Pierre Poilievre

Shame on you, Bill, you're being dishonest. You're being very dishonest.

Mr. Speaker, in its 26-page technical report on the federal carbon tax, the government has thought of every single way to wring every single dime out of taxpayers in the relevant jurisdictions. There is talk of registered fuel importers, registered fuel distributors, surplus credit, and special bringing-in rules. There is all of this detail, except one detail. How much will it cost for the average family to pay the damn tax?

Mr. Speaker, new taxes for Morneau Shepell: zero. New taxes for the finance minister's family company in Barbados: zero. New taxes for the Prime Minister's multi-million dollar family trust fund: zero. New taxes for Stephen Bronfman's Cayman Islands tax shelter: zero. That is life in Liberal tax paradise. With this hypocrisy now exposed, will the government finally apologize for insulting the integrity of hard-working, tax-paying small business owners across this country?

Madam Speaker, now that the Liberals have changed their minds and declared ISIL atrocities a genocide, they have triggered article I of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which requires member countries like Canada to use force to stop the crime. Training alone will not stop genocide. We need to strike from the air while our allies fight on the ground.Will the Liberal government respect the law, support our allies, and reinstate the air bombing campaign to stop this genocidal death cult?

Mr. Speaker, do the Liberals really want to talk about health care and fundraisers? This from a party whose leader had a $1,500-a-plate fundraiser and threw out of the room, to cackles of laughter, an aboriginal protester who was angry about the mercury poisoning that occurred in a first nations community? We will take no lessons from the Prime Minister on health care and fundraisers. Instead of political attacks and hypocrisy, why will the Liberals not stand up behind their words and—

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have spent another billion dollars on tax collectors. Who have those tax collectors gone after? Have they gone after Morneau Shepell? Have they gone after the billionaire Bronfman family, or have they instead decided to go after people suffering with diabetes, or after minimum wage-earning waitresses who enjoy a small chicken sandwich at the end of the shift or after small businesses and farmers? When will this high-tax hypocrisy come to an end?

Mr. Speaker, that the Liberals would dare talk about divisive rhetoric after the Prime Minister, the limousine Liberal, went down to Argentina at an international conference while our workers are struggling at home, and he insulted them and accused them of creating negative social and gender impacts, is absolutely disgusting and appalling. The first thing the government should do is apologize for that despicable rhetoric. When will the Liberals apologize for insulting working men and women, and scrap the “no more pipelines” bill at the same time?

Mr. Speaker, all the finance minister has done is load down Canadian taxpayers with more debt and higher taxes. In fact, the Canadian economy is like an increasingly skinny man carrying an increasingly fat government up an increasingly steep hill. When will the finance minister and his tax-and-spend plan get off the backs of hard-working Canadians?

Mr. Speaker, the Chinese leadership has called the Prime Minister a name that is so insulting that you have ruled it unspeakable in the House. I will put partisanship aside and say that I will not stand for that kind of treatment of the Prime Minister.In retaliation, will the government do the right thing and cancel the quarter-billion dollar gift to the China-controlled Asian Infrastructure Bank?

Mr. Speaker, lying to a law officer is an offence under section 139 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits obstructing, perverting or defeating the course of justice. The Prime Minister told the former attorney general on September 17 that if she did not immediately shelve the charges into SNC-Lavalin, the company's headquarters would jet to London. Today, the CEO of the company indicated that he never said that and that it is not true. Why did the Prime Minister state a blatant falsehood to get charges dropped against SNC-Lavalin?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is being dangerously naive on Syria. Yesterday, he said that the United Nations Security Council needed to have a meeting, pass resolutions, and hold an investigation to find out who was originally responsible for the chemical attacks against Syrian civilians, including children. Only hours later, the United States launched missile strikes against the origins of those very chemical attacks. Why is it that the Prime Minister continues to put all of his faith in the Security Council, which has failed to confront Bashar al-Assad?

Mr. Speaker, some of the Liberal broken promises are good news. I want to thank the government for heeding my advice to abandon its plan to double taxation on stock options. Yet, another broken promise will kill jobs by targeting small business with an additional $1 billion in taxation.Why has the budget betrayed the middle class by breaking promises to the tune of a billion dollars to our small business job creators?

Mr. Speaker, getting rid of the investor-state provision was actually a demand of Donald Trump's. The Liberals actually support investor-state protections. They put them in the CPTPP and in CETA. So to now take credit for a capitulation they made in favour of Trump is laughable.As for this ratchet clause, the Liberals were trying to flip through the deal to find something they had won on. It turns out this ratchet clause has never been used in 30 years, just to show how irrelevant this so-called victory was. The Liberals got nothing on steel tariffs, nothing on softwood tariffs and nothing on buy America. Why did they get so little—

Madam Speaker, history has proven that the perpetrators of genocide are never satisfied with targeting local populations alone, so it is with ISIL whose followers have slaughtered civilians in Paris, Orlando, Canada, and almost 50 other places around the globe. It is not simply a problem for over there.The Liberals have recognized in changing their minds that ISIL is committing genocide. Will they change their minds again and reverse the Prime Minister's naive decision to end the air combat mission against this genocidal death cult?

As does the Conservative Party support the United States' missile strikes against the Syrian regime in the aftermath of its chemical weapons attacks on its own civilians, Mr. Speaker. That said, yesterday that was not the Prime Minister's position. At that point, he said it was not even clear who was responsible for the chemical attacks on Syrian civilians, and that the UN Security Council needed to hold another meeting, which would include a veto power by the Russian federation. When will the Prime Minister stop being so dangerously naive and confront this dictator and tyrant?

Mr. Speaker, the minister has not retracted her comment. She seemed to suggest in her earlier answer that the allegations were completely ridiculous. Well, those allegations have not even been investigated yet by her department. We have new revelations from the paradise papers, suggesting a link between Mr. Bronfman and this potentially illegal tax haven. How can the minister possibly think it appropriate for her to stand and exonerate him before her department has even had a chance to conduct its investigation?

Mr. Speaker, what they are giving is a small cheque before the election and a massive bill after it. It is the carbon tax trick.The reality is, accordingly to the Financial Post, the carbon tax will cost a family $600 just for a trip from Toronto to Vancouver. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister takes trips to Tofino on the public dime. He goes to Florida and then back, then to Florida and back again so that he can sneak in an extra Twitter photo op. Why will he not end the hypocrisy and give consumers a break?

Madam Speaker, the previous government demonstrated that we can simultaneously train our allies on the ground while we fight the enemy from the sky. That is precisely what we should be doing now to honour the convention on genocide.However, the Liberal government has abandoned our allies in the Middle East in the fight against ISIL. Now our allies in NATO wonder if they will abandon our allies in Eastern Europe.Will the Liberal government stand with our allies to protect eastern Europe against Russian aggression?

Mr. Speaker, our millionaire trust fund Prime Minister has spent much of his life living in government-owned mansions. Now we learn that he actually has two mansions, one to prepare his meals, and another for him to eat them in. At the same time, he says that British Columbians, who are suffering under gasoline prices of $1.60 a litre, need to make better choices. Does he not think it is a little hypocritical to charge more taxes to middle-class Canadians while he lives in the lap of luxury at their expense?

Mr. Speaker, I think I just heard the minister say that the allegations were completely ridiculous. Her job is to ensure that her department conducts these investigations totally objectively, but she has now predetermined the outcome by declaring that the allegations are ridiculous.How can Canadians have any assurance that there will be an honest investigation into Mr. Bronfman when both the Prime Minister and the minister have declared him not guilty?

Madam Speaker, the question was when the budget will be balanced. We still do not have an answer from the government. On another subject, the Prime Minister is a high-tax hypocrite. He raised taxes on families by taking away the children's fitness tax credit and by taking away their tuition tax credit and their education tax credit while protecting his tax-funded nannies for himself. Now he has extended a sweetheart deal to large corporate industrial emitters while forcing others to pay the carbon tax. Will small businesses get the same exemption?

Mr. Speaker, high-tax hypocrisy is not a new sport for these Liberals. It has been perfected over the generations. While Paul Martin was the finance minister, he put foreign flags on his ships to avoid the very taxes he was imposing on everyone else. Now the paradise papers expose that his family business has moved its assets into zero-tax Bermuda, and he is advising the Prime Minister as part of the Liberal economic team. Now that he has been exposed once again for avoiding paying his fair share, will the finance minister fire Paul Martin from his economic team?

Mr. Speaker, if pension funds want to invest in infrastructure, they can. They do not need a $35-billion backstop from taxpayers. The question is who is actually going to run this. The Liberals say it will not be elected officials or public servants. Will investment bankers have the use of $35 billion in tax dollars to guarantee the profits of other investment bankers? Self-serving insiders get the reward, taxpayers get the risk. How will the government ensure that this scheme does not become a $35-billion, taxpayer-backed, self-licking ice cream cone?

Mr. Speaker, Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick – you will go far.” The Prime Minister, making big, bold threats of a lawsuit and then hiding from following through, is roaring loudly and carrying a small twig.I am announcing today, on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, that he is setting a deadline for the Prime Minister to follow through on his threat, which is Monday at midnight. Will the Liberals meet the deadline or will the Prime Minister just run for cover?

Mr. Speaker, it is funny to listen to a trust fund baby lecturing Canadians about being too rich. The Prime Minister says that people who take the bus are too rich and therefore should lose their transit tax credit. Soccer moms and hockey dads, the Prime Minister says are too rich, so he takes away their children's fitness tax credit. At the same, he forces these same working-class families to pay for his taxpayer-funded nannies.Will the Prime Minister put aside the hypocritical class warfare and tell us the true cost of his tax increases that he would bring in if he got re-elected?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a golden rule: Those with the gold make the rules.When SNC-Lavalin was charged with stealing $130 million from Libya's poor, he rushed in to block it from having to go to trial. When Loblaws billionaires ripped off the poor by fixing the price of bread and ripped of taxpayers by stashing their cash in the Carribean, the Prime Minister gave them $12 million for their efforts.Why does the Prime Minister always take from the have-nots to give to the have-yachts?

Mr. Speaker, for the last several months, the finance minister has said that our farmers, plumbers, and other small business owners are a privileged few, using fancy accounting schemes to avoid paying their fair share. We now learn that the finance minister used a loophole, putting millions of dollars of shares he was otherwise banned from owning into a numbered company in Alberta in order to continue to earn millions of dollars. Now that this hypocrisy is exposed, does he not think it is time to apologize to those business owners he slandered?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister shattered his promise that the budget would balance itself this year. He has added three times as much debt as he said he would. The cost of government is up 25% in just over three years. Among the wasteful spending is the quarter billion dollars for the Asian Infrastructure Bank to build pipelines and roads in China. Will the Prime Minister show even a modicum of respect for Canadian taxpayers and cancel that quarter-billion-dollar waste of money?

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister is like the rooster who thinks he made the sun come up just because he crowed when the sun came up. In fact, he inherited temporary good fortune from oil prices that are up by 100%, a housing bubble in both Vancouver and Toronto, and massive household indebtedness, which has put our economy on a short-term sugar high. Why has the finance minister spent the cupboard bare in the short-term good times, leaving us so exposed to danger in the long-term future?

Mr. Speaker, I invite him to campaign for the next election on making gas prices, home heating prices and grocery prices thousands of dollars more expensive for families in his riding.The reality is that the out-of-control promise-breaking deficits of the government will lead to higher taxes down the road. There is no question. Canadians are already paying $800 per family more in income tax than when the government took office. However, the worst is yet to come.Why will the Liberals not admit that if they are re-elected, they will take more from Canadians when they no longer need voters' votes, but still need their money?

Hire a new cartographer.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says that if people take the bus, they are too rich and deserve to lose their transit tax credit. If they put their kids in hockey or soccer, they are too rich for the Prime Minister and deserve to lose the refundable children's fitness tax credit. If they buy textbooks at university, they are too rich and they deserve to lose their textbook tax credits, says the same Prime Minister who used a trust fund tax loophole to lower his tax bill.Does he realize, as he sits there and smirks, how horribly arrogant he is when he accuses low-income Canadians of not paying their taxes?

Mr. Speaker, we are standing with Canadian workers. We are standing against the taxes that will kill jobs for Canadian workers.The government continues to pile on one new tax after another, a carbon tax, higher payroll taxes, taxes on Canadian jobs. The only effect of that will be to drive industry to competing jurisdictions like the United States of America.Why will the Liberals not stand up to Donald Trump, step back from these taxes, and protect Canadian jobs?

Mr. Speaker, when The Globe and Mail first reported about this scandal, the Prime Minister said that it was all a lie and he said that the proof was that his former attorney general was still in cabinet. Well, the next day she resigned. Then he said that he was disappointed in her, that was just her problem. Then his Treasury Board president resigned. He said that was just the two of them. However, then the head of the entire public service resigned. What is going on behind the scenes that is so egregious that everyone has to resign that the Prime Minister is covering up today?

Mr. Speaker, section 121 of the Criminal Code makes it an offence for any government employee to accept a benefit from someone who has business with the government, which is why it was so strange that several years after the Prime Minister accepted over $200,000 in gifts from someone seeking a government grant in the form of his famous island vacation, there still have been no charges laid. Now we know that the Prime Minister implicated the RCMP in planning that very offence. How many times has he discussed that with the police force since he went on that vacation?

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week the government quietly tabled a response to an Order Paper question revealing that the $372-million Bombardier agreement has not been signed or finalized. It is not a done deal, so the Liberals have time to stop this outrageous taxpayer-funded bail-out of incompetent billionaire executives. The Liberals could, for example, reduce the amount they are handing Bombardier by the same amount Bombardier is paying its executives. Before the Liberals sign this deal and send the money, why will they not ban Bombardier billionaires from pocketing it?

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly how they justified banning her from speaking about the events that she witnessed during that time, and we know those events must have been egregious, so egregious that she felt she had to resign. However, when the deputy Conservative leader asked, “Can you tell us why you've resigned”, the answer was, “I cannot.” We simply asked for her to come back and finish the rest of the story. Today, we had a motion to do that, but the Prime Minister shut down the justice committee investigation. What is so egregious and ugly that the Prime Minister needed to cover it all up?

Mr. Speaker, it would have been the goal of any competent government to bring an end to destructive Buy American policies that block Canadian workers and businesses from state and local projects south of the border, yet the government has backed down to Donald Trump on pharmaceuticals, with higher drug prices for Canadians; and has backed down on copyright, dairy and numerous other issues. Today so far, it has not been able to point to any victory on Buy American.Can the minister confirm if Buy American will end with the signature of this deal?

Mr. Speaker, scare tactics? The Prime Minister said that our small businesses were nothing more than tax cheats. The finance minister tried to impose a 73% tax on small business investment. This is a government that attempted to double the tax on parents selling their businesses to children, so it would have a tax advantage in selling it to foreign multinationals. Scare tactics? The government scared the hell out of small business right across the country.The Liberals could put some of those fears to rest if they would promise now that they will never do it again.

Madam Speaker, try as they might, these Liberals cannot silence our efforts to expose the carbon tax coverup. The coverup began when the government provided me with documents that had calculated how much the average family would have to pay in new taxes under this scheme. The only problem is that it covered up the numbers. Ever since, I have been asking the Liberals to tell the truth, end the carbon tax coverup, and tell Canadians what this tax will cost them. Will the Liberals do that today?

Mr. Speaker, not only is the Minister of Finance unable to answer questions and follow the rules, but he cannot count.He said the deficit would be $10 billion; it was $20 billion. He said taxes would go up on the richest; in fact, the rich are paying $1 billion less. He said taxes would go down for the middle class, but 87% of them are paying more.When will the Prime Minister do the right thing and fire this incompetent minister who cannot follow the rules?

Mr. Speaker, the government said that there would be a little deficit that would create lots of jobs. Instead, we got lots of deficit and no jobs. In fact, there are 6,000 fewer people working today than a year ago when the government took office, 20,000 fewer manufacturing jobs, and the deficit is spiralling out of control. When will the finance minister learn that when one is in a hole, quit digging?

Mr. Speaker, pollution under the Liberal plan is absolutely free for any large industrial polluter that emits more than 50,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases. However, it is not free for a grandmother trying to heat her home in -30° weather. It is not free for a middle-class single mom taking her child to soccer. It is not free for a small business. They all deserve to know this. Will the tax go even higher after the next election if by some God-forsaken outcome that party wins that election?

Mr. Speaker, Toyota Canada released a poll today showing that half of British Columbians believe that fuel prices are too high and they will have to change their summer vacation plans. Prices have reached $1.80 a litre, a record for North America, and when the Prime Minister was asked about it, he said this is “exactly what we want”. However, it is not what he wants. He is jetting around at taxpayers' expense, burning fossil fuels to vacation in Florida and Tofino. Why will the Prime Minister not give taxpayers a break instead of engaging in high-carbon hypocrisy?

Mr. Speaker, The Globe and Mail alleges that the Prime Minister's Office interfered in order to try to get charges dropped in a massive fraud and bribery case. The corporation in question discussed law enforcement and justice with the Prime Minister's Office 14 times, including with PMO boss Gerald Butts. Did Mr. Butts ever discuss with SNC-Lavalin lobbyists the idea of giving the company a deal to avoid criminal prosecution?

Mr. Speaker, that was not the question.Gerald Butts is the boss at the PMO. The Prime Minister has told his caucus that anything that comes from Gerald Butts comes from the Prime Minister. In December, Mr. Butts talked about SNC-Lavalin's charges with the former attorney general. Again my question is very clear. What exactly did Gerald Butts say to the former attorney general in that December conversation?

Mr. Speaker, imagine infrastructure were ice cream, and a wealthy aristocrat wanted to make money selling ice cream cones. If he made a profit from his sales, he could put it in his pocket, but in order to avoid losses, he has the Liberals set up the ice cream cone bank to ensure that taxpayers pay the price if he makes a loss.Why will the government not admit that this is a gigantic, $35-billion self-licking ice cream cone for the wealthy elite?

Mr. Speaker, one solution would be to end the carbon tax cover-up and tell Canadians what this tax would cost.The Liberals can support the carbon tax all they want, but they should also tell Canadians what it will cost to pay that tax. If it is worth it, then what are they so afraid of? The reality is that they are trying to cover up the cost, and eventually they will produce some phoney estimate in order to try to deceive Canadians into believing that the costs are not as high as they, in fact, are. We know that. They stood on their feet for 12 hours trying to protect this cover-up. Why do they not end it today and tell Canadians what this tax will cost them?

Mr. Speaker, at a glitzy international conference last week, the Prime Minister attacked energy workers, saying that male construction workers go to rural communities and cause negative social and gender impact. While he is trying to build his international celebrity abroad, he is killing the livelihoods of working Canadians back at home. His “no more pipelines” Bill C-69 has been condemned by the industry, the Alberta government and numerous aboriginal communities. Will the Prime Minister finally scrap his “no more pipelines” Bill C-69?

Mr. Speaker, Kathleen Wynne was the Prime Minister's Liberal soulmate. They agreed on absolutely everything. They both raised taxes. They both ran massive deficits. They both wrap our entrepreneurs in red tape, and they both dance to Gerald Butts' tune. The agenda of high taxes and big government, of carbon taxes on working people, has been rejected by Ontarians. Will the Prime Minister take that message?

Mr. Speaker, the minister says that I am wrong to suggest that his billion-dollar family business, Morneau Shepell, will be sheltered from these changes.Could he please list the changes that will apply to Morneau Shepell?

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister hid his offshore company in France until he got caught, and then he reported it. He hid from Canadians his millions of dollars in Morneau Shepell shares in a numbered company in Alberta, despite wrongly telling others it was in a blind trust, until he got caught, and now he is selling them. Why does he expect us to blindly trust that he is not hiding other conflicts of interest in his eight additional numbered companies that he has across the country?

Mr. Speaker, I tried asking the minister inside the House of Commons if he sold 680,000 shares on November 30 and now I invited him to come and answer that question outside the House of Commons. The House will be disappointed to learn that he did not show up to answer the question, so will the Prime Minister answer it on his behalf? Who was it who sold 680,000 Morneau Shepell shares one week before tax measures were introduced on the floor of the House?

Shame on you, Bill, you're being dishonest. You're being very dishonest.

Mr. Speaker, well, he got me there. I did wear a Conservative T-shirt, but the Prime Minister can appreciate that at least I kept my shirt on.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order on the subject of unanimous consent for motions from the floor. Recently, the House of Commons put forward a motion to apologize to Mark Norman for the vicious attack by his government against him that caused a massive heartache for him and his family. The Prime Minister snuck out the door before that could be voted upon. I would like to invite him to rise now and—

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance had spokespeople from Morneau Shepell tell the media that his Morneau Shepell shares were in a blind trust. He had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families tell me on Twitter that his holdings were in a blind trust. He told the media himself two years ago that he suspected that his holdings would go into a blind trust. We know now that none of that was true. We also know that Morneau Shepell has holdings in the tax haven of Barbados. When did the minister sell his shares in Morneau Shepell?

Mr. Speaker, type 1 diabetes requires half a dozen blood tests a day and regular insulin treatment, without which patients can suffer heart failure, comas, amputation, or even death.Diabetes sufferers have been eligible for the disability tax credit for over a decade, but now the government is stripping it away and raising taxes by over $1,000 on these vulnerable Canadians.Why did the finance minister use a loophole to make $65,000 a month from a company he regulates while targeting vulnerable disabled Canadians with a tax increase?

Mr. Speaker, that the Liberals would dare talk about divisive rhetoric after the Prime Minister, the limousine Liberal, went down to Argentina at an international conference while our workers are struggling at home, and he insulted them and accused them of creating negative social and gender impacts, is absolutely disgusting and appalling. The first thing the government should do is apologize for that despicable rhetoric. When will the Liberals apologize for insulting working men and women, and scrap the “no more pipelines” bill at the same time?

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week the government quietly tabled a response to an Order Paper question revealing that the $372-million Bombardier agreement has not been signed or finalized. It is not a done deal, so the Liberals have time to stop this outrageous taxpayer-funded bail-out of incompetent billionaire executives. The Liberals could, for example, reduce the amount they are handing Bombardier by the same amount Bombardier is paying its executives. Before the Liberals sign this deal and send the money, why will they not ban Bombardier billionaires from pocketing it?

Mr. Speaker, the commissioner's job does not include investigating matters under the Criminal Code. There are two essential elements to paragraph 121(1)(c) of the Criminal Code: one, a government official accepting a benefit, and two, “from a person who has dealings with the government”.Did the Prime Minister accept a benefit from the Aga Khan? Does the Aga Khan have dealings with the government?

Mr. Speaker, the company is actually cutting jobs, 14,000 of them, while the Liberals hand over millions to billionaire executives, but it is not too late to stop it. We learned today that the deal is not signed and the government still has time to impose new conditions. Why will the Liberals not tell Bombardier that either it cancels its bonuses and its pay hikes until taxpayers get repaid or it will not get the money at all?

Mr. Speaker, well, he is not denying he said it now that he just realized that he accidentally blurted it out at a press conference. He told the former attorney general that the headquarters would be gone if she did not immediately shelve the charges against that company. It was a falsehood. It is impossible. The company is bound to stay in Montreal under a $1.5-billion loan deal with the Quebec pension plan. It just signed a 20-year lease and renovated its headquarters for its 2,000 employees there. It was completely false, yet he said it to try to get corruption charges dropped. Why?

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance started by saying he had revealed all of his holdings to the Ethics Commissioner. Now we know he has an offshore company in France that he did not disclose. He then said to the media, “I suspect all my assets will go into a blind trust.” That was two years ago. We now know that this did not happen either. Finally, he claimed that the Ethics Commissioner told him he should not put his holdings in a blind trust. Today she testified under oath that she told him no such thing.We cannot believe the Minister of Finance. When did he sell his shares?

Mr. Speaker, the member talks about an ethics screen requiring the minister to recuse himself from any matters affecting his company, Morneau Shepell. I have three questions. Did he recuse himself from any discussions on the Barbados tax haven where his company has a subsidiary? Did he recuse himself from any discussions on target benefit pension plans, from which his company stands to profit in the millions? Did he recuse himself from tax policies forcing small businesses to invest in individualized pension plans, from which his company stands to profit?

Mr. Speaker, the minister is not the only one who will apologize today. There has been a grievous procedural error, of which I am the author. The other day I raised a point of order in the House of Commons with respect to redacted documents, documents that would show the impact of an increased carbon tax on the most vulnerable people. I failed to table those redacted documents, and as a remedy, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to table them now.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister claimed that energy east was cancelled because oil prices dropped. I have the letter here from TransCanada, the project's sponsor. It does not mention a word about oil prices, but it does say, “Notwithstanding these efforts, there remains substantial uncertainty around the scope, timing and cost associated with the regulatory review of the Projects.” After completing its review of these factors and the associated costs implicated with the regulatory process, they decided to withdraw the project.Did the Prime Minister not know that the reason the project was cancelled was because of his regulatory obstacles, or did he know, and did he mislead the House?

Mr. Speaker, I understand that to mean there will not actually be a bill before the measures take effect. Our small family businesses will be forced to follow laws that do not even exist. How does the government expect anyone to run a business with rules that are written nowhere than in a press release, released the night before Christmas?

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that this minister is hiring a lot of tax collectors. The problem is that they are going after the wrong people—diabetics, farmers, and small business owners—not the real tax cheats. As for her comment that no one is interfering with the CRA, well, maybe no one except the Prime Minister and her. She wrote a letter on July 31, in which she said that type 1 diabetics are unlikely to qualify for the disability tax credit even when their doctors certify they are diabetic. Will she withdraw that letter and tell her department to give diabetics back their tax credit?

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order emanating from earlier in the week, when I attempted to table the Liberal platform. Unfortunately, some members on the other side thought I was tabling another platform. It is their platform.I ask for unanimous consent to show that the Liberals promised a balanced budget in 2019.

Mr. Speaker, lying to a law officer is an offence under section 139 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits obstructing, perverting or defeating the course of justice. The Prime Minister told the former attorney general on September 17 that if she did not immediately shelve the charges into SNC-Lavalin, the company's headquarters would jet to London. Today, the CEO of the company indicated that he never said that and that it is not true. Why did the Prime Minister state a blatant falsehood to get charges dropped against SNC-Lavalin?

Mr. Speaker, The Globe and Mail alleges that the Prime Minister's Office interfered in order to try to get charges dropped in a massive fraud and bribery case. The corporation in question discussed law enforcement and justice with the Prime Minister's Office 14 times, including with PMO boss Gerald Butts. Did Mr. Butts ever discuss with SNC-Lavalin lobbyists the idea of giving the company a deal to avoid criminal prosecution?

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister appears unable to stand and answer basic questions about a plan that he will impose in just three weeks. It is not just that the finance minister owned shares in a company he regulated, or introduced a pension bill while having ownership in a pension company, or sold shares just a week before market-moving tax measures, all those things were ethical lapses and failures. However, because he is up to his eyeballs in these troubles, he is unable to do his job, which is to answer questions and tell people what the rules will be. If he cannot do the work of a finance minister, why will he not step aside and let someone else do it for him?

Mr. Speaker, once again I merely quoted sections out of the Criminal Code without referring to the Prime Minister. He instantaneously assumed that I was making a personal attack against him. This is a Prime Minister who accepted a gift that is worth approximately $200,000 from someone who was seeking a $15 million grant from the Government of Canada. Does he dispute these facts?

Mr. Speaker, how about a riddle? According to Finance Canada, the federal government had a balanced budget in 2015. Now, Finance Canada says we will have deficits until 2055. In just one Liberal budget, we added four decades of deficits. After a second Liberal budget, in approximately what century will we be projected to balance?

Mr. Speaker, moving on to another group of billionaires, the Bombardier Beaudoin family has super-voting shares in the company, which give it a slim 53% control of the company.They cannot raise desperately needed cash by issuing new shares, because they would lose their majority and along with it the privileges to shower themselves in money and hire family members onto the executive. Therefore, they get taxpayers' money instead from Liberal governments here and in Quebec.The Prime Minister has used 400 million tax dollars to protect these feudal privileges. Will he now join with other investors and ask them to step aside?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised a deficit of just $10 billion, and failed. It was more than double that. He said the money would go to infrastructure. He failed there too. We do not know where it has gone. He said the deficit would be gone in three years. He has failed on that. Now he says it will be another 25 years, during which half a trillion dollars will be added to the debt. Given all these failures, how can we trust anything the Prime Minister says about Canadians' money?

Mr. Speaker, today the PBO released its annual jobs assessment. It showed unemployment down across the U.S., the G7, and the OECD but up in Canada, where we had a net loss of 6,000 full-time jobs, plus, average hours worked down, 40,000 mining and resource jobs gone, and 20,000 manufacturing jobs gone.When will the Prime Minister accept the evidence that tax, borrow, and spend has failed.

Mr. Speaker, when leaders in China dismissed the Prime Minister as “little potato”, he thought they meant it as a compliment—

Mr. Speaker, the government said that there would be a little deficit that would create lots of jobs. Instead, we got lots of deficit and no jobs. In fact, there are 6,000 fewer people working today than a year ago when the government took office, 20,000 fewer manufacturing jobs, and the deficit is spiralling out of control. When will the finance minister learn that when one is in a hole, quit digging?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister claims that if he had allowed SNC-Lavalin to face criminal conviction, the company would be banned from getting federal contracts and would go out of business.However, in December 2015 the government gave SNC-Lavalin a deal exempting it from the ban despite criminal charges. Now the government is changing the policy to exempt SNC-Lavalin even if it gets convicted.If the Prime Minister plans to allow SNC-Lavalin to get contracts even after a conviction, why did he need to intervene to stop the company from going to trial in the first place?

Madam Speaker, the journal entries, text messages and audio recordings show that at least 12 top government officials, including the Prime Minister himself, interfered in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, yet only two have appeared. Their appearances were so disastrous that both of them have had to resign from their jobs.The remaining 10 have not been called upon to answer for the interference we know they engaged in as a result of documented records proving it. Will the government allow the ethics committee to continue an investigation that will bring them all forward?

Mr. Speaker, this Liberal carbon tax will not only cost people their jobs; it will cost them a fortune. That is why the Liberals have censored Finance Canada documents showing the cost of the tax on the poor and the middle class.Today we learned that the Minister of Finance also censored from his economic update projections showing that the deficits would continue well into 2050. Is the government's tax and borrow addiction so bad that it has to cover up its symptoms?

Mr. Speaker, the minister is doing exactly what she said she would do. She will just repeat and repeat something, even if it is not true, so people will totally believe it.The facts are out. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the carbon tax would have to be 400% higher than the Liberals have admitted. The reality is that would mean a painful 25¢ a litre tax on gas.I am asking a simple yes or no question. Are the Liberals planning a painful 25¢ a litre tax on gas?

Madam Speaker, this morning the Minister of Finance had a rendevous with reality. A group of small business people piled in to his town hall meeting in Oakville and told him that his plan will not only pick their pockets but screw up their life plans. It will make it impossible for them to save for maternity, severance, a rainy day, or retirement. It will mean fewer doctors in our rural communities. It will mean a harder time for young women to get into entrepreneurship. He is going to have to back down from this tax increase. Why does the minister not just do it today?

Mr. Speaker, if the government has nothing to hide, then it does not need to use all of that black ink to cover up the cost of the carbon tax to the average Canadian family.Speaking of costs, we learned today that the government's already promise-breaking deficit will be even bigger than the finance minister admitted just a few months ago. He said it would be $18 billion; now the PBO says it will be $22 billion, almost a 20% increase in only a couple of weeks.How did the finance minister get his numbers so wrong again?

Mr. Speaker, getting rid of the investor-state provision was actually a demand of Donald Trump's. The Liberals actually support investor-state protections. They put them in the CPTPP and in CETA. So to now take credit for a capitulation they made in favour of Trump is laughable.As for this ratchet clause, the Liberals were trying to flip through the deal to find something they had won on. It turns out this ratchet clause has never been used in 30 years, just to show how irrelevant this so-called victory was. The Liberals got nothing on steel tariffs, nothing on softwood tariffs and nothing on buy America. Why did they get so little—

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a golden rule: Those with the gold make the rules.When SNC-Lavalin was charged with stealing $130 million from Libya's poor, he rushed in to block it from having to go to trial. When Loblaws billionaires ripped off the poor by fixing the price of bread and ripped of taxpayers by stashing their cash in the Carribean, the Prime Minister gave them $12 million for their efforts.Why does the Prime Minister always take from the have-nots to give to the have-yachts?

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I repeated outside of the House the same questions that I have been asking inside of the House. Unfortunately, the minister will not answer those questions in either of those two places. Somebody sold $10 million of shares a week before the minister introduced tax changes that caused the stock market and Morneau Shepell shares to drop. Was that somebody him?

Mr. Speaker, as is usual, the Prime Minister was wrong in the choice he presented them.He said that the deficit this year would be $6 billion; instead, it is $18 billion, three times bigger. He said that next year the budget would be balanced, and now we learn that it will not be for another quarter of a century, during which time he will add, or some future government will add, a half a trillion dollars in debt, presuming there is no more spending.Once again, when will the budget be balanced?

Fifteen billion dollars, Madam Speaker. The parliamentary secretary should read division 18, clause 23 of the budget legislation, which says that it is $35 billion. That is $35 billion that, on the same page, will go to things like loan guarantees that ensure that potentially profitable projects, if they go wrong, will end up costing Canadian taxpayers a fortune. Why is the government privatizing profit while nationalizing risk?

Mr. Speaker, to quote the government, “Budget 2016 proposes that further reductions in the small business income tax rate be deferred”, but wait. The small business minister said this month, “I wouldn't say that it's been deferred”.If it was not deferred, then it is either (a) going ahead on schedule or (b) cancelled altogether. Which is it?

Mr. Speaker, the question was for the finance minister. He is the one who says he is going to impose a reasonableness test on what family businesses can pay their family members. It is not just the past chief justice of the tax court, but the current chief justice who, in an extraordinary comment, said these rules are so vague that no one will know how to enforce them or interpret them.Why does the government not listen to the judges and small businesses and do away with this complex web of tax increases?

Mr. Speaker, I am simply asking the question. That side is demanding that we make allegations against the finance minister. It is a very strange way for question period to unfold.The reality is that, if a chief financial officer sold stocks a week before disappointing quarterly financial results were released, losing his job would be the least of his problems. He would be fired. Will the CEO of the Government of Canada fire his CFO now?

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have spent another billion dollars on tax collectors. Who have those tax collectors gone after? Have they gone after Morneau Shepell? Have they gone after the billionaire Bronfman family, or have they instead decided to go after people suffering with diabetes, or after minimum wage-earning waitresses who enjoy a small chicken sandwich at the end of the shift or after small businesses and farmers? When will this high-tax hypocrisy come to an end?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister accidentally told the truth, that this is a tax. He should listen to the director general of the Windsor mission, who said, “People have actually come in with their hydro bill in one hand and said 'If you can help me with food, then I can pay for some of this hydro bill before it gets cut off.'"The Liberal Green Energy Act has hammered Ontario's poor with skyrocketing electricity prices. Now the federal Liberal carbon tax will do the same to heating, gas, and grocery bills. Why is the Prime Minister forcing the poor to choose between heating their homes and feeding their families?

Mr. Speaker, the House has unanimously changed copyright laws to implement the Marrakesh Treaty, freeing up over one-quarter of a million braille audio and large print books for Canada's blind at no cost to taxpayers or users. The Senate is likely to pass the same bill this month. The CEO of the World Blind Union calls the Marrakesh Treaty the biggest development for blind literacy since the invention of braille. We need two more countries to sign on for it to take effect. What is the Minister of Foreign Affairs's plan to recruit two additional countries to the Marrakesh Treaty so we can bring over 270,000 books for the blind?

Mr. Speaker, funding for both phases of the Ottawa transit were provided under the previous Conservative government, and it was set aside within the budget framework, within the context of a balanced budget.The Liberals' deficit is twice what they promised. Taxes are up on 80% of middle-class taxpayers, which is another broken promise. Before they make a third broken promise in a row, will Liberals tell us how much the average Canadian family will spend on this carbon tax?

Mr. Speaker, now she is quoting a politician about an incident he just admitted he did not witness. Why not get back to the people who did witness her? The former attorney general told cabinet this week, according to The Globe and Mail, that she faced inappropriate pressure to interfere with the criminal trial of SNC-Lavalin. If that happened, it may have violated sections of the Criminal Code. Did anyone in the cabinet refer her allegation to the RCMP for investigation?

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for me to table in this House documents that would indicate the cost to the average Canadian family of the Liberal carbon tax. The documents are blacked out, but I would like to table them for the House's edification.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.I rise today in the Christmas spirit, and also in a spirit of great nonpartisanship, to table, with unanimous consent, a copy of the Liberal platform, which promises a balanced budget in 2019.

Mr. Speaker, on December 7, 2015, the Minister of Finance introduced a motion in the House of Commons to raise taxes effective January 1 of the forthcoming year. The stock market dropped, and so did Morneau Shepell, by five percentage points, but not before someone could sell $10 million in Morneau Shepell shares one week before that drop, and one week before that bill was introduced. Can the minister tell us who sold those shares?

Mr. Speaker, when it was revealed that the Prime Minister had brought a convicted terrorist along on his trip, he claimed that it was a backbench MP who had arranged it. Now he claims that it was the Indian government that did it through a conspiracy. Is he alleging that his own backbench MP is part of a conspiracy orchestrated by the Indian government?

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform the House of a breach of Standing Order 39. It is in regard to what is now popularly known as the carbon tax cover-up. It may rise—

Mr. Speaker, the question was not whether they are spending more money on tax collectors. The question was with regard to the treaty with Barbados—

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Prime Minister mentioned the Ethics Commissioner, because his vice-chair asked the Ethics Commissioner if he agreed that a minister should return any improperly received gifts. The commissioner said, “Of course it would be—”.Does the Prime Minister agree with the Ethics Commissioner on that?

Mr. Speaker, the members did not get a chance to hear this. It says, “Yes, most middle-class families are paying more in income taxes” today.

Mr. Speaker, imagine infrastructure were ice cream, and a wealthy aristocrat wanted to make money selling ice cream cones. If he made a profit from his sales, he could put it in his pocket, but in order to avoid losses, he has the Liberals set up the ice cream cone bank to ensure that taxpayers pay the price if he makes a loss.Why will the government not admit that this is a gigantic, $35-billion self-licking ice cream cone for the wealthy elite?

Says the President of the Treasury Board who was the greatest defender of the sponsorship scandal anywhere in Canada, Mr. Speaker. He now expects us to believe that the novel he held up, which he calls his “budget book”, has any legal weight in restricting on what the government spends this $7 billion no-strings-attached Liberal slush fund. What crisis justifies giving those Liberal ministers the power to spend that money with no restrictions right in an election year?

Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister told Canadians that he would take $10 in carbon taxes from them for every $9 in rebates he returned and make them somehow better off, they were understandably suspicious. Now they are learning that this original $10 in upfront taxes might not include the HST on the tax. That is a tax on the taxes. The finance minister refused to confirm whether that was the case. Yes or no, will the HST apply on the carbon tax?

Mr. Speaker, the government likes to claim that its carbon tax will be “revenue neutral”.We already knew that they were going to collect GST on the carbon tax, but today Environment Canada officials testified at the finance committee that the government will not return the proceeds of GST collected on the carbon tax to the provinces from which it was originally collected.Is that not yet more proof that this tax has nothing to do with the environment, and that it is just another tax grab on Canadians?

Mr. Speaker, to create an awesome company, it takes treasure and talent, but young companies often do not have the treasure to pay for the talent, so they use stock options. In fact, thousands of companies have grown through use of stock options right across this country, many of them entrepreneurs right here in Ottawa.They are now speaking out against the Liberal plan to double taxes on stock options, which they say would drive thousands of jobs and opportunities abroad.Will the Liberals announce they are reversing their plan to raise taxes on these job creators, so that we can keep these excellent opportunities right here at home?

Mr. Speaker, it is important for us to keep our promises in both official languages so that I think you will find unanimous consent to allow me to table in the House of Commons the Liberal Party platform showing that the budget will be balanced in the year 2019, which is this year.

Mr. Speaker, let us talk about this famous tax policy. The minister made sure to sell his shares before his tax increases took effect so he would not have to pay any of the taxes he was imposing on others.However, who is paying more now? People suffering with diabetes. Now we learn that people suffering with autism are losing the disability tax credit, a tax increase of $1,500 for families that are suffering with great hardship. Whenever Liberals raise taxes, why do they always target those with the least?

Mr. Speaker, there are over one million Canadians with disabilities who have jobs and contribute to our economy, and 300,000 of them have severe disabilities. However, Stats Canada reports that tens of thousands of people with disabilities are effectively banned from working, because clawbacks and taxes make them poorer when they do. My opportunity act would impose one simple rule that governments must respect: that workers with disabilities must always be able to gain more from wages than they lose to clawbacks and taxes. Does the government support that principle?

Mr. Speaker, I know the member is very proud that millionaire CEOs and U.S. Republican wealthy elites favour a carbon tax. We on this side of the House of Commons are actually fighting for working-class Canadians.Yesterday we learned that Kathleen Wynne will use proceeds of the carbon tax to give rebates for $150,000 Teslas.This is another prime Liberal example of welfare for the wealthy. When will the Liberals finally stand up for the hard-working men and women who pay the bills in this country?

Mr. Speaker, when the original revelations about Stephen Bronfman's connections to a Cayman Islands tax haven came to light earlier this month, the Prime Minister said, “We have received assurances that all rules were followed...and we are satisfied with those assurances.”Is the Prime Minister still satisfied with the assurances that his top fundraiser followed all the rules?

Mr. Speaker, as families look to buy Christmas gifts, they are haunted by worry, worry about the record household debt that has now reached $1.67 for every dollar of household earnings, worry compounded by the new taxes the government promises on wages, on gasoline, on home heating and electricity, and maybe even on health and dental plans.As we get closer to Christmas, when will the government realize that many families have nothing more to give?

Mr. Speaker, I asked the finance minister whom he directed to dispose of his shares and the only person he named was the Ethics Commissioner, but to my knowledge, the Ethics Commissioner is not a licensed stock broker and would not be the appropriate person to sell stocks on behalf of any member of cabinet, so I presume that he had his own stock broker. I wonder if he could tell us, did he ever discuss the timing or price of the sale of his $10.2-million in shares that he sold before introducing his tax measures?

Mr. Speaker, what millionaire friends? There is the millionaire friend, right in the front row, who inherited a big, multi-million dollar family fortune, as he likes to call it. He says, “You have never had it so great, fellow Canadians.”For those with family fortunes, that is true. For people who are struggling to pay their bills, who have lost their children's fitness tax credit, their transit tax credit and their textbook and education tax credit, the costs have never been so high.Why will the Liberals not admit that if given another chance, they will raise taxes, just like they have already done?

Mr. Speaker, the member says that he wants to make Canada the best place to invest in the world. In 2016, foreign investment in Canada fell by 42%. It could not get any lower. However, in 2017, it fell again by 27%. When money leaves Canada, jobs go with it. The government seems determined to send both south of the border to help Donald Trump's agenda, rather than the agenda of Canadian workers. Why?

Mr. Speaker, Stephen Bronfman is the Prime Minister's top moneyman, and was the Liberal Party's “revenue chair”. The Prime Minister vacations with him. He even broke protocol to bring him to a state dinner with then President Obama. Now we know that he used a $60 million tax haven scheme to avoid paying his fair share in Canada. If the Prime Minister wants to restore any credibility on the issue of tax fairness, will he immediately order the Liberal Party to give back all the money Stephen Bronfman raised for the Liberals?

Mr. Speaker, actually the Conservative government, before the last election, led our country out of the greatest global recession since the 1930s, with the lowest debt, the lowest unemployment and the greatest job growth. As for the debt, those members on the other side said, “spend more, spend faster, build up more debt.” It is a good thing we ignored them and left them with a balanced budget. We know the growing deficits that the Prime Minister is imposing on Canadians today will lead to higher taxes tomorrow if, God forbid, that party is re-elected. Why will the Liberals not tell the truth about that before the election?

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is so concerned about climate change, why is she so pleased to have emissions of greenhouse gases resulting from transporting produce from Mexico to Ottawa rather than from Ottawa to Ottawa? That is exactly the effect of her new carbon tax. She says that she wants more innovation. SunTech Greenhouses is innovative. It makes tomatoes in Canada in January. That is innovation.Why is the government so determined to tax our farmers and our innovators out of jobs?

Mr. Speaker, Gordon Pape, the famous financial expert, wrote in the Globe and Mail after the minister's tax increase was introduced on the floor of the House of Commons, “If you've been considering taking profits on some of your stocks, do it now. You'll save the equivalent of 2 per cent federal tax plus the provincial share.” As a result, many sold their shares and the stock market dropped. Morneau Shepell dropped 5%. A week before the minister introduced his measures on the floor of the House of Commons, someone sold $10 million of Morneau Shepell shares. Was it him?

Mr. Speaker, it is the Prime Minister's own words. He said, “I no longer have dealings with the way our family fortune is managed.” However, because he has never had to balance a household budget, he thinks budgets balance themselves. He is not worried about costs because he just makes others pay for his mistakes. His deficits are now out of control and breaking his own promises. Sooner or later, if he is allowed to continue, they will lead to higher taxes. How much will his tax plan cost Canadians and who will have to pay?

Mr. Speaker, he has used his “better choices” line again. Nothing could better indicate how much he is out of touch. This millionaire Prime Minister told British Columbians, who are paying $1.60 a litre for gas, that they just need to make better choices if they want to stop overpaying to get from A to B. Furthermore, the Prime Minister wants to charge the GST on top of the carbon tax. He will raise a quarter of a billion dollars in B.C. and Alberta alone.How much money will his government take from taxpayers in this tax on the tax?

Mr. Speaker, now the admission is even more explicit. He said that if the large emitters had to pay the same carbon tax as everyone else the jobs would leave the country and it would do nothing for emissions. That is exactly what we have been saying about the carbon tax all along. It would raise the cost of doing business here in environmentally friendly Canada and drive jobs to places with lower environmental standards. That would drive up pollution worldwide and unemployment here at home. When will the government listen to its own rhetoric on the carbon tax?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister accuses me of misrepresenting the Fraser Institute's report? Wait now. That is interesting, because the authors of that report have actually taken to the newspapers with an op-ed saying that he has misrepresented their research. I will be happy to send him over that op-ed. They calculate that he raised taxes on 80% of middle-class families. How much more will those same families have to pay with his new carbon tax?

Mr. Speaker, remember this great hit. “I'm looking Canadians straight in the eye and being honest, the way I always have. We are committed to balanced budgets, and we are. We will balance that budget in 2019.” The Prime Minister only missed that promise by $20 billion.When he looks Canadians in the eye in the next election and promises not to raise their taxes again, why should anyone believe what he says?

Mr. Speaker, if the minister had not owned those stocks over the last two years while ministers are banned from owning stocks, then he would not have had those profits in the first place. Can he confirm now if he will donate the resulting tax savings that he will enjoy from the charitable tax credit to help pay off his deficit?

Mr. Speaker, speaking of the most wealthy, we know that those with good financial advice, who were privileged to know what they should do with their money, declared their income in the 2015 tax year. They sold their shares before the year finished, and therefore were taxed at a lower rate than they wanted charged on other people.One of them might have been the finance minister, if he did in fact sell the $10 million worth of shares on November 30, 2015. Did he?

Well, Mr. Speaker, the truth is that during the great global recession, the Conservatives had the smallest deficits and the smallest debt of any country in the G7, and the Liberals, at the same time, said, “Spend more, spend now, spend faster.” They said we should do like Kathleen Wynne, which was to lie in four elections about tax increases while doubling the debt and doubling power bills. That is exactly the strategy of the Prime Minister: to hide his tax increases until after the election, when he no longer needs Canadians' votes.

Fair, Mr. Speaker? He thinks it is fair that he has a middle-class plan that does not give anything to people earning just $45,000 a year, a plan that forces such workers to pay higher taxes on home heating, gas, and electricity, and maybe even lose their jobs because the employer cannot afford that tax, and now a new tax on health benefits that could force families to have to buy its own private supplementary plan, which would cost thousands of dollars.In what universe is such an approach fair to the middle class?

Mr. Speaker, now the Prime Minister has effectively admitted that when he looked 37 million Canadians in the eye on February 15 and told them that the former attorney general had never spoken a word about her concerns, he was stating a patent falsehood. There is a word for that kind of falsehood that I cannot utter on the floor of the House of Commons.Will the Prime Minister, having now caught himself in his own trap of contradiction and deception, apologize to the Canadian people for stating that falsehood on February 15?

Mr. Speaker, by middle class, he apparently means the people who can afford to attend $1,500-a-plate fundraisers. That is why he cut taxes for people earning $200,000 a year. They got $800, but someone earning $45,000 got exactly zero. The new $100 billion in debts that Liberals are adding is great news for the billionaire bond holders who will collect interest on it, but for the working class people who have to pay that interest through their taxes, it is a nightmare. When will the finance minister realize that Canadians have their own debts and cannot afford to pay for his?

Mr. Speaker, our drama teacher Prime Minister has decided to write his own report card about how he is living up to his election commitments. In his fall economic update he rates the commitment of balancing the budget in 2019, and here is the status: “Actions taken, progress made, facing challenges”.If action has been taken and progress is being made, will the government answer now once and for all in what year will the budget be balanced?

Mr. Speaker, earlier today I asked a question of the Minister of Finance and he rose to respond. Then I asked a supplemental question, and he was sheltered from answering.I was wondering if you would permit the hon. minister to rise now and answer that question.

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister used a loophole to keep himself invested in a financial company that he regulates. He earned $13 million, while finance minister, through the use of that loophole, all the while going across the country calling honest plumbers and farmers tax cheats. When did the Prime Minister know that his finance minister had shares in Morneau Shepell?

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance introduced a bill allowing his family business to make millions of dollars setting up targeted benefit pension plans. As a $20-million shareholder in that company, the finance minister stood to profit from his own bill. He used public powers for his private profit.Did the finance minister have the permission of the Ethics Commissioner to introduce a law that would profit his own company?

Mr. Speaker, well, the minister says he raised taxes on the wealthy. He is pretty wealthy. If anybody sold their shares before the end of 2015, he or she would have not paid a penny more because of these tax increases. Far more important than that, if he or she was able to sell before these measures were crystalized in a motion before the House of Commons, that individual would have avoided the resulting drop in the stock market, in particular the 5% drop in Morneau Shepell shares. That person saved a cool half million dollars. Was the minister that person?

Madam Speaker, I first want to congratulate the member for some pretty impressive metaphors. He put those together rather well. I am going to avoid the metaphors and stick to the published facts, and I am going to use two sources. One is the “Fiscal Monitor” that his finance minister authorized the publication of just last week. It showed that in the months immediately preceding his government taking office, in fact, Canada had an accumulated surplus of $1 billion. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in a document that was published in November as well, the PBO had a projected surplus of $1.2 billion for the present fiscal year. These are not Conservative sources and these are not books that were on the Conservative stove. We do not put our books on stoves because we do not believe in burning books. These books tell us that Canada is in surplus and that means sunny ways for us all.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has gone on the hunt for wealthy tax cheats, but skipped right over his finance minister, who had hidden interests in France and Barbados, and skipped over his chief fundraiser in the Liberal Party, who is linked to a $60-million tax haven in the Caribbean, but he did find diabetics, and farmers, and now special forces soldiers.When will Sherlock Holmes over there realize that if he is looking for wealthy tax dodgers, they are all around him?

Mr. Speaker, when I reported to the House that the Fraser Institute had calculated that 81% of middle-class taxpayers were paying more under the Liberal government, the Prime Minister said, “No, that report did not say any such thing”, prompting the authors of the report to go to the newspapers and say, “Yes, most middle-class families are paying more in income tax.” We cannot trust the government on taxes. We ask the government to come clean and tell us how much this carbon tax will cost these same middle-class families.

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the Liberals inherited that from the previous government. The previous government took Canada through the great global recession with the best job results, the lowest taxes, and the biggest middle-class income growth of any government since records have been kept—

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised before the last election that he, because he is a millionaire, would stop taking child care benefits. Now he is taking taxpayer-funded nanny services for his kids while making everybody else pay for their child care out of their own pockets.On the issue of taxes, the Fraser Institute has calculated that 80% of middle-class taxpayers are paying more since the Prime Minister took office, $800 more. How much will those same families have to pay in higher carbon taxes?

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right: we did do a panel yesterday, at which point, outside of the walls of this House, I asked when the Minister of Finance sold his 680,000 shares in Morneau Shepell. I also enumerated all the facts leading up to that sale, and I am absolutely confident that everything I have said out there and in here is true. Would he commit that, if I go out and repeat my question in the lobby at this moment, the finance minister will meet me there and answer the question?

Mr. Speaker, we just witnessed the Prime Minister accuse the Waupoos Farm of attacking the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is an organization that provides low-income families with a rare recreational opportunity, the chance to have a vacation that they could not otherwise afford. It does not impose any values of any kind on those families. Waupoos Farm invites them and gives them an opportunity to recreate together and grow. Why is it that the Prime Minister is prepared to support funding for jobs for organizations that are taking away opportunities from Canadians, but not for those trying to help the less fortunate?

Mr. Speaker, actually, the Conservative government had the best economic growth and the lowest debt levels in the G7, and we came roaring back with a million new jobs after the great global recession. We also had the best middle-class income growth in 40 years, according to the most recent Liberal budget. The Prime Minister can spread falsehoods about the past, but what he should do is tell the truth about the future. He said that the budget would balance itself in 2019. He is breaking that promise. Therefore, when will we have a balanced budget?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister calls them boutique tax credits for the wealthy. He says that any family that used the public transit tax credit to take the bus is too wealthy. He says that any dad or mom who used the children's fitness tax credit to put kids in hockey are too wealthy. He says that any family that wanted to use income splitting to have a stay-at-home dad is too wealthy.Is that not just a little bit rich from a trust fund Prime Minister who lives in a tax-funded mansion?