Pierre Poilievre
Battle River—Crowfoot, Alberta · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, for over a century and a half, Canadians took for granted that when people came here from around the world, they left their problems behind.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the constituents of Battle River—Crowfoot in communities like Amisk, Hardisty, Hughenden, Czar, Metiskow and Lougheed and the MDs of Wainwright, Provost and Flagstaff, who have all raised significant concerns about problems with cellphone coverage and data service, adding to already limited connectivity in…”
“Mr. Speaker, I will tell the member what we are for. We are for an affordable Canada, a Canada with growing paycheques and safer streets, which is the exact opposite of what the Prime Minister has delivered. This is his record: Count them; there have been five consecutive quarters of declining investment.”
“Mr. Speaker, do people know why the Prime Minister cannot stand to answer a question in the House of Commons? It is because he has been wrong about every single economic issue of the last decade. He was wrong to push bigger and broader carbon taxes. He was wrong to say that we should keep half our oil in the ground.”
“Mr. Speaker, no, we do not plan for a restful summer. We plan to fight all summer long against the Liberal recession, Liberal inflation, the rising Liberal cost of living and the rising Liberal crime crisis in our streets. Let us take, for example, investment. The Liberal Prime Minister promised he would increase it.”
“Mr. Speaker, at least the Liberals listened for once. I explained to them that houses are built by plumbers, electricians and carpenters, and the members stood up and said that the building trades build homes. We know who builds homes, but do we know who blocks homes? The Liberals block homes.”
The complete record
Every one of 972 lines we hold for Pierre Poilievre, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 16 of 20.
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Prime Minister made a very depressing speech. He said that there were plenty of opportunities when he was young, but that our young people's future will not be as bright as his past. He said that young people will have to make sacrifices. Young people have been making sacrifices for 10 years, while the Liberals doubled the cost of housing, cut jobs and racked up intergenerational debt. The Prime Minister is saying that young people will have to make more sacrifices. What do they have left to sacrifice?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister 's failures and capitulations are not just vis-à-vis the United States. He promised he would stand up for western Canadian farmers, but canola tariffs have now more than doubled. The Prime Minister, in response to this, has given the Communist regime in China a $1-billion taxpayer-funded loan so that we can buy Chinese-made ships, and now he has announced that he has further conceded by removing tariffs on Chinese-made steel. Why is it that in addition to selling out auto workers, he has sold out our farmers and rewarded foreign dictatorships that target them with tariffs?”
“Mr. Speaker, that was not what the Prime Minister promised. He promised that he would negotiate a win. He promised that he would have a deal by July 21. Neither of those things happened. He went to the auto sector and told the workers that not only would he protect their jobs, but also there would be an all-in-Canada supply chain that is being dismantled right before our eyes. It is not just his trade negotiating failures. His EV mandate has slammed the brakes on any investment in auto manufacturing in this country. Will the Prime Minister take personal responsibility for this and announce today an end to the EV mandate, so we can get our workers back to jobs?”
“Mr. Speaker, the question was about jobs and the Prime Minister responded with a spelling bee. This is the guy who is supposed to negotiate a win for us, a guy who said he would have a deal by July 21. He is the guy who said he has had his elbows up. Since that time, his elbows have gone missing. The Canadian people need those jobs. He promised he would protect those jobs. Will he stand up today, look the auto workers of Ontario and Quebec in the eye, and tell them why he abandoned them and sold them out?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is really disappointing the Prime Minister refuses to stand up to debate the real cost of his taxes on Canadian food consumers. It is the same thing with the auto sector. He promised that he would negotiate a win. He promised to get a rapid deal. There is still no win and still no deal. Elbows have gone missing, and so are the jobs. [ Translation ] Today, 300 workers lost their jobs at Paccar in Quebec. [ English ] Last week, we saw that it was in Ingersoll at the CAMI plant, and before that the GM plant in Oshawa. Is the Prime Minister selling out the auto sector in his attempt to back down to the U.S. President?”
“Mr. Speaker, first, we are all disappointed to learn that Liberals think that Canadians who see grocery prices rising at record rates are just imagining things. I am further disappointed to see that the Prime Minister cannot stand in his place and address real questions about the cost of groceries for Canadians. It is not just the industrial carbon tax. It is also the government's fuel standard, which, according to its own department, is going to increase the cost of fuel by 17¢ on the farmers and truckers who bring us our food. Does he really expect consumers to believe that will not cost them as well?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister expects us to believe government-funded, so-called experts paid to push his agenda instead of believing in the obvious fact that, when we tax the things that go into making food, we tax all who buy food. This is a Prime Minister who says he is a great expert, but he told CTV Nova Scotia that Canadians do not use steel anymore. Does he not know that there is steel in farm tractors, farm combines, farm bins and other farm equipment? Does he not think, for God's sake, that those costs get passed on to consumers?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has tried to deny the existence of continued hidden Liberal taxes on groceries, but Canada's leading food price expert, the food professor, Sylvain Charlebois, has said the exact opposite. He said, of the industrial carbon tax, that the worst part is that it is still there. He was referring to the fact that farmers pay the tax on the steel that goes into their farm equipment, such as combines, tractors and bins, and fertilizer. Is the Prime Minister really going to expect Canadians who cannot pay their grocery bills to believe that the cost of the carbon tax on our farmers does not get passed on at the grocery shelf?”
“Mr. Speaker, I think the Prime Minister meant to say, “Are you with us for the bankers and bondholders, who have been collecting record interest payments on the newly doubled national debt?” The Prime Minister has literally doubled the deficits that he inherited from the Liberal government, deficits that were already exorbitant and out of control, and inflation immediately started to rise. Two of the four measures are outside of the acceptable Bank of Canada range. All four measures are above the Bank of Canada's 2% target. The more the Prime Minister spends, the more things cost. Does he acknowledge at least that every dollar he spends comes out of the pockets of hard-working Canadians?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is now lecturing Canadians who are lined up at food banks, telling them that they have never had it so good and that, if only they appreciated the many promises he has made, promises he has not even begun to keep, they would then be appreciative of the fact that fresh and frozen beef are up 14%, fresh and frozen cut chucks are up 12%, frozen meat is up 11% and coffee beans are up 40%. Does the Prime Minister believe that people paying these exorbitant prices should be thankful for his economic lessons?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is saying to that single mother, that small business owner and that senior I just referenced that he needs to give them economic lessons. You are the one out there who is watching prices rise right before— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!”
“Mr. Speaker, Canadians, according to the Prime Minister , have never had it so good. If someone is a single mother out there walking down the grocery aisle, looking at prices rise before her eyes; if they are a senior choosing between eating and heating; if they are one of the countless Canadians who see that roasted coffee is up 41% since the Prime MInister took office, that nuts and seeds are up 15% and that food price inflation is now double the target; or if they are one of those two million people who are lined up at food banks every single month, the Prime Minister says they have never had it so good. How is it possible for the Prime Minister to be so costly and so out of touch with reality?”
“Mr. Speaker, today, the Prime Minister and I will meet to discuss the 10th Liberal budget deficit. Our priority as Conservatives is an affordable budget for an affordable cost of living for the Canadian people. The Prime Minister promised he would spend less, but his deficit spending is 100% more. He promised he would be judged by the prices at the grocery store; they are now rising at two times the Bank of Canada's target, and inflation is now, once again, out of control. Will the Prime Minister learn from the inflationary and costly failures of 10 years of Liberal government and accept our plan for an affordable budget for an affordable life?”
“Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what this Liberal government promised 10 years ago. The result was that they doubled the debt, doubled the lineups at food banks and doubled the cost of housing. Investments in Canada have dropped more than investments in any other G7 country, and more than at any other time in our nation's history. Today, two million Canadians are using food banks, and food inflation is skyrocketing. Will the Prime Minister learn from his mistakes, lower the deficits and get rid of hidden taxes on food?”
“Mr. Speaker, today, the Prime Minister and I will meet to discuss the tenth Liberal budget. Conservatives want an affordable budget so that Canadians can have an affordable life. The Prime Minister has broken his promise to spend less. He has doubled the deficit he inherited from his government, and inflation is now on the rise. In fact, all measures are higher than the Bank of Canada's target. Will the Prime Minister accept our demands for an affordable budget and an affordable life for Canadians?”
“Mr. Speaker, she announced, just now, that she talked to this person, and she talked to that person, and she talked to this other person, and she talked, and she talked, and they talked, and they talked, and nothing gets done. Canadians are tired of talk; they want their jobs. The Prime Minister looked these workers in the eye and said he would negotiate a win, that he would protect auto jobs, that there would be an all-in-Canada supply chain that would keep them working. They even gave a quarter-billion tax dollars to GM for this plant. Now those workers do not know how they are going to pay their bills. How does the government explain the broken promise and betrayal?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is another day with more costly slogans from that member of Parliament. Now Canadians are learning it was a bait and switch, with another terrible tragedy. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Hon. Pierre Poilievre: As they laugh, Mr. Speaker, 1,200 workers at the Ingersoll CAMI plant learned they would lose their jobs after the Prime Minister promised he would negotiate a win and that he would keep their jobs here in Canada. They join with 2,000 workers in Brampton and many more in Oshawa. How does the Prime Minister look in the eyes the very workers he sold out and betrayed?”
“Mr. Speaker, his banker friends in Washington may think they have fiscal space, but the single mothers who cannot afford groceries have no space left at all to pay for Liberal inflation. The government is forcing them to spend 70% more on the Canada Revenue Agency. Today, the Auditor General revealed that only 15% of calls get responses on time, and even if someone does pick up the phone, there is an 83% change they give the wrong answer. Why does the government force Canadians to pay so much for such terrible service?”
“Mr. Speaker, he admits they have to do better. It is not possible for them to do any worse. The reality is that today we learned that inflation is again on the march. All four measures of inflation are above the Bank of Canada's targets; two are outside of and above the acceptable range. Food price inflation is rising at two times the rate the Bank of Canada targets. It is no wonder we have two million people lined up at food banks every single day. This inflation has exploded since the Prime Minister doubled the deficit. Will he reverse his inflationary deficit and taxes in this coming budget?”
“Mr. Speaker, we do not work for Washington bankers; we work for single mothers who cannot afford groceries. Today, we are seeing runaway inflation at a time when the government is forcing Canadians to spend 70% more on the CRA. Today, the Auditor General revealed that only 15% of calls are being answered on time. Even when a call does get answered, the information is wrong 83% of the time. Why should Canadians pay so much for such lousy service?”
“Mr. Speaker, every dollar that this Prime Minister spends is costing Canadians a lot. Since he doubled the deficits left behind by Justin Trudeau, inflation has picked up speed. Statistics Canada announced today that the inflation rate is rising. In fact, four of the indicators are above the targets, and grocery costs are rising at two times the target rate. Will the Prime Minister use his budget to eliminate these inflationary taxes and deficits and make life affordable for Canadians?”
“Now we have an even bigger number as part of a larger phenomenon. Therefore, I ask that the Speaker acknowledge the emergency in the lives of these 3,000 auto workers, and so many like them across the country, by granting an emergency debate.”
“There is $54 billion of net investment that has fled since he was elected while promising to bring investment back to this country. Our economy is the fastest-shrinking in the G7. These statistics might seem like they are just interesting to the economists and accountants, but in fact, there are human lives that are at stake. This is particularly important to Canadian taxpayers, but because the federal government has contributed 15 billion tax dollars to the company that is now moving these jobs, that works out to almost $1,000 for every single family in Canada. Families that cannot afford groceries or homes are paying to subsidize the export of our jobs to the United States of America. In the past, a prior Speaker granted an emergency debate on the Oshawa GM plant back in 2018. There were 2,500 jobs that were at risk at that time.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, the leader of the NDP, for raising this issue as well. I rise today to discuss the emergency in the lives of 3,000 Brampton area families who received the news, one day after the Prime Minister 's meeting with the President of the United States, that their factory would be moving to the U.S. For these families, it is not just an emergency. It is a tragedy. They ask how they are going to pay their bills and feed their families or whether they might have to uproot their kids from their schools and hockey teams to move to a faraway place just to put food on the table. This is part of a larger trend. There are 100,000 more people who are unemployed since the Prime Minister took office and promised to protect jobs.”
“Mr. Speaker, that is still no answer. It was the present-day finance minister , who is in charge of a half-trillion-dollar forthcoming Liberal budget, who was the one who signed the deal, and amazingly, barely two years after he signed it and forked over 15 billion Canadian tax dollars, the company receiving it is moving the jobs to the United States of America. The Minister of Industry claims she might take legal action. She cannot do that unless there is actually a job guarantee, so will she tell us, yes or no, whether every Canadian Stellantis worker has a job guarantee.”
“Mr. Speaker, surely Stellantis would not be announcing that it is moving a 3,000-worker plant to the United States of America if the government had negotiated job guarantees in that contract of $15 billion. To put this into perspective, $15 billion is $1,000 for every single family in Canada. That was supposed to create jobs. I have a simple yes-or-no question: Is there an iron-clad guarantee of every single worker's job here in Canada in exchange for that $15-billion handout?”
“Mr. Speaker, tragically, 3,000 auto workers in Brampton learned that the Prime Minister had sold them out and failed them in negotiations with the United States of America. To make matters worse, the Liberal government and the Liberal finance minister forked over $15 billion in tax dollars to the company that is moving their jobs south. Surely the government would have negotiated a jobs guarantee for every single Canadian Stellantis employee. Will the Liberals release that guarantee and the entire contract so Canadians know where their dollars went?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are trying to distract from their inflation and rising cost of living by talking about their corruption. This will be the 10th Liberal budget. Already, the Liberals have doubled the debt, food bank line-ups and housing costs. Every dollar the government spends comes directly out of the pockets of Canadians who can no longer afford to eat and heat and house themselves. Their fridges are empty. Will the Liberals learn these costly lessons? Will they cap their inflationary deficits and get rid of their insane taxes on groceries?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are trying to distract from their inflation by talking about their corruption. They now have four inflationary taxes that apply to groceries: the industrial carbon tax on fertilizer and farm equipment, the tax on grocery packaging, the tax on diesel fuel and, finally, the inflation tax. Canadians can no longer afford to pay their food bills. Will the government finally get rid of these Liberal taxes so Canadians can eat?”
“Mr. Speaker, in 10 budgets, the Liberals have doubled the national debt, doubled food bank line-ups and doubled housing costs. Every dollar the government spends comes out of the pockets of Canadians, whose fridges are empty. Has the government learned the costly lesson that its deficits and taxes increase the cost of living? Will it get rid of its inflationary policies in its next budget?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says he is going to put it right in the agreement, so presumably he is going to enforce it somehow. It is another Liberal contradiction, another failure and broken promise by the Prime Minister. Let us go to energy. Just days ago, the Prime Minister voted in favour of an energy cap that would make it impossible to fill another pipeline; then he woke up and discovered that President Trump has, for the last eight years, supported the Keystone XL pipeline. We know that as long as he blocks production in Alberta, we will not be able to fill that pipeline with oil, so what is he going to fill it with, maple syrup?”
“Mr. Speaker, he must be on to something here, because Canada has invested a half-trillion dollars in the U.S. over the last five years alone and probably a trillion dollars in the next five years if we get the agreement we expect to get. This is what the Prime Minister said. This is after he has failed to get tariffs lifted on our auto workers and our lumber workers, after thousands have lost their jobs and after he created the second-highest unemployment and the worst growth in the entire G7. Here is a very direct question: The Prime Minister is committing a trillion Canadian investment dollars to head south to the U.S. Has he secured an agreement that President Trump will send the same here?”
“Mr. Speaker, what we have is the fastest-shrinking economy in the G7, with the second-highest unemployment. He was there, so he has a duty to tell Canadians, who are the owners of this $1 trillion he wants to push out of our country, what is in this deal. He said it would actually be in the agreement that he is going to move $1 trillion of private money south. There are two ways to do that. Is he going to pass a law forcing investors to sell Canadian investments, putting people out of work here to invest in the south, or is he going to kill jobs with high taxes and antidevelopment policies that send money away?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister came home empty-handed, with more tariffs on softwood and automobiles, but he made a massive promise of $1 trillion of investment that would leave Canada to go to the United States. He said that this would be part of the agreement that he expects to get. Right in the agreement, he is going to commit to moving $1 trillion out of Canada. Yesterday, he confirmed it would be private money. How is he planning to do that? Is he going to pass a law forcing our pension funds to move their money south, or is he just going to continue with high-tax and antidevelopment policies that cause investment to flee?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is true that President Trump should be congratulated for his Middle East peace agreement. However, I asked the Prime Minister a question in French about Canadian jobs. The Prime Minister should show a bit of respect for Quebec and for francophones who are losing their jobs right now and he should answer the question. He promised that the agreement he will sign with the Americans will result in another $1 trillion in investments being exported, which threatens the jobs of Canadians. Did he get $1 trillion from the U.S. in return?”
“Mr. Speaker, while the Americans are increasing their tariffs on our softwood lumber and automobiles, the Prime Minister has made a huge promise to the United States. He said that Canada had already invested half a billion dollars over the past five years and that $1 trillion would likely be invested over the next five years if we get the agreement we expect. The Prime Minister said this would be private money. Is he going to force investors to go to the United States or is he going to encourage them to invest here, in Canada?”
“We will rapidly approve projects and have the fastest building permits anywhere in the world. We will open Canada up for business and make this the richest nation on earth.”
“Mr. Speaker, it seems to be the current Liberal Prime Minister 's approach, just like the prior Liberal prime minister, that they cannot do anything about the fact that we have lost half a trillion dollars of investment, cannot do anything about the fact that we are the fastest-shrinking economy in the G7 with the second-highest unemployment and cannot do anything about the fact that we have the lowest investment per worker of any country. If they cannot do anything, maybe it is time for them to get out of the way, because we can over here. I will tell members what we will do. We will cut taxes on work, investment, energy and homebuilding. We will eliminate the production cap, the ban on the offshore shipping of oil, and the industrial carbon tax.”
“Mr. Speaker, we will cut bureaucracy, consultants, foreign aid, corporate welfare, funding for bogus refugees and the list goes on. We will reduce the size of government to bring down the cost of living, inflation and taxes. We know that the government is causing inflation by printing money. The member mentioned interest rates. The Governor of the Bank of Canada is not saying that inflation is low. He is saying that the unemployment rate is high and that is why he needs to lower interest rates. Despite the Liberals' promises, we have the weakest economy in the G7. We need to turn things around with a new Conservative government.”
“Because the Liberal government has indebted our businesses and households to the level that we are now one of the most indebted nations in the world on a per-GDP basis, we run very real risks that higher interest rates will absolutely cripple our economy. We need a paycheque economy, not a debt economy.”
“Mr. Speaker, first of all, the Liberals' argument that they are not as bankrupt as the other countries is not actually true, even if it were a good argument. To start with, Canada's debt is much higher than we see in most G7 countries when we include all debt levels, both public and private, because the Liberals have indebted our households with high taxes and high inflation. I will give a lesson to the members across the way. We have one economy that has to pay the interest on all the debt in the country. The Government of Canada does not have a monopoly on the entire GDP. The GDP has to fund interest and debt servicing for households, businesses and governments.”
“We do not need money-losing projects; we need money-making projects by having the fastest permits in the OECD, getting rid of the capital gains tax on reinvestments and having lower and marginal taxes on our highest achievers. In other words, the government only needs to get out of the way and stop telling us that it is going to turn deficits into investments or lead into gold. All it needs to do is get out of the way and allow Canadians to dig the beautiful gold mine that is right under our feet in Canada.”
“Cutting deficits forces investors to invest in productive assets like the technological booms in Israel. The Prime Minister will say that he can get a better return on investment with his government-made investments in big economic projects, but there are questions. If the projects he wants to invest in are money-losers, why would the government want to invest in them? If they are money-makers, why would the government need to invest in them? If a project is going to lose money, then going forward with it makes us all poorer. If it is a megaproject, it makes us a lot poorer. The logic of going ahead with massive projects that lose money is like the businessman who says he loses money on every single sale but makes it up in volume.”
“The greatest example of all is Israel. In the 1990s, Israel was running massive deficits that required the government of that country to pay out 6% yields on its bonds. Investors could, in a very lazy way, simply buy government bonds instead of taking risks on productive investments, and that led to poor economic growth. When Israel started to cut the deficits and in fact balance its budget, the investors could no longer lend to the government, so they had to invest in productive assets. This caused a boom in start-ups, to the point where Israel now has the single-highest density of high-tech companies in the world. As a country of 10 million people, it has more companies listed on the NASDAQ than does all of Europe combined, a continent with 75 times more people.”
“We saw this during COVID, when small businesses would say that with all the debt, they were holding onto their wallet because they knew a big tax hike was coming. They would put their money under their bed, not investing or spending it. They waited for it to be taxed away later on. This is what economists call the Ricardian equivalence, and it very much proves that there is no net economic activity that results from government deficits; in fact, it only subtracts from the productive investments that people might otherwise make, but they are suspended in terror that they will have a future tax liability, and they therefore do not make those investments at all. What we have seen is that when deficits are cut, investment is actually increased. Governments across Canada slashed deficits in the 1990s, and we saw a resulting boom in investment.”
“In other words, when government runs deficits, it does not create net economic activity; it simply shifts the activity away from productive private sector activity towards unproductive bureaucratic inactivity. It moves the money from where it is efficient to where is inefficient. By the way, that is called the crowding out effect. It is well known that this happens, and it is why deficits have coincided with drops in investment in most countries around the world. The second reason is that today's deficits are tomorrow's taxes, and everybody knows that. What businesses and individuals do when they see governments racking up massive deficits is hoard their cash, waiting for the eventual tax bill.”
“Just the other day, he promised that his policies would drive another trillion dollars out of this country into the United States, proving once again, the result, that deficits do not equal investment. Why is this? There are a number of reasons. First, everything comes from something. There are only two ways for governments to run deficits: print money or borrow it. If it prints it, it causes inflation, which drives up interest rates, which drives down investment. If it borrows money, it has to borrow it from somebody. If the government borrows it out of the private economy to put it into the government economy, this means that the money that has been borrowed away from private investors is no longer available for productive investments in factories, mines, pipelines, new technology or other income-generating assets.”
“I will be splitting my time with the member for Newmarket—Aurora , who will tell the House that in fact the reality is that if we take total investment divided by the number of workers in Canada, we get about $15,000 in investment per worker, which is barely half of the $29,000 in the United States and a third lower than the $24,000 across the OECD. The result has been that we have had the worst per capita GDP growth in the G7. Dressing up the deficits in a banker's suit has not made any difference, because since the Prime Minister took office, doubling the deficit, which is the rate at which we add new debt, we have actually seen investment drop by $54 billion.”
“The current Prime Minister has a slightly more sophisticated-sounding but similar idea, which is to spend less and invest more, but given that he has now taken office, accelerated the spending and doubled the deficit, it is now time for us to consider the actual results. What actually happened? Well, since the Liberal government took office, the debt has doubled, growth has stalled, investment has fallen, the budget did not balance itself and, of course, lead did not become gold. Let us look at the facts. The core facts are these: Under the government, Canada has had the single-worst growth in investment per capita of any country in the G7.”
“What is surprising is that after each debunking, they would manage to repeat the same promise and convince even more people. It would always come with a new salesman and some flashy new jargon, always designed to dupe yet another group of people who had dreams of gold. Today's alchemist-in-chief, the Liberal Prime Minister , promises to transform deficits into investments. This is not a new promise; it is exactly the same one that Justin Trudeau ran on in 2015. We remember that he said the budget would balance itself. To be fair to him, we all thought it was just a gaffe. What he actually meant was that deficit spending would spark investment which would grow the economy, generating enough money for the budget to balance itself.”