Andrew Scheer
Regina—Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, I offer my sincere thanks to my colleagues for that accommodation. I think that any time a member is retiring after great service to their constituents in this House, it is appropriate that we show that kind of grace. I want to quickly extend all the very best to my colleague from Yorkton—Melville .”
“Mr. Speaker, I have a quick point of order. I hate to interrupt the hon. member's speech. Our ridings share a border, and so we are neighbouring members of Parliament. My riding goes all the way to Melville where her riding begins.”
“They want to see people elected to the House of Commons who do not just go with the flow or read the polls and make decisions afterwards, but have a clear sense of who they are and what they are all about.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition, signed by over 215 residents in and around the Indian Head area who are protesting the closure of the Indian Head Research Farm. This research facility has over 100 years of data on soil, moisture and crop varieties.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am tabling yet another petition from residents in and around the Indian Head area in southern Saskatchewan who are urging the government to reverse its terrible decision to shut down the Indian Head agricultural research farm.”
“Mr. Speaker, we have all been waiting since last Thursday for today's Thursday question, the time of the week when Canadian telecom providers have to scramble to add excess capacity as hundreds of thousands of Canadians tune in, anxiously anticipating what the government will bring forward in the chamber for the rest of this week and into…”
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“They want to see people elected to the House of Commons who do not just go with the flow or read the polls and make decisions afterwards, but have a clear sense of who they are and what they are all about. The fact that her constituents kept sending her back to fight for them and represent them is a great testament to her character, her integrity and everything she brought to representing her constituents and speaking on their behalf in the House of Commons. Very quickly, I would like to wish her, her husband and everyone in her family the very best in her retirement and thank her for all she has brought to the Conservative Party of Canada, the official opposition in Parliament.”
“Mr. Speaker, I offer my sincere thanks to my colleagues for that accommodation. I think that any time a member is retiring after great service to their constituents in this House, it is appropriate that we show that kind of grace. I want to quickly extend all the very best to my colleague from Yorkton—Melville . We have worked together since 2015. We share a border and have many constituents who travel back and forth between her communities and mine. One of the things I admire about my colleague is her conviction and dedication to her core principles. I was given advice when I first got to this place that we should always know what we are willing to resign over or lose our seat over, that we should always know the limits upon which we cannot compromise, because those are our core values and beliefs. I believe Canadians respect that.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have a quick point of order. I hate to interrupt the hon. member's speech. Our ridings share a border, and so we are neighbouring members of Parliament. My riding goes all the way to Melville where her riding begins. I have enjoyed serving with her for the last decade or so, and it pains me greatly to have to bring up this point of order during her farewell speech. I will avail myself of the opportunity to hopefully ask a question or make a comment when she has finished her speech. However, earlier today, the Speaker ruled on the admissibility of this motion, which does have several knock-on effects, including what might happen at committee. I want to give notice to the Chair that we may come back later on today to make a submission on some of the dynamics and some of those moving pieces.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition, signed by over 215 residents in and around the Indian Head area who are protesting the closure of the Indian Head Research Farm. This research facility has over 100 years of data on soil, moisture and crop varieties. The current Liberal government is proving to be anti-science by shutting this site down. The petitioners call upon the Liberal government to save the jobs at Indian Head, save the research that is done at the facility and keep the centre open.”
“The petitioners call on the government to reverse its terrible decision to keep the agricultural research farm open for generations to come.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am tabling yet another petition from residents in and around the Indian Head area in southern Saskatchewan who are urging the government to reverse its terrible decision to shut down the Indian Head agricultural research farm. The farm has over 100 years' worth of data on things from soil conditions to moisture levels and all kinds of factors that affect the growing season. This centre has produced hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of economic benefit, not just to the agricultural sector in Saskatchewan but all across Canada, with the valuable research it has produced and innovations in everything from crop varieties to pest management. The Liberal government, which managed to find money for gender-just rice farming in Vietnam, cannot seem to find enough funds to keep this important centre open.”
“Will we see the Liberals bring in legislation to repeal the fuel standard tax, which adds at least 17¢ a litre to the price of fuel here in Canada, while American shippers and transporters do not have to pay that? Indeed, will they bring in a repeal of the west coast shipping ban, which prevents Canadian energy exports to Asian markets but does not apply to international traffic off the coast of British Columbia? Will they bring in a single piece of legislation to repeal the bad Liberal laws that are plunging Canada, the only G20 country, into a recession? Can we expect any of that relief next week?”
“Mr. Speaker, we have all been waiting since last Thursday for today's Thursday question, the time of the week when Canadian telecom providers have to scramble to add excess capacity as hundreds of thousands of Canadians tune in, anxiously anticipating what the government will bring forward in the chamber for the rest of this week and into next week. With the news that Canada is the only country in a recession under this Liberal Prime Minister 's economic plan, will the government finally see the error of its ways and finally start to repeal the bad Liberal legislation that caused the problem in the first place? Can we expect, next week, to see legislation repealing the industrial carbon tax, which only applies to Canadian manufacturers and Canadian businesses?”
“Will they bring in legislation next week to repeal the shipping ban for Canadian exports off the west coast? Will they repeal the industrial carbon tax that drives away so many jobs and so much investment? In other words, will the government prove that it has actually changed its ways, or in fact, is it continuing with Justin Trudeau's radical antidevelopment, "no new energy" agenda? That would be in line with the Prime Minister 's book he wrote about himself called Values , in which he called for Canada's natural resources to be left in the ground. In short, will the government bring in legislation to repeal those very bills and those very laws that drove out investment and shut down our energy sector for the past 11 years of darkness with Liberal governments?”
“Mr. Speaker, you join millions of Canadians who are anxious to hear the Thursday question. In fact, data centres all over the country are whirring into action as streaming devices carrying CPAC spring to life. It being Thursday, it is time for the government to update the House as to the business for the rest of this week and next week. In light of the fact that Justin Trudeau's radical environment minister has announced his resignation, and the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie is leaving, apparently, over a rift in policy, it would be helpful for the member to know if he is doing the right thing. Will the Liberals repeal all the radical antidevelopment legislation that the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie was so proud of? Will they repeal the “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69 ?”
“These are issues that, quite honestly, vigilant committees need to stay on top of, though I know the Liberals' engineered majority on committees will make sure these issues will not see the light of day. That is why a question of privilege and the proposed referral to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs would be quite timely. I would urge the Speaker to find a prima facie case of privilege in this case so we can get the wheels in motion on a study about yet another apparent cozy corporate crony relationship to the Liberal government and its parliamentary proposals.”
“The Prime Minister's approach to bureaucracies he does not like has not been to fix them to work better but to add another layer of bureaucracy and bring in corporate friends to run them. The list of examples goes on, including now the Bloc's observations about Air Canada's getting an inside track on changes to the handling of air passenger complaints. Of course, the Liberals' proposed fix for air passenger complaints is to replace Canadian public servants with European-modelled consultants, adding to the Liberals' unrelenting, multi-billion-dollar addiction to outsourcing as it hands out contracts, hand over fist, to well-placed, friendly consulting firms. There is an age-old saying in this town: “Whenever the Liberals are in office, it is all about who you know and the PMO.” That is probably more true now than it has ever been.”
“The House's ethics committee heard last autumn about Brookfield executives being able to call up the Prime Minister and secure private meetings with him. That is something the average Canadian certainly cannot do. The government's first major bill in the present Parliament, Bill C-5 , was about empowering Liberal ministers to waive red tape for select insiders, rather than getting out of the way of economic development for the benefit of all Canadians. The Major Projects Office, established to provide a concierge service for the Liberals' approved insiders, is being staffed with friends of the Prime Minister from Bay Street whose salaries are being topped up by banking and corporate interests and who very well may stand to benefit from the decisions their loaned-out employees are making.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise on the question of privilege that the Bloc Québécois raised the other day. I would like to add a few comments for the Speaker's consideration. I think the specific situation described by the hon. member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères speaks to a worrying, broader trend with the Liberal government and its cozy relationships with corporate insiders. At the root of it is a Prime Minister who remains invested in Brookfield through what is called “carried interest”, despite that company's extensive presence in many fields where the Prime Minister and his ministers have control of powerful policy levers that can greatly influence Brookfield's asset prices and revenue streams.”
“We see the very same scenario. The Bank of Canada is buying government bonds. The creation of money, the money supply, the amount of money in circulation has been increasing at a rate of about twice that of the GDP. When we have more dollars chasing fewer goods, we get inflation, which is the worst kind of tax because Canadians have no say over it. Can the minister explain why he thinks things will be different this time?”
“Mr. Speaker, the very first thing these Liberals did when they got their backroom deal majority was to stack the deck on committees, and now they are ramming through legislation and cutting off debate. This bill needs proper scrutiny, because it is a budget implementation bill that would add billions of dollars to the national debt. The last projection for this current fiscal year by the Trudeau government was that the deficit would be in the low thirties of billions of dollars. Now the deficit is more than twice that, with $30 billion of extra debt racked up on the national credit card. All this adds to more inflation. This is the same playbook the Liberals were running for 11 years: more dollars chasing fewer goods. Can the minister explain to the House why he thinks things will happen differently this time?”
“We have the actual people who do the investments and do the developments and build the projects saying that the Liberal government is shackling them with unnecessary costs and regulation. The Prime Minister , who has had a year with his powers of Bill C-5 , the Major Projects Office powers, has gotten absolutely nothing approved through that office. Will the government bring in bills to repeal the antidevelopment legislation that the Trudeau government implemented and that the current government, with the current Liberal Prime Minister , has kept on the books? Can we please start seeing legislation entitled “an act to repeal”?”
“Mr. Speaker, it being Thursday, it is time for the Thursday question. Maybe we should all pause and allow a bit of time for the millions of Canadians to run over to their televisions and turn on CPAC so they can catch the Thursday question here in the House of Commons. I would like to ask the hon. House leader for the government what the business for the rest of the week will be and, after our two constituency work weeks, when we will celebrate Victoria Day and hopefully spend some time with our constituents and families, if the leader of the government in the House can inform us what the business will be when we come back. I note that there is a lot of chatter in the public about energy regulations and impediments to natural resource development.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have yet another petition from concerned residents of the Indian Head area on the closure of the research farm. The Liberal minister is trying to claim he can close this farm down and relocate it, but what he must not understand is that this particular site at Indian Head has over 100 years of soil data. This is an integral part of the agricultural research network across Canada. The centre itself provides jobs for the people in Indian Head. It also provides hundreds of millions of dollars in value to our agricultural producers because of the innovations and advancements it can make in crop health and pest and drought resistance. The petitioners urge the government to abandon its plans and reverse its decision to shut down this research centre.”
“Madam Speaker, the last Justin Trudeau budget projected the deficit this year to be $31 billion. The deficit is $66 billion. That is more than double what was projected, not lower. The Liberals are spending more and Canadians are getting less, and now hard-working Canadians cannot even afford groceries. Here are some facts for the government. Food bank use has exploded to 2.2 million visits every month, up 100% since 2019. A third of those relying on food banks are children. Everything the Liberals brag about doing, they have tried before over the last 11 years themselves. Instead of driving up prices—”
“Madam Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister is racking up billions of dollars on the national credit card. Canadians thought they were getting a different approach with the new Prime Minister, but it turns out he is just another costly Liberal. The more he grows the deficit, the more expensive things get. New data out this week proves that. Statistics Canada confirms nearly 10 million Canadians, or almost one in four, are living in food-insecure households. One in three Canadians are now borrowing money just to afford groceries. Life did not used to be like this in Canada. Instead of delivering a deficit even bigger than Justin Trudeau's, why does the Liberal Prime Minister not end the credit card budgeting so that Canadians can afford to live?”
“Mr. Speaker, workers are tired of seeing their paycheques devalued by Liberal inflation. That is what workers are saying across this country. However, after nearly a decade of the costly Liberal government, Canadians are maxed out while the Prime Minister has maxed out the country's credit card. If we want to play the quote game, do not take my word for it. Even The Globe and Mail wrote, “the Trudeau government did all sorts of things that steadily made matters worse, fiscally and economically speaking, the [new Prime Minister's] government will do almost nothing to make them better.” Again, will these Liberals stop with the credit card budgeting so that Canadians can afford to live?”
“Mr. Speaker, this week's costly budget update shows the Liberals are continuing their decade of credit card budgeting: more costs, more debt, more taxes, just more of the same. It turns out the Prime Minister is not some kind of financial expert. He is just another costly Liberal. His deficit is double Justin Trudeau's. He is forcing Canadians to pay more in interest on the debt than on health care. What is the result? They have delivered the worst inflation in 40 years, the worst food price inflation and the only shrinking economy in the G7. When will the Liberal Prime Minister end his costly credit card budgeting so Canadians can afford to live?”
“If the government is serious about food security and innovation research, it will reverse course. That is what these petitioners are calling for.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from very concerned people in the Indian Head area who are expressing their outrage and their opposition to the Liberal decision to close down the Indian Head agricultural research farm. This farm has provided invaluable research for the agricultural sector so many farmers could have access to better crop varieties and better soil management. There have been all kinds of benefits from the research that has happened there, and the Liberals are shutting this research centre down. The petitioners are calling on the government to reverse this decision so that farmers can continue to benefit from the world-class research done there. This is not just about the jobs that are being lost in the Indian Head community. It is about the broader impact on the entire agricultural sector from across the country.”
“Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, as was agreed during question period, I would like to ask for consent to table the list of wasteful Liberal spending that drives up inflation. The $90 billion for— Some hon. members: No.”
“What he fails to mention is that this would happen only if motions pass at committee, and he is now stacking the deck with two extra Liberals. Would Liberal MPs on these committees keep the government House leader's word and commit to voting in favour of motions to investigate Liberal corruption, motions to compel testimony and motions to demand information from the government, yes or no?”
“Mr. Speaker, the government House leader keeps saying things that are just not true. He says it does not happen often that the status of a government changes from a minority to a majority. It has never happened at the federal level. That is something that has just never happened. He says that there are not two tiers of committees. There literally are two tiers of committees. There is a tier that handles legislation and is chaired by government MPs, and then there is a tier that is chaired by opposition MPs, which generally does not deal with legislation at all but provides oversight. Those two different tiers are literally spelled out in the Standing Orders. He says that these committees would still have the power to produce documents, compel testimony and order information from departments.”
“Why does it continue to oppose our reasonable amendment to protect the opposition's role on the oversight committees? Those committees have nothing to do with government legislation. They provide the accountability the Canadian people voted for at the ballot box.”
“Mr. Speaker, this is meta-Liberal. The Liberals are stacking the decks on committees with this motion, and now they are moving closure and shutting down debate on that very motion. We had only a couple of hours of debate last week. There are many members who wanted to speak out on behalf of their constituents to raise the alarm on this undemocratic measure, and now the government is shutting down debate. The irony here is so thick that one could cut it with a knife. I have to note that the very first vote these new Liberal MPs will pronounce on will be a vote to shut down debate. Welcome to the Liberal Party of Canada. They can check their souls in at the door and follow whatever the whip tells them to do. Why is the government using this undemocratic tool to shut down debate to stack the decks on committees?”
“Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that the member is right. This was done through backroom deals. Not a single one of those floor crossers would have won their own elections if they had run as Liberals. They got elected only because they were running under the Conservative banner and the Conservative leader . That is a fact. No government has ever gone from a minority to a majority at the federal level through these kinds of backroom negotiations. We believe that the makeup of Parliament and the checks and balances that Canadians voted for at the ballot box should be respected.”
“They are giving themselves about eight percentage points more. I agree with my hon. colleague, and I hope he agrees with our amendment to at least preserve the oversight role of the operations, public accounts and ethics committees.”
“Mr. Speaker, I agree. The Liberals talk about the percentages reflecting the makeup of the House. They have given themselves a much larger percentage of committee makeup than they have in the House. Even in their own actions, they contradict themselves. They contradict themselves on the need for this at all, because there is legislation that has moved through the House. They contradict themselves when they talk about two-tier committees. There are two tiers of committees. There are the oversight committees, which are specially treated in the Standing Orders and have their own conventions and practices, and then there are the rest of the standing committees, which provide for oversight on departments and deal with legislation. The member is right. In this very motion, the Liberals are not reflecting the makeup of the House in committees.”
“When Conservatives get our majority at the ballot box, we will not need a motion like this. They only need this motion because they are trying to overturn the results of the last election through the committee makeup.”
“Mr. Speaker, I certainly do miss working with the member for Burlington when she was House leader. We had lots of productive conversations. It is always spirited, and it is always a pleasure to respond. It is a little bit of a misleading question. First of all, let us address something. The Liberals did not get their majority because of by-elections. That is false. Every seat they won in the by-elections was a seat they already had. They got their majority through floor crossings. In those by-elections, not every Canadian got to vote. In the general election, when every Canadian voted, they voted for a strong opposition. They voted for a minority Liberal government. I can assure the member that had the Liberals gotten a majority through the ballot box, we would not be having this conversation.”
“Every time parliamentarians tell them that there is a conflict of interest and that they have shovelled money into their own friends' pockets and their own companies, they say that it is partisanship. Any time a light is shone on their nefarious activities, they have to project and they have to demean and insult those individuals who are trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Canadian tax dollars. We make no apologies for fighting for transparency and for respecting that taxpayer dollar. I am urging the government to rethink its rejection of our amendment. When my colleague proposes it, I hope the Liberals will get on board so they can show the Canadian people that it is not about using their power to shut down investigations.”
“If the government is looking for obstruction and game playing, it need look no further than its own benches. The Liberals have filibustered for the last two weeks at the ethics committee to prevent an investigation into the finance minister 's potential conflict of interest. They filibustered their own legislation at the justice committee by insisting on debating a bill that was dividing parliamentarians and was very divisive for the Canadian public, while we were calling on the justice committee to focus on real measures to make Canada safer. At the end of the day, what the Liberals call “silly games”, Canadians call “transparency and accountability”.”
“Do members remember Bill C-2 , the very first bill that the current government brought to the House? It was because the government did not have a majority that it was not able to ram that bill through. It was because opposition parties got together and said that there were many things in the bill that should pass, but also many things that were huge government overreaches, such as the invasion of people's privacy, the ability to open people's mail, the banning of cash transactions and all kinds of things that empowered the state and infringed on individual liberties. We were able to block that and force the government to abandon those aspects that were huge government overreaches while at the same time passing the common-sense parts that the Conservatives have long been calling for. This is a solution to a problem that does not exist.”
“They do not enjoy when Canadians find out the truth about how they are running the government. That is why they are pushing this motion through. All the arguments about collaboration are totally false. Our party, after the last election, said that we are facing a lot of global challenges, but we are also facing a lot of terrible Liberal policies that are driving up costs and inflation, making our country weaker when it comes to dealing with global threats. We said we would roll up our sleeves and get to work. Where we have had agreement, where there has been common ground, members have seen the opposition co-operate and ensure that things that, at the very least, do not do any further harm to the Canadian people get passed. We have also helped fix terrible Liberal legislation.”
“Again, the Liberals blocked document production orders and even took the Speaker to court to try to block information from being released to parliamentarians. There was the Liberal green slush fund with its widespread Liberal corruption. This is where Liberal insiders were sitting around as an entity that allocated tax dollars the government had collected. Liberal insiders were placed on that board. Do members know what they did once they were on that board? They funnelled money to their own companies. They wrote themselves cheques off the backs of taxpayers. When the Conservatives led the charge to shine a light on this kind of corruption, the Liberals blocked it. They voted against it. That is what this is all about. The Liberals do not enjoy transparency.”
“This app, initially budgeted at $80,000, ballooned to an estimated $60 million. The Liberals tried to block committee investigations and hide their connections to their favourite Liberal IT contractors, GC Strategies. Let us think of all the corruption this House has unearthed just in the last few years of the Liberal government precisely because the Liberals could not block those investigations. Because the opposition parties collectively had a majority, we could compel that kind of information. Had the Liberals had a majority on the ethics committee, the public accounts committee and the government operations committee in the last Parliament, there is no way we would have seen the head of GC Strategies in this House at the bar being admonished for the misappropriation of taxpayer money. There was the Winnipeg lab scandal.”
“After just two meetings, we had heard from Jody Wilson-Raybould and the then prime minister's chief of staff, and then committee members wanted to hear from Jody Wilson-Raybould again so she could respond to what Gerry Butts had said. What was the first thing the Liberals did when they got the floor on March 13, 2019? They moved to adjourn. They had the votes, because they had a majority, and they shut down that investigation. (1545) There was the WE Charity scandal. This is where the Liberals gave a sole-sourced $912-million contract to an organization that had paid Trudeau family members through speaking events. The Liberals filibustered for dozens of hours and voted to shut down the investigation and stop documents from seeing the light of day. There was the arrive scam app.”
“Another falsehood that the government House leader has said is that members of Parliament still have the power to send for documents, compel departments to hand over information and compel testimony. That is false. Members of Parliament do not have that right individually. They only have that right when a committee or the House passes a motion. Should the Liberals have a majority on those committees, we already know that they would block those efforts. We know this because that is what they have done in the past. When the Liberals had a majority in the 2015‑19 Parliament, it took a whistle-blower, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to shine a light on what Justin Trudeau was doing, trying to inappropriately pressure her to intervene in a criminal court proceeding.”
“This is the committee that is tasked with investigating government corruption, and this is the true reason why the government is not going to agree with our request. Every other committee deals with legislation. If we have a bill to change the airports act, that would go to the transportation committee. If we have a bill to change the way natural resources are developed, that bill would go to the natural resources committee. Legislation does not go through those three oversight committees. All this talk about getting results for Canadians, getting things done and working in a collaborative manner does not apply to those oversight committees. We know what happens when Liberals get majority on these committees.”
“The context of that is what my colleague from Barrie South—Innisfil , with whom I am sharing my time, is going to do in a few moments. He is going to propose an amendment that would at least preserve the oversight capabilities of three very important committees: the public accounts committee, which is tasked with poring through, line by line, every dollar that the government spends; the government operations committee, which examines all kinds of government operations, making sure that Canadians understand who is getting paid, why contracts are being given and why funding decisions are made or not made, again, a very important oversight committee; and, of course, the ethics committee.”
“The committee makeup reflects the makeup of the House as the Canadian people elected it. No Canadian has been able to pass judgment on the floor crossings or endorse the deals that were offered those members who changed parties so soon after an election. These are all individuals who looked their voters in the eye, ran on a platform, a party and a leader, and then, for their own personal gain, again, their words not mine, made a decision to join the government. Again, Canadians have had no opportunity to examine what those negotiations or those talks were all about or what promises may have been made to entice members to cross the floor. The government has made so many false statements. The government House leader says that there is no such thing as two-tiered committees.”
“It is very telling that the very first thing this government has done with its newfound majority powers is not to make life more affordable for Canadians, not to fully lift gas taxes, not to stop inflationary money printing or repeal anti-development laws that chase away investment and block jobs from being created here in Canada. No, instead, the very first thing they did was to make life easier for the government itself. Those are not just my words. They are words that Liberals have said as to the justification for why they are doing this. This means that they will have an easier time getting their agenda through and, most importantly, they will not have to face the type of scrutiny that opposition parties are able to provide for Canadians when the opposition makes up a majority in the House.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the last thing the government House leader said, because I think this is the nub of the misleading nature of what the government is doing here. He said that they could not find an example where the makeup of committees did not reflect the makeup of the House. Yes, that is precisely because there has never before been a situation where a government has changed the fundamental nature of itself through floor crossings and backroom deals. Every other time, the makeup of committees reflected the makeup of the House, because that was what happened at the election. The makeup of committees reflects the democratic expression that the Canadian people provide through the ballot box.”
“Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I was wondering if I can get unanimous consent to share my time. It is one of those rare circumstances where I need the consent of the House to do that. I am hoping that it will accommodate that.”
“They are not committees that legislation proceeds through. They are committees that provide oversight. It is through those committees that the opposition has uncovered Liberal corruption, scandals and the inappropriate use of taxpayers' dollars, and in which the government voted against each one of those investigations. Why not at least preserve the oversight role of the opposition on those three committees: public accounts, government operations and ethics?”