“Under this Liberal government, major projects do not get built anymore. They cancelled pipelines, made it impossible to get new ones approved, and drove energy investment out of the country. Now housing starts are dropping and our economy is falling behind. The Liberals need to adopt the Conservative plan. They should repeal their laws against development, remove capital gains taxes on money reinvested in Canada, and get rid of the industrial carbon tax.”

“Madam Speaker, a few weeks ago, I asked the government if it would adopt the Conservative plan to repeal its antidevelopment laws, remove capital gains taxes on investment gains reinvested in Canada and remove its industrial carbon tax. The response from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship was quite remarkable. He rose in this place and said, “We used to build things in this country.” I thought what a telling response that was, what a strange response from a parliamentary secretary speaking for a government that has been in power for 11 years, to concede that under the Liberals’ watch, Canada has indeed become a country where things do not get built. It was quite surprising, and I could not help but say then that the parliamentary secretary is going to be really upset when he finds out who has been in charge for the last 11 years. It is as if the government were having an out-of-body experience, viewing what has transpired in Canada and the transformation that has occurred in Canada during its tenure. The parliamentary secretary must be really upset to find out now that the government for which he is a spokesperson brought in a ministerial order, immediately upon taking office, to cancel the northern gateway pipeline, that the government brought in a bill, Bill C-48, to slam the door shut on a northern pipeline by banning shipping traffic, or to prevent shipping traffic coming into either the port of either Kitimat or the port of Prince Rupert. He must have been really disappointed that the government passed Bill C-69 in 2019, which, following several years of continual moving of goalposts, made it absolutely impossible for any private sector proponent to propose, gain approval for and build a pipeline in Canada. The parliamentary secretary must have been very disappointed that the government chased TransCanada Pipeline out of the country. It changed its name to TC Energy and focused its energy and investment activity in Mexico and the United States. He and the other Liberals must be very disappointed to suddenly learn that their government has presided over a decline in per capita GDP growth during the time they were in office and that they have presided over a now continual collapsing of housing starts, which they keep promising are going to increase but do not. This is the record. It is the Liberals’ responsibility, and it is during their tenure that we became a country where we failed to build projects. I do implore the Liberals to adopt the Conservative plan to actually repeal the laws that prevent projects from getting built, instead of their approach, which is to grant themselves more power to then politically interfere by declaring which projects the laws of Canada will not apply to. I will have to leave it at that, and we will see what the parliamentary secretary has to say in response.”

“The government should not take credit for the Trans Mountain pipeline. It drove out the private builder and spent five times more to build it itself. It also cancelled the Northern Gateway pipeline right after taking office in 2015. This government has a history of stopping projects, and Canadians will judge it by the lack of new work being built.”

“Madam Speaker, time did not allow me to talk about TMX in my remarks. The government seems to seek extraordinary credit for nationalizing and building TMX at a 500% cost overrun from what a private builder would have built with private money after the government chased that private developer out, which is astounding. The debacle of TMX is a further example of the failed approach of the government. The northern gateway pipeline was conditionally approved. Almost literally, the first thing the government did when it was elected in 2015 was kill it with an order in council. The government has a history of failing to allow projects to be built, and we will judge it by the shovels in the ground, of which there are currently none.”