When I launched my leadership campaign in 2016 I promised to hold to my principles.

I promised to promote four simple conservative values.

• Freedom.
• Fairness.
• Responsibility.
• And respect.

I’m still fighting for those values every day.

Next week is the end of the fiscal quarter.

Elections Canada will report the fundraising progress of all federal politicians.

I need your help right now.

I want to show the country that these conservative values are universal, popular, and have your support.

Click here to donate $2 or more if you can.

Let’s show the country what we’re fighting for.

Sincerely,
-Maxime

To be effective, justice must be blind.

And our government should be too.

The way to solve the injustices of the past is not to create new categories on which to base discrimination. It’s to treat all citizens equally.

That’s not what the Liberals are doing. They recently tabled a budget where money is allocated on the basis of “intersectional race, gender and sexual identities.”

They’re creating more division and more injustice.

And when I called them out on it, I was told to “check my privilege and be quiet.”

This wasn’t just another troll on the internet. It came from a Liberal Member of Parliament.

There are people in this government who believe my opinion is less valid because I’m a white man.

They believe the government should segregate people based on their gender and skin colour and treat them differently.

Help me fight this radical ideology.

I believe the government should be blind. And that it should work to the benefit of all its citizens.

If you’re with me, click here to donate $2.

For freedom. And equality.

Sincerely,
-Maxime

Parliament is in recess this week and I am currently taking some time off with Catherine. But I really had to send you this quick note about something crazy that happened on Twitter these past few days.

Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen both implied I was a racist.

Why? Because I said I want people to be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, like Martin Luther King.

Yep. Apparently, that’s being racist nowadays.

It started when the Minister praised his government’s budget in a tweet, saying it was a historic one for “racialized Canadians.” That’s the new politically correct jargon to mean Canadians belonging to cultural minorities.

I tweeted that I thought the ultimate goal of fighting discrimination was to create a colour-blind society where everyone is treated the same. Not to set some Canadians apart as being “racialized.”

What’s the purpose of this awful jargon?, I asked. To create more division for the Liberals to exploit?

It seems I was right.

Those Liberals answered that by saying I wanted a color-blind society, I was “denying the experience of people who live with racism” and I was “contributing to racism.”

MP Caesar-Chavannes even added: “Please check your privilege and be quiet.”

You read that correctly.

I guess she wasn’t aware that we lived in a democracy with free speech as one of its building blocks.

It provoked a major backlash on Twitter and she later almost apologized by tweeting that telling me to be quiet “was not cool.”

I am grateful to all those who defended me and expressed their support on Twitter during this controversy.

As I tweeted later, we should certainly do everything possible to redress injustices and give everyone equal opportunities to flourish.

And we should recognize that Canada is big enough to contain many identities.

But that doesn’t mean the government should define us on the basis of “intersectional race, gender and sexual identities” and grant different rights and privileges to different groups thus defined.

This radical left-wing fad, now officially adopted by the Liberal government, will only create more division, more injustice and will balkanize our society.

It’s time we conservatives stop being afraid to defend our vision of a just society made up of free individuals equal before the law.

We have to start pushing back against those who want to silence any opinion that differs from theirs.

Do you agree that we should defend free speech and equal rights for all Canadians, no matter what their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation are?

If so, please help me in this fight by contributing a few dollars, so that I can continue to meet with Conservatives across the country and spread this message.

Thanks a lot for your support,
-Maxime

I am at the airport waiting for a flight to Washington, DC.

I just saw a headline in the Financial Post: FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT PLUNGES TO THE LOWEST IN SEVEN YEARS.

Yes, it was down 26% in 2017 according to the latest StatsCan report. Foreign investors are losing faith in the Canadian economy.

Thinking about Justin Trudeau’s budget again….

So, I decided to share this quick economic note with my best supporters, such as you.

With Justin Trudeau, Canada’s economy is failing.

• Free trade with the U.S. is in peril.
• Canada’s long-standing corporate tax advantages with the U.S. is gone.
• Pipeline projects are stalled if not completely abandoned.
• We are failing to shift growth from debt-fueled consumption to exports.
• Business investment stagnates.
• Money flows out of the country.
• And there’s a plunge in the number of business start-ups.

Justin Trudeau’s solution?

• Addressing men and boys “gendered intersecting identities” (what does that even mean?!).
• And spending millions on a bogus gender-based analysis of everything.

This nonsense must stop.

We must get rid of this Prime Minister who is so out of touch with Canadians.

Canadians want real economic leadership.

Our conservative team in Ottawa can’t wait to get rid of Justin Trudeau.

Best,
-Max

I am sure you are well aware that Justin Trudeau’s visit to India was a disaster at every level.

• He and his family looked like they were playing in a Bollywood movie at each photo op. Commentators in India said it was over the top.
• He wasted taxpayers’ money on a family vacation that will bring almost no economic benefits.
• He invited a convicted terrorist for a diplomatic dinner and was snubbed by the Indian government until the last day of the trip.
• He used his kids as political props in a shameful way.
• The international press all reported how he made a fool of himself.

It’s also clear that the purpose of the whole trip was not to advance the interest of Canada and all Canadians in this part of the world, but rather to polish his image among some groups of voters as the 2019 election approaches. But it blew up in his face.

We need to restore political decency, in our domestic and international affairs.

If you agree that our Prime Minister should not use his trips abroad as political marketing tools, let me know by contributing $5 to my efforts and those of my colleagues to bring back political decency in Ottawa.

Thank you,
-Max

Greasy politicians love giving money to their friends in big business.

Sometimes it’s in the open, in the form of grants and subsidies.

Sometimes it’s hidden, in the form of “repayable loans” that never get paid back, because the fine print can be interpreted any way that suits those who get the money.

I’m in opposition.

From here, I can’t scrap corporate welfare.

But I can shine the light of day on the corrupt practices of the Liberal government.

I introduced a private member’s bill that will make it so that we know whether or not companies pay back their loans from the government, as well as repayment conditions.

Because it’s not the government’s money.

It’s your money.

If you support this, let me know.

Click here to donate $5.

Thanks,
-Maxime

I received this week a formal notice from the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers about a message I sent a few days ago to my supporters and which was posted on my Facebook page.

In this message, I denounced the actions of the maple syrup cartel and I explained how this organization persecutes honest and courageous producers like Angèle Grenier, a Beauce producer who was fined $300,000 because she sold her syrup directly to a New Brunswick buyer without going through the Federation’s marketing board.

The Federation’s lawyer, Louis Coallier, asks me to apologize for having written that it is not producers like Ms. Grenier who are outlaws, but rather that “from my point of view, they are the outlaws.”

He also asks me to remove this statement from my Facebook page with a statement to the effect that it is unfounded, not supported by the judicial decisions rendered in Canada.

I apologize to the Federation for suggesting that its actions are illegal, which is inaccurate.

Indeed, and I am well aware of it, the powers exercised by the Federation are completely legal and supported by the judicial decisions rendered in Canada.

That’s the problem.

While cartels are normally banned in almost all sectors of the economy, our governments have given power to this one and some others to control production and to persecute producers who refuse to comply with their dictates.

I did not express myself correctly when I implied that the Federation is an outlaw. What I wanted to say, and what will replace the contentious sentence in my original message, is that from my point of view, the law should be changed so that it is the Federation, not people like Angèle Grenier, who will be considered an outlaw. In a free society, such controlling and authoritarian organizations should not exist.

I will continue my fight so that one day, the law changes and they are abolished.

If you agree with me, let me know by supporting me.

Thanks,
– Maxime

Do you know what a “supercluster” is?

It’s just another word for corporate welfare.

Under the pretext stimulating innovation, Justin Trudeau and his minister Navdeep Bains will hand out close to $1 billion to well-connected business consortia.

Instead of creating a more competitive fiscal environment to do business, the Liberals cannot resist the temptation to put both hands in the candy jar to serve their friends.

In short, it’s like Lotto 6/49, but everyone is forced to pay in and only well-connected big businesses can win it.

If you are against superclusters, help me by contributing $3.96 to my fight against corporate welfare.

Thank you,
—Maxime

I am 100% against corporate welfare.

You know, these subsidies and loans granted by the government to companies…

I think it’s a waste of money.

We should cut taxes for all businesses, instead of aiding some at the expense of others.

That being said, as long as these subsidies exist, we should, at the very least, make sure that they’re managed transparently.

That is not the case today.

Government loan repayment agreements are secret.

And I know why they are. It’s because there are so many exceptions to these agreements that companies often never repay.

When I was Industry Minister, we made those agreements public as well as the balance that remained to be paid for each loan and each company.

But today, this is no longer the case.

While Justin Trudeau boasts of being the champion of transparency, his government is giving loans that are in fact grants.

He is taking people for fools; he is laughing at those who work hard to make ends meet.

And what he’s doing is the opposite of transparency.

Rich companies spend thousands of dollars lobbying the government to keep this information secret.

I introduced Bill C-396 to make this information available to the public.

If the bill is adopted, we will finally uncover this scheme!

I need your help to promote this bill and get a majority to vote for it in Parliament.

If you are for transparency and against corporate welfare, contribute $3.96 or more today to this cause.

Thank you,
-Maxime

Ottawa, February 5, 2018 – The Conservative MP for Beauce, Maxime Bernier, today tabled a private member’s bill that would force the federal government to provide more information regarding the financial assistance it gives to various corporations.

Billions of dollars are being distributed every year by the government in subsidies and repayable contributions, but the conditions under which this assistance is being given, as well as the repayment information in the case of loans, are often not being made public.

For example, in the semi-annual repayment Status Report of the Technology Partnership Canada (TPC) program (see https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ito-oti.nsf/eng/00950.html), a report whose goal is presumably “to enhance transparency,” almost half of the projects offer no repayment information because “the company has not provided ISED with an authorization to disclose repayment information.” In some cases, we still don’t know if the loan has been reimbursed decades after it was granted.

As Industry minister more than a decade ago, Mr. Bernier had asked his department to disclose this information, but this policy of transparency was abandoned after he left his post.

“As everyone knows, I am generally not in favour of subsidies and government grants to business. But as long as they exist, Canadian taxpayers have the right to know how their money is being used. These are not private transactions, and corporations that take taxpayers’ money have no right to confidentiality.”

The bill tabled today would amend the Department of Industry Act in order to require the minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development to publish certain information concerning the financial assistance provided under the Act or by any agency for which he is responsible.

For more information or interviews with Mr. Bernier, please contact Renee Farrell at 613 992-8053

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