Tracy Gray

[Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1, May 6th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned the amount of new spending, which is roughly $57 billion. I am wondering if he can comment on whether there is something in the budget to show how that will be paid off. Is there anything in the budget about fiscal anchors or anything that leads to when and how all of this debt is going to be paid off?

[Service Canada, May 5th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, a constituent of mine from Kelowna—Lake Country did the right thing. She applied for a passport renewal in person at a passport office and was told by Service Canada staff that doing so two months before travelling was plenty of time. The passports never arrived and she will likely have to cancel her family trip at great cost and disappointment.

Service Canada told MPs that it expects lengthy passport delays. This is another mess from the government.

When will the minister provide clarity to my constituent and Canadians on passport processing?

[Housing, May 3rd, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, housing prices in my community have doubled since 2015. Former Conservative governments kept the housing market stable. HouseSigma, using house sales data for Weston, the housing minister's own neighbourhood, shows the price of a home in May 2007 was $233,500. In April 2015, it was $296,250, and in April 2022 it was nearly $800,000.

Why is the minister failing even his own constituents, who are having to pay over half a million dollars more for a home since he was elected?

[The Economy, April 29th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, before the Liberals even presented their NDP budget, they were proudly bragging about how inflated tax revenues, from tax increases and inflation, would let them spend even more than before. They proudly announced the billions added to the national debt, yet for all that spending, they cannot explain to my constituents why food and house prices will only continue to rise. The Liberals point their fingers away from themselves.

Is the government ever going to connect the dots and see that its continued high spending means higher costs of basic necessities for hard-working Canadians?

[Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021, April 29th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, on this side of the House, as the official opposition, we have continually spoken out against some of the large corporations that have received benefits. For example, we can remember back when the government gave Loblaws millions of dollars to upgrade its fridges. Meanwhile, I was getting phone calls from constituents in my riding, such as a small flower shop owners and convenient store operators, asking if they could access this money to upgrade their fridges.

During this time, some of the largest grocery store chains were allowed to be open during the entire pandemic when other small businesses in the mall or down the street were forced to close. They were classified as essential services, yet they were still able to sell all of their goods, not just food and medication. We were standing against that and asking why the government was closing these small businesses while these largest of companies were allowed to stay open.

[Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021, April 29th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, absolutely, we have a labour crisis in this country, and this legislation does not look at addressing that at all. It is one of the issues that I hear the most about from small business owners, who are placing ads and there is literally no one applying. This is not, as we might assume, in some of the traditional industries that have had challenges in the past, such as hospitality and restaurants. This is across the board. These are construction companies, manufacturing companies and shipping companies. We have to seriously look at this. We have to get people back to work who are able to work, and also put policies forth to deal with this labour crisis.

[Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021, April 29th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, this piece of legislation is like an omnibus bill; it has a number of pieces in it. We have been very supportive all along the way of legislation that has helped small businesses. However, we have also made recommendations to amend a lot of legislation over the last couple of years because the government would put out legislation that was not accommodating and helpful to small businesses. The legislation had a lot of parameters and rules, and small businesses could not apply. We have made many suggestions for that.

One example was that a person had to deal with a major bank and not a credit union in order to apply for programs. Another was that a person had to have a corporate bank account. We have continually made recommendations to the government to help small businesses and have supported small businesses all along the way.

[Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021, April 29th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise and represent the constituents from Kelowna—Lake Country. The government often likes to speak of the economic strength of immigrants who choose to make new lives here in Canada. On this, it is not wrong. Generations of new Canadians have made this country prosper.

The government also likes to make the point, again not wrongly, that immigrants will be strong contributors to ensuring that our nation, as it exits out of this pandemic, rebuilds itself economically. However, immigrants will not be able to do that if they do not choose to stay in Canada. Increasingly, we are seeing troubling signs that both Canadians and newcomers to Canada are looking to take their ingenuity, entrepreneurship and experience elsewhere, thanks to the government's high-cost, high-priced fiscal strategy.

A recent Leger poll showed that 46% of young immigrants say they are less likely to stay in Canada. The top two reasons they look to leave when asked why they would not recommend Canada to future immigrants were the cost of living and the current leadership in government. Some have come from the world's poorest, often corrupt, regions. They come to Canada to escape hostile governments and the dire economic approaches they practice.

Inflation is not a new concept to newcomers. Some have seen bad regimes dilute the value of their earned dollars, and they are seeing the early warning signs of those similarly inflating approaches here in Canada. It does not take training in microeconomics or macroeconomics to get this: $100 buys only two bags of groceries when it used to buy three.

The government continues to say that it is transitory, yet the transition has been from bad to worse. Numerous small businesses and entrepreneurs are telling me they have looked to move south of the border to find better opportunities for their own success. Those comments are not flippant. They are serious, and if we take a step back, we get an idea of how serious they are.

We are now exiting from a once-in-a-century global pandemic and an economic crisis, yet even after weathering two years of economic disruption beyond what anyone can remember, people are still potentially looking to move.

I talked to a business owner from Kelowna—Lake Country recently on the phone while I was at the Toronto airport waiting for a flight, and they were commenting to me on this. Red tape, regulatory burdens and tax increases do not give hope for prosperity. They were looking to move their lives and businesses because of the uncertainty about what the Liberal-NDP plans have done and will do to our economy going forward. A Liberal-NDP government's overinflating fiscal policy, through legislation like Bill C-8, will ruin small businesses' ability to succeed. It will leave families at the mercy of higher prices for gas, groceries and homes. It will leave workers with less purchasing power in their paycheques. The government's insistence on passing yet another overpriced package of spending commitments will only make this worse.

Members of Parliament on that side of the House do not need to take my word for it either. They can take it from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Earlier this year, the Parliamentary Budget Officer expressed his confusion about the government's proposal for $100 billion over the next three years, a number already exponentially increased by NDP agreements. After all, in December 2020, the Prime Minister and his finance minister committed to having guardrails on our economic recovery spending. They said that if Canadians were able to return to their jobs faster, it would decrease the stimulus needing to be spent.

Even though the government claims to have recovered 100% of jobs lost, it has not just ignored those guardrails; it has joined with the New Democrats to build a steep ramp. The Liberal-New Democrat deal outlines new spending sprees even higher than before, deriving even less value for money for Canadian taxpayers while ensuring they will receive an even higher bill by the end of this Parliament.

An area where less value for dollar is of particular concern in my riding of Kelowna—Lake Country is on the issue of housing. A recent community survey I sent out had hundreds and hundreds of people respond about how the rise in house prices is affecting them. They gave their suggestions. The government has now sat on that side of the House for seven years. In that time, they have watched the prices of homes in my riding rise year after year, to the point that they have now doubled.

The benchmark selling price of a single-family home in Kelowna has now risen to $1 million. Housing prices in Lake Country rose similarly, with new figures from BC Assessment showing a one-year increase of 32%. These increases jeopardize the ability of retirees on fixed incomes to stay in their homes. They prevent first-time homebuyers from ever being able to buy a home. They force families to live in homes that no longer suit their family's size. They force people to spend far more than 30% of their pre-tax income on rent. The Liberal government and its housing minister insist on saying they support affordable housing, yet they are not insistent on seeing any of it built.

We have a national housing strategy that now effectively applies only to millionaires and a housing accelerator that accelerates prices, but not construction. What is the new Liberal-NDP government's solution to these broken programs via Bill C-8 and other policies? It is to pour more tax dollars into it. Pouring water into a broken dishwasher does not fix it. Spending sprees are not just unfair to those looking for homes today as prices rise, but to those who will be paying for it tomorrow.

The legislation before us alone would cost taxpayers over $70 billion, while our national debt has already risen to $1.2 trillion. The national debt is not talked about by the government. In checking records, unless it was very recently, no member of the government has said the words “national debt” since the last election. Perhaps the government does not believe Canadians care about what the debt load is that they are carrying, but I can report that I have now had the opportunity to see them proved wrong on this twice already within the last month.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation organized a truck to carry a national debt clock around the country. It gives Canadians a second-by-second look at how fast our debt rises. They made a new debt clock, as the government broke the previous one because the total was too high. When they announced they would be in Kelowna—Lake Country, I attended, and I saw them again here in Ottawa. Everyday people I speak with understand that $1 borrowed by the government today is $1 owed by their children and grandchildren of tomorrow. Legislation like what we see here today is only an extension of the ever-increasing receipt, one the government looks insistent on ensuring is passed down the checkout line to those behind them.

Speaking of checkout lines, this month I am surveying my riding of Kelowna—Lake Country with a mail-out to households, to get feedback on how much families are paying at the grocery store. I am looking forward to going through all of those responses as they come in. No one comes up to me to say their dollars are going farther at the grocery store. They tell me that they are thinking of eating less so their kids can have a full meal, or that someone they know personally is starting to skip meals. The CEO of my local food bank recently stated they had seen a 20% increase in clients.

I think of an email I received from a constituent in Kelowna—Lake Country some months ago that stated, “We are taxed to poverty. With EI and CPP premiums all increasing, carbon tax increases along with inflation running rampant, our paycheques keep getting smaller. Canadians are all going to be in the poorhouse.”

I have received hundreds of emails like this. It is my duty to bring these voices from Kelowna—Lake Country into this House, and it is the duty of the government to listen. Sadly, the government is failing to listen, as legislation like this will only leave life more expensive. There is nothing in this $70-billion piece of legislation for fighting inflation or for economic recovery and growth.

[Carbon Pricing, April 28th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the environment commissioner's report on carbon pricing states that the government has not addressed the burden from carbon pricing faced by small businesses.

There is no plan to get carbon tax money back to small businesses. I met this morning with Ward from Kelowna—Lake Country, who owns an RV business, and much of our conversation was around various tax increases hitting the RV and camping industry.

Will the minister admit that the just transition plan is breaking the backs of small businesses and transitioning them to just hang on?

[Housing, April 25th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the housing minister is failing. The Conservatives warned that the Liberals' strategy for housing would do nothing to help housing prices, and prices doubled. We warned 30-year high inflation would trigger interest rate hikes, and we see the biggest rate increase in 20 years. We are now warning him that families are struggling to keep their homes.

Will the minister admit his failure and tell us how many Canadians will lose their homes?