or supportive of. On the other hand, we do support the private sector.

We also support the accurate use of statistics. He is reaching back into the 1980s now to try to demonstrate that in the late 1980s, over 20 years, to 2008, family incomes have not done well. He ignores, of course, the recession at the beginning of the decade of the 1990s. He loves to not mention that happened then, distorting the numbers. He is enjoying the distortion, all right but it does not help Canadians very much.

If he looks at the cumulative growth of Canadian living standards from 2002 to the end of 2007 he will see a growth of 20%. One would think he would want that to be the way it is and it is the way it is. Canadian families know it is the way it is and that this has been a relatively good run. We are making it better by reducing taxes at the same time.

As I said to him, the data shows that 80% of the more than 750,000 net new jobs created in Canada have been as a result of a Conservative government being in office, and 80% are full time jobs and most of the jobs are in the service sector. We are not talking about McJobs, as they talked about. We are talking about financial services, which is probably something he is against as well.