Affordability key issue ‘coast to coast to coast’: deputy Conservative leader | Spotlight

And the conservatives will be meeting this Sunday to discuss their priorities heading into the next sitting of parliament joining me now to discuss that live here in studio is Melissa lansman she is the Deputy leader for the Conservative Party of Canada and MP for Thorn Hill thanks for coming in on

Canada tonight thanks for having me appreciate it um so first off let me just get your reaction to what you just heard there from jug meet sing on the Prime Minister the Prime Minister says you know the conservatives aren’t supporting social programs like the CH K child care benefit dental care and on

And on and on what’s your response to that then we’ll go to jug meet soon look the the Liberals have have had Retreat after Retreat where they haven’t addressed the issues the Canadians are actually talking about and that’s affordability there are 2 million Canadians waiting in lines at food banks

Uh the price of a house has uh has doubled uh the price of a mortgage has doubled the price of rent continues to increase and that has also doubled and these liberals have done nothing to address these affordability issues so we’re waiting for uh we’re waiting for

The moment where they start to answer the concerns of Canadians the concerns that we’re hearing from coast to coast to coast and and on the social issues you know he’s critical on you know Dental Care Child Care Etc what’s your response to specifically that look we we

We’ve we’ve talked about this in the in the house we don’t have a uh currently we don’t have a dental care uh program uh in terms of child care it is become impossible to get a a spot this this is not a program uh that works for for the

Government and certainly not one that Canadians are are asking for have asked for or are happy with just like the uh the the Liberals entire plan okay and and jug me Singh there you know criticizing the Liberals on housing affordability what’s your response to that jug me Singh has voted time and

Time again with the Liberals to keep them in power to raise taxes to raise the price of housing they have continuously voted with uh with liberals come out to the podium and say we’ve either reluctantly done so or or or we or we’re not going to we we haven’t seen

A day yet where the Liberals where the NDP has not saved the Liberals and together that uh coverup Coalition of every single scandal in the uh in the House of Commons continues uh at the behest of Canadians you know there’s lots of Retreats going on right now lots

Of meetings I know uh that your party is going to be meeting this weekend to kind of strategize before you go into uh the house on Monday talk to me about some of the conservative priorities as you head into next week look our our priorities are the priorities of uh of Canadians we

Are going to meet this weekend we’re going to do it in Ottawa and not in a fancy hotel in uh in Montreal uh and we’re going to talk about the issues that we’ve been talking about for more than a year now housing affordability inflation interest rates Rising taxes

Like the quadrupling of the carbon tax that the Liberals are still committed to doing even after their own caucus has revolted on it even after they’ve carved out uh pieces of it uh we’re also going to talk about the violent crime that is uh uh that is Raging in in our our

Cities the drugs the disorder the chaos I want to talk to you I want to Zone in on one of the things that you just mentioned there and that’s interest rates because we did see the bank of uh Canada Hold Steady here on that key interest rate at 5% we were talking

About this on the intersection panel yesterday and about how this is really squeezing Canadians right now but the Liberals say there are a lot of global factors at play here that it’s you know in inflation can’t be blamed on uh one party uh there’s so many different

Factors going on what’s your response to that and and and talk to me about the interest rate and what what you thought of the meol ex here we we have a you know we have Canadians again from from coast to coast to coast who are struggling just to get by they’re

Struggling to keep their homes they’re struggling to put food on the table that’s the excessive taxes and that’s the excessive spending of uh of the Liberals um we’ve been clear uh we’ve been clear on that we’re going to continue to hold this government to account on the wasteful spending that

They are uh uh they’re frankly they are continue to do and continue not to understand what Canadians want you can go out into the street here in Toronto in Vancouver in Montreal in any place and there is no Canadian that is better off today than they were eight years ago

And that’s what we are going to continue hammering the government for you know the the Prime Minister did a year-end interview with rosemary Barton he he said you know it it’s fine and good for the conservatives to be able to criticize but I have to come up with

Solutions here you know when the conservatives say that and and they say when the when the Liberals say that and they say the conservatives are just uh not providing Solutions what’s your response well we have provided uh plenty of uh Solutions on on housing for instance we are going to uh to fund

Those municipalities who who who approve more housing and penalize those that don’t there is a solution right now there is something that the government can have done under this government for the last eight years you have seen a doubling in housing cost this this is the fastest that has happened any

Anywhere that happened in Canada under the watch of Justin Trudeau so it’s all fine and good that he doesn’t believe that this any of this is uh is his fault but uh we’re going to continue holding them to account they now have a housing Minister who screwed up the immigration

Who screwed up the immigration uh uh file who’s now in charge of Auto of of just building more houses of uh of now addressing the problem that Canadians have faced over the eight years they have created the problems and now they’re trying to cover up and solve the problems that they themselves created

Let me ask you about this news on uh the student visa cap uh which we heard Ontario colleges today uh say you know they were not consulted about they they don’t agree with this decision uh what’s your thinking here and what would the conservative party have done differently

Because you know the minister said that this really is a pause to try to deal with this situation there are a lot of Bad actors in this industry immigration has become out of control under this government in fact those aren’t my words those are the words of the current

Immigrant migration Minister about the last immigration Minister who’s now in charge of fixing housing uh we are going to tie immigration to the number of homes uh available the number of jobs uh in the uh in the uh in the labor market uh the amount of professionals like

Doctors and nurses that every Canadian deserves to see look if you’re coming here for the Canadian dream probably a lot like your parents and my parents did then you have to be able to offer that and right now there is an imbalance uh and we’ve got to address that they have

Screwed up the immigration file and we are going to fix it a common sense conservative government will fix immigration uh yesterday we heard uh from an MP calling for a leadership a liberal MP calling for a leadership review he later walked that back but today we also learned about the

Departure of Justice Minister David Lamy to the private sector to be a lawyer uh how do you think this is going to play out in the next sitting look this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about uh um you know liberal caucus members having issues with uh with their leadership

With the Prime Minister uh with his leadership Ken McDonald before told him to retract those comments was very clear and on the record we’ve seen Anonymous sources and various uh news stories calling for the same thing there certainly is as unrest Canadians are noticing and now his own caucus is

Saying exactly what Canadians in the streets are saying uh that they don’t uh they don’t believe that uh he should lead this party or there should be some kind of review uh the point is is that they don’t have confidence in his leadership and I think maybe we’ll see a

Lot more of that as for you know for Mr lametti of course we we wish him well in all of his endeavors but this comes on the heels of uh of a a landmark Federal Court decision on uh on the uh emergencies act the invocation of the emergencies act the illegal invocation

Of the uh emergencies act and uh we’re not surprised to see the Justice Minister who was in charge at the time go what what are conservatives going to do to appeal to more moderates particularly on social issues well look I I I think the I think Canadians see

That what is happening right now is not working it’s not working in terms of higher taxes it’s not working in terms of higher housing prices it’s not working in terms of uh uh in terms of higher food prices and the out of control inflation on that this is you

Know these are issues that face every single Canadian and I think that message is resonating and if it wasn’t resonating then I don’t think you’d hear the Prime Minister even acknowledge that there is a problem uh and that’s exactly what we’re going to keep talking about common sense solutions to give Canadians

To to allow Canadians to keep more of their money have more freedom to spend it where uh where they want uh and be able to uh to live a life to work hard and get ahead I I got to sneak one more in because I got to run here soon but

Conservatives are often you know blamed for the demise of political discourse my colleagues in Ottawa ask the Liberals how much responsibility they hold uh I’m wondering what your thoughts are on this look this is uh this is another distraction this is another distraction that I think is is liberals are throwing

Out there because they don’t like the the the very fact that they’re being held to account um look this is uh this is an issue I think that touches every single parliamentarian and every single Canadian uh and I think if the Liberals were more responsible in in government

We’d have less conversations that divide Canadians less conversations that are uh that are politically charged uh and more about the substance in uh in uh in public policy okay Melissa lansman uh Deputy leader of the Conservative Party of Canada MP for Thorn Hill appreciate you stopping by Canada tonight I know

You got a busy weekend ahead and then a busy week ahead as well come back again thanks appreciate it

Melissa Lantsman, the deputy leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, joins CBC’s Travis Dhanraj to talk about the party’s stance on key issues like housing, taxes, immigration and crime. This interview first aired on Jan. 25, 2024.

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