44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 6, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, not only are we talking about growing the economy, but we are also going to pay down our deficit. We will have the lowest deficit in the G7. We have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio.
The supports that are in here are real supports to help people to buy their first home, to make sure businesses can save money and to make sure we speed up the benefits for workers. We are also going to make sure that if companies have enough wealth that they think they can buy their shares back, they are going to pay a 2% tax to the country. If they do not want to do that, they can invest in the economy and grow the economy, which would be good for my colleague's riding, for my riding and for ridings across this country.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' spending is out of control. They are completely out of touch and do not have a clue about how the vast majority of people in Canada live.
Unlike their elite friends, whom they so fondly dole out tax dollars to in scandal after scandal, most people in this country work hard for what little money they have. The government is spending billions upon billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars on frivolous vanity projects, on initiatives that no one other than their seatmate at the World Economic Forum would really care about. All the while the government is raising payroll taxes, tripling the carbon tax and implementing inflationary policies that weaken the dollar, which prices essential goods out of reach.
The callousness on display, the elitist attitude of cancelling one’s Disney+ subscription to save money coming from the people who are not hurting and who do not struggle to keep food on their tables or heat their homes, has to stop.
After seeing another load of spending and learning about Canada’s national debt of over a trillion dollars, one constituent of mine, Chris, wrote in to say, “I’d like to see them in our shoes that is the middle class or low-income households, with our wages. With high inflation for food, gas, heating, rising Bank of Canada interest rates, the soon to be tripling of the carbon tax, pay our bills, our mortgage, our debts, and see if the budget balances itself. I don’t need a handout of my own taxpayer dollars. I need a government that will fix the real issues behind Canada’s problems.”
My message to this resident of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, and to all Canadians who share this view, is that if we want to see change, we need to vote Conservative in the next election.
Our leader, the member for Carleton, knows the same simple fact that nearly everyone but our Prime Minister understands, that budgets do not balance themselves and that more spending, like what was announced in this fall economic statement, only adds inflationary fuel to the fire.
This is not the only feedback that I have received about waste and misplaced priorities. Recently, a 12-year-old wrote to me with a message that has more common sense in it than this government has displayed in years. This is from Everett.
Everett says, “I have been thinking about why the Prime Minister wants to further tax our hard-working farmers and their families. This tax will dramatically increase the cost of food to the consumer.
“Here is what I would say in Parliament and to the politicians: 'Mr. Speaker, if the federal government continues to enforce laws that control our farmers, there will be widespread criticism to the Liberal government, which has already spent billions of wasted tax dollars. Canadians have already faced difficulties in the beginning of the decade. Forcing our farmers to pay a tax on livestock methane will only lead to farmers who can barely get enough money to pay the ever-increasing carbon tax! It will lead to more bankruptcies in the country. Canadians are fed up!'
“They had already said it in the beginning of 2022. The government silenced them. With inflation, it will make it harder for Canadians to get past this winter. Canadians will be starving and this government will have caused another famine and caused people to starve.
“When will the federal government end the mandates against Canadian farmers?”
Well said, Everett. I thank him for sending that in. I agree. It is true. The government cannot see the forest through the trees, which is funny because they have committed to planting so many of them. I think it was two million trees, and they have planted zero. Is that not another Liberal commitment that has flown by the wayside, just like their promises for accountability and transparency?
It is no wonder that they have to resort to using Conservative ideas to give their fall economic statement any substance.
What ideas could those be? Well, investing in Canadian-made, clean, green technology. That is something we on this side of the House, Conservatives, have been calling for for years.
In fact, making investments in and growing Canadian capacity to be a global leader in clean green tech is exactly what we put forward in our last two platforms. It is an idea, I should add, that creates jobs and helps the environment, which was opposed by the Liberals before.
After learning that their current war against the Canadian energy sector had cost 170,000 Canadian workers’ jobs without a credible plan to back up their big assumptions and magical thinking, it is about time that they saw the light.
We should also note that the first figure is on top of the 180,000 energy jobs that were already destroyed under the Liberal government. That is 350,000 jobs, and counting, killed to satisfy the Liberal government’s imagination. While these Canadians look for work, the government buys the oil and gas we need from dictators instead.
Canadians need more common-sense initiatives, and it should be obvious that it is Conservatives who will give them that. It is Conservatives who will support our domestic resource industries and make positive changes that benefit all, even if the government tries to hide its mistakes and take credit for our ideas.
Do members know that the average before-tax income of a millennial in Canada is under $50,000? Do they know that the average Canadian family pays $39,000 in taxes? For Canadians aged 25 to 40, that means it is nearly impossible to get ahead. It means they will not be able to afford a home until retirement age, and that is if they get to retire. It means every dollar recklessly wasted by this government to grow inflation only puts them further behind. Tripling the carbon tax and increasing payroll taxes so the government can keep spending taxes does not give them hope.
This situation is surprisingly similar to what Canadian seniors currently face. They have sacrificed to save their money. After years of working hard, they gave it all to grow our nation, to make it successful and a great place to live. However, many are telling me they are feeling left behind and abandoned, forgotten by a government that no longer sees them as useful, a Liberal regime that would rather offer them death than sufficient medical or mental health care. They see no hope coming from spending announcements. They only see their bills piling up, groceries getting more expensive and becoming unaffordable, and a winter ahead of them with not enough money to keep the heat on. This is all thanks to the Liberal government's spending and mismanagement of Canada's finances.
From our millennials to our seniors, Canadians are saddened to see this once-prosperous, thriving country with an incredible reputation on the global stage become what it has become today under the government: a tax-and-spend nation that is driving people into poverty and is quickly becoming the laughing stock of the world.
I can see from the faces of those opposite that they do not believe me, but they should pay attention to this next bit of testimony.
A senior from my riding, from Wallaceburg, wrote that they are on ODSP and their cheque has been cut by $500. It's winter right now, they said, and they need that because of the price of heating oil. The senior said it cost $1,800 to fill the tank, and that is what they now get from ODSP.
This Canadian has nothing to live on and no other options.
What do members think about this heartbreaking story from another young mother? She wrote that she had spent the whole day consoling two brothers aged one and three, sick with a bad virus. If she could have given them Tylenol or Advil, she said, they would have had a bad day but they would have survived. Instead, these two very active boys cried and moaned, threw up and begged to be carried. They slept in her arms and were miserable all day.
Instead of acting quickly to see that Canadian children have the medicine they need, the government waited. Instead of working to make certain Canada never faces a similar shortage, it announces boutique spending policies that help no one.
This economic statement does not address the cost of living crisis that the costly NDP-Liberal coalition government has created. Its reckless spending and mounting national debt is simply not fair to future generations.
I have also been hearing from young people that with inflation and the cost of housing, they will be living in their parents' basements until at least the age of 30 and they have given up on their dream of owning a home for their family to live in.
To afford food, to be warm this winter and to give hope to the next generation of Canadians, Conservatives will always stand strong against the Liberal government's reckless spending and fight for common-sense policies.
Finally, here are some questions from average Canadians that no one has been able to answer yet: Where is this carbon tax going? Who gets it? What is it being spent on? No one believes that it is coming back to them, like the Liberals claim. Since the inception of the carbon tax, many have been asking how paying money to the government stops the global temperature from rising. How does money going from their bank account to a slush fund for the Prime Minister's self-glorification clean up the atmosphere, especially when China is the world's biggest polluter by far? How does paying a tax stabilize the weather, when the sun is the biggest influencer of the earth's climate? How does my handing money over to the least transparent, least democratic, most expensive government in our nation's history stop a hurricane from hitting the east coast? It is time to scrap the carbon tax.
Liberal spending is out of control. For the reasons outlined, I cannot support this economic statement.
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- Dec/6/22 2:37:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that the member opposite gave us that answer when the government has completely lost control of public spending. The Auditor General confirmed that the government is trying to track down $32 billion in benefits that were paid to ineligible recipients. What are the consequences of that?
Nationwide, Canadians' debt is increasing. People do not have enough money, so they are charging their groceries to their credit cards. The Liberals have allowed themselves to lose billions of dollars.
Once again, will the Liberals show compassion and not increase taxes?
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Mr. Speaker, that is the first time somebody has ever said that everyone wants to hear what I have to say. I certainly thank you for those kind words.
This bill is bringing in measures that are specifically designed to assist those most impacted by inflation right now. Most important is to look at the impact of the measures we are talking about in this bill in support of Canadians, those who need it the most. It is well documented that the impact of those measures on inflation is next to nothing.
I think it is very important that we reflect on exactly what some of those measures are. For starters, the one measure in this bill I am very happy to see, because I think it is long overdue, has to do with the elimination of student loan interest from the federal portion. I know it has been said in the House that we do not have a student loan problem. I would disagree with that. I suggest that is exactly the opposite of the truth because we do have a problem when it comes to education.
The reality is that decades ago, when my parents were in their teens and early twenties, all one needed to get a job that could provide security to build a family and buy a house was a high school diploma. By and large, one could find stable employment to provide for oneself and one's family. That is not the case any more.
Now, one needs much more than that. One quite often needs a university degree, to be highly skilled in a trade or, in some cases, have completed a masters or postgraduate work. The difference between now and then is that secondary school is covered through taxes. It is covered through property taxes and taxes that individuals pay to support the school system. To get to the point of being able to provide and start a family back then was free. Now we are in a situation where education is a lot more expensive. The cost of getting to that place of providing for and building a family is much more expensive.
When we start talking about things like eliminating the interest on student debt, I think it is absolutely important because it moves us toward being able to provide the education that people need to get stable employment. That employment can be used to build a family, buy a house and so on. From my perspective, we ultimately have to get to a point where either community college or university for Canadian citizens is almost as easy to access as high school is because it is through that that people can experience the quality of life that previous generations, like that of my parents, were able to experience.
I really think that this piece of legislation is absolutely key right now. We need to get this through the House. I am glad to see that we are at the final stage of this. The reality is that there are Canadians out there waiting on this legislation to be passed so they can start to get some of the supports in it. We know full well that the House could end up debating this fall economic statement until May or June, just like the Conservatives forced us to do with the last fall economic statement. We have had numerous speakers on this: 38 Conservatives, six NDP, 10 Bloc, one Green and 26 Liberals. After all these speakers, I cannot understand how anybody in the House would possibly think that continuing debate on this piece of legislation would be more important than getting the supports the legislation provides to Canadians.
I am glad to see that there is time allocation on this. We need to get to a point where we can have a vote on this. Let us have our voices heard through that vote, and if it passes, get the supports to Canadians. There are Canadians out there suffering right now who need these supports.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House to represent the people of London—Fanshawe and to speak to Bill C-32 today.
There are a lot of issues that have been raised in this bill that we have been talking about for a long time. We have been fighting for Londoners, of course, but fighting for a fairer economy and bringing that voice into this place.
There are a lot of pieces of this bill that we think are a good start and reasons we support this bill, but as usual there is a lot lacking. As a New Democrat, I work, I push and I continue to fight for so much more for the people of London—Fanshawe. One of the key points is that we are supporting the removal of the federal portion of interest on student loans. That could make a real difference for students.
I was formerly the post-secondary critic for the NDP in this place, and we fought for so much more. We called for the cancellation of up to $20,000 of federal debt per student and a break from that repayment. We made it retroactive. We talked about going even further. Ultimately, the government is making money off the backs of our future, off those who will contribute to our economy in so many ways through the education system, and that is very short-sighted. We could go so much further, but it is a good start.
On the windfall tax, we support some of these measures, but the government could do much more if it had the political courage to go further. Big banks, big box stores and oil and gas companies have made record profits from COVID.
If we had raised that proposed 15% and made it permanent, we would see an extra $4.3 billion in the federal coffers. We could reinvest that in people and in social programs that establish the solidity that people need. The equity that people can get from social programs is the role of government, not to play catch-up to big corporations that are at the very top.
We have concerns with this bill, because it does not go far enough. As New Democrats, we were fighting in the last Parliament to deliver supports under the CERB and the wage subsidy to handle and to deal with what people were facing with COVID-19. When the government provided those supports and said it had people's backs, people needed that and they believed it.
Now we see the government clawing that back. It is clawing back the benefits that people applied for in good faith. There are people I know, who come to my constituency office, and do not know where to turn. They count on the government to provide fairness and support, and they are not seeing that.
I was here a few weeks ago with my hon. colleague from Elmwood—Transcona. I am always awed by his ability to give a speech in this place, off the cuff. He has so much knowledge within.
Something he was talking about really stuck with me. It was the need for respect and the call for the respect that people deserve. They work so hard, play by the rules, do everything they are supposed to and do everything the government asks of them. They are paying their fair share in taxes, yet when they need the government to help them, it is not there. They become frustrated and angry. They do not know where to turn.
It is that need to show respect that is a piece of the tax fairness we talk about. The government has to find the right balance to show that respect to Canadians. It has to have the courage to ask those who make the most in this world to redistribute those excess profits and to not take advantage of people who are just trying to get by and who are just trying to feed their families. They need to pay their fair share.
I am so happy to see that my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford has championed this issue and has received unanimous support to investigate the greedflation from grocery stores that we talk about, at the agriculture committee. However, it is clear that the $1 million a day that Loblaws makes in profits, because it is taking advantage of people, is driving inflation. It has to be a part of that fair taxation.
According to the new study released by the Centre for Future Work, 15 profitable industries, including the grocery sector, are driving inflation in Canada. The combined profits of these 15 sectors are up by a whopping 89%. Nobody's salaries are up by 89%. People feel that, and they see that unfairness. They are asking for solutions from the government.
The windfall tax that we have been calling for on excess profit could go so far in systems that are now in crisis. That is because of underfunding and government cuts and because of downloading of responsibilities from the federal to the provincial government and from the provincial to municipal governments.
We are seeing that in our health care system. In my hometown of London, Ontario, hospitals have seen a surge, like so many across this country, especially in the children's hospital. Patients are waiting up to 20 hours for service.
I cannot imagine being a parent and watching my child suffer. It is one thing for parents to take that on themselves and try to deal with it, but they have to watch their child go through that, to suffer in a hallway, to wait and then to be told to go home. Surgeries are being cancelled in London, because they cannot deal with the influx of patients. People take their kid home and they are suffering. I cannot imagine what that has done to families.
Now people in London are, in an innovative way, trying to deal with those long wait times in emergency rooms. London Health Sciences Centre is trying to change how it structures its emergency room policies. It is trying to create a separate emergency room system for those dealing with mental health crises and addiction crises. It is trying to make something work.
The Doug Ford Conservative provincial government said that it is not going to fund it, and that the city needs to take the burden of that cost. It is $300 million on a city in Ontario that cannot carry a deficit, and it has to somehow figure out how to service the people in our municipality and not overburden the taxpayers.
One of the things regarding inflation that we have heard is that the government is at fault and it is overspending. Conservatives have a very simplistic view that it is just about taxes. We know that is not true. The Conservatives will not accept the fact that, even though there are studies about it now, including the one that I just referenced, this could potentially be about greed.
I will come back to the point that the member for Elmwood—Transcona was making about respect. Instead of continuing to protect big corporations, if we could implement true tax reform to make these companies that are making massive excess profits pay their fair share and to hold those wealthy friends accountable, then that would be respect. That would be showing the Canadian public that we are willing to do the work, and that we have the courage to stand up to ensure they have that fairness and they see that fairness.
One of the problems that I also see is regarding the Bank of Canada and its continuous pursuit to hit that 2% target, yet in that lies the potential of a recession. If it hits that 2% target, it could risk 850,000 jobs. There are already people desperately trying to make ends meet, and now they have to worry about losing their job and figuring that out.
London has such a proud manufacturing history. There are McCormick, Dr. Oetker, Labatt, Indiva in my riding and Environize. There is a place called the Cakery. There are so many places and I wish—
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak to the fall economic update.
“Canadians have never had it so good,” is the message we get when we listen to Liberal members talk about what is going on in Canada. They say things are great, that Canadians should be grateful for everything that is going so wonderfully here in this country. They talk about how it is so wonderful because of all the money they have spent. The answer to every problem in Canada, if one is a Liberal, is to spend money. That is the solution, so spend they have.
The Liberals have doubled the national debt. The amount of debt of every prime minister up to the current Prime Minister, the Liberals have doubled. Every prime minister before accumulated a certain amount of debt, and the current Prime Minister and government doubled it in a few short years. They say that as a result of that, things are great.
Maybe we should talk about how great things are as a result of all this spending. First of all, we just heard from the Auditor General that a lot of the spending did not really go anywhere that it should have. There were $4.6 billion in confirmed overpayments during the pandemic and $27 billion in suspicious payments, so we are looking at $32 billion of money that went who knows where, not where it should have gone. This includes the fact that 1,500 people in jail received these benefits.
To this point, there is absolutely no real plan to get any of this money back. Liberals say they are working on it and the wheels are in motion, when they are not saying the Auditor General was pushed into making this report by the opposition and trying to undermine the Auditor General. It is an interesting position for a government to take, when it appointed the Auditor General.
We look at all that spending and at the issues across the country from coast to coast to coast. Many members have been rising in this chamber to talk about the issues in hospitals all across the country. The premiers have said the federal government should be transferring more money to the provinces for health care, and the government is saying that the cupboard is kind of bare.
I am thinking that $32 billion, if it had been properly managed, would therefore have been available for health transfers, but that ship has sailed and the government is doing virtually nothing to get that money back.
There is $27 billion a year now being paid in interest on the debt, which has doubled over the course of the last number of years under the Liberal government. That is $27 billion every year that could be spent on things like health care. Right away, if we put those things together, one year of the massive interest on the massive debt plus the $32 billion spent on who knows what, and we would have over $50 billion for health care.
There are some hospitals and some provinces across the country that would very much be interested in receiving some of that money, but of course they cannot, because the Liberals have spent it on other things.
The interest on the debt is actually going to go to $43 billion a year by 2026. Let us think about that number. It is staggering: $43 billion a year simply to pay interest on the credit card.
When one raises issues like this, the government says it spent so Canadians did not need to spend. Well, Canadians are spending now, through their taxes, paying $27 billion a year in interest, which is moving to $46 billion. However, that is okay, because everything in this country is fantastic. Canadians have never had it so good.
Right now, inflation is at a 40-year high. People in this country are having to choose to eat or to heat their homes, but Canadians have never had it so good.
In one month, 1.5 million Canadians used a food bank. It is unprecedented. The struggle of Canadians after seven years of spending by the government is worse than it has ever been, so the rationale that we have spent all this money and things are great is completely debunked, because things are not great.
There are so many Canadians who are within a few hundred dollars of not being able to make ends meet, and inflation is eating into that every single day, but, right, everything is great. The money was spent to make the lives of Canadians better, except that their lives are not better. By virtually every measurable index, the lives of Canadians now are worse than they were 10 years ago.
There is no apology from the government on this. It will say things like, “Yes, but we are going to pay this benefit here or this little benefit there.”
When a person is $200 away from not being able to make ends meet, a one-time payment of $500 is not going to help. It might get them through the first couple of months, but there are 10 other months in the year in which we have to try to make ends meet.
One in five Canadians are skipping meals, but all this spending was so great for Canadians.
The result of the economic policies of the government has been to impoverish the nation, and that is where we are when we look at all the statistics that are adding up.
There is absolutely no recognition of this by the government. There is no apology for it. It simply says, “We have this little program here. We have another program here. That is all Canadians need.”
The other glaring omission from the government has been any meaningful response to the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States. It is a transformational document on how the United States is going to have its economy move going forward. No, we cannot match, dollar for dollar, the kinds of programs the United States is offering, but it offers these things in very clear ways. It offers tax incentives for governments. It offers production incentives for businesses.
What we are being promised here in Canada are programs. There is going to be a program here that a business can apply for, an opaque program. At committee, we heard industry representatives say that these programs are given according to a naughty list and a nice list. If one is on the naughty list, one has no idea why one is on the naughty list, and one does not get the funding.
When the government is picking winners and losers in business, everyone loses. The response is not sufficient, and the response it is offering is not going to help Canadian businesses.
We have heard over and over again from witnesses that this is a game-changer in the United States and that the government needs to act quickly. Well, my definition of “quickly” is not waiting for the budget in two, three or four months to announce some measures, sprinkling a couple of things here in the update and then saying to businesses, “Do not worry. Everything is going to be fine when the budget is released.”
Businesses cannot wait three, four, five, six or seven months. Investments are happening in the United States right now.
The government has impoverished Canadians over the last number of years, and now it risks losing out on the manufacturing bonanza for electric vehicles, etc., that is coming, because it is just acting so slowly.
This is an update that we cannot support and Canadians cannot afford.
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Madam Speaker, it is estimated that the interest alone on the debt will be greater than the combined health transfers to the provinces. How will this burgeoning, continually snowballing debt impact Canada's ability to care for our citizens?
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke has asked this very good question many times throughout her long tenure as a member of Parliament.
It is a very important one because when we are spending $27 billion and more, growing to $30 billion, $40 billion over the course of a number of years, on interest on the debt, we are not spending that money on health care, education and the things that matter.
My mom is a retired nurse. She worked in the health care system in Hamilton, Ontario, and saw that first-hand. My dad just went through chemotherapy. I know all Canadians who have gone through health issues understand this. We value our health care system, so rather than spending $27 billion on interest, let us spend more on health care. Absolutely, that makes a lot of sense.
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Madam Speaker, I understand where the hon. member is coming from given that this was a disappointing fall economic statement.
The member cited health care. We have seen no meaningful commitments from the government when it comes to health care. Indeed, thanks to the government's reckless spending, debt servicing costs will soon outpace and be a larger amount than what is allocated to the Canada health transfer annually.
Quite frankly, there would be more money for health care if the government would rein in its wasteful, reckless spending.
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