44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 3, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/3/22 2:11:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government's inflationary policies are forcing Canadians to tighten their belts like never before.
We have learned that 1.5 million Canadians had to turn to food banks last month alone. That represents a dramatic 35% increase since 2019. Rising interest rates on a $400,000 mortgage are increasing interest costs by over $15,000 a year for a Canadian family.
We call on the Liberal government to reform our tax system in order to incentivize work, eliminate taxes and tariffs on fuel and fertilizer for farmers, cap spending with legislation requiring ministers to find a dollar of savings for every new dollar spent, cut wasteful spending like ArriveCAN, and work with all levels of government to increase production efficiency and produce more of the things Canadians buy.
Those are all part of the next Conservative government's strategy.
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- Nov/3/22 2:19:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today we learn if the Liberal government truly cares about Canadians. The fall economic statement is the last chance to stop tax increases and out-of-control inflationary spending.
Canadians are paying more in taxes today than ever before, and Liberal inflation has raised prices for gas, groceries and home heating to record highs. This Liberal inflation tax is levied off the growling stomachs of Canadians. Will the Prime Minister stop his inflationary spending to finally stop his inflationary tax?
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- Nov/3/22 2:22:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada aims to keep inflation at 2% of the consumer price index.
The bank has failed to do that, but the Prime Minister is in no hurry to see inflation go back to its normal level because that would reduce his government's revenues. That explains why he is continuing with his inflationary spending and trying to raise taxes. Canadians are suffering because this Prime Minister is taking advantage of the inflation he created to make more money.
Today, will he commit to not increasing taxes on Canadians and to stop wasting public funds?
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- Nov/3/22 2:22:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that argument is not only economically false, it is simply cruel.
To say that supporting the most vulnerable Canadians in our country is causing inflation to rise is false, because we are in a global inflationary cycle. Countries around the world are dealing with inflation. We are doing what we can to support the most vulnerable.
They are blaming Canadians. It is irresponsible, and it is cruel.
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- Nov/3/22 2:30:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians have never been paying more in taxes, all because of the Prime Minister's reckless inflation spending.
While Canadians are paying more for gas, groceries and heating their homes, the Liberal government is lining its pockets on the backs of Canadians' suffering. It is collecting record high taxes because of the inflation crisis it has created.
Will the Prime Minister stop his inflationary spending and stop the inflation tax?
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- Nov/3/22 2:31:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about what the government is spending on. We are spending on the Canada dental benefit, which is going to support hundreds of thousands of Canadian children access to dental care. We are spending on the Canada housing benefit, which is helping the lowest-income Canadians pay their rent. To suggest that is inflationary is absolutely absurd. Then we are spending on the Canada child benefit, which is helping nine out of 10 Canadian families, thousands of dollars a month, so they can pay for basic necessities.
We know what the Conservatives would cut if they were in power.
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- Nov/3/22 2:31:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when will the Liberals realize they cannot spend and print their way out of an inflation crisis, one that they created? The inflation tax punishes Canadians, while the Liberals collect more in taxes, and Canadian families are suffering because of it. In fact, over 1.5 million Canadian families had to visit a food bank in one month. That should not be happening in Canada.
When will the Liberals end the inflationary tax?
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- Nov/3/22 2:32:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, helping low-income Canadians pay for basic necessities is not inflationary.
We know that the Conservatives talk a big game, but they are not actually there, when the measures are on the floor, to vote in support. When it came to the Canada child benefit, what did they do? They voted against it. When it came to the income tax cut for middle-class Canadians, what did they do? They voted against it. When it came to child care for Canadians across the country, what did they do? They voted against it. What about the Canada dental benefit and the Canada housing benefit? They voted against those too.
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- Nov/3/22 2:32:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are paying higher taxes than ever before under the Prime Minister. Inflation is at a 40-year high. People are getting further behind. People are paying more for basic necessities like food, gas and home heating. Higher taxes mean more money in the Liberal government's bank account, all on the backs of hard-working Canadians.
Will the Prime Minister stop the inflationary spending and stop the inflation tax?
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- Nov/3/22 2:34:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in fact, it is the Liberal government that has forced Canadians to pay more taxes. It is taking money out of their bank accounts and putting it in the Liberal government's bank account. That is people on fixed incomes, it is seniors, people with disabilities, young adults trying to build a life and families that are struggling to get by. The Liberal government is lining the pockets of itself, while people are paying into it.
Again, will the Prime Minister stop the inflationary spending and stop the inflation tax?
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- Nov/3/22 2:35:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government is getting ready to triple the carbon tax that is going to add extra costs for all Canadians. That is the reality.
This afternoon, we are going to hear the Minister of Finance tell us that never in the history of the country have Canadians paid so much in taxes. Simply put, inflation is increasing the cost of everything. Everything costs more and therefore the government is collecting more taxes. Inflation is punishing Canadians. The Liberals are lining their pockets.
Will the Prime Minister be transparent and give workers a break this afternoon? Will he put an end to his inflationary spending on the backs of Canadians?
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- Nov/3/22 2:36:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, everything the minister just said is pure rhetoric and completely out of touch with reality.
The Liberal government can find all kinds of excuses. It is this government that is responsible for the current economic situation that is making Canadians poorer. Their wallets are empty. Consumer debt is skyrocketing. The Prime Minister's inflationary spending is pushing up interest rates. More interest means more debt means less money in Canadians' pockets. It is that simple.
Will the Prime Minister show some compassion this afternoon and reduce—
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- Nov/3/22 2:51:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 20% of Canadians are skipping at least one meal a week to save money, and 1.5 million Canadians used food banks in just one month.
How did things get so bad? It is because of this government's mismanagement, which created inflationary deficits year after year. After all, it is not surprising, given that monetary policy is not part of the Prime Minister's vocabulary.
Can the Prime Minister at least assure the House that he will not increase taxes?
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- Nov/3/22 2:53:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians have never paid more taxes than they do now under the Prime Minister. The inflation rate is the highest in 40 years, which means that Canadians pay more for gasoline, groceries and home heating.
Some say that it is just inflation, but inflation means higher prices for Canadians and more money in the Liberal government's pocket. It is the inflation tax. It is the cruellest tax of all.
When will the Prime Minister stop the inflation tax and stop his inflationary spending?
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- Nov/3/22 2:53:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if pandemic spending and investments in Canadians that got us through the worst pandemic in a century were inflationary, then we would be on our own in the world. We would have the highest inflation in the world. Guess what. Germany is at 10%. The U.K. is at 10.1%. The U.S. is at 8.2%. The EU is at 9.9%. Australia is at 7.3%. We are at 6.9%.
That does not make a difference to the people at home. What makes a difference are dental supports, rental supports and doubling the GST tax credit, not the proposed cuts by the Conservatives. We have the backs of Canadians. They have bluff and bluster.
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- Nov/3/22 2:59:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in fact, Canadians' paycheques and savings go up in flames as the Liberals fuel the inflation fire that they set.
The Bank of Canada says that inflation is due to what is happening in Canada. BMO says that sending cheques as inflation support is inflationary. Even Liberal Mark Carney says that inflation is “a domestic story”. Canadians are using food banks at record levels, half are almost bankrupt and a million cannot afford home heating.
The Liberals are fine with spending the average Canadians' yearly rent on a single hotel room, but will they actually give Canadians a break, cut taxes and cap spending?
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- Nov/3/22 3:06:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling to pay their bills. They are lying in bed at night wondering how they are going to survive the devastating effects of the Liberal government's inflationary spending. Canadians simply cannot afford anymore of this costly coalition. Today, the Liberal government is presenting its economic update.
The Conservatives have a very clear demand. Will the Liberals commit to no wasteful spending and no new taxes?
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- 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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- 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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- Nov/3/22 5:17:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by saying how excited my colleagues and I were this morning to get a look at this important economic statement behind closed doors. As we read through the opening pages, we felt hopeful. We thought the government understood the problems we are dealing with, the global inflationary crisis that is having a real impact on ordinary people. People are having to make do with less because prices are going up. Food, energy and gas prices, not to mention housing prices, have all gone up. People are facing major challenges, and the government says that we are in the middle of an inflationary crisis. A few days ago, even the Minister of Finance said she would be making an economic statement today because we are looking at an inflationary crisis.
It is the same thing with the risk of a recession. Once again, it is a global issue. Most economists and analysts are saying that there is reason for concern and that we could enter a recession in 2023. We know that the Bank of Canada and the central banks decided to fight inflation to bring price increases back into the range of 1% to 3%, thus the 2% target. In order to do that, they are implementing a monetary policy that involves increasing interest rates. Higher interest rates mean an economic slowdown because of softening demand, which is why there is a risk of a global recession. The country's economy is facing a recession in the coming year, and the minister recognizes that in the economic statement. We commend her for that.
The further we read in the document, the more we examine it from every angle, the more we do the math and compare the tables, statistics and figures in this statement with what was in last spring's budget, the more we realize that it is all very slick rhetoric. The document recognizes the economic problems that we face, but when it comes to proposing any solutions, it leaves much to be desired. There are actually very few new measures announced in this economic statement. It reiterates what has been adopted since the beginning of the fall. It reiterates the commitments made in the last budget. It announces that there could be additional measures in 2024, but there is not much new for now.
There is actually some assistance for student loans. My Bloc Québécois colleagues and I, as the member for Joliette, can say that this does not affect us very much, given that the loans and bursaries system is under the purview of Quebec. I guess it is good for students in the rest of Canada, but this measure does not directly affect Quebeckers.
Next the government says it will spend more to hire more public servants to improve service delivery. That is great. We saw what happened with passports in the summer. There are countless examples. There are many problems related to wait times. Nevertheless, this is a fairly minor expenditure. There is nothing major here. The statement also reiterates the funding announced for the people in the Maritimes and eastern Quebec who suffered through hurricane Fiona. We applaud that commitment as well. However, all of this is very minor and very marginal.
The statement uses the word “inflation” over a hundred times, but the solutions it offers are the same ones that were presented in the spring budget, which made hardly any reference to inflation. There is an inflationary crisis going on, but what is being done about it? The government uses the word “inflation”, then rehashes the same proposals it served up in the spring, when it was not talking about inflation.
One of Quebec's national dishes is shepherd's pie. People generally say that it tastes better when it is reheated. The same cannot be said of the measures we have here. What we are being served in this update, in this economic statement, is reheated leftovers. Most of the measures in the update are reheated leftovers.
The significance of the current inflationary crisis and the risks of recession should not be minimized.
The Bloc Québécois called on the government to take that into account and propose concrete solutions. For example, if workers lose their jobs because of the recession, we will need an employment insurance system that works. Everyone, including the government, knows that the EI system is broken. It is so badly broken that for every 10 people who lose their job, barely four have access to EI.
Since 2015, the government has been telling us to wait. It has been telling us that change is coming, that the system will be reformed. We have been listening to the same broken record for seven years. We expected it to happen last September, as the special measures for the pandemic were ending, but no, back we went to the old Axworthy system that does not work at all.
The government is telling us that we are headed for a recession, so the time has come to take action. It is urgent that we fix the EI system. There has been plenty of consultation. We know exactly what needs to be done to improve the system, but no. This is yet another missed opportunity. According to this economic statement, the EI system will not be fixed. The government is going to leave it broken.
The government is saying that it is presenting an economic statement because we may be headed for a recession, but at the same time, it is saying that it will not fix the EI system. I completely agree with my colleague from Terrebonne when she said that the government seems to be working in silos. Did the minister responsible for EI talk to the Minister of Finance? Do these people talk to each other? This would have been a good opportunity to do so.
We are in the midst of an inflationary crisis. Prices are going up, and the primary victims are obviously those whose incomes are not indexed to inflation. I am talking about seniors. As we know, the government decided to help people aged 75 and up, but not those aged 65 to 75. This government created two classes of seniors.
Today, faced with a significant increase in the price of housing, gas and groceries, low-income seniors aged 65 to 75 do not have enough money to eat properly. They must turn to food banks and make some agonizing and very humiliating choices.
Given that today's statement acknowledged the problem of the current inflationary crisis, now would have been the time to announce measures for these people. The Bloc Québécois believes that the government must not create two classes of seniors and that it must increase old age security for seniors 65 and up to cover inflation and deliver a modicum of social justice. This government willfully refused.
Why is the government refusing to help those aged 65 to 75? I believe it is because the Liberals want these payments to be insufficient for low-income people in the first class of seniors that it created, those aged 65 to 75, so they will no longer have enough public support to make it to the end of the month. That way, those seniors will be forced to return to work.
In 2015, this government was boasting about rescinding the Conservative law that raised the retirement age to 67. However, when we look at what is happening to seniors aged 65 to 75 as a result of inflation, we see a government that is trying to bring in a similar policy through the back door, a government that is ensuring that seniors aged 65 to 75 do not have sufficient income from public pension funds to make ends meet. As a result, they are going to be forced to return to the labour market.
If that is the goal, it is very hypocritical. If that is not the goal, then I do not know what this government's problem is. It could be gross incompetence, but I think it is more likely utter hypocrisy. This is not right. It is unfair. When low-income people retire, they have often worked hard their whole lives. They are often single women. In many cases, they were caregivers. They do not have a pension because they stayed at home to take care of their family. This government claims to be feminist, but it does not recognize their contribution, and it is failing them.
In its statement, the government acknowledged that there is an inflationary crisis, but it is not doing anything for those hit hardest by this crisis. That is deplorable. We expected to see something like that in the statement, but it is not there, and that is deplorable.
There is an inflation crisis, prices are going up, and there might be a recession. Communities in Quebec and the other provinces are also experiencing another major crisis, the health care crisis. People no longer have access to doctors. The health care system is broken. It was strained during the pandemic. Workers and nurses are all exhausted. They are burned out. Plus, the system is underfunded. The fact is, these problems started in the 1990s when the federal government in Ottawa decided to deal with deficit and debt problems by reducing health transfers. That is when things started to go wrong.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, as infection rates begin to fall, we are starting to see how much was put off during that time. We thought that screening, care and surgery could wait a little while, but now we realize that the system is no longer working at all. The provinces and Quebec know what to do, and the specialists and the expertise are there. They know what to do, but they lack resources because Ottawa has been neglecting its role for quite some time now.
The provincial and Quebec governments are telling Ottawa that it is time for the federal level to play its role by providing as much funding for health care as possible. These figures are calculated year after year by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. According to him, health transfers should amount to $28 billion, and there should be a 6% increase every year to cover the rising costs and the existing needs. There is a desperate need.
In response to this public health crisis, the government had the role and the duty to address this issue today in this statement, especially since the government just announced that in a few days it is inviting all the provincial health ministers to a nice meeting with the federal government to discuss health systems and funding. What is the government going to tell those ministers just a few days after saying that it would not invest a penny more in the system when the need is there?
When he was health minister in Quebec City, the very Liberal and very colourful Gaétan Barrette accused this government of practising predatory federalism, because the government was imposing conditions without providing the necessary funding to go with it. It was a Liberal health minister who accused this government of practising predatory federalism. That kind of infighting among the Liberals sends a clear message that things are not going well, not at all.
Today, the government and the Minister of Finance had a unique opportunity to announce that they were going to address this issue and set the stage for the ministers' meeting. Again, they have been promising to fix this situation since 2015. Every time a Bloc Québécois member stands up in the House and asks the government if it is going to do its job, the government says that something is coming down the pike and not to worry. We may have believed that promise once or twice, but after hearing it for seven years, enough is enough.
What message are we sending to the provincial health ministers who are trying to figure this out? They are the ones holding together the health care system, which is crumbling because of the considerable strain it was under during the pandemic. Now they are being invited for talks, but the numbers that have just been released show that there is not a penny more for them. It is contemptuous. This government stands up at every opportunity to lecture every other level of government. It even stands up to lecture the Pope and people around the world. However, when it comes to dealing with its own files, it is nowhere to be found, it is not up to the task.
That is what we saw with passports and immigration too. Everything this government touches turns into a fiasco. There are cost overruns and service is not up to par. Now it is trying to tell the provinces what they should do, but it is not even investing any money.
I mentioned immigration. A few days ago, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship announced new immigration levels. Canada will aim to bring in 25% more immigrants by 2025. That means 500,000 newcomers per year, as reiterated in today's statement.
The Bloc Québécois is concerned about that for a number of reasons. Let me start with the practical, pragmatic reasons. We believe those targets are unrealistic. Our riding offices have been inundated with requests for urgent intervention because departmental employees cannot handle applications that are already in the queue. Wait times are atrocious, documents get lost, and mistakes are constantly being made. From a purely practical, technical perspective, maybe the government should show that it is capable of doing its job properly—and it is not—before it changes the target. Then we can talk.
The government did not include one line about housing capacity. We have a housing shortage. In Quebec and across Canada, there is a shortage of housing. The Liberal government in Ottawa withdrew from funding social housing in the 1990s, and nothing has been done since. Of course, a bit of funding was announced recently, but it does not go far enough to meet the current needs. There is not enough housing. The private sector does not have the capacity to build enough homes, condos, apartments to meet the current needs. The government is planning to grow the population very quickly. Where are we going to put all these people?
Condos and houses are no longer affordable. What do we tell young people? They want the American dream, which is to be part of the middle class and have a union job that allows them to buy a house and pay for it during their working life. Now that dream is shattered. Young people can no longer hope to be able to afford a home or become a homeowner in their lifetime. The housing shortage is exacerbated by the imbalance between supply and demand and the fact that the population is growing. Prices are skyrocketing, and housing is no longer affordable. These young people are being told that we are going to increase the population very quickly without restoring any balance to the housing market. This does not make sense.
I used housing as an example, but the same is true for schools. There are not enough spaces. There is no coordination in that area either, nor in the area of health care. This is irresponsible.
The situation is tough for us in Quebec, since we are not yet a country. Earlier, the leader of the Conservative Party talked about what he will do when he is prime minister. I want to talk about what Quebec will do when it is a country. I think this will happen within 10 years, because we will work hard. Seeing how this government and this nation ignore us, we will have all the cards to take control of our destiny.
If we were to accept our share of the target that has been announced, which is prorated to our population, how could we properly accommodate and integrate such large numbers? That is impossible. It is impossible to guarantee that the French language would be preserved and respected. Even in Quebec, we see that the French language is in decline. Bill C-13 is currently being studied in committee, and the government wants to reject the Bloc's amendments, which seek to better protect French in Quebec. I am not even talking about French outside Quebec, because the figures have plummeted and that is so very sad. With the complicity of the fourth party in the House, the government will continue to erode the weight of the French language even within Quebec.
We are not equipped to properly welcome all these newcomers in the language of Molière, the official language of Quebec. That is a serious problem. It is an impossible situation because if we welcome fewer immigrants in order to integrate them well, Quebec's weight as a proportion of Canada's population will quickly diminish. Either way, we could be marginalized, and it is the very survival of our culture that is at stake.
Let me be clear. Immigration is a great asset. Welcoming newcomers is wonderful, except that Quebec culture does not support the policy of multiculturalism, which basically consists of telling immigrants to come live here as though they were still living in their own country and not to integrate because their grandchildren will.
That is not what immigration is for us. We want to be able to say hello to a newcomer, to talk with them. We want to benefit from their rich cultural heritage, and we want them to be one of the gang, someone we can interact with. That is not going to work if the the immigration levels are quickly increased as announced. That is very worrisome.
I am sorry that I spent a little longer than expected on that aside, but it is still very important.
Let me come back to the economic statement. With regard to EI, as my colleague from Terrebonne said, the Minister of Employment and Workforce Development likely did not talk to the Minister of Finance.
As she also said, it sounds like the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry did not talk to the Minister of Finance either. It sounds like the Liberal government is using the Apple method of developing policies and projects piecemeal without any communication. It looks like that is what is happening here. Everything that the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry has said, in the House and in the media, is missing from the economic statement. I do not get it. That is problematic.
In times of economic uncertainty, discipline is called for, but not austerity. That is why we want the most vulnerable, like seniors aged 65 to 75, to have support measures they can count on during this inflationary period. That is very important. We do not want austerity. We have asked the government to focus on its basic roles, on the federal government's primary functions, to try to concentrate on those and do them well for a change. Health funding is one example.
We were really surprised by the last budget, in the spring. The government announced 15 or so new policies, new ways of doing things, mostly in health. These were all encroachments on provincial jurisdictions. Instead of focusing on doing its job well, the government wanted to work on the ground in Quebec and the provinces and encroach on their jurisdictions.
Here we have another example. The government is announcing the creation of a jobs secretariat. That is something Quebec is taking care of, and it is going quite well. Ottawa wants to use us as a model. One of our fears is an encroachment in a few years' time. Sooner or later, it is going to impose conditions on us. It is going to steal our model and then tell us that it has its own program now and that we have to follow suit. Then we will no longer have the freedom to implement our model, which is based on the labour market in Germany. We drew inspiration from Germany. Again, these are encroachments. Instead of doing its job well and focusing on its role, the government continues to stray.
The media reported a new tax on share buybacks. It is an interesting measure. We look forward to studying it, but the update states it will be implemented in 2024. It is now 2022. Today, the government was either rehashing old measures or announcing measures that will not be implemented in the next little while, or next year, but the year after that. Once that time comes, we can talk about it then and see if the government has made the same announcement about the same measure six times by then or if it changed its mind.
Evidently, this is not an economic update that will go down in history. The minister's speech earlier was full of fine rhetoric, fine principles, and a fine acknowledgement of the problems affecting the economy. However, this government was either rehashing old measures, approaches and actions it wants to take or putting off new measures to the distant future. The rest is inconsequential. The government had a golden opportunity to solve problems and consider the seriousness of the current crisis, but it did not do so. That is extremely unfortunate.
Obviously, I encourage the minister to talk to her colleagues, to come to the Standing Committee on Finance more often, and to communicate more with representatives from all sectors of the country's economy, without ever forgetting Quebec. That will only do her a lot of good and may even inspire her to implement concrete measures.
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