44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 8, 2022 02:00PM
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place today to debate Bill C-19, an act to implement certain provisions of budget 2022.
I will say from the outset that I will be voting against this high-spending federal budget, which proposes to dig Canada deeper into debt and drive our deficits ever higher. It simply hurts and squeezes middle-class Canadians even more through the Liberals' inflationary policies, which have created a cost-of-living crisis for Canadians in this country and a competitiveness crisis for Canadian businesses.
The Liberals and NDP often rise in this chamber to claim that they have the backs of Canadians, but their actions, as demonstrated by this reckless budget, prove otherwise. They will argue that it helps Canadians, when in fact it does the exact opposite.
If people were hoping for a return to some form of fiscal responsibility in this most recent federal budget, I am sure they were as disappointed as I was when the Liberal government revealed its $452-billion spending plan on April 7. If there was any cut in this budget, it was in the size of the document itself, which went from 725 pages in last year's budget to 304 pages in budget 2022. Perhaps that is progress, but only for a Liberal, I would presume.
Let us think about this for a moment. Federal government spending is now 25% higher than it was prepandemic. According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, each Canadian’s share of the national debt is now $31,700, and it is growing quickly.
It is clear throughout budget 2022 that the Prime Minister, his Minister of Finance and his NDP friends have failed to deliver on a plan that is fiscally responsible. Instead, they have added another $50 billion in uncontrolled borrowed spending. This will only fuel inflation and result in higher taxes, because one day these costs will have to be paid.
Despite all this new spending, there was very little support announced for our hardest-hit tourism sector. There is no mention of repayment extensions for CEBA or RRRF, and there was no extension to the tourism and hospitality recovery program, which ended already last month. These were key requests made to the government by the tourism industry to assist in its recovery, yet they were all rebuffed by a government committed to the talking point that it invested $1 billion in tourism. They fail to mention that this was in last year's budget, and it was still grossly insufficient given the economic toll the pandemic raged against this industry.
At a time when tourism recovery is still very much an aspiration for many and not yet a reality or certainty, the Liberal-NDP government, through this budget, has pulled the rug from under the feet of the tourism sector by not listening to its concerns and input on these important federal business support programs.
My riding of Niagara Falls, which includes the beautiful towns of Fort Erie and Niagara-on-the-Lake, is Canada's top leisure tourism destination. Before the pandemic, Canada’s national tourism industry generated $105 billion, which is 2% of our country’s GDP, and it employed one in 10 Canadians. Meanwhile, Niagara Falls alone contributed $2.4 billion in tourism receipts, and it employs nearly 40,000 workers in Niagara in our local tourism sector.
For tourism businesses in Niagara, the 2022 summer tourism season is its first real chance at recovery in two years. The sector, which will generate 75% of its income in the next four months, will be challenged to achieve recovery in 2022, specifically as a result of the government’s policies. By not listening to the concerns of the tourism sector, the government has essentially tied one hand behind the sector’s back by ending important relief programs, all while continuing to have in place restrictive travel mandates, which serve to depress visitors from travelling to Canada for business, to visit family or for vacation.
Instead of allowing tourism to do what it does best, which is to welcome visitors from throughout the world, the Liberal-NDP government has decided to double down on its efforts to hurt the Canadian tourism and travel sector. In fact, through budget 2022, the government is allocating an additional $25 million to support the disastrous ArriveCAN app at our international border crossings and ports of entry for travellers coming into Canada.
From a tourism perspective, which is so important to Niagara, it makes no sense that this is a funding priority of the government in this budget. Instead, the Conservatives are calling on the government to scrap this app. We did not need this app to travel or welcome tourists before the pandemic. Surely, we will not need it to travel or welcome tourists after the pandemic. As the world reopens from COVID, these questions and criticisms of ArriveCAN are important and necessary to highlight and press the government about.
It was astonishing to hear the recent testimony of the Parliamentary Budget Officer in the Senate yesterday. When asked if the finance minister's long-term deficit reduction plan was believable, he said it was not. To quote media reports from the Senate hearing, the Parliamentary Budget Officer stated, “I personally don’t believe it’s credible that there will be that level of spending restraint in the period from 2024 to 2027, given all the expenditures that remain to be implemented by the government over that period of time.” Well, I have a suggestion for the government. Perhaps it can save the $25 million it has allocated to the ArriveCAN app in this year’s budget, which will do nothing to help our tourism sector recover.
Another issue that is hampering the recovery of the Canadian tourism and travel sector is the massive backlogs at our local passport offices. Simply put, constituents of mine are experiencing nightmare conditions of service that are completely unacceptable. Obtaining a passport and renewing a passport are basic services that Canadians can rightly expect from their federal government as citizens and taxpayers, but the incompetence of the Liberal-NDP government has been laid bare by this example of mismanagement. This strong demand for Canadian passports and passport renewals as this pandemic ends was completely predictable, yet the government is clearly unprepared to deal with it, which again proves it does not have a plan to actually help Canadians or our travel and tourism sector, which my riding depends on.
Budget 2022 also raises far more questions than it provides answers for regarding businesses and workers in Canada’s wine industry, which is so important to Niagara and Niagara-on-the-Lake in my riding. First, this budget provides zero details about what the important trade legal excise exemption replacement program will look like. The expensive new excise tax will be hitting Canadian wineries on July 1, which is about three weeks away, just 22 days from now. Wineries across the country badly need to learn these program details so they can prepare and brace against the impact of this new tax.
Interestingly, while no program details have yet been revealed, the federal government does show it expects a revenue windfall, forecasted at $390 million over the next five years, after the excise exemption is repealed. How they arrived at this forecast is unexplained, and it does not indicate whether they expect the industry to grow, remain stable or contract as a result of this new expensive excise tax.
Then there is the question of the $34-million difference between the $101 million of federal support over two years promised in budget 2021 and the $135 million of departmental revenue forecasted for the first two years after the excise exemption is repealed. We know that the wine industry said the $101-million commitment in budget 2021 fell way short of what was needed to offset the costs of repealing the excise exemption in order to keep the industry whole as it is.
Will the federal government commit to returning to the wine industry the $34 million that it expects to generate in tax from the wine industry? Again, we do not know. The expensive new excise tax and all these unanswered questions risk future prosperity in Canada’s wine sector, which is so important to Niagara’s identity and economy.
Budget 2022 fails Canadians and fails Niagara. It proposes to grow the federal government even bigger, when the most basic of federal services, such as passport offices, are already failing and dysfunctional. More importantly, it fails to support our important tourism and wine sectors. For all these reasons and more, I will be opposing budget 2022.
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Madam Speaker, we are debating this evening, it is late, and I have the utmost respect for my other colleagues here in the House. I commend their dedication to democracy.
We are here to debate the 2022 budget implementation bill. I would like to begin by thanking the interpreters for their service, especially when I am giving a speech in broken French.
This is the second or third time I have spoken about the budget initiatives. As is typically the case when I rise in the House, I have chosen to focus my speech on certain topics. Tonight, those topics are Ukraine, affordability and the energy transition, new technologies and the importance of modernizing our regulatory system.
First, though, I want to say that I am a member of the House of Commons soccer team, which was started by my hon. colleague from Parkdale—High Park. This evening, we played a game against the British High Commission. Unfortunately, our team lost, but I think it is very important to put the match on the record. We lost by a score of three to one, with our only goal scored by the member for Lac-Saint-Jean. The Bloc Québécois members were very proud of their member, who got an assist from a Liberal, the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park. Future historians will understand what happened on the grounds of the Supreme Court during that game, a little break from the serious activities taking place here.
There have been many conversations here in the days and weeks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In this bill, I am very proud of the assistance our government is providing in the form of an estimated $1‑billion loan. This is an important loan, of course, but so is military equipment and humanitarian aid. I think that it is very important for this government and all parliamentarians to continue supporting Ukraine, because Ukraine is fighting for us right now and for international order based on respect for western values. I am very proud of this reality.
The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri‑Food studied the issue of global food insecurity. I think it is very important for all parliamentarians and all Canadians to understand that Russian soldiers targeted infrastructure in Ukraine that is crucial for the agricultural system. The consequences of this destruction represent a threat for many people around the world, whether in Canada, in countries with weak systems such as Egypt, or various countries in Africa and Asia.
With respect to our diplomatic efforts around the world and our capabilities and expertise in the agriculture and agri-food sector, I had the idea that the Minister of Foreign Affairs could appoint a special envoy to work with our allies and coordinate efforts in this area.
With respect to affordability, we currently have a strong economy, our GDP growth is impressive and, with the current economic recovery, the hardships we faced during the pandemic are well behind us.
I believe that this budget strikes a good balance between the importance of bringing forward different projects and measures to meet the needs of Canadians and the importance of keeping the fiscal framework intact. The budget looks solid.
Of course, inflation is a problem. Yesterday, on opposition day, the Conservatives proposed various measures to address inflation. However, inflation has multiple causes and is a global problem.
First, there are supply chain issues. Second, there are major demographic changes across Canada and in other western countries. Baby boomers will soon retire. Some already retired during the pandemic. According to a Statistics Canada survey, there are approximately one million job vacancies. It is therefore important to facilitate immigration. Temporary foreign worker programs are also very important.
The war in Ukraine, rising food prices and disruptions in trade exchanges have also exacerbated inflation. There are also problems with liquidity. At the height of the pandemic, governments around the world responded in a reasonable way to help their citizens. Naturally, injecting liquidity also drove up inflation.
On some of the Conservative proposals we saw yesterday, it is important to raise the question of affordability but they were not very targeted. The Conservative Party certainly brands itself as being very fiscally mindful of the situation. What it proposed yesterday on the GST really was going to be rewarding individuals who do not need it. It would be rewarding individuals in this House who make, in some cases, four times the average Canadian salary. Why should we be eligible for that? Why should high-income Canadians be eligible? They are not the ones who need help right now.
The government needs to look at addressing affordability as we move forward. Of course, the budget was introduced a number of months ago. We need to address situations as they evolve, but we need to be mindful of balancing the fiscal framework and being targeted at Canadians who really need the help and not have these broad tax relief measures for Canadians who do not necessarily need them.
It is important we understand the Bank of Canada is responsible for helping control inflation. We will see increased interest rates in the days ahead. It is something we should all be mindful of, and frankly, be bracing for. There are some Canadians who hold a lot of private debt and that will be a challenge in the days ahead.
The government should focus on the supply side. Part of the challenge right now is the fact that there is not enough supply for certain demand, which is also driving some of these different prices higher.
I did not get much of a chance to talk about it, but let me just say how important the Atlantic Loop is. As a Nova Scotian MP, this is crucial for our energy future. It is great to see initiatives in the budget that will focus on grid transmission and upgrades. I am going to continue to talk about small modular reactors. We need to continue to drive that. I was pleased to see some initiative in the budget for it.
Hydrogen, biofuels and natural gas are all going to be important elements as transition fuels and in the longer term to 2050.
I am going to leave it at that. I cannot wait to hear from all of colleagues. I know they have been captivated by my remarks.
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