Rona Ambrose

[Incident at U.K. Parliament, March 22nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, today in London, the U.K. Parliament is the scene of an attack, an attack all too familiar to many members of the House and those who work here. While there are still many questions yet to be answered around the circumstances, on behalf of the official opposition, I offer my sincere condolences and prayers to all of those who are affected.

Will the Prime Minister join me in condemning these attacks and offer any and all support to our U.K. friends?

[Taxation, March 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, what Canadians want tomorrow is a break from the Prime Minister.

In the last budget, he hiked taxes on small businesses, on families, and on students, and then we got the national carbon tax and a payroll tax hike, but that is not enough. Now the Prime Minister needs to cancel more tax credits. He wants to raise user fees. He is even considering putting GST on Netflix.

Does the Prime Minister realize that Canadians are tired of being nickel-and-dimed to death?

[Finance, March 21st, 2017]

Let us start with facts, Mr. Speaker. The fact is that the middle class grew by 30% over the last 10 years.

Here is an interesting fact. The Prime Minister's Office has already spent more on polling than the previous Conservative government spent in eight years. Millions of tax dollars are being spent to track Canadians' views for the political benefit of the Prime Minister.

I have a really simple question for the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister polled Canadians on whether or not he should keep his promise to balance the budget in 2019?

[Government Accountability, March 21st, 2017]

Modern, Mr. Speaker? Efficient? Efficient like the Chinese dictatorship that he thinks is so efficient? We do not live in China. Those are the Prime Minister's words.

We do not live in China or Cuba. We live in Canada, and we have a parliamentary democracy that is accountable to Canadians. We think the Prime Minister should show up every day.

Here is a thought. We could have question period with the Prime Minister every day. He could answer all of our questions every day.

[Government Accountability, March 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has announced that he wants to change the rules of Parliament to make his life easier, and no one's life will be easier than his. If he gets away with this, he will only have to show up to work once a week. He also wants to strip the opposition of its power to hold him accountable.

We know that the Prime Minister says China is a dictatorship he admires, and he certainly had a bizarre infatuation with Fidel Castro.

Can the Prime Minister at least agree that he, the Prime Minister of Canada, should be accountable to the House of Commons and to Canadians more than once a week?

[Government Accountability, March 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, each and every person here was elected to represent the people in their riding, and together we represent the Canadian people.

Far from a mere inconvenience, the Prime Minister appearing in the House every day to answer questions is a critical tool for him to provide accountability to each and every Canadian.

How can the Prime Minister justify his willingness to show up in the House only once a week? Why is he attempting to shirk his responsibilities?

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is exactly right. We all know, although I do not think the Liberals know that—breaking news—governments do not create jobs. Businesses create jobs; individual Canadians create jobs. It is our job in this place to create the climate for that and allow them to reach their potential to do the things they want to do, like start a new business.

How do we do that? We lower taxes. We put in place the right measures so that when they take that risk and invest their own hard-earned money to start that new business, buy that equipment, and hire that new first employee, there will be some kind of return for that investment. That is not what we are seeing now. We are seeing, across the country, income taxes over 50%. The Prime Minister talked about helping youth, and that has just been thrown right out the window. Youth is where we really need to focus our efforts. What did he do? He is punishing small businesses with all kinds of taxes, to the point where there are not jobs available for youth today.

There are a lot of things this government could have done differently. Conservatives are going to keep pushing the government to do the right thing.

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2017]

That is Liberal financing.

How does that in any way benefit the taxpayer?

At the end of the day, we have the Prime Minister nickel and diming families and businesses over and over again with tax hikes, and his solution is to give a benefit to a private investment firm at the expense of taxpayers. No, this plan has not been thought through whatsoever. Once again, I think it is just a way for the Liberals to find some fast money to pay for their pet projects.

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2017]

No, Mr. Speaker, they do not. I agree with the hon. member about this issue; there is absolutely no transparency around this.

Ports and airports, in particular, are strategic assets. When there is a thought of selling them, we need complete transparency. The member is right about the issue of profit, because we know who the Prime Minister has been meeting with behind closed doors. He has been meeting with a lot of very wealthy investment companies that are looking to buy up assets. They only want assets that they will make a profit off, of course, because this is what they do for a living. If they are going to buy an airport, they are only going to buy one if they can make a profit off it. The member is exactly right. Therefore, where is the transparency about who is going to pay for this? Of course we know who is going to pay for this. The travelling customer, the taxpayer, will pay for it. This is all to make a profit for a private investment firm.

The Prime Minister does have to come clean on this because he is making a transaction that will hurt the public for a profit for an investment firm. Right now we have no transparency around this. We also hear that the Prime Minister might actually put up public money to fund this kind of an interaction or this kind of arrangement with a private sector company.

Let me get this straight. Taxpayers have already paid for this asset, and now we are going to pay for a private investment company to buy it so that we can now pay again. How does that in any way—

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, that would all be well and good, except the infrastructure funding is not even flowing. There is no money being transferred to municipalities and projects are not getting out the door. Mayors are saying that across the country, so I am not sure what the member is talking about.

I would like to remind the member of the record of the previous government. We lowered taxes over 100 times for individual Canadians and business owners. It was the lowest tax level in 50 years at the federal level. We balanced the budget. That was not an easy thing to do after taking on a deficit, but we slowly and prudently paid it off. At the same time, we increased federal transfers to the provinces by 70% for health care so that people did not go without the essential services that they needed for their families.

However, the current government is going completely in the opposite direction. All of the money it has spent has done nothing to create growth or create jobs. All it has done is grow the size of government, and who is paying for it? It is the hard-working people of Canada. They are paying for it. Every time we turn around, there is another tax increase, another fee increase, all to pay for the Prime Minister's pet projects. Who has to do this? This is all on the backs of hard-working people.

Every day the Liberals find another way to nickel and dime Canadian families and take away from them the things that we gave them to make life more affordable, even the tax-free savings account. This is after-tax income. People have worked hard for it. They are saving for their retirement, and the Liberals are taking half of that away.

There was a tax credit for textbooks. People use these things so that they can make life more affordable if they have students in their house. There was a tax credit for tuition. These are the kinds of things that they just keep taking away from families. They are nickel-and-diming Canadians to pay for their own priority, which is growing the size of government.