Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise here in this place, this being the first time I have had the opportunity to address Parliament since my re-election into this place, and this marks the third time I have had the good privilege of being able to maintain the confidence of the good people of Kings—Hants.

I want to start by recognizing the Deputy Speaker's nomination to that chair, and certainly I would like to recognize that I am going to be sharing my time with my learned colleague from Mississauga—Lakeshore today.

All members of Parliament, when they come to this place, have a support system that allows them to be able to take on the work and to put their name forward as a candidate. I have been very fortunate to have a tremendous and supportive family that has allowed me to be a member of Parliament for almost six years now. It is amazing how quickly time goes by.

I want to thank my entire family. I want to thank my lovely wife at home, Kimberly, for all her support. We spend a lot of time away from our significant others and from our loved ones. I love my wife and thank her for her support.

I thank all the volunteers on my campaign for the work they put in. I have the privilege of being here, but it is their work that allows us to all sit here. This includes my campaign chair, Maura Ryan. She is a rock star. She led the team and deserves recognition in the House, so I thank her. I am looking forward to getting started, but I needed to make sure that was stated at the onset of my speech.

We are here today to reply to the Speech from the Throne, and of course, it was a momentous and historic day on Parliament Hill on Tuesday with King Charles III reading the Speech from the Throne on behalf of the government. I do want to take a moment to recognize that moment in our Canadian history. It is only the third time that the sovereign has read the Speech from the Throne here in Canada, with Queen Elizabeth opening Parliament in 1957 and 1977. I think all members of Parliament need to take a moment and think about the fact that this is significant, and it reinforces Canada's constitutional relationship with the United Kingdom and with the royal family.

I think the Prime Minister, before the writ, was smart to highlight Canada's deep connection to the United Kingdom, to France, of course, and also to our indigenous people. When I think about the legal foundations and even our Westminster tradition, it is that historic history that makes Canada different. It makes Canada what it is, and it allows us to be a country we ought to be very proud of in terms of our governing traditions.

I do want to highlight a brief interaction I had with the sovereign. I want this to show on the record, in Hansard. I am very proud of those constitutional roots, as I mentioned. The sovereign was particularly interested in Nova Scotia and in Nova Scotia's tartan, and I do want the record to show that, so that 50 years from now, someone can remember that it happened.

I do want to get into the key elements of what the government presented in terms of priorities, because that ultimately is what is most important to my constituents and to Canadians across the country.

First of all is Canada and the United States, and trying to redefine what that relationship looks like. I think, objectively, we are living in a different world. Regardless of how we view our politics, the U.S. administration under President Trump is certainly doing things differently. Gone are the days of the American approach to multilateralism, in terms of what I am seeing as a member of Parliament, and we are way back to more of a bilateral relationship, in terms of how the U.S. is trying to engage.

I think our Prime Minister and our government were smart to make an early trip to Washington. I think, by all accounts, beyond partisanship, our Prime Minister handled himself well in the Oval Office. It seems as though those relationships have started, and we need to continue to try to define what the pathway forward is. There are some very open questions about how Canada should move in an uncertain world. That is this place, and Parliament is the place where those debates should happen.

However, I want to highlight the fact that I think it is important for us as parliamentarians to try to find a way to land the plane, so to speak, on what that relationship looks like, between Canada and the U.S. Of what this country produces, 77% goes to the United States. Should we diversify our economic relationships around the world? We absolutely should, and the Prime Minister and the government have committed to doing that, but we also have to be very open-eyed and wide-eyed to the fact that we do need to maintain that continental relationship on an economic basis.

I think about companies in my riding, such as Michelin. I think about our agriculture sector, particularly our fruit growers in the Annapolis Valley, all of whom rely heavily on the U.S. market. We can also talk about our forestry sector. I want to hear more about our forestry sector in the current Parliament. That is the responsibility not only of the government; it is also the responsibility of members of Parliament to raise issues of forestry, because it matters all across this country, and particularly in the riding of Kings—Hants and in Hants County, where I think about our sawmills: Elmsdale Lumber and Ledwidge Lumber.

We have an opportunity to build the homes Canadians need at a price they can afford and to use Canadian materials to make that a reality. I want to see more of that in the days ahead.

The government is committing to an affordability agenda with a middle-income tax cut of up to $840 a year for two-income families. This going to benefit a lot of people in Kings—Hants. The government's intention is to introduce that by July 1. I would be very interested to see the member of Parliament who would stand up on any side of the House to reject a tax cut at this moment when affordability is absolutely crucial. I am hoping the members opposite will see the value in this to make sure that we can provide that affordability for 22 million Canadians.

There is also a plan to remove the GST on all new home purchases by first-time homebuyers, up to $1 million. If we remove the GST, that is $50,000. For the average home in Kings—Hants for first-time homebuyers, that is going to represent thousands of dollars in savings, particularly for young people. I am in my mid-thirties, and I know that for a lot of people in my age demographic, this is an important element.

However, we do not get there if we do not build the supply. It is great to put the tax incentives on board, and the Conservatives talked about this being a measure they supported as well, but there was no actual supply side to build the homes people would be able to afford once the tax was removed. It is great if we just do that, but if we were to gut our supply side programs, which was being proposed in the Conservative platform, there would be real challenges. I like the fact that the government has put in a tax cut and kept the supply side for what we have to build.

I did not know what screw piles were, but after meeting with Shaw Resources in my riding, I now know that they are a requirement for modular housing to affix a property to the ground. My goal is to get rid of them, and I want the record to show that. Hopefully, I can do that in this Parliament because it adds about $15,000 to the cost of every single home in this country. It has very little to do with any type of security or safety, so it is something we need to change in the law to allow the Canadian building code to reflect that. It is an ancient principle based on the idea of mobile trailers and homes. It is not needed. I will be working with the Minister of Housing to try to address that concern because I think it is important.

I want to highlight a few more things here in the time I have left. One is the reform on financing from CMHC on rural housing. Again, this is something for any rural member of the House. They may have heard this from their stakeholders, but CMHC needs to reform the way it supports projects in rural Canada so we can be able to build more homes.

The first of the last two pieces that I think are extremely important, and they are things I am fully in support of, is building big projects more quickly. We have talked about this in the House. I think the last government had some merit in the social programs it talked about. We had the second highest overall cumulative economic growth, notwithstanding the fact that we have a competitiveness issue. The government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, is committed to building big nation-building projects.

This should be good news to every parliamentarian in this country. We have to get the review process down to two years, which the government is committing to. The government is committed to natural resources, to forestry, to conventional energy and to renewable energy. We are committed to working to make sure we can drive the economy to build projects in western Canada, Atlantic Canada and all across this great country.

The last piece is federal barriers to trade. I know the Minister of Transport and Internal Trade is focused on this. This represents 2% to 4% of economic GDP we are leaving on the table every single year, which is $200 billion. I fully support the government's intention. We do need to be careful on a couple of little pieces, including meat inspection. I am a little worried as 97% of the meat processing in this country is of a federal standard. We are chasing the 3%, which is important, particularly for small abattoirs, but we need to make sure we do this in line with our international trade agreements so we are not hurting a $10-billion industry.

I am coming to the end of my time, so I will simply say I am glad the government has an ambitious agenda. I look forward to supporting it in the days ahead, and I look forward to taking questions from my hon. colleagues.

Kody Blois

$557,601.00