Melissa Lantsman
Thornhill, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the secretary of state confirmed what many Canadians already feared. A foreign government is funding and directing attacks on synagogues, businesses and the U.S. Consulate, and now the murder of a Toronto police officer. This government has known for years; they did nothing.”
“Mr. Speaker, one thing is clear, which is that the families of those police officers deserve better answers than that. The Liberals are in government. They have been there for 11 years. They are not bystanders in any of this. They let terrorists flood our country. They built a catch-and-release bail system.”
“I think this bill deserves to be debated and the House should give it that. Instead, the Liberals have rammed it through with what is called the programming motion to sweep this away right before they take their summer break. Let us go back to the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong .”
“That has never been done in this place except with Bill C-9 , the last bill the government passed through the House. My colleague mentioned that she had never seen that happen in her 15 years in this place, which is longer than I have been here.”
“In a previous life, she sat on this side of the House as the Conservative shadow minister for civil liberties. She participated in nearly every civil liberties debate in this chamber. Every single time, she told Canadians the truth, which was that the government could not be trusted with privacy.”
“Let me say this to anybody watching at home at this late hour: The Liberals' argument in this debate is completely disingenuous, and they know it. I appreciate the police chief of York Regional Police. We have an enormously good relationship, a great one. I have also met with the commissioner of the OPP and with the Toronto police chief.”
The complete record
Every one of 465 lines we hold for Melissa Lantsman, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 10.
“Mr. Speaker, I just want to say it used to be that home ownership in this country was not a distant dream for many Canadians. Today, eight out of nine young people do not believe they will ever own a home in this country. We brought forward solutions in the Conservative platform, and the Liberals made some promises on housing. They delivered one out of the three promises, and probably the one that affects homebuyers the least. Their solution to housing in this country is to build yet a fourth bureaucracy, at $13 billion, to build even fewer homes than we have had in this country. Housing starts in every single city are down this month, and year over year, they will continue to go down because of more bureaucracy and fewer tax cuts on housing.”
“Mr. Speaker, they needed us to get to this point in the debate. I do not know if the member is new here, but we would never, never oppose tax cuts. What we are saying, though, is that the $90 they are giving Canadians is wiped out immediately by the $5,000 they are piling on every single Canadian family. I am not sure how the member sits with the government and votes for that.”
“Every Canadian who cannot make ends meet right now should know that their tax dollars are being spent responsibly in Ottawa. The government does not have money. It can only tax us to get more of it. When it spends it irresponsibly, it is going to cost Canadian families more than $5,000 a year. Everybody should know that.”
“Let us cut taxes on homebuilding so that young people can finally afford a home in this country. Let us cut the carbon tax in all its forms: the industrial carbon tax, the hidden taxes on food, the plastics ban and the fuel standard, which make the growing, shipping and selling of food more expensive. Let us cut all those taxes. Let us not say that these taxes are imaginary, because millions of families across the country know that Canadians are paying more this year than last year and paid more last year than the year before. These are Canadians who have been to a grocery store in their neighbourhood, which the Prime Minister has not. That is a shame in this country, because it is the Liberals' taxes that are increasing the price of food.”
“When one lives in Canada, it is starting to feel as though the government always wins and Canadians always lose, because the $90 it gives them a month is entirely wiped out by the irresponsible inflationary spending of the massive deficits it is running, deficits it promised it would keep down $16 billion less than what it put on the table, deficits that are bigger than Justin Trudeau's deficits, deficits that are the biggest in this country other than during COVID. Instead of more of this, the bait and switch that we continue to see, here is what I think common sense would dictate we should do: Let us cut income taxes for real, not by $90, but by hundreds of dollars a year per Canadian, by thousands of dollars a year for every Canadian, so that families can actually get relief and get ahead.”
“Only Liberals would stand in this House every single day and deny that the person who is buying food is now paying more for it because of their taxes. The Liberals say they are going to cut taxes in the bill, but we have to read the fine print. The tax cut adds up to $90 a month in savings for an average Canadian, but the more than $5,000 they are going to be spending because of the irresponsible budget really wipes out that $90 a month. The question is, who really comes out on top? When someone goes to a casino in Las Vegas, and I am sure there are some people who are watching at home who have been to a casino in Las Vegas, the house always wins. Eventually, the house wins.”
“It costs every single family more than five grand in this country for the small amount of tax cut they get. Members can believe that we are not going to stand here and oppose a tax cut, but if the government is giving somebody a small tax cut and on the other end charging them $5,000 for its irresponsible spending, Canadians are going to have a lot of questions. That is exactly why we are here. One plus one never equals two with the government. It is keeping in place such things as the Liberal taxes on food that make life more expensive while denying they exist. Only Liberals would deny that there is an industrial carbon tax on a farmer who grows food. Only Liberals would deny that there is a fuel standard on a trucker who ships food. Only Liberals would deny that there is a packaging tax on the people who sell food.”
“This country is supposed to be one of the richest in the world. The Prime Minister 's response is the most troubling, because it is not compassionate. For him, inflation is something that happens to other people. (1610) The response from Ottawa has been textbook on this: It is another government program, with some form or version of central planning, that will make this problem go away. However, it is not actually solving the problem. It is more spending. This is a central bank economist who somehow missed the class that would teach him that an increase in money supply in this country leads to inflation. Whatever the Liberals want to call it, it is spending. Whether they call it investment or any other name does not matter. It is the same thing.”
“Two million people in this country are now visiting a food bank every single month. There are four million people in Toronto going to a food bank in the span of one year alone. One in five people is now skipping meals to make their food last longer. It is not just about numbers; it is about the people behind the numbers. It is about the kid who goes to school every single day on an empty stomach who cannot learn and grow. It is about the college-educated worker who, despite working a full-time job, still finds themselves at the end of the month with not enough to pay the bills. It is about the senior citizen who, after years of sacrificing and saving, has to make the choice between heating their home or having a hot lunch. These are the stories we hear in our neighbourhoods every single day. All this is happening in Canada.”
“If people think Justin Trudeau's continuing gift to them and their families is fiscal responsibility, the Prime Minister should say, “Hold my beer.” We keep paying for his irresponsible spending at $5,000 a pop per household. It is only going to get worse. The Prime Minister and his finance minister continue to run debt on the taxpayers' credit card. They are effectively sinking the next generation. I will have much more to say about the budget, because I think it is wrong and dangerous for so many reasons, but we are here today to continue the debate on affordability. Let us talk about what the government is doing on affordability, or, rather, what the government is doing to affordability. All we have to look at is the lineups at food banks in every major city and every small town.”
“The spending is “shocking”, “stupefying” and “unsustainable”. He is a neutral, non-partisan appointee of this place. His office was put in by this very government. The government is dropping $90 billion in new spending on the books, which is over $5,000 for every single household in Canada. That is money being taken directly out of the pockets of Canadian families and seniors through higher taxes, inflation and interest rates. Why should we talk about that? We already spend more on the debt than this country spends on transfers to the provinces for health care. It is every dollar that is collected in GST. This means that every dollar collected on the sales tax in this country does not go to doctors, nurses or hospital capacity, but to bankers and bondholders to pay for the Liberals' addiction to spending.”
“If anybody thinks the Liberals are going to stop at $78 billion, I have a bridge to sell them, and I think the Parliamentary Budget Officer would also have something to say to it. In fact, he said the chances of their out-of-control spending being less than $78 billion was “less than 10%”. If someone told a person there was a less than 10% chance of them being able to start their car in the morning, they would get a new car. If there was a less than 10% chance that someone would pass a math test, they would get a tutor. When we learn that the chances are less than 10% that the government will show just a bit of fiscal restraint or fiscal discipline, the Liberals will tell the Parliamentary Budget Officer he is likely going to be out of a job for telling the truth. Here is what else he had to say, just so I can remind everybody watching.”
“Mr. Speaker, there are three things that are assured in life: death, taxes and a Liberal government that breaks its promises. Six months ago, the Liberals stood here and told Canadians to trust them just one more time. They promised lower spending, lower costs and to reduce the size and scope of the federal government. They said that they had heard Canadians loud and clear, that they finally understood the pain they had caused, like a toxic ex, and that things this time would be different. Every single one of those promises, like their record, is nothing but total and utter failure. The House passed a budget with a record $78-billion deficit. That is more than twice the size of the one Justin Trudeau wanted to run years ago. That is not a tiny change. It is not a rounding error. It is billions and billions of dollars.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member opposite extols the virtue of the food program and how many meals it provides, but his own officials in his own department, in reply to a question, said there was no final data on the program results for 2025 because they are not yet available. Why is he misleading this House and Canadians?”
“Mr. Speaker, that is a lecture from a government that cannot close a deal on canola. It cannot close a deal on softwood lumber, on autos, on steel and on aluminum, basically every export that is the backbone of the Canadian economy. The Prime Minister sold Canadians hope and he did not deliver. Then he used that broken trust as a reason to collect more stamps in his own passport. He is jet-setting on another taxpayer-funded vacation to Dubai while jobs in Windsor and Oshawa are going south. Is the Prime Minister obsessed with foreign travel because he likes spending other people's money, or is it that he just cannot face Canadians at home?”
“Mr. Speaker, every time the Prime Minister flies out of the country for another glittering photo op, things get worse for Canadians. He went to China and came back with more tariffs on Canadian canola. He went to the U.S. and came back with double the tariffs on cars and triple the tariffs on steel and aluminum. Now the two sides are not even talking. Then he went to the U.K., and he still could not land a basic deal for our pork and beef farmers. Why is it that every time the Prime Minister boards a plane, Canadians get sacked with a bigger bill?”
“Mr. Speaker, Canadians cannot afford groceries, they cannot afford rent and they cannot afford their mortgages, yet the Liberals want us to support the reason why. Most Canadians would say, “No, thanks.” Going back to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, let us remember that this is the same watchdog who called Liberal spending “stupefying”, “shocking” and “unsustainable”. Now he says the government has abandoned any restraint at all. No wonder the Prime Minister wants him gone. How many more watchdogs and how many more damning reports will it take for the government to stop maxing out the credit card with its reckless spending?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' spending is spiralling out of control, and they will do anything to keep Canadians from noticing. Parliament's budget watchdog has found that the Prime Minister is using fiscal tricks to hide how much money is being wasted here in Ottawa. He says there is less than a 10% chance that the Liberals will meet their own spending targets. They are the same targets the Liberals have blown through again and again. The warnings keep piling up, the waste keeps growing and the government's commitment to responsibility keeps shrinking. The real question is, what are the odds that the watchdog gets fired next, just for telling Canadians the truth?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are not investing in the next generation. They are borrowing from it. The Prime Minister is on track to be the most expensive in Canada's history. The only ones cashing in on it are bankers. Interest payments on the national debt will cost Canadians $55 billion this year. That is more than the government spends on health care and more than it collects in GST. Every dollar that Canadians pay in GST does not go to doctors, nurses or hospitals. It goes to bankers. Why is the Prime Minister so determined to make sure that bankers get better care than patients?”
“Mr. Speaker, six months ago, the Prime Minister promised Canadians that he would get the deficit under control, that he would lower our debt and lower inflation. Instead, he has blown an $80-billion hole in the budget. The debt is climbing, inflation is climbing, and he has added $90 billion in new spending. That is over $5,000 for every family. Every dollar that the Prime Minister spends costs Canadians in higher taxes, higher inflation and more expensive debt. With this budget, Canadians are paying champagne prices for tap water results, so why is he asking them to pay more?”
“Mr. Speaker, the member talks as if the government's money belongs to him. Every dollar the Liberals spend comes right out of the pockets of Canadians. To the 85% in the GTA who cannot afford life, the Liberals call these taxes imaginary. They are not imaginary when people are staring at their own credit card bill. The government's job is to listen to Canadians, not lecture them, gaslight them or threaten them with an election to distract them from the failures. Instead of trying to cause a costly election on a costly budget, why not have an affordable budget for an affordable life here?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is another day and another grim headline confirming what Canadians already know: Ten years of Liberal economics have driven this country to the brink. In the GTA, 85% say that, now, it is too expensive to live and work in their own communities, and they are right. The Liberals doubled the debt, maxed out the national credit card and handed Canadians a bill through inflation and crushing taxes. Their carbon tax, fuel standard and plastic ban make it more expensive to grow, move and buy food. Will they finally admit that their policies punish the very people they are trying to help, and will they use tomorrow's budget to scrap these hidden food taxes once and for all?”
“Mr. Speaker, the minister is in complete denial. He sent $8 million to Vietnam to create gender-just rice. What even is that? The endless cycle of deficits, of taxes and of inflation has crushed families, crushed young people and crushed workers, and the Liberals' arrogance blinds them to the damage that they themselves have done. If the Liberals want to pass a budget, it is simple: stop the reckless spending, stop the inflation and stop the hidden food taxes. It is up to them to listen to Canadians and put forward an affordable budget for an affordable life.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has blown billions on consultants, on foreign aid vanity projects and on a $1-billion legal gun grab that the Liberals themselves have admitted will not work. The result has been higher taxes, higher prices, a higher cost of living and an entire generation of young people who do not believe they will ever do better than their parents. Canadians are cutting back, they are skipping meals and they are lining up at food banks in record numbers, while the Prime Minister maxes out the nation's credit card like it is someone else's problem. Will the Liberals finally stop the waste, stop the taxes, stop the inflationary spending and put forward an affordable budget for an affordable life here in Canada?”
“Mr. Speaker, if any of those programs worked, there would not be over 700,000 kids in line at food banks. Make food cheaper. Instead, the Liberals doubled the deficit and sent food bank usage up 360% in five years in Toronto. Students make up a quarter of those visits to food banks. Just last week, the Prime Minister lectured them all about making sacrifices. Well, they have already sacrificed home ownership and good-paying jobs. Now he is asking them to sacrifice food. What sacrifices will they need to make to stop the Prime Minister 's out-of-control spending?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Daily Bread Food Bank and the North York Harvest Food Bank in Toronto just released their annual report. It is called “Who's Hungry”, and it seems like the answer to that question is “nearly everyone”. There have been 2.2 million visits in a single month. It took decades to hit one million and only half a decade under the Liberals to double it to more than two million. It found that 82% of households reported they “did not have enough food to eat” this year. The majority said this was because of the cost of living. Every dollar the government spends simply drives up food prices. It is over four million visits in Toronto. How many more people do the Liberals want visiting next year?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal minister sat here for 10 years while people lined up at food banks. Is that what she has to say? Runaway Liberal deficits doubled grocery prices. Now the same people who caused the crisis think the solution is just to spend more of other people's money. It is not just Liberal deficits driving up food costs. They voted against removing every hidden food tax that they themselves imposed: packaging taxes, the industrial carbon tax and another 17¢ a litre because of the fuel standard. It is a religion to them. Food prices are soaring and fridges are empty. Why do the Liberals not scrap the hidden taxes they imposed?”
“Mr. Speaker, we all know the Prime Minister does not shop for his own groceries, so maybe someone over there should tell him what is going on with food prices. Food inflation has now reached the highest level since 2023. With fruits, vegetables, meat and even Halloween candy, everything is getting more expensive, and it is rising faster, not slower. The cost of living is soaring because the cost of government is soaring. The Prime Minister is spending more than even Justin Trudeau did, which means higher taxes and higher inflation for everyone who lives in the real world. Does the Prime Minister realize that his out-of-control spending means real costs for real Canadians?”
“This piece of legislation would save lives. It would prevent escalation of intimate partner violence. It would stop the warning signs when they first occur, and it would keep those with a track record of violence behind bars. Police unions have told us we need this. Advocacy groups, frontline workers, women and victim survivors have all told us they need this. They all told us to strengthen the penalties of intimate partner violence, to automatically make murder of an intimate partner first-degree murder, regardless of why or how it happened. They told us, most importantly, to put victims first, and that is exactly what my colleague's bill would do. I can only hope that everybody in this place reconsiders, stands up, does the right thing, remembers exactly why we came here and supports this piece of legislation.”
“Instead, the changes Conservatives propose in this place on the bail system or on sentencing requirements to the Criminal Code are voted down time and time again, only to again be told that it is coming tomorrow. However, for Bailey, Keira and countless others, tomorrow never comes. Every day that we delay is another day for serial abusers to harass their victims without consequences, for more men and women to suffer physical and emotional trauma and for innocent lives to be put in danger. Taking action someday, frankly, just is not enough. Someday will not put the bad guys in jail. The message now to anyone watching and everyone on the other side is this: They should act now before more preventable tragedies happen, because the only thing worse than a case of intimate partner violence is a case that we had the ability to stop.”
“I spoke to her aunt in the lobby just a few minutes ago, and she is absolutely disgusted that this bill will not be supported by the other side. She is disgusted at the comments coming from the other side. The same could be said for the over 120,000 victims of intimate partner violence in 2023 alone. Every case of this is not just a statistic that we talk about in Parliament as a number. It is not an excuse for the government to tell Canadians, when they ask serious questions about the government doing something on bail, that it is coming tomorrow, next week, next month or someday. Even one case of intimate partner violence should be enough to make this place act. Every preventable act should be a wake-up call to get people in the chairs in this place to do something about it.”
“We could talk all day about the reasons this is happening, but nobody can deny that the lack of accountability in our justice system is a major reason intimate partner violence and crimes of all types are running rampant and are out of control in this country. Let us take another case of somebody we have talked about in the House. Her name was Bailey McCourt. Bailey's partner, James Plover, was convicted of three counts of uttering threats and one count of assault by strangling in the case of intimate partner violence. He was released on bail, and he killed Bailey that very same day. She died in a parking lot, after being beaten with a hammer. If our bail laws had been fixed, James Plover would not have been allowed out on bail and Bailey would be alive today, to be the mother to her children. Her family is watching right now.”
“(1145) Creating specific offences matters, such as the specific offences of the assault of an intimate partner and criminal harassment of an intimate partner, and these could have helped in the tragic story of Keira. The legislation would allow the courts to detain the accused of intimate partner violence at any time for a risk assessment, the kind of assessment that would be done before, not after, things go wrong. That kind of assessment could have saved Keira's life. We cannot and should not be complacent in fighting this scourge in the House. In just 10 years, intimate partner physical assault has increased by 14%, harassment is up 38% and intimate partner sexual assault is up a whopping 163%.”
“He displayed misogynistic attitudes, threatened others and even committed acts of violence against pets. However, despite all of that, despite all the red flags, the warning signs and the cries for help, Keira was still released into her father’s custody in what can only be described as a colossal failure of the system. She was killed just a few days later. In the last Parliament, the House unanimously passed a bill called Keira’s law, which expanded training for judges to include domestic violence and coercive control. The bill introduced by my hon. friend picks up where that bill left off by modernizing the detention of seized evidence, forcing those convicted of domestic violence to be released only by a judge and treating the murder of an intimate partner as first-degree murder.”
“It was a story from right within my own community, a story that happened among my own peer group. Keira was a bright, beautiful four-year-old girl. She had a smile that would light up a room and a sense of curiosity that made everyone around her know that someday she would go places, but tragically, she never got there. She will never graduate from school, start a career, start a family or have kids of her own. Keira was killed five years ago by her father in a horrific act of domestic violence. Her life was stolen from her before it had hardly begun. The warning signs were all there. At least 22 different risk factors were identified in a report released after Keira’s death. Her father was in a custody battle with her mother, Jen. He had a history of mental illness and domestic violence against Keira’s mother and against other partners.”
“Then came the silence, and for her, then came the isolation. The story she told me ended long after it first began. She ended up packing a small bag. It took all the courage she had. Her first step out of her door was her first step to freedom. These are the stories of survivors, the ones we have to believe, the ones who have to be protected. We blur out the details of these stories not for effect, but to protect those who are still silently struggling, long after they have walked out the door. I just want to say to those who may be watching today, that if this is them, they should please talk to a police office, please talk to somebody they trust. This does not always look like that textbook experience that happened to me in my first month on the job. Keira Kagan’s story was different.”
“In some cases, we have heard in the House that members have experienced it themselves. I will never forget something that happened in my first month of being a member of Parliament, when I was so ill-equipped for this job, not knowing what was ahead. A woman sat across from me, veiled behind a brave smile. Her long sleeves were covering bruising, and her face was masked with heavy makeup in some places. She claimed, with a quiet confidence, that when she told me she had tripped, she knew I would understand what she was saying without my ever asking for any more details. The story she eventually told made me realize that, in that moment, behind closed doors, every single word in her old life had been a weapon, and every single apology had been a trap. It all started with control, not fists. Then came the fear.”
“Madam Speaker, let me first just say that it is an honour and a privilege to formally second this bill, which has been presented by my friend, the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola . We all come to this place to leave our mark and make a difference. I think this piece of legislation is one of the ways there could be a measurable outcome. This bill would certainly do all of that. I strongly support it, as all members in the House should, because it would take meaningful and concrete action to protect people from the growing scourge of intimate partner violence, which has even been called an epidemic in Canada. It seems like everybody has stories of their own experiences with intimate partner violence. We hear about it from a close friend or family member. We read about it online or on social media.”
“Mr. Speaker, I will say this: The Prime Minister stood in front of Canadians at a time of crisis and asked them for their support. He promised them that he was going to be the guy in the crisis to negotiate a deal. Since he became Prime Minister , as I will remind the House over and over again, $54 billion of net investment has fled south. He is promising to make that $1 trillion without the promise of even one dollar coming back into our country. There are 86,000 jobs gone and we have the second-highest unemployment rate in this country. That is nothing to be proud of. Certainly, things have been much better in this country.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that my hon. colleague is finally seeing the light on what the government is putting forward. The Conservatives have said time and again that we have to build the Canadian economy with Canadian workers and Canadian investment here, with things like getting rid of the oil and gas cap so the pipeline that was potentially approved 10 years ago, which is back on the table, can be filled with oil, and so we can unleash the capacity of the private sector to invest here by cutting red tape and regulation. The member has heard that time and again and I am glad he is finally standing up to oppose the government's reckless spending.”
“What are they going to tell all those people whose livelihoods are on the line because the government cannot control its addiction to spending?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are right that Canadian pride unites us. They can tell that to the Prime Minister , who moved his company out to New York because he realized his own policies would hurt the investors who invested in that company. They can tell the Prime Minister, who does not pay his taxes in Canada, about national pride. They can tell all they want to the worker in Oshawa who just lost his job because the Prime Minister cannot get a deal on auto. They can tell him all day long that the debt-to-GDP ratio is good, but what are they going to tell him when he cannot put food on his table? What are they going to tell him when he gets the pink slip? What are they going to tell the 86,000 workers who have been laid off in this country because the investment that has fled south?”
“(1015) It is time to stop lighting taxpayer money on fire, and it is long past time to toss out the Justin Trudeau fantasy novel on economics, stop doing the same thing, stop plagiarizing his work and start living in the real world, where real people live paycheque to paycheque, where jobs are lost and where hope exists no longer.”
“The Liberals are trying to hide another broken promise of the Prime Minister and the government, which is full of Liberal ministers who still sit in that front row. They are not going to be able to hide it for much longer, because the fiscal watchdog says that we are “at the precipice” of a cliff. That means the government is spending more money than we can spend. More debt and more interest payments equal higher taxes, higher inflation, fewer jobs for Canadians and less money spent on the very things we need it spent on in this country, like services for Canadians. We cannot keep doing this over and over again. That is what the fiscal watchdog said.”
“It is just an absurd proposal to move the goalpost. The Liberals are changing their reporting standards to what the non-partisan fiscal watchdog has said will lead to less transparency and does not even meet the international standard. Why are the Liberals doing this? If we want to know the reason they are doing this, it is simple. They cannot stop the spending but want to brag about balancing a budget without doing that. If they are trying to do that, they are just changing the way they count. This is what we are seeing from the Liberals. It is like someone claiming they ran a marathon, but they quietly moved the finish line 20 metres up. None of this is fiscal responsibility; it is all financial theatre. We are going to see that on November 4.”
“It is especially galling that, after the Prime Minister went to Canadians in a time of crisis and offered them his word and hope, he then completely forgot about everything he said on the campaign trail. Worse, he possibly did not mean any of it at all. The Liberal government has been spending all of that money for six months with no plan and no accountability on how it is doing this. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is the budget watchdog in this place, says that the government has zero, none, no fiscal anchors whatsoever. Someone who has been listening to the Prime Minister might have heard a bunch of talk about operational budget versus capital budget. I guarantee the Liberals will come back with that response nine times out of 10 when Conservatives talk about out-of-control spending. This is not a plan to balance the budget.”
“These are the real stories of the effects of these big numbers. Every time somebody who is working one, two or even three jobs goes to the grocery store and cannot afford basic necessities, it is the failure of the principle that if someone works hard in this country they should be able to get ahead. That is why we fight. We fight for every single Canadian who is being forgotten and left behind by the big numbers the Liberals are putting on the board. If someone measures their wealth by looking at stock indices or portfolios, the Prime Minister is their guy. However, if that comes from a paycheque, they are being sold out in this scheme. That is why it is so infuriating to see the Prime Minister and the Liberal government doing the exact opposite of what they said they were going to do.”
“This is how it adds up: We lost $54 billion of net investment in just half a year, which went southbound, not here; 86,000 jobs are gone; and we have the fastest-shrinking economy in the G7 with the second-highest unemployment rate, instead of the strongest economy in the G7 like the Prime Minister stood at every podium during the election and promised. These are not stats. They are connected to people's lives, families and paycheques. Every job loss in a place like Windsor, Oshawa or Ingersoll means that another family is not sure how they are going to put food on the table. It means a father is not sure how he is going to tell his kids their dad does not have work anymore. Every person who wants to work and cannot find a job does not have the dignity that comes with being employed.”
“It was forecast this year that the Liberals would spend $42 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said the new Prime Minister is going to spend 60% more, and that amount is only growing. Somehow the new Prime Minister has found a way to spend more than the guy who spent more than all of the other prime ministers combined. For those watching at home, spending $26 billion more means making the deficit bigger, not smaller. It means less money in their pockets. The Prime Minister is hoping that they do not notice that. (1010) Liberals are telling Canadians again, just like they told them in 2015, that money is an investment and is supposed to create more jobs.”
“He said that he would get a trade deal with the United States. Here is where we are. First of all, he kept the old people from the old government: the finance minister , the trade minister , the jobs minister , the foreign affairs minister and the justice minister . Most of those on the front bench are the same, so it is not really a new government. Instead of fighting for Canada and keeping elbows up, the Prime Minister brought a calculator to a knife fight, as his minister said he would. He is adding up on that calculator a $1-trillion gift to Donald Trump, subtracting 86,000 jobs here in Canada and multiplying American tariffs on our goods by two. The Prime Minister is not spending less; he is spending more. Justin Trudeau was the most expensive prime minister in Canadian history.”