44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 17, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, this fall economic statement arrived during one of the most difficult financial periods in many Canadians' living memory. For my constituents of Edmonton Mill Woods and for Canadians across the country, life has become increasingly difficult. We are witnessing an unparalleled affordability crisis, and too many Canadians are barely hanging on. My constituents are struggling to deal with inflation, which is at a 40-year high, and with interest rates that are increasing at the fastest rate in decades.
This crisis derives almost entirely from a government that, since being elected into office, has decided to spend more money that Canadians do not have on projects and initiatives that Canadians have not seen. After years of imprudent spending, the government has run out of Canadians' money. The Bank of Canada is working overtime, attempting to keep up with the government's fiscal irresponsibility.
This is why Canada finds itself in the position that it is in today. Our national debt has doubled, and the Prime Minister has created more debt than all other Canadian prime ministers combined. We have heard from the government benches that the Prime Minister had no choice but to double our debt, yet 40% of all the new spending measures have had nothing to do with COVID. That amounts to 205 billion dollars' worth of unnecessary and harmful debt that future generations of Canadians will have to account for.
Similarly, government spending is now up 30% from prepandemic levels. The cost that it takes for the government to service the debt that it has created, often needlessly, is as much as the Canada health transfer. This means that Canada can spend less and less money on crucial social expenditures like health care. Canadian tax dollars that could have gone toward hospitals and nurses are instead being squandered on the effort to keep up with the Prime Minister's debt.
This is just one example of how government spending is hurting Canadians. There are the real-world consequences to the Prime Minister's reckless decisions.
The Prime Minister is happy to spend $6,000 a night on the most expensive hotel room in London while Canadians cannot even afford to pay their rent. As a consequence of this, we are now in a position where the cost of government is driving up the cost of living for Canadians. The Prime Minister's inflationary deficits, to the tune of half a trillion dollars, have created more dollars while Canada produces fewer goods. Worse still, inflation has increased the cost of producing and distributing these goods. This is how we have come to find ourselves in this very difficult position.
Canadians are having to skip meals and food banks were visited over 1.5 million times in a month, a 35% increase in comparison to just last year. Canadians across the country can no longer afford basic necessities like heating their homes and gas. Mothers are having to mix water into their babies' milk, and as we head into this holiday season, parents have less to spend on their children.
Nearly every single component of the Canadian economy is failing. Home prices have doubled, and a significant number of young Canadians simply cannot afford to purchase a home in the cities and towns they grew up in. There was once a time when being able to afford a home was not a luxury reserved for the wealthiest. However, now in Canada, the second-largest country in the world with the second most space for housing developments, purchasing property is outside the realm of possibility for too many Canadians. The cities of Vancouver and Toronto have the third- and tenth-most overpriced housing markets in the world. This means that poor and working-class kids and new Canadians will never be able to afford a home.
Despite Canada having the most inflated housing bubble in the world, those who have been able to afford a home may lose it. Monthly payments on mortgages are rising even as house prices are starting to drop. Families that bought a typical home five years ago with a typical mortgage that is now up for renewal will pay $7,000 more per year. This is clearly unsustainable for many Canadians.
Recently, a constituent of mine wrote to me about how they can no longer afford to pay their mortgage, which had increased significantly every single month. How can we expect Canadians to afford this? Despite this, the Bank of Canada has said that it will have to continue hiking interest rates just to keep up with the government's inflation. We now face a crisis where many Canadians can no longer afford to pay for their mortgages.
As the Prime Minister's inflation makes the cost of everything even more expensive, household debt has skyrocketed, as more Canadians are relying on credit cards instead of paycheques. Despite this, Canadians have never paid more in taxes to the government. The government goes on collecting taxes, further draining the pockets of Canadians. It has revealed no intent to slow down.
The government plans to triple the carbon tax, making vital goods like food and heating a home even more expensive than they are today. The Conservatives have consistently voiced our concerns for seniors and families unable to afford food or even heat their homes this winter. For some families in Mill Woods, this will be the toughest holiday season yet. However, the Prime Minister continues to carry on with his wasteful spending agenda on the backs of hard-working Canadians.
Canadians need a break. The government cannot go on spending like this while providing little to no support for Canadians who are struggling to keep their heads above water. This economic update does not come close to what Canadians are expecting and what they need to see. It fails to address the cost of living crisis spurred on by the government's out-of-control spending.
Before the fall economic update, the Conservatives made two demands of the government: that it stop the tax increases and that it stop the spending. We urged the government to introduce no new taxes on the backs of my constituents and those who are struggling across Canada. This includes cancelling all planned tax hikes, like the tripling of the carbon tax. We need to work toward making life easier for Canadians. Instead, the government chooses to actively make life more expensive and much more difficult.
We also asked the government to stop the needless spending. A Conservative government would ensure that new spending is matched by equivalent savings. However, as we have seen from this economic update, the government will continue its wasteful spending and expanding its inflationary deficits, which will drive up the cost of everything.
Despite the government saying that it will now be fiscally prudent, it has refused to commit to any of our requests. This fall economic statement will keep Canada regressing down the path of economic hardship. Instead of creating more cash, the government should be supporting the creation of more of what cash buys. The Prime Minister should be looking at building more homes and developing our ethical natural resources. This would mean the production of cheaper food and other essential goods right here in Canada.
For this reason, we cannot support the government's inflationary update, and we will continue to represent Canadians who are struggling by holding the government to account. It is time for a government to address the cost of living crisis. It needs to plan to make energy more affordable.
That is why the Conservatives will repeal anti-energy laws and get Canadian energy out to market. We will remove government gatekeepers, get more homes built and make Canada the quickest place in the world to get a building permit. We will reform the tax and benefits system to ensure that whenever somebody works an extra hour, takes an extra shift or earns an extra bonus, they are always better off working.
Canada does have a future, and hope in the Canadian dream can be restored. However, first the government must control its wasteful spending and address the cost of living crisis that is affecting every Canadian.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise and represent my constituents of Foothills on this important discussion today on the fall economic statement.
We have heard from the government since this statement was released, and we have certainly heard in many of the speeches over the last few days, that the Liberals are bragging about being fiscally responsible and having fiscal discipline when it comes to this statement. I do not know too many Canadian families, or Canadian businesses for that matter, that would define fiscal responsibility and fiscal discipline, in a time of economic crisis, as increasing spending and going further and further into debt. That is not the right definition of fiscal discipline.
Canadian families across the country are struggling to heat their homes, struggling to feed their families and struggling to operate their businesses and their farms, and the Liberals' response to that is to continue inflationary spending at a record pace. We have seen inflation at a 40-year high, with many Canadians having to make difficult choices when it comes to their food choices at the dinner table and in their everyday lives.
When the Liberal government talks about making difficult choices, I do not think it really understands what the average Canadian is having to endure when it comes to those difficult choices. A difficult choice for an average Canadian family is not the difference between cancelling one's Disney+ subscription or having a decision to make on which $7,000-a-night room they stay in when they are in London. The difficult choices Canadian families are having to make right now are about whether they are going to be able to put their child in sports, whether they are going to be able to pay the grocery bill this month, or what sacrifices they are going to put into their family budget so they can afford to pay their mortgage this month and not lose their home.
It just shows the contrast in how out of touch the government is when it talks about difficult choices being only $40 billion in new spending to add to the $200 billion in additional debt that had nothing to do with COVID, in comparison to the tragic choices Canadians are having to make every single day just to try to get by.
Like, I would hope, many colleagues in this House, I found it quite tragic when I heard 1.5 million Canadians had to rely on a food bank in the month of March alone. That is a 35% increase over that same month prior to COVID and a record number of Canadians relying on a food bank. Those are the difficult choices Canadians are having to make, so when the Liberal government says it is practising fiscal responsibility and fiscal discipline by adding record debt to further spur record inflation and higher interest rates, those actions are having real consequences for real Canadians.
For example, I am now hearing from farmers across the country who, because of these higher interest rates, are unable to manage the debt on their farms. It was already at a record high, and these interest rates are making that situation much worse. Certainly I have heard from constituents who are saying their mortgage has gone up $500 a month and is crippling. My colleague, who I do respect, from Kings—Hants mentioned his conversation with his constituent, who said her rent is now at $1,500 a month. He said he is hopeful she will get the $500 rent relief. More than 60% of Canadians will not actually qualify for that rent relief program, and I would ask my colleague, if his constituent does qualify for that $500 a month one-time rent relief cheque, what she is going to do in January, February, March or April, when she is no longer getting that government cheque.
Canadians need long-term solutions, not a little band-aid for the hemorrhaging of their financial futures.
As a result of this, the Liberals have not been able to offer the most basic services, despite these massive increases in spending. Canadians are not seeing any bang for their buck, as we see an inability to get passports and a 2.4-million backlog in immigration applications. We have seen the veterans affairs minister under fire for the backlog in veterans' benefits. Zero infrastructure projects have been completed from the infrastructure bank. All of these things are having an impact on Canadians, who do not see the benefit of these increases in spending.
I want to get back to the impact this is having on the average Canadian and talk about Canadian agriculture as well. We talk about food inflation being at a 40-year high and the impact it is having on Canadians' everyday ability to buy groceries and put healthy food on the table. Considering that Canada is one of the countries that exports 80% of what it produces when it comes to food, it is frustrating to see these record-high prices. The cost of bread is up 17%; flour is up 24%; a head of lettuce is up 21%; potatoes are up 17% and pasta is up 30%.
As I have said before, these are not luxury items that one would get at a Liberal cocktail party. These are the staples that Canadians rely on every single day to feed their families, and they are no longer able to afford those critical staples. Inflationary spending, a tripling of the carbon tax and a fertilizer tariff are driving up the price of food, because they impact every aspect of the supply chain.
Those prices are difficult to swallow, but because of Liberal policy they are going to get worse. The fall economic statement did not say anything about listening to Conservatives and putting a cap on tax increases. The Liberals are moving ahead with tripling the carbon tax. That is only going to further drive up the cost of food.
The Liberals' undemocratic escalator tax is going to increase the tax on beer, wine and spirits by 30%. When the Liberals put in the escalator tax, they said they would index it to inflation. This tax is undemocratic because it does not come back to the House of Commons for debate and automatically goes up every single year, but when the Liberals put in the escalator tax, inflation was around 2%. They felt the industry would be able to absorb that, but no one could foresee what was going to happen this fall, when inflation was in excess of 10%. As a result of that, the escalator tax is going up more than 6%. That is significantly higher than what the industry was able to absorb year after year.
When our restaurant and hotel industry is struggling as a result of coming out of COVID, this puts a further burden on cost. This is going to severely impact our wine and beer industry, certainly craft brewers, who bring incredible economic development to rural communities, but also to farmers, who grow the barley and grapes for those products. This is going to impact them as well. This is a 30% increase on their costs, which they are going to have to pass on to the consumer. This is an undemocratic tax that is now going to further cripple our agriculture industry and have a massive impact on Canadians and consumers alike.
Conservatives asked the Liberals to put no new taxes in the fall economic statement. We are facing a financial economic crisis and for them to continue to pursue the tripling of the carbon tax is nonsensical, especially when food security is probably the number one issue we are facing, not only here in Canada but around the world. When we need our agriculture sector firing on all cylinders in order to reach its full potential to meet the needs here in Canada and around the world, putting these further burdens on Canadian farmers makes zero sense.
We already know that the carbon tax costs the average farmer about $45,000 a year. I have a propane bill from a farm family in St. Thomas, Ontario, for one month, and the carbon tax was more than $11,000. In one month, it was $11,000. Thanks to the opposition, the Conservatives, with the support of the NDP and the Bloc, Bill C-234, which will be a carbon tax exemption on propane and natural gas, got through committee, so farmers will get some relief. We need that bill to pass.
We desperately needed the Liberals to put resources aside to establish a vaccine bank here in Canada for Canadian agriculture. We will no longer be allowed to rely on the United States for vaccines for livestock. We have seen the impact the avian flu has had on the Canadian agriculture economy. Foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever will have more than a $45-billion impact on our industries if we do not have the resources in place in Canada to address them. Conservatives are asking for $4 million to establish that vaccine bank, which was not in the fall economic statement but which I know every stakeholder has pushed the government to do. We need these critical resources to protect our food supply, food sovereignty and our agriculture industry in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I believe this fall economic statement has hit the right balance between fiscal responsibility and protecting Canadians who need to be protected. That is what we stand for on this side in government.
Now, as we are talking about being fiscally responsible, I will remind the member that Canada is the third-largest AAA-rated economy in the world, only after the united States and Germany. Moody's has just reaffirmed our AAA rating, and with a deficit of 1.3% of our GDP, we have the lowest deficit among G7 countries—
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- Nov/17/22 2:33:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, inflation in Canada has now fallen or remained flat for four months in a row. That is good news for Canadians.
Now, we also know that many Canadians are facing real challenges, and that is why we put forward a compassionate and fiscally responsible plan. That is why we are doubling the GST credit. That is why we are providing $500 to Canadians struggling to pay their rent. That is why we are providing dental care for kids under 12.
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- Nov/17/22 2:36:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government's approach is absolutely compassionate. We have provided targeted support to the most vulnerable, but we have done it in a fiscally responsible way. The proof of that comes from Moody's, the ratings agency, which reaffirmed Canada's AAA credit rating just a few hours after I tabled our fall economic statement.
Canada today is the third-largest AAA-rated economy in the world. We have the lowest deficit in the G7, and we have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. That is fiscal responsibility.
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