Kellie Leitch

[Business of Supply, December 4th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, on this side of the House, we take great pride in making sure that Canadians come first and that we protect them.

Unlike the other side of the House that is spending a significant amount of money focusing on individuals who have been involved in terrorist acts and are returning to Canada and are thinking they can de-radicalize them through poetry and podcasts, we take this issue very seriously. Like our allies, we believe we should be moving forward to make sure that these individuals are detained, questioned, and that the RCMP as well as CSIS are supported in doing the outstanding job they do in protecting Canadian citizens.

[Business of Supply, December 4th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I find it rather rich that the Liberals continually talk about how we should not hurl accusations at others, but then they just seem to do it themselves.

Let us be very clear. The government's legislative agenda when I was in cabinet was to be concerned about the safety of Canadians. That is why we put forward legislation that would strip individuals with dual citizenship of their Canadian citizenship if were involved in an act of terrorism or espionage.

This is what we know about the current government. In March 2016, we had 60 ISIS terrorists comfortably living in Canada. We do not know the new number now, or at least it has not been shared. We know that the government does not know or will not say how many have arrived. We know that beginning in November, the public safety minister was possibly considering or taking real action to control the movement of these terrorists. We know that the government has spent $367,000 on making sure that haiku poetry and podcasts are available to de-radicalize these people.

On this side of the House, let us be serious that we care about public safety and making sure that Canadians are safe. The government has no idea what it is doing.

[Business of Supply, December 4th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Souris—Moose Mountain.

One of the parts of being a member of Parliament I love the most is spending time with the individuals in my riding and talking to these down-to-earth, hard-working, sensible people in Simcoe—Grey. These are people who see through all the nonsense here in this Ottawa bubble.

One of the things I am hearing more and more from my constituents is that the government could not be any worse. However, the Prime Minister continues to come up with new and shocking ways to explain to Canadians this divergence from what were campaign promises.

First, it was the disaster of the budget that went from a small deficit promised during the election campaign to an obviously substantive one. Then it was cutting infrastructure funding from small communities, such as Alliston, Angus, Everett, and others in my riding to provide for big city projects for the Liberal boondoggle known as the infrastructure bank.

Not to be outdone by that, the government has a plan to legalize marijuana and to allow four plants for every household, and for kids ages 12 to 18 to be able possess without a penalty. While the Liberals were planning to make it easier for our kids to get their hands on pot, the finance minister was out breaking many laws so that the House needed to have a whole day of debate on that, whether it was a French villa that was not registered, monthly dividend payments, stock sell-offs, or a blind trust that was never set up.

In a previous government I was part of, accountability actually meant something. An individual was even removed from cabinet for purchasing some orange juice. That entitled behaviour obviously is not something the finance minister seems to understand.

Did I also mention that multi-million ice arena sitting outside on the front lawn that none of my constituents can actually play hockey on, or the millions of dollars in payments to terrorists like Omar Khadr? There has been so much incompetence in the government, one would think the Prime Minister had been in office as long as his father, but he has actually only been at this for two years. Admittedly, it is a high bar for incompetence, but my constituents are telling me now that they have had probably the most shocking news yet.

We have learned that the government has been allowing Canadian ISIS terrorists to settle back in Canada for two years now, no questions asked, no trials, no convictions, no accountability, and apparently, no problem with that. These are people who left Canada to go to fight against our allies in favour of a radical Islamic state.

We have seen some of these people and their fellow terrorists on video threatening Canadians and threatening our way of life. In one video, a man from Ottawa who joined ISIS is seen calling for attacks like the one that killed Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent and Corporal Nathan Cirillo to continue. Fortunately, that terrorist met his maker. Otherwise, he would be flying back to Canada to pick up his life where he left it off, again with no questions asked.

In March 2016, the former director of CSIS stated that 60 Islamic State terrorists had returned to Canada. Today the Minister of Public Safety is still using these figures. Canadians have not been updated as to how many returning terrorists there are in Canada.

Only a few weeks ago, during a CTV interview, did the minister confirm that passports may be seized and terrorists may be put on a no-fly list. My question is whether that actually happened or whether it was just hypothetical. We do not know how many terrorists we have in Canada, nor how many have had passports taken, or not. How many terrorist have been put on the no-fly list? How many are being monitored and surveilled? How many have committed heinous crimes during their time abroad?

Let us remember that ISIS is the same group that rapes and enslaves women and girls. It is the same terrorist organization that throws gay men off buildings, just for being gay. I know that the Prime Minister calls himself a feminist and supports gay rights, but this is why it is even more troubling that terrorists who support the most anti-gay and anti-women philosophy in the world would be allowed to walk back into Canada without any consequences.

I recognize that verifying reports of these atrocities is difficult, but that is exactly why these terrorists need to be detained and questioned. Were any of these Canadians present, for example, in western Syria in May, when terrorists claimed 50 lives by beheading women and using bricks to beat children to death? Are any of these terrorists about to enjoy Christmas holidays?

Were they involved in the 2014 massacre of 600 Shia, Christian, and Yazidi men, who were lined up on the edge of a desert ravine and shot point blank? Did any of these Canadian terrorists play a role in an atrocity reported in 2016 that saw six men burned alive in a bakery oven and up to 250 children run through a dough maker?

I do not know, and it appears that the government does not know either, or if it does, it does not care. However, my colleagues and I care about protecting Canadians, and we want some action. Canadians demand justice for those who have suffered at the hands of these ISIS terrorists.

The previous Conservative government passed legislation to protect Canadians. The Liberal government's legislative agenda is more concerned with overseeing CSIS than monitoring ISIS. Its focus is so misguided that it even removed a key tool in the fight against terrorism: the law that strips dual citizens of their Canadian citizenship if convicted of terrorism, treason, or espionage. Allies such as the United Kingdom are doing just that.

We need to stand with our allies in this ongoing struggle against this violent Islamic extremism. While our allies have stepped up their commitment to ensuring their citizens' safety, our government is lost. In fact, the U.K. minister of state for international development, Rory Stewart, has stated, “So I’m afraid we have to be serious about the fact these people are a serious danger to us, and unfortunately the only way of dealing with them will be, in almost every case, to kill them.”

Even Brett McGurk, an appointee of President Obama to the global coalition to counter ISIS, has said, “Our mission is to make sure that any foreign fighter who is here, who joined Isis from a foreign country and came into Syria, they will die here in Syria.”

Liberals can debate the methods used by our allies to keep their citizens safe, but they are erring on the side of protecting their law-abiding citizens.

Here in Canada, in contrast, the government created the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, which aims to prevent and counter radicalization to violence at an individual level. However, the centre does not directly intervene with radicalized individuals, so we cannot be sure how many terrorists it has worked with or if it has had any success. We are not even sure how it spends its money. What we do know is that an unnamed group received $367,000 from Public Safety Canada in September 2017 for poetry and podcasts for terrorists.

British and American terrorists can expect to be detained and have their citizenship revoked or to be killed. Canadian terrorists can expect a haiku or a podcast on why they cannot throw gays off the roofs of buildings because that is a bad idea. I wish I was making this up, but sadly, I am not.

Here is what we know. In March 2016, 60 ISIS terrorists were comfortably living back in Canada. We know that the government does not know, or say, how many have arrived since then. We know that the government has spent $365,000 on poetry and podcasts to de-radicalize terrorists.

It is time for the government to take the safety and security of Canadians seriously. That is what the people of Simcoe-Grey expect, and it is what Canadians deserve. I call on members of the House, especially those on the Liberal side of the House, to do the right thing and stand up with us and support the motion.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2, November 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, I do have concerns about people who avoid taxes, one of them being our Minister of Finance. He has made a conscious choice to avoid paying taxes here, inheritance taxes.

The Liberals expect to place a higher tax rate on those individuals who are farmers, physicians, and small business people across our country. Tax avoidance is a problem in this country, and we have seen that most recently with these paradise papers. I do hope that the government acts swiftly and actually takes action, albeit we have not seen them take action on their own Minister of Finance. Why would we expect them to take action on anyone else?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2, November 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to state that if we want to talk about character assassination, why is it the Minister of Finance gets to tell the member for Milton that she cannot do math? What is that all about? The last I checked, the member for Milton is actually exceptionally competent and well qualified, and should not be diminished in this House.

The issues with regard to the Minister of Finance are actually public. The Ethics Commissioner has been clear.

With respect to my speech, and the things I spoke to, yes, this bill increases taxes on beer. Yes, this bill actually makes a choice to invest in infrastructure outside of Canadian borders as opposed to at home.

My question for the member would be, why is it that $2 billion in infrastructure money lapsed last year instead of being invested in places like Collingwood or Wasaga Beach, or Adjala–Tosorontio, where people actually need that infrastructure investment? That lapsed money could have made a meaningful difference not only in my riding but across the country. The Liberals do not have their act together, and do not feel that they can invest in small communities.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2, November 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak today on what is proving to be one of the least popular budget bills in modern Canadian parliamentary history, although I regret not having the opportunity to address the ill-conceived Canada infrastructure bank directly, since it has been embedded in one of those omnibus bills and legislation. I will therefore dedicate my remarks to talking a bit about another Liberal boondoggle.

Bill C-63 is a continuation of the decline we have seen the government taking Canada on since it was first elected. Why is this a surprise? It is the Liberal way to tell Canadians one thing at election time and then do something completely different while it is in power.

I remember the election campaign. The Liberals promised a small deficit of $10 billion to fund infrastructure. Many Canadians voted for a modest deficit, taking the Prime Minister at his word, in contrast to the fiscal responsibility promoted by my own party and also, quite frankly, by the NDP.

It did not take long for the concept of a modest deficit to fall by the wayside, and since then it has spiralled out of control. The last economic update did not even offer a plan for balancing the budget. No plan at all. It is unbelievable.

What is worse is the conduct of the finance minister in regard to his own affairs. In case anybody has forgotten, let me remind the House.

First, the minister failed to put his assets from his family firm Morneau Shepell, a human resources and pension management firm, in a blind trust, despite saying he would do so. These assets consisted of millions of shares, which are worth approximately $21 million in current stock prices.

Second, the minister continued to receive dividends on these shares, dated from the time he was elected. At a dividend rate of about 6.5¢ a share, the minister was roughly earning $65,000 a month over the past two years. For comparison, according to Statistics Canada, the median wage of an individual worker in the province of Ontario, the area I represent, is just over $44,000 per year. That is $20,000 less per year than our finance minister was earning per month from dividends alone. That is on top of his salary as a cabinet minister. Said another way, the average Ontario worker makes $20,000 less over the course of a year than the minister made per month. Now, there is a clear message for the middle class.

Third, we also learned that while the minister was calling small business owners tax cheats, he apparently forgot to disclose that he owned a private corporation, with a sole purpose of owning a villa in the south of France. I guess it is a small villa, maybe a “villette”. Why own a corporation to own a villa? To avoid paying inheritance tax, of course, the same tax the minister has proposed to the farmers of my riding when they transfer their family farms to the next generation of Canadians. We should be proud that the next generation of Canadians wants to farm our great country.

Fourth, we also learned that Morneau Shepell, the minister's aforementioned family business, had an $8 million contract to manage the pension and benefits of the Bank of Canada. What minister is responsible for the Bank of Canada? Why, the Minister of Finance.

To summarize, the minister continued to hold shares in a company he regulated, while the company signed a contract with a department for which he was responsible. It is really quite astounding. One would think that this minister would have been fired for this clear conflict of interest. The Ethics Commissioner, to her credit, has fined the minister for this breach. However, the Prime Minister continues to defend him and allow this attack on our farmers to continue while not dealing with his own minister.

Bill C-63 would simply continue the out-of-control spending of the Liberal government and would further hike taxes on everyone it has claimed to help. The Liberals are adding debt at the twice the rate that promised and the minister's own numbers project debt for every year in the future. Unfortunately for Canadians, someone has to pay for this Liberal spending spree, and it is middle-class Canadians. In fact, it is estimated that more than 80% of the middle class pay more tax today under the Liberals than under the previous government.

Regarding some of the specifics of the bill, the Liberals are now going to tax our beer. Breweries in my riding, whether it be Creemore Springs, Side Launch Brewing Company, Collingwood Brewery, or Northwinds Brewery, all create jobs. They attract tourists who are eager to sample their products, and they already pay enough tax.

However, it is not enough for the Liberals, who look at successful entrepreneurs as tax cheats and a source of revenue. In fact, the Liberals are so desperate for money that they are also targeting type 1 diabetics. They have now decided to deny type 1 diabetics their tax credits. Individuals who need help are going to help the Liberals get back into the black, I guess.

The Canada Revenue Agency itself confirmed that with respect to insulin therapy, new direction was given at the beginning of May regarding applications under the disability tax credit. This change in direction was unannounced, and it has caused huge confusion and suffering for those suffering from type 1 diabetes. It has resulted in hundreds of diabetics receiving less funding by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars.

What is worse is that the minister has the power to stop it today, but she and her fellow cabinet colleagues, her government, her colleagues on the other side of the House, have not reverted the directive. It is simple. A directive from her to her department will reverse the changes and allow those type 1 diabetics to receive their tax credits until further consultation could be done. I raised this in the House last Friday, but to my knowledge, the minister has yet to act.

Another item that would be created with this omnibus bill, Bill C-63, is another infrastructure bank support. We saw in the omnibus bill, Bill C-44, the creation of the Canada infrastructure bank. It is a $35-billion boondoggle. François Beaudoin, the former CEO of the Business Development Bank of Canada and witness at the Gomery inquiry into Liberal corruption, stated that this new bank is easily open to “political interference”. However, in the rush to create that fund, the Liberals ignored everyone.

This time there is a commitment to support another infrastructure bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, for an immediate investment of $256 million, and a further authorization in the future for the potential of another $480 million. The Liberals will have bought 1% of this bank. What do taxpayers get back? Nothing. We commit money as Canadians so that other countries can get cheaper loans and build their infrastructure. By bringing Canada into the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Liberals would be sending hundreds of millions of Canadian taxpayer dollars to foreigners with no control over how the money would be spent or whether or not Canadian companies would benefit, let alone Canadian citizens.

As I have said previously, I am very confident in saying that Canadians want investments in our infrastructure here in Canada. Whether it be in my riding, Collingwood, Wasaga Beach, Adjala-Tosorontio, Angus, or Alliston, we know that infrastructure is needed. Canadian citizens need it so that they can make their businesses more successful, and so that they can make sure their children get to school safely.

I was happy to be a part of a previous government that understood that we worked with our allies, the United States and Japan, and did not support this bank. We could not then, and the Liberals cannot now, ensure that the bank would follow environmental, social, and human rights standards that we expect of our institutions. Therefore, while they preach about human rights and environmental policy standards here at home and to others abroad, they are prepared to turn a blind eye when it suits their needs.

Bill C-63 is a continuation of a shameful decline in our government finances. I will be voting against it, and I encourage all members on both sides of the House to vote against the bill, which is one that invests in others outside of our nation's borders and not in Canadians.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2, November 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the member. We are always hearing how the Liberal government feels that it has been so invested in making sure that the lives of average Canadians are improved, whether it be with this budget bill or with those previous. I would like to have the member's comments on how she is finding her constituents in Edmonton are reacting to this budget bill. Does she believe that this is helping her citizens, or are there things that the Liberals should be focused on to make sure that Canadians are better off than they are currently?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2, November 6th, 2017]

Let me think who it is. It is the doctors who told me they would be paying more taxes. I guess they do not know how to do math—

[Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2, November 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the member opposite talked about what the real issue is.

The real issue here is that the average Canadian is actually paying more in tax, because they have a Liberal government. It is not really that complicated. Small businesses now are going to see an increase in their tax rate to about 73%, and my colleagues, as physicians or those in other professions, are being driven out of the country because of these high taxes. It is an opportunity taken away from them to practice medicine in this country they love. They would rather go to the United States where they can actually take care of more people. This is the type of thing that Canadians are facing with the Liberals.

I have a pretty simple question for the member opposite. When is he finally going to stand up to his government and say that these taxes are unacceptable and that he is going to the other side?

[Youth, November 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to recognize the official grand opening of the Collingwood Youth Centre. This month, over 200 local youth and volunteers will gather to celebrate this next chapter in its history.

When the original facility closed in 2016, the Rotary Club of Collingwood South Georgian Bay, under the leadership of Juanita Hodgson, took the leadership role to find a new vision for this centre. In addition, the Rotary Club, Blue Mountain, the Collingwood Business Development Centre, The Environment Network, Elephant Thoughts, and a local builder, Ray Smith, put their heads together and made this happen. Thanks to their hard work, Collingwood youth will now have access to a wide series of programs that will allow them to be successful in the future.

I am so proud of the great work they have done. Congratulations again to every one who has made this happen. It is going to be outstanding for Collingwood Youth.