Happy Flag Day!

Parliament must be recalled to enact a Canada First Plan. Plus, Alberta's Tory MPs meet in Jasper for post-fire assessment, and King's Coronation medals awarded to deserving residents.

Happy Flag Day! Today, we celebrate when our current flag was officially flown for the first time 60 years ago on February 15, 1965. Like many other Canadians, seeing our flag gives me immense pride in our great country.

I celebrated flag day at the Canada First rally in Ottawa where Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre shared his Canada First plan and vision to an enthusiastic room of patriotic Canadians ready to see a change in government. Common sense Conservatives are ready to form government and restore the promise of our country.

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The American tariff threats and imposition of tariffs on aluminum and steel requires that parliamentarians be recalled and that prorogation end early. Prime Minister Trudeau announced in the first week of January that he was resigning, finally, and would prorogue Parliament until March 24 to allow the Liberal Party of Canada to select a new leader and then that person would likely become the Prime Minister of Canada after his or her meeting with the Governor General. Prorogation means that the Liberal government surrendered the ability to pass new legislation, trashed its entire on-going legislative agenda, and cannot spend new monies not already approved by Parliament. This also meant that the capital gains tax increase would not get parliamentary approval meaning the Liberals much vaunted talking point that it was required for intergenerational fairness was nothing more than a smokescreen for a tax grab potentially affecting over 1 million Canadians and billions taken from taxpayers. This Liberal government is essentially in a lame duck stasis while it looks at itself and solves it own problems. This is both irresponsible and reckless. Canada cannot wait for the Liberal government to sort out its own leadership problems while it seems daily threats of economic harm come from the White House.

Normally, this newsletter comes out every Friday while Parliament sits but these are unusual times. Parliament should be called back and we need answers for the public’s questions on how Canada will respond and whether any of those responses will actually address our economic and security problems. In fact, more than 135 Canadian business and leaders have signed a letter demanding that the Prime Minister recall Parliament to deal with the current U.S. administration. While prorogation was wrong and the Liberal government should be punished for it; it was, I strongly believe, legal and constitutional. The court case is being considered by the Federal Court and was heard February 13 and 14. I believe prorogation is a political question and not a legal matter. You the voter will hand out the judgment on whether prorogation was warranted (in my opinion it was not) and unelected judges should not be interfering in the parliamentary process between the executive and the parliamentarians.

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Canada will never be the 51^st U.S. state and we are not for sale. We are an independent, proud, and strong nation. Our country is not for sale and economic pressure won’t make me or anyone else bend to his will. Canada and the United States have fought on the battlefield together and have been close trading partners for a long time. Conservatives not only want to preserve our ties but strengthen them further. Nonetheless, a Conservative government will be ready to respond to these tariffs, and we will target the U.S. in sectors where American businesses and consumsers buy products from Canada. At the same time, we will work to build alliances with American businesses and workers to oppose these unjustified tariffs.

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The American tariffs and threats of more tariffs are the result of economic weakness brought upon by nine years of economic vandalism from the Liberal government. The U.S. administration threatened Canada with 25 percent tariffs on our country’s exports across the board, with a notably lower 10 percent tariff threat on oil and gas products. More on that later. These threats did not just start when the new administration took power in January but were being made during the presidential campaign in 2024. The U.S. claims that the tariffs are justified due to increased drug trafficking, particularly citing fentanyl trafficking, across the Canada-U.S. border. The administration also raised concerns about increased illegal border crossings and perceived trade imbalances. While the implementation of the tariffs are on pause, President Trump announced his country will be imposing a 25 percent tariff on all imported aluminum and steel, including from Canada. The President also announced that he will be implementing reciprocal tariffs on Canadians products beginning April 1. Furthermore, the U.S. administration announced its intention to eliminate the “de minimis” exemption on imports under $800 that enter the U.S. duty-free. If this policy change is implemented, Canadian companies selling their products in the U.S. will have to pay a duty tax, even if that product or products is under $800. This will be especially a problem for smaller businesses shipping to American customers and Canadian tourists returning from the U.S. with purchases made there. The leading accusation for these changes is the heightened domestic production of fentanyl, largely from British Columbia, using postal and parcel services for drug trafficking. The elimination of the “de minimis” is also currently on pause until the end of the month and was hotly negotiated in the previous free trade negotiations between America, Canada, and Mexico in 2018 for the updated USMCA free trade agreement.

The reasonings for imposing these tariffs on Canada are unjustified and unfair. I have written extensively about the problems with drug trafficking and the border disorder brought upon by Liberal government decisions. There are real issues to tackle here. Over the past nine years, the NDP-Liberals made policy decisions that led us here. Hard drug decriminalization in British Columbia was a grave error that was a significant part of their recent provincial election. The border disorder of allowing Roxham Road to stay open for multiple years with weak enforcement and tens of thousands crossing illegally was equally an entirely avoidable error and a terrible mistake. Overall, the NDP and the Liberals treated the last nine years as a vacation from history as if there would be no consequences for their decisions. Today, the Liberal leadership candidates are abandoning the policies they used to champion on a daily basis, whether carbon taxes, defense spending, the NATO 2%, border enforcement, and other policies they have now publicly accepted that indeed the cost of living, the housing crisis, the broken federal budget and the rampant violent crime wave are problems for everyday Canadians that deserve total government attention.

The American tariffs and the threat of more tariffs is a wake up call for all political leaders to now put the national interest ahead of special interests. Canada’s response to the tariffs has to be measured so as not to avoid escalation of retaliatory American tariffs. This means not matching tariffs equally but making sure we keep it to a dollar value amount. I oppose export taxes or duties on Canadian exports to the United States as it punishes Canadian exporters and threatens recklessly hundreds of thousands of our jobs. Talk of export taxing oil or natural gas or electricity is counter-productive divides Canadians and does not unite our country.

We do not necessarily need new free trade agreements to be negotiated, except with the United Kingdom which we continue to lack a deal because of Liberal dithering, but we need to maximize the usage of every free trade agreement. In fact, what we need is a deep dive into our 15 free trade agreements with 51 countries that covers about 1.5 billion consumers to see where Canadian products and services can find new opportunities. We also need a serious review of shipping costs because geography is king when it comes to trade. Trucking products regionally is always cheaper than shipping products internationally by freighter and aircraft. We can and must improve our economic resilience after nine years of Liberal vandalism which means starting to reduce business costs and consumer pain by abolishing the carbon tax.

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Conservatives continue to demand that Parliament be reconvened to implement the Canada First Plan. This common-sense plan is focused on addressing the threats we face while unleashing the potential in our country that we have yet to realize.

The six-point Canada First Plan includes:

1. Retaliate with dollar-for-dollar tariffs carefully aimed at maximizing impact on American companies while minimizing impact on Canadian consumers. That means targeting U.S. products that we can make ourselves, buy elsewhere or do without. For example, we must retaliate against American steel and aluminum, as Canadians can make those vital products at home.

2. Put all the tariff revenues into helping affected workers and businesses; the government should not keep a dime on the new revenue. Tariffs cannot be used to fill the federal treasury for politician pet projects.

3. Pass an immediate Bring It Home Tax Cut to bolster the economy, stop inflation and save and foster job creation. Canada needs a massive tax cut on work, investment, energy, homebuilding and making consumer as well as industrial products at home. The Liberal carbon tax and capital gains tax hikes must be the first on the chopping block.

4. Immediately scrap the Liberal anti-resource law C-69 and greenlight LNG plans, pipelines, mines, factories, and port expansions to overseas markets. The anti-Canadian tanker ban bill known as C-48 also needs to be abandoned as it favours American shipping off our coasts.

5. Bring in truly free trade within Canada by knocking down interprovincial barriers to help replace lost north-south trade with east-west trade and to make us more self-reliant. This could boost our national GDP by up to $200 billion and an extra $5,100 per capita for every resident.

6. Rebuild our military and take back control of our borders to regain the confidence of our partners, assert our sovereignty, protect our people and put Canada First. This starts with more icebreakers, doubling the presence of Canadian Rangers in the North and a new all-year Canadian Forces Base in the Arctic.

In addition to the Canada First Plan, common sense Conservatives are proposing to implement mandatory life sentences on anyone involved in the trafficking, production and distribution of over 40 mg of fentanyl and 15 years for traffickers caught with between 20mg to 40mg.

These proposed policies must be implemented as soon as possible. There is no time to waste. The looming tariff threats are a wake-up call for Canada to meet its potential, which we have failed to achieve over the past nine years. We have the second biggest landmass in the world, the third biggest supply of oil, the fifth biggest supply of natural gas, the biggest supply of uranium and potash, the fifth biggest supply of farmland, and the biggest supply of freshwater anywhere on earth. We could be the richest nation on earth with all these abundant resources. Instead, the Liberals have held Canada’s economy hostage for their own special interests, while simultaneously growing the size of government bureaucracy instead of the size of Canadian workers’ paychecks. This is not a good deal for the Calgary Shepard residents, who deserve better.

It is time for a government that will put Canada First today, tomorrow, and forever.

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In other Parliamentary news, it was recently discovered that the NDP-Liberal government cut Parks Canada’s fire preparedness budget by 23 percent a year before the tragic wildfire engulfed the town of Jasper. Data from the government shows the “wildfire risk reduction” budget declining from $4,420,000 in 2022-2023 to $3,400,000 in 2023-2024.

The NDP-Liberal government has yet to provide an explanation as to why they reduced the “wildfire risk reduction” budget. In fact, the radical Liberal environment minister falsely claimed, “The Government of Canada has invested in Jasper National Park for wildfire risk reduction,” during a parliamentary committee in October. This revelation comes after locals complained to that same radical environment minister that Jasper was a “serious risk of a catastrophic fire” and that his department was more concerned about political optics instead of conducting prescribed burns. This incompetence resulted in 358 buildings being destroyed and 40 percent of Jasper’s residents being left homeless. The federal government is responsible for the fire response within the National Park including Jasper.

I had the chance to visit with my Alberta Conservative colleagues this past January, where we saw the firsthand the impact of the fires and heard directly from those on the frontlines. It was clear from local residents, businesses and first responders that the Liberal government failed to prepare and prevent. They also botched the post-fire response so far with a commitment of $160 million 13 days after the Tory MPs meeting in Jasper and many months after the community had made clear what its needs were. This is recovery and rebuilding by politics and the type of politics the Liberals have become known for after nine years in power.

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One of the highlights I have had during the extended break from Parliament has been presenting King Charles III Coronation Medals to residents who made significant contributions in Calgary. These medals are rare, and coronations rarely happen in our history. The last monarch, the late Queen Elizabeth the II, was crowned Queen of Canada, amongst many other titles, on the 2nd of June 1953. These are rare, recipients in Calgary Shepard include a wide range of community members who reflect the different contributions people are making from those fundraising for charities, to those who help their churches open every weekend, and those who see a need on Facebook forums and lend a hand wherever its needed. Please join me in congratulating all of them on this award.

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