Ontario Election 2018

I would like to offer my congratulations to Monte McNaughton on being re-elected as MPP in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex and thank all candidates who put their names forward. I look forward to continuing my working relationship with Monte on behalf of the people of LKM.
I also want to extend my congratulations to Doug Ford- the Progressive Conservative Premier elect. He has a strong team that will bring leadership to the people of Ontario and business back to the province.

Carbon Tax Cover Up

The Liberals are demanding that Parliament approve a carbon tax in Budget 2018 before Canadians know what the costly impact will be. For two years the Conservatives have asked how much a middle-class family will pay in new taxes. The Liberals know the numbers; however, they refuse to tell us. We do know that gasoline prices will go up by at least 11¢ per litre and the average cost of heating one’s home will increase by over $200.
The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) released a new report that found the carbon tax will take $10 billion out of the Canadian economy in a short 3 years. It will not lead to emission reductions in Canada as proven in British Columbia, who has the highest carbon tax in the country. In fact, British Columbians now pay more for gas than anyone else in North America. The Liberal Carbon Tax won’t help the environment; it will just cost people more to get to work or to take their children to sports. This is simply an extra tax for the government to collect on most of the things that we buy.

U.S. Tariffs on Steele & Aluminum

Donald Trump announced the U.S. would impose tariffs of 25% on imported steel and 10% on imported aluminum. As Conservatives, we support the countervail tariffs that Canada intends to apply. The issue is that two months ago, Justin Trudeau promised workers in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Québec that he had resolved this issue. Sadly, he was wrong. Conservatives warned the Prime Minister that his government was unprepared for potential tariffs as they had not provided any measures in the 2018 Budget to prepare industry for this possibility. Because no Plan B was ever considered, our tariffs begin on July 1st while the US tariffs on Canadian goods already began June 2nd which puts our steel and aluminum producers as well as the end users at a big disadvantage.

Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline

The Prime Minister announced the Liberals will use $4.5 billion of your taxpayer money to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan which they purchased for $2.5 Billion around 5 years ago. To make matters worse, it’s reported that two Kinder Morgan executives received $3 million in bonuses for securing the bailout from the Liberal government. The question would be, why is the government spending $4.5 billion of your taxpayer dollars when Kinder Morgan was willing to build the extension without any government money. All they were asking for was the authority to do it. Now that the Prime Minister has spent money to purchase the pipeline, there are a large number of outstanding issues Ex: he has not told us how much it will cost to actually build the extension; he also has no idea who is going to build it or when it will be built, and how much more it will cost taxpayers to secure a private contract.

Four pipelines were built under the previous Conservative government without spending one cent of taxpayers’ money. It’s unfortunate that Justin Trudeau is sending our taxpayers’ money to the Kinder Morgan company in Texas to be invested in American projects that will compete against out Canadian energy projects.

Did you Know?

• The first Father’s Day Celebration in North America took place on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington.
• At dawn on June 6, 1944 – D-Day – 450 Canadians parachuted inland to engage the enemy and a few hours later, some 14,000 Canadian troops landed at Juno Beach. That is close to the total population of Strathroy, the largest urban centre in LKM. Lest We Forget.
• There are more than 12,000 different species of ants in the world, Canada has over 100 different species, but the good news is – only about 15 of those species live in Southwestern Ontario.