“The Liberals are cherry-picking numbers about investment. More money is leaving Canada than is coming in, with 20 billion dollars lost recently and about one trillion dollars lost since the Liberals took power.”

“Mr. Speaker, this is another example of a Liberal Party mouthpiece laundering their disinformation here in Canada. The Liberals like to accuse Conservatives of cherry-picking information, but that is exactly what they are doing. They are cherry-picking statistics here. The truth is that $109 billion of investment has left Canada, while only $88 billion was attracted. That is a net loss of $20 billion. The Liberals can brag about foreign direct investment, but more money is leaving Canada at a faster pace. About a trillion dollars has been lost since the Liberals took power. Those are the facts. Liberals need to live in reality. Canadians do not live in Liberal speeches.”

“More than two million people use food banks each month in Canada, including record numbers in Richmond Hill. Canada has the worst food affordability among the G7 countries. What is the member hearing from our community about this?”

“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals want to talk about these fancy big things. It is a complete disconnect from the reality we see. Food banks have 2.2 million people visiting them every month. In Richmond Hill, a municipality that the hon. member and I have the huge honour of sharing the responsibility of representing in this House, the Richmond Hill Community Food Bank has record numbers of visitors. I wonder if the member can tell us what he is hearing in the community about the fact that Canada is not number one, not number two and not number three, but in fact the very last of all G7 countries in terms of food affordability.”

“Food banks are running out of food, and Canadians are struggling with debt, expensive housing, and job losses. I blame the Liberal government for this after 11 years in power.”

“Mr. Speaker, the member and I have both visited the Richmond Hill Community Food Bank, and have seen the conditions that everyday Canadians in Richmond Hill are facing. The facts prove what we are seeing on the ground. Canadian households now carry the highest debt in the G7. We have the least affordable housing in the G7, the highest food inflation in the G7, the lowest investment per worker in the G7, the second-lowest productivity in the G7 and the second-highest unemployment in the G7. It really pains me to see that we live in a G7 country with food banks that are busting through the seams with people lining up, and the food banks are running out of food. That is the Canada that this Liberal government has delivered after 11 years.”

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“The government should stop spending so much and remove taxes on fuel and packaging to make food cheaper. We put forward a plan to end these taxes, but the Liberals voted against it.”

“Mr. Speaker, one way we could bring immediate relief on food price inflation is by stopping the crazy Liberal inflationary spending and by scrapping the food taxes like the industrial carbon tax, the package tax and the fuel standards tax that the Liberals keep piling on Canadians, day in and day out. Conservatives proposed a motion to scrap those taxes. The Liberals called them imaginary and voted down our motion. It is shameful. The Liberals are not living in reality. They are living in press releases. Canadians are watching their credit card bills, their bank statements and their mortgage statements. That is the reality that Canadians are living in.”

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“Our economy is heading into a recession because of government spending and bad policies. Unemployment and debt are high, while investment and production are falling. The government needs to stop running big deficits, cut regulations, and support our energy industry so businesses will invest here again.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak about an economic matter in the House of Commons today again. Before I actually get into my speech, I want to talk about the broader terms we are talking about here. We are talking about what a recession is. Of course, there is a technical definition of a recession, but the real indication is usually in the rearview mirror. It is an indication that there has been a significant decline in economic activity that has spread across the economy and has lasted more than a few months. A wide range of data go into that, including GDP decline, which we have had and jobs decline, which we have. We are now at a 6.9% rate of unemployment. Other indications include incomes going down, which is clearly the case in Canada; production going down, so manufacturing and all these other industries that are actually declining in Canada at this point in time; and an inverted yield curve, which we had in 2023 and is usually an indicator that down the road we will enter a recession. All of these indicators are here right now, so we are looking at where we are going to be. There is falling consumer confidence. Once people are losing their jobs and are out of work, we are going to see them participating less in the economy. That makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy because they pull in their spending. They decide to forgo the expenses that would lead us to where we need to go as an economy. Rising bankruptcies are an indicator. Let us look at the debts that Canadians have right now. There is a significant amount of debt. We are the most indebted country in the G7. There are a whole bunch of statistics here. I know they are just statistics when we talk about numbers. They are not just statistics to real people who are losing their houses and are having to refinance their mortgage at higher rates. These are pain points that people are feeling across Canada and that we have to make sure that we are looking at rather effectively. Let us think about our unemployment rate now. It was 6.9% this last month. When we had what is called a technical recession in the rearview mirror in 2015, the unemployment rate was 7%. That is 7% versus 6.9%. We are not far off from an unemployment indicator that would be severe for this country. To get down to the real pain points here, we have half a million former students in Canada who are still unemployed and who do not have the jobs that they trained for in their educational institutions. These are real lives. They are real contributions that people are trying to make to our economy that are not being fulfilled right now. We need to move in that direction. Payrolls are down, but let us think about where they have gone. Since 2023, we have 300,000 more public sector employees and what we call MUSH employees, municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals, and there is less private sector employment. That is a problem in an economy running a huge deficit, and we note that the current government is not shy about running higher deficits. That is what is contributing to inflation and what is going to contribute to the fact that we are going to have economic pain here going forward and we need to get ahead of that as quickly as possible. GDP is going down. Labour productivity is not improving. I want to talk about this motion today in support of Canadians who are increasingly asking a very simple question: Why is it getting harder to get ahead in this country? The debate is not just about G7 rankings. It is great to make sure we compare ourselves to other economies, but it is about whether Canadians feel progress in their daily lives. In my riding of Calgary Centre and across the country, people are working hard, doing everything right and still finding themselves falling behind. That should concern every member of this House. The motion before us reflects a troubling pattern. Canada is underperforming relative to its peers. Growth is weak. Household debt is high. The unemployment rate is rising faster than in comparable economies. This did not happen overnight and it did not happen by accident. Choices have been made all the way along that have caused us to be exactly where we are right now. For years, there were warning signs. Economists raised concerns about persistent deficits during periods of economic growth. My Conservative colleagues and I on this side of the House spoke about it repeatedly here. The Liberal government was told that continued spending without corresponding productivity gains would eventually create inflationary pressure. Those warnings were dismissed. We saw early signs of declining business investments, particularly in key sectors like energy. We saw capital beginning to leave the country. Those signals were ignored by the Liberal government. We told the Liberal government that global demand for Canadian energy would remain strong, and it has, but instead of positioning Canada to meet that demand, the Liberals layered on uncertainty and delay through job-killing policies, like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, that told investors loud and clear to take their capital somewhere else, and that is exactly what they did, leaving Canadian workers and communities behind. Again, the warning signs were there, even on productivity. Long before today, experts pointed out that Canada was falling behind our peers: less investment per worker, slower output growth and weak gains in competitiveness. None of this is new. The real concern is that these warning signs were not only ignored then; in many cases, they continue to be ignored now, because instead of correcting course by repealing Bill C-48 and urgently amending the Impact Assessment Act to provide certainty, the government has doubled down on the very approach that caused the problem: more regulation, more delay and more confusion for those looking to invest in Canada. The signs have been clear for years. Economists warned us that persistent deficits would lead to inflation. Investors pointed out that regulatory uncertainty was driving them to look elsewhere. Workers saw opportunities dwindling in key sectors. However, the Liberal government did not take these warnings seriously. Today, Canadians are paying the price. It is time to acknowledge these mistakes and change course to restore the conditions necessary for Canadians to succeed. The consequences of these choices are now showing up in the daily lives of Canadians. Household debt has reached historic highs, not because Canadians are reckless, but because many have had to rely on credit to maintain their standard of living. At the same time, inflation drove up interest rates, and now families are facing the combined pressure of higher borrowing costs and higher everyday expenses. I hear it constantly. People who felt financially stable just a few years ago are now reassessing everything, from major investments to everyday spending. This is not abstract. This is real, and it is widespread. Nowhere is the gap between potential and performance more obvious than in Canada’s energy sector. We are one of the most resource-rich countries in the world. We have the expertise, the workforce and the environmental standards to be a global leader, and yet, at a time when the world was actively seeking secure, democratic sources of energy, Canada failed to step forward. That was a moment of opportunity, and we missed it. In Calgary, the consequences are clear. Investment decisions are delayed, projects face prolonged uncertainty and the new memorandum of understanding does very little to solve that problem. Capital looks for more predictable environments. This is not because the resources are not in Canada. It is not because the talent is not in Canada. It is because the policy framework has not kept pace with reality. The world continues to need energy, and Canada should be part of that solution, responsibly, sustainably and competitively. This leads to a broader issue: productivity and investment. Canada is falling behind. We are attracting less capital per worker than our closest peers. We are seeing weaker productivity growth, and over time, that erodes living standards. When investment slows, everything slows: job creation, wage growth and economic mobility. Investors are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for clarity, clear rules, predictable timelines and confidence that Canada is a place where long-term investment is welcome. Today’s motion calls for a plan, and rightly so. A credible plan must start with recognizing how we got here. Then it must focus on restoring the fiscal discipline to reduce inflationary pressures and rebuild economic confidence; re-establishing Canada as a destination for investment through clear, stable and competitive policies; and embracing a realistic approach to energy, one that supports both economic growth and environmental progress without undermining either, because growth is not accidental. It is the real result of consistent, coherent choices over time. Canada has everything it needs to succeed, the resources, the talent, the entrepreneurial spirit, but potential is not enough. Without the right policies, opportunity is lost.”

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“The government's new plans are not clear enough to attract business investment. It costs companies more time and money to deal with our rules than to actually build infrastructure. We need to fix this process so we can get things built.”

“Mr. Speaker, there is a memorandum of understanding that some provincial governments say is a change in direction in the Liberal government but a change in direction on paper only. When we actually analyze that paper, as many of us have, we see that those changes in direction are not clear enough to actually indicate that people want to invest here. Ask the private sector entities that are impacted by those announcements and those words on paper that the government has put forward. It is still not committing capital. The reason it is not is that there is no clarity about the outcome for the process they have to go through. Getting infrastructure built in Canada requires an onerous process in which the companies involved, large companies, have to spend more time, resources and money going through the process than they actually have to spend putting the infrastructure in place. That has to change. The process cannot be the only thing that matters. We have to get things built in this country again.”

“Canada had the best economy in the G7 eleven years ago. Now, under the Liberals, we are in a recession and business investment is the lowest among wealthy countries. How would Conservatives fix our economy and make better use of our natural resources and workers?”

“Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent speech. Eleven years ago, Canada had the best-performing economy in the G7 and the OECD. After 11 years of the Liberals and their disastrous policies, we are the only G7 country in recession, and we have the lowest private sector investment of any economy in the OECD. What would Conservatives do to close the gap the member talked about, in terms of the immense resource wealth we have, and the smart people, yet poor results?”

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“We would make the rules clear and speed up the approval process. Investors need to know how long projects will take so they can build things in Canada again.”

“Mr. Speaker, that actually was an excellent question, because people ask me all the time, “What would you do differently?” I think we need to be very clear. We would make sure that those rules are very clear, unlike the muddled rules we keep coming up with where we are talking out of one side of our mouth to this group of people and the other side of our mouth to another group of people. There will be clarity about how we get through process quickly and sustainably in Canada. That is something every investor is looking for. What is the process? How long will it take? When can they start building and get a return on their investment? That has to be clear to all investors, all proponents, in getting things done in Canada once again.”

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“Alberta already has a strong social support system for housing, health, and other needs. The federal government should not add programs on top of provincial ones. We should let provinces handle their own jobs.”

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague. I know that Alberta, frankly, has a very robust social welfare system, the envy of many provinces across the country. Whether those funds come from the federal government or the provincial government, they are stacked and actually represent a level of sustenance across the economy that people in need actually require. That includes money for housing, for health and for all the things we look at in a social system, where people need to have a basic life and make sure they are taken care of. That is part of governing in this country: making sure we look after the people who do not have the ability to quite look after themselves and that we are there for them in that respect. Layering on a federal program on top of provincial programs is no way to approach federalism in Canada. That is something we want to make sure of: that we give the province the ability to solve this at its level when it has that jurisdiction to take care of.”

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“The member for North Vancouver—Capilano is leaving Parliament to take a job representing Canada abroad. We disagreed on many policies, but we always treated each other with respect. I wish him well in his new role.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to note the departure of the hon. member for North Vancouver—Capilano, who will be leaving this place to serve Canada abroad in a new capacity. The member and I have spent a good deal of time on opposite sides of some very important debates, such as on net-zero legislation, the 2 billion trees initiative and broader Conservative concerns about the government’s environmental approach. Those disagreements were real. I stand by them, just as I am sure the hon. member does. While most of those exchanges were during his time as the minister of the environment and minister of natural resources, I also want to thank him for his service as the minister of fisheries. I know he cared very much in that role about salmon policy, and it is always welcome, as I have said many times, to have another British Columbian voice in Ottawa, particularly one in a position of authority. In fact, when it comes to the debates we had, I suspect we may both continue to believe we were on the right side of those debates. Perhaps the only fair way we can resolve that is to compare notes in the years ahead, say, in 2030, and maybe again in 2050, when the results of those policies are clear. What is worth noting is that even through those disagreements, we never lost the ability to have a conversation. Whether it was in the House, at committee, at the parliamentary gym or even when we found ourselves seated next to each other on a long flight, there was always professionalism and mutual respect. As a fellow British Columbian, I can attest to the travel demands that come with representing a riding on the west coast. It is not always an easy schedule. I recall mentioning to the member at the gym that perhaps in his new role, he might finally find himself ahead of events happening in Ottawa rather than living life feeling three hours behind. I recall one moment during COVID at committee when I yielded my time, and of course, members would know that the opposition never has tricks for ministers when they show up at committee. When I yielded my time to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands to question the minister on his net-zero bill, in that instant, a minister’s staffer sprung, or I should say flung, into action, diving onto the desk, pulling one book out and somehow switching it with a completely different book. It was a small moment, but it allowed the minister to switch the answers fitting the perspective of a Conservative to that of a Green member of Parliament. It may have been a small moment, but it reflected not only the preparation but also the strength of the people we count on. Moments like this remind us that none of us do this work alone. We often rely on dedicated staff who work behind the scenes, often under pressure, to help us perform our duties as elected officials as ably as possible. They may not often be recognized, but they should be, and we should thank them not just today but, I believe, every day. There comes a time when many who serve here look for new ways to continue contributing. Canadians have been well served by former parliamentarians at the federal and provincial levels who have stepped into roles abroad. It was Prime Minister Harper who began appointing experienced political leaders such as Gary Doer, followed by Gordon Campbell. Prime Minister Trudeau continued this practice, with Stéphane Dion and John Horgan of British Columbia. These individuals said yes to continuing to serve and to putting their years of insight and experience to work for Canada in a new way. I suspect having a prime minister make that personal call helps in one’s decision-making. I would just point out before I finish that there are many experienced parliamentarians who have since left active political life whose insight and perspective could likewise be drawn upon. On that basis, I wish the hon. member for North Vancouver—Capilano well. While I have said we have disagreed, I respect his willingness to serve and have no doubt he will continue to do so in his next role.”