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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 100

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 22, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 100 - Sep/22/22
Mr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC)
  • Sep/22/22 4:13:03 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-30 
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the minister to reflect on a quote and answer a question. Avery Shenfeld, the chief economist at CIBC, said, “In a period of high inflation and excess demand, cutting taxes or handing out cheques can add fuel to the inflationary fire, and make the job of a central bank that’s raising rates to cool demand all that more troublesome.” The government spent this whole summer in repose. I imagine its members were polling, but they did not do the hard work. In their budget this spring, they talked about a policy review to reprioritize spending to cut back wasteful spending. Why did they not do that hard work so that when they presented this tax relief to the low-income families who are going to depend on it, the inflation concerns were at least diminished, if not, on a one-for-one basis, removed? Why does the government continue to spend and make things worse? Why is it not doing the hard work of finding equivalent cuts?
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Context: House Hansard - 100 - Sep/22/22
Mr. Dan Albas
  • Sep/22/22 4:53:01 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-30 
Madam Speaker, I will start with the last question the member opposite had and see if I have time for the other ones. First of all, in a question earlier to the Minister of Tourism during his speech, I asked specifically why the government did not do the hard work within the budget that was announced this year. The Liberals said that they would have billions of dollars from a policy review to look at curbing back spending. They could have easily, dollar for dollar, gone through these other programs to find things that are either wasteful or no longer necessary and actually put forward a plan to say, “Look, we are going to be reducing the cost of government here while we put forward this GST tax relief for Canadians to help them.” That would have actually lessened or even alleviated the inflationary concerns regarding this bill, but they do not do the hard work. This government is built to spend with this “always be spending” Prime Minister and this “always be spending” finance minister. This is the challenge we have here: The environment in which they make policy decisions is no longer 2015. They need to do better when it comes to doing these things. This is not a balanced way to be helping people. A proper way would be to find balance and savings.
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