“I oppose this budget bill. The government is failing to buy equipment and ammunition for our military. Instead, it wastes time and money on outside consultants. We should fix this bill by setting up a military buying office in the Privy Council Office, which worked well when Conservatives were in power. National defence must be the government's top priority.”

“Mr. Speaker, despite all that growth, somehow Public Services and Procurement Canada lacks the staff to renew the defence contracts. I am not buying that, and neither should Canadians. Even if it were true and the government were issuing fat contracts faster than staff could keep up, it becomes a matter of triage on priorities. National defence is supposed to be the highest priority of a national government. Contracts to secure enough bullets and bombs should always be at the top of the pile. Instead, the priority of the defence department goes to the sole-source contracts hiring American diversity consultants. One of the recommendations Conservatives have made to fix the bill is to establish a secretariat inside the Privy Council Office. This would do more to ensure that defence procurement is a priority than would Bill C-31 and Bill C-40 combined. We know this from our experience in Afghanistan. Under Stephen Harper, defence procurement was a real priority of the Privy Council Office. That is how we rapidly procured 651 light armoured vehicles, 500 tactical armoured patrol vehicles, 100 battle tanks, 37 Howitzer guns, 21 Chinook helicopters, 17 Hercules aircraft, 16 route clearing IED devices and five Globemaster aircraft. That is a real record with real results. The Liberal record is one of delay, deny and deflect. The decision to delay the completing of the F-35 contract is not based on what is best for Canada’s national security. It is about what is best for the political interests of the Liberal Party. The threats to Canada’s national security have not diminished since the Conservatives left government. They have grown. Anyone watching the defence committee yesterday or anyone reading today’s editorial in The Globe and Mail knows the truth. The threat of war is very real. Our soldiers were the tripwire in Latvia but now are at an even higher posture. Our sailors ply the Taiwan Strait, yet the government seems more keen on doing business with the very countries we might find ourselves in conflict with. There is a real urgency needed to rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces after a second Liberal decade of darkness. Instead, the government wastes time trying to figure out the difference between a Crown agency and a Crown corporation. The Liberals have us debating legislation rendered moot by the next bill they introduce. This is no way to run a lemonade stand let alone a NATO member country. If this is how the Prime Minister ran the Bank of England, it is no wonder the U.K. crashed out of Europe. It is clear from the bill before us and Bill C-40 that the government does not know what it is doing. This is not the quiet competence of a central banker but the desperate hustle of an investment banker caught in a stock market bubble. All his foreign trips and fake summits are meant to create the impression of action, the illusion of substance, but photo ops do not put bullets in the rifles or jets in the sky. The Liberal Party famously ran a campaign with a platform listing out 40 priorities. If it has 40 priorities, then it has zero priorities. Conservatives understand that national defence is the number one priority of a national government. It is time the Liberals learned that lesson.”

“Our military is losing people faster than it can hire them, and it lacks ammunition, equipment, and air defence. The government knows war is coming, but it is hiding this and will not warn Canadians.”

“Mr. Speaker, people are leaving the military faster than it can recruit them. It does not have bullets. It does not have the equipment. We have zero air defence in Canada. That is why it is keeping the Canadian people in the dark. The government knows that war is coming, and it has to warn the people but is not prepared to do so.”

“The new defence agency makes promises but delivers nothing. It will mean less transparency and more political interference that rewards Liberal insiders. I want the member to speak about how this will lead to more corruption.”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke for her long-standing efforts, since 2000, on the national defence committee. She knows this file inside out and backwards. She also knows that the Defence Investment Agency has done nothing but make announcements and promises. It actually has not delivered anything yet. The government loves to talk. We hear the member for Winnipeg North get up to say that Crown corporations are the greatest thing ever. We can talk about all the sliced bread the government has invented in the last little while, but the reality is that there is no transparency, there is less accountability and there is going to be more opportunity for more political interference and the rewarding of Liberal insiders. Will the member please address that issue and how this would actually open up the doors to more corruption, which we have witnessed in the past?”

“The previous Conservative government bought defence equipment the right way. The Prime Minister is turning a defence agency into a Crown corporation instead. This lets the government invest in companies, take their profits, and take them over.”

“Mr. Speaker, we have seen the correct way to do procurement. It was when Prime Minister Harper was in charge. He assigned the Privy Council Office to do it. When the prime minister is behind the orders, we get it done. Right now, the Prime Minister has changed a defence agency in its infancy into a Crown corporation. The difference is that he can invest money. The government can invest in companies, in the Crown corporation. Not only are they getting the benefits personally from the dividends, but now, with the government’s investing in these companies, it is nationalizing them. We have seen that in other countries, and we are at odds with them.”

“This bill does not do enough for military housing. Recruits need homes, but we have not built new barracks in years, and the old ones are mouldy and broken. We should treat people who serve our country better.”

“Mr. Speaker, the bill that is before us is about the military. I can tell the House that not only are regular people, civilians, looking for housing but that the people joining the military are also looking. The military has not built new barracks in years, and the barracks it does have are condemned. A recruit coming in is sent into a room, if there are even any left, that is mouldy, with insufficient electricity and no connectivity. That is no way to treat someone who is going to put their life on the line for their country.”

“The government took a whole year to move this budget bill, and it should have passed long ago. The Liberals keep spending billions of dollars outside the normal budget process, before Parliament can approve it. Our debt and interest costs are growing too fast. I want the government to be honest and open about all its spending. I also want tax cuts for small businesses by raising the sales tax threshold to $60,000 and the small business tax limit to $700,000.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise and represent my wonderful riding. Today, I will be speaking to Bill C-31, the budget implementation act from last year. This legislation deals with the allocation of public funds from the previous fiscal year, which ended on March 31 and, in my opinion, should have been passed by this House a long time ago. In fact, tomorrow, November 4, it will be one year since the previous budget was tabled. This is from a government that said it would move at speeds never seen before in the history of Canada. The Liberals have not done that with their legislative agenda and all of the procedural tools available, even including time allocation, to move this bill forward. When borrowing is increasing and debt service costs are consuming more public resources, the government has an even greater responsibility to be transparent in how it accounts for every dollar. After the spring economic statement earlier this year, the Parliamentary Budget Officer highlighted “absence of key planning and governance detail for many new measures”. Indeed, since the government tabled the budget a year ago, there has been nearly $5 billion in various announcements not tied to the budgetary process; in other words, spending before parliamentary approval. That includes $1.75 billion for a venture capital fund; $750 million for an agricultural growth pathway program; $430 million to unions; $200 million to an Inuit organization; $173 million for women’s entrepreneurship; $168 million for a research ecosystem; $145 million to FIFA; $813 million for research chairs; $100 million to Gaza; $100 million to Vital health, and I do not even know what that is; $100 million to ELYSIS, and I do not know what that is; $100 million for offshore wind in Nova Scotia; and $100 million for women’s economic leadership. I will not comment on each of these announcements made by ministers. However, I will note that when the government gets completely into the habit of making spending announcements outside of the budgetary process, following the usage of public funds through the budget and estimates process in Parliament becomes almost impossible for the average member of Parliament. Now, on the Liberal side, that does not seem to matter very much because most of the Liberals never speak in Parliament anymore. They have delegated that role to one member, the member for Winnipeg North. That is sad. I actually believe there are lots of intelligent people in the Liberal caucus. Either they are not allowed to speak or they do not know how, but it diminishes the capacity of this House to scrutinize and to have proper debates. I want intelligent Liberal members to raise their voices on behalf of their constituents, but they do not. That is a shame, and it is eroding the democratic traditions of this chamber. The PBO now projects that federal borrowing will increase by $732.9 billion over the next five years, and that the federal debt will continue running substantial deficits as Liberals continue to spend more in a way that outpaces even higher revenues by the government. Interest payments will be the fastest-growing federal expense, skyrocketing to $83 billion projected by 2030-31, consuming 13.6¢ of every dollar in federal revenue and costing a family of four nearly $8,000 annually compared to just $2,500 five years ago. The government promised to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio in the last election. Then it was changed to deficit-to-GDP ratio in the last budget a year ago. This is especially concerning as the Prime Minister has doubled the deficit with the biggest deficit outside the COVID pandemic and the highest spending as a share of GDP since the 1990s debt crisis. To be clear, Conservatives think that these are necessary but insufficient fiscal anchors. The deficit must just simply be reduced. The bare minimum is that the government keeps its word to reduce the debt and the deficit as a share of our economy, but we are not doing that. We have not seen the results that Canadians expected a year ago, and a year and a half ago, since the last election. To achieve this, the government has to look very carefully at our taxation system and overhaul it as part of the budget that is going to be announced this week. I have been pressing the finance minister and the minister responsible for small businesses to do just that. In fact, I have introduced a couple of tax reforms I hope to see presented in the next week. The first is that the GST and HST small supplier threshold should be increased from $30,000 to $60,000 and adjusted to inflation going forward. In Canada, once a business exceeds $30,000 in annual revenue, the owner must register for GST and HST, collect and remit the tax, file returns and take on additional administrative responsibilities. This threshold has not changed for more than three decades despite inflation. I am raising that change to the tax code in good faith, in the hope that the government will make that change because the people impacted by it the most will be, in many cases, the Canadians working the hardest and struggling the most. It is the stay-at-home mom running a side business out of her kitchen like a bakery just to pay for her kids’ hockey and dance lessons. It is the father working as a car detailer on evenings and weekends to cover his kids’ hockey fees or that trip to the Okanagan for that tournament their kid really wants to go to. Let us make it easier for those people. Let us encourage entrepreneurship in our tax code. We have not done that. The second policy I would like to see the government adopt is to increase the federal small business deduction limit from $500,000 to $700,000. This limit was last increased in 2009. Since then, inflation and rising business costs have steadily eroded its value, and growing businesses are hitting that threshold sooner than policy-makers originally intended. Increasing the limit to $700,000 and also adjusting for inflation would allow businesses to keep more of their hard-earned dollars. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, in advance of the next budget, in response to this one, have all called for an overhaul of our taxation system to reduce the taxes on our entrepreneurs. As I have said in this chamber many times before, we have lost many entrepreneurs in Canada because it is no longer profitable to be an entrepreneur like it was 25 years ago. I say to the government that it should be more transparent with how it spends taxpayer dollars. Announcement after announcement, without the ability of Parliament to properly scrutinize how that money is being spent, is not good for anyone nor for any Canadian. It should adopt a more transparent model. Second, it should overhaul our taxation system with the lens of making Canada more competitive and more open for business. The government should take those two points moving forward, make some necessary changes to improve the entrepreneurial landscape in Canada and provide the transparency we need to allow Canadians to see how the government is spending money and what the actual results of those expenditures are. We cannot do that today, and it needs to change.”

“The big tax deduction in the budget is a good step, but it mostly helps bring foreign money into Canada. We should focus instead on helping existing Canadian businesses and supply chains compete.”

“Mr. Speaker, the member from Hamilton asked a good-faith question. If, in fact, there is a mega deduction in the upcoming budget, I believe that is generally a step in the right direction. My criticism of that policy would be that it would apply more to the attraction of foreign capital into Canada. Where I believe we need to focus is on allowing existing Canadian businesses in the existing Canadian supply chains to address the competitiveness issues we are facing there.”

“The cost of living is high because the government spends too much and does not handle inflation well. Older Canadians have received more government money than any past generation. Seniors who make over 120,000 dollars still get money from this program, and its income rules are looser than the rules for child benefits. We need to examine and reform this senior benefit system, not just increase it.”

“Mr. Speaker, with respect to old age security, there have been many Conservatives in our caucus supportive of some of the measures put forward by the Bloc Québécois simply because the cost of living is too high, which is a result of a government overspending and not addressing inflation appropriately. However, I will note that the baby boomer generation in Canada has received more government money and more social programs than any generation in the history of probably mankind. I believe we need to look very closely at our old age security regime at large. Why is it that someone with a retirement income over $120,000 receives social assistance from the Government of Canada? Why is it that the income thresholds for old age security are much looser than the thresholds we apply to the Canada child benefit? Those are questions Parliament needs to ask and examine carefully.”

“It is strange that we are debating next year's budget bill right before the new budget comes out on Thursday. Government debt is growing faster than anything else. By 2031, it will cost almost 14 cents of every dollar, which will hurt Canadian families.”

“Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that it is rather odd that we are talking about the budget implementation act of 2025 almost a year to the day when the budget will be delivered, which is on Thursday. I want to go back to his comments about the growing debt and it being the fastest-growing line item of the government, and that by 2031, it will be over almost 14¢ on every dollar, and the impact that will have on Canadian families.”

“The government is hiding the true size of its debt by counting money given to Canada Post as an asset. Canada Post will never pay that money back, so taxpayers will pay interest on it forever. The government needs to be honest in its budget reporting so our children do not inherit all this debt.”

“Mr. Speaker, our Parliamentary Budget Officer has been very clear that some of the accounting practices of the Prime Minister, namely, separating operating expenditures and assets into different categories when they are tied to Crown corporations is, in essence, fudging the books, so to speak. Nobody expects Canada Post to ever pay back the money the Treasury Board has given it in recent years. That is not an asset. That is money we are paying interest on, and we will in perpetuity until that is paid off. I believe the government needs to be more transparent in its budget reporting, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer outlined, but at this point, I am also very concerned about the future of my children, the debt they are inheriting and what the results of that debt will mean for their livelihoods in the future.”

“I do not want this budget bill to pass. It creates a new defence corporation that Parliament cannot properly oversee. The government uses these corporations to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars off the books while our national debt and interest costs keep climbing.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today and speak to Bill C-31, which is the government’s second foray into getting the last budget put in front of this House and getting some of the implementations from that budget moving forward, recognizing that that was almost a year ago and we have a new budget coming out tomorrow. I should point out that the budget presented in the House of Commons and voted on over a year ago was the budget for the prior fiscal year. We are going to have a budget in two days, and we are not sure whether it is going to be for the current fiscal year, because we already have one for 2026-27, or for the next fiscal year, because the government talked about budgeting and getting it out in the fall so that we could get a good glimpse of what was going to happen in the future, that is, in the next year. Getting a budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, which ends on March 31, is a bit of a charade, because, number one, the Liberals have already indicated that they are going to have more than a $66-billion deficit, which looks like it may be fixed a bit. Through the summer, they have obviously thrown a whole bunch more money at the wall, at this, that and the next thing, none of which was in the budget they presented in the House of Commons last year. It is a government without any guidelines whatsoever, any fiscal anchors, any reason. As some people tell me, the thing about a budget is that it is a sacred document because it is what guides what we do. Everything we do in life is about choices, choices about what we spend money on and about what we do and do not do. At this point in time, we do not have a government that says we should not do this, because it wants to be the sole determinant of what happens in the Canadian economy. That is not working for Canada. We can see that in our growth numbers. The Parliamentary Budget Officer came out last week and said that our real gross domestic product growth is only 0.9%, whereas our nominal growth is 5.5%. That means our GDP deflator is 4.7%. That is a proxy for inflation. It is not the same as the CPI, but it is a proxy for what is happening in the economy. The same output is now costing 4.6% more, and we have a 0.9% real increase in the economy. I know those numbers go above most the heads of my colleagues on the other side, but they matter because they show that the amount of money the government is pumping into the economy is having very little effect. I want to get to where we are in Bill C-31, because it has a number of factors in it, one of which I have time to address. I have addressed it before. It is a very important part, but it is the establishment of a special government agency, the Defence Investment Agency. No sooner did the government present another entity coming forward for the government to spend money in than, lo and behold, it decided to change it into a Crown corporation. I will explain this to people at home. There are three types of government operations. Basically, there are government departments, which respond directly to ministers, and those ministers are, in the old context, responsible for what happens in their departments. That means if the government messes up really badly, they have to stand on the floor of the House Commons, answer for what happened and potentially resign their post because they are at the head, the person responsible for that department. That is no longer happening with the government whatsoever. There are no accountability mechanisms. Nobody in the front bench on the other side has been accountable for any of the disastrous outcomes that have impacted the finances of this country for the last 11 years, and it is getting worse. When we look at the ramping up of deficits, nothing is getting better as far as our economic outlook goes. We had the Bank of Canada governor in front of our finance committee this morning, and inasmuch as his job is only about monetary policy, we can take a look at how fiscal policy is impacting monetary policy. It is putting us into a trap, and we are now the most indebted nation in the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Of 38 countries, we are number two. The only country above us, as far as the debt profile goes, is Luxembourg, and that is because of an anomaly about the number of financial corporations that are headquartered in Luxembourg, which have such a large weight. When we talk about the debt profile, we talk about corporations, individuals’ mortgages and consumer debt, and governments. The government’s debts, combined with the provincial governments’ debts, are onerous to this economy. This is a problem. We have to get ahead of it. It is going to be a problem as we go forward, particularly because we will have to refinance a bunch of it going forward. Going back to Bill C-31 and the Defence Investment Agency, there are three forms of government operations, as I said. There are departments and agencies and then there are Crown corporations. Which one is the least accountable to government? It is Crown corporations. No sooner did the government decide that we needed a Defence Investment Agency, which is one step removed from responsible government, than it decided with Bill C-40, which follows this bill, that we needed a Crown corporation called the Canadian corporation for defence investment to invest in defence. However, it would not be at arm’s length, because the legislation says the associate minister could direct the new Crown corporation. That is nowhere else in any other government legislation pertaining to a Crown corporation. It is an aberration. It is the government wanting to have its cake and eat it too. It wants a Crown Corporation that functions like a little piggy bank, and the government would get to decide exactly what happens. I raised this at committee. I do not mind using this word, because we have to make sure that we are building structures in Canada that are not open to corruption. I am not saying that any members on that side are going to be corrupt. However, they are setting up structures that are unaccountable to Parliament. Picture this. The president of the defence Crown corporation that would emerge from this bill would have no oversight from the Treasury Board Secretariat about who he pays and how he pays them in order to get the job done, so it would be completely blind as far as the contracts he has to oversee go. Similar to what the government has been doing, a vast number of people could effectively be appointed to help the president of the defence Crown corporation more or less make all these decisions. It would be beyond oversight as far as how those people would have to be paid goes, as if they were public servants. They are public servants. Doug Guzman is that man’s name. The compensation for the officials should be overseen by Parliament, if it is something being funded by the House. Think about those numbers going off the table. The other problem with Crown corporations is the financial reporting mechanisms. As the Parliamentary Budget Officer clearly illustrated just last week, the government’s deficits over the next five years, counting the current one, are going to add an additional $333 billion to this country’s debt, but the government is going to increase this country’s borrowing by $730 billion. What is the difference? The difference is that the government is parking money in Crown corporations without oversight, and it is being opaquely illustrated as if it is not debt, yet it is very much borrowing that Canadian taxpayers are paying tax on. That debt interest charge, as we call it, has gone from $24 billion four years ago to over $59 billion today and is projected to be $83 billion in four years. That is a ridiculous amount of interest coming out of taxpayers’ pockets, and it is something the government has to get ahead of. It is enough with the obfuscation. I can go through the data as far as what we are talking about goes. The Defence Investment Agency is turning into the Canadian corporation for defence investment. The current government has already created another couple of Crown corporations, which are the Canada strong fund and the financial crimes agency, but since 2019, the Liberals have created nine new Crown corporations and agencies. These are organizations that exist almost beyond the purview of the House. Ninety-two exist now. We have to get ahead of this and look at all the ways the Liberals are hiding money and creating new second-guess organizations. Having Crown corporations versus independent agencies is just obfuscating the whole reporting mechanism, both for personnel and for the Canadian taxpayer dollars that are going off the table. There are a number of issues here. I can only expound on so much in the 10 minutes I have on the floor of the House of Commons, but this is not the way to run a country. We are going broke. We are actually the most indebted country in the world, all things considered. We have to make sure we get ahead of this and stop the obfuscation.”

• Echo ×3

  A repeated line

  “We are the most indebted country in the G7.”

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“We need to spend more money on defence, like building a new base in Iqaluit. Instead, the government is just creating more agencies and bureaucracy. This bill sets up bad structures and wastes money instead of buying what our military needs.”

“Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. In the last election, we put forward a plan to spend judiciously but spend a lot more on getting a new base built in Iqaluit. It has been over a year and a half since the last election. What has the government done as far as spending goes? It has created a bunch of agencies. How do we spend? Should we spend? What should we spend? How do we measure that spending? How do we get people connected to the government who are effectively going to make these decisions? We are creating another bureaucracy, as opposed to getting things out the door. All things considered, I know there have been some successes, so I do not mean to say that there is only bad happening. However, this opens the door to another bad structure and a lot of money going off the table.”

“The oil industry is very important to Canada and the best industry in the country. It pays a lot of taxes and brings in money that improves Canadians' lives. We need it to help pay our bills in the future.”

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the Bloc for his question about Canada’s oil industry, which I think is the best industry in the country. The Bloc Québécois is always asking questions about the oil industry. I wonder if it thinks that oil is not important. It is a very important industry for the country. It pays a lot of taxes and generates a lot of revenue to improve the lives of Canadians. It is important for Canada’s future. It is important for paying bills in the future.”

“The government collected 130 billion dollars more in taxes in 2025 than in 2020. Canadians got nothing for it except higher prices for food and living. The government is taxing people too much and wasting their money.”

“Mr. Speaker, we are debating the budget implementation act, volume 2, and the government brought in $130 billion more in tax revenue in 2025 than it did in 2020. What have Canadians gotten for that money? It has basically been higher inflation and higher food costs, and affordability is the worst it has ever been. I wonder if my colleague can explain to the government what happens when the people of Canada are overtaxed and the government disrespects Canadian taxpayers’ dollars.”

“Government spending is causing inflation because private businesses are not investing in Canada. Canadian companies are moving to the United States instead. We need clear rules so businesses can easily invest in our economy again.”

“Mr. Speaker, my colleague is exactly right. The government is pushing more taxpayer money out the door into the Canadian economy because nobody else in the current framework is investing in the Canadian economy. The government can talk all it wants about the great investment summit that happened and say that we have turned around some investment that should be coming into Canada, but we are losing Canadian companies that are being moved south of the border. It is one of those things where we are creating inflation with government spending. That is something the Parliamentary Budget Officer was quite clear about. The GDP deflator has gone up by 4.5% because our nominal GDP is up 5.4% and our real GDP is up only 0.9%. It is not working. We are not getting the private sector into the economy. We have to make sure that we are getting the rules straight so that people can see the path to invest in Canada and can make a good investment in Canadian industries again.”

“The government is introducing this budget late on a Thursday right before a break week to hide it. I want to know if the Prime Minister and the finance minister will show up to answer questions about it. The budget needs to fix tax rules that punish people for donating land for affordable housing. It also needs to deliver promised money to help Merritt recover from floods, buy a fire truck and fire hall for Barriere, and rebuild the Red Bridge in Kamloops.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, and it is certainly no exception to speak to Bill C-31, the bill that is colloquially known as the budget implementation act. It feels like we are a little late because we are getting a new budget in two days. I find it interesting that the government would table a budget literally at the end of the day on Thursday. Western MPs like myself and ministers often travel on that day. For those who tune in to question period on Friday, it is usually a bit shorter, not shorter in time but a little less raucous, a little quieter, and people are all spread out because, I would say, probably half of the MPs are present. It is often called the Friday afternoon news dump, as we often hear about. At times, we have to ask why. The worst I saw, and I am trying to remember the example, was when the government made an announcement, and I am sure the member for Winnipeg North, with his repository of memories, would probably remember what it was. At 10 p.m., the government made what I believe was a military announcement, something deeply unpopular that it wanted to bury. I am left wondering why Thursday at 4 p.m. Who knows? We will see what is in this budget. We will see just how bad the deficit is. If the government wanted to tell people about all the good news, one would think, it would table the budget on a Monday. Not only that, but the next week is a break week. Sure, we will have question period on Friday, although most ministers will not be here. I will be surprised if they are. When I inevitably get a question from the Liberals, perhaps the Liberal member who invariably gets up and asks me a question can tell the House whether the finance minister will be here on the Friday to answer questions. If the finance minister is going to table a budget, one would think that both he and the Prime Minister would be prepared to defend that budget in question period the next day. I am very curious to hear whether the minister in charge of the budget and the Prime Minister will be here on Friday, because we will then go home for the Remembrance Day week, for what we call a constituency week, and those weeks are very important. We as MPs need time with our families, but we also need time with constituents. It is a time to connect with people, and that goes for members of Parliament from all parties. There are probably 10 different Remembrance Day ceremonies in my riding, maybe even 15 or 20, because there are upwards of 15 communities, 29 first nations and two regional districts in my riding alone. I look forward to connecting with people, but I am curious as to what will be in the budget. Now I am going to deviate and say what I really hope will be in the budget. There is one thing I am very proud of. When I was the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, I had the tremendous honour of tabling a petition in support of the community land trust concept. This is something that has been championed by one of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola’s finest people, a wonderful volunteer, somebody who has been involved with the chamber of commerce. His name is Colin O’Leary. Colin has given so much of his time to this idea because he not only believes in it but believes this will have a tremendous impact for people. The Hill Times just did a story. It says November 3, so it is hot off the presses. The Hill Times did a story about the community land trust, and has a photo of Mr. O’Leary, as well as the chamber of commerce located in Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. One of my former students in the faculty of business, Acacia Pangilinan, is also pictured in The Hill Times. This is what The Hill Times says about the community land trust: ...Community Land Trusts...could be a big part of the solution. CLTs are non-profit organizations that acquire land and buildings, and hold the land in trust for affordable housing. While people can purchase houses, duplexes, or apartments on CLT property, the land itself remains in ownership of the trust. The effect? Land costs are taken out of the equation, meaning that housing can be built for the cost of construction, at the same time the land is held in trust as a community asset, benefiting future generations and ensuring lasting affordability. The problem? Our current tax rules make it difficult to donate parcels of land to CLTs. In other words, people are punished for their own charity. This is something that has been advanced by the Kamloops and District Chamber of Commerce. It has been advanced by Mr. O’Leary, and I believe Mr. O’Leary deserves the lion’s share of the credit for this idea. Anybody who would claim otherwise simply does not know the history. I would say to Colin, and those who have supported him, like the Kamloops chamber and like Acacia, thanks for all he has done, on behalf of the people of Canada and as his member of Parliament for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. Another thing I would like to see addressed, and I have tabled a number of petitions in the House of Commons on it, is with respect to Merritt. Merritt is a new community in my riding. It was not in the former Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo riding. An atmospheric river went through Merritt, and the prime minister showed up, as he always did for the good photo ops. Justin Trudeau never missed a photo op. Let us be real. He showed up with Bill Blair, who ran in the last election and then got a patronage appointment. Nobody talks about the cost of his by-election in order to do that, one of many. Be that as it may, they showed up. They said, “We’ll have your backs.” The province put forward well over $100 million. I believe it was about $140 million, but I stand to be corrected on that number. The federal government indirectly, I am told, has contributed a couple of million dollars to this. When it was photo op time for the people of Merritt, hard-working blue-collar people like my family, so many of whom I identify with, as my dad was a sawmill worker, the government was so happy to say, “We’ll have your backs.” When it came time to write cheques, the Liberals were missing in action. We now have the West Coast Corridor Resiliency Partnership, which is a partnership of communities in my riding and in other ridings. It is time to deliver what the government promised to the people of Merritt. I have tabled petitions to this end, and I really hope that the government makes good on its promise. Let us face it. Talk is kind of cheap around here. We have heard so many promises that have not come to fruition. Barriere is another great community. It has a strong mill history that I can empathize with, given my family’s history. Barriere needs a new fire hall, and it needs a new fire truck. We talk about infrastructure, and we talk about community needs. This is really basic, and I have petitioned the government to fund those types of things. With respect to Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola itself, Kamloops had this iconic landmark, the Red Bridge, called the Red Bridge because the side was actually red. It was destroyed by arson, tragically. There were two attempts. The second attempt actually worked. The reality is that the people of Kamloops want the Red Bridge back. This is going to be a provincial responsibility, but we need federal funding for the fast-tracking of the rebuilding of the Red Bridge. It connected mainland Kamloops to the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc lands. It is an alternate route so that we actually have a second way of getting from downtown to the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc territory. One would think that with a housing and infrastructure minister from British Columbia, we would be hearing about this. This is something on which I have put forward five petitions already. I really hope the government listens. This is exactly the type of thing it should be funding. I have a lot more to say, but I see my time is up. It is an honour to rise in this House to discuss these things.”

“The member only got a call from the housing minister after she joined the Liberals. That shows the government only listens to Liberals, when it should serve everyone. I want to know if the Prime Minister or the finance minister will be here on Friday.”

“Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not address that question by noting that the member, when she was on this side of the House before she crossed the floor, was highly critical of the government. In fact, she said that she did not get a call from the housing minister until she crossed the floor. What do we have, then? We have Liberals overtly telling us that unless one is a Liberal, one does not get a phone call from the housing minister. Where I come from, one is an MP to everybody, to the people who voted for them, the people who did not vote for them and the people who did not vote at all, just like the government is a government to every single person. Shame on the government. Will the Prime Minister be here on Friday? Will the Minister of Finance be here? Anyone? Bueller?”

“The government wastes money and drives up the deficit. For example, it is spending 5 million dollars on outside lawyers for a new jail, even though the government already employs its own lawyers.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. The hon. member talks about subsidies and things like that. In a lot of ways, he is talking about government spending. We may not always agree, but I think one place we may agree, and we may part company in some regard on this point, is on the nature of government spending. We constantly hear the Liberals stand up and ask where we would cut. I do not know. Maybe we would cut the consultants. I was looking at a plan, a budget, for a jail that is being built. The government budgeted $5 million for lawyers, external counsel. Five million does not sound like much, but it is a lot of money. In this country, we have something called the Department of Justice. Do members know who it employs? It employs lawyers. Why are we spending $5 million on lawyers when we have government lawyers? I was a government lawyer. This is where we are spending our money. This is why we are in a massive deficit. We are not even looking after the pennies or the dollars, the hundreds of millions of dollars. It all just goes into a big pool, and we are told that we have never had it so good.”

“Police and local leaders tell me the justice system fails to keep us safe, even when they know who the criminals are. This budget barely spends any money on public safety. Is there anything in this bill that will actually make Canadians safer?”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my friend, who just talked about some of his previous life experience, about this. The member for Oxford was recently in my riding doing a round table about the failures of the criminal justice system in this country and its ability to keep Canadians safe. The recurring theme that I heard from municipal leaders and law enforcement was that they know who the bad guys are. They know what they are doing. This is a common theme that we hear. I wonder if my colleague would like to expand on the budget’s massive amount of non-investment, for lack of a better term. Is there anything in the budget implementation act that is going to help our justice system actually make Canadians safer?”

“The government has done a completely inadequate job on crime. I can show the Minister of Justice about 15 areas where the Liberals need to do better.”

“Mr. Speaker, all we hear is that we have never had it so good when it comes to crime. I would say that the response from the government on crime has been absolutely inadequate. If the Minister of Justice wants to talk with me, I will show him about 15 areas where the Liberals need to pull up their socks and get going.”