Lisa Raitt

[Business of Supply, September 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the member opposite can enlighten us as to any conversations she may have had with members within the provincial government. As she may very well know, the minister of justice for Newfoundland and Labrador wrote her government in April of 2016, on the understanding that it was Atlantic Canada's turn to appoint to the bench.

I thought Newfoundland and Labrador made a very strong case to say that it was its time to have a justice on the Supreme Court bench. They both put out a press release. They had the law society come and talk about the importance of a jurist from Newfoundland and Labrador being appointed to that bench.

Why did she not stand up to assert that this must happen, as opposed to waiting until this very moment when we pushed the question upon the Liberals to make her stand up and represent Atlantic Canadians?

[World Alzheimer's Day, September 21st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, Alzheimer's disease is the leading form of dementia, accounting for over two-thirds of dementia cases in Canada. Many of us are justifiably afraid of this fatal disease. There is no cure for it, we do not know exactly what causes it, and we do not know why some get it and others do not. Sometimes, we only talk about it in whispers.

However, I know this. The more we talk about Alzheimer's and the more knowledge we share, the quicker we will get past the stigma and get to the people affected by this disease the support and the care they need.

Today, in recognition of World Alzheimer's Day, I want to pay tribute to the caregivers, to the service providers, and to the advocates in each and every province and territory across this great country whose work it is to lessen the burden of those who have this disease.

I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

[Pensions, June 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we want the minister to actually listen to Canadians. He does not want to hear how his plan is going to cost Canadian families. He does not want to hear how his plan is going to force businesses to fire employees. He does not want to hear how, actually, families will go home with fewer paycheques. Even his own advisers have told him that 83% of Canadian households do not face a pension crisis.

When is the minister going to stop taxing Canadians in order to pay for his social engineering?

[Pensions, June 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister is trying to strong-arm the premiers in this country to support his plan to increase CPP by over $3,000 a year. That is a tax nobody can afford. Customers will pay higher prices for everything. Employees will be taking home less in their pay. We have already seen small businesses, this morning, begging the Minister of Finance to stop.

Why will he not listen?

[Taxation, June 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, let us get some facts straight here. Canada has one of the highest household debt ratios in the world. The government is planning on introducing a CPP hike. It is planning on introducing a carbon tax, yet it was elected on the notion that it was going to bring fairness for taxation to the middle class. How is this possibly fairness for the middle class? This is nothing more than taking it out of one pocket and putting it in another.

At the end of the day, it is Canadian families that are going to hurt because of this. When will the minister admit that all of these Liberal tax schemes are making life terrible—

[The Environment, June 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting that the Minister of the Environment is actually confirming in the House today that the Liberals plan on introducing a carbon tax. That goes with the broken promise on the small business tax. That also goes with the CPP tax that they are going to be putting on small businesses.

The Minister of Finance also confirmed that he is going to be introducing a carbon tax that will eventually increase the price of, well, everything we pay for. Small business is the backbone of our economy; 95% of Canadians work in small business. When will the Minister of Finance stop his attack on small businesses?

[Pensions, June 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are rightly concerned. The impact of a fourth CPP expansion is going to be on their wallets.

The Minister of Finance has stated that a CPP expansion would be putting too many eggs in one basket. He also said that increasing the CPP would practically take the private sector out of the pension business.

My question is again for the Minister of Finance. Will he just abandon this ill-conceived scheme because it would unfairly target Canadian workers?

[Pensions, June 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, next week the Minister of Finance is going to meet with his counterparts in the provinces and territories to sell them on his CPP scheme which would tax the average worker an extra $3,000 per year. This new payroll tax would kill 130,000 jobs in our country and it would permanently and significantly lower wages for our young people especially.

How does the Minister of Finance expect Canadian workers to save, start a family, or buy a home when he is increasing their taxes?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, June 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would refer the hon. member to his own Minister of Finance, because he wrote in his book The Real Retirement that the TFSA actually was a good start, and that was at $5,000, and that he looked forward to it increasing over time, because it made sense as a vehicle for people to save.

A real place where Canadians can save money these days and build equity is in the housing market. However, as members in the House are aware, it is becoming more and more difficult for young Canadians to enter into that market because of the costs associated with housing.

The TFSA is a great vehicle to help Canadians save for that first down payment, and having it at $10,000, if we understand what real estate prices are, we will know that this is a great way to save after-tax dollars so that people can get into another vehicle of savings, which is a house here in Canada.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, June 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad the hon. member brought that point up in the House of Commons. It is a very valid and important one to be able to have benchmarks and measures against which we can actually take a look to see if the budget did what it said it would do. I think that is an excellent example of something that the government should be measuring, and I am sure that we will be asking questions about it in the future.

I would say as well that there is another example of data that I personally would like to see. I have raised this in the chamber before. It has to do with the percentage of women in the workforce. Those numbers are gathered by Statistics Canada and by Labour Canada as well. I would very much like to see whether there is going to be any change or movement in those numbers as a result of this new child care benefit that the government has introduced.