House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 44% of the vote.
Ethics April 4th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals initially tried to hide the details of this illegal vacation. When it was revealed, the Ethics Commissioner started not one but two official investigations.
The Prime Minister continues to claim it is all okay, move along, nothing to see here, because the Aga Khan is a close family friend. Are Canadians supposed to believe that the trip would have been more inappropriate if they were not so close?
Ethics April 4th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, speaking of Liberals helping themselves, there is more news today regarding the Prime Minister's illegal vacation to a private island.
We have learned that the Liberal government gave taxpayers' money to a close friend of the Prime Minister in order to cover the expenses of a technician on the private island. This payment proves that the rest of the trip was actually a gift accepted by the Prime Minister and several other Liberal friends.
Will the Prime Minister rise today, finally take responsibility, and admit that he broke the law?
Standing Orders of the House of Commons April 4th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government could have simply said that it would not unilaterally change how our democracy works. Instead, it is about to force this power grab on us.
Does the Liberal government at least understand the precedent it is setting?
Is it really ready to abandon the traditional rule of consensus, only to advance its own short-term interests?
Standing Orders of the House of Commons April 4th, 2017
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister committed to forming a government that, unlike the Conservatives, would be “open to discussion and debate”. He also vowed that he wanted to end the concentration of power initiated by his father.
The Liberal proposals include the Prime Minister showing up just once a week. Imagine that.
I am forced to ask the government House leader a question that she will likely get a lot if the Liberals force through their parliamentary power grab. How does she feel having to cover for the Prime Minister?
The Budget April 4th, 2017
Madam Speaker, the member's important question goes right to the heart of what this “we'll get to it” budget really is about. The promises that are there for housing are for years and years down the road. What will happen immediately is that people will lose their tax credit for public transit. The Liberals are getting to that right away.
With regard to child care, we know it is something that has been crying out for action for a long time, yet the Liberals are again shovelling this forward. There is not one penny for child care for next year. I remember during the election campaign the NDP made it a key part of our platform. It was costed; we had a rollout and good, solid, public administration. The Liberals said that would take far too long. What they are proposing is taking twice as long as anything we ever proposed, and they have not done a thing since they formed government.
The Budget April 4th, 2017
Madam Speaker, the member gives me the opportunity to remind him that balancing looks at both sides of the balance sheet. The NDP was proud to say, and it was an obvious truth, that Canadian corporations were not paying their fair share. We are the only party in the House with the courage to raise corporate taxes, and we maintain that was the right thing to do.
I ask that the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington point out to us where in the Liberal platform they informed Canadians that they would be removing the tax credit for public transit. Where did the Liberals ever tell the average working Canadian who is doing a good thing by taking public transit, lowering traffic, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, that the supposedly pro-middle class, pro-environment government was actually going to remove the one tax credit that was an incentive for people to use public transit instead of their private cars? Where was that in their platform?
The Budget April 4th, 2017
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the budget that was recently tabled by the Liberal government. First, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my friend and colleague, the member for Burnaby South, who will be taking the second half of our party's time.
I will begin by commenting on what the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands just said.
The leader of the Green Party just made a statement that I found spot on, that the Liberal story narrative, the Liberal arc, is classically the following. The Liberals make a bunch of promises during an election campaign, things like democratic reform, let us say, and then, one by one, they do not keep those promises, but as it gets closer and closer to the next election, they say that the world will come to an end unless the Liberals are re-elected because they were just about to get to it. I guess we could call that particular Liberal approach the “we are just about to get to it” budget, because that is what we have here.
Benjamin Franklin had a famous saying that people loved to quote, and it is true. He said that were only two certainties in life: death and taxes. I can say that there are only two certainties in Liberal administrations, debt and taxes, because that is what we see in this budget. It is not so much a question of how it is the Liberals have already planned to have a deficit of over $100 billion only 18 months into their administration and they are announcing that they will never ever see a balanced budget, despite the promise during the election campaign that they would only have an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny deficit and then, by the next election, they would be back to balanced budgets.
What we are seeing is just what the leader of Green Party correctly described as the Liberals' take on things. They are so good at spinning their stuff they would even have Canadians believe that consistent deficits with nothing in return are actually a progressive value, that somehow that is what left-wing administrations do. Actually, that is what Liberal administrations do. People who are progressive hold the following to be their key value: to make sure that they are there consistently and reliably. Let me provide a counter example.
After seeing the success of the CCF NDP's health care plan in Saskatchewan, Canadians were happy to see universal free public medical care applied across the country. It was a fifty-fifty federal-provincial plan. What is it now, now that the Liberal government is imposing Stephen Harper's cuts in health care? We are down to less than 20% of the federal government share.
This is a classic example of the tail wagging the dog because the Liberals are telling us that not only are they going to go forward with Stephen Harper's cuts but that, from now on, the federal government will be dictating what the provinces can and cannot do when it comes to health care. We all witnessed this vicious cycle of quick spending to score cheap points and the inevitable backtracking where the government is forced to make cuts under Paul Martin.
This is the cycle of the Liberals. We have seen it time and again. They pose as progressives, yet they fought against the $15-an-hour federal minimum wage during the campaign. They posture as environmentalists, but Environment Canada says that it will not even meet Stephen Harper's woefully inadequate targets for greenhouse gas emissions. By the way, that is the only thing that matters.
I was in Paris when the Prime Minister threw out his arms and proclaimed that Canada is back. That produced a lot of head-scratching in the room, people saying that they did not know Canada had ever left. What we had was a Prime Minister trying to communicate that thank goodness he was there because now things would finally change on the environmental front.
Here is the reality. The only plan the Liberals have is Stephen Harper's plan, and they will not meet Stephen Harper's target. People do not have to take our word for it, because Environment Canada confirmed that over the weekend. I guess that is what the Liberals meant by real change. They keep Stephen Harper's targets but they just do not meet them.
The Liberals pretend to be feminists. When one knows that one of the principal impediments to equality in the workforce is the lack of quality affordable child care, one knows that emphasis has to be put on child care. How much money is in the budget that was just tabled for child care? There is not one cent. My colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé asks how much. There is not one cent in this budget for child care for next year.
The Liberals are saying that, if we just give them a chance, they will get there eventually. It is a bit like the promise they made on housing. They are saying that they are going to make a huge investment in social housing, to the tune of $22 billion, but when is that going to happen? It will not happen until after 2022. That is the game they are playing. They got elected by promising to do a certain number of things, such as changing the electoral system. They did not keep that promise. They promised to restore home mail delivery, but they did not keep that promise either. They pretend to do those things. Two years later, after many broken promises, when people start to wonder what is happening and reminding them that they promised to restore home mail delivery and change the voting system in this country to make it fairer, they start making promises for after the next election campaign.
Let us not forget that, in this budget, the Liberals cut exactly $1.25 billion from the environment portfolio. Yes, members heard me right.
Despite all their preening, posturing, and their cardboard cut-outs on environment, the reality is that in this budget the Liberals cut $1.25 billion in what they had promised in the fight against climate change. Canada will never be able to meet Stephen Harper's weak targets, much less our obligations under the Paris accord. That is the reality of the Liberals.
I do not underestimate their ability to spin a yarn in their own favour. I have grudging admiration for it. However, sooner or later the reality always comes back to haunt them, as it did with this most recent budget, which I think we could give a subtitle of the “we will get to it” budget. They are promising, as the Liberal arc always does, that it is going to happen sometime in the future.
I remember that after 13 years in power and four consecutive Liberal governments, Liberals wailed and moaned and whined about the injustice when they were defeated in 2006 because Canadians were going to be deprived of the Kelowna accord and of child care. When we reminded them that they were thrown out not because of child care but because of corruption, they said that they were just about to get to child care and the Kelowna accord. They were just about there and how unfair it was that they were not re-elected.
Meanwhile, today in Canada, six out of 10 people who lose their jobs are not eligible for employment insurance. Nothing in this budget addresses that. We have a finance minister who tells young Canadians to get used to it, that the job churn and lousy, low-paid, part-time precarious work are their lot in life. There is not a single measure in this budget to address that. That is the reality. See you in 2022, Madam Speaker.
What is being proposed for public transit is unbelievable. The Liberals are creating an infrastructure bank in order to steal money from taxpayers and make access to assistance even harder and twice as costly. There is not a single word in this budget about major infrastructure projects, including the Caisse de dépôt's electric train. Not a word and not a penny.
To top it off, the Liberals are getting rid of the public transit pass tax credit. When did they say they were going to do that? During the election campaign and again three weeks ago, they promised to get rid of the tax loophole for corporations.
We saw it again yesterday. So much for the middle class: $32.6 million U.S. in bonuses for Bombardier, keeping the CEO stock options; that is how they pay themselves. That is the reality. Right now we know what the Liberals are all about, and that is why it is important for Canadians to start paying attention, because they have to go.
The Environment April 3rd, 2017
Mr. Speaker, actually, the problem is that Environment Canada has just confirmed it is a commitment that they are not keeping.
Once in power, the Prime Minister adopted the exact same targets for climate change as Stephen Harper did. Last week, Environment Canada confirmed that the government will not meet these abysmal targets.
Given that the Prime Minister himself adopted the former Conservative government's targets, who will he blame now?
The Environment April 3rd, 2017
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal platform complained that Stephen Harper's climate plan included “arbitrary targets”. The Liberals then adopted exactly those targets, and in this year's budget, they announced a cut of $1.25 billion from their promised climate change investments. Environment Canada has now admitted that the Liberal government will not even meet Stephen Harper's targets.
The Prime Minister is keeping the same targets but just failing to meet them. Is that what he meant by “real change”?
Aerospace Industry April 3rd, 2017
Legitimate preoccupations of Canadians that obviously the Prime Minister does not share, Mr. Speaker.
Are Canadians to understand that the Prime Minister signed an agreement with Bombardier that did not provide any guarantee that jobs would be protected but that allowed company executives to pocket $32.6 million U.S. in taxpayer money?
Canadians want a government that acts in their interests, not a government that lines the pockets of wealthy CEOs.
Why does the Prime Minister continue to defend Bombardier's senior executives?