SoVote

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, CPC)

Dec/5/22 3:37:20 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-32

Mr. Speaker, my colleague opposite just talked about government spending. The Auditor General and the PBO have talked about a lot of areas where the government has been ineffective in spending. In fact, I believe there is an article that says: Ottawa spends billions yet the number of homeless in Canada may be rising. An Order Paper question that I had showed that the government spent $400 million on airport COVID testing after the rest of the world had lifted requirements for COVID testing. I believe these contracts are going forward every day. The government also spent $1 billion on the WE Charity scandal. Spending is not an end in and of itself. Would the member agree that there are areas where the government has spent erroneously, and perhaps it behooves the government to do a bit of an audit before making statements like the one that was just made?

150 words

Context: House Hansard - 141 - Dec/5/22

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, CPC)

Dec/5/22 3:50:13 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-32

Mr. Speaker, when the government unveiled its housing strategy in 2017, there was $78.5 billion dedicated toward it. The goal was for homelessness to be reduced by half by 2027-28 and by a third within 18 months, so we are long past that. Recently the Auditor General discovered that billions of dollars has been spent and, as of today, the number of people living on the streets in Canada has actually risen. That is one example of the government putting spending out as a metric, saying it is spending but failing to actually achieve outcomes for people. I have some concern in trusting the government when it is continuing to spend at record levels without showing actual movement on progress. The government has, since 2015, doubled the entire amount historically of Canada's debt, yet we have seen greenhouse gas emissions rise and homelessness rise. Why is the government spending at this level without outcomes, given that we are looking at the great-grandmother of debt crises in this country?

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All Topics

Context: House Hansard - 141 - Dec/5/22

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner

Dec/5/22 4:06:50 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-32

Mr. Speaker, I am pro-outcome for Canadians, and I am against spending that does not deliver those outcomes. For the last several years, we have been in this explicit debt crisis because the Liberal government has never had anyone say to it that it cannot say it spent this amount of money and then assume it fixed the problem. I do not trust the Liberals to spend money and get outcomes. If we just look at the Liberals' homelessness spending, they spent $78.5 million, and the Auditor General found that there are more people on the street than there were before. That is not compassionate, and that spending has left us brittle and unresilient to address the changes of a massively changing economy in the middle of a recessionary crisis. I oppose that approach.

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Context: House Hansard - 141 - Dec/5/22

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner

Dec/5/22 4:10:48 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-32

Mr. Speaker, the point I am trying to make is that every Canadian, regardless of age, gender, orientation or background, deserves stability, security and hope for the future. There is nothing in this budget, which the NDP is propping up in a supply development, that addresses long-term economic resiliency for this country. It would not audit spending. It would not look at the effectiveness of housing spending that the New Democrats have already voted for. To me, that is a big problem. We have a fiduciary responsibility as members of Parliament to review finances on behalf of the people of this country. If we are not getting this right and we are not voting against this bill, I do not think we have done that.

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