Mike Lake

[Natural Resources, December 8th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, back to the actual topic, the Liberal MP for Victoria defiantly stated that he is “decisively not in support.” The Liberal member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville has said that it must have B.C.'s consent. The Liberal MP for Fleetwood—Port Kells went further, saying that any pipeline must have the consent of the Premier of British Columbia. Without support from that one Canadian, he said emphatically that “there will be no pipeline”.

Will the Prime Minister stand up to his “keep it in the ground” caucus, or is his real plan simply to delay any pipeline until after the next election when he can kill it?

[Natural Resources, December 8th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, a decade ago, the Liberal government killed the northern gateway pipeline, which would have shipped 525,000 barrels of Canadian oil per day to Asian markets. The value of that oil would have been billions of dollars coming annually into the Canadian economy. Instead of that economic supercharge, the Liberals enacted crushing policies with no environmental benefit, while doubling Canada's debt. That Liberal political decision greatly benefited the economies of other oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and Russia.

What did Canadians get from that sacrifice other than a mountain of new Liberal debt?

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 8th, 2025]

Madam Speaker, that is a great question. We would like committees to be doing the work they do. When we do see footage from committees, we see why the Liberal members are trying to shut them down. It is because ministers are having a really hard time at committee explaining what it is they are actually doing.

There is another thing: The “just trust us” mentality the Liberals have was sort of the theme of the election campaign. The result of that is that we are going from a $62-billion deficit to a $78-billion deficit. That absolutely demands scrutiny from Parliament. We are not going to just trust the government; we are going to hold it to account as Canadians elected us to do.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 8th, 2025]

Madam Speaker, I would say that the obstruction from the government is at a level we have not seen before in the House.

The member and I have both been members for a long time. There are a lot of things we would not agree on, including some of the most topical issues today. However, the government has tools to move things through the House. It has all the control when it comes to moving things through the House, and it likes to do that without any debate. I do not think that either of us, and we are going to be in agreement on this, is going to allow the government, a minority government, to just pass its entire agenda through the House of Commons with no debate. That is not going to happen.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 8th, 2025]

Madam Speaker, there is quite a bit of irony in the question, because if anybody who spends any time watching CPAC were to put a face to the words “talk, and talk, and talk”, it would be the member's face. Nobody takes up more time in the House than that particular member, talking, talking and talking.

People can trust that, as the government spends billions and billions more, and takes billions and billions more from Canadian taxpayers, Conservatives will oppose that every step of the way.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, December 8th, 2025]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to get up on behalf of the hard-working constituents of Leduc—Wetaskiwin to weigh in on debates, particularly debates about fiscal issues.

When listening to the debate today, and ultimately after listening to the debate over the last 10 years, it seems that there is an increasing number of Liberals who are standing up to praise their own government, to pat their own government on the back, about ever-increasing, new amounts of spending. That seems to be increasing exponentially as this government gets longer in the tooth. When I say “this government”, I mean the 10-year Liberal government, because I cannot see that anything has changed since the last election. If anything, the spending is getting higher and less responsible.

Watching what is happening in the House is kind of like watching a Liberal minister go to someone's house, maybe a member's house or some other Canadian voter's house. They take $1,000 from that voter and put together a little parade with a little marching band, party hats, kazoos and whatever the case might be, and then they walk next door with video cameras all fully operating to capture every moment while they hand over $800 to the neighbour. That is out of the $1,000 that they collected from the person in the first place. They give the neighbours $800 and then they broadcast this and post it on social media. The $200 goes into a pot to pay consultants and new public servants.

We have added over 100,000 public servants over the last decade. The Liberals just do this again and again, and then they come to the House for question period, and when we ask them questions about this strategy of taking $1,000 and giving back $800 over and over again to people, they wag their fingers at us, as if to say, “Shame on Conservatives for wanting to take away that $800.” What the Liberals do not say is that we are advocating for them to not take the $1,000, every single time this process happens, over and over again. Of course, this adds up. It adds up to the tune of, this year, $78 billion. This year, we are seeing that our government debt now is more than twice what it was when we were in power.

Back in 2015, when Conservatives were in power, we had a balanced budget. We had the richest middle class in the world. In fact, it was not us who said that. The New York Times reported that, for every person in the world who was in the 30th percentile of best off, the 40th percentile of best off or the 50th percentile of best off, of every country in the world, Canadians were the richest. Canadians were the best off, compared to every single country in the world in 2015. Then, we had a change in government. We had a balanced budget in 2015, and now we have rattled off 10 straight years of ever-increasing deficit budgets.

The last Liberal member who got up to speak talked about the interest payments paid by a Conservative government in the late eighties and early nineties. What that Liberal member did not point out was that the interest was run up during 14 out of 15 straight Trudeau government deficits, or 14 deficits in 15 years under the Pierre Trudeau government. It wound up running into a situation, or not “running into” because it was not externally driven, but internally, the government wound up creating a situation where we had an energy crisis, a housing crisis, an economic crisis broadly and an interest-rate crisis. To be fair to the Mulroney government of the late eighties and early nineties, it ran a balanced budget, if we were to take interest payments out of the equation. However, the interest on the Trudeau-era debt wound up being the highest deficits in Canadian history, made up exclusively of Trudeau-era interest payments.

Today, we find ourselves in a situation where we have had another decade of Liberal government and another decade of continuous deficits running up that debt. Today, we are in a situation, not unlike where we were before, where we are now paying more in interest than we are paying in the Canada health transfers. It is insane, quite frankly, that we would be paying more in interest than we are in the Canada health transfers, and that is entirely because of decisions undertaken by this Liberal government.

I will point to one of those decisions, and it is very topical this week. One of those specific decisions was the decision to kill the northern gateway pipeline a decade ago. The Liberal government, when it first came in, made a decision on the northern gateway pipeline, which had been approved, and it was going through its last stages before it would be operational. That pipeline would have shipped 525,000 barrels of oil a day to Asian markets. However, the Liberal government killed that pipeline. It would have meant billions of dollars coming in annually to the Canadian government. It would have had a huge impact on the economy.

Instead of that economic supercharge, which we would have had from that pipeline, the Liberals exacted crushing economic policies that had, by the way, no environmental benefit, while they doubled Canada's debt. We know who did benefit from those Liberal policies. Obviously, it was anybody who had invested in some of the environmental schemes that they had come up with. I would say the current Prime Minister definitely benefited from many of those Liberal policies. As well, the governments, or the people, of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela benefited. Maybe it was not the people. Maybe it was the governments, elected or non-elected, depending on what country we are talking about, although in most of those cases they were not elected, that wound up getting very rich, because we decided we were not going to sell our oil. That just left the market open for them to sell more of their oil.

What did Canadians get for that sacrifice, other than a mountain of Liberal debt? We have not heard from anybody in the House of Commons on that. We have not heard any Liberal mention that. During the election campaign, the Prime Minister promised only $62 billion in debt in Canada. It is astonishing that that phrase would be the restriction, that somehow the promise was made that we would be restricted to $62 billion in deficit.

If we look back to the early Trudeau days, when there was just going to be tiny deficits, just for a couple of years. Now we are sitting here, 10 years later, and we have gone from a promise of a $62-billion deficit, and a promise that the new guy was going to be fiscally and economically responsible, and that things were going to be different, to having largely the same front bench that we had back then and, magically, somehow, we have increased the deficit from $62 billion to $78 billion, with no explanation.

If we go back to those days of 2015, we had a balanced budget and the richest middle class in the world, which was under the Stephen Harper government, after coming out of a global economic meltdown.

It is interesting that the Liberal member for Winnipeg is giggling over there as he is contemplating maybe how good life was for his constituents at that point in time, because they had jobs. We had the flexibility, as a government, to come to this place and really contemplate what a hopeful future would look like. We had flexibility in our budgets, and we were in control of spending.

We have all of that new spending, and all of those new public servants who have been added in the government, but when we talk to any constituents, and I cannot imagine this is any different for Liberal members of Parliament than it is for Conservative members of Parliament, and ask them to name one area of their life that is better in 2025 than it was in 2015, they cannot do it.

Our health care system, clearly, when we talk to anyone who has experienced the health care system, is struggling and suffering. Housing is incredibly more expensive than it was. It is way more difficult to get a house than it was. We can look at criminal justice measures, and serious violent crime has increased drastically over that time. Any Canadian, any constituent, will tell us those things.

With virtually any measure that we look at, things are worse today than they were 10 years ago. They are worse today than they were one year ago, when this new Prime Minister was touting his new government and his world-leading expertise economically. This has proven not to be the case. I look forward to any Liberal member who actually wants to weigh in on this conversation asking me questions.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1, November 25th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty safe to say the hon. member cannot count on my support for this budget.

Right now in Canada, the debt is more than the budget, so the amount of debt we owe is more than the entire budget of the federal government. Every dollar spent is a dollar borrowed from Canadians and future Canadians.

According to Fitch Ratings, right after the budget was announced, “Canada's...proposed budget, announced in Parliament on Nov. 4, underscores the erosion of the federal government’s finances”. It continued, “persistent fiscal expansion and a rising debt burden have weakened its credit profile and could increase rating pressure over the medium term.”

This has happened before, with crushing impacts on the social programs Canadians care about and benefit from. In the 1990s, after similar ratings pressure, the Liberal government of the day was forced to cut 32% from the federal health and social transfers over just two years.

Is the member not concerned about the same thing happening today?

[Canada's International Development Assistance, November 24th, 2025]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to discuss this important motion from the member for York South—Weston—Etobicoke.

I will start by commending the member. We get one shot to move a motion or a private member's bill if we are lucky to be drawn early enough to have it debated in the House. It can be tempting to put something forth that is partisan and that makes it difficult for other parties to support, but as I read this motion, I think the member used his opportunity to move something that can bring the House together. I thank him for that.

There are some particular things I would like to note. As I mentioned, the language is drawn to find consensus in the House. On the language around accountability and effectiveness, I think back to what got me interested in international development in the first place, which was the Muskoka initiative back in 2010, when the Harper government of the day was hosting the G8 and had the opportunity to have a signature initiative. Stakeholders like Save the Children, UNICEF, CARE, World Vision and others came together and had the idea of tackling two particular targets that were behind: the target to save the lives of kids under five, and the target to save the lives of mothers in and around childbirth. Of course, those were things that all Canadians could support when they really understood what was going on.

One thing that was hard-wired into the Muskoka initiative was the steps around accountability and transparency. On the accountability side, one thing that was hard-wired in was that when G8 countries came to Canada and made a promise on the Muskoka initiative, they were expected to keep that promise. Second to that, on the transparency piece, was working with the international community. In fact, Prime Minister Harper co-chaired a group that was focused on making sure that we knew where the money was going, that there was some transparency around where the money was being spent and that the money was being spent to accomplish the goals that it set out. I remember talking to the CEO of one of the international development organizations in Canada who said the Muskoka initiative was probably one of two G7 or G8 initiatives that had a meaningful impact. Probably the most powerful two were the Make Poverty History campaign and the Muskoka initiative.

It is important with these types of initiatives, when we are talking about accountability and transparency, to focus on the outcomes. When we look at the outcomes, we can look at the two millennium development goals, or MDGs, which were set out in 2000 with a timeline to finish them by 2015: MDG 4 and MDG 5 around saving the lives of kids and saving the lives of mothers. In 2000, nine million kids were dying every year from things that nobody in North America would die from, like diarrhea, things that were completely preventable. We were way behind on our targets, but By 2015, in large part because of efforts that Canadians led, we went from nine million kids under five dying to under six million kids under five dying every year from completely preventable causes. The momentum really picked up after the Muskoka initiative.

In the area of moms dying in and around childbirth, in 2000, the number of moms dying every year in and around childbirth around the world, again from completely preventable causes, was 500,000. By 2015, in large part due to the efforts of all countries, but organized through the Muskoka initiative led by Canada, we went from 500,000 moms dying every year to under 300,000 moms dying. There are over 200,000 more mothers living every single year in part because Canada marshalled support from the international community to support the Muskoka initiative.

With respect to these types of impacts, I have seen the birthing kits that organizations use and that they handed out on the ground; organizations like World Vision, Plan International, Save the Children, CARE and UNICEF have been a big part of that. In those birthing kits might be something like a plastic sheet to lay on a dirt floor so a mom can give birth on the sheet instead of on a dirt floor, or an X-acto knife, a box cutter-type knife, to cut the umbilical cord. Again, it would probably take pennies to produce those, and someone would not have to chew the umbilical cord to break it when a baby is born.

I am not allowed to use props, but if I were, I would hold up a little bottle like an eye drop bottle for people with contact lenses, which holds a clean saline-type solution that could be put on the end of the umbilical cord to keep a baby alive. In the absence of that, oftentimes folks in some parts of the world would put mud on the end of the umbilical cord as a way to seal it off. Members can imagine the impact that would have. Birthing kits were, for pennies, saving people's lives, women's lives and the lives of kids, and having a huge impact around the world.

I do not often stand here in support of a Liberal member's motion or bill, but one of the reasons I am standing here in support of this particular one is that it is designed to bring us together and to find some common ground. One of the key things from Muskoka at the time was that the organizations that came together ahead of time to work with the government and the Prime Minister's Office were really focused on finding the things that 95% of Canadians probably could support at that time. They set aside some things that may have been more wedge issues, to really focus on something that brought people together. That had an enormous impact.

However, we are in a different time than we were in then. When we consider the challenging budget situation we have right now, there are a few reasons why it is hard to get Canadians to bring up, at their doorsteps, international development. I think number one is addressed in the bill; I think there is a feeling that there is no accountability for the money being spent. I think there is a feeling that the money being spent is not effective. As well, I think there is a feeling that the money is going into the pockets of folks who are not spending it the way it is supposed to be spent, and there is a lack of transparency around it. I think the motion seeks to deal with some of those things.

I also think that sometimes the language that gets used is sort of inner circle language or echo chamber language that Canadians have a hard time understanding. I will not get into the terminology. I have had lots of conversations about the terminology with people who work in the sector, but if I talk to my constituents in my incredible riding of Leduc—Wetaskiwin and use the language that the international development world uses, they do not really know what I am talking about.

However, I noticed that the first part of the motion talks about reciprocal economic benefit, about harnessing Canadian innovators and small business and about Canadian economic strengths around clean energy, agriculture, digital tech and education. If I talk to my constituents about harnessing Alberta expertise in agriculture so we can deal with the food crisis around the world, it is easy to get them on board. If I talk about Albertans' expertise in drilling and energy, which is probably the most dedicated to being as clean as we can be in terms of energy production, and if I talk about harnessing that expertise to work with countries that have energy resources that are not being used to their economic benefit, I think I can win my constituents over on those conversations.

Edmonton is a centre for AI through AMII, the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. If we talk about harnessing that expertise and putting it to work, working in partnership with people around the world who have the expertise though maybe not quite the same resources, that is a conversation that is really easy to have with my constituents if we just speak in the language that those constituents are using.

I will just close by again thanking the hon. member for moving the motion. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.

[Finance, November 17th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member led off his comments by quoting a former PBO, somehow in defence of the government, saying, “Our economy is weak”. If the Liberals have a confidence problem, just about the worst advice that I can imagine is to spend their way out of it. They call it investment, but it is really just spending.

Here is what happened in February 1994 according to a Reuters summary:

The...Liberal government brings down what it considers to be a tough budget.... It nonetheless still has spending rising slightly, and immediate public and market reaction is it did not go nearly far enough....

January 1995—A biting editorial in the Wall Street Journal headlined “Bankrupt Canada” calls Canada “an honorary member of the Third World”....

The next month, the Liberal government was forced to make the most vicious cuts to health care and social programs in Canadian history.

We are on that same path. What does the hon. member suggest we do about it?

[Finance, November 17th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of chatting about family, I will say that I was elected almost 20 years ago. My kids were 10 and six years old at the time I was elected. It has been a long time. A couple of weeks ago, my son celebrated his 30th birthday. I have talked about Jaden a lot in this place. My daughter, in a couple of weeks, is getting married. Time flies. There is a little bit of applause for our families back home.

What caused me to get involved in politics was a concern for Canada's economic or fiscal situation back then. Of course in the mid-2000s, there was the sponsorship scandal we were facing, but if we go back a little in time, there is a history lesson that I think is really important, which happened under a Liberal government.

After the budget, just recently, Fitch Ratings came out with a statement: “Canada’s...proposed budget, announced in Parliament on Nov. 4, underscores the erosion of the federal government’s finances.” It went on to say, “persistent fiscal expansion and a rising debt burden have weakened its credit profile and could increase rating pressure over the medium term.”

This has happened before, under a Liberal government. A generation earlier, under Trudeau the first, Liberal governments ran deficits in 14 out of 15 straight years. Fast-forward to the Mulroney era. A lot of Liberals on the other side like to point to the deficits of the Mulroney era, but I think it is very instructive in this conversation that the deficits of the Mulroney era were entirely interest on Trudeau's debt, the debt that Pierre Trudeau had run up over 14 out of 15 years. It was a crushing amount, and the interest costs alone created some of the biggest deficits in Canadian history.

In 1994, the Liberal government put forward a budget that did not go nearly far enough, and the ratings agencies and other financial experts were highly critical of that budget, to the point where, in the subsequent budget in 1995, the Liberal government of the day, the Chrétien-Martin government, had to cut 32% over two years from the health transfer and the social transfer; it was one transfer to the provinces back then that went to health, social services and education. We can imagine the ripple effect this had across the country.

We are going through a time like that now. We have just come out of Trudeau the second. We have come out of 10 straight deficits in 10 years under Justin Trudeau's government.

The current government came in and said it would be different. It called itself a new government, yet although the current Prime Minister promised he would get spending under control, the deficit in the most recent budget is infinitely higher and is substantially higher than what he promised in the election just six short months ago.

I am hoping that the hon. member across the way, the hon. parliamentary secretary, will stand up and explain to Canadians his concern for the future of all the valuable social programs here in Canada.