Scott Reid

[Finance, June 20th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is a broken record of broken promises, and the list keeps on growing. There are broken promises on spending, and we still do not have a budget plan. There are broken promises on consultants and on consulting with Canadians. There are broken promises to have his elbows up with the Americans. Instead, what the Prime Minister has lifted is his middle finger to Canadians on affordability, inflation and Liberal policies.

Canadians need real change from the Prime Minister, not pocket change in tax cuts, not broken promises and not false hopes. Will the Prime Minister table a real budget plan this spring or will he not?

[Government Priorities, June 20th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's first four weeks have been filled with broken promises on spending, consultants, defence spending and relations with the U.S. Now the Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed another broken promise, this time on tax cuts. He advises us that the average Canadian will save only $7.50 a month and low-income seniors will save even less, under five dollars a month, under the Liberal proposals.

Perhaps it is not a surprise the Prime Minister will not table a budget this spring, because so much of what he is saying now is so different from what he said during the election. I am curious: Did the Prime Minister deliberately mislead Canadians during the election, is he misleading them now or is it both?

[Conservative Party Caucus, May 30th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to subsection 49.8(5) of the Parliament of Canada Act, I rise to discharge my obligations as the chair of the Conservative caucus and to inform you of the recorded votes of the first Conservative caucus meeting, which took place on May 6, 2025. Division C.1 of the act requires that four votes be taken at the first meeting of every recognized caucus following a general election.

The first vote establishes whether, for the remainder of that Parliament, members may only be expelled from the caucus by means of a majority vote among their colleagues. At its May 6 meeting, the Conservative caucus voted in favour of adopting this provision.

The second vote establishes whether a caucus will elect its own chair and retain the right to replace that chair with another, also by majority vote. The Conservative caucus voted in favour of this as well.

The third vote establishes whether a caucus will give itself the authority to conduct a leadership review vote, a power that the Liberals in the 44th Parliament may perhaps have regretted not adopting. At its May 6 meeting, the Conservative caucus voted in favour of this one also.

The fourth vote establishes whether a caucus will, in preparation for the eventuality that an interim leader will be needed, give itself the authority to elect that interim leader. The Conservative caucus also voted to adopt this authority. Subsection 49.8(5) of the act specifies:

As soon as feasible after the conduct of the votes, the chair of the caucus shall inform the Speaker of the House of Commons of the outcome of each vote.

I have now discharged this obligation. I encourage the chairs of the two other recognized caucuses to rise in the House, as I have done, and, in their respective reports to the Speaker, make clear whether or not separate votes were held in each question, as subsection 49.8(2) of the law explicitly requires.

[Season's Greetings, December 17th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker,

T'is the week before Christmas, and all through this House
MPs dream of returning to home, hearth and spouse
Our stockings are hung by our chimneys with care
But what of the homeless? Who put them out there?
There's fingers to point and random people to blame
But, mostly, I think of one person I'd name
And that's Rideau Cottage's middle-aged Swifty
Who, through taxes, inflation and budgets unthrifty
Has crushed housing starts and caused rents to double.
Perhaps, in the end, he's one source of our trouble?
His modest proposal to ease Canada's pain
Reads like Jonathan Swift: no more tax on champagne!
But, what if instead we stopped taxing new houses
Might that build more homes for our kids and their spouses?
If housing officials weren't paid to say “No”
Would that cause the supply of housing to grow?
If that can be true, then of hope there's a token
That Canada soon will be much less broken.

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. If you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to let this member go on and on forever. With such wisdom dispensed from his lips with every word he says, surely we can cancel our Christmas holidays to enjoy the pearls of wisdom that he continues to drop upon us—

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary offered his opinion as to what the only problem in the House is. I want to ask my hon. colleague whether he would agree with me that the problem in the House is that the Prime Minister has emasculated the entire caucus and does not allow anybody to speak except for the one member and the member for Kingston and the Islands, who take up all the time despite having, as any human being would, a limited amount of knowledge.

The situation has resulted, effectively, in the people who know the least saying the most in the House. That is a profound dysfunction within the House currently.

[Privilege, December 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, of course, Doug Ford enthusiastically supported the Prime Minister's restrictions on civil rights, and that was one of the many points on which I have departed from Doug Ford.

However, I will point out that I do not love Doug Ford. Nobody who knows me thinks I love Doug Ford. If members were to go online to google “Doug Ford, Scott Reid, Stalin”, they would find a reference to me comparing him to Stalin for the way he treated a member of his caucus when tossing him out. Doug Ford is no fan of mine. I have told the provincial party that it will start getting donations from me again when Doug Ford leaves as premier, and I am happy to say that in the House of Commons.

[Privilege, December 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the hon. member for his kind words. Likewise, one of the highlights of my career was working on the parliamentary Special Committee on Electoral Reform, which this member chaired. He did an extraordinary job with what, I have to say, was a very difficult file. We do not often get the chance to say nice things about each other. I actually do think highly of most colleagues, both those who are presently here and those, like Joe Comartin, who have left. We have had many extraordinary people pass through, and I have been very fortunate to have been able to serve with so many.

However, the obvious thought here is that, in the example provided, with the purpose being that the documents were to be given to an external group, such as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, I think that would be very unwise. What would happen here is that they would be given to the Parliamentary Law Clerk, who would then go through them and make independent judgments about them.

The purpose of doing that would not be merely to facilitate prosecution. In fact, I do not think that is the primary purpose at all. It would be to make sure that the potential for prosecution does not serve to hide the fact that there are other things going on, which may or may not be illegal, but that are outside of what Canadians expect to have with regard to the governance of their money.

We all understand that mere compliance with the law is insufficient in a government. It has to go beyond and try to match up with the various other rules and codes, such as the ethics code, which we have to sign on to, and the conflict of interest code, for which office holders have a separate code that is more restrictive. There are also other rules and norms in place, the very conventions that we have here, that are only partly written down. The practices are themselves norms that are not enforceable by law. They are enforceable by public opinion. Depriving the public of the ability to see relevant documentation is the concern that I have here.

[Privilege, December 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the member's intervention gives me the opportunity to make another point. I did talk about the election in 2000 when only two members of my party were elected in Ontario. That was an election where 98 out of 102 ridings in Ontario had members who were elected for the Liberal Party. The other riding was the one that the member currently holds, and it was Joe Comartin, who was a great member.

The answer is that I do not know about the details of this, and I am not my party's spokesman on this matter. I will look into this and try to find out more. Although, as I say, I know nothing, I guess that, if it is back-to-work legislation, we would wind up dealing with that legislation here in the next 24 hours, or however long.

Fortunately, my riding is close to Ottawa, so I am just driving back and forth, but for those who would have to cancel travel plans to be with their families, I am sad about that.

[Privilege, December 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, was that actually a point of order? That was not a point of order. I think that just made my point, did it not? I am thankful the member for Winnipeg North just made my point for me.

No, I did not hear about this until now. I have a policy when I am dealing with the media that I never comment on an issue to the first person who tells me about it. I want to go back to find out more. Once these questions are over, I am going to scoot back into the back to find out more about what the minister is up to.