44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 25, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, just a few minutes ago, in his speech, the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman talked about the fact that the Harper government cut the defence budget in order to balance the books. I notice that my hon. colleague across the way is also talking about balancing the books. It just seems like the Conservatives sometimes want it both ways. They talk about balancing the books, but then on each individual thing, they say, “Oh, but we need to increase that, and we need to increase this.”
I would ask the hon. member opposite this: Does he agree with his party's defence critic that we should cut defence spending to balance the books?
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Madam Speaker, my colleague across the way just had an opportunity to ask the defence critic that question.
I would suggest to the member that it was her finance minister who, last year, said that she could balance the budget in four years. How would she have done that? It would have required controlling spending and being responsible with taxpayer dollars, which is something the finance minister has been unable to do. That is why we will not support an irresponsible budget.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague has spent a lot of time telling us that we need to shrink government and reduce debt and the deficit. I understand that; he is a Conservative. I respect his point of view, even though I do not share it.
That being said, the government has fundamental responsibilities that should be important, even to a Conservative. One of those responsibilities is employment insurance. He and I will both agree that a company like Sunlife is not going to provide a decent private-sector EI program.
For years, the Liberal government has been promising to reform the EI system. We need to expand coverage, ensure that there is no longer an EI spring gap and change the way it is funded, because we are going to shift the burden of pandemic-related expenses to our businesses and workers. Does my colleague agree that the government has broken its promise, and does he think that the system needs to be reformed?
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Madam Speaker, I think my colleague and I might agree that the EI system must be reformed but disagree on how it should be reformed.
In terms of his suggestion that I would advocate for shrinking government, I will say that I did not mention that in my speech. I talked about controlling spending. If we control spending and grow the economy, we suddenly have the capacity to deliver the services that Canadians need. It is about balancing those two things, and I believe that, as a Conservative government, we will be able to get that done.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, which focused on fiscal responsibility, a balanced budget and a zero deficit. I would simply like to remind my colleague that a deficit was posted in eight of the nine years of Stephen Harper's Conservative government. The only year that did not show a deficit was the year before the election, and that was because his previous government had sold the GM shares it purchased during the auto sector crisis. It was a bit artificial.
I have two questions for my colleague. What would he cut and where would he look for the additional money to balance the budget?
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Madam Speaker, I am very proud of the Harper years. During the Harper years, of course, the globe experienced an economic crisis that Canada also had to address. The member knows that Canada was the last country in the G7 to enter that global recession and the first to emerge from it. This occurred because of the management of Stephen Harper. I am very proud of our accomplishments.
By the way, the member is right that, in 2015, we left the Liberal government a surplus of $2 billion. We had balanced budgets. Since that time, the Liberal government has been unable to achieve balanced budgets. In fact, the deficits this government has incurred are actually atrocious when we look at the generational debt that has been created for my children and my grandchildren and for his.
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Madam Speaker, every single day we hear new stories and new reports about the affordability crisis in this country. Canadians are struggling. Never mind luxuries; basic necessities are out of reach for far too many Canadian families.
Food bank usage continues to skyrocket and break records across the country. Some have even resorted to dumpster-diving to feed their families. Mortgages and rent prices have nearly doubled since the Liberals have taken office and nine out of 10 young Canadians have reportedly given up on the dream of home ownership. This costly coalition is squeezing Canadians' drive.
Budget 2023 was yet another opportunity for the NDP-Liberal government to course-correct. Conservatives put forward three clear demands to support Canadians in the lead-up to the budget. We asked for the elimination of the inflationary carbon tax and deficits, lower taxes so that it pays to work and the removal of the gatekeepers who are driving up the cost of housing. Not a single one of these demands was met in the budget. Instead, the finance minister doubled down on her government's record of higher taxes and inflationary deficits.
Budget 2023 is an absolute failure. It is a failure even by the finance minister's own standards. Just a year ago she stood in this place and told Canadians that the country's debt-to-GDP ratio was her “fiscal anchor” and that it must decline for Canada's finances to be sustainable. In fact, she said it was a line that she would not cross. Budget 2023 crosses that line, so according to the government's own finance minister, this costly coalition's inflationary debt and deficits are unsustainable.
Budget 2023 introduces $40.1 billion in additional deficit spending that will be paid for by the taxpayers. That number is almost $10 billion more than forecasted just last fall. The Prime Minister has added more to the national debt than all other prime ministers combined, racking the debt up to $1.22 trillion. That breaks down to nearly $81,000 per household in Canada.
The Prime Minister's new spending in this budget alone costs every Canadian household an additional $4,200. It is the Canadian taxpayers of today and tomorrow that will pay the price for Liberal mismanagement. The cost to service Canada's debt has nearly doubled in two years climbing from $24.5 billion to $43.9 billion. That is money that is added to the government's ledger annually but that delivers no services or benefits to Canadians.
The reality of this costly coalition's inflationary debt and deficits is that it is adding more pressure and more costs to the household budgets of Canadians. They are responsible for driving up inflation and interest rates. What is even more concerning is that in budget 2023, we find out that there is no longer a path to a balance in Canada's budget projections. The government has completely abandoned any efforts to balance the budget. Canadians are being squeezed from both sides.
Despite the endless deficits of this government, Canadians are still paying more in taxes than ever before. Payroll taxes are costing workers and small businesses more this year and the increased carbon tax is driving up the cost of everything. It is making it more expensive for Canadians to drive to work, buy groceries or heat their home.
For those in the communities that I represent and for rural Canadians across this country those costs are even more punishing. We know that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed that the average family is paying more in carbon taxes than they get back in rebates and now the Minister of Environment and Climate Change has finally admitted that as well. The costly coalition's high-tax agenda is cutting directly into the paycheques of hard-working Canadians and inflationary deficits are ensuring that whatever is left of their paycheques does not go nearly as far as it once did.
This NDP-Liberal coalition is costing Canadians more and more, but they are not getting more for their money. Canadians are not getting better or more efficient government services. In fact, some line items were noticeably missing from the budget. The budget offered no support for our rural municipalities, for the retroactive RCMP wage cost that is constraining their municipal budgets. The one-time back pay costs were negotiated by the Liberal government, and it was their decision to not consult or include the municipalities in those decisions. The negotiated agreement far exceeds what it told municipalities to plan for, and it has left them holding the lion's share of the bill.
Certainly, our RCMP members deserve appropriate pay for the work that they do, work that is so important to our communities, even more so as the Liberal government's catch-and-release crime policies are making our communities feel less and less safe. The fact is that the government failed to consult with the municipalities, and the Liberal government is the one that should be responsible for that one-time cost. Those costs have serious implications for the municipalities in my riding, and yet there is no relief for them in this budget bill.
Another noticeably missing line item from the budget, and subsequently the budget implementation bill, is a time to attach benefit for adopted and intended parents. The government has been promising parity to adoptive parents since the 2019 election, and the creation of a new benefit has been in the minister's mandate letters since then. The Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion publicly alluded to the long-promised benefit, but it is nowhere to be found. Adoptive and intended parents should not have to keep waiting to get the parity they deserve and that they need.
My private member's bill addresses this inequity, and I sincerely hope that it finds support from all sides of this House. It is time that Canada works for the people who work. Budget 2023 and this budget implementation bill fail hard-working Canadians. They fail to ensure that Canadians could get ahead when they work hard and they play by the rules. They fail to reverse the inflationary deficits and taxes that are burdening Canadians and limiting their ability to provide for themselves and their families.
This budget proves that this costly coalition is unable and unwilling to reverse course on its harmful policies. Only with a change of government would Canadians get the relief that they so desperately need and deserve. Only Conservatives have a plan to make Canada work for everyday Canadians. Conservatives would lower taxes so that hard work does pay off. We would keep more money in the pockets of Canadians so that they could spend more of their own money on what they need and their priorities.
Conservatives would reverse inflationary deficits that are driving up inflation and interest rates within this country, and we would eliminate the costly carbon tax, a tax that is driving up the cost of basic necessities on just about everything in this country, all while doing nothing for the environment. We know that because the Liberal government is lining its pockets off the backs of Canadians while missing every single one of its emissions targets that it sets for itself. Conservatives would also remove government gatekeepers who are contributing to the soaring housing costs.
Those are all common-sense principles and policies that Canadians deserve, but that are nowhere to be found in this budget. This costly coalition has put forward a budget bill that for the sake of Canadians cannot be supported.
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Madam Speaker, every so often we get a sense of what it is the Conservatives are really up to.
The critic for the defence department says that they are going to work towards a balanced budget, that they are going to be doing some cutting and that defence is on the chopping block. He has made it very clear. The Conservatives support cutbacks to defence. The Conservatives have also made it very clear that they would get rid of the dental program.
We just had a major announcement for the community of St. Thomas and in fact all of Canada with the Volkswagen electric battery plant. It would be Canada's largest factory. The leader of the Conservative Party has been very critical of it. Could the member explain why the Conservative Party does not support it?
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Madam Speaker, one thing that we have noticed with the government is it does not have any fiscal restraint. When there is defence of the Prime Minister going on lavish holidays or even going to a state funeral and spending $6,000 a night, which is Canadian taxpayers' money, there is a problem. There is so much wasteful spending from the government, which could be going to help Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, in her speech, my colleague spoke about the gatekeepers of housing construction. This gives me an opportunity to remind her that Quebec is the only province with a permanent program for the construction of social housing among other things.
With respect to housing construction, the worst gatekeeper for many years has been the federal conditions. The national housing strategy in particular has deprived poor Quebeckers of housing because much time was lost in administrative delays.
Does my colleague agree that the federal government's conditions have hindered the development of housing? Is she ready to admit that money to help build housing should be paid directly to the Quebec government without any conditions and with respect for its areas of jurisdiction?
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Madam Speaker, I am someone in this place who is on the record about respecting provincial jurisdiction. I believe provinces actually know better than the federal government does when it comes to their own jurisdiction and what works. Again, I respect provincial jurisdiction and provinces know what is best for the people who live in them.
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Uqaqtittiji, the member talked about this budget including harmful policies. It is because of the NDP that the budget included $13 billion over five years and $4.4 billion a year on an ongoing basis to support dental care.
How can she describe that as a harmful policy?
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Madam Speaker, what is in the budget is a lot of spending. I mentioned in my speech the RCMP: our municipalities are being struck with millions. Some of my municipalities have millions of one-time, retroactive pay. There are places where there is spending in the budget and there are places where the spending is missing. I think it is imperative the government be prudent on what it spends that money on.
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Madam Speaker, I believe I clearly heard my hon. colleague from Battlefords—Lloydminster say that we needed to remove the gatekeepers who stop home building.
What federal department or federal operation has anything to do with local home building?
I also respect the provinces and I do think that is under provinces and municipalities. I agree that we should remove barriers to home building, but I do not think that resides with the federal government.
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Madam Speaker, I think this particular Liberal government has a problem with railroading provinces and provincial jurisdiction, and respecting that. I really believe that if we had a different mindset coming to the table working with municipalities and working with the provinces, we would see a more collaborative approach and things would get done, as opposed to the federal government always wagging its finger and telling the provinces what to do.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to be able to enter into debate to discuss the issues that are impacting my constituents.
I would like to note, before I get into the substance of my debate, how ironic it is that the Liberals often claim that Conservatives are somehow holding up their agenda by simply doing our jobs, and I would like to highlight how yesterday was a clear example of how that is a falsehood in every way imaginable. Yesterday, Conservatives were ready to debate the budget. In fact, we even moved a motion, in a procedural manner, to help ensure we could get to debate the matter. What did the Liberals do? They wanted to dither and delay, and the consequences are that now we have some late-night sittings. I fear that, in the not-too-distant future, we will see time allocation moved, where once again the Liberals will shut down the ability for us to meaningfully debate the important issues, like budget 2023 and, specifically, the bill we have before us today, one of the budget implementation acts.
I will share a few observations before getting into what my constituents have shared with me about this matter. There are big costs and big announcements, but few results and even fewer benefits. The consequences of that are that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are feeling the effects of now nearly eight years of Liberal mismanagement of our economy, Liberal mismanagement of the federal government and Liberal mismanagement of virtually everything the government touches.
More and more Canadians are losing confidence in the ability to receive even the most basic services, the most basic things a government should be able to accomplish. Canadians are losing faith in those institutions. Instead of the government being able to focus on things like governing, instead of it being able to focus on things like signing a deal with public servants that is two years late, we see the Prime Minister, time and time again, embroiled in scandal.
My advice to any Liberal in this place is to cut that guy loose. He is damaging their credibility to accomplish anything and is damaging and eroding the trust Canadians need to have in their institutions.
When we look at budget 2023, the big picture is not that rosy. We see the fiscal and economic outlook of our country increasingly discouraging for so many. Nowhere is that more clear than in the fact that we are likely going to see a recession. The definition of a recession is a contraction of the GDP over two consecutive quarters. That is the economic definition of what a recession is.
I would expand that a little to include what I would call a “functional” recession. If we take into account the per capita GDP, Canada would have been in a recession for many of the last quarters, certainly the last years, with a few exceptions as we saw rebounds from COVID. It certainly was not just because of COVID. The economy was not doing well prior to COVID. Even though the government pumped out hundreds of billions of dollars of cash, deflating the value of the Canadian dollar, we are seeing Canadians who are not getting ahead.
We see a deficit of $40.1 billion, and the budget will not be balanced for years and years. We see a massive deficit, to the point where the debt-servicing costs, if one can believe it, are greater than the deficit itself. Canadians are needing to borrow to even be able to keep up with the extreme spending of the Prime Minister, who, I suspect, does not know how to balance a budget in his own life, but certainly not that of the government.
We see $43 billion in net new spending. We see $63 billion in gross new spending. The impact per Canadian household is absolutely astonishing, as is the debt, which is rising to well over a trillion dollars. The consequence is that it is not the government's debt. The Prime Minister may have that illusion. In fact, he said during the COVID pandemic that the Liberals took on debt so Canadians would not need to.
Here is a reality check for the Liberals: It is Canadians who carry that debt. The consequences of that have hit the pocketbook of every single Canadian, and the failure to recognize that has devastating consequences on Canadians. The impacts of this budget and the overall fiscal mismanagement are certainly severe.
It is interesting to look at the polls over the last while. Generally, when big dollars get spent in Ottawa, there is a bump in the polls. We have not seen that. Some would suggest it is because of the Prime Minister's scandalous behaviour, and some would suggest it is because of some of the absurdity that members opposite often spout out, but I suspect that Canadians are getting wise to the fact that, time and time again, the Liberals are just tired and have no new policies.
In fact, we see that they have nothing new to offer, by the fact that one of the keynote commitments in this budget is not even a new rebate or a new benefit for Canadians, but is, rather, simply a renamed one within the increase for which we have ensured an expedited passage through the House because we see the value in Canadians having a few extra dollars to be able to afford things like groceries or home heating. The irony is that they simply renamed the GST rebate as the grocery rebate. They are functionally acknowledging that Canadians cannot afford their groceries. The reality is that the Prime Minister and the Liberals have created economic circumstances in which Canadians are suffering in ways that are absolutely astounding.
I had the honour of having dinner with some beekeepers from my constituency. Although I cannot reference whether they are or are not present here, it was an honour to talk about some of the issues our nation is facing and to hear from individuals who are facing the consequences of some of these things.
Like many in this place, I ask my constituents questions on a regular basis, whether that is through town halls or surveys and different things like that. I would like to read into the record, in the time I have left, some of the responses I received from a recent mail-out. I got about 700 or 800 responses, so it is a pretty good representation of the folks in rural Alberta. These are regular, hard-working folks who received my survey, which went out, on paper, to every household in my constituency, plus a whole bunch of emails I was able to send out as well.
Let me say that the picture is not very rosy when we see the consequences of the Liberal economic mismanagement. There were 97.5% of people who said that inflation has directly impacted them, and close to 90% of people have seen their grocery bills grow by $100 or more on a weekly basis. That so-called grocery rebate, the renamed GST rebate because they could not even come up with a new idea, is not even close to covering what Canadians are paying. There were 89.2% of my constituents who told me that their utility bills have grown by $100 or more every month.
Let us get into the just transition. I have a suspicion that the members on this side probably know how my constituents would feel about this. When I asked my constituents, 94.3% of respondents said no, 2.5% of respondents were uncertain, and 3.2% said they supported the just transition. Only 3.2% of those in east central Alberta support the Prime Minister's attempts to take over the energy sector.
There is a whole host of other things. One of the questions I asked was about the need to ensure that fiscal policy is a priority within government. Two-thirds of constituents said that it needs to be a priority and that they do not see that under the management of the current Prime Minister. We are seeing huge costs that are of not even a little benefit, but are pain being inflicted upon Canadians. I would note as well that, in the back of this omnibus budget bill, which the Prime Minister, in another broken promise among many, said he would never introduce, we see that the Prime Minister is unilaterally extending the equalization formula.
Once again, the elitism demonstrated by the Prime Minister is devastating the unity of this country. The number one job of any prime minister should be to unify this country, yet the current Prime Minister has done nothing but divide it for his personal political gain, and the consequences are devastating.
I would simply conclude by saying—
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- Apr/25/23 7:58:06 p.m.
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Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, Senate.
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Madam Speaker, what an absolute load of revisionist history that was. The member said that the economy was not doing well even before COVID. We had the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, and we still do, by the way. We had an AAA credit rating. We had the lowest unemployment rate since we started recording it in the 1960s. To suggest that the economy was not absolutely booming in Canada before COVID is absolutely ludicrous, but I am not surprised to hear it from that member.
What I find even more interesting from Conservatives is that they seem to be really hung up on the idea that we are branding a GST rebate as a grocery rebate. Who cares what we call it? At the end of the day, the Conservatives are voting against it. They are voting against Canadians' getting more GST back to help them with the rising costs that have been affected by global inflation.
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Madam Speaker, that member is unequivocally incorrect. Conservatives allowed that measure to be expedited, so he should apologize and retract that statement, because it is untrue. If we want to talk about revisionist history, it was the finance minister on those Liberal benches who said, only last year, that we would never see an increase to the debt-to-GDP ratio in this country. What happened? Obviously, they were either untruthful or they did not understand the economic reality. Canadians can judge for themselves. When it comes to the reality Canadians face, they were not doing well before COVID, they suffered during COVID, and they continue to suffer now. For the Liberals to suggest otherwise is untrue.
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Madam Speaker, our emotional colleague gave a very interesting speech.
He told us that Canada is not yet in a recession because the GDP is going up. He is inventing some sort of recession that he calls a “functional” recession, where he tells us the per capita GDP is going down. That means, in his opinion, that the Canadian population is growing too quickly.
First, if we receive too many immigrants, it is likely a sign of economic success. Then, according to the calculation he pulled out of thin air, is he not saying that he thinks Canada's immigration targets are too high?
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