44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, there was much in that question. I would like to thank my colleague for recognizing the work that Canada has done to continue to support Ukraine. I would also like to thank my colleague for his work at our foreign affairs committee. However, I do believe that it was former prime minister Harper who cut the most from our national defence investments. I believe that we need to continue investing in our defensive capabilities, and this budget goes a long way in order to do just that.
With respect to the economic aspect of his question, I would point him to the consistently falling net debt-to-GDP ratio in our budget. I would point him to the statistics I mentioned on having the lowest deficit in the G7. This is ensuring that our economy continues to function well and to grow, and that we continue to attract foreign direct investment at unprecedented rates, which we are.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals are not good stewards of the economy and they certainly were not able to unify the country. However, they have managed to divide Canadians just enough so they can squeak in a minority, although they continue to lose the popular vote election after election. I would not say that it is a strong mandate at all, yet they pretend like it is.
They have also managed to plunge us into inflation so bad that they have had to scramble to explain why. They would have us believe that it is not their fault. We have heard virtually all members deflect and blame everything and everyone else for it, but ultimately it is their fiscal management and astronomical spending and debt that got us into this problem at this point.
What is this point? Well, for the first time in 31 years, prices are up over 6.7% compared with the previous year. This means higher grocery prices for Canadian families every time they go into the store. As a matter of fact, food prices are up 8.7% since last year.
Families are certainly aware of gas prices every time they fill up their tanks on their way to work or to drop kids off at school. Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, is warning that gas prices could reach $2.20 a litre this summer, with diesel going even higher. That is over a 32% increase in gas prices since last year.
In addition to gas, home heating prices are up. We live in a cold country. Canadian families have no choice but to turn up the thermostat in winter, and they have certainly seen the difference in their gas bills this past winter. Electrical bills have also gone up. Ultimately, everything Canadians purchase and pay for, or what economists call the cost of living, is going up and is going up fast.
As the Canadian Press notes:
A report by RBC Economics says inflation and rising borrowing costs will affect all Canadian households, but low income Canadians will feel the sharpest sting.... RBC estimates the lowest income Canadians will also be more affected as they spend a much larger share of their earnings on consumer purchases.
It follows that “low income households have a smaller cash cushion to deal with the rise in prices and borrowing costs.”
I am sure members of the NDP-Liberal government will stand up after my speech and try to deflect and blame others for their failures, as they usually do. Perhaps they will even invoke Stephen Harper's name again, which is a common theme. Let us remind them that it is 2022. They have been in power for more than six years, and these dismal results are entirely of their own doing.
However, they have started to understand that their tired, old tactic of blaming previous governments is no longer effective. Canadians see that and they no longer believe them. I am sure the Liberals see it in the polls. They have realized it quickly and are trying to pivot to what would be another failed tactic. Political games are what the NDP-Liberal government is good at, not managing the economy and not managing our country's finances. It is only about playing politics. What is the plan? I ask because it certainly does not seem like there is one.
Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said:
[The finance minister] is giving taxpayers another credit card budget with no plan to pay the bills on time and chip away at the $1-trillion debt.... [The finance minister] is taking the wait-and-see approach to the government’s credit card bills and hoping the economy can grow faster than its borrowing, but that’s not a good bet with its track record of runaway spending.
The latest statistics bear repeating because we are in a fairly dire situation. Statistics Canada recently reported that inflation has reached its highest point since January 1991. We have all seen the news. Millions of Canadians are barely hanging on. Canadian families are spending thousands of dollars more in groceries this year compared with last, food prices are up across Canada by more than 7% and housing is a huge problem the government has done almost nothing about. In fact, since the Prime Minister and his Liberals were elected in 2015, prices for homes have doubled. The average price was over $800,000 in February, a record, and this is more than nine times the average household income.
In fact, according to Fortune magazine, the standard home in Canada costs almost twice as much as the U.S. equivalent. Robert Hogue, RBC assistant chief economist, said that increases are “nothing short of stunning”. That is incredibly discouraging for Canadian families to hear when they are looking to purchase a home.
The Conservatives have raised the alarm bells for many years on this specific issue, but the calls have fallen on deaf ears. Some of the most vulnerable Canadians, such as seniors, are also falling even further behind. Let us put it this way, just so everyone, hopefully including members of the NDP-Liberal government, will understand: More than half of Canadians are $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills or rent, and 31% are unable to cover their bills because they do not earn enough income. Three in 10 Canadians are already falling behind at the end of the month.
What is worse is that this budget does nothing to address any of this. It does not do anything to address our deep economic challenges and make the lives of Canadians easier. It only makes them harder.
Even on one of the Liberals' supposed strong suits, the environment, we recently learned from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that the carbon tax is not revenue-neutral. I hope everyone in the chamber remembers the number of times the Prime Minister and the Liberals repeated that the carbon tax was going to be revenue-neutral. I would venture to say it was hundreds of times, if not thousands, in the House, in the media and in their announcements throughout the country. In the end, was it true? Of course it was not. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that middle-class Canadians should expect to pay hundreds of dollars, if not thousands, because of the carbon tax. That is not revenue-neutral.
The difficult thing for me is that the Prime Minister and the Liberals already knew this. They knew that this would not be revenue-neutral, yet they still went around repeating what they knew not to be true. They repeated it so often that it convinced many Canadians.
Where are the Liberal MPs and the Prime Minister now? We now have evidence that the carbon tax is not what they told us it would be. In fact, it is pretty much the opposite. Will they take ownership? Will they admit they were not telling the truth? On this side of the House, we will not hold our breath.
Once again, the Liberals will skate around the question, skirt the issue and move on to their next failed attempt to implement another ill-advised policy, perhaps like a digital ID, which Canadians are rejecting because they do not trust the government. Who could blame them? There was the WE Charity scandal, the Prime Minister's trip to Paradise Island, the numerous ethics violations and the constant apologies for misdoings, yet the Liberals do the same thing over and over again.
The digital idea is just another example by a ballooning government to introduce further and unnecessary government restrictions on Canadians. The Liberals will attempt to hurl insults for even bringing this up. On page 74 of budget 2021, they proposed to “provide $105.3 million over five years...to Transport Canada to collaborate with international partners to further advance the Known Traveller Digital Identity pilot project”, a project pushed by the now notorious and controversial World Economic Forum. The government claims that this project will be used to “test advanced technologies to facilitate touchless and secure air travel”. However, the concerns around it are already pouring in. Civil liberties groups and governments are sounding off and opposing any form of digital ID. In fact, the Government of Saskatchewan realized the ill-advised nature of the digital ID program and announced a few weeks ago that it was nixing the planned rollout.
Many Canadians are not even aware of the digital ID programs that are now at various phases of rollout in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Now the federal government is planning one of its own. I am not sure why governments, including the current one, are so bent and steadfast on having such a tight, restrictive and intrusive grip on Canadians. Why do the Liberals not trust Canadians? Why are they attempting to track them as if they are livestock? In a recent interview, Ann Cavoukian, Ontario's former privacy commissioner, said, “I would never want to get a digital ID.” That is what Ontario's former privacy commissioner said about digital IDs.
There is something very wrong when a government is obsessed with controlling its own citizens and subjecting them to such divisive and invasive technological tools. It is wrong, it must stop and it must stop now. The now infamous vaccine passports were one of the most intrusive tools to ever be put in place, in addition to being incredibly exclusionary. This trajectory cannot continue with yet another divisive tool like a digital ID.
I understand this is being pushed on the government from external and foreign sources of influence, but submitting to this kind of insidious meddling and perpetual surveillance of Canadians' lives is troublesome, to say the least. Having this sort of government control over citizens is plain wrong in a free and democratic society like ours.
Having said that, the government is not just reluctant to accept or support some of our most basic civil liberties. It is also hurting many industries, including a very important one in my own riding, the wine industry. The Liberals failed to freeze the automatic escalator tax increase on alcohol excise duties on April 1, once again putting our winemakers at a competitive disadvantage. This tax increase hurts not only winemakers, but breweries, cideries and distilleries. Let us not forget that over 95% of these producers are small businesses, many of which have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the inflation crisis, payroll tax increases, labour shortages and ongoing supply chain issues. An increase in the tax on alcohol hurts the industry, from growers and producers to restaurants and consumers. It is time to end this and give this incredible world-renowned sector a break from the never-ending increase on government.
In sum, Canadians cannot afford more—
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be in the House and to speak on behalf of the people of Calgary Midnapore, and here I am today addressing the BIA.
I will start with an anecdote. Last Friday, when my husband picked me up at the Calgary airport, we were making the left-hand turn we usually do in an effort to merge onto Deerfoot Trail. Halfway through our turn, the light turned yellow and my husband stopped in the middle of the intersection. I turned to him and said, “James, what the bleep are you doing here?” Well, that is what I have to say: What are we doing here? What is the government doing here?
When I arrived here in 2017, there was the same sentiment that existed in 2015 when the Liberal government came into place. Among Canadians, although we were disappointed as Conservatives and sorry to see the departure of former prime minister Stephen Harper, I think there was a feeling of hope and enthusiasm across the country. We often think of sunny ways at that time, when the Prime Minister and the Liberal government came in. Those same sentiments existed when I arrived here in 2017. I was just outside those doors getting ready to be walked into the House of Commons for the first time, and there was still that same feeling of excitement and of sunny ways.
I have to say, that is not there anymore, and this budget reflects it. This budget is a mishmash and a patchwork of legislation. Any individual reading through this content could not determine the goals, aspirations and theme of the government. Is that not what leadership really is? What are we doing here?
When I reflect upon the reasons for the lack of direction we now see from the government, I would attribute it to three things. Number one is now the failure to implement any vision the government to the Prime Minister might have once had. The second would be an unuseful and impractical adherence to ideology. The third would be ignoring the real problems affecting Canadians. I will take some time now to expand on each of those.
When I talk about the failure to implement the vision, I am talking about the sunny ways and hope and enthusiasm the Prime Minister and the government arrived here with. Unfortunately, when they have tried to execute these sunny ways and implement them in Canada and Canadian culture, it has been nothing but an absolute failure. We saw that with the attempts for democracy reform. We saw it when the attempt was made to go to proportional representation, which was a 2015 election promise. It was failed upon by the previous minister for democratic institutions, who is no longer in the House. That is one example of the failure of the implementation of vision we have seen from the government.
We saw this with the climate plan. We saw this with the Paris climate accord. I sat back there in my second week, having to vote on the Paris climate accord. The fear and division it created in the House, which I will expand upon, was for no reason. These targets that we voted upon and that divided us were never actually achieved by the government, so what is the point?
It is the same thing we saw with the Liberals' grand idea of planting two billion trees. As I look around this room, I see nary a tree. They have failed on these climate initiatives as well.
The third is unity, and I will speak to this from two perspectives. The first is regional. Liberals have pitted region against region in this country, needlessly creating division at a time even before the pandemic descended upon us. Of course, with the pandemic, it was the Prime Minister who used inflammatory language, name-called and attacked Canadians who had valid concerns about the mandates. He actually rejected a Conservative motion to create a plan to roll back the mandates, which could have lowered the temperature, and he then of course invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canada's history. We, on this side of the House, are still reviewing that to this day. It created terrible disunity not only in the House, but among Canadians.
The second is a unuseful adherence to ideology. We have seen this in two places in particular. The first was the killing of the natural resources sector. As an Albertan, I take personal offence to this. How has the current government done this? It has done this by not providing support for Line 5. My colleague, the member for Calgary Centre, has talked and encouraged ad nauseam about this. Of course, at this moment in history, while Ukraine faces its most difficult time, the most difficult time we have seen in recent history, the government failed to pass a motion to get natural gas to Europe. At a time when our natural resources could be used for good in this world, the government turned its back against it. It brought in Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium, and who can forget Bill C-69, the no new pipelines bill, which again showed an unuseful adherence to ideology.
We also saw that with the mandates, the mandates that still rest with us today. I can tell members of the House that the parliamentary precinct, and frankly airports and airplanes, are the only places now where I am required to wear a mask. The government should lift the mandates on that and stop using this unuseful adherence to ideology. It is not helpful for Canadians at all.
What I think is most important here is that, if we look at the ways the government has failed and how this budget reflects that, it shows an ignorance of the real problems that affect Canadians. What are they? I will list a couple.
At the industry committee we saw a rejection to support the lithium mine, which would have been very important for semiconductors, something that is becoming increasingly important as we evaluate supply chains going into the future. In addition, we saw a government that was useless and unwilling to take a stand until the very last moment on the CP Rail strike, which would have had devastating impacts on not only western Canada, but also all of Canada.
We have seen this lack of action in labour shortages. The CFIB's recent report “Labour shortages are back with a vengeance” found that 55% of businesses could not find the staff they needed. Food and Beverage Canada said that it lacked 300,000 workers within its industry and has companies with vacancy rates of over 20%. The government throwing money at this is not helping. It needs to address the backlogs it has within its immigration processes.
We hear about housing endlessly here, with the average price of a home now reaching $874,100, a jolting 27.1% increase over the last year. The initiatives of the government, such as the first-time homebuyer incentive and the shared equity mortgage fund, are failing terribly.
I can talk about the failures of the government and how this budget and the budget implementation act do not address the cost of living and inflation. For the first time in 31 years, prices are up 6.7% compared to a year ago. Families are spending nearly $1,000 more a year on groceries and gas. Gas and home heating are costing more, and housing prices have doubled since the Prime Minister became the Prime Minister. More than half of Canadians are $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills or rent, with three in 10 already falling behind at the end of the month.
In conclusion, the government has run its course. It has received a minority not once, but twice now. It just had to buy a mandate until 2025. When it was elected in 2015, there was a sense of hope, optimism and possibility. That is gone now. This budget reflects it, and the budget implementation act reflects it. What are we doing here?
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