Lethbridge Herald: Liberals Defy Logic with Continued Carbon Tax Hikes

April Fool’s Day has come and gone, and with it, one of the cruelest jokes this government has sprung so far. Amid one of the worst affordability crises this country has ever seen, the Liberals have chosen to ignore the cry of Canadians and increase their punitive carbon tax by 23 percent.

Canadians already feel squeezed, but their concerns fall on deaf ears in Ottawa. Two-thirds of Canadians cite the carbon tax as an added burden they cannot afford, according to a poll by Angus Reid Institute.

Every month, my staff and I hear from hundreds of constituents who are struggling to pay their rent, put food on their tables, or fuel up their vehicles. Those living on a fixed income, such as seniors and those living with a disability, are among the hardest hit. People often come into my office with their home heating bill to show me the carbon tax line. The amount is often just as much or more than the actual cost of the natural gas they used for the month.

It's ludicrous.

While the Prime Minister can pat himself on the back for “doing something” to appease his enviro-activist supporters, he kneecaps the agriculture sector and further punishes Canadians who are already having a hard time feeding their families. Trudeau fails to understand that if you tax the farmer who makes the food and the trucker who ships the food, the tax ultimately lands with the person who buys the food.

Trudeau knows that Canadians despise the carbon tax. However, rather than offering the relief families desperately seek by scrapping the tax altogether, the Liberals have opted to spend taxpayer money on consultants to "rebrand" it to make it more acceptable. In a desperate attempt to save face amidst plummeting popularity, the Prime Minister has decided to rename the carbon tax and spin it as the “Canada Carbon Rebate.”

It is the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig.

To top it off, the Liberal government would have Canadians believe that despite all evidence to the contrary, they are somehow better off with the carbon tax because it results in a rebate that is supposedly greater than the amount of the tax.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer would disagree. According to him, people pay far more tax than they ever get back in the suggested rebate. In Alberta, residents are worse off by nearly $1000 per year. For most households, this is a lot of money. How much pressure would it alleviate for families if they were able to keep more of their hard-earned paycheque instead of paying the costly carbon tax?

Trudeau reaches into the left pocket of Canadians and takes out a wad of cash. Then, deposits a few coins into the right pocket and expects taxpayers to praise him for his generosity.

Make no mistake, as Margaret Thatcher put it, “the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves.” In the face of Liberal deception, Canadians are not fooled. It is unsurprising that 70 percent of Canadians and 70 percent of premiers oppose Trudeau’s recent tax hike.

My colleagues and I have listened to the overwhelming call of Canadians to stop the carbon tax. In March, Conservatives proposed a motion to prevent the carbon tax hike. This motion, if passed, would have slammed the brakes on the carbon tax increase and delivered much-needed relief to families. Unfortunately, the Liberals and NDP joined forces to go full steam ahead with their tax hike.

Then, acting on the most signed e-petition in Canadian history, Conservatives called for a motion of non-confidence to trigger an election and allow Canadians to express their concerns at the ballot box. Sadly, the Liberals and NDP voted together again, preventing a carbon tax election.

The corrupt Liberal government must stop punishing Canadians for simply trying to live and provide for their families. The people of this country deserve a government that unleashes their potential and champions a vibrant future for hard-working Canadians—a future where overbearing tax measures are replaced with opportunities for growth and progress.

With more resolve than ever, my Conservative colleagues and I will continue the fight to restore affordability and ensure Canadians are empowered to live a life rich in opportunity.

Lethbridge Herald: ArriveScam: The Liberal’s Latest Multimillion Dollar Boondoggle

How much would you be willing to pay for a phone app?

Most of us download dozens of free apps but hesitate once the cost hits one dollar.

What about a $60 million app?

“WTF?” was asked in question period recently in the House of Commons.

This commonly understood acronym was given a new meaning when the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, posed it to the Prime Minister. The Speaker of the House asked Mr. Poilievre to clarify, and he did.

“Where’s the Funds?”

The question is about the latest Liberal boondoggle, the ArriveCan app, or as it has come to be known: ArriveScam.

ArriveScam marks another disastrous example of Mr. Trudeau’s costly and corrupt government.

This was the flagship app the Liberals pushed on Canadians as part of their COVID strategy. This is an app that Canadians did not want and did not need. And to make matters worse, it did not work. It caused thousands of travelers and workers to be quarantined, falsely detained, and harassed without reason. 

The app was dysfunctional from the get-go and it was a nightmare to use. My office heard from many of you who missed work and other important events because the app falsely instructed you to quarantine or caused other issues.

Then there was the actual cost of the app. The Prime Minister told Canadians it would only cost $80 thousand. Instead, an earth-shattering report by the Auditor General reveals the cost of the app turned out to be 750 times greater than what the Prime Minister promised.

Of the $60 million wasted on ArriveScam, nearly $19 million went to a small consulting firm named GC Strategies. This ‘firm’ is a company headquartered in a house basement and, at the time of the app being built, consisted of only two people.

After helping the Liberals by drafting the application requirements for the IT grant, the company was awarded the money. If it smells fishy to you, it’s because it is.

When GC Strategies was questioned about this debacle, the owners admitted they took the cash but did no work. Instead, they googled other companies that might be able to help them and subcontracted the project. The Auditor General’s report reveals that 76 percent of the ArriveScam contractors received payment but did nothing to contribute to the app’s creation.

The Auditor General’s report found the documentation from these contractors was so incomplete it was not even possible to accurately assess the final cost of the app. There was no paper trail and no solid way to find out how much money Canadians lost. $60 million is the minimum.

And it gets worse. The cozy deal between the Liberal government and GC Strategies extends well beyond the ArriveScam app. A recent article by La Presse indicates the Liberal government has awarded more than $258 million in contracts to this shady company during Mr. Trudeau’s time in office!

ArriveScam is one more example of crooked Liberal dealings that have left taxpayers with less money. Consider scandals like the We Charity scandal, the SNC-Lavalin scandal, or the Clam scam. In all three cases, the Prime Minister picked his friends to win contracts and make big money at the expense of Canadians.

Every day, my office hears from Canadians struggling to make ends meet. It is maddening to know the tax dollars collected on the backs of Canadians are going to the Prime Minister’s buddies, while more than two million people line up at food banks each month.

Conservatives ordered the owners of GC Strategies to committee to provide answers, but they refused the summons. Despite the Liberals doing all they could to stall our efforts, Conservatives finally passed a motion to arrest and drag those who are responsible for ArriveScam before the committee.

On Wednesday, we passed a motion forcing the Trudeau Government to refund Canadian taxpayers for the money they wasted on ArriveScam by reclaiming the money they paid to GC Strategies.

The Liberal government and GC Strategies must be held accountable for one of the biggest scams in Canadian history.

Only Conservatives are committed to ending the corruption in Ottawa and ensuring Canadians hear the truth.

Lethbridge Herald: Mr. Trudeau’s Fantasy is Incompatible with Canada’s Reality

It is playfully said that in Canada, we have two seasons: winter and almost winter.

Canadians are well-accustomed to dealing with snow, ice, and freezing temperatures, and many embrace the cold weather with fun activities such as skiing, snowshoeing, and ice skating.

But winter can be as threatening as fun, and there are times when it is less a question of leisure and more a question of survival. There is beauty in the power of winter, but make no mistake, there is also danger.

We were reminded of this truth when extreme cold weather rolled into western Canada a few weeks ago. In Lethbridge, it reached -47C and other parts of the province reported even lower temperatures.

Flights were grounded, water mains broke, cold shelters were overwhelmed, and even the Edmonton Royal Alexandria Hospital emergency department lost heat in the cold snap.

It was so chilly that the clock tower in downtown Lethbridge stopped working.

There was a severe risk of rolling blackouts should the energy grid not be stabilized. Albertans were warned to keep their electricity use to a minimum by turning off unnecessary lights and opting to use a microwave instead of a stove.

The frenzy caused many in western Canada to question why we experienced such instability. What conditions nearly brought our electrical grid to the brink?

The answer is multi-pronged, but central to it is the fact that the sun failed to shine, snow insisted on falling, and the wind refused to blow. In other words, wind and solar could not be relied on for energy while four natural gas plants were offline or operating at reduced capacity.  

We found ourselves in this situation thanks to Trudeau’s Ottawa-knows-best approach to so-called ‘clean energy,’ which is based on fiction more than reality.

We need more natural gas generation, not less.

This is not an ideological position. It is simply common sense. We should be playing to the strengths of our region. Regrettably, Liberal common sense is as rare as a snowflake in the Sahara.

With the timing of a bad joke, the cold snap came in on the heels of the government doubling down on its electric vehicle mandate, which will require all vehicles sold in Canada to be electric by 2035.

This plan is almost comical, if not for the severe threat it poses to the prosperity and well-being of Canadians. The current energy grid is incapable of accommodating Trudeau’s mandate to switch every vehicle to electric. Not to mention, EVs are impractical in many rural parts of Alberta, let alone in the areas around Lethbridge—especially in the winter. It seems Trudeau has overlooked Canadians and their lived reality to advance his ideological utopia.

If we struggle to ensure that our hospitals have sufficient power, how does the Prime Minister think it appropriate, much less reasonable, to promote the obligation that all Canadians must buy an EV?

The Liberals’ goals are more fantastical than feasible at this point, but there are real consequences to the people who face the shortfalls of Trudeau’s fantasy when reality comes crashing in.

The ideologically-driven policies of the current government are not working. Natural gas is one of the cleanest, safest, and most reliable forms of energy and Canada is among the world’s top five producers of natural gas, with approximately two-thirds of production coming from Alberta. We just need the federal government to stop tying our hands behind our back so we can take advantage of this powerful resource.

Canadians must be empowered with the freedom to make their own decisions free of outlandish and out-of-touch mandates.

When we face reality with practicality instead of fantasy, we will not only survive, we will begin to thrive.