SoVote

Nov/3/22 3:59:40 p.m.
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The hon. member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia will have seven minutes remaining when the House resumes debate on this matter. It being 4 p.m., pursuant to order made Friday, October 28, I now invite the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance to make a statement.

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Nov/3/22 4:00:24 p.m.
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Pursuant to Standing Order 83(1), I would like to table, in both official languages, a notice of a ways and means motion to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7. Pursuant to Standing Order 83(2), I would ask that an order of the day be designated for the consideration of this motion.

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Nov/3/22 4:01:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the fall economic statement 2022.

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Nov/3/22 4:01:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for the past several months, I have been travelling across Canada—to more than two dozen cities and towns—to meet with Canadian workers and Canadian businesses. I visited an auto parts manufacturer in Etobicoke, a potash mine outside Saskatoon, and the women and men in Sherbrooke who make the boots our armed forces wear around the world. I visited the port of Saint John in New Brunswick, and a family farm in Olds, Alberta, and in Dartmouth, Brampton and Calgary, I spent time with some of the truckers who keep our economy humming. The Canadians I spoke to were all so proud of our country. They were proud of the hard work they do every day to feed Canada and the world, build our cars, send our goods to global markets and raise their children, but they were also anxious about whether our future will be as prosperous as our past, and anxious about paying the bills today. That is where I want to start, with the high cost of living so many of us, along with so many Canadians, are concerned about. I know it has felt like just one thing after another since COVID first reached our shores. We turned the economy off, and then we turned it back on again. Vladimir Putin illegally invaded Ukraine, and now we are dealing with inflation. These are related, of course. Global inflation is not created by the decisions of any one government alone, but by the combined aftershocks of two and a half years of historic turmoil. Inflation was 6.9% in September, after falling for the third month in a row. That is lower than in the U.S., the U.K., and the eurozone. For Canadians feeling the pinch at the checkout counter, or when they fill their tanks with gas, it is still too high. This is a challenging time for so many of us—for our friends, for our families, for our neighbours. It is important, as both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, that I am honest with Canadians about the challenges that still lie ahead. Interest rates are rising as the Bank of Canada steps in to tackle inflation, and that means our economy is slowing down. It means there are people whose mortgage payments are rising. It means business is no longer booming in the same way it was since we left our homes after the COVID lockdowns and went back out into the world. That is the case in Canada. That is the case in the United States, and that is the case in economies, big and small, around the world. Canada cannot avoid the global slowdown any more than we could have avoided COVID once it had begun infecting the world, but we will be ready. Indeed, we are ready. That is because, for the past seven years, our government has been reinforcing Canada's social safety net. We have improved many important programs and added some new ones too. These investments in Canadians are like a well-built house with a solid roof—needed in all seasons and in all weather, but most essential when the temperature drops. That is why, as fall turns to winter, we will continue to stand up to those who would cut the EI and the pensions Canadians have been contributing to for their entire working lives, and need today more than ever. It is why we created the Canada child benefit and why we are making child care more affordable. It is why we enhanced the benefits that those who served with our flag on their shoulder depend on. It is why we doubled the Canada student grant, to make it a little easier for all young people to go to college or university or to pursue an apprenticeship. It is why we enhanced the Canada workers benefit, and why we increased both old age security and the guaranteed income supplement. That is why it is so important that the Canada pension plan and our most important benefits are all indexed to inflation. In today's fall economic statement, that is why we are delivering on a plan that millions of Canadians voted for just over a year ago and why we are delivering new measures to enhance the social safety net that is there to support all Canadians. We are working to deliver lower credit card fees, so that small businesses do not have to choose between cutting into their already narrow margins and passing fees on to their customers. We are taxing share buybacks to make sure large corporations pay their fair share and to encourage them to reinvest their profits in Canadian workers and in Canada. We are delivering a multi-generational home renovation tax credit, which will help families across Canada afford to have a grandparent or a family member with a disability move back in if they want to. We are tackling housing speculation and making sure that homes are for Canadians to live in, not a frequently flipped investment asset. We are delivering on our commitment to make home ownership more affordable for young people and new Canadians with a new tax-free first home savings account that will make it so much easier to save for a down payment. We are also delivering with a doubling of the first-time homebuyers' tax credit, to help cover the closing costs that come with buying that first home of one's own. We are permanently eliminating interest on the federal portion of Canada student loans and Canada apprentice loans. We are working to make sure families do not need to choose between taking their child to the dentist and putting food on the table. We are creating a new quarterly Canada workers benefit to deliver advance payments and put more money, sooner, into the pockets of our lowest-paid and often most essential workers. This means the Canada workers benefit will now support 4.2 million Canadians. We are providing hundreds of dollars in new targeted support to low-income renters. For the Canadians who need it the most, we are doubling the GST credit for the next six months. I have some very good news about that. For the 11 million Canadian households who need help the most, those GST cheques will start arriving in bank accounts and mailboxes tomorrow. We are providing targeted inflation relief, because that is the right thing to do. As the Bank of Canada fights inflation, we will not make its job harder. We are compassionate and we are also responsible. Canada has the lowest deficit and the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. In our April budget, with inflation in Canada and around the world elevated and still rising, we knew we had to chart a fiscally responsible course, and we did. In April we committed to bringing the deficit down to just 2% of GDP this year. Today, we forecast it will be just 1.3% of our $2.8-trillion economy. We can bring the deficit down today because our pandemic spending worked. Thanks to the historic support we provided and thanks to the incredible resilience of Canadians, Canada is entering this time of a slowing global economy from a position of fundamental economic strength. There are 400,000 more Canadians working today than before the pandemic. Our economy is now 103% the size it was before COVID hit. So far this year, Canada's economic growth has been the strongest in the G7, stronger than in the United States, stronger than in the United Kingdom, stronger than in Germany, stronger than in France and stronger than in Italy or Japan. Thanks to that enviable economic performance, we are able to provide targeted support to the most vulnerable while still shrinking our deficit. In the months to come we will be able to invest in the Canadian economy and to be there for the Canadians who need it the most, because we were responsible in April and because we are keeping our powder dry today. Canadians are tough, and the Canadian economy is resilient. That is why we can all be confident we will get through this, just as we have gotten through so much over the past two and a half years. In fact, there is no country in the world better placed than Canada to get through the coming global slowdown. When we do, with our fundamental economic strengths preserved, and the pandemic recession behind us, there is no country in the world better placed than Canada to thrive in a post-COVID global economy. We grow food to feed the world, and we mine the potash that farmers here and elsewhere need to grow their own. We have the critical minerals and metals that are essential for everything from cellphones to batteries to appliances to electric cars. We have the natural resources to power the global net-zero transition and to support our allies with their energy security as that transition continues to pick up speed. Critically, Canada is the democracy that has all of these resources in abundance. The global economy is at a turning point. We are entering an era of friend-shoring, a time when our democratic partners and their most important companies are seeking to shift their dependence from dictatorships to democracies. That is why the Prime Minister and Chancellor Scholz signed an agreement in Newfoundland for Germany to buy Canadian hydrogen. That is why the United States has moved from a buy America to a buy North America policy on critical minerals and electric vehicles. That is why our Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry has been signing agreements with global car manufacturers and battery makers—a new one almost every day, it seems to me. That is why our Minister of Natural Resources is pitching Canada's critical minerals to the world and working hard with provinces and territories to get them out of the ground and to global markets. The world knows that Canada can build the electric vehicles of today and tomorrow. Canadians can mine and process the critical minerals that those vehicles, our phones and our computers are all made of, and Canadian energy workers, the very best in the world, can make Canada the leading provider of energy as the global economy moves to net zero. Our allies are counting on us, and our government believes that this ongoing shift is the most significant opportunity for Canadian workers and Canadian businesses in a generation. Seizing this opportunity is what our April budget invested in, and it is what this fall economic statement invests in, too. With major investment tax credits for clean technology and clean hydrogen, we will make it more attractive for businesses to invest in Canada to produce the energy that will power a net-zero global economy. We are launching a new Canada growth fund that will help attract the billions of dollars in new private capital required to fight climate change and to create good jobs in Canada at the same time. From critical minerals to ports to energy, we will continue to make it easier for businesses to invest in major projects in Canada, projects with meaningful indigenous participation, projects that meet the highest environmental standards, projects that will create good jobs and projects that will allow Canadian workers to drive our economy forward. We will continue to invest in tackling the productivity challenge that is Canada's economic Achilles heel. We will continue to invest in making sure Canadians have the skills they need to get good-paying jobs, and we will continue to bring to Canada more of the skilled workers that our growing economy requires. However, we know these investments represent only a down payment on the work that lies ahead, so, in the months to come, we will continue to work hard to ensure that Canada is the best place in the world for businesses to invest and create good-paying jobs from coast to coast to coast. Now, the investments we are making today and the ones we will continue to make will be crucial to the future of the Canadian economy. They will help make Canada a leader in the industries of tomorrow, and they will help to build an economy that is more sustainable and more prosperous for generations to come. However, what matters most is what these investments mean for Canadians. For energy workers in Alberta, investments in clean energy mean there will continue to be good-paying jobs for them and their children. For a young couple in Vancouver, more workers in the building trades mean more affordable homes for their new family. For auto workers in Windsor, Canadian leadership on electric vehicles means they will build the next generation of cars that have powered our economy for more than a century. Canadian workers know how important our social safety net is, and that is why our government will never deplete the contributions that keep Canada's employment insurance and pensions strong. Canadians know how important training is to equip them for valuable, good-paying jobs, so we are investing in that, too. Canadian workers also know that the single most important thing—the difference between managing to pay their mortgage and fearing they could lose their home; the difference between paying the bills at the end of the month and falling behind—is a well-paid, stable job, doing work they are proud of with people who respect them and their skills. That is why our overriding economic objective during COVID was to preserve Canadians' jobs, and that is why today, what Canadian workers need is a government with a real, robust industrial policy, a government committed to investing in the net-zero transition, to bringing in new private investment, and to helping create good-paying jobs from coast to coast to coast. That is what we have been doing, and that is what we are continuing to do today. In 1903, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier stood in this House and said: No, this is not a time for deliberation, this is a time for action.... We cannot wait because time does not wait; we cannot wait, because in these days of wonderful development, time lost is doubly lost; we cannot wait, because at this moment there is a transformation going on in the conditions of our national life which it would a be folly to ignore and a crime to overlook;... He was speaking then about the transcontinental railway, one that connected Canada and the Canadian economy from east to west, and which helped usher in a new era of prosperity for the people of our growing country. That project, like Laurier himself, was imperfect. The prosperity and opportunity it brought were not shared equally with indigenous peoples, with women, with new Canadians, but his message then is one we should heed today, that we must heed today. At the turn of the last century, Laurier and a generation of Canadian statesmen understood that Canada was at a turning point and that we could seize it or risk being swept aside by the manifest destiny of more ambitious leaders. Today, we are likewise at a pivotal moment. The global green transition calls for an industrial transformation comparable in scale only to the Industrial Revolution itself, and Canada is blessed with the talented people, the natural resources and the manufacturing base needed to drive that transformation. At the same time, Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine has upended geopolitics, reinforcing for our allies the value of turning to each other, to us, for the critical elements of their supply chains and for their energy security. Together, these two great shifts represent a generational opportunity to build a thriving and sustainable Canadian economy. We can lead the world in a way that far exceeds our footprint as a country of just 39 million people. We can lead the fight against climate change, and we can do it in a way that creates good jobs and new businesses for Canadians from coast to coast to coast. We can build affordable homes and deliver affordable child care, helping our economy grow and making life more affordable for middle-class Canadian families. We can ensure that everyone in this country can enjoy the prosperity we are investing in together. That is the future that we can create for ourselves and for our children. However, we cannot wait, because time truly does not wait. We cannot wait, because in these days of wonderful development, time lost is doubly lost. I know that times feel tough right now, and they are, but we have a well-built house with a solid roof, and we have survived far colder winters before. Just as fall turns to winter, so, too, does winter turn to spring. There are warmer days ahead. We will reach them together by building a country where everyone can earn a good living for a hard day's work, by building an economy that works for everyone, by investing in the Canada we are all so proud of today so that we can be even prouder of our amazing country tomorrow because, of all the countries in the world, the 21st century will surely belong to Canada.

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All Topics

Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, CPC)

Nov/3/22 4:30:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's policies have caused 40-year highs in inflation, leading to massive interest rate hikes on Canadians, which will cost Canadian families $3,000 a year. Today the Prime Minister had a chance to give Canadians some relief by cancelling the carbon tax on home heating, but he refused. The Liberals refused despite the fact that home heating bills will increase by 50% to 100% this winter. They refused despite billions in new tax revenue on the growling stomachs of Canadians. Will the Prime Minister stop punishing Canadians and cancel the plan to triple, triple, triple the carbon tax on home heating?

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland

Nov/3/22 4:31:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we absolutely understand that times are tough for so many Canadians today. That is why I was so glad to share some great news, which is that the GST credit will start arriving in the bank accounts and in the mailboxes of 11 million Canadian households tomorrow. That is much-needed support. It is going to provide such valuable inflation relief to the Canadians who need it the most. That is not all. We are moving forward with $500 to support Canadians who are struggling to pay their rent. Again, it is much-needed support for the people who need it the most. That is not all. We are moving forward to ensure that never again in Canada will a mother have to choose between buying groceries and taking her kid to the dentist. That is not right in Canada, and we are going to change that. There is a lot more we are going to do and we will talk about it in a minute.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

Nov/3/22 4:34:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her speech. Her speech sounded nice enough, but take a look at the concrete measures in the economic statement and try to see what is new compared to last spring's budget. It is disappointing. The minister just gave two examples of measures that were adopted before this statement was presented. What I liked about her speech is that she recognized that there is an inflationary crisis at the moment, and she acknowledged the risk of an imminent recession. However, I find it unfortunate that there are no new concrete measures that would show Canadians how this crisis will be dealt with, how they will be helped and supported. For example, we know the employment insurance system is not working. It is broken. Now is the time to fix it, before the country goes into recession. However, that was not announced in the speech. As prices go up, we worry about seniors, especially those from 65 to 75 years of age whose payments did not go up. There are no new measures for these people, who can no longer make ends meet and whose incomes are really limited, nor are there any fiscal measures that would give them an incentive to work if they want to work a few days a week. I think that would have been easy to do, and we expected to see something like that here. My last comment is about health care. We know that health care systems in all the provinces and Quebec are underfunded and in crisis. There are problems. Provincial health ministers will be meeting with the government in a few days. What will they talk about? We expected the government to solve the problem by transferring the $28 billion and committing to increasing health transfers by 6% per year. With the ministers' meeting just days away, there is no money on the table. What is going on? If the government knows there are problems, why did it announce so few measures—really, hardly any new measures—in this statement?

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland

Nov/3/22 4:34:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying that what I just presented was the fall economic statement, not a budget. It is a continuation of the work that we began in April and will continue in the spring. I have a great deal of respect for the member opposite, but I want to point out that we have announced and brought in support measures that will make a big difference in the lives of Canadians. We have doubled the GST credit, and that is real support. Rental assistance is real support. Dental care assistance is real support. I have announced other important measures. Support for students comes to mind. We all understand that life today is particularly difficult for our young people, which is why our government will be there with help for our students. There is also help for the most essential but lowest-paid workers. I think this is an important and well-targeted measure. This measure will help the people who need it the most.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Nov/3/22 4:36:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are certainly some items that the finance minister has mentioned that are very familiar to us New Democrats because they are the things we have been pressuring the government into doing, whether it is dental care, the Canada housing benefit, child care or many other things we could go on about, including the GST rebate that is coming to Canadians tomorrow. However, today was an opportunity to go above and beyond those things, to address the real challenges that people are facing as we come into the fall, as they are worried about home heating costs and the cost of groceries, and as we learn that Loblaws is making a million dollars a day more in profit above their latest banner year. What we thought we might have seen in addition to things that the NDP has required of the government to move on were things like more serious consequences for price fixing in the grocery industry. We wanted to see a windfall profit tax, so that companies that are making extraordinary profits in the pandemic context are required to pay more in order for there to be assistance for Canadians. We want to see the GST on home heating removed, a measure that would apply across the country and not just in provinces that are subject to the federal carbon tax. The government is now starting to indicate there may be a recession coming, except that it just reverted to the prepandemic, broken EI system just as people are starting to worry about looking for work. Where is the promised EI modernization reform the government has been talking about forever? I also want to say I was very disappointed to note that the only reference to health care in this document is about dental care. That is a good thing and we should be moving forward on that, but at a time when most Canadians do not trust that if they go to the emergency room they are going to be seen and helped, we need way more investment in health care, working collaboratively, of course, with the provinces. We need to see that the federal government is willing to come to the table with those dollars. On all of these many things that this was an opportunity to take action on, why have we not seen any action on those important issues?

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Hon. Chrystia Freeland

Nov/3/22 4:38:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have answered a question from the member for Elmwood—Transcona since the death of his father, who served honourably here, so I want to start by paying tribute to him. He was a very important person for Canadians, for his constituents and for progressive causes in Canada. I believe this fall economic statement will make a difference in the lives of Canadians. It will make a difference in the lives of the Canadians who need help the most. One of the themes in this fall economic statement is support for hard-working Canadians. We see that in the Canada workers benefit. We are moving this to an advance payment, because people who work really hard for really low pay cannot wait until the fiscal year is over to get a top-up; they need it while they are working. I think they deserve it. We should be rewarding them for doing those hard jobs and should be encouraging them. This is an important measure and I am really glad it is here. I want to say how much I thank all of those hard-working people who get the Canada workers benefit and how much I respect them. There is another element in this fall economic statement that is directly about supporting hard-working Canadians and making sure there are great jobs for them. It is our green tax credits. In the hydrogen credit and the clean-tech tax credit, we have included provisions for good, high-wage jobs and apprenticeships. It is the first time we have done that and it will make a big difference.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Leader of the Opposition, CPC)

Nov/3/22 4:41:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when we learned that the costly coalition would be introducing this economic update today, we had two demands: no new taxes on workers and seniors and no new spending unless matched by equal savings. Today, this inflationary scheme triples the tax on home heating, gas and groceries, and adds $20 billion of inflationary spending that will drive up the cost of living. The Conservatives will stand up for Canadians, their paycheques, their homes and their savings, and we will vote against this inflationary scheme. How did we get here? Well, the cost of government is driving up the cost of living. Half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits have bid up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes have increased the costs for businesses, farmers and workers to produce those very same goods. The Liberals will pretend that they had no choice but to double the debt. The Prime Minister will claim that it is not his fault that he added more debt than all previous prime ministers combined. Let us start with the fact that he added $100 billion of debt before the very first COVID case was ever discovered here in Canada. He cannot blame COVID for that. In fact, he blew through his promise that the deficit would never exceed $10 billion. It was already $100 billion in total before the first case of COVID. Then when COVID came, 40% of all the new spending measures had nothing to do with COVID, according to the Prime Minister's own named Parliamentary Budget Officer. There was $200 billion of spending unrelated to COVID, and even among the COVID spending, there was an “all you can eat” buffet of waste and mismanagement. The Liberals sent CERB cheques to prisoners. They sent them to public servants who were simultaneously drawing public salaries. They gave wage subsidies to wealthy corporations that were rich enough to pay out dividends and bonuses to their executives, even after I warned that they should ban that hideous practice. They tried to give half a billion dollars to the WE Charity, an organization that had given half a million dollars to the Prime Minister's own family. The Liberals then spent $54 million on app we did not need, that did not work and that could have been designed in a weekend for $250,000. The previous Conservative government had successfully delivered apps that were necessary, useful and of a similar complexity for $200,000 to $300,000, but somehow this one went up to $54 million. Many of the recipients of the money admit they did not do any work. They just hired other people to do work. The Liberals gave the money to people who did not do anything other than delegate the work to someone else. Do we not have public servants getting paid within the government to deliver that type of contracting? The government will not even tell us the identities of all the recipients of that money. Do not tell me the government had to double the size of the national debt. Do not tell me that every dollar of inflationary spending was necessary. The Liberals were irresponsible and unnecessarily profligate with the dollars of Canadians, and now people are paying the price. The Prime Minister will now say that Russia caused the inflation in Canada. Of course, we do less than 0.3% of our trade with Russia and Ukraine combined, beyond which the stuff they make is the stuff we have here already. They have energy and food. We have energy and food. If only the Prime Minister would get out of the way of our farmers and energy workers and let them produce those things. Beyond that, under the previous Conservative government, there were wars. There was a massive war in Afghanistan, and there were others in Iraq and Syria, but we never had inflation anywhere over 4%. In fact, we were able to successfully contribute to defeating terrorists and tyrants in those conflicts while keeping the inflation level low here in Canada. We were able to get our spending under control and our budget back into balance. By contrast, the government's spending today is 30% higher than in the pre-COVID year 2019. Why? The Liberals said all the deficits were the result of COVID. COVID is now behind us and spending is still 30% higher because we know it is not COVID that has caused the costs to rise. It is a costly coalition and an irresponsible Prime Minister who put these burdens on Canadians' shoulders. This is a Prime Minister who has no control and no respect for Canadians' money. Canadians are the ones paying the bills here in Canada. The more the government spends, the more Canadians pay. That is why we have the highest inflation rate in 40 years. It is “justinflation”. The Prime Minister also loves to blame all the cost of living rises on other people. Why is it, then, that house prices in this country are the second most inflated anywhere on planet earth? Why is it that land costs have gone through the roof? Land is not imported from Ukraine or Russia; land is right beneath our feet. We have the second biggest supply of it anywhere on earth, yet Vancouver is the third most overpriced housing market on planet earth and Toronto is the 10th. Can members imagine that? Two of our biggest cities have more inflated housing prices than New York City; London, England; and countless other big metropolises that have more people, more money and less land. In fact, Vancouver's house prices are more inflated than Singapore's. Singapore is an island. It is out of land. Canada has more land where there is no one than it has land where there is anyone, so why is it that we cannot find a place to house everyone? The first reason is that local government gatekeepers prevent housing construction by piling on massive delays that drive up costs and drive down the supply of housing. The Prime Minister has had seven years to stand up to the municipal and provincial gatekeepers who stand in the way of housing construction, but he would never do that because he does not want to confront the Liberal and NDP radical left in city halls across the country that has made this problem worse. What he has done instead is continue to shovel money into their local bureaucracies to reward them for blocking the poor, our immigrants and our working-class kids from ever owning a home. When I am prime minister, we will impose conditions so that if cities want more federal infrastructure money, they will have to remove the gatekeepers. We will connect their infrastructure dollars to the number of houses that actually get built so that young people can find a place to live. We will also sell off 15% of the 37,000 federal buildings we have so they can be converted into housing and our young people can have affordable homes. The second reason we have such expensive housing and such expensive everything is the Prime Minister has engaged in a massive orgy of money printing over the last two years. He said money printing would not cause inflation, even though that is exactly what it has done every single time it has been tried over the last roughly 3,000 years. Here is how it worked. The Prime Minister wanted to be able to claim that he was borrowing all this money on the cheap. He loved to stand in the House and say his debt was not costing any money, because interest rates were so low. The only reason he could borrow for next to nothing was that his central bank was creating the cash out of thin air. If it had been a real lender, it would have demanded a real rate of return on the loans. What happened was that they created something called “quantitative easing”. Whenever they invent new, incomprehensible terminology, we can be sure that there is something sinister behind it. Here is how it works. It is very simple. The government sells bonds to lenders. The Bank of Canada buys back those bonds at a higher price. The lenders love it. That is why the banks thoroughly endorse this strategy, because they made the money on the difference. It is simple arbitrage. The government sells them something on a Monday and buys it back from them at a higher price on a Wednesday. Who would not go for that deal? Unfortunately, only about 100 financial institutions are eligible to participate in it. The rest of the ordinary, hard-working Canadians who pay for it are not, but the banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions profited off of this transaction. The Bank of Canada pays for those bonds by depositing money in the accounts of those large financial institutions held on reserve at the Bank of Canada. Those reserves skyrocketed over the last two years as the bank bought up to $400 billion of new debt. What happened? That exploded the money supply, and more dollars chasing fewer goods caused higher prices. Much of the money then funnelled into the financial system and was lent out in mortgages to wealthy investors, who saw a massive expansion in the number of real estate holdings they could accumulate. Thus, housing prices went up 50% in two years, creating the biggest housing bubble in Canadian history. Now that the central bank is forced to raise interest rates, it risks bursting that bubble. All of the people who got on the balloon when it was on the ground floor and went up into the sky now risk coming crashing down as that balloon is bursting. Worse than that, the Bank of Canada now has hundreds of billions of dollars of deposits that it made into the accounts of those large financial institutions that it has on its reserves. What has happened to those deposits? They now bear more interest, because interest rates have gone up. The wealthy bankers who participated in this arbitrage transaction at the beginning and were paid for it by having more money deposited into their accounts at the Bank of Canada now collect 3.75%, because that is the policy rate that the bank pays. What does that mean? It means that the central bank is now losing money for the first time in its history and Canadian taxpayers are forced to bail them out to a tune of $4 billion every year. This entire wretched scheme, of which I warned two years ago, will, maybe in the end, amount to the single biggest wealth transfer from working-class people to ultrawealthy insiders, from the have-nots to the have-yachts, at any time in our history. Now we see the painful consequences. It is not just about numbers on a ledger. It is about 1.5 million people forced to go to a food bank in a single month. It is about one in five people skipping meals or cutting portions because they cannot afford their food. It is about the forthcoming winter, of which the minister spoke in metaphorical terms. People are now not going to be able to heat their homes, as the cost of home heating is expected to double or even more for those people who are on home heating oil. It is about the 35-year-old living in his parents' basement, despite the fact that he did everything we asked him to do. He got a job. He got an education. He worked hard every day, and now he cannot afford a home, which means he cannot build up collateral, cannot build a credit history, cannot build savings for his future and, therefore, cannot start a family. In Canada, a country with among the most abundant supply of land on earth, we cannot find places for people to live. These are the real-world consequences of irresponsible decisions. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister sits and smirks at the fact that he took a $6,000-a-night vacation to sleep in the fanciest hotel on planet Earth, staying up in opulent hotel lobbies and jazzing it up with his friends while people back home cannot pay the rent. Canadians are out of money and the Prime Minister is out of touch. We are going to inherit this mess, all of us, and we are going to have to fix the problem. We have a big job ahead of us; do we not? We have a very big job ahead of us. He will leave a big mess just like his dad left. He will be off on a beach somewhere surfing, and the rest of us will be busy working to clean up the mess he left behind. The sooner that happens, the better it is. Only then he will have to pay for his own hotels. We will not be paying for them anymore. He will have to pay his own way like Canadians are today. How are we going to clean up this mess? For one, we are going to bring in a pay-as-you-go law so that every time we bring in a new dollar of spending, we will find the savings to pay for it. Do members know who does that? Everybody in the real world. That is how single mothers pay their bills. When they want to send their children on vacation, they find a way to save money in other areas. The same goes for small businesses. When they want to increase their advertising spending, they find ways to save money in other areas of the business. It is normal. It is the reality of every person living in the real world. In fact, scarcity is the condition that faces every creature in the universe as there is only so much to go around, every one except for the Prime Minister, who just takes everyone else's money to pay for his own wants and desires. In the real world, if a family wants a new deck, they might pass up on their vacation, or find a deal on the vacation and maybe pick up some used lumber at a local construction yard to save some money so that they can do it all within the same budget. Imagine if instead of just piling on new spending all the time, the government actually had to find savings to pay for it. That would force the same real-world trade-offs—

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The Speaker

Nov/3/22 4:58:25 p.m.
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I am going to interrupt the hon. Leader of the Opposition. I thought everything was going very smoothly and very nicely. We were respecting each other. Let us keep that up, and we will let the hon. Leader of the Opposition continue.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Nov/3/22 4:58:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not allowed to mention the presence or absence of the Prime Minister, but I will just say that some people bring happiness wherever they go and others bring happiness whenever they go. Conservatives are going to cap government spending. We are going to get the Bank of Canada back to its core mandate. For 25 years, the Bank of Canada had a very simple mandate of 2% inflation, brought in by the Mulroney government. It was to stick to 2%. Interest rates and money supply were all governed to that purpose, and it worked. It worked until the current Prime Minister came along and pushed the bank to print cash to pay for his spending. We are going to have no more of that. Conservatives will fund our programs with real money, rather than printed cash, because we know that there are no freebies in this world and we know that, ultimately, the taxpayer and the consumer pay for everything. We will reinstate that mandate and we will audit the central bank through the Auditor General to make sure that never again is there such a horrendous abuse of our money as we have seen over the last couple of years. Instead of creating more cash, we are going to create more of what cash buys. We are going to grow more food, build more houses and produce more resources right here in Canada, and here is how we will do it. We will incentivize our municipalities to remove their gatekeepers so that we can build more houses. We will remove the gatekeepers off the backs of our farmers by cancelling the tariffs and taxes on their fertilizers and fuel so they can produce more in this country. We will remove the government gatekeepers that stand in the way of our resource sector. Do members know that Canada today has the second-slowest time for building permits of any country in the OECD? The only other country that is worse is the Slovak Republic. In Canada, if we take all the types of building permits that exist, everything from a renovation permit on a house all the way up to a full uranium mine, and we average it out, the average permit time is 250 days. In South Korea, it is 28 days. We wonder why investors are taking their money to places like South Korea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Ireland. It is because they can actually get things built in those countries. That is what Conservatives are going to do in this country. We are going to compress the timelines and speed up approvals. We are going to challenge all levels of government to meet the goal of Canada being the fastest place to deliver a building permit anywhere in the developed world. The minister said today she is going to pitch the world on our critical minerals. The problem is that she cannot get them out of the ground. She is going to tell everyone that they exist. Out there in that field there is some lithium, copper and nickel, but companies have to wait seven years for us to give a permit for anyone to dig that mine. She says she is going to give out a bunch of corporate welfare to mining companies, which can fill their bank accounts with taxpayers' cash. If they cannot get a permit to dig the mine, they will not be able to turn it into anything other than big, fat boondoggles for taxpayers. Conservatives will repeal the anti-energy law, Bill C-69, so that we can build Canadian pipelines with Canadian steel to take Canadian energy to Canadian marketplaces and around the world. We are going to eliminate the anti-investment taxes that pile on the backs of our entrepreneurs so that it is actually rewarding to build things in this country. We are going to axe the carbon tax so that it is possible for our industries to compete and for our people to afford energy in this country. As for energy, there are two very different approaches. Across the aisle, they believe that we should tackle climate change by making traditional energy that Canadians rely on more expensive. Conservatives believe in tackling climate change by making new alternatives more affordable. We will do that by incentivizing and speeding up permits to mine lithium, copper, cobalt, graphite and other necessary minerals that will eventually go into Canadian-made electric cars and other forms of renewable energy. We will incentivize the production of these energies here in Canada. We will incentivize nuclear energy here on Canadian soil so that we can power our economy emissions-free. We will also get rid of the red tape to get dams built in Quebec. We know that in Quebec, there will not be enough electricity in the future to charge electric cars and to meet all the needs of a green future. Their solution is to build dams. However, the Prime Minister wants to prevent or delay the construction of those dams with duplicate processes. We agree with the Government of Quebec. It is not necessary to add three or four years to the time frame for these projects since the Government of Quebec already has processes in place to protect the environment. Quebeckers are capable of protecting the environment, and we are going to help them by approving the construction of hydroelectric dams. Finally, we will make this a country where work pays again. It does not pay to work for a lot of people. Let us look at someone on disability who recovers to a point or arrives at a point in their life where they realize they can work 10 or 15 hours and they want to get out into the world and contribute. The clawbacks right now mean many people on disability lose more than a dollar for every extra dollar they earn. The government published a report showing that if a single mother with three kids who earns $55,000 a year earns another dollar, she loses 80¢ of that dollar. She earns about $25 an hour. She loses in clawbacks of her benefits and taxes on her income 20 of those dollars, so her real wage on that extra hour of work is five dollars an hour. Nobody in Canada should be expected to work for five dollars an hour. That is an outrage. That is why my government will reform the tax and benefit system to ensure that whenever somebody works an extra hour, takes an extra shift, or earns an extra bonus, they are always better off and they always keep more of that dollar. We will do this to restore the Canadian promise. I look around this chamber and I see many inspiring stories, like my finance critic, who rose today to ask the first question. He is the son of immigrants. He grew up in a tough neighbourhood and had a difficult childhood, but he was able to get a diploma in accounting, which he is putting to very good use in this House. He started a business, built homes and was elected to serve in a G7 Parliament. I, myself, am the son of a 16-year-old unwed mother who had to put me up for adoption to two school teachers. They always taught me it did not matter where I came from, that it mattered where I was going, and it did not matter who I knew, that it mattered what I could do. That is the country I want my children to inherit, and that is the country we will fight for every single day in this House.

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Hon. Karina Gould (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Lib.)

Nov/3/22 5:07:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition was honest with Canadians, the Canadians he is not going to be supporting through this fall economic statement. He told them right away. He told students, for example, that he is not going to support the permanent elimination of interest on student loans. He told the lowest-income workers that he is not going to support the continuation of the Canada workers benefit and making sure they get that in advance. He talked about incentivizing companies to invest in Canada, but actually, in the fall economic statement, there are really important measures that are going to help us build the economy of the future. This is very consistent with his actions to date. Whether it is the Canada child benefit, the Canada dental benefit, the Canada housing benefit or whether it is supporting low-income workers and those most vulnerable in our country, he has consistently refused to stand up for them and to support them. He talks a big game, but when there is actual action to do, he does not deliver.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Nov/3/22 5:08:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, the Conservative government created what the Liberal government now changed the name of to the workers benefit. We created that benefit in the first place, because we wanted to allow, along with increasing the personal exemption, more and more Canadians to be off the tax rolls altogether and keep a bigger share of their paycheques. Furthermore, on the child benefit, the Liberals wanted to take the money from parents and give it to bureaucrats. We were the ones who put the money directly in parents' pockets. There is something very simple to realize. The government cannot give people anything without taking it away. The government does not have any money. First they try taxing it, which makes people worse off. Then they try borrowing it, which means that future generations are worse off. Then when they ran out of those two options, because they ran out of other people's money, they tried printing the money and now we have 40-year highs in inflation. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Stop the insanity. Stop the inflation.

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (Terrebonne, BQ)

Nov/3/22 5:09:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Joliette said, the economic statement mentions a number of problems. It talks about supply chain issues, inflation and the possibility of a looming recession. Unfortunately, it did not take us long to realize that the economic statement lacks tangible measures. Unlike the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois proposed many progressive measures to help Quebeckers and Canadians in the coming years, which will likely be difficult ones. The government is not only turning a deaf ear to the tangible, constructive measures proposed by the opposition, but it also really seems to be working in silos. Allow me to give two examples. First, the government has been promising EI reform for months, but unfortunately, we are not seeing anything about that. According to the economic statement, there are no plans to carry out this reform in the next six months. Second, the Minister of Industry has been promising to reform the Competition Bureau, but once again, there is absolutely nothing about that in the economic statement. The Liberal government seems to be completely out of touch and, more importantly, it does not really seem to be working as a team. Would the member for Carleton care to comment on that?

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Nov/3/22 5:11:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yes, the government is out of touch, but we should not be surprised. The Prime Minister spent $6,000 of taxpayers' money for each night he spent in London. At a time when Canadians cannot pay their bills and are skipping meals, he forced them to pay for a hotel room that costs $6,000 a night. Yesterday, he admitted that he was the one who stayed in the infamous $6,000-a-night room. He told the truth by accident. It happened by chance. That is the only way to get the truth from the Prime Minister. It is an important fact, not because a $6,000 expense will bankrupt the Government of Canada, but because it shows that this Prime Minister is completely out of touch with the day-to-day reality of Canadians who work hard but cannot pay their bills. We, the Conservatives, will stand up for the common people, their paycheques, their savings, their homes and their country.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Nov/3/22 5:12:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the brief time that I have, there are two aspects of the Conservative leader's speech that I would like to address. The first is his comments about home heating and the Conservatives' desire to remove the carbon tax on heating. Of course, he will know that New Democrats are prepared to work with people here across party lines to get things done. He and I, in fact, did that at the finance committee before he was leader in order to ensure that an iteration of the Canada emergency wage subsidy program would not allow for the payment of dividends to companies while they were on the take in respect of the wage subsidy. We have extended our hand here a number of times in the House to say that while we support carbon pricing, we want to see an elimination of the GST on home heating. We have seen Conservatives refuse NDP amendments to that effect. I wonder if today we might get a commitment from the leader of the official opposition that he will work with New Democrats in order to take the GST off of home heating. If I have a little bit more time, I would love to get into that second issue which of course is his comments about building permits. Building permits are a municipal issue. I am glad he is taking an interest. I think that is important in order to address the housing issue, but I know that when it comes to workers' rights and the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause, he is claiming that because it is in another jurisdiction, he will not comment. Seeing as he is willing to comment on other jurisdictional matters today, will he get up and condemn the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause?

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Nov/3/22 5:13:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to offer the hon. member my condolences on the loss of his father, who was indeed a wonderful gentleman. Second, the member is right. We worked together to try and stop the government from giving tax money to companies so they could spend it on bonuses and dividends for their wealthy executives. Third, on the issue of building permits, it is not true that building permits are exclusively municipal. We have federal permitting for large-scale resource projects. They require federal permits. In fact, there are far too many projects that require federal permits. One of the reasons we cannot get pipelines and many other resource projects built is the immense delays imposed by the federal government on local projects. When we were in government, we made a rule during the economic action plan of one project, one approval. Prior to that, oftentimes the same consulting firm was hired to do three separate environmental assessments, delaying the project and driving up the costs, so we said it would be one project, one permit. That is what we are going to do when I am the prime minister. That is why we are going to get more dams built in Quebec. We are going to deliver more Canadian clean, low-carbon, upstream oil and gas projects. We are going to deliver civilian grade uranium and we are going to have more nuclear energy. Other major projects are going to happen quickly and effectively. Finally, yes, I will attach conditions to federal tax dollars that go to municipal governments. These woke left-wing mayors keep telling us they are out of money for housing, yet they are the ones who are driving up the cost of housing. If they want me to burden taxpayers by sending more money to their municipal governments, they need to get out of the way, remove their gatekeepers and build more homes.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Nov/3/22 5:15:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would say to the hon. opposition leader that comic timing is definitely his forte. He suggested that the Liberals have invented a complicated term called “quantitative easing”. Does he really believe the Liberals invented it? If so, I would urge him to ask Dr. Google about the quantitative easing quotes by Jim Flaherty.

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