Mike Lake

[Finance, May 31st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, let us take a look at some Liberal history, if we can. Let us take a look at the Trudeau legacy. The Trudeau legacy is 14 deficits in 15 years in the seventies and eighties and a Liberal government that has not run a single balanced budget yet. That is 24 deficits in 25 years.

That is the Trudeau legacy. It led to economic devastation back then. It is leading to economic devastation right now. How can anybody in the NDP or Liberal caucuses support this economic disaster unfolding?

[Finance, May 31st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure what words we are still allowed to use here, but I think it is okay and fair to say that this is the most incompetent, reckless government in Canada's history, consistently undertaking radical experiments with objectively terrible results. An RBC report from today says, “a slow bleed over the last 2 years has left per-capita output back at 2016 levels”.

Canada's per person income has been falling for two years now. When will the NDP-Liberal government recognize that the more it borrows and spends, the worse it makes things for Canadians?

[Points of Order, May 30th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today in question period, one of my Alberta colleagues, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn, in asking a question, used the phrase “anti-Alberta minister” in reference to the environment minister. You asked him to rephrase his question.

A simple Google search shows that, over the years, members of all four recognized parties in the House have used the phrase “anti-Alberta” or “anti-Quebec” in standing up for their constituents in ways that their constituents would expect them to stand up.

I think we are not better off in the House when the list of words we cannot use gets longer and longer. I think we suffer from a lack of clarity right now as we make efforts, as members of Parliament, to stand up for our constituents.

I would like some clarification on what language we can and cannot use because it seems to have changed significantly over the past several months.

[Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023, May 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the member has been here long enough, though he may not be here for much longer, and he knows that he cannot mention the presence of another member in the House, which he just did.

[Pharmacare Act, May 6th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a question about incompetent Trudeau government overspending. Of course, it raises the ire of members on the other side sometimes when I talk about the Trudeau government of the 1970s and 1980s and the devastating cuts that resulted in the mid-1990s of 32% over two years from 1995 to 1997 for spending on health care, social services and education.

I am wondering if the hon. member shares the same concern about the incompetent Trudeau government overspending of the 1970s and 1980s and also of his own Liberal government as it relates to our ability to fund important social programs in the future.

[Points of Order, April 19th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, as I am listening to this, today in question period we heard Liberal members repeatedly refer to Conservative members of Parliament as “mean” and “cruel”. If we are going to go down this road, I am sure we could scour the record of the member for Kingston and the Islands for all sorts of language that he has used that we might not agree with.

I would just urge the Chair, as the office is deliberating on this list, that the list of things we cannot say in the House of Commons be as short as possible and that we have latitude to engage in our democracy freely and passionately on behalf of our constituents. I am concerned that we are going down a road where we have way too many things that we are not able to talk about freely, and I do not think that our democracy is helped by that.

[World Autism Month, April 17th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, April is World Autism Month, and it is now 26 years since my son Jaden was diagnosed. Since then, I have embarked on an unanticipated lifetime of learning experiences.

For example, I have learned at home to always check for finger lines in the butter, cupcakes or just food generally. I have learned that an urgent “bababababa” in the car often means an iPhone left behind or a missed Google Maps turn. More importantly, I have learned that we tend to wrongly divide the world into people who give help and people who need help. In reality, as human beings, we are helpers or those helped at various times; sometimes, we are both at once.

Deciphering what Jaden needs or wants is often incredibly hard, but I have learned much in the process of waiting on him, paying attention to his non-verbal communication and assuming he has something to say. These lessons help me in every human interaction I have. Right now, finding ways to better understand one another is something our world needs more than anything else.

[Business of Supply, April 9th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I do not know what is going on today. It might be an effect of the eclipse yesterday or whatever, but I wonder if the hon. member knows that we are in the Canadian House of Commons here, talking about what the federal government is doing. We are both members of opposition parties, but only one of us is actually taking our role seriously to oppose the government. The member votes for the government every single time he has an opportunity.

I will hearken back to the days of Stephen Harper and take a look at this New York Times article, which states that “middle-class incomes in Canada—substantially behind in 2000—now appear to be higher than in the United States.” That is from 2014. The article talks about an income survey. It reads, “But other income surveys conducted by government agencies suggest that since 2010”, which was the time of the global economic meltdown, “pay in Canada has risen faster than pay in the United States and is now most likely higher.” That was in 2014. We are in a completely different circumstance now because of the member's party supporting the government.

[Business of Supply, April 9th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, that question is quite laughable. First of all, there was a lot of disinformation in that question. However, I think the point to be made is that we faced an economic crisis. His party's reaction, by the way, at the time, was to form a coalition with the Bloc and NDP to try and take down the government right after an election. That was the response of the Liberals.

Of course, anyone who was in the House would remember that our government could not spend enough to satisfy the Liberals. Every single question at the time was about why we were not spending more. The biggest difference from then until now is that we immediately laid out a plan to get back to balance by 2015. We followed that plan absolutely, to a T.

The member's government inherited the incredible fiscal situation we had in Canada at that time.

[Business of Supply, April 9th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Miramichi—Grand Lake.

It is a pleasure to stand here on behalf of the constituents of Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.

That was an interesting exchange we just heard when the NDP member took issue with many of the things the Liberals are doing that are destroying the economy of our country right now. However, at the same time, when she and her colleagues have a chance to vote against the Liberal government and go into an election to change the government, they side with it every single time.

I just had the opportunity to come back from my constituency, where, like many colleagues, I was meeting with constituents. I had 6 two-hour constituent round tables last week. I had a chance to interact with dozens of constituents at these round tables, and a lot of issues were raised. Interestingly, the number one issue was not the carbon tax at those round tables. Time and again, in Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, what was articulated at those round tables by constituents was how we can get rid of the Liberal Prime Minister before he destroys the economy of Canada.

I will just mention a few of the other issues that were raised. The carbon tax was definitely the main policy issue raised, as well as housing, runaway deficits, safety in our streets, immigration and the recent challenges with the immigration system. Of course, health care is always raised, especially at a time when it is clear that we are going to spend more on interest on the debt the Liberal government has rang up than we will spend on health care in this country over the next few years, so there are a lot of issues to talk about.

I think it is helpful, in the context of what we are talking about today, to revisit the legacy of economic chaos that is in the DNA of the Liberal Party, and that is the Trudeau legacy. It is very important to revisit the Trudeau legacy of the 1970s and 1980s. It was a Liberal government that ran up 14 deficits in 15 years, and there were results of that time. Of course, that was a time of drastic economic experimentation by, at the time, the most left-leaning prime minister we had ever had. Obviously, that has definitely been beaten by the current government, but at that time, it was the most left-leaning government we had ever had. It undertook an economic experiment, and we saw crises, including an energy crisis, an inflation crisis, a housing crisis and a national unity crisis, that stretched right to the end of that government in 1984 and, interestingly, way beyond the time it was in power.

Of course, the nine years following that government was the Mulroney government. I remember when some of the Liberal members were new and would come into the House in 2015 and 2016 to talk about the biggest deficits in Canadian history being under the Mulroney government, but what they did not mention at that time was that those deficits were made up entirely of interest on Trudeau's debt. The deficits it ran were largely in balance, in fact, probably a bit in surplus, but the interest payments on the Trudeau debt caused us to run deficits for many years after that. That bill came due in about the mid-nineties, from 1995 to 1997, when we were under the Liberal Chrétien-Martin government. Some of these members served under that government. When the bill came due, we saw absolutely dramatic cuts, some of the most significant cuts we have ever seen, to health care and social services spending in this country.

That is interesting because Liberal members often stand up to ask what Conservatives are going to cut when we talk about bringing some sanity to our fiscal situation in this country, but what really made significant cuts to spending on things that are important to Canadians was that Liberal government, which in two years, from 1995 to 1997, cut 32% from health care and social services transfers in this country. Can members imagine a government in 2024 having to cut 32% from health care and social services funding? That is what happened from 1995 to 1997 because of the absolutely tragic economic legacy of a Trudeau government.

Here we are again. We are now eight years into this government. It has been eight deficits in eight years for the current government. I assume we will have a ninth coming up soon, so it will be nine deficits in nine years. That is 23 deficits in 24 years under the economic policies of the current Prime Minister and the Prime Minister Trudeau of the seventies and eighties.

Under the current Liberal government, backed up by the NDP, we have doubled our country's debt. Taking a look at the things that could help that, and thinking about the conversation we are having today, what might help us in terms of our economic situation right now and the chaos we are seeing economically and otherwise is, perhaps, revenues from oil and gas. That might actually help.

I took a look at the oil and gas import numbers for 2022, the most recent numbers we have to date, and they would be astonishing to Canadians who assume we have a lot of oil and gas production in Canada. Obviously, we are one of the world leaders in terms of our vast resources and the potential that comes with our oil and gas resources, but what a lot of people do not realize is that Canada, every year, imports oil and gas, because the policies of the current Liberal government have made it impossible to build a pipeline in this country. Instead, mostly to eastern Canada, we are importing oil and gas.

In 2022 we imported $21.5 billion in crude oil alone. That was up 46% from 2021. Of course, the Americans are the number one supplier of oil and gas products like crude oil to Canada. The number two and three countries are Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, totalling over $5 billion in crude oil alone coming into Canada. On refined petroleum products, we are talking about even more: $26.1 billion in 2022 alone, which was up 55% from 2021. We were importing about $47 billion between the two of those in 2022, and that is product that could absolutely have been sourced here in Canada.

The reason that situation exists is that we hold Canadian producers, hard-working producers and workers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador and across the country, to a higher standard than we hold producers in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. We do not ask producers in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia to account for upstream emissions, for the impact on the environment or for the impact on the social fabric of their countries.

It was interesting that about a year ago we had the minister before committee and I had a chance to ask him about this. His was response was that, of course, Canada has no ability to hold those countries to account. Their own domestic governments control those types of things, and Canada cannot walk in and hold them to account, but we definitely hold Canadian producers to account for that. The one thing we can do is refuse to take oil and gas from countries that do not meet the Canadian standard, the same standard we apply to Canadian producers.

This is the world the Prime Minister has created in eight years. If we go back eight years and take a look at the situation that existed eight years ago, and our leader summed it up very well this morning when he spoke, it was a world where we had a balanced budget. In 2015, we had worked hard, coming out of the economic slowdown, and The New York Times spoke of Canada having the richest middle class in the world, having just overtaken the Americans after decades. It was a situation where we did not have the housing crisis we have right now.

I look forward to speaking some more about these things when we take questions from the other parties.