Kevin Sorenson

Mr. Speaker, I have constituents who are already receiving letters from the Canada Revenue Agency informing them that they no longer are eligible for the disability tax credit. That is bad, but it gets even worse. Now the minister is threatening to take money directly out of their bank accounts. She is clawing back $6,000 from one constituent already. We know that the minister knows this is happening and has okayed it. Why are the Liberals going after disabled Canadians and the middle-class families that look after them? When is this foolishness going to stop?

Mr. Speaker, Canadians know that the Liberal Minister of Finance has no money.That is because he has already blown the surplus left by the Conservative government. He is spending money that Canadians do not have. The billions of dollars that he is recklessly spending will come from our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren.Canadians get it. Why does the Minister of Finance not?

Mr. Speaker, dozens of Alberta ranchers have been ordered not to sell their cattle that are under CFIA quarantine. These ranchers do not have the facilities, the feed, or the financial resources to feed their cattle over the winter. They are being forced to pay thousands of dollars to feed cattle that normally would have been sold by now so they could meet their bills. Will the Liberal government commit to an emergency relief program to help pay the feed costs for the herds that have been quarantined by the CFIA?

Mr. Speaker, hard-working Canadians cannot afford to pay more taxes. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said that no business can afford higher payroll taxes either, but the finance minister is again putting Canadian jobs at risk. The Liberals have already backed off on their election promise to lower the small business tax rate. Now they are going to raise payroll taxes.Why is the finance minister killing the backbone of the Canadian economy with irresponsible CPP payroll tax hikes?

Mr. Speaker, Alberta is losing over $80 million a day on heavily discounted oil. We are losing foreign investment that is leaving Alberta and Canada. We have lost over 100,000 jobs, and the bleeding is not about to stop anytime soon, because the current government has halted, cancelled or delayed every major energy project, has put in ridiculously onerous regulations and is giving us the no-pipeline bill, Bill C-69.I am not asking if but when this Minister of Natural Resources will kill Bill C-69.

Mr. Speaker, in the Conservative government's first two years, we paid down the national debt by $38 billion. When the global recession hit, we provided a low-tax plan and economic stimulus, infrastructure, and other things to keep Canadians working. We left the government with a surplus. The Liberals' exploding deficit has all but wiped that out in 100 days.Why is the only Liberal plan to spend, spend, spend?

Mr. Speaker, Jake Vermeer owns a dairy farm in my riding. Jake has told me that these massive tax increases that the Finance Minister is threatening to impose on all Canadians will damage the successful farm and cost jobs. Farmers often mortgage their homes, their home quarter, and their land in order to expand, innovate, and create jobs for the local rural community. Why is the Liberal finance minister treating these farms as nothing more than cash cows and jeopardizing the future of farmers in Canada?

Mr. Speaker, last year foreign direct investment in this country was the lowest in over a decade. Nowhere is that disaster more real than in Alberta. Tens of billions of dollars of potential oil and gas projects are being scrapped. There is massive divestment by international oil producers. The Prime Minister's answer to this disaster? A buy-out and drive out of Kinder Morgan. When will the minister quit attacking the industry so it can begin the process of recovery and rebuild investor confidence?

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Liberals finally showed Canadians how they really plan to decide on a new electoral process, and it is the same old Liberal way: behind closed doors.In typical Liberal fashion, they cooked up a deal that leaves Canadians on the outside looking in. Canadians do not want the future of their democracy decided by secret deals and party insiders. When will the Liberals open the doors to Canadians and agree to hold a national referendum?

Mr. Speaker, in their desperation to raise revenues, the Liberals are now raising taxes on the family farm. In addition, it is even worse. Their new tax proposal will make it more expensive for a farmer to sell the farm to his child or a family member than to a multinational corporation. Most Canadians understand the importance of encouraging the next generation on the farm.Why are the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance so dedicated to protecting their own family fortunes, while waging a war against the family farm?

Mr. Speaker, why do Liberals not trust average Canadians? Canada has the strongest democracy in the world. An overwhelming majority of Canadians believe that something as important and as vital as the way that we elect our members of Parliament—something that we have done over the last 150 years quite well, by the way—should be decided in a national referendum. Why are the Liberals more committed to backroom deals and secret deals than to giving Canadians a voice through a national referendum?

Mr. Speaker, no one believes the Prime Minister is supportive of Canada's energy industry. Last week, when he was in France, he mourned the fact that he could not phase it out fast enough. Now we have documents that prove that the Prime Minister is using taxpayer dollars to fund professional protestors against the Kinder Morgan pipeline. When will the Prime Minister just admit that he is using taxpayer money to fund the protestors and to fund his plan to shutdown the Alberta energy sector?

Mr. Speaker, I remind that Minister of Finance that those are Canadian taxpayer dollars that he is spend, spend, spending.Following the global economic downturn, Canada was in the best position of the G7 countries. Canada was the first to emerge from the recession, and we went on to be ranked as one of the best places in the world to start a new business and to create jobs.Why is the Minister of Finance so insistent on destroying Canada's enviable position around the world?

Mr. Speaker, at the fentanyl conference in Alberta, authorities confirmed that they are not even close when it comes to confronting deadly fentanyl abuse. While opioid addiction is not new, street drugs laced with fentanyl have led to a public health crisis. Even though the government took some measures this summer, it is not enough, not even close.Will the Liberals take further measures to make it more difficult for illicit drug dealers to get their hands on fentanyl, and increase the punishment for trafficking offences involving street drugs laced with deadly drugs like fentanyl?

Mr. Speaker, Albertans know that the handout from the Liberal government is symbolic at best. It comes only hours after Encana cut 20% of its workforce. Alberta does not want welfare or photo ops. The Prime Minister talks to the Alberta premier about a transfer from the Liberal federal government to the provincial NDP government, and the government gets excited. However, it does not talk about shipping our natural resources.When will the Prime Minister help Alberta sell its resources, instead of handing the provincial government borrowed money?

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, the Prime Minister actually said that someone's background should not determine if they are fit to become an officer of Parliament. That is simply wrong. Canadians expect that these positions will be filled with people who are competent and independent. No one believes that people giving tens of thousands of dollars to the Liberal Party are independent.Will the Prime Minister learn a lesson here and ensure that the next Ethics Commissioner will not be another partisan Liberal and will actually enjoy all-party support?

Mr. Speaker, workers are losing their jobs. Governments are losing revenue. The middle class is hurt by the downstream economic effects from the loss of energy markets, and he is going to undertake another study.No matter what part of Canada we live in, we have a stake in ensuring Canada has the energy infrastructure in place to access new international markets. When will the Liberals approve pipelines and get Canada's energy to new emerging international markets?

Mr. Speaker, the lesson learned here hopefully is that the Prime Minister should not try again to appoint another partisan Liberal commissioner. No one believes that the government House leader or anyone else over there will actually consider Canadians who apply for these appointments online. How can Canadians believe that the new appointment process that the government House leader brags about is not just the Liberals' newfangled attempt to ensure that they get to appoint the partisan Liberal stalwart that they have always wanted?

Mr. Speaker, we have a job crisis here in Canada. In western Canada, over 125,000 energy workers have lost their jobs, thanks in great part to the current Liberal government's anti-energy policies. Canada is unable to get top dollar for its energy products because our oil is landlocked. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost.When will the Liberals start growing Canada's economy by creating jobs, employing the middle class, and helping Canada's energy sector to get our products to new international markets?

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I think it is obvious now that Canadians know that when we are talking about our finances that they were better off with our Conservative government. The department knows it was better off with the Conservative government. The “Fiscal Monitor” shows it.I seek unanimous consent to table the “Fiscal Monitor” that shows that we were better off.

Mr. Speaker, the government House leader loves to throw around the words “open” and “transparent”, but make no mistake, the Liberal government is anything but. She throws these words around in the hopes that Canadians will buy what she says and not what the government is doing. The Ethics Commissioner is solely responsible to the Parliament of Canada, not to the Liberal Parliament of Canada.Will the Prime Minister agree that as they search for a new Ethics Commissioner, they will not fall into the same trap that they fell into with the official languages commissioner, and simply recruit from the list of loyal—

Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister does not understand that Canada is an energy-rich country. He does not understand that Canada is an exporting country. He does not understand that oil is one of our biggest exports. He does not understand that those exports create jobs all across Canada.Canada's international customers are waiting with open wallets to buy Canada's energy. They will buy as much as we can provide.When will this Prime Minister get out of the way so that we can export more of our oil around the world, and create jobs here at home?

Mr. Speaker, Tides Canada has led the coordinated campaign against the construction of new pipelines and the Alberta energy sector.We know foreign money flows into Tides to help fund that campaign. However, this morning we found out that the Liberal government has decided to flow money to Tides to support the campaign as well. No one believes the Prime Minister supports Alberta's struggling energy sector while he funds the greatest opponents to it.Can the Minister of Natural Resources explain why the government is funding the Tides campaign against Alberta jobs in the energy sector?

Mr. Speaker, those who served our country deserve our utmost respect, gratitude and support. However, complaint after complaint rolls in about the Liberal government's neglect of veterans and their needs. My constituent writes, “I am a military veteran...In mid April 2018 Veterans Affairs Canada received all my documents for a reassessment for my disability. And yet, almost 6 months later I still await a decision.... I have no way of knowing whether a decision is 2 months away or a year.”Why the wait? Why does the government continue to fail our veterans?

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Department of National Defence accidentally revealed to the public accounts committee the transfer of the aerospace engineering test establishment from Cold Lake to Ottawa. Despite claims to the contrary, neither the member of Parliament, nor the MLA nor the mayor of Cold Lake was briefed or consulted on the impact of this move, which will see the loss of many high-paying jobs. This is just the latest in the Liberal government's agenda to hurt Alberta every way it can.To the Minister of National Defence: why this attack on Alberta jobs?

Mr. Speaker, Canadians overwhelmingly agree that we need a national referendum. In fact, almost 14 million Canadians, three-quarters of eligible voters, voted in the last national referendum, which was on the Charlottetown accord in 1992. To equal those numbers, 40,000 Canadians would have to show up in town halls across this country in every constituency in Canada. Why is the minister denying the average Canadians the right to vote in a referendum?

Mr. Speaker, I apologize.

Mr. Speaker, I have constituents who are already receiving letters from the Canada Revenue Agency informing them that they no longer are eligible for the disability tax credit. That is bad, but it gets even worse. Now the minister is threatening to take money directly out of their bank accounts. She is clawing back $6,000 from one constituent already. We know that the minister knows this is happening and has okayed it. Why are the Liberals going after disabled Canadians and the middle-class families that look after them? When is this foolishness going to stop?

Mr. Speaker, those who served our country deserve our utmost respect, gratitude and support. However, complaint after complaint rolls in about the Liberal government's neglect of veterans and their needs. My constituent writes, “I am a military veteran...In mid April 2018 Veterans Affairs Canada received all my documents for a reassessment for my disability. And yet, almost 6 months later I still await a decision.... I have no way of knowing whether a decision is 2 months away or a year.”Why the wait? Why does the government continue to fail our veterans?

Mr. Speaker, Alberta is losing over $80 million a day on heavily discounted oil. We are losing foreign investment that is leaving Alberta and Canada. We have lost over 100,000 jobs, and the bleeding is not about to stop anytime soon, because the current government has halted, cancelled or delayed every major energy project, has put in ridiculously onerous regulations and is giving us the no-pipeline bill, Bill C-69.I am not asking if but when this Minister of Natural Resources will kill Bill C-69.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Liberals finally showed Canadians how they really plan to decide on a new electoral process, and it is the same old Liberal way: behind closed doors.In typical Liberal fashion, they cooked up a deal that leaves Canadians on the outside looking in. Canadians do not want the future of their democracy decided by secret deals and party insiders. When will the Liberals open the doors to Canadians and agree to hold a national referendum?

Mr. Speaker, dozens of Alberta ranchers have been ordered not to sell their cattle that are under CFIA quarantine. These ranchers do not have the facilities, the feed, or the financial resources to feed their cattle over the winter. They are being forced to pay thousands of dollars to feed cattle that normally would have been sold by now so they could meet their bills. Will the Liberal government commit to an emergency relief program to help pay the feed costs for the herds that have been quarantined by the CFIA?

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Department of National Defence accidentally revealed to the public accounts committee the transfer of the aerospace engineering test establishment from Cold Lake to Ottawa. Despite claims to the contrary, neither the member of Parliament, nor the MLA nor the mayor of Cold Lake was briefed or consulted on the impact of this move, which will see the loss of many high-paying jobs. This is just the latest in the Liberal government's agenda to hurt Alberta every way it can.To the Minister of National Defence: why this attack on Alberta jobs?

Mr. Speaker, at the fentanyl conference in Alberta, authorities confirmed that they are not even close when it comes to confronting deadly fentanyl abuse. While opioid addiction is not new, street drugs laced with fentanyl have led to a public health crisis. Even though the government took some measures this summer, it is not enough, not even close.Will the Liberals take further measures to make it more difficult for illicit drug dealers to get their hands on fentanyl, and increase the punishment for trafficking offences involving street drugs laced with deadly drugs like fentanyl?

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I think it is obvious now that Canadians know that when we are talking about our finances that they were better off with our Conservative government. The department knows it was better off with the Conservative government. The “Fiscal Monitor” shows it.I seek unanimous consent to table the “Fiscal Monitor” that shows that we were better off.

Mr. Speaker, Albertans know that the handout from the Liberal government is symbolic at best. It comes only hours after Encana cut 20% of its workforce. Alberta does not want welfare or photo ops. The Prime Minister talks to the Alberta premier about a transfer from the Liberal federal government to the provincial NDP government, and the government gets excited. However, it does not talk about shipping our natural resources.When will the Prime Minister help Alberta sell its resources, instead of handing the provincial government borrowed money?

Mr. Speaker, I remind that Minister of Finance that those are Canadian taxpayer dollars that he is spend, spend, spending.Following the global economic downturn, Canada was in the best position of the G7 countries. Canada was the first to emerge from the recession, and we went on to be ranked as one of the best places in the world to start a new business and to create jobs.Why is the Minister of Finance so insistent on destroying Canada's enviable position around the world?

Mr. Speaker, Tides Canada has led the coordinated campaign against the construction of new pipelines and the Alberta energy sector.We know foreign money flows into Tides to help fund that campaign. However, this morning we found out that the Liberal government has decided to flow money to Tides to support the campaign as well. No one believes the Prime Minister supports Alberta's struggling energy sector while he funds the greatest opponents to it.Can the Minister of Natural Resources explain why the government is funding the Tides campaign against Alberta jobs in the energy sector?

Mr. Speaker, why do Liberals not trust average Canadians? Canada has the strongest democracy in the world. An overwhelming majority of Canadians believe that something as important and as vital as the way that we elect our members of Parliament—something that we have done over the last 150 years quite well, by the way—should be decided in a national referendum. Why are the Liberals more committed to backroom deals and secret deals than to giving Canadians a voice through a national referendum?

Mr. Speaker, Jake Vermeer owns a dairy farm in my riding. Jake has told me that these massive tax increases that the Finance Minister is threatening to impose on all Canadians will damage the successful farm and cost jobs. Farmers often mortgage their homes, their home quarter, and their land in order to expand, innovate, and create jobs for the local rural community. Why is the Liberal finance minister treating these farms as nothing more than cash cows and jeopardizing the future of farmers in Canada?

Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister does not understand that Canada is an energy-rich country. He does not understand that Canada is an exporting country. He does not understand that oil is one of our biggest exports. He does not understand that those exports create jobs all across Canada.Canada's international customers are waiting with open wallets to buy Canada's energy. They will buy as much as we can provide.When will this Prime Minister get out of the way so that we can export more of our oil around the world, and create jobs here at home?

Mr. Speaker, no one believes the Prime Minister is supportive of Canada's energy industry. Last week, when he was in France, he mourned the fact that he could not phase it out fast enough. Now we have documents that prove that the Prime Minister is using taxpayer dollars to fund professional protestors against the Kinder Morgan pipeline. When will the Prime Minister just admit that he is using taxpayer money to fund the protestors and to fund his plan to shutdown the Alberta energy sector?

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, the Prime Minister actually said that someone's background should not determine if they are fit to become an officer of Parliament. That is simply wrong. Canadians expect that these positions will be filled with people who are competent and independent. No one believes that people giving tens of thousands of dollars to the Liberal Party are independent.Will the Prime Minister learn a lesson here and ensure that the next Ethics Commissioner will not be another partisan Liberal and will actually enjoy all-party support?

Mr. Speaker, Canadians overwhelmingly agree that we need a national referendum. In fact, almost 14 million Canadians, three-quarters of eligible voters, voted in the last national referendum, which was on the Charlottetown accord in 1992. To equal those numbers, 40,000 Canadians would have to show up in town halls across this country in every constituency in Canada. Why is the minister denying the average Canadians the right to vote in a referendum?

Mr. Speaker, we have a job crisis here in Canada. In western Canada, over 125,000 energy workers have lost their jobs, thanks in great part to the current Liberal government's anti-energy policies. Canada is unable to get top dollar for its energy products because our oil is landlocked. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost.When will the Liberals start growing Canada's economy by creating jobs, employing the middle class, and helping Canada's energy sector to get our products to new international markets?

Mr. Speaker, hard-working Canadians cannot afford to pay more taxes. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said that no business can afford higher payroll taxes either, but the finance minister is again putting Canadian jobs at risk. The Liberals have already backed off on their election promise to lower the small business tax rate. Now they are going to raise payroll taxes.Why is the finance minister killing the backbone of the Canadian economy with irresponsible CPP payroll tax hikes?

Mr. Speaker, in their desperation to raise revenues, the Liberals are now raising taxes on the family farm. In addition, it is even worse. Their new tax proposal will make it more expensive for a farmer to sell the farm to his child or a family member than to a multinational corporation. Most Canadians understand the importance of encouraging the next generation on the farm.Why are the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance so dedicated to protecting their own family fortunes, while waging a war against the family farm?

Mr. Speaker, workers are losing their jobs. Governments are losing revenue. The middle class is hurt by the downstream economic effects from the loss of energy markets, and he is going to undertake another study.No matter what part of Canada we live in, we have a stake in ensuring Canada has the energy infrastructure in place to access new international markets. When will the Liberals approve pipelines and get Canada's energy to new emerging international markets?

Mr. Speaker, last year foreign direct investment in this country was the lowest in over a decade. Nowhere is that disaster more real than in Alberta. Tens of billions of dollars of potential oil and gas projects are being scrapped. There is massive divestment by international oil producers. The Prime Minister's answer to this disaster? A buy-out and drive out of Kinder Morgan. When will the minister quit attacking the industry so it can begin the process of recovery and rebuild investor confidence?

Mr. Speaker, the lesson learned here hopefully is that the Prime Minister should not try again to appoint another partisan Liberal commissioner. No one believes that the government House leader or anyone else over there will actually consider Canadians who apply for these appointments online. How can Canadians believe that the new appointment process that the government House leader brags about is not just the Liberals' newfangled attempt to ensure that they get to appoint the partisan Liberal stalwart that they have always wanted?

Mr. Speaker, the government House leader loves to throw around the words “open” and “transparent”, but make no mistake, the Liberal government is anything but. She throws these words around in the hopes that Canadians will buy what she says and not what the government is doing. The Ethics Commissioner is solely responsible to the Parliament of Canada, not to the Liberal Parliament of Canada.Will the Prime Minister agree that as they search for a new Ethics Commissioner, they will not fall into the same trap that they fell into with the official languages commissioner, and simply recruit from the list of loyal—

Mr. Speaker, in the Conservative government's first two years, we paid down the national debt by $38 billion. When the global recession hit, we provided a low-tax plan and economic stimulus, infrastructure, and other things to keep Canadians working. We left the government with a surplus. The Liberals' exploding deficit has all but wiped that out in 100 days.Why is the only Liberal plan to spend, spend, spend?