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Crucial Fact

  • Her favourite word was ndp.

Last in Parliament October 2015, as Conservative MP for Saint Boniface (Manitoba)

Won her last election, in 2011, with 50% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Business of Supply February 17th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to hear the Liberal member for Winnipeg North talk about public safety and justice.

There is a cost to ensuring the safety and security of all the constituents in his riding where I worked for most of my police career. There is a cost to making sure they are safe. Almost all Canadians agree with our plan to ensure that we spend the money required to make them safe and secure.

I worked the streets of the north end; my mother lives in the north end. It is unfortunately one of the most violent areas of the city of Winnipeg. Unfortunately, the city of Winnipeg suffers from the label of having an excessive amount of violent crime. I challenge the member to do the right thing because the members of his community agree with me and they agree with this government to do what it takes and to spend the money to protect them from violent crime.

Business of Supply February 17th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question about Tim Hortons. I would like to take this opportunity to say that we are very proud of Tim Hortons, which is recognized throughout Canada and the United States as a Canadian company. It is because the Conservative government decided to lower income taxes that Tim Hortons decided to return here, to Canada.

I encourage Bloc members to celebrate Tim Hortons, a Canadian company, with us. Quebeckers enjoy their double-doubles with the rest of Canada.

Business of Supply February 17th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to this very important motion concerning, among other things, the ongoing discussions at the finance committee on the Liberals' plan to increase taxes on job-creating businesses and, consequently, on workers, consumers and families. As a mother of five children, I can say that this would hurt my family, along with many others, particularly single mothers.

Before I begin, let me be clear up front that there has been some confusion as to what we are talking about with respect to our Conservative government's low tax plan. This is not a new plan. This is a plan that was first introduced in 2007 and passed by Parliament in 2007. This is a plan that has been in law since 2007. This is a plan that has been accounted for in the government's books since 2007. Most importantly, over 110,000 businesses have been making their investment and hiring decisions based on our low tax plan since 2007.

I note that at the time the Liberals were more than supportive of lowering business taxes. Indeed, this is what the Liberal leader had to say in the fall of 2007 on the subject. He stated:

I am convinced that a further reduction in the corporate tax rate cut is the right thing to do...How, for the sake of good jobs and rising living standards, can we encourage Canadian companies to increase their investments? The answer is simple... lower the corporate tax rate--

I repeat that good jobs and rising living standards are what the Liberal leader believed are affected by lowering corporate taxes. However, under their new leader, the Liberals have shifted even more dramatically to the left and embraced the business bashing rhetoric and tax and spend philosophy of their NDP coalition partner.

The Liberals' dramatic shift to the left, along with their reckless plan to hike taxes on business, is now the centre of debate here today. The tax hike plan is really getting Canadian businesses and the people who work for them very nervous, especially as they try to climb out of the worst global recession since the 1930s in a period of tentative recovery.

I know the sponsor of today's motion is from the province of Saskatchewan, which is where I was born. I would ask him to talk to his constituents and the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce. I am not sure that he has done that yet. If he had, I am not sure he would be so keen on demonizing businesses in his home province and advocating for punishing tax hikes.

I would ask him to listen to what the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce wrote in an open letter. It stated:

The Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce is extremely disappointed to see the issue of planned business tax reductions, and the ability of Canada's businesses to foster sustainable economic growth, which has become hostage to political manoeuvring...

Following through on the business tax reduction agenda is critical to moving from government- and Canadian taxpayer-funded-stimulus to a private sector-led recovery. The Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce believes improving the business climate to trigger private sector investment is the most significant economic issue now confronting Canada...

The alternative to that, of course, is an increase in taxes. We do not believe raising taxes would be good for growth or employment...

...the tax reductions parliamentarians have endorsed since 2007 will free up capital to be put to work growing Canada's businesses and its economy... If parliamentarians renege on their commitment to continue with promised tax decreases, you can be certain that many businesses will not be able to pursue their plans.

I am going to suggest the people of Saskatchewan will not look too kindly on a politician who suggests that taxes be raised in their province, hurting their local businesses and costing them local jobs for their families. I am also going to suggest that the Liberal Party actually talk to small businesses. In recent weeks, shamefully, the Liberal Party has been standing up bizarrely claiming small businesses want to pay higher taxes.

To be clear, that is 100% wrong and Canadians need to know that. I know because I stood right beside Catherine Swift, the head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business when she said she supports our plan.

For the record let me quote what the CFIB actually said:

I'd just like to clarify that the corporate income tax reductions are not exclusively a big business issue for a lot of different reasons. The small and medium-sized business sector is very integrated with the large business sector in Canada. Therefore, measures that benefit one also benefit the other. We also have seen, right through the economy, that our very competitive corporate tax climate, which is viewed around the world as very attractive, already brought investment to Canada, and naturally, that's a win for everyone, all businesses and also for the creation of employment. I think also...when a plan gets announced, businesses take that into account in their own planning and to change this now in the middle of the game, I think, creates a lot of very serious problems in terms of our reputation as a country on the international scene and also for our businesses here in Canada.

Having clearly heard that quote from the CFIB in its entirety, I ask once and for all that the Liberals stop distorting the views of Canadian small businesses about the Liberals' tax hike plan. In fact, the member for Kings—Hants should apologize for intentionally misquoting the CFIB.

This all goes to a larger issue. What we have here is a fundamental disagreement. Our Conservative government believes hard-working Canadians should not be paying higher taxes. We believe lower taxes help job creation and economic growth. Our low tax plan has already shown signs that it is working and making Canada an attractive place for business to invest and create jobs.

I think of one example that all Canadians could relate to, which is Tim Hortons and what transpired a few years back. Tim Hortons, that Canadian icon, actually left Canada in the 1990s like many businesses at the time because of the high tax policies of the previous Liberal government. But after Parliament passed our low tax plan in 2007, Tim Hortons recognized that Canada was once again open for business and not solely open to tax business like under the Liberals. Tim Hortons swiftly moved back to Canada as a direct result.

In the words of a Calgary Herald editorial at the time:

Talk about a double-double blessing! ...Canada's national coffee--Tim Hortons--is leaving Delaware and coming home, for all the right reasons. That is, after years during which Canadian business rightly complained of being at a tax disadvantage compared to its U.S. competitors, the pendulum has swung and Timmies now reckons it will do better north of the border.... [I]t shows Canada is doing something right. Rule one in public economics is that people respond to the incentives they're offered. That a company such as Tim Hortons is prepared to go through the upheaval of moving its head office to take advantage of a lower tax environment shows business tax cuts...are starting to work.

Clearly, a strong economy means more financially secure Canadian families.

But the Liberal opposition believes Canadians and Canadian businesses are not sending enough of their hard-earned money to Ottawa. That is why the Liberals are pushing for higher taxes, be it a GST hike, business tax hikes or an iPod tax, to help fill government coffers in Ottawa. Why would we do that to Canadians? The Liberals would use taxpayers' money to bankroll their big government schemes, like providing benefits to people after a 45-day work year.

Clearly, when it comes to taxes we have different views.

This debate has been occurring at finance committee over the past few months. Over the course of the committee's prebudget consultations, group after group and expert after expert was asked what they thought of our government's low tax plan and what they thought of the Liberals' tax hike plan.

What did the finance committee hear? The testimony was nearly unanimous in support of our Conservative government's plan to keep taxes low for job creators and against the Liberals' plan to attack them. Groups like the Mining Association of British Columbia, the Conference Board of Canada, the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association, the Sarnia Lambton Chamber of Commerce, the Conseil du patronat du Québec, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, the Mining Association of Canada, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and more were all united in telling the finance committee tax hikes are a bad idea for our economy and for jobs.

As the Canadian Chamber of Commerce told the committee:

The single most important or most damaging thing the government could do at this point to stall the recovery would be to cancel the planned tax reductions. Business has been planning on them. The private sector has been hiring based on them.... If suddenly those were repealed at this point, the impact would be to get business to shelve its plans for expansion and getting people back to work.

I am stunned. The Liberal-Bloc Québécois-NDP coalition recently banded together to endorse a Liberal motion to essentially harm Canada's economic growth and kill jobs, especially after all the witnesses before the committee so strongly supported our Conservative government's ambitious plan to support job creators.

Even more recently, the finance committee invited Ian Lee, the director of the Master of Business Administration program at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business. We asked Ian Lee at finance committee what he thought about the debate on business taxes. Here is what he said at length:

“I've followed the debate over the past two months and I'm just astonished at the debate. There has been no reference to the OECD, to their 10-year tax policy research branch studies. They have published dozens and dozens and dozens of studies which have concluded irrevocably without condition that corporate taxes are the most harmful type of tax for economic growth. There is no ambiguity in the research. None, none, zip, nada. So I know that's going to upset some people but that's a fact....The OECD research for 10 years, across many, many scholars, has found that income per capita goes down. Or you can put it in reverse: the lower the corporate taxes, the higher the income per person. The scholarship is very clear on that. So I'm answering your question: if corporate taxation goes up, income per capita will go down....The scholarship is unambiguous and an increase in taxes is merely a disguised tax on workers or consumers. That's all it is.... It's going to raise prices or cause wages to go down.”

That was an expert, Ian Lee, on making sure corporate tax reduction continues. Mr. Lee's findings have been supported recently by experts like the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, University of Calgary Professor Jack Mintz, and many more who have released detailed reports showing our low tax plan is crucial to keeping Canada's economy strong. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Indeed, I would like to draw the attention of Parliament, and especially of Canadian families, to one finding in particular from the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters' report.

We know debates like this can get a little theoretical. We know sometimes we can get lost in big and competing numbers, but let us bring it down to a more personal level. To do that, let us look at two numbers from the report of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters. The report, which is available online, indicated for the final two portions alone of our low tax plan, among the many economic benefits would be an increase in personal incomes of Canadians by a whopping $30.4 billion, or an increase of 2.4%, and an increase of personal income of $880 per capita. That is $880 per person.

That might not seem like a lot of money to a Liberal leader who summers in France, but for the average Canadian family, that is a big amount. That is what this debate is all about: jobs, economic growth and how we can make Canadian families more financially secure.

I recognize there is some debate today about our government's record of transparency versus the Liberal record, but I am quite comfortable with what our government has done to better inform Canadians about how we spend their tax dollars. Indeed, we are the government that created the office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We are the government that passed a law requiring all federal departments and agencies to produce detailed quarterly financial statements. We are the government that produced groundbreaking progress report after progress report on the economic action plan, something even Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, said, “really put Canada almost at the forefront in fiscal transparency and stimulus”. That is our record.

What is the Liberal record? It is spending scandal after spending scandal that had to be uncovered, everything from the sponsorship scandal to the HRSDC boondoggle, to the wasteful long gun registry, and the list goes on and on.

Today's debate is also about transparency and who will stand up for taxpayers. On that, only our Conservative government has been clear. We will not support tax increases on workers, families and businesses. We will stay committed to our low tax plan to create jobs.

Abolition of Early Parole Act February 16th, 2011

Madam Speaker, I would like to support what the Bloc member just said.

Frankly, when the other Bloc member was speaking, I was a bit disappointed to hear the member for Outremont yelling at her that she was bluffing and other things. I am a bit disappointed and I want to support what the Bloc member just said.

Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act February 14th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I am prefacing my answer with all due respect to the member, as I have been here for only two and a half years.

I am a police officer on a leave of absence after almost 19 years. I have listened to the cries of victims who have been defrauded. I have listened to them contemplate suicide because they cannot figure out how they will recoup the loss of their life savings.

It is about time those cries were heard, and I am proud to be part of the government that is hearing them. However, since I have been here two and a half years, and with all due respect to the member, the NDP has been the worst party at delaying every crime measure we have put forward to protect victims.

I cannot truthfully say to the member that I agree with anything he has said, because I feel it would be feigned to do so, given the history of the NDP on crime bills in the House.

Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act February 14th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, as the member well knows, the request that went to the finance committee is very different than the broad question he has asked me today.

The member asked if I felt that information was valuable. Absolutely. Am I prepared to direct information that might actually compromise cabinet confidence? Absolutely not. I am not prepared to do that.

However, when we are talking about victims and the cost of these kinds of crimes, there is absolutely no amount of money that will bring back to those victims their sense of dignity or the money they have lost. Victims are sentenced to a life of trying to recoup what they have lost.

The Conservative government has made it clear that we believe the costs involved in ensuring that victims are heard and are substantially provided for is very valuable. We will continue in that vein to support victims.

Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act February 14th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to express my support for this motion, one that will help us deliver the essential reforms proposed in Bill C-59.

We must make no mistake that Canadians rightfully expect that white collar offenders will face consequences for their actions. Today I rise in the chamber to support this motion knowing, like other members, that Canadians have asked us to stand up for the rights of victims of white collar crime. Standing up for those rights means taking action and the motion before us today would do exactly that. It would help ensure the quick passage of Bill C-59.

There may have been a time when Canadians saw white collar crime as a faceless victimless act targeting corporations instead of households. However, I think we can all agree today that fraud and other crimes of this sort can ruin the lives of individuals and their families. The financial security that comes from years of responsible saving can simply vanish overnight. Lives can be instantly turned upside down.

We have a real opportunity before us to fix this problem through Bill C-59. This government has been unwavering in its commitment to better balance the rights of victims with those of offenders. This belief has been at the forefront in driving our public safety and justice agenda. We continue to take several steps to listen and respond to concerns from victims.

One of the early initiatives of this government was the creation of the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime as an independent resource for victims. As a further signal of our commitment to better meet the needs of victims, we committed $52 million over four years to enhance the federal victims strategy. We wanted to ensure that victims were given more opportunity to be heard in the corrections and conditional release process and we wanted to help victims gain access to the information and services they might need.

The National Office for Victims at Public Safety Canada is delivering on this very important work. These efforts also extend to the Policy Centre for Victim Issues at the Department of Justice. Resources made available by the policy centre can help victims attend parole hearings or seek assistance if they experience crime while outside of the country. Not knowing where to turn for help can be an added burden on a victim, one that this government wants to help ease.

The Department of Justice Canada now offers an online victims services directory organized by type of crime experienced and support services offered locally. In addition to these steps, our legislative agenda clearly confirms our commitment to better balancing the rights of victims and law-abiding citizens with the rights of offenders.

We introduced reforms that ensure victims have the right to make statements at Parole Board of Canada hearings. At the same time, we have introduced measures in Bill C-39 so that offenders cannot withdraw their parole applications 14 days or less before a hearing date, ensuring that victims do not travel needlessly to attend a hearing that will not take place.

We passed legislation that targets identity theft and identity fraud, crimes that are growing in frequency and in damage. These reforms were asked for by victims and this government responded. Victims duped by white collar offenders are rightfully angered to learn that these offenders can be eligible for supervised release soon after they are sentenced. As it stands, these offenders will be released into the community under supervision after serving one-sixth of their sentences unless the Parole Board of Canada has reasonable grounds to believe these offenders will commit a violent offence if released. Again, this is simply unacceptable.

Let us consider this scenario, one that I, like most Canadians, would find appalling. A white collar offender, whose fraudulent acts may have victimized many, could automatically receive day parole two years into a 12-year sentence. This same individual, who may have emptied the savings of several families, could be granted full parole at four years.

The Parole Board of Canada needs to have the discretion it now lacks in dealing with these cases. The only test now is whether an offender is likely to commit a violent offence. Even when the Parole Board believes the offender is likely to commit another offence, including fraud or theft, it is able to release them if he or she does not meet that test.

Bill C-59 would eliminate the current system of accelerated parole review whereby offenders who commit non-violent crimes, such as fraud, can be released on day parole after serving one-sixth of their sentence.

Bill C-59 proposes the much-needed reforms that would treat those who commit fraud and other white collar crimes the same way as other offenders. They will be eligible for regular day parole review six months prior to full parole eligibility and full parole review after serving one-third of their sentence.

This government firmly believes that those who commit crimes must be held accountable for their actions, and we took steps accordingly. Victims asked us to, Canadians asked us to and now I ask all hon. members in this House to join with me in supporting the motion before us today. We must ensure the timely passage of Bill C-59. We have a shared responsibility to answer victims and their needs. Let us deliver on that commitment.

Points of Order February 14th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I think the member clearly indicated that she used unparliamentary language. I would expect that someone in the House would ask the member to apologize and let us get on with it. To continue in this manner of replacing unparliamentary language in such a way is absolutely disrespectful in the House. I would expect better.

Points of Order February 14th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, as you know, I do not enjoy doing this, but sometimes we must correct certain things that were said during question period. During that period, after the minister replied, I clearly heard the Bloc member for Québec call her a liar. I ask you to rule on that today.

Government Priorities February 11th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise for the first time to defend businesses and families across this country.

Just the other day, the Liberal Party claimed to represent the interests of small businesses, misleading the House, indicating that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business supported its plan to increase taxes by $6 billion.

I am going to take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to ask you to encourage the Liberal Party to apologize to the CFIB today for that misleading comment.