Tom Lukiwski

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 17th, 2018]

With regard to all expenditures on hospitality (Treasury Board Object Code 0822), since January 1, 2017, and broken down by department or agency: what are the details of all expenditures including (i) vendor, (ii) amount, (iii) date of expenditure, (iv) start and end date of contract, (v) description of goods or services provided, (vi) file number?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 20th, 2018]

With regard to the impact of the government’s decision to impose a $50 per tonne carbon tax on the people of Saskatchewan: (a) what are the details of all studies the government has done related to how much the carbon tax will cost the average Saskatchewan farm family, including (i) who conducted the study, (ii) methodology, (iii) findings; and (b) what is the government’s own projection regarding how much money the $50 per tonne carbon tax will cost the average Saskatchewan farm family?

[Committees of the House, June 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, entitled “Modernizing Federal Procurement for Small and Medium Enterprises, Women-Owned and Indigenous Businesses”.

I also want to thank, with great sincerity, the very hard work done by our clerk and analyst, who put together an extremely comprehensive report, which I think will be able to provide a good road map for not only this government but future governments in dealing with procurement issues for SMEs.

Finally, for all the committee members of OGGO, particularly members such as the member for Edmonton West, this was an incredibly long and arduous study, but it has paid off in spades. Hopefully the government will pay attention to the recommendations.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

[Main Estimates, 2018-19, June 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I think if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow my colleague opposite an additional 10 minutes.

[Main Estimates, 2018-19, June 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it really does not surprise me when I hear a Liberal member say, “I do not know what you are talking about”. That is par for the course. I wish the Liberals would understand what we are talking about, because perhaps then they would take some of our sage advice such as reducing deficits, lowering taxes, and not imposing a carbon tax.

Try as we might, the helpfulness we are exhibiting today, and what I am saying to my friend opposite to help him understand basic facts, do not seem to be working. It is unfortunate but true. I wish the Liberals would listen more intently.

[Main Estimates, 2018-19, June 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my esteemed colleague is right about one thing: Who in their right mind would want to give the government a blank cheque for anything? We know what number it would fill in. Frankly, it would be a figure that the Canadian taxpayer could not afford.

Specifically to his question about the carbon tax, I note we have asked on numerous occasions in this place a simple question to the government: What will the carbon tax cost the average Canadian household. We have yet to get an answer. Although the government knows the answer and has those documents, it is not providing anything. For a party that said it was running on transparency and openness, it is doing anything but. The government has the answer to the very simple question of how much the carbon tax will cost the average Canadian household, but any documents it has provided have been so heavily redacted that there is no information.

The government is hiding basic facts and financial information from the Canadian taxpayer, and for that, it should be sorely ashamed.

[Main Estimates, 2018-19, June 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, number one, I welcome the question. I appreciate the question from my hon. colleague, my friend from our shared committee of OGGO.

The only suggestion I would have to my colleague is that perhaps the next time, rather than reading a question written by Gerald Butts, he could actually speak from his heart and his head. That would be far more effective, and I think Canadians would appreciate that far more than his reading someone else's words.

The record of the Liberal government does not change things. It has been the most egregious spender of government and taxpayer money in history. I told the story of the former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and it is true, for every dollar his government took in in taxes, it spent $1.03. It is impossible to balance budgets under that scenario. That is why we are in debt. That is why we need a change of government.

[Main Estimates, 2018-19, June 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in tonight's debate on the main estimates. Most Canadians who follow parliamentary procedure understand that the main estimates are all about granting spending authority to the government. Therefore, for the next few minutes I want to talk a bit about spending, not so much in the context of the main estimates, but more in the context of the out-of-control spending that is being exhibited by the current government.

To get a fulsome view of what I mean, I want to go back a few years to 2015. During the 2015 election campaign, the Liberal Party at the time made many campaign promises, most of which of course it has broken. However, I want to focus in on only one of those broken promises, and that is the promise that the Liberals made that, if elected, they would run modest deficits of no more than $10 billion, and that they would be temporary. The Liberals also promised that these temporary $10-billion deficits would be eliminated by the end of their first term; in other words, they were saying that they would be back to balanced by 2019. That is not just a broken promise, that is a shattered promise, because we are nowhere near balancing the federal budget by next year. In fact, we have found from documents provided by the government's own finance department that even if there is no new spending, the earliest the government could see a balanced budget would be the year 2045. To put it another way, if a 16-year old young man or young woman today wanted to see a balanced budget in this country, he or she would be 44 years old by the time that happened. It is shameful what the government is doing to the finances of this country.

We should not be surprised because, after all, excessive spending is in the Liberal DNA. We have seen this time and again over successive Liberal governments. In fact, the current Prime Minister's own father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, when he was in power for 16 years, was considered the most profligate spender probably in parliamentary history. To prove my point, I would offer this observation.

In 1984, when former Prime Minister Trudeau finally left office, Canadians and the Canadian government were spending $1.03 for every dollar that it took in in revenue. We should think about that for just a moment. How can Canadians who try and run an efficient household balance their own budgets if they continuously borrow and go further into debt? It cannot be done. Eventually, the rope runs out, the borrowing has to end, and the debt has to be repaid. Unfortunately, the current government does not seem to recognize that, because it continues to borrow and rack up massive deficits and incur more debt. Referring back to former Prime Minister Trudeau, Canadians are still trying to pay off the debt that he incurred during his 16 years in office.

We have also seen that the apple does not fall far from the tree, because the current Prime Minister has taken the same Keynesian approach to fiscal management, or in his case mismanagement, that we have seen from his father. We have seen the current Prime Minister rack up deficit upon deficit with no idea how to balance his own budget or the budget of his government.

That attitude has actually prevailed upon the current finance minister. I point out that only a few short weeks ago, the finance minister appeared himself before the finance committee. During that testimony, he was asked on multiple occasions by the Conservative finance critic, the hon. member for Carleton, when the federal budget would be balanced. On multiple occasions he was asked that very simple question, and the finance minister could not respond, and did not respond. The reason he could not and did not respond is quite simple. It is because the finance minister does not know when the budget will be balanced.

I think that is absolutely shameful, that the chief financial officer of our country does not even know when his own budget can be balanced or will be balanced. No Canadian taxpayer should have to put up with that ineptness. We see it time and time again by the government, in everything it does, in every public document it puts forward.

It is not just this massive deficit that the government is racking up that is of concern. To exacerbate the problem of the runaway deficits, the government continues to raise taxes on Canadians. One of the other broken promises by the Liberal government during the 2015 campaign is that it would lower taxes for the middle class, but it has done just the opposite. In fact, a recent study published by the Fraser Institute indicates that over 80% of Canadians today are paying more taxes than they did in 2015. They are paying higher income taxes and payroll taxes.

Now, on top of all of that, the Liberal government wants to introduce a job-killing carbon tax. We heard earlier today, from several of my colleagues, the problems with this so-called revenue-neutral carbon tax. Let us be clear, there is nothing revenue-neutral about the proposed carbon tax, nothing even remotely close to it.

The simplest way to try to explain how a carbon tax is supposed to work, according to the Liberal government, is that for every dollar taxed Canadians, to disincentivize them from perhaps using oil or gas or any other non-renewable resource, the government would refund that money back to that individual. It is simply not true. If it was, if every time I was taxed $100, I knew I was getting $100 back, why would the government bother taxing me to begin with? It makes absolutely no sense.

According to the government, its rationale is this, if we disincentivize all Canadians by raising prices on everything, on home heating, on gas, on oil, they will stop using those products, they will change their consumer habits, and they will stop using things that the government thinks are pollutants.

That does not work. All we need to do is take a look at what is happening today in British Columbia, where the gas prices for a litre of gas is on the north side of $1.60 a litre. Has that changed consumer habits? No. Why has it not? Quite simply, Canadians still need to get to work, soccer moms need to take their kids to the soccer pitch on Saturday morning, and $1.60 a litre does not stop them from doing it. All it does is it takes more money out of their pockets, and it makes them and all Canadians far worse off and far less affluent.

This is the record of the Liberal Party: higher deficits, higher taxes, and now a threat to impose a job-killing carbon tax. A year from now, in 2019, Canadians will be given a clear choice. Do they want to re-elect a government that has raised taxes, that has increased deficits and debt, and that has imposed a carbon tax, or do they want to elect a Conservative government that will lower taxes and balance budgets?

I can assure the House that I have the utmost respect for the intelligence of the Canadian taxpayer, and because of that I know, come 2019, we will be seeing a new Conservative majority government here in Ottawa.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 11th, 2018]

With regard to interactions between the government and Canada 2020, since November 4, 2015: (a) has anyone from the government advised or recommended that any individual or corporation attend a Canada 2020 event; and (b) if the answer to (a) is affirmative, what are the details of all such interactions, including (i) individual providing advice or recommendation, (ii) recipient, (iii) date and title of related Canada 2020 event?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 11th, 2018]

With regard to the invitation extended to Vikram Vij to travel to India in relation to the Prime Minister’s trip in February 2018: (a) on what date did the government invite Mr. Vij to travel to India as part of the Prime Minister’s trip; (b) what were the start and end dates of Mr. Vij’s term on the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments; and (c) was Mr. Vij a member of the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments when the government invited him to be a part of the Prime Minister’s trip to India?