Jeremy Patzer

Madam Speaker, Greeting · 25 wordsit is always an honour and a privilege to be able to rise on behalf of the great people of southwest and west central Saskatchewan.Greeting Procedure · 14 wordsI rise today to talk about the opposition motion that we have put forward, ProcedureThanks · 51 wordsbut before I do, I just want to take a few moments here to offer our sincere condolences to the families in Pelican Narrows who were impacted by a shooting that happened up there yesterday. Our thoughts and prayers are with the community and the family of the victim up there.Thanks Procedure · 14 wordsI wanted to start off by acknowledging that. What are we doing here today?Procedure Claims · 39 wordsWe are talking about a recession. The Prime Minister himself, in an interview with the BBC when he was over in England, said “the technical definition of a technical recession is...two [straight] quarters of flat or negative [GDP] growth”.³ Procedure · 19 wordsThat is it. It is pretty simple. What do we have here in Canada? Let us take a look.Procedure Claims · 15 wordsReal GDP fell 0.1% in Q1, ⁷and the quarter before that, it fell roughly 1%.⁸ Reasoning · 15 wordsBased on the Prime Minister’s own words, that meets the definition of a technical recession, Claims · 19 wordsso that is what we have. The Prime Minister has been in power for a little over a year.²⁴ Positioning · 14 wordsHe is supposed to be the grandmaster economist who is going to save Canada.Mockery Claims · 25 wordsHe was bold enough to stand at the microphones and say that the United States was on track for a recession, ⁴but Canada was not. Reasoning · 12 wordsThere might be some impact from what is happening in the States, Claims · 26 wordsbut it was headed for a recession, and we were not. That is what he said. That was right around the time of the last election, ²⁵Positioning · 15 wordsso that was one of the first things he was trying to sell to Canadians.Positioning Procedure · 9 wordsOkay, so let us look at his track record.Procedure Claims · 45 wordsWhen he was over in England, he said that Brexit was going to cause a massive recession.⁵ Well, he was wrong. I just talked about what he said about the United States. He was wrong. He said Canada was not going to enter a recession. Procedure · 2 wordsGuess what.Procedure Claims · 26 wordsHe was wrong, because here we are right now. The Prime Minister’s very own definition has been met: two straight quarters of negative or flat growth. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Jeremy Patzer: Claims · 9 wordsMadam Speaker, I am just quoting the Prime Minister. Positioning · 15 wordsI know it is hard for the member to actually grasp his own leader’s words, MockeryClaims · 15 wordsbut that is what his own leader said. I am only quoting his own leader. Positioning · 15 wordsIf he does not like it, he can take it up with the Prime Minister.PositioningOff point Procedure · 23 wordsLet us talk a bit more about some of the signs and the markers we have been seeing when we talk to Canadians.Procedure Claims · 72 wordsWe have been telling the government for a couple of years now that the pressures on households are getting to be very tight. What we saw in quarter one was that over 37,000 Canadians filed for insolvency, just in Q1.⁹ That is the highest it has been since 2009, when there was an actual global recession and the housing market crashed around the globe.¹⁰ It has not been that high since then. Procedure · 13 wordsThat is what we have been seeing. Let us look at household debt.Procedure Claims · 18 wordsCanadian household debt is 103% of GDP.¹¹ Canadian non‑mortgage debt is $43,300, up from $40,200 two years ago, ¹²Positioning · 7 wordswhich was already a crazy high number.Positioning Claims · 32 wordsNow, when we look at the snapshot for just homeowners, non-mortgage debt is $82,400, up 19% in two years.¹³ Canadians are feeling the pressure and are putting more on their credit cards. Positioning · 13 wordsIt would appear that they are following what the government has been doing.Positioning Procedure · 5 wordsWhat has the government done?Procedure Positioning · 15 wordsThe government has been living off the credit card that the taxpayers basically provide it.Positioning Claims · 48 wordsEvery single announcement the government makes is borrowed money. The government has been running on constant deficits for a very long time. We saw a bit of a recent influx in government revenues because oil prices have gone a bit higher and the government actually benefited from that. Procedure · 5 wordsWhat did the Liberals do?Procedure Claims · 3 wordsThey spent it. Positioning · 3 wordsThey blew it.Positioning Claims · 37 wordsThe deficit for this year alone is almost $80 billion.¹⁴ Let us take a look at what the national debt looks like. Canada is over $1.3 trillion in debt.¹⁵ That number is massively rising every single day. Procedure · 8 wordsWhat is the Bank of Canada telling us?Procedure Claims · 63 wordsWell, there is 523 billion dollars’ worth of debt that has to be refinanced.¹⁶ That was refinanced when the former prime minister said, “Interest rates are at [all‑time] lows, Glen”: 1%.⁶ It is now being recalled at 3%, ²³so the share for every Canadian, just on that number alone, is going from $1,500 to $1,900 because of that jump from 1% to 3%.¹⁷ Reasoning · 8 wordsThat is going to have a massive impact, Claims · 35 wordsand that is just in the short term. There is longer‑term interest that is going to be up for renewal as the years go on, and those rates are going to be higher and higher. Positioning · 15 wordsWe have a continually snowballing and cascading effect that is going to rock Canadian households.Positioning Procedure · 13 wordsLet us take another look at what is happening in the business world.Procedure Claims · 50 wordsBusiness capital investment fell 0.7% in quarter one, ¹⁸which was the fifth straight quarter that business investment in Canada has fallen.¹⁹ This comes after a 10-year run with the Liberal government when foreign direct investment of over $1 trillion left Canada.²⁰ For every dollar that came in, two dollars left. Procedure · 7 wordsThat is what we are seeing here.Procedure Positioning · 9 wordsThat is the by-product of what is happening today.Positioning Claims · 38 wordsWhen we look at some of the other statistics from the Bank of Canada and a few others, they mention that government spending was down 2.5% and that is what caused a bit of a drop in GDP. Reasoning · 25 wordsThe fact that it is government spending that is also driving that shows the government is the one trying to artificially prop up the economy. Claims · 33 wordsThe private sector is struggling. We are not seeing massive private sector investment. There are a couple projects here and there, but we are just not seeing the large-scale investment that is required. Procedure · 10 wordsLet us look at what the Liberals wanted to do.Procedure Claims · 16 wordsComing out of the election, they said they wanted to build at speeds not yet seen. Procedure · 7 wordsWhat did they propose to the House?Procedure Claims · 4 wordsIt was Bill C-5. Procedure · 16 wordsThey said they needed Bill C-5 because that was going to allow them to do what?Procedure Claims · 177 wordsIt was to override their own bad laws they had put in place, because they recognized that was the problem. They said they needed Bill C-5 so they could circumvent their own laws that they had created. We said it would be better if they just scrapped the bad laws but that we would play ball and help them out, so we worked with the government to pass Bill C-5. We put some safeguards in there to make sure the Prime Minister was not greasing the palms of his buddies at Brookfield, and we helped them pass Bill C-5. Then they put projects on the list. There are a couple of LNG projects on there. They have been on that list now for well over 250 days.²¹ We are closing in on almost a year with some of these projects listed, and there has been no movement. Nothing is happening. Germany came here and said it wanted our LNG, and the government said, “Sure, this time we’ll work with you to make sure you get some LNG.” Procedure · 11 wordsWhen did it say we would deliver the LNG to Germany?Procedure Claims · 18 wordsIt was sometime in the 2030s. There is no fixed date because the government does not actually know. Procedure · 4 wordsWhat did Germany do?Procedure Claims · 44 wordsWhen the former prime minister said there was no business case, Germany went home and built an import terminal in 194 days.²² That is a shorter amount of time than the projects have been on the Major Projects Office list with nothing being done. Procedure · 4 wordsWhat have Conservatives done?Procedure Claims · 66 wordsWell, we proposed the Canadian sovereignty act because we wanted to help the government get out of its own way. We proposed that in the same way we are doing here today, with an opposition day motion, to give the government a template to kind of get the ball rolling, to help it advance the football down the field, per se. The Liberals voted against it.¹ Positioning · 12 wordsThey had an opportunity to implement another one of our great plans, PositioningClaims · 30 wordsand they voted no. They took our advice and scrapped the consumer carbon tax.² Now they are saying this is one of the greatest cost-saving moves they have ever made, Positioning · 7 wordsand that is because Conservatives were right.Positioning Claims · 16 wordsIt was Conservatives who put the pressure on them to do it, and eventually they relented. The ask · 9 wordsMaybe if they would implement the Canadian sovereignty act, Claims · 66 wordswhich would repeal the bad laws like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, that would get them on the right track and get them going, because Bill C-5 was supposed to be the mechanism to help them circumvent those laws. If they would implement the Canadian sovereignty act, it would get them going in the right direction. It would also get rid of the industrial carbon tax, Reasoning · 35 wordswhich we know is putting massive downward pressure on investment in Canada because nowhere else around the world wants the same type of pricing mechanism that the government is going to enforce on Canadian industry.Unearned certainty Positioning · 8 wordsIt is going to be devastating to Canadians.Positioning The ask · 9 wordsThe Liberals should look at what Conservatives are proposing. Claims · 29 wordsWe have had some great ideas that would help them and that probably would have helped them avoid entering this recession, which has been made by the Liberal government. The ask · 11 wordsIf they want to work with us, we have great ideas. Claims · 8 wordsThey have said no to many of them, Reasoning · 22 wordsand now they have to pay for that, which means Canadians have to pay for it because the government has no money. Claims · 22 wordsIt is only because Canadians pay taxes and the government prints money against the future of Canadians that it acquires any money. Procedure · 5 wordsAt this point in time, ProcedureThe ask · 21 wordsif it wants to get the economy rolling, the government could take some of our great ideas that we have proposed, Claims · 9 wordsand that would actually help it avoid this recession.