135 Non-Confidence Votes Against the Liberal Government
Plus tabling petitions in Parliament, grilling the immigration minister on the doctor shortage, and more
This Christmas, for many Canadians, will not be very merry at all. After eight years of this Liberal government, people are wondering how they will pay their growing monthly bills. Parents stay up late at night worried about how they will keep their homes with monthly rents and mortgage costs having doubled in the last 8 years. Food bank lines continue to grow as the working hungry continue to lineup with 2 million foodbank users in one month during this past Fall.
The Liberal and NDP MP response has been poor and out-of-touch. They have decided that your struggles do not matter, choosing to continue to quadruple the carbon tax. Not just on the gasoline you put in your car or the natural gas that warms your home, but on the farmers who grow the food and the truckers who ship the food. This week, Liberal-appointed senators, under intense lobbying by the Prime Minister (with personal phone calls to senators), voted to gut a common-sense Conservative private member's bill that would have taken the carbon tax off our farmers. The potential savings were $1 billion in reduced food costs. The proposed law failed to pass 40-39 with the prime minister's panicky and direct last-minute intervention to sway votes.
The most precious commodity on Parliament Hill and controlled entirely by the Liberal government is time. Nearly every day, the government must choose which laws to debate. Every law or bill is required to go through a minimum amount of debate, but no maximum. Each MP, if they wish to speak on a bill, must rise in their seat when it comes up to signal their intention to speak. Rarely has the government called the same bills repeatedly over several days. I would call their legislative agenda approach a scatter shot. This has left their legislative agenda delayed by their own actions and forced them to use draconian tactics like guillotine motions to end debate and time allocation motions that allow only one extra day of debate on a bill they so designate. If you don't plan your agenda out and don't negotiate in good faith with other parties in a minority parliament, then you are left rushing at the end and pointing accusatory fingers at others.
At the middle point of December every year, MPs are asked to pass the supplementary estimates, an arcane way of saying the implementation of the announced Liberal spending plans under Budget 2023. They are all confidence votes. Typically, the votes are pooled together with unanimous consent, although without good faith negotiations and trade-offs, a government can find itself having to vote on every line item. That's exactly what happened this week with a marathon of votes after the conservative demand to axe the carbon tax.
After over 30 hours of voting, we are now done voting on all the additional spending. I voted against all the new spending which totalled $20 billion. These votes amounted to 135 confidence votes which means had the NDP-Liberal government lost a single vote, an election would have been called.
While Conservatives did not win any of the votes, we did see all Bloc, NDP and Liberal MPs unite together in favour of all this new spending. Only common-sense Conservative MPs stand with taxpayers worried about inflationary spending and citizens who worry about the future we are giving our children with the continuing sense of chaos on our streets and in government services. There is one more week left of Parliament sitting in Ottawa and we will continue to hold the government accountable by delaying bills to ensure better public scrutiny and drawing attention to irresponsible government spending.
Presenting Petitions to Parliament from Residents
Part of my role as a parliamentarian is to involve Calgary Shepard residents in the civic process. This enables you to get answers from the federal government on important issues on the national agenda or a particular public policy. Petitioning Parliament is a centuries old tradition. Did you know that early petitions in Canada often called for lighthouses to be built in particular spots? While we don't need lighthouses in Calgary Shepard, there is plenty to tell the federal government about from our perspective in Confederation. Petitions can be both paper and digital formats, with different parliamentary rules governing the number of signatures and the style in which they must be done.
This week, I presented numerous petitions from residents on important issues, such as a blue seal program to quickly recognize international credentials for medical professionals; ensuring that hate crimes are prosecuted in Canada when they target religious groups; calling for an inquiry into foreign interference by the People's Republic of China; the abandonment of unjust transition Bill C-50 that would phase out energy jobs; and to give permission to spend to Bill C-318 so that adoptive and intended parents are able to better support their families.
I have now tabled 42 petitions in this Parliament which is the 9th highest of all MPs. I will continue to do so on behalf of Calgary Shepard residents, so they get the answers they seek. If you would like me to sponsor a petition or have an idea, please reach out and my staff will happily assist you in making it happen. There is also a lot of useful information on the parliamentary website about the petition process.
Parliament Votes and Agrees: Speaker Breached the Rules
This week, it was revealed that Speaker Greg Fergus appeared in a political video shown at the Ontario Liberal leadership convention. The video was recorded in the Speaker’s office using his speaker robes as a prop. In the video, the Speaker paid tribute to former Ontario Liberal interim leader John Fraser. This is a significant breach of conduct, defying longstanding traditions and expectations attached to the Speaker’s office. The Speaker is meant to be impartial and be seen to be impartial. They do not attend party caucus meetings, participate in debate, or vote in Parliament (except when there is a tie). They essentially stop participating in all partisan activities in Parliament and outside of Parliament. This ensures trust in his rulings and decision-making to make Parliament run smoothly and protects centuries of traditions that have made parliaments work the world over.
While I accept the Speaker's apology, I do not believe he can continue in his role. I believe he should resign. Instead of remaining in Ottawa this week, the Speaker left to travel to Washington DC and was absent during the controversy over his behaviour. I believe strongly this is why the vote against him by MPs on the breach of the rules was unanimous against him. While in DC, he engaged in more partisanship speaking in a public video about his past partisan activities, yet another action that makes me believe he is unable to place politics aside and fulfil the duties of his office.
Simply put, I have lost confidence in the Speaker and believe he should resign to allow a new MP to fulfil the critical functions of the Speaker, a Member who is not so obviously biased. He seems to have not forgotten or abandoned his time as parliamentary secretary to the prime minister or his quick defence of the prime minister years ago when he struck a female MP on the floor of Parliament. Speaker Fergus must resign.
Grilling the Immigration Minister on the Doctor Shortage
Reports emerged this week of a family physician in Ottawa who was denied permanent residency over her age and marital status. Initially on a five-year visa, her attempt to get permanent residency through the Express Entry program failed, despite the federal government’s claim that their healthcare-specific immigration streams were bringing more doctors and nurses to Canada. As more than one in five Canadians — an estimated 6.5 million people — do not have a family physician or nurse practitioner they see regularly, and a recent study from RBC estimating that Canada could be short 30,000 family doctors by the end of the decade, the red tape from IRCC is actively hindering the ability of Canadians to get the care they deserve. The immigration minister has the power to stop this, but instead hides behind red tape, and now 1200 Canadians may be left without a family doctor. Watch as I grill the immigration minister on this matter at committee.
Thankyou Tom for the info. Also thanks for trying so hard with the conservatives. Why are the Bloc and NDP going along with the Prime minister on tripling the carbon tax? Why do Liberals continue to support the Prime Minister when he is failing Canada?
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the bad news update Tom. I have to wonder if there's a way you could threaten the Prime Mistake with a tax on his windfall wages, like he's threatening the grocery biggies, if they don't comeuppance with a plan to 'stabilize prices', as he & the National Dictatorship Party to their level damnedest to continually jack them with carbon taxes!
All of this country's woes can be laid at the feet of the idiots in Onterrible that perpetually vote the little 'tator into power! Well done dummies! Please, enjoy your affordable housing in your sanctuary cities! Brilliant, just fu*king brilliant!