Peter Van Loan

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, March 7th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said Americans should know more about the rest of the world, but he wants Canadians to know less about their own country. Now, thanks to the citizenship guide, new Canadians do know the history of their country. They even know the difference between the great Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge and the craven Vichy regime in France.

Why does the Minister of Immigration want to reduce the historical literacy of new Canadians? Just because he does not value Canadian history does not mean that we should leave new Canadians in the dark about their country. Why the Liberal war on history?

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, March 7th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Immigration says that the Liberals need to change the citizenship guide because it is a bit heavy on the War of 1812. Less than one page out of the 68-page book is dedicated to this nation-building event that ensured Canada's continued existence.

Do the Liberals oppose letting new Canadians know that English, French, and first nations people can work together effectively? Do they oppose letting Canadians know that when we fight, even against the odds, we win? Why the Liberal war on history?

[Aerospace Industry, February 23rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the spending decisions of the current government and the resulting deficits are dragging down the economy and killing jobs. So are Liberal policy decisions. The Liberals have shut down the Billy Bishop runway expansion, and with it $2 billion in plane orders to Bombardier are gone.

The Liberals are costing jobs and killing choice and competition in Toronto for travellers, tourism and businesses. Why the reckless attack on Toronto's economy and jobs in the vulnerable aviation sector?

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton is clearly familiar with the issues and the reality there on the ground.

The reality is that there is only one reason, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons just indicated, and as I indicated with my own comments, why the Liberals are doing this. It is because the Prime Minister made a rather immature outburst, and he simply will not back off from that position that he took early on. It is vanity. That can be the only explanation. It is not doing the right thing.

We all know what the right thing is. Even the Liberal Party knows what the right thing is. That is why those members are trying to find some contorted way of pretending, having said that we will not be in combat, that maybe we sort of will be so that some people will think we are. The fact is they are ending the combat mission, even as they know in their hearts it is the right thing to continue this fight.

As I reviewed the history, there has never been as great a terrorist threat as this. It has identified Canada as a target. It has Canadian young people travel abroad to join its ranks, and we have had attacks here in Canada inspired by that group. If there was ever a fight in which we had such a responsibility to do our part, this is it. Under the Liberals, we are walking away from that responsibility.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, of course, the point of the position of the Liberal Party is to say that our CF-18s did not make a difference, that they were not playing a part of rolling back ISIL. In fact, all the evidence says otherwise. Air strikes have been the principal source of success in rolling back and containing the ISIL threat.

In terms of what the Canadian public thinks, well every survey makes it clear that they want to see Canada continue in the fight.

Sadly, there will be no more Canadians fighting after the Liberals implement this decision. Hold it, I take that back. There will still be Canadians fighting, but the only Canadians actually fighting will be fighting on the side of ISIL. That is shameful. That is an abandonment of our responsibility.

We have Canadian citizens who have travelled abroad, are part of ISIL, and are engaging in combat against our allies who are in the fight. We think we want to win the fight, and we will not even do our share. To me, that is a shameful abandonment of our most basic responsibility in this fight.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, for many years now, Sunni Islamist extremism has been identified as the principal terrorist threat to Canada's national security. This consensus among Canada's security institutions is reflected in the analysis and conclusions of Canada's counterterrorism strategy. Today, ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, is the leading proponent of the most active and violent brand of Islamic extremism in the world. Indeed, ISIL is the most aggressive exporter, promoter, and inspiration of jihadist terror attacks around the world, including in Canada today. That is why, when ISIL began to establish and expand its own geographic base and territory, Canada joined with our allies in doing our share in a combat mission to address the ISIL threat.

Today, Canada's new Liberal government is turning its back on our tradition of carrying our share of the weight in the struggle to keep the world safe from this kind of threat. No longer will we engage in combat; we are expecting our allies to do the fighting for us. This is not because the fight against ISIL is won; it is not. It is not because air strikes have not worked. All the evidence is clear that allied air strikes have been the principal factor in halting the advance of ISIL and beginning to roll back its geographic gains.

The Liberal Party is pulling out of our combat mission because its leader made a foolish and immature pronouncement about deploying our CF-18s. His vanity apparently makes it impossible to acknowledge the error of that outburst. Thus, he will not acknowledge the subsequent successful contributions of Canada's CF-18 pilots and crews in taking on ISIL.

Despite subsequent ISIL-inspired terrorist attacks in Canada and horrific carnage in places like Paris and San Bernardino, there is a stubborn unwillingness to have Canada actually fight in what is civilization's great fight of this era.

Why is it so important to deny ISIL a geographic base of operations? History tells us why. In 1988, a then obscure character from a wealthy Saudi construction family named Osama Bin Laden, established al Qaeda, meaning the base. Before too long, with the retreat of the Soviets, al Qaeda moved from Pakistan into Afghanistan where, ultimately, the Taliban regime gave them safe harbour, and a free hand to operate.

Eventually, the Bin Laden family, and others essential to the al Qaeda organization, established a family compound in the Tarnak farm. Inside this small, modest, walled compound, Bin Laden lived with his three wives and many children, and directed the terrorist exports of al Qaeda.

Canada had a special place there, it should be noted. The Canadian Khadr family, including Ahmed and Omar Khadr, lived in the Bin Laden family complex at Tarnak farm.

The Taliban regime harboured and supported al Qaeda in those years, and they were able to organize and mount a range of increasingly violent terrorist attacks abroad. For years, the work of al Qaeda was followed closely by those interested in national security issues, but the broad public seemed unconcerned, despite an escalating series of attacks.

People soon forgot a 1993 bombing in the parking garage of the World Trade Center by an al Qaeda trained terrorist. After all, only six people were killed, and the building remained standing. The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996 killed 19 U.S. soldiers, but those kinds of things happen in the Middle East, so seemed the public to reason.

The 1998 al Qaeda bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam wounded over 4,000 and killed over 200 people, but only 12 of those killed were American. The public began to take notice of al Qaeda, but again, these were faraway places.

Ahmed Ressam, the millennium bomber, who lived in Montreal, trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. His plan to bomb the Los Angeles Airport was foiled by a skilled U.S. customs inspector as he crossed the border from Canada into the U.S.

Then, in the year 2000, the USS Cole was struck by al Qaeda with 17 U.S. sailors killed.

However, it was only with the shocking attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, that public recognition of the scale of the terrorist threat would really sink in. The global response was united. The Taliban regime, and the al Qaeda core group it harboured, had to be eliminated. The geographic base for the terrorists in Afghanistan had to be shut down.

Canada did its part. The Liberal government of that day, to its credit, recognized that Canada had its place in the fight. One could take issue with how well the government of the day supported the troops sent to fight. They had jungle camouflage in a desert theatre, were left vulnerable in Iltis Jeeps, and without helicopter transport, they were left exposed to improvised explosive devices and ambushes.

However, over time, those deficiencies would be addressed with proper desert uniforms, light armoured vehicles with improved armour, and helicopter transport for the troops, all of which saved lives. Ultimately, thanks to the superb work of thousands of members of the Canadian Forces and thousands of those fighting for our allies, the terrorist threat of al Qaeda, the core organization, was degraded and virtually eliminated.

However, despite the wishful thinking of many, the threat of Islamist extremism had not come to an end. Al Qaeda's core was symbolically finished with the death of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011. Various other Islamist terrorist groups, including several that had renamed to incorporate the sensationalized al Qaeda brand, continued. Among them, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.

While Canadians had been kidnapped by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula was long viewed as the most likely affiliate that would export terrorism, it was al Qaeda in Iraq that would eventually evolve into the shockingly brutal terrorist army that is ISIL. In fact, its actions are so horrific, as many in this debate have reviewed, that they have been regarded by other al Qaeda affiliates as too extreme to be tolerated.

Therefore, with the benefit of that history, the world has recognized that the fight against ISIL is the fight of our times. Having seen what happened when al Qaeda had the security of a geographic base of operation, we know we cannot allow ISIL the same opportunity. The imperative is greater. Thanks to oil resources and geographic conquest, ISIL is now the wealthiest, best resourced, and most heavily armed terrorist group the world has ever seen. Its brutality is unlike any we have ever seen before.

Jihadist terrorism has been changing over time. ISIL does engage in the traditional terrorist activities of training and exporting terrorists to commit attacks and the bombing of civilian aircraft. ISIL has also embraced the more recent terrorist phenomenon of suicide bombers.

However, ISIL has also shown unprecedented skill at the art of propaganda and incitement. Its Internet presence, sophisticated visual production, and promotion of the destruction of non-believers has broken new boundaries. It repeatedly named Canada as a target for jihadist attacks.

That incitement has already led to two terrorist attacks here in Canada, in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and right here in Ottawa. As I have said before, ISIL has brought the terror war front lines right here to Canada. The threat is real.

Canada's responsibility is real. Many Canadians have travelled to join ISIL. For Canada to back out of the fight now can only be viewed as a failure of Canada to live up to our responsibilities. Countries like France and Great Britain acknowledge that their citizens have travelled to join ISIL and have stepped up their contributions to the fight. Despite over 130 Canadians having travelled abroad to support terrorist activity, the Liberal government is abandoning the combat, leaving our allies alone to fight the terrorists including the Canadians in the ISIL ranks. One can imagine how discouraging this is to our allies who are left to do the heavy lifting.

Our Conservative government recognized our responsibility, our Canadian tradition of doing our share, and the imperative of combatting ISIL today to prevent terrorist attacks on Canada in the future. We recognized that a failure to take on ISIL now would only lead to the need for a greater conflict in the future if the ISIL caliphate could take a geographic hold.

The decision of the Liberal government to end the combat mission against ISIL is a sad one. It marks an end to Canada's role as a leader in the global fight against terrorism. It means a failure of Canada to do our fair share of the work in keeping the world safe. The Liberal decision to end our combat mission against ISIL is a mark of our failure to assume responsibility even as young Canadians are fighting in the very ranks of ISIL.

Most of all, it is a decision that leaves Canada at risk. At best, we will be free riders, depending upon others to do the real work of shutting down the real terrorist threat to Canada. At worst, we will be leaders of a sort, the first to back out of the fight, an action which, if repeated by our allies, will leave the entire world, Canada included, vulnerable to terrorist attack by the worst, most fanatical, and export-oriented terrorist group in history.

The Liberal decision is not in keeping with the Canadian way of doing things. We are the true north, strong and free, standing on guard. We are a country of courage, of principle, of doing what is right. That is the Canadian way.

[Business of the House, February 4th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, in fairness, I think the hon. member is a little bit confused. Transfers under our government to the provinces increased maximally. In fact, transfers to my province increased some 80% over the time that the Conservative Party was in government, which was in stark contrast to what Paul Martin and the Liberals did when they decided to attack the deficit, which was slash funding to the provinces by over 40%. Does everyone remember that the health care crisis back there in the nineties, 1997 and 1996, when health care was slashed and every single province was struggling, because that was the Liberal approach, to slash transfers to the provinces.

We did the opposite. We increased health care transfers to the provinces well ahead than the rate of inflation, in fact, higher than the rate of inflation in health care spending. The federal share of health care funding under our government rose. The provincial share of health care spending under our government fell. We were doing more than our fair share.

Our concern is, what happens when another debt and deficit gets built up? We know the Liberals' way: it will hurt people.

[Business of the House, February 4th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the last time was last year. Before that we had balanced budgets that paid down some $40 billion against the national debt when the previous prime minister was in office, so in fact, the Conservative record is solid, and that is clear and widely seen.

What I find interesting is hearing Liberals and some new Democrats argue earlier today that it was only the General Motors sale that made this happen. Ironically, the Liberals are arguing that earlier the Ontario Liberals sold all their shares.

We were the last ones to sell the shares, and in so doing achieved a far greater share price than the Ontario Liberals did, if the hon. member wants to know who are good managers.

What is more, despite the Liberals selling the shares and applying that to the books and selling off Hydro One and applying that to the books and selling off whatever other furniture they could find around Ontario, they are still running a $7.5 billion deficit. There will not be much left if they keep selling off things the way Liberals do.

[Business of the House, February 4th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time today with the hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.

The constituents of my riding, York—Simcoe, are what I like to call severely normal Canadians. They value honesty from those who represent them. They work hard. They pay their taxes. They follow the rules.

They want the government to give them the freedom to succeed and build a brighter future for their families. That freedom means having more money for their own priorities through lower taxes. That brighter future means managing their finances and their mortgages, and ensuring their children do not inherit burdens that block their desire to achieve their dreams.

The previous Conservative government reflected that mindset and those values. Those constituents knew the Conservative government was on their side. They knew it when they saw life become better as federal taxes fell to their lowest level in half a century, since 1963 when John Diefenbaker led a Conservative government.

My constituents knew that the Conservative government was on their side when measures like the universal child care benefit made their lives better. In fact, UNICEF reported that hundreds of thousands of Canadian children climbed out of poverty at that time. That was despite Canada going through the global economic downturn, the most dramatic in my lifetime.

Despite that downturn, the Conservative government delivered the stimulus through tax reductions and short-term stimulus spending to make Canada the first major economy to return to growth. Indeed, we were the first G7 economy to recover the jobs that had been lost during the economic downturn, and the first to recover the lost GDP from that downturn.

Then we set out with determination to return to a balanced budget, with a surplus of $1.9 billion being achieved in the fiscal year 2014-15, a full year ahead of schedule. However, at the same time, my constituents have been burdened by an Ontario Liberal government that does not share their values, one that sees big spending, deficits and debt as the way to go, both in good times and in bad.

As a result, my constituents are drowning under the burdens foisted on them by that Ontario Liberal government, burdens of higher taxes, fees, rafts of red tape, and job-killing regulation, and rocketing hydro rates.

Well the hole is so deep now in Ontario, that this same Ontario Liberal crowd, which has left the cupboard bare, has now spotted the surplus in Ottawa. Now those people have come up here to continue to those big spending debt and deficit ways. What is their way of doing things?

In Ontario, the debt has reached a staggering $300 billion. That is almost $22,000 for each man, woman, and child in the province. The deficit is $7.5 billion. It is now clear that the Ontario Liberal way of doing things is coming to Ottawa.

Three facts are clear from the finance department's report so far.

First, in 2014-15, the last full fiscal year under a Conservative government, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion.

Second, from April to October of 2015, under a Conservative government, a six month period of time, there was a surplus of $1 billion. The same pattern, the exact same trajectory as the previous year.

Third, by the end of March 2016, after just five months of a Liberal government, there will be a deficit of $3 billion. A year later, there will be an even higher deficit.

This should not surprise anyone. The Liberal Party actually campaigned on a commitment to run deficits. During that election when I occasionally ran into people who told me they were voting Liberal, I would ask them what they liked, was it the promised deficits or the higher taxes? They would usually say to me that it was none of those things. I would tell them that this was what they would get. In turn they would say they did not think so.

I would tell them it was in the Liberal platform, that it was spelled out, and that is what the Liberals had committed. Their comment was that the Liberals always broke their promises. To which I would tell they that they might be surprised, that these might be promises they would actually keep.

We are discovering that this is the case. Clearly, whatever new face those Liberals thought they were voting for in the last election, they were not looking for the higher taxes and the deficits that the Liberal government believes is its mandate.

Those constituents are, however, correct in at least one regard. Liberal promises are already being broken. The Liberals promised their tax measures would be revenue neutral, but now they have already admitted that they are not revenue neutral. They will in fact dig an additional deficit hole of $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion annually. That is not my number. That comes from the Liberal Minister of Finance. That is his admission of how that Liberal promise is being broken. Unfortunately, that broken promise and others to come will only make deeper the hole into which Canada will be pushed.

When I was House leader of the government, I was astounded by the remarkable discipline that our then prime minister and our team, working with two very hard-working finance ministers and in fact the whole team, applied to the question of fiscal discipline. The work to achieve a balanced budget overall was in the interests of all Canadians. When there is a chance to be in government and see how challenging it is to manage the finances and the economy, people see how narrow that margin of manoeuvre is. It is like driving a car down a winding mountain road. It takes only a small amount of recklessness or inattention before going in the ditch or worse.

In Ontario, my constituents are waiting for that provincial tow truck to arrive. Their well-grounded fear often expressed to me is that the same crowd who drove Ontario into the ditch now wants to continue that sloppy ride on the federal scene, putting Canada off the solid fiscal road it was on. They know that at the end of the day it is ordinary Canadians like them who will have to pay for it all.

It is often said that history is written by the victors. What is said less often is what we hear from the other side of the House today, and that is history being rewritten by the victors. They did it in the Soviet Union. They do it in North Korea. Now the Liberals are trying to do it in Canada. Fortunately, this is Canada and Canadians will not be fooled by this Liberal overreach. That is because Canadians have access to objective facts, objective facts from the Department of Finance and objective facts from the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

What are those facts? First, there was a $1.9 billion surplus in 2014-15, the last full fiscal year that the Conservatives were in government. Second, there was a $1 billion surplus over the last six months of the Conservative government, April to November, 2015.

The question remains. Why, if the Liberals have promised to run deficits and they make a virtue of it, and there can be no doubt that Liberals see deficits as virtuous, are they so anxious to try to rewrite history, to go into those documents in the library at the finance department and cut out, with their scissors, any reference to past Conservative surpluses? I believe we all know the answer. Liberal deficits will be far higher than anyone thinks and they cannot bear to see the contrast with the Conservatives.

The problem with the party that believes that deficits are a good thing, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said today, is that they just cannot get enough of a good thing. If people believe a small deficit is good, it is not long before they start believing that a bigger deficit is better and before we know it, a huge deficit is just awesome. That, however, is how Liberal thinking always works. Before we know it we will find that the budget does not actually balance itself. That is the path we are already on. It did not take long, but the spending and deficits that the Liberals promise and are now delivering will ensure that at the end of next month we will be solidly in the red politically and fiscally. We will have gone year over year from $2 billion in surplus to $3 billion in deficit.

Many out there are critical of our Conservative government's focus on achieving a balanced budget. There can be no doubt that the hard work and discipline of running a tight fiscal ship is not a lot of fun and sometimes people want to have some fun, and some money can buy fun. However, there is much truth in the saying that money cannot buy happiness. While some may argue with it, and some may argue that money can buy at least some happiness, nobody can argue that drowning in debt will do anything other than bringing continual misery.

As for my constituents, they would prefer responsible leaders refusing to have fun with their tax dollars to happy politicians spending away, burying Canadians under a mountain of misery, debt, and taxes. Balancing the budget was the right thing to do. A steady hand on the tiller is what Canadians need. Our steady hands, a disciplined prime minister, and our hard-working finance ministers steadied the Canadian ship through the stormy seas of the biggest global economic downturn of my lifetime. We came out the other side with a balanced budget, solid books, low taxes, and a rising tide that was lifting the fortunes of all Canadians. It is a pity that it has taken so little time for that ship of state to start springing leaks and taking on water.

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2015]

Madam Speaker, I note that the American defence secretary has just contacted 40 defence ministers around the world, asking for an increased commitment at the same time as Canada is actually taking back its commitment and moving backwards in the fight against ISIS. Is it the case that the U.S. defense secretary called the minister? Did he express regret at Canada's actions? Did he ask Canada to keep its jet in the fight? I would also be interested in hearing if he asked Canada to do more, rather than less, for the coalition against ISIS.