Michelle Rempel

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 4th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, last week, the member rose in this place and said that, if somebody was being sexually assaulted in this country, a non-citizen, judges would not give them special treatment. He said that. Then he stood in the House and gave many examples of that, including a 13-year-old girl who had been raped. I thought he was going to apologize for saying that, but I guess hope springs eternal.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 4th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, it is so exciting to see a Conservative elected in Windsor. It is awesome.

My colleague is standing up for jobs in his community. While the Liberals are spending tens of billions of dollars on companies that are taking investments to other countries, with no job guarantees, he is standing up and saying he is going to protect the auto sector in his riding.

I say kudos to him, and no, of course we should not trust the Liberals. There is great work coming from Windsor with that guy.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 4th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time that my colleague and I spent at the public safety committee last week trying to improve Bill C-12, which was so lacking with regard to border security. I will note that, every time the Liberals say they are going to hire more border security, they do not do it. It is about the announcement. Colour me skeptical if I do not believe anything they say they are going to do.

Just to reiterate some of the work that my colleague did last week, we tried to advance measures which would have made it more difficult for people who have a criminal past or criminal intent to enter the country by proposing common-sense, cost-free measures to Canada's immigration system, and the Liberals rejected that. Shame on them.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 4th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, it would be a productivity superdeduction if the government scrapped the temporary foreign worker program and stopped allowing businesses that have no reason to bring in temporary labour to continue to suppress our wages and suppress productivity in this country. I think about how badly the government has distorted productivity measures by allowing literally millions of temporary foreign workers into this country, which also takes opportunities away from Canadian youth. That is probably one of the key productivity drivers in this country.

However, my colleague across the way wants my constituents to pay more for basic common sense. No, of course we will not.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 4th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

The deputy House leader, or whatever his title is, just told you to shut up. He should apologize.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 4th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, they spent $15 billion, and Stellantis just left the country.

Yesterday, guess where Stellantis was. Its representatives were at the White House. Do members know what they were saying? They are investing $13 billion in the United States, a direct transfer from Canadian taxpayers to the United States of America, while rich Campbell's lobbyists, who I am sure are probably friends with some of these guys across the aisle, are talking about people who have to eat their soup. I do not think Canadians should be condemned to eating soup. They should have choice in food.

There was a startling report today showing that next year, an average Canadian family will have to pay, at minimum, an extra $1,000 for basic groceries. That is on top of the already huge increase in food prices.

In the province of Alberta, in my riding, food bank visits are at an all-time high. In Alberta, the 127 reporting food banks were visited 210,000 times, a jump of 21.8% compared to last year and 134% since 2019.

We have a budget where the government is dumping billions and billions of dollars, endless dollars, into corporate lobbyists and corporations that are not even trying to keep jobs here. The ministers did not even bother reading the contracts. Meanwhile, we should have some highly processed soup for dinner.

There is nothing in the budget for Canadians. There is a lot for the Liberals' rich friends and and a lot for corporations that have other benefits, like regulatory benefits that keep cellphone bills high. The layers of ways the Liberals screw the average Canadian, between regulatory capture and just forking out direct cash to their friends, are so magnificently bad.

In this budget, the level of debt is shocking. It is kind of tricky of the Prime Minister to say we are saving money, because he has tried to cook the books and restructure how expenses are categorized. We are not that dumb. He might think we are. That is how he treats some of his cabinet ministers or journalists when he tells them to “look inside” themselves instead of answering a question. That level of arrogance is not going to make my constituents able to go out for a nice dinner or just afford basic groceries.

I am the shadow minister for immigration, and I have never seen a more incompetent immigration minister in the Liberal government's history, and that is saying a lot. Through this budget, the Liberals are continuing immigration levels that are unsustainable. There are not enough houses, doctors or jobs for people in Canada right now, yet they are juicing these numbers. In one bill in front of the House of Commons right now, Bill C-12, the Liberals are trying to give themselves powers to mass extend temporary resident visas. We have an amendment that I hope the government will support on that front.

Everything is about increasing the size of government, increasing the largesse of the Liberals' corporate friends and increasing the population in unsustainable ways through immigration, and my constituents are left with having a can of soup that an executive of the company calls not nutritious and highly processed. At a bare minimum, in a G7 country, people should have more to look forward to than a bare cupboard at night.

I know there are people in my community, which was once very well off, who have lost their houses. There are now parts of my community where homelessness is a problem in a big way, and people cannot afford to make ends meet. I know there are seniors in my community who thought they were going to have a safe retirement but now cannot afford to buy groceries.

The Liberals are now asking us to support $78 billion when a company they gave $15 billion to just transferred $13 billion of it to the United States. Come on. Something has to give.

The Prime Minister told Canadians that he would be the person who could better manage Canada's finances. All he did was rack up debt on the credit card. He is not the only economist in this room. His economic policy is bad; it is failed socialist policy that does not benefit anybody.

No, I do not support this budget, nor should anyone else in the House.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 4th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, lost in all of the media stories last week was a CBC story that talked about a Campbell's soup executive getting caught in a meeting making fun of the “poor people” who ate their soup. This executive apparently said that Campbell's soup was for “poor people” and was a “highly processed food” that poor people had to eat.

When I saw that story, it seemed to be the perfect analogy for the Liberals with this budget. In the story, the executive, by his own admission, is selling highly processed food. If a person goes to Walmart, I think the price of a can of Campbell's soup ranges between $1.50 and $2.50. Frankly, it is what a lot of people in Canada are eating right now, yet this executive was making fun of the people, the poor plebes, who have to eat a can of Campbell's soup. The reality is a lot of people in Canada work really hard and used to be able to go out and afford a steak dinner once or twice a month or think about having a beef rib roast at Christmas. That was not much of a problem 10 years ago, but those are the people now eating Campbell's soup.

The arrogance in that executive's comments, I think, is exactly what the arrogance is of the Liberal government in tabling this budget. I looked at this budget through the lens of one of my constituents and wondered if they would think I was doing my fiduciary responsibility and standing up for good, wise stewardship of their tax dollars by supporting this. The first question I asked myself was, what is in it for my constituents? Is there anything in it for my constituents?

Although the Liberals have tried to sell this budget, it has, I think, a record deficit. We have never seen money like this in Canadian history. Economists and experts have talked about the fact that it is going to bankrupt future generations and that we are likely going to see a credit downgrade in the country. It has made our country less resilient. It is one of the most intensely deficit-laden budgets in history.

I wanted to see what is in it for my constituents. I thought we would see something like maybe a GST cut for all the money that the Liberals are spending, or maybe a rocket ship to the moon or a highway paved in gold, but instead I think it condemns my constituents to more soup nights. Please, sir, can I have some more Liberal deficits and Campbell's soup?

At the end of the day, what people want to look at or see in a budget is prudence and something for them. What we have seen out of the Liberal government over the last 10 years are funding announcements that result in nothing for Canadians, waste, deficit, higher taxes, and the inability to have a steak dinner. Most people in Canada want a steak dinner. That would be nice. I am an Albertan. Alberta beef is the best, but people cannot afford it anymore. They cannot afford protein.

I am not talking about just some Canadians. I am talking about most Canadians, those who, in many jurisdictions, would be considered solidly middle class. They are double-income families, but they are sometimes working two or three jobs just to make ends meet. They have seen their rents increase. They cannot get access to timely health care. There are all sorts of issues making their life worse, but the government is spending more. How is it that the government is asking us to support a bill that keeps seeing Canadians' lives getting worse while the Liberals spend more? That is a “no” for me. It is a “no” for most of my constituents too.

I want to also highlight the level of waste that we see in the government. Some of my colleagues have been litigating and doing an excellent job. Our shadow minister for industry, for example, has been doing a great job litigating the fact that the Liberals spent $13 billion or $14 billion on Stellantis.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, December 4th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, last year, well after the pandemic, where were more than half of Canadian citizenships conducted? It was online, by clicking a box. How does that unify Canadians? How does that imply and impart the responsibilities of being Canadian?

She is standing up here and defending a postnational strategy.

Will she end one-click, virtual citizenships?

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, December 4th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the minister completely did not answer the question. She did not listen to it.

My colleague asked why she was allowing one-click citizenship, which, to repeat a famous line in the House, we found on the government's website.

People get their citizenship by doing a virtual ceremony and clicking a box. That is what we are talking about here. I cannot believe she is still the minister.

Will she end one-click, virtual citizenship ceremonies?

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, December 2nd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, in 2022 a Jamaican national was convicted in the United States of an aggravated felony of sexual abuse of a minor, but in 2023 the Liberals welcomed him to Canada. Worse, they allowed him to claim asylum, and today that child sexual abuser is still in Canada. The Liberals voted against Conservative measures to prevent non-citizen child sexual abusers from entering Canada, abusing our immigration system and avoiding deportation.

Why are the Liberals protecting non-citizen child sexual abusers? Why did they not support our policies?