44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 17, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I would like to note that the government has actually handled its debt management quite shrewdly by buying, when the interest rates were low, long-term bonds. That has actually brought our management of debt into line.
I also encourage the hon. member to look at comparators with other nations. If there is any other nation that wishes to have the debt-to-GDP ratio that Canada has, I would be interested in the hon. member telling me who it might be.
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Madam Speaker, I will try to take no offence in the fact that my hon. colleague forgot to mention that I, too, was on that trip. I did get quite a lot out of it, of course. It was fascinating.
One of the things that our defence committee is studying is Arctic sovereignty and how Canada is investing into NORAD and its modernization and our role in that. We have heard a lot about how we can continue to be that partner in NORAD to help with the security that is at threat through the Arctic, to the Arctic and in the Arctic. While we are focusing as the defence committee on “through” and Canada's role in that, maybe the member could talk about some of the investments his government needs to make and has not made in the Arctic.
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Madam Speaker, I offer to my colleague an insincere apology for not seeing her down at the other end of the chamber hiding behind her mask, but that is another thing altogether. I do appreciate her contribution to the defence committee.
The investments in the Arctic are necessarily going to be massive. As climate change takes hold, the reality is that the Arctic is opening up. Canadians need to get their heads around the notion that we are going to, not only as a defence initiative, invest heavily in the Arctic; but we also need to build ports and we need to use the facilities that we have. It is going to be extremely expensive to build the new early warning system, a massive technological enterprise.
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Madam Speaker, the member mentioned resource extraction and expansion of that. Alongside that critical mineral expansion, is there a plan from the Liberal government to protect indigenous women and girls from exploitation and man camps and all of those things that come alongside resource extraction that have never been considered by the government in the past?
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Madam Speaker, one of the unique advantages that Canada has is the way in which particularly the Canadian military has integrated indigenous people into the Rangers and into the larger military. They, in effect, create our sovereignty presence in the north. There has been a great deal of conversation about how to do it appropriately. As the Arctic opens up, I see this as a unique opportunity to get it right with indigenous folks. Frankly, the testimony before the defence committee to date has been that we are starting to get it right and the consultations are real and meaningful, and I would like to be optimistic about it.
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Mr. Speaker, before the Minister of Finance introduced Bill C-32, the fall economic statement implementation act, on November 3, the Conservative leader made two clear demands on behalf of our party.
First, we wanted the Liberal government to stop the taxes. This included cancelling the planned tax hikes and the tripling of the carbon tax. Second, we wanted the Liberal government to stop the spending. Any new spending by Liberal ministers in the government must be matched by an equivalent saving to cut wasteful spending and stop the inflationary deficits that drive up the cost of everything for Canadians.
Unfortunately, neither of our demands was met by the government and, for that reason, I will be voting against this bill.
Simply put, the fall economic statement does not address the cost of living crisis facing Canadians right now. In fact, it makes the crisis worse. After seven years of the Liberal government, we pay more today for goods and services and get less. Groceries, gas, home heating and more are getting more and more expensive by the day because of the Liberals' reckless spending habits, the same reckless spending habits that have played a big role in driving up inflation.
Many of the inflationary issues and concerns we face are of the government's own making. For months we have been warning the Liberals that their out-of-control spending would lead to an increase in interest rates. The government responded by telling Canadians not to worry and to go ahead and take out big loans and mortgages, because interest rates would remain low for a long time and there would not be any negative consequences.
Well, fast-forward to now, and interest rates are increasing at the fastest rate in decades. Families that bought a home five years ago with a typical mortgage that is now up for renewal will pay $7,000 more a year. The Bank of Canada has signalled that interest rates will have to rise even higher to tackle inflation. Many Canadians will not be able to afford their mortgages and will risk losing their homes.
Through the government's bad spending habits, as inflation soars, so does our national debt. Since they were elected in 2015, the Liberal government has doubled our national debt, spending more than all previous governments combined since Confederation in 1867. Let that resonate for a moment.
Here are some recent examples of reckless Liberal spending contributing to inflation and our national debt.
The government wasted $54 million on the disastrous ArriveCAN app, yet it refuses to tell us who got rich off those massively excessive contracts.
The federal government paid out generous bonuses to Destination Canada executives when the tourism industry badly needs to recover.
The Liberal government recklessly spent $400 million on random testing at our borders, when medical experts said this policy was no longer needed.
Just last month, the Prime Minister spent $6,000 to stay for one night in a luxurious European hotel room.
Despite all the reckless and record Liberal spending, Canadians have less to show for it and are worse off because of it. Is it any wonder, then, that Canadians are struggling? The cost of groceries is up almost 11%. The cost of transportation is up over 10%. Gas is up over 22%. Next April, the excise tax on alcohol will increase by nearly 7%.
Under these deteriorating conditions, people work harder to try to get ahead, but they take less home because of the higher cost of the things they buy and the higher cost of punishing taxes to afford all this reckless Liberal spending. As a result of the Liberal government's incompetence, goods and services are more expensive and we have less money to pay for them.
How are Canadians reacting to this new reality? Families are downgrading their diets to cover the jump in food prices. Food bank usage is at an all-time high. Seniors are delaying their retirement and watching their life savings evaporate with inflation. Younger adults who did everything right are now trapped in 400-square-foot apartments or living in their parents' basements. No wonder Canadians feel like they have lost control. Many are falling behind, and others are struggling to get ahead.
The fall economic update shows that federal government revenues have increased by $40.1 billion this year alone. As Canadians suffer financially, the Liberal government is actually profiting from increased inflation that it generates and Canadians pay for.
How did it do that? Well, when Canadians pay higher prices on goods and services, they are also paying higher taxes. When they pay higher taxes, the government makes more money.
My NDP colleagues in this place have a history and reputation for taking issue with big corporate greed, yet when it comes to big government greed, apparently it is different and they turn a blind eye.
Rather than rein in the spending to begin slowing down the vicious cycle of spend and inflate, the Liberals drive the cycle of inflation even faster by spending more money at every opportunity they get. In addition to driving inflation, the federal government is also incurring tremendous amounts of debt. In fact, debt interest payment costs will have doubled this year. Next year, interest payments will be nearly as much as the Canada health transfer, and it is projected to be larger than what the government spends on the budget for the Department of National Defence.
Let us think about that. This is not good governance. It is dangerous governance. Anyone with a stake or interest in the good governance of our country should be alarmed and concerned.
Today, the federal government spends more money than any federal government before it. It is bigger, in terms of workforce, than ever before, yet what are the results? Millions of immigration applications are backlogged. Passport applications are severely delayed. New NEXUS and FAST applications are far behind schedule. The Phoenix pay system disaster continues. Government transparency is all but gone as journalists, researchers and Canadians cannot access federal information because the access to information system is broken in many federal departments.
Another irony I will point out is that despite the record number of federal employees and a track record of nothing working, this big-spending Liberal government spent $14.6 billion last year on outsourcing contracts to businesses outside of the public service to do public service work. This is yet another indication that the federal government is too big, which is causing it to break down.
Canadians are paying for reckless Liberal spending. We are not benefiting from it. In fact, future Canadian generations are at risk because of that and the debt the Liberal government has incurred. Canadians must realize that as the Liberals make more promises for a better tomorrow to detract us from the issues of today, none of the problems they have created, which Canadians now face, are getting fixed. After seven years of Liberal government incompetence in Ottawa, Canadians are realizing they are worse off today compared to when the Liberals first took office in 2015. We need real solutions to these real problems that Canadians are facing right now.
Instead of creating more cash, the Conservatives would create more of what cash buys. Enough with the talking, we need to get more homes built. We need to make energy more affordable, and to do so we would repeal anti-energy laws and get Canadian energy out to market. We would cut corporate welfare and axe the carbon tax. We would tackle climate change by making alternative energy cheaper, not by making Canadian energy more expensive. We would reform the tax system to ensure that whenever people work an extra hour, take an extra shift or earn an extra bonus they are always better off and would keep more of that dollar for themselves and their needs, not for the government's political agenda.
Conservatives have an ambitious vision and plan for when we form government after the next election, but for now, I am going to do my part by voting against Bill C-32.
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Madam Speaker, we have heard many of the member's comments several times before from members opposite.
The member mentioned that spending has not come down at all. There was an article on Global News recently about budget 2022 and Canada's incredible disappearing deficit, and that the deficit has been reduced significantly. It has shrunk by $275 billion in just two years.
I am wondering where you are getting your facts from when you say the deficit has not shrunk at all.
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- Nov/17/22 4:36:47 p.m.
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I would remind the member that she should not use the word “you” or “your”.
The hon. member for Niagara Falls
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Madam Speaker, looking at the government's own financial document, the recent statement, it shows the actual service levels for the debt it has created. Let us remember that Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, and Tiff Macklem, the current Governor of the Bank of Canada, said that inflation was caused by that extra $200 billion that was not related to COVID spending, which the Liberal government decided to make. It caused the inflationary pressures we are facing today.
Let us think about this. In the next several years, we are going to be spending more on servicing the debt than we will be on health transfers, which is $45 billion now. The Province of Ontario is spending $74 billion right now on health care services and the federal government only spends $45 billion. It is going to be spending more to service the debt on top of that in the coming years, more than on national defence. That is ludicrous and it needs to be fixed.
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Madam Speaker, I want to be sure I understand what our colleague said. He talked about spending and spending. I understand that the Conservatives do not like spending and they see it as the source of inflation, which is not entirely untrue, but it is more complicated than they often present. This issue certainly deserves better than a childish campaign of hashtags with silly wordplay using the Prime Minister's name, even though it is not necessarily false. This could be in the middle of a discussion. However, we are living in a time when we also need spending. He talked about health spending.
Would the Conservatives respond favourably to Quebec's request for $28 billion in ongoing funding?
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Madam Speaker, I mentioned what we are supporting. If governments are looking to spend, the policy we would be putting forward is this: For every dollar spent in new spending, one has to find a dollar in savings from other departments and other types of spending. That is to be used for the programs people deserve.
Let us think about this. We are spending almost $45 billion on interest to service the debt. That could be used for programs Canadians deserve and need right now, yet it is going to service the debt. That helps no Canadian.
We have to fix that. We have to get our economic conditions in a better state. The government has failed to do that.
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Madam Speaker, I was surprised the member did not mention wine, which is one of the industries both his riding and mine share. We do not make as much as the Niagara region, but we make better wine, of course.
I wanted to perhaps give him some time to expand on what we were hoping to see in this fall economic statement about support for the wine industry.
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Madam Speaker, we can debate whose wine is better. One concern I mentioned in my remarks just now was the excise tax. In April it will be going up almost 7%. That will be hitting our wineries and our producers and hurting them tremendously.
Another thing happening at the end of March is that the two-year replacement program for the ending of the excise exemption will end. That was $166 million provided over two years for our wineries, and there is no certainty on what is there to replace it.
The government has to work and come forward with suggestions and ideas on how it is going to support our growers in the future.
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- Nov/17/22 4:40:57 p.m.
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Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Regina—Wascana, Agriculture and Agri-Food; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Natural Resources; the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Health.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to add my voice to the debate on the fall economic statement.
The bill is a disappointing but unsurprising continuation of the high-tax, high-inflation policy that we have come to expect from the Liberal government. The bill offers Canadians more debt, more taxes, more spending and the prospect of more inflation and higher interest rates in the months and years ahead. I say that Canadians have come to expect this kind of bill because this is consistent with what these Liberals have delivered for the last seven years.
Back in 2015, these Liberals promised three years of what they called “modest deficits” that would be incurred entirely for the purpose of a transformational infrastructure construction program, which would lead to the budget balancing itself by 2019. It was obvious right from the start that this solemn election promise was a lie told to Canadian voters. They immediately started piling on new spending without any fiscal restraint and drove Canada straight into deficit, and they have never talked about a balanced budget since.
It was as if no Liberal MP had ever heard the promise they made to millions of Canadians on doorsteps that, if Liberals were elected, they would get short, modest deficits offset by gleaming new productivity-improving infrastructure. Instead, we have structural deficits and industries struggling under the weight of ever-increasing regulation. I would remind members of the House, and Canadians watching or reading this, that this government's track record is how its credibility should be measured.
After ignoring their promise by pretending they never made it, Bill Morneau assured Canadians that what really mattered was not deficits but that the debt-to-GDP ratio would constantly shrink. Then, when his own departments' projections looked like this so-called fiscal anchor was in jeopardy, he suddenly said that, no, what really mattered was Canada's AAA credit rating. Then, at the moment when one agency downgraded Canada's credit rating, when Canada was paralyzed by rail blockades, when Canada's lack of pipeline capacity was helping drive Canadian energy prices below zero, when the economy was teetering on the brink of recession, and when this government was about to table a massive deficit budget, COVID struck. It is critical for Canadians to remember this important point. This government squandered four years of a booming world economy by creating new taxes and regulations that decimated Canadian industries and racked up $100 billion in new debt before the pandemic. All of this happened before the pandemic.
Conservatives warned this government throughout the first four years that it was grossly irresponsible to run large deficits and fail to build promised infrastructure while times were relatively good. Conservatives repeatedly warned the government that it was leaving Canadians vulnerable by leaving the cupboard bare during good times. The Conservative leader certainly did not predict the COVID pandemic, but he did warn the government that it had a responsibility to act prudently to maximize Canada's capability to manage an economic downturn.
Now, nearly three years later, according to the fall economic statement, Canada's debt is nearly $1.2 trillion, more than half of which was piled on by this government alone, and the majority of the new debt this government has added had nothing to do with COVID response measures, as $100 billion of it came before COVID, and $205 billion was added to the debt after the pandemic for spending that had nothing to do with the pandemic.
While the current and previous finance ministers were running these huge deficits, they assured Canadians that this was all okay. They said that interest rates were low and would remain low for the foreseeable future. They even said that rates were so low that they could run a deficit while lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio.
While the finance ministers were racking up the debt, the Bank of Canada was cranking up the printing press. The Department of Finance issued new debt, and the Bank of Canada bought it with cash created out of thin air. Current and previous governors of the Bank of Canada assured Canadians that this was fine, that there was nothing to be concerned about.
In fact, I asked the Governor of the Bank of Canada if buying up all this debt with newly conjured money would eventually trigger inflation, and he said no. He dismissed the concerns that I raised two and half years ago about inflation. He said that there would be no inflation, and even if there was, they had plenty of tools to deal with that. Our Conservative leader also raised these concerns consistently over the past two and a half years.
The finance minister dismissed these Conservative concerns about inflation and said that any inflation was simply transitory and nothing to worry about. Now here we are. We are in a full-blown cost of living crisis. Canadians are increasingly unable to afford basic necessities of life such as food, groceries, gasoline, housing and home heating.
Inflation has been called the cruellest tax of all. It destroys the life savings of seniors. It destroys the purchasing power of workers whose wages do not keep up with the cost of the goods they need to live. Canada now has the highest inflation in 40 years, yet there is absolutely nothing in the fall economic statement that would meaningfully address this crisis.
Milton Friedman said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”
As the Conservative leader has put it, there is too much money chasing too few goods. The cost of government is driving up the cost of living. We must stop printing cash and start producing more of the things that cash buys, such as food, houses and affordable energy. Now that inflation is out of control and wreaking havoc on Canadians' ability to feed, house, and transport themselves, and heat their homes, the Bank of Canada is raising interest rates faster than at any point in decades.
This has two important consequences for Canadians. First, it means that thousands, perhaps even millions, of Canadians are going to see their monthly mortgage payments shoot up drastically in the months and years to come. Second, it means that the interest on Canada's debts will soon approach $50 billion per year, according to the fall economic statement. The Canadian government will soon spend more on interest than it does on health transfers or national defence.
On top of all that, this bill offers no meaningful tax relief for Canadians. The government is proceeding to triple the carbon tax on home heating, gasoline and groceries, again breaking a previous Liberal election promise to not raise the carbon tax above $50 per megatonne. This is in addition to the payroll tax, which is set to increase in just a few weeks. Canadians cannot pay a higher carbon tax with a smaller paycheque. They cannot afford higher food prices, higher home heating costs or higher gasoline and transportation costs. As the interest rates rise and house prices remain out of reach, Canadians despair that an entire generation has given up on the dream of home ownership.
However, the problems with the government go way beyond this terrible bill and deeply flawed and disappointing fall economic statement. It is a government that has failed Canadians so thoroughly that it is almost incomprehensible. The government is so hopelessly incompetent that Canadians cannot get a passport. The government cannot ensure access to basic children's medication. There are nearly two and a half million people waiting for an immigration decision, and 10,000 people who were ordered into quarantine and threatened by a useless and dubiously acquired phone application.
The government's payroll systems cannot pay, and its procurement systems cannot procure. Our Arctic is inadequately defended. Public officials have denied and defied democratic orders of Parliament. Emergency powers have been declared under false pretense. Cabinet ministers interfere with police investigations. Basic information is routinely denied to members of the public and to journalists. Our energy resources remain in the ground while Europe freezes and Putin laughs. Canadians cannot afford food. They cannot heat their homes. The finance minister continues to jeopardize Canada's future with reckless spending and punishing taxes, while mocking desperate, suffering Canadians by having them believe that she shares their hardships and can relate to them because she cancelled her Disney+ subscription.
I have no confidence in the government. I oppose this bill, and I oppose the government. It is time for a Conservative government and hope for Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, my friend opposite's speech was impassioned. I have to admit that for a while there I was feeling kind of bad, but then I remembered that the members of the party opposite live in an alternative reality where they are the fiscal managers and fiscal stewards of this country.
Let me remind Canadians that this is the party that ran nine straight deficits. It drove the Canadian economy into the ground. It tried to balance the budget in its 10th year by throwing in the sale of GE stocks and the rainy day EI fund and whatever else, but the economy was a mess. When challenged on that, the Conservatives said, “We had hard times.” They forget that we have just been through a worldwide pandemic. Would the member opposite not agree that he does not have a leg to stand on with respect to fiscal stewardship?
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Madam Speaker, it pains me to so thoroughly disagree with my friend from Saint John—Rothesay. I thank him for putting on a tie and participating in the debate today, but he is completely wrong.
The financial crisis that existed when the Conservatives were in office was at the time the greatest financial crash since the Great Depression. Canada came out of that firing on all cylinders with the strongest economy in the G7. They did not resort to quantitative easing and printing funny money like so many other countries did, and like the Liberal government is doing now.
We will take no lessons from the Liberal government on financial management.
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Madam Speaker, let me start with a special mention for the member, as I believe he is the first Conservative to say “triple” just once. That is very good for the mental health of everyone in the House, so I thank him warmly. Triple thanks to him, and so the trend continues.
I have two very simple questions and I invite him to give clear answers. It requires a simple yes or no. I believe that our colleagues are just as irritated as we are when we get no answers from the government.
First question: What do we do about the governor of the central bank? Second question: What do we do about cryptocurrency?
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry I did not catch a third question there with all his talk about tripling the carbon tax.
With respect to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, I would hope that all Canadians would expect him to return to the core mandate of limiting inflation to 2% and not devalue Canadian currency. We are very frustrated. I share his frustrations with the lack of responses from the government. We do not get answers.
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Madam Speaker, I am thinking about the resource extraction in our country and the lack of value added to some of the extraction that happens.
Does the member support the need for protections for indigenous communities, including of course indigenous women and girls, as we look at the expansion of resource extraction in Canada?
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