Mr. Speaker, there is an old phrase, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I can say that my absence from this place has only made my fondness for it grow stronger over the last four years. It is great to be back here representing the great riding of Dufferin—Caledon. I want to quickly do a shout-out to our former member of Parliament, David Tilson, who retired and represented this riding so well from 2005 to 2019.
Unfortunately, I am going to say that this throne speech does not represent the riding of Dufferin—Caledon nearly as well as David Tilson did or how I hope to represent it. I am going to talk about three things that the throne speech either ignores or really gives short shrift to. These three things are infrastructure, rural broadband and agriculture.
When we talk about infrastructure, there is no mention in the throne speech of investing in transit for rural and small communities in this country. Let me say that these communities desperately need investments in infrastructure and in transit.
Let me give an example. Orangeville, one of the municipalities in my riding, is trying to buy new buses to expand bus routes. The current government is one that allegedly cares about climate change. Why would the Liberals not be investing in transit?
The project is $2.1 million. The provincial government has stepped up with $667,000, its one-third share. It is in the bank. Where is the answer from the federal government? As of January of this year, the Orangeville transit task force has told me it has heard crickets from the current government. It is disrespectful and it is neglecting small communities.
One of the things my constituents talk about is exactly that: the need for transit and the need for investments. The government seems to be able to invest in all kinds of things, allegedly. The deficit is $20 billion or $25 billion a year, but there is absolutely nothing for rural Canada and small-town Canada when we talk about transit. In addition to that, the Liberal government cancelled the transit tax credit, which was always a benefit.
In the riding of Dufferin—Caledon, there are critical infrastructure deficits for small municipalities. I held a town hall meeting in Shelburne, another small municipality in my riding, last week. In Shelburne, people are talking about the urgent need for investments in bridges and roads in their communities.
The Township of Melancthon is an agriculture-based municipality. It has 248 kilometres of roads as well as 51 bridges and other structures. The municipality had an engineering report come out in 2019 dealing with roads, bridges and culverts that desperately need repair. Many of them are at the absolute end of their lifespan. It will take $6 million just to deal with that problem. When they deal with all of their infrastructure needs, including roads, bridges and culverts, it is another $6.6 million over 10 years.
This is a township that has an annual budget of $4 million. How is it going to repair these bridges? Where was the mention in the throne speech, the Liberals' document to outline the priorities for this country over the next four years? There was not a single mention.
In the Township of Amaranth, eight bridges have to be replaced in the next year alone, which is $5.3 million. Its annual budget is also approximately $4 million.
Are these types of critically needed investments mentioned by the government in its throne speech? They are absolutely not there, yet the government will talk about what the Liberals would call a buyback of guns as part of their program.
They are not buying back. They would require law-abiding Canadians to sell their guns to the government with estimated costs of $250 million to $1 billion to buy these things back, force people to sell them back to the government, which will add nothing to public safety because these are law-abiding citizens. However, the Liberals do not have any money for small and rural municipalities. That is disgraceful, and they should be doing better.
At my town hall meeting, the frustration and the anger from small-town Canada and rural Canada are palpable. Those people are not being heard by the government. They are not mentioned in the throne speech and they know they are not a priority.
What people do know is that the priority of the government is to buy votes in the larger urban centres. That is all it cares about. In the rest of Canada, it is too bad, so sad.
With respect to rural broadband, I used to represent a riding in Brampton. Someone can drive 15 minutes north from Brampton into Caledon and guess what. There is almost no broadband. Cellular service is awful and rural broadband is awful. Again, was this mentioned in the throne speech? This is a critical infrastructure investment across this country and it does not even get a mention, not even a small little blurb.
I talked to the farmers in my riding. They have to drive into town to Tim Hortons to download software upgrades for their machinery and equipment. That is a wonderful solution, is it not?
They have to do the same thing if they want their children to get access to homework and other online tools that all school districts now provide. They have to leave their house and drive to Tim Hortons where they can get reliable Wi-Fi. Where was that again in the throne speech? It was just completely ignored.
The lack of service is killing small businesses in my riding and in ridings similar to it all across this country, and the response from the government is absolutely nothing. After winning an election a party is supposed to govern for all the people in the country, not just the people who gave it votes. I would ask my friends across the aisle to please rethink the strategy toward rural and small-town Canada, because it is suffering under the government.
Again, the Province of Ontario is stepping up to help with this. It is investing $315 million over five years for unserved and underserved areas. This is expected to generate up to $1 billion of total investments when it is matched by the private sector. These are the kinds of investments that the government should be making, not spending $250 million to $1 billion forcing law-abiding gun owners to sell their legally purchased guns back to the government.
The final point I want to raise is with respect to agriculture and farmers. Again, farming was almost completely neglected in the throne speech. Farmers are facing huge challenges, not just in my riding but all across the country. I would love it if members of the government would come and sit down in my community and hear what the farmers have to say.
These are hard-working people, hard-working families who are suffering as a result of a lack of access to markets for soy and canola. They are suffering as a result of a carbon tax to dry their corn and dry their wheat. This was a very wet year in Ontario. If one wanted to get corn processed one had to dry it, and the carbon tax that is being charged to farmers to dry their corn and grain is highway robbery. They cannot afford it. They are struggling and they do not even merit a mention in the throne speech.
The U.S. government is stepping up for its soy and canola farmers. It has a $28-billion market facilitation program. I asked the minister about this back in December. She said they were going to talk, meet, do this and do that. Now we are at the end of January and there has still been no substantive action taken on this.
In Ontario, we lost processing capacity for the beef industry. This is critical. In talking with some of the farming families in my riding, I can tell my colleagues that when they looked for an alternate place to have their cattle processed, they were told in November that it would be handled in April.
Those families have to pay to feed their cattle for the next five months at cost. Also, the cattle are going to be oversized and the families are going to have to pay more in penalties to have the cattle processed. What is the response from the government? What has it done? Was it mentioned in the throne speech? These are hard-working Canadian families who are suffering and they do not even deem a mention in the throne speech. It is having a devastating effect.
I have to say that I will be voting against this throne speech as there is absolutely nothing in it for the residents of my riding and for residents across this country in small towns and rural communities.