Ron Liepert

Mr. Speaker, I know that the government is not listening to the indigenous community and so we will see if it will listen to the business community.Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Port of Vancouver. At the Port of Vancouver there are hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of construction in new facilities happening today. The officials at the Port of Vancouver said to me that if Bill C-69 had been in place two years ago, not one dollar of what is being spent today would be invested in the Port of Vancouver. Will the minister stand up today and say to the business community who are investing in the Port of Vancouver that she will kill this bill?

Mr. Speaker, when I heard on the news on the weekend about this Statistics Canada scam, I thought it just cannot be true because we live in Canada, not the Soviet Union. After listening to the minister responsible for the gulag over there, I am not so sure we are not in the Soviet Union. The minister said today that Canadians had better get on board. Yesterday, I surveyed my constituents. In one day there have been over 1,000 responses and 98% of them said, “Get out of my life,” not “Get on board.” I would like to ask the minister—

Mr. Speaker, I will take that answer as a yes, that he did inappropriately use resources of the House of Commons and no, that he did not clear it with the Ethics Commissioner.The minister, besides being an MP, is also a minister of the crown and has additional resources. I would ask the minister if he can assure the House that there were no other resources, including that of his riding office or of his minister's office, that were used to further the efforts to get his father elected as a school trustee.

Madam Speaker, these Liberals love to throw numbers around, so why do I not help them out a bit?We have heard, time and again, “347 days”. Well, let me ask the government about that right now. It has been 347 days since the government spent four and a half billion taxpayer dollars on a pipeline. At the time, the finance minister said that construction of the new pipeline would start immediately, but 347 days later, we have not had one shovel of dirt turned, so I would like to ask the finance minister this question: When is construction of this pipeline going to start?

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely shameful that the minister will not stand up in the House to defend the energy industry of this country. If there is no drilling of new wells, what is going to go in those pipelines two, three, or five years down the road, when they are built?Maybe I will ask an easy question that they can answer. Let us try this one.The budget provides a $30-million no-strings-attached grant to the Alberta government. We know that the Notley government took $300 million of federal infrastructure dollars and put them into general revenue to pay down the debt for its uncontrolled spending.Will the Minister of Finance stand in this House to guarantee unemployed Albertans that these dollars will be used for job creation and not to help the NDP—

Turn it over, the right answer is on the other side.

Madam Speaker, yesterday, when I asked the Minister of Sport about his inappropriate use of House resources to advance the interests of his father during last week's civic election campaign in Calgary, his parliamentary secretary said that “we will take responsibility for our actions” and deal with the Ethics Commissioner.I would like to give the Minister of Sport another opportunity today to inform the House if he has in fact reported his unethical behaviour to the Ethics Commissioner and if there any other potential conflicts that he disclosed at the same time.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to this budget and Alberta, we give on one hand and we take away more on the other. The budget provides Alberta with a one-time grant of a paltry $30 million while at the same reducing the petroleum incentive drilling credit by up to $140 million.It is obvious that the finance minister was bullied by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Prime Minister, both of whom want to phase out the oil sands and phase out fossil fuels.When will the Minister of Natural Resources start to stand up for Albertans and the energy industry?

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his hard work on this file.The member is absolutely correct that the finance committee has no work to do. The Liberals have proposed no agenda and no bills. Conservatives put forward two motions to study jobs and to study the long-term financial impact of this budget, and the Liberal members on committee voted those Conservative motions down.Canadians sent Conservatives here to do work. Unfortunately, Liberal members on that committee do not think that way.

Madam Speaker, the finance committee is currently studying the budget bill, Bill C-44, but this omnibus bill contains the Liberals' so-called infrastructure bank. We have had several witnesses appear before committee who have studied this scheme and are testifying that this bank is being set up to invest in high-risk projects.My question is for the Minister of Finance. Why is he gambling with $35 billion of hard-earned taxpayer dollars?

Tell that to the NDP.

Mr. Speaker, these new regulatory hurdles that the Liberals keep imposing mean that Canadian energy development, which is already operating under a world-class regulatory regime, is held to a different standard than say auto manufacturers.If auto manufacturers had to take into account downstream tailpipe emissions, like the Liberals are forcing on energy infrastructure, they and half that caucus would justifiably be outraged.Could the Minister of Natural Resources tell us how this is fair?

Mr. Speaker, today is the last day of April, exactly one month until Kinder Morgan will make its decision on whether it proceeds with Trans Mountain or whether it ends up in the graveyard of pipeline failures, like northern gateway and energy east. At the same time, when the Minister of Natural Resources wants to talk about what we are listening to, we are listening to the Prime Minister talk about phasing out the oil sands, and we are watching as the Liberals are funding summer student jobs to protest against pipelines. What does the minister not just admit that this was all part of the Prime Minister's plan to get rid of the energy sector in Canada?

Mr. Speaker, today the price of western Canadian oil is some $20 less than the market price and shamefully our colleagues in the NDP applaud that. Put another way, this financial loss is the equivalent to one hospital being built in the United States every week instead of here in Canada or one school every day being built in the United States and not here in Canada.When is the Prime Minister going to stand up to the B.C. government, stand up on behalf of Canadians, and western Canadians, and have hospitals and schools being built in Canada and not in the United States?

Madam Speaker, the Liberals' new mortgage rules have denied thousands of young Canadians the opportunity to purchase their first homes. The new rules smack of a government that thinks it knows better than the taxpayer.This week at committee, the president of the CMHC said, “It's like you're at a party, and the party has gotten too strong, and you remove the punch bowl”.Does the finance minister agree with the president of CMHC, who compared Canada's young working class, struggling to buy a first home, to a punch bowl party that has gotten out of control?

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister invoked the name of Peter Lougheed in trying to justify his nationalization of the Kinder Morgan pipeline. I worked with Peter Lougheed back in the 1980s, and Peter Lougheed never nationalized a pipeline. He never nationalized anything. In fact, Peter Lougheed defended Alberta's resources from the Prime Minister's father, who attempted to destroy the energy industry in Alberta.Will the Prime Minister stand up in this House and apologize, something he has become very good at lately in the House, for sullying the premier's name, all in the vein of trying to justify nationalization of a pipeline?

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Calgary Herald reported that the Minister of Sport inappropriately used House of Commons resources to support his father's campaign for election as trustee for the school board. In answers to my questions last week, the parliamentary secretary seemed to indicate that the matter had been referred to the Ethics Commissioner, but the answer was anything but clear.I will give the minister another opportunity to clarify today to the House whether he cleared with the Ethics Commissioner the use of these materials in an effort to get his father elected as a school trustee.

Mr. Speaker, I know that you and your 30 colleagues from Atlantic Canada know that our country imports over a million barrels of oil a day. Why? It is because there is no pipeline to the east coast.However, there is a solution to this problem, as my colleague just mentioned. I will ask the parliamentary secretary to clarify the fact that the rules have not changed, but that the Liberals, not the price of oil, changed the rules on this application.When is the Prime Minister or the Minister of Environment or Minister of Natural Resources going to come to their senses and preserve the Alberta advantage that the Minister of Finance's trust fund now enjoys by being registered—

Mr. Speaker, that is well and good, but this particular Minister of Sport is also a minister of the Crown and a member of the Privy Council. Additional resources are granted to have that portfolio help all Canadian taxpayers. Therefore, I would like to know if the minister used any of his ministerial resources to try to help his father get elected as a school trustee.

Mr. Speaker, in the 2015 election campaign, the Prime Minister made a number of promises just so he could get elected. He promised electoral reform. That promise has been broken. He promised a revenue neutral middle-class tax cut, and we all know what happened. That promise has been broken. He promised small $10-billion deficits. That promise has been broken.I have a simple question for the Prime Minister. When is he going to balance the budget?

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order about an answer the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development gave today. If I heard correctly, the minister said that among the jobs created in Canada since the Liberals took office in 2015, there were 2,200 new jobs created at Nova Corporation. The CEO of Nova Canada happens to be a constituent of mine, so I sent him a note and asked him to check it. He said no, they had maintained 2,200 jobs that already existed in 2015, and not—

Mr. Speaker, the rules are very clear. When we are elected as members of this House, we are granted resources for the exclusive use of serving our constituents. We are not granted resources to benefit ourselves personally or our family members.The Calgary Herald is reporting that last Monday, which was, coincidentally, civic election day in Alberta, the Minister of Sport used House of Commons materials to support his father's campaign for school trustee. Was the minister granted permission from the Ethics Commissioner to use House of Commons materials to enhance his father's electoral efforts?

Mr. Speaker, as a former provincial health minister, I know full well the challenges that are facing health care today and to meet those challenges our highly trained professionals have formed partnerships so they can work in teams and Canadians can get the service they need. These partnerships are taxed as small businesses, but we all know what the Prime Minister thinks about small businesses. He thinks they are just a tax dodge. Now the finance minister is changing the tax rules, forcing these health care specialists to likely move to the United States.Will the health minister today stand in the House and confirm that she will tell the Minister of Finance to reverse this policy before it negatively impacts Canadian families?

It was the riding association. Check your facts.

Mr. Speaker, we will see if the government can live up to this commitment.During the election campaign, the Prime Minister promised that we would have a slight budget deficit over the next couple of years to fund infrastructure, but then by the end of the mandate in 2019, the budget would be balanced. However, standing in the House the other day, the Minister of Finance said the government would work towards “a balanced budget by the end of our mandate”. I ask the Minister of Finance, is this another in the string of broken promises of the government?

Mr. Speaker, in the 2015 election campaign, the Prime Minister made a number of promises just so he could get elected. He promised electoral reform. That promise has been broken. He promised a revenue neutral middle-class tax cut, and we all know what happened. That promise has been broken. He promised small $10-billion deficits. That promise has been broken.I have a simple question for the Prime Minister. When is he going to balance the budget?

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his hard work on this file.The member is absolutely correct that the finance committee has no work to do. The Liberals have proposed no agenda and no bills. Conservatives put forward two motions to study jobs and to study the long-term financial impact of this budget, and the Liberal members on committee voted those Conservative motions down.Canadians sent Conservatives here to do work. Unfortunately, Liberal members on that committee do not think that way.

Mr. Speaker, we will see if the government can live up to this commitment.During the election campaign, the Prime Minister promised that we would have a slight budget deficit over the next couple of years to fund infrastructure, but then by the end of the mandate in 2019, the budget would be balanced. However, standing in the House the other day, the Minister of Finance said the government would work towards “a balanced budget by the end of our mandate”. I ask the Minister of Finance, is this another in the string of broken promises of the government?

Mr. Speaker, today the price of western Canadian oil is some $20 less than the market price and shamefully our colleagues in the NDP applaud that. Put another way, this financial loss is the equivalent to one hospital being built in the United States every week instead of here in Canada or one school every day being built in the United States and not here in Canada.When is the Prime Minister going to stand up to the B.C. government, stand up on behalf of Canadians, and western Canadians, and have hospitals and schools being built in Canada and not in the United States?

Mr. Speaker, as a former provincial health minister, I know full well the challenges that are facing health care today and to meet those challenges our highly trained professionals have formed partnerships so they can work in teams and Canadians can get the service they need. These partnerships are taxed as small businesses, but we all know what the Prime Minister thinks about small businesses. He thinks they are just a tax dodge. Now the finance minister is changing the tax rules, forcing these health care specialists to likely move to the United States.Will the health minister today stand in the House and confirm that she will tell the Minister of Finance to reverse this policy before it negatively impacts Canadian families?

Madam Speaker, yesterday, when I asked the Minister of Sport about his inappropriate use of House resources to advance the interests of his father during last week's civic election campaign in Calgary, his parliamentary secretary said that “we will take responsibility for our actions” and deal with the Ethics Commissioner.I would like to give the Minister of Sport another opportunity today to inform the House if he has in fact reported his unethical behaviour to the Ethics Commissioner and if there any other potential conflicts that he disclosed at the same time.

Mr. Speaker, that is well and good, but this particular Minister of Sport is also a minister of the Crown and a member of the Privy Council. Additional resources are granted to have that portfolio help all Canadian taxpayers. Therefore, I would like to know if the minister used any of his ministerial resources to try to help his father get elected as a school trustee.

Mr. Speaker, when I heard on the news on the weekend about this Statistics Canada scam, I thought it just cannot be true because we live in Canada, not the Soviet Union. After listening to the minister responsible for the gulag over there, I am not so sure we are not in the Soviet Union. The minister said today that Canadians had better get on board. Yesterday, I surveyed my constituents. In one day there have been over 1,000 responses and 98% of them said, “Get out of my life,” not “Get on board.” I would like to ask the minister—

Madam Speaker, the Liberals' new mortgage rules have denied thousands of young Canadians the opportunity to purchase their first homes. The new rules smack of a government that thinks it knows better than the taxpayer.This week at committee, the president of the CMHC said, “It's like you're at a party, and the party has gotten too strong, and you remove the punch bowl”.Does the finance minister agree with the president of CMHC, who compared Canada's young working class, struggling to buy a first home, to a punch bowl party that has gotten out of control?

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order about an answer the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development gave today. If I heard correctly, the minister said that among the jobs created in Canada since the Liberals took office in 2015, there were 2,200 new jobs created at Nova Corporation. The CEO of Nova Canada happens to be a constituent of mine, so I sent him a note and asked him to check it. He said no, they had maintained 2,200 jobs that already existed in 2015, and not—

Mr. Speaker, I know that the government is not listening to the indigenous community and so we will see if it will listen to the business community.Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Port of Vancouver. At the Port of Vancouver there are hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of construction in new facilities happening today. The officials at the Port of Vancouver said to me that if Bill C-69 had been in place two years ago, not one dollar of what is being spent today would be invested in the Port of Vancouver. Will the minister stand up today and say to the business community who are investing in the Port of Vancouver that she will kill this bill?

Mr. Speaker, today is the last day of April, exactly one month until Kinder Morgan will make its decision on whether it proceeds with Trans Mountain or whether it ends up in the graveyard of pipeline failures, like northern gateway and energy east. At the same time, when the Minister of Natural Resources wants to talk about what we are listening to, we are listening to the Prime Minister talk about phasing out the oil sands, and we are watching as the Liberals are funding summer student jobs to protest against pipelines. What does the minister not just admit that this was all part of the Prime Minister's plan to get rid of the energy sector in Canada?

Madam Speaker, these Liberals love to throw numbers around, so why do I not help them out a bit?We have heard, time and again, “347 days”. Well, let me ask the government about that right now. It has been 347 days since the government spent four and a half billion taxpayer dollars on a pipeline. At the time, the finance minister said that construction of the new pipeline would start immediately, but 347 days later, we have not had one shovel of dirt turned, so I would like to ask the finance minister this question: When is construction of this pipeline going to start?

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister invoked the name of Peter Lougheed in trying to justify his nationalization of the Kinder Morgan pipeline. I worked with Peter Lougheed back in the 1980s, and Peter Lougheed never nationalized a pipeline. He never nationalized anything. In fact, Peter Lougheed defended Alberta's resources from the Prime Minister's father, who attempted to destroy the energy industry in Alberta.Will the Prime Minister stand up in this House and apologize, something he has become very good at lately in the House, for sullying the premier's name, all in the vein of trying to justify nationalization of a pipeline?

Mr. Speaker, I know that you and your 30 colleagues from Atlantic Canada know that our country imports over a million barrels of oil a day. Why? It is because there is no pipeline to the east coast.However, there is a solution to this problem, as my colleague just mentioned. I will ask the parliamentary secretary to clarify the fact that the rules have not changed, but that the Liberals, not the price of oil, changed the rules on this application.When is the Prime Minister or the Minister of Environment or Minister of Natural Resources going to come to their senses and preserve the Alberta advantage that the Minister of Finance's trust fund now enjoys by being registered—

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to this budget and Alberta, we give on one hand and we take away more on the other. The budget provides Alberta with a one-time grant of a paltry $30 million while at the same reducing the petroleum incentive drilling credit by up to $140 million.It is obvious that the finance minister was bullied by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Prime Minister, both of whom want to phase out the oil sands and phase out fossil fuels.When will the Minister of Natural Resources start to stand up for Albertans and the energy industry?

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely shameful that the minister will not stand up in the House to defend the energy industry of this country. If there is no drilling of new wells, what is going to go in those pipelines two, three, or five years down the road, when they are built?Maybe I will ask an easy question that they can answer. Let us try this one.The budget provides a $30-million no-strings-attached grant to the Alberta government. We know that the Notley government took $300 million of federal infrastructure dollars and put them into general revenue to pay down the debt for its uncontrolled spending.Will the Minister of Finance stand in this House to guarantee unemployed Albertans that these dollars will be used for job creation and not to help the NDP—

Turn it over, the right answer is on the other side.

Mr. Speaker, these new regulatory hurdles that the Liberals keep imposing mean that Canadian energy development, which is already operating under a world-class regulatory regime, is held to a different standard than say auto manufacturers.If auto manufacturers had to take into account downstream tailpipe emissions, like the Liberals are forcing on energy infrastructure, they and half that caucus would justifiably be outraged.Could the Minister of Natural Resources tell us how this is fair?

Mr. Speaker, the rules are very clear. When we are elected as members of this House, we are granted resources for the exclusive use of serving our constituents. We are not granted resources to benefit ourselves personally or our family members.The Calgary Herald is reporting that last Monday, which was, coincidentally, civic election day in Alberta, the Minister of Sport used House of Commons materials to support his father's campaign for school trustee. Was the minister granted permission from the Ethics Commissioner to use House of Commons materials to enhance his father's electoral efforts?

Mr. Speaker, I will take that answer as a yes, that he did inappropriately use resources of the House of Commons and no, that he did not clear it with the Ethics Commissioner.The minister, besides being an MP, is also a minister of the crown and has additional resources. I would ask the minister if he can assure the House that there were no other resources, including that of his riding office or of his minister's office, that were used to further the efforts to get his father elected as a school trustee.