​With the House of Commons adjourned until late September, I will once again be starting one of my favorite activities of the year, my summer listening tour.

This is an extremely important process for me as our Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola riding is geographically large with a diverse population.

Travelling to all areas within this riding and hearing the concerns from local citizens is critically important to the work that I do as a Member of Parliament.

One request that I have heard recently was for an update on the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project.

Since that time, I have had a few other citizens express similar requests and as a result I will share that update.

As you may recall, PM Trudeau announced that his Liberal Government had purchased the Trans Mountain Pipeline in 2016 for $4.5 billion from USA based Kinder Morgan.

The reason for this purchase was to spend an additional $ 7.4 billion to build the expanded Trans Mountain Pipeline.

The decision was controversial, however aside from the economic benefits and job creation, PM Trudeau also promised that “every dollar the federal government earns from this project will be invested in Canada’s clean energy transition.”

Since then, the project has faced several challenges and the construction costs, as well as the estimated timeline for completion, have increased significantly.

How significant? 

Recently our Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) reviewed this project and found that the construction budget has now ballooned to $21.4 billion, and the estimated completion date is not until late in 2023.

The more alarming conclusion from the PBO is, due to the significant increase in costs and increased construction timeline, the Trans Mountain Pipeline is no longer expected to produce any profit to the Government of Canada.

In fact, the PBO forecasts that Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project has a net current value of negative $600 million.

In other words, this investment is forecast to lose money for Canadian taxpayers.

It also means that the promise from PM Trudeau that “every dollar the federal government earns from this project will be invested in Canada’s clean energy transition.” will not generate those dollars to fund those projects.

It will have the opposite effect as fewer tax dollars will be available.

My question this week is:

Are you satisfied with how the Trudeau Liberal government has been handling the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project?

I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca or call toll free 1-800-665-8711.

​On Wednesday morning of this week many citizens awoke to breaking news that the “Top Mountie denies claim she interfered in N.S. shooting investigation".

This, by many accounts, is an alarming news story.

Currently in Nova Scotia the “Mass Casualty Commission” is independently reviewing the events related to the horrific mass shooting in 2020 that claimed the lives of 22 people.

As documents are now being released, a particularly noteworthy disclosure was from a Nova Scotia RCMP Superintendent that has been reported by the Halifax Examiner as:

"RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki “made a promise” to Public Safety Minister Bill Blair and the Prime Minister’s Office to leverage the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020 to get a gun control law passed."

This is a very serious allegation that has already resulted in denials from the former Minister of Public Safety, Bill Blair, as well as the RCMP Superintendent Brenda Lucki. 

Unfortunately, these denials do not explain how that RCMP Superintendent would have otherwise been aware that the Trudeau Liberal Government was indeed working on such a political announcement, that was subsequently released ten days later, using information that was not publicly available at that time.

What is also interesting is, while the RCMP Commissioner denies “interfering” in the investigation, she does not deny that the conversation occurred, nor that she confided to her RCMP colleagues in having made such a promise to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Minister of Public Safety.

This raises the obvious questions how this promise came to be and why does this matter?

It matters because the police must always be independent of government to secure the public trust.

It is critically important that law enforcement cannot be manipulated politically or used in a manner to achieve the political agenda of the Prime Minister.

In this case, it is not a secret that Prime Minister Trudeau did campaign on changing Canada’s gun laws.

The RCMP Commissioner does not deny requesting confidential information at the time (information being withheld to protect the integrity of the investigation) that ultimately appears to have been used by PM Trudeau within 10 days of these troubling events.

I believe this raises some serious questions and concerns and deserves further investigation so Canadians can learn the truth of what happened here. 

My question this week:

Is this something that concerns you or do you believe Opposition should move on and focus on other pressing concerns such as the lack of affordability and rising inflation here in Canada?

That is not to suggest that Opposition parties cannot focus on different topics but rather how seriously do you see this situation.

I can be reached via email at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca or at 1-800-665-8711.

Almost daily I hear serious concerns from local citizens about the significant impact the current gas and diesel prices are having on many families.

As I reminded our Liberal Government in Ottawa recently, during debate on the Budget Implementation Act (BIA), in many parts of our region driving a vehicle is the only way some citizens can access healthcare and medical appointments or the nearest school.

The high gas and diesel prices also have another negative impact.

As I have also heard from many small and mid-sized business owners, the shipping and transport costs to receive goods has also increased significantly. 

This in turn means prices must be increased at a time when groceries and other items are already under cost pressures due to high inflation rates.

Ultimately high gasoline and diesel prices are having a negative impact on Canadian households and as well are causing economic harm.

This is why literally every other G-7 nations have governments that are actively implementing measures to try and provide cost relief to citizens on fuel prices as a way to help increase affordability and mitigate inflation.

Unfortunately, here in Canada, our Liberal Government, propped up by the NDP, refuses to take similar action to help citizens facing these devastating fuel prices.

This week, as the Official Opposition, we tabled a motion in the House of Commons that proposed the following measures:

• Temporarily suspending the GST collected on gasoline and diesel 
• Suspending the carbon tax
• Eliminating tariffs on fertilizer
• Enabling the free flow of goods across the Canadian border
• Supporting the recovery of the tourism sector 
• Protecting the jobs of federally regulated employees by immediately removing all federal COVID restrictions 
• Curbing speculation in the housing market by immediately launching a national public inquiry into money laundering.

This motion proposed measures to help increase affordability and help combat inflation, much like other G7 nations are doing

Unfortunately, the Liberal government voted this motion down with the support of the NDP.

I say unfortunately as it is estimated that inflation alone will cost the average Canadian an extra $2000 this year.

While these proposed measures would not address all of that additional cost, they would be a step in the right direction to ensure that citizens keep more of the money they earn in their household by sending less to Ottawa.

My question this week:

Do you believe the federal government should be playing a greater role in trying to increase affordability and at the same time make greater efforts to mitigate inflation?

​I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca or call toll free 1-800-665-8711.

​Sometimes Parliament resembles the movie “Groundhog Day”.

When I last wrote about proposed amendments to Canada’s firearm laws (introduced in the previous Parliament by the Liberals) it was in Bill C-21. 

Fast forward to the current Parliament, once again the Liberals Government have introduced “An Act to amend certain Acts and to make certain consequential amendments (firearms)” under another Bill C-21.

First, let's recap what the previous Bill C-21 proposed.

The former bill reflected PM Trudeau’s promise that “1,500 types of 'assault-style' firearms” were being banned and that a “buy back” plan was going to be introduced so owners of these newly restricted rifles would be able to “sell” them to the government at a yet to be determined amount.

As I wrote at that time, this announcement from the Prime Minister led to some confusion as military assault rifles in Canada have long been illegal in Canada.

Further the term “assault style” had no legal definition within the Canada Firearms Act.

What is an “assault style weapon”?

The term “assault style” is a political term used to characterize certain semi-automatic rifles that often are manufactured to look like an assault rifle.

Critics were quick to point out that the former Bill C-21 penalized legal gun owners for owing certain semi-automatic rifles based solely on their appearance and it did not remove any of these rifles from the streets.

Now let's review what's occurred since former Bill C-21 was tabled.

It has now been over two years and the critics have been proven correct as none of these semi-automatic rifles have been removed from streets and the Liberal Government has still not implemented a buyback program or determined how such a program would work.

This week, Prime Minister Trudeau announced another Bill C-21.

This time most notably proposing to “freeze” handgun sales.

Perhaps sensitive to the criticism that his former Bill C-21 targeted legal gun owners and not criminals using smuggled guns, Prime Minister Trudeau has been steadfast to point out that this new Bill C-21 does not target legal handgun owners. 

In other words, he is suggesting that nothing changes for all existing legal handgun owners here in Canada.

The proposed new law would only apply to potential new handgun owners or those looking to purchase an additional handgun. 

Critics are again pointing out that this new proposed law does not take any handguns off the streets and once again ignores the real gun problem that is criminals using smuggled, illegal handguns.

As I pointed out in my recent report from early May, in Bill C-5, the Trudeau Liberal Government is also proposing to eliminate some minimum mandatory sentences for several crimes that involve firearms.

From my own perspective the evidence shows that illegal handgun crime has risen in Canada under the Trudeau Liberal Government.  

The overwhelming majority of the handguns involved in these crimes are illegally smuggled across the Canada/United States border.

I believe the priority must be targeted enforcement to stop illegal guns from entering Canada.

Neither the former nor current Bill C-21 propose major comprehensive action on that front, although they do generate significant media headlines.

My question this week:

Do you believe this new Bill C-21 will make your community safer? 

I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca  or call toll free 1-800-665-8711.