44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 18, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, that is a very good question.
The minister presented the case that Canada's investments from private sector investment is still 10% below the amount it was when her government came into power, and it has consistently been there. It went down to 20% below during COVID, of course it fell worldwide. However, we are still 10% below, where every other country in the G7 and the G20 has rebounded significantly.
The government is trying to replace investment money with government money, and it is not working. It needs to take the lesson that no matter how many billions of taxpayer dollars it throws at the wall, it is not going to create an investment opportunity that would bring capital here for anything more than a subsidy. We need to get sustainable jobs back here in Canada that are productive.
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Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today for the people of Barrie—Innisfil, representing them as their member of Parliament, to talk about the fall economic statement.
Let me begin by saying that those who are residents of Barrie—Innisfil and the businesses within Barrie—Innisfil are really feeling the inflation and the affordability crisis that is happening right now. Despite the rosy picture painted by the government, this lollipops, gumdrops, rainbows and unicorns scenario, people are finding the affordability factor to be real. They are hurting. Businesses are hurting. People are wondering, as we head into the winter heating season, how they are going to heat their house.
I hear from seniors and families all the time about their circumstances and how bad things really are, particularly for seniors on fixed incomes who are making healthy nutrition choices about what they are going to eat. This should never be happening in a G7 country such as Canada, yet it is, and the government sits here with the fall economic statement somehow portraying this rosy picture, when in fact it is not the case.
I am just one of 338 representatives in this place, but I know from talking to my colleagues that they are hearing about it. I am sure those on the Liberal and NDP benches, and others, are hearing about the problem of inflation and affordability, the housing crisis and the issue of rent prices. We are hearing about the affordability and attainability situation with houses and about the many young people who are being priced out of the market. They are losing their hopes, their dignity and their dreams of aspiring to be a homeowner, which is being lost as a result of the self-inflicted wound of inflation and affordability that has been caused by the Liberal government.
I have spoken to many young people, not just within my riding but also across Canada. They feel like they have been lied to and let down by the Prime Minister and the government. I will go so far as to say that they are despondent. They are despondent they are not going to have the same opportunities, hopes and dreams as earlier generations. Something has to change, and this fall economic statement does nothing to change the current situation.
What is required here, and I know Conservatives put this forward in advance of the fall economic statement, is the need to lower taxes. We need to put a halt on the carbon taxes, stop the payroll taxes and the CPP taxes, which are impacting not only the people who are employed but also employers. We did fire a warning shot across the government's bow that we would support the fall economic statement if certain measures were put in, but this one was not. It was that, for every new dollar being spent, the government would find a dollar in savings from government waste. There is nothing in the fall economic statement that actually addresses that.
In fact, I read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report this week, and interestingly, in it he talks about an additional $14.2 billion in spending with no indication at all of how that money is going to be spent. One would think a government, when proposing $14.2 billion in additional spending in its fall economic statement, would at least have line by line items or details on what it is going to spend that money on. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that there was nothing in the fall economic statement to give that indication.
Here we are, as parliamentarians, looking over a fall economic statement that talks about billions and billions of dollars in additional spending without the ability to hold the government to account or ask those questions on a line-by-line basis. The government and the Prime Minister expect we are just going to willy-nilly pass this thing through.
That is not the function of Parliament. It is not the function of parliamentarians. Our function is to hold the government to account, and the government needs to reciprocate that by being as transparent as it can. The fall economic statement, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, does little of that. Those were the two criteria we set, and we gave the government ample advice and ample warning that we would support the fall economic statement if those two issues were met, and neither one was.
We find ourselves in a situation right now where, yes, we are going to dispute the fall economic statement. No, we are not able to support the measures the government is going to implement, because it did not abide by those simple principles, like every Canadian family does: If we are going to spend something, then we have to find those dollars.
Throughout COVID, we have seen a lot of wasteful spending. In fact, recent reports show that $200 billion of the $500 billion that was purportedly allocated toward COVID measures were actually not put toward COVID measures. Where did the money go? We are starting to find out. There was the multi-million dollar arrive scam app. We found out about $240 million in ventilators that were never used. There was $150 million for SNC-Lavalin to provide field hospitals that were never built.
Parliamentarians on this side of the House have every right to question government spending. They have every right to question what is in budgets and in this fall economic statement. I know the government does not like that, but that is our job.
As I said at the outset, there are many things going on around the country, not just in Barrie—Innisfil, but it is important to highlight some of the challenges this inflationary and affordability crisis is causing for Canadians.
Debt interest payment costs have doubled this year. Next year, interest payments will be nearly as much as the Canada health transfer. We are back in that cycle again, under a Liberal government, where the cost of servicing debt is more than the health transfers that are provided to the provinces. Something has to give. It always does when we increase debt and deficits. One of two things happens, which we are certainly seeing this with the government: Taxes go up or services get cut.
Interest rates, as we all know, are increasing at the fastest rate in decades. Families that bought a typical home five years ago, with a typical mortgage that is now up for renewal, are paying $7,000 more a year. The Bank of Canada has signalled that interest rates will have to continue to rise even higher, and that will continue the pain.
I mentioned the carbon tax earlier, and that is expected to triple. This is despite the promise of the Prime Minister heading into the 2019 election that it was going to be capped at $50 a tonne. A year after that election, the government announced that the carbon tax was going to increase to $170 a tonne. That is a threefold-plus increase in the carbon tax.
Who is paying for that? Homeowners are paying for it with home heating, hydro, groceries and everything else. Wholesalers and producers are paying that on the manufacturing and production side, and they are passing that down to the consumers. It is having a cascading effect across the economy. The government's argument is that this is what it needs to do to fight climate change.
We found out this week from COP27 that Canada ranks 58th out of 64 in the world for a reduction of carbon emissions. Clearly, the plan is not working, but Canadians are suffering as a result of the carbon tax that is being imposed. The government will then again argue that more families in Canada are getting more money back than what they pay in the carbon tax. The Parliamentary Budget Officer again says that is not true. The government picks and chooses what it wants to hear from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is an independent agent of Parliament, but when he tells the truth, it does not like the truth.
That is part of the problem that exists today. Liberals are not living in reality. They have lost touch. Their ideology will not allow them to solve the problems that they have created with respect to inflation. Until and unless we get to a point where we reduce government spending, or at least if there is new spending then attach it to dollars found and start reducing taxes to make life more affordable and attainable for Canadians, this situation will be prolonged for a long time. Canadians will continue to suffer, and the only way that we can change that is with a change in government.
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Madam Speaker, the member has an issue in terms of credibility. He talks about the price on pollution, and let me use that as an example. The Conservative Party of Canada, in the last federal election, campaigned on a price on pollution. It supported it. It has taken a complete 180° change on that. In other words, it did a flip-flop. Now the Conservatives call it the carbon tax once again, and they are going to get rid of it.
Then the member says that the residents of Winnipeg North and Canadians are paying more than they are receiving. The Parliamentary Budget Officer also made it very clear that, dollar for dollar, 80% of the constituents of Winnipeg North are receiving more than they are paying into it.
The member is trying to give a false impression. There is an independent budget officer saying that 80% of the residents of Winnipeg North and others are receiving more than they are paying into it.
What would he say to that particular report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer?
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Madam Speaker, I encourage the member to read what is in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report and how that impacts Canadians across the country, not just in Winnipeg North.
I can speak to my issue in Barrie—Innisfil. The carbon tax is disproportionately affecting individuals and businesses. People need to drive to go to work, need to heat their homes and need to eat. Businesses that are providing goods and services are being charged a carbon tax and they are not getting any rebate back. It is a tax. It is not a price on carbon. It is disproportionately affecting a majority of people across the country.
Leger did a poll this week, and 71% of Canadians want the carbon tax eliminated, because they know it is having an impact on them.
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. I would like to talk to him about the rhetoric coming from the party in power.
In the spring budget, the government said that the supply chain issue needed to be addressed, but no measure was proposed. In the fall economic statement, it is the same thing. It talks about supply chains, but no concrete measure is proposed to deal with the issue.
The government is doing the same thing again with the issue of inflation. The word “inflation” comes up 108 times in the economic statement, but there is no new measure other than the ones that we already voted on in the House this fall or that were announced in the spring budget.
Would the hon. member agree that there is a disparity between the rhetoric and the actions that are actually taken?
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Madam Speaker, it has been that way for seven years: a lot of rhetoric, fine words and plans, but the plans fail.
Look at what is happening in this country. I cited some things earlier. Again, 1.5 million people are going to food banks in a G7 country. What is happening in this country, as a result of these Liberals, is broken policies everywhere.
I can go on. I can talk about passports. The list is as long as the day, of the failures of this government and the broken promises it has made.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is quite right when he references the fact that Canada raced to the bottom of industrialized countries in terms of our climate performance.
In fact, throughout the previous Conservative government and the current, since 2015, Liberal government, no federal government has gotten the direction right. They set reduction targets for carbon; however, with the exception of the 2008 financial crisis when carbon went down and the 2019-20 difference over COVID, without a pandemic or economic collapse no government has gotten the direction right to start bringing emissions down.
There are ways to reduce emissions that do not involve carbon pricing. I happen to support carbon pricing. It is a necessary but insufficient condition.
What would this member recommend that we do to reduce emissions rapidly?
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Madam Speaker, maybe there is a reason our emissions are not going down as quickly as we would like. I know that the hon. member, whom I have respect for, is not going to like this.
Canada represents a small portion of emissions around the world. I think the solution for Canada is to reduce emissions around the world by supplying clean Canadian energy, which has the best environmental standards, the best labour standards and the best human rights standards in the world, to those emerging democracies and those emerging countries that are carbon intensive.
If we want to help, let us help the world.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of my community in Kelowna—Lake Country.
This fall economic statement leaves people concerned about how out of touch the Liberal government is here in Ottawa. People do not understand how common sense never seems to be able to enter the thinking of the costly Liberal-NDP coalition. It insists on continuing to mismanage Canada’s finances and to make it harder for Canadians and small businesses to manage their own finances.
Less than a month ago, in Windsor, the Liberal finance minister spoke with shocking clarity about the stewardship of the economy she is managing. I will quote her exact words: “Our economy will slow. There will be people whose mortgage rates will rise. Businesses will no longer be booming.”
Where has the Liberal finance minister been? Did she just wake up from a seven-year Liberal fairy-tale slumber? Does she not see how crushed businesses are and how dire people’s finances are? Does she not read any reports on how small businesses have incurred, on average, $150,000 in debt over the last two years, or reports on how restaurants are barely hanging on and food bank usage has seen an all-time high?
It was reported this week that Kelowna has the fifth-highest rent prices in all of Canada, only behind Vancouver, Toronto, Burnaby and Victoria. Four out of the top five are in British Columbia. B.C. also consistently has among the highest gas prices in the country; just look around my community of Kelowna—Lake Country.
During the last constituency week, I met with residents and small businesses all week. People were crying. People are desperate. They are considering medical assistance in dying because they cannot afford to live. People cannot heat their homes and are at the breaking point.
After the dire warning from the Liberal finance minister, Canadians were hoping to see the Liberals reining in their spending and cutting taxes. However, now residents in my community are forced to make tough decisions. I was talking with a senior from my community last week who was devastated. He was forced make the tough decision to sell his home because he could not afford to live in it anymore. He does not know what he is going to do.
People in Kelowna—Lake Country are concerned with the possibility of a recession in 2023, yet the Liberal Party continues to spin fairy tales like this fall economic statement. This statement contains no intention of turning back years of out-of-control Liberal spending that has driven up an inflationary deficit of almost half a trillion dollars. It leaves us with the highest federal debt ever.
The fall economic statement contains no tax relief for young people, families, seniors and persons with disabilities while they struggle to afford painful increases in the price of food, gas and home heating. Instead, the Liberals are squeezing more taxes out of them. So far this year, the Liberals will be taking an extra $40.1 billion out of people’s bank accounts and putting it into the government's bank account. It has no plans to turn off the taps and end the money printing that has driven our generational-high inflation crisis.
The Liberals have a laundry list of benefits they have created that give people a little of their own money back. There are no solutions to help businesses remove the help wanted ads in their windows. There is no plan to refill shelves with essentials like children's fever and pain medication, which is a problem that has been known since July. As usual, the Liberals did nothing on important issues like this for families.
The Liberals are not focusing on what is actually important to families like reducing taxes, getting inflation under control and having basic necessities like medical supplies on store shelves.
Multiple tax increases are still coming in the New Year, such as a drastic rise in excise taxes for Kelowna—Lake Country's local wineries, cideries, breweries and distilleries, along with others across the country. The Liberals call it an escalator tax, which is really a fancy, bureaucratic word for an automatic tax hike. The worst part is that it is tied to inflation, so it will be a bigger increase than ever before, and it will trickle down to retailers, restaurants and consumers.
Conservatives were transparent with our recommendations for this fall economic statement. There is nothing different from what my constituents have been asking for every day. First, cancel all planned tax hikes, including the tripling of the carbon tax. People are already choosing between heating their homes and putting food in fridges. They do not need more tax grabs.
Second is to ensure that there are equivalent savings to match any new spending. Canadians see no benefit from a half-trillion dollar deficit caused by wasteful purchases like the multi-million dollar ArriveCAN app.
Third is to get rid of red tape so our businesses and people can thrive. Red tape is affecting businesses' ability to bring skilled workers in to fill their labour needs. Our natural resources, farmers and manufacturers are all affected. It is like everything is on hold, while the Liberals live in a fairyland.
It is not just the Conservatives that the Liberals are choosing to ignore. The arm's-length, non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer's report must disappear like pixie dust as soon as it comes across a Liberal office door. The PBO's latest report proves that there are clear warnings for the country.
First, the PBO estimates that the unemployment rate will increase in 2023, to 5.8%, with a significant factor being people retiring. If the predicted recession hits next year at levels that some economists are projecting, the unemployment rate could undoubtedly increase further, and we will see a move away from “help wanted” signs to companies having to downsize in some sectors, while others will still struggle to get the skilled workers they need.
Food bank usage is already at an all-time high. Food Banks Canada recorded 1.5 million visits to food banks in just one month, which is a 35% increase compared to last year. I fear what increase in usage it will see next year.
Second, the PBO lays out the estimated federal government revenue and debt levels, and states:
Despite the projected decline in the budgetary deficit, public debt charges are projected to more than double from their 2020-21 level (of $20.4 billion), reaching $47.6 billion in 2027-28 due to higher interest rates and the additional accumulation of federal debt.
The finance minister talks about how the federal debt should be lower. However, although it is the highest ever in Canada, the PBO reports that the public debt charges will be more than double. What does that mean? It means we are paying more for that debt. A comparison is like doubling the interest we would be charged on our monthly credit card bill. As we make our payments, our bill total could slowly decrease, but every dollar we put in would be worth less. As it will take much longer to pay the debt off, we will end up paying a lot more.
Third is the record-high inflation. The PBO's estimates show federal government revenues increasing yearly until 2028, and the estimated increase is more than $40 billion from 2022 to 2024. We all know inflation has been as high as 8.1% this year, with food costs being even higher, and the government's revenue increase is primarily due to higher inflation adding tax revenue. In addition, the government's increases in payroll tax, excise tax and carbon tax will all bring in more revenue.
Those increased tax dollars to the government's coffers based on inflation and tax increases do not reflect a robust economy. I spoke with a small business owner from my community last week who said that she is making the tough decision to raise her rates, as she just cannot keep absorbing the higher costs. She feels bad for her clients, but she held off as long as she could.
I spoke with a resident from Joe Rich. I attended a fundraiser last weekend for residents. These are people in our community who cannot afford food, fuel or medicine. She said people do not have money to buy wood pellets to heat their homes; they cannot afford to eat and cannot afford to buy gas to drive the half hour back and forth to buy medicine and food. She has never seen things so bad in her lifetime.
I spoke with a man in his twenties who is now helping his parents with their mortgage payment because, with the high interest rates, his parents cannot afford to pay everything on their own. This young man is now putting his own future on hold.
This is Canada. What is wrong with the Liberals? Why can they not see how serious this is?
Our Conservative team will continue to stand up for real tax relief to help Canadian seniors, families, young adults, small businesses and non-profits. People are looking for hope, and I will stand up for the people and small businesses of Kelowna—Lake Country in voting against the government's continued disregard for our cost of living crisis.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to advise that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-32, an act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022.
Therefore, under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting of the House a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.
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Madam Speaker, when the member and the Conservatives talk about taxes, one thing that always amazes me is they will refer to the CPP. They look at the CPP as a tax increase. Because there would be more money invested in the CPP, they are calling it a tax on Canadians. However, the money being contributed to the CPP ensures that when it comes time to retire, workers have more money in their pockets. When the Conservatives attack that issue, they are actually attacking the workers and their ability to retire with more funds.
When they talk about the price on pollution, the very thing they supported in the last federal election, they leave out the fact that there are increases in the environment fund, which is putting more money into Canadians' pockets.
Can the member explain why, on those two aspects—
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- Nov/18/22 1:28:53 p.m.
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The hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country.
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Madam Speaker, there are many people who have referred to payroll taxes as taxes, both members in the House on the government side and people from reputable organizations in Canada.
We are referring to this because it is affecting people. We are looking at what is affecting people today. Inflation is at a 40-year high, and people cannot afford to put gas in their cars or buy food. Now is not the time for us to be increasing costs, including any taxes that people would have to bear.
Also on that front, this includes adding costs for small businesses. As I mentioned in my speech, many small businesses took on $150,000 in extra debt during the pandemic, and they have no way to pay it off. Now, by adding these payroll charges, they will have to pay an extra amount. It is taking money out of their bank accounts, and they are unable to pay off debt or spend money on anything else they want.
With respect to the carbon tax—
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- Nov/18/22 1:30:10 p.m.
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I have to give time for one last question.
The hon. member for Joliette.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.
I am shocked and outraged. As soon as the member finished her speech, the President of the Privy Council and Minister of Emergency Preparedness rose to announce that he was going to limit debate on Bill C-32. That is really shameful and offensive.
Why does the government always want to limit debate in the House, particularly when we know that this bill will be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, when we are beginning a pre-study on it right now with a sunset clause, and when we are going to do the clause-by-clause study in a few days—
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- Nov/18/22 1:30:58 p.m.
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Order.
The hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country has a few seconds to answer because the time is up.
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Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. We see the government continually bringing forth the collapse of debate in the House. There are many times when had speeches prepared to speak up on behalf of my community of Kelowna—Lake Country and my time was cancelled. The government continues to do that.
We are sent here and elected to represent our communities, bring their voices forth and bring their positions forth so that we can potentially bring them to committee.
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When shall the bill be read the third time? By leave, now?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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- Nov/18/22 1:31:55 p.m.
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There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed, without debate, to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.
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moved that the bill be concurred in.
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