Conservative Priorities as Parliament Resumes in 2024

Plus parliamentary committee recommends delay in expansion of MAiD, federal government finally suspends UNRWA funding, and more

Welcome back to Resuming Debate. After a long Christmas break, Parliament has returned to a new year but with many of the same problems that have plagued us under this Liberal government. After eight years of this Prime Minister, everything costs more, violent crime is up, housing costs have doubled, the country is more divided, and the Prime Minister seeks to distract from his mistakes. He attacks anyone who disagrees with him in order to make people forget how miserable he has made life in this country after nearly a decade in power.

After eight years in office, the Liberal government’s fiscal milestones are bleak. They have managed to drive up the cost of living at the fastest pace in 40 years by doubling the national debt and printing $600 billion since 2020. While some of it was pandemic spending, $205 billion was identified as unrelated to the health emergency. His spending has increased inflation and led to higher interest rates at the expense of the working class and young Canadians trying to establish themselves. There are now a record two million Canadians who are forced to go to food banks in a single month. We have students forced to live in homeless shelters in order to afford food. We have seniors who say they have to live in tents in order to be able to shop and feed themselves, because food prices have risen so high.

After eight years of the Prime Minister, housing costs have doubled, rent has doubled, the money needed for a mortgage on an average house has doubled, and the down payment needed to buy that same house has also doubled, despite promises that costs would go down in 2015. In fact, prices rose 40% faster than incomes, the worst gap in the G7 by far and ranked 39th among all 40 OECD nations. It is twice as bad as the OECD average, with roughly a quarter of OECD countries actually seeing housing affordability improve over the last eight years. Here in Canada, we have seen it worsen at the fastest rate in the entire G7. Where it once took 25 years to pay off a mortgage in Toronto, it now takes 25 years to just save up for the down payment. Hardest hit are low-income seniors on fixed incomes who cannot afford double digit rent increases. Young Canadians looking to move out of their parents homes are struggling to save enough for a down payment as wages fail to keep up with inflation. Once a rarity in Canada, homeless encampments are now visible in every Canadian city. These are unheard of problems prior to the Liberal government taking power in 2015.

After eight years under the leadership of this Prime Minister, crime has increased by nearly 40%. Starting with C-75 and C-5, the Liberal government before the pandemic made extensive changes to the judicial system removing mandatory minimums, allowing many criminal offences to only require fines and defaulting to house arrest as a legitimate form of punishment for some convictions like car theft. The Liberal government has caused an increase in crime by allowing the same small groups of repeat offenders to keep committing the same crimes over and over, and by letting them out on bail. For example, the same 40 offenders in Vancouver accounted for 6,000 arrests last year, yet the soft-on-crime policies ensure their bail release. Car thefts in Canada's biggest cities like Toronto and Vancouver have more than doubled, nearing $1 billion in lost property. Criminal networks also extort builders in places like Edmonton threatening arson and damage to construction sites if payment is not received. The Liberal government seems powerless to stop it.

Conservatives have a very focused common-sense plan for Parliament’s return in 2024. We have four priorities that we want to work on in Parliament, and they are to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop crime.

First, we will fight to pass Bill C-234 to axe the tax on farmers and food so farmers can make the food and Canadians can afford to eat it. The House of Commons passed it once before. The Senate, under duress and pressure from the current Prime Minister, then sent it back with unnecessary amendments. The Conservative MP who has sponsored C-234 has now moved to reject all of the amendments and debate has restarted on the law. A vote is possible in March and likely April to return it to the Senate with a clear message: axe the tax on farmers and let Canadians eat affordable food once again.

Second, we will control spending by eliminating waste. Conservatives will defund the $35-billion infrastructure bank, which has not delivered a single project for Canadians. We will get rid of the ArriveCAN app and the so-called green fund which, according to the officials involved, is now a scandal on par with the sponsorship scandal. We will cut spending on consultants, who now cost every Canadian family $1,400. In eight years, this Prime Minister has doubled the amount spent on outside consultants, work that could have been done by the government, by public servants. Instead, consultants thanked their lucky stars for a Liberal government that has doubled their paycheques, all while more of your dollars go to Ottawa to be wasted away. Perfect time to be an insider. We will be voting against the Liberal government's spending plans in the next budget.

Conservatives will end these disastrous spending policies and introduce a common-sense law, a dollar-for-dollar law. Every time ministers increase spending by one dollar, they have to find one dollar in savings to offset that spending. Instead of increasing the national debt, inflation and taxes, we are going to cap spending.

A Conservative government will replace bail with jail. We will target real criminals who use guns and seal our borders to criminal networks instead of targeting hunters and sport shooters. We will treat and rehabilitate people with drug addictions instead of decriminalizing crack, cocaine and other drugs, as the Prime Minister has already done in partnership with the NDP in British Columbia.

This is the kind of common sense used by everyday Canadians.

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UNRWA funding finally suspended by Liberal government

This week, after intense pressure, the federal government finally announced a pause in funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), following reports that 12 UNRWA staff took part in Hamas’ atrocities on October 7. Conservatives under Prime Minister Harper had cut funding to the agency in 2010, fully aware of the credible links to the terror group Hamas and other terrorists in the region. When Liberals restored funding after obtaining power, they were warned this would be a mistake. They need to account for the money they sent to UNRWA and be transparent around any money that helped fund Hamas’ genocidal attack on October 7. Not a single dollar of Canadian taxpayer money should end up in the hands of terrorists.

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Accountability on the AIIB

The Liberal decision to join the Beijing controlled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2017 was a mistake. We should have never joined. That's the opinion of two expert witnesses at the Canada-China committee. Hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars are at stake. Listen to these academics confirm it was the wrong decision and that conservatives were right to oppose it from day one.

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Report of the Committee on MAID expansion recommends pausing the expansion of MAID again

On Monday, the Report of the Committee on MAiD expansion recommended the pausing of MAiD once more. The report confirmed what Conservatives have been saying for years, that expanding assisted suicide to those suffering from a mental illness will result in the deaths of Canadians who had every chance of getting better. The Liberal government routinely ignored mental health experts and advocates, recklessly pushing forward the expansion of assisted suicide without a deeper consideration of its impacts. This government only acts when they face immense backlash. After significant backlash from experts across Canada to delay this expansion last year, last minute legislation was drafted to place a one-year pause on the expansion, which expires this year.  I voted against the expansion of assisted suicide to mental health illnesses a few months ago. I continue to believe that expanding MAID or assisted suicide to vulnerable Canadians like those with mental health illnesses is wrong. We should be offering treatment and supports instead of giving up on our fellow citizens.