SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 218 - Jun/21/23

Jun/21/23 8:27:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always interesting to hear from my colleague down the way in London—Fanshawe. First of all, on the specific issue she just raised, I need to see more in the way of that. We all care about housing here, and I did see her and the leader of the NDP in London raising this idea, but there is not much detail. There is precious little detail, so one cannot comment on that in any meaningful way. On the other issues raised, when the NPD raised dental care in the past, it was not an approach that left a lot of detail. I could not support it then. There is more detail now and I support it of course.

123 words

Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)

Jun/21/23 8:27:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege and honour to rise tonight in this House of Commons, perhaps on the last of this cohort of Parliament. I will be splitting my time with the fabulous member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, who was first elected in 2000 when she was 12 years old, the youngest parliamentarian in Canadian history. It is an honour and privilege to serve and to talk about this motion today. Of course, this is the Conservative Party's opposition motion, and I must say that it is very reasonable. I am hoping we will get unanimous support across the aisles on it. The motion raises the concept that we need a balanced budget. In fact, it does not even ask that the government commit to a balanced budget. We are merely asking it for a plan to get to a balanced budget. As my colleague from Manitoba said earlier, it is something the Liberals had in their plans less than nine months ago. In their fall economic statement, they actually called for a balanced budget in 2027-28. However, much has changed since then, including $60 billion in new spending and an increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio, despite the fact that the finance minister said just nine months or so ago that we would not see an increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio. She said, “This is a line we will not cross.” Well, the line was crossed, and now the trajectory is for the debt-to-GDP ratio to go up. Our motion notes the IMF has warned that Canada is at the most risk for a massive mortgage default. That is just a fact. I am sure everyone can agree with that. Average mortgage payments are up 122% since the Prime Minister took office. That is a fact too, just like saying the grass is green and the sky is blue. Canadian households also have the most debt as a share of GDP out of any country in the G7. Once again, that is just a fact. As I said, I am hopeful that we will get unanimous support for our motion. We are not even saying that the government needs to balance the budget. We are asking for a plan to balance the budget. Let me explain this a bit and give some context as to why the government may not support this motion. When we look at balancing the budget of a government, it is really, in high-level terms, not much different from balancing the budget of a household or a business. We have revenue on one side and expenses on the other. I am going to start by talking about revenue and the struggles the government is no doubt having and why it may not be able to get to a balanced budget. According to Philip Cross, former lead statistician for Statistics Canada, in the last decade, we have had the lowest economic growth since the Great Depression, since the 1930s in other words. It is 0.8% per capita over the last 10 years, which is basically stagnant or no growth over the last 10 years. That is a fraction of what it is in the United States, a fraction of what it is in Switzerland and a fraction of what it is in Ireland. We are an outlier given our poor economic growth per capita. It is true that if we look at the entire GDP of the country, there is a bit more of a positive note, but that is simply because we have had high levels of immigration. It is not really a great thing to say that even though we are bringing in newcomers, which is fantastic, we are not actually increasing the GDP per capita. We have newcomers coming in, but unfortunately they have economic struggles. They cannot find housing. Of course, we have had the recent immigration scandal with students. We need to be much more accommodating and welcoming to our newcomers, in my opinion, but that is a digression. The reality is that per capita GDP is at 0.8% over the last 10 years. That is the lowest in the G7 and the lowest in the OECD, and it is an absolutely abysmal number. Why is revenue so low on the government side? Why are we not getting that economic growth? Well, there are some policy reasons for that. One is that our productivity is among the lowest in the OECD and among the lowest in the G7. Productivity is measured in contribution to GDP per worker per hour. If we look at Switzerland, it is at $55. If we look at the United States, it is at $65. If we look at Ireland, it is at $84. These are 2018 numbers, and members can source them. These are countries without our land and without our incredible resources. Most notably, we have the hardest-working, most educated and smartest people in the world here in Canada, yet we have a lower productivity than most of the advanced economies. We are, to finish my story, at $50. There is a notable exception in Canada. We do have one sector of our economy that is absolutely blowing out the roof and doing fabulously. That is our energy sector, which is well over $500 per hour, 10 times as much as the average. What is the government doing? It is trying to eliminate Canadian energy. If our productivity numbers do not look good now, and they do not, in the absence of our energy sector we would be in deep trouble. Our prosperity as a country would be in jeopardy. We have that productivity issue. If we look under the hood at what is creating that productivity, that is another problem. There are a number of issues. One is we are forecast to have the lowest capital investment in the OECD over the next 20 years. All the numbers I am saying can be sourced and cited. When we do not have capital coming into the country to refurbish machines in factories, to build new buildings and to create new infrastructure, the infrastructure, equipment and buildings all go out of date, and that reduces our competitiveness. If we have a machine in a factory that was built in 2023 and we are competing against another factory that has a machine built in 1960, obviously the one built in 2023 is going to have a huge advantage, and the government is pushing away capital. How is it doing that? It is by adding uncertainty. Just in the most recent budget alone, there were two provisions for retroactive taxation. Retroactive taxation is going back in time and saying that someone was told their bill was X, but now it is being changed to Y. That is something we see in economies that are not advanced, something we see in countries with poor economic performance. That is something, quite frankly, that we see in authoritarian regimes. We cannot just go back in time and change what the bill was on the customer. In this case, it is the taxpayer. We are pushing away that capital. Another significant issue that is undermining our productivity numbers is our innovation framework. Our innovation framework in Canada is among the worst in the G7 and among the worst in the OECD. Canadians are producing great ideas. I say “ideas” instead of “intellectual property” because our ideas are not becoming intellectual property, as we do not have the appropriate government regulation and framework in place to capture those ideas and make sure that Canadians prosper from them. What is actually happening today, unfortunately, is that while our universities, our young people, our innovators and our entrepreneurs are coming up with amazing ideas and those ideas are actually becoming commercial successes, the trouble is that it is not in Canada. They are becoming successes in the United States of America. They are becoming successes in Ireland. They are becoming successes around the world, but not here in Canada, because we do not have the government framework to capture those ideas to put in place the precedent conditions to make sure we exploit those resources fully. Our ideas go offshore. They manufacture products and create services, with no money going to the Canadian public, and then they are sold back to us at an incredibly high price. We get hurt both ways. I wish I had another 20 minutes to talk, but I only have a minute left. I have only talked a little about the revenue side, but I will talk briefly about the expense side. The Prime Minister came into office saying that he would balance the budget within a couple of years. We never saw the budget get balanced. In the fall economic statement, we saw that there was a plan to balance the budget, yet we see no balance in sight now, according to the budget. When we have a government that is sucking the oxygen out of the economy, that is pulling the fuel from the economy and taking it out, it is slowing down the private sector, which is leading to a productivity crisis in Canada, which is putting the prosperity of our nation at risk. We need a leader and a government in this country that will balance our budget and turn hurt into hope for your home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.

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Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)

Jun/21/23 8:37:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the whole notion of productivity can be a little slippery. It is GDP per inhabitant, but especially in a country with a strong oil and gas sector like Canada, if the price of oil and gas goes up, then the productivity numbers will go up. The member was citing 2018 figures when the price of oil was rather low, so naturally Canada's productivity, using that simple measure of GDP per person, would have been low. The other thing about productivity is this. To ensure long-term productivity, we need innovation. Just having our productivity go up because the price of oil goes up does not mean we are innovating. To innovate, we need to invest in technology, especially green technology. To invest, we need money, and sometimes we need government money, so we are spending in the budget to invest in a clean technology revolution that is going to increase Canadian productivity in the long term in a sustainable way. That is what is important.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

Jun/21/23 8:39:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Winston Churchill perhaps said it best when he said, “For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” The government does not create wealth; the private sector does. As the government takes more fuel from the private sector and wastes it on things like Asian infrastructure, “arrive scam” and numerous other government fiats, it will destroy our economy and continue to put the future of Canadians at risk.

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Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

Jun/21/23 8:39:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to make a few suggestions to my colleague. When he was finishing his speech, he said that he only had one minute left and that he wanted to speak about revenues. The Conservatives talk about returning to balanced budgets, which is the right thing to do, but I would like to know how they will do that. Their speeches indicate that they want to embrace austerity. I have a few suggestions for my colleague that will not require austerity and will generate a lot of revenue. For example, funding and the extension of Trans Mountain could stop immediately. More than $30 billion has been spent on that project. We could also fight tax havens. To govern is to plan and anticipate. It is right and conscientious to have a plan to return to balanced budgets. However, will that happen? How will we achieve balanced budgets? What does my colleague think of my two suggestions?

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

Jun/21/23 8:40:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my answer is relatively easy. There are millions of dollars of waste. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been sent to the Asian infrastructure bank. There was $50 million to MasterCard. Millions of dollars went to Loblaws. There was millions of dollars for “arrive scam”. I am confident that when the Conservative Party forms government, we will be able to put in place the savings necessary to maintain the great social safety network we have while being prudent and ensuring our prosperity for years to come. With respect to pipelines, we would have never socialized the pipeline; we would have allowed the private sector to do it. We need Canadian energy because Canadian energy is keeping our economy afloat.

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Mr. Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton Griesbach, NDP)

Jun/21/23 8:41:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member spoke largely in slogans, and here is one for him. In the year 2000, 28% of just 15% was the difference in the corporate tax rate at that time. That difference made up a loss of revenue for the country. That loss of revenue disproportionately impacted our ability to fund and create programs. Another fact is that 1% of Canadians own 25% of Canada's wealth today. New Democrats are calling for a windfall tax to ensure what the member said would be made true or even truer, the idea that the private sector creates wealth. It is not the private sector; it is workers who create it. Why do they not have the advantage of getting good paycheques? It is because of the policies being put forward by the member from the Conservative Party, which are to just slash and burn and make sure that those who are poor continue to get less, while the wealthiest in this country continue to get away with the tax loopholes that continue to occupy their minds. What amount of money is enough?

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

Jun/21/23 8:42:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the marginal effective tax rate for people making under $50,000 is more than 50%, so when the member is calling for tax hikes, he is hurting the most vulnerable. The reality is that in Canada the corporate tax rate is 12% and in the rest of the OECD it is 9%, which is 30% to 40% higher. Neil Brooks, NDP member and my law professor, said to me many years ago that corporations do not pay taxes, but workers, shareholders and employees do. Therefore, when the member wants to slash and burn corporations, he is hurting workers, and that is what the NDP desperately needs to understand.

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Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, CPC)

Jun/21/23 8:43:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the fiscally responsible constituents of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. The Ottawa Valley is as diverse as it is beautiful. The average day of a soldier in Petawawa is very different from a farmer's day. A nuclear scientist in Deep River has challenges very different from those of a logger in Wilno. Despite their different backgrounds and different daily routines, every single one of them understands what it means to be fiscally responsible. Listening to the Liberals and my colleagues, it seems as though the government has a different understanding. For most Canadians, to be responsible with money is to live within their means. Our finance minister's understanding of fiscal responsibility seems to be torn from the pages of a Disney fairy tale. Like a naive, entitled Disney princess, the finance minister has advice to Canadians struggling with inflation: “Let them eat Netflix.” Canadians should set aside the minister's advice on how to save on streaming costs. As with every other policy priority, the Liberals' goal is to make life unaffordable. This costly coalition's online streaming tax will only increase the cost of enjoying a movie. This costly coalition's carbon tax will triple the costs of anything that requires energy, which is everything. This costly coalition's clean fuel regulations will make gasoline more expensive, while simultaneously ruining two-stroke engines as a result of the added ethanol. This costly coalition's latest budget will only spur more inflation. Every extra dollar the out-of-control socialist coalition borrows and spends puts pressure on the Bank of Canada to increase interest rates. Every rate hike means more money going to wealthy bondholders and less money for critical services and national security. Canadians are drowning in a sea of rising inflation, and the Liberal plan is to throw water bottles at them. During his recent speech on the budget, the Conservative leader quoted from Ecclesiastes: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. When it comes to the government, that quote hits hard. Canadians are learning that there is nothing new under the son of Pierre Trudeau. Just like his father, he swept to power with a mania that seemed to capture the spirit of the times. Within four years, that spirit was dead, and disillusioned Canadians returned a minority government. Like father, like son: Both cut expensive deals with the NDP. Both of them repudiated the fiscal policies of their Liberal predecessors. If someone told me when I was first elected that I would feel pity for the legacy of Paul Martin, I would have suggested they seek professional help, and here we stand in the wreckage and ruins of Canada's consensus that budgets should be balanced. After eight years of Pierre Trudeau, Canadians found themselves living with stagflation. After 16 years of Pierre Trudeau, Canada was on the brink of bankruptcy. Pierre Trudeau was in power for 16 years, and it took another 16 years just to get back to balance. After eight years of the current Prime Minister, the situation might be even worse than it was in 1984. As much as the Prime Minister would like to live in a fantasy world where budgets balance themselves, Conservatives believe in reality-based policy. The hard truth some Canadians will need to relearn is that progressive socialism always fails everywhere it is tried, because eventually they run out of other people's money. Unfortunately, progressive socialists never admit that they are economically illiterate and historically blind. When they have taxed away all of Canadians' income, they will come for their savings next. When progressive socialists turn government into a gravy train, we should not be surprised that groups of people begin to fight for the best seats on board, but it does not have to be this way, and it is not too late for the government to change course. That is why Conservatives are calling on the government to come back with a plan to balance the budget. Canadians should remember that the Liberals claimed that they did have a plan. Originally, the plan was to run itsy-bitsy deficits of $10 billion for two years.

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Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Jun/21/23 8:48:25 p.m.
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That extra $20 billion over two years was supposed to be invested in infrastructure. What happened when the plan met reality? They doubled their deficits and managed not to spend a single dollar on infrastructure. The Prime Minister thought he could snap his fingers and force the public service to get shovels in the ground. When that plan failed, he hired his friends at McKinsey to form a special advisory council, which recommended that the Liberals create an infrastructure bank as a way to leverage pension funds into investing in public infrastructure. In 2017, when the budget was supposed to be balanced, the Liberals announced plans for an infrastructure bank and even bigger deficits. Coincidentally, when the Liberals needed someone to run their expensive new bank, they appointed one of the members from the special advisory council, who just happened to be the head of the pension fund. At this point, Canada had taken on twice as much debt as the Liberals had promised; still, not a single new infrastructure project had been built. Coincidentally, when the fake infrastructure bank finally announced the first project it would be funding, it just so happened that the project was the very same one the head of the bank had previously lobbied for. The Liberals were so impressed that they made the head of the infrastructure bank the deputy finance minister. That would be the same deputy who oversaw this terrible budget, which commits massive subsidies to foreign tech companies and provincial electricity utilities. Coincidentally, that deputy finance minister and former infrastructure bank head has now left Ottawa to head up a provincial electricity utility. It is just truly remarkable how many coincidences pile up around Liberals and tax dollars, as when some advertising agencies all started making large donations to Liberals after receiving large contracts from the Liberals, or when the government ignored warnings about Communist interference, while former communist cabinet minister and defrocked ambassador John McCallum was encouraging the Communists to support the Liberal Party and warning them of the threat posed by a Conservative government. It is all just a coincidence. I can see from the angry faces across the aisle just how much they appreciate hearing the hard truth. I expect one will jump up shortly to ask me when I stopped beating my husband and how much I want to cut from child care and dental care. After eight years, they have become tired and predictable. The spending on child care and dental care is a tiny fraction of the government's massive deficits. The real money is spent on giant foreign corporations and provincial electricity utilities. This is all part of their green grift. This is the Telford and Butts game plan. In Ontario, they brought the Green Energy Act into force. It drove up the cost of electricity. It forced thousands of manufacturers to leave the province and destroyed 60,000 net jobs, according to the Auditor General. They used tax dollars to subsidize green energy corporations, which coincidentally were all run by well-connected Liberals. After that disaster, they packed up their taxpayer-funded moving vans and came to Ottawa to repeat the plan all over again. The federal government has been saddled with massive deficits to pay for massive subsidies to well-connected companies. Eventually, these progressive socialists will run out of other people's money, but it will be too late by then. They will have hopped on a private jet to go surfing in Tofino. Just like in 1984, Conservatives will have to come in and clean up the mess. It took 16 years of Chrétien slashing public sector payrolls to get Canada back to balance after 16 years under Pierre Trudeau. The longer it takes to throw out this costly socialist coalition, the longer it will take to clean up this mess. Conservatives have a saying: If it is not broken, do not fix it. In 2015, Canada was not broken, and we had a balanced budget. We had passport services we could rely on. Crime was continuing on a 25-year decline. However, the Prime Minister saw Canada as a racist oppressor state that needed fixing. Now our country is broken. Our social fabric is frayed, and our democracy is under attack. It does not have to be this way. Conservatives are ready to get to work. We will balance the budget, restore order and get Canada working again.

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Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)

Jun/21/23 8:53:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member opposite gave a somewhat exciting speech condemning the current Liberal government, but I suppose somewhere down the road, the Conservatives will realize that not everything is as it seems. The Bloc members, for example, are saying we are supporting the oil companies too much. The Conservatives say we are ruining the oil industry by not helping it more. How do they square that circle? Yes, I will ask, what program would the Conservative Party cut to help balance the budget? Would the Conservatives cut the Canada child benefit or just make seniors work until 67 or maybe 70? That is what the Conservatives are made of; that is what they have always been made of.

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Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Jun/21/23 8:54:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know how I am supposed to put a circle around the Bloc, but suffice it to say that we are not in agreement with the separatists on what they want to do by taxing and making fossil fuels more unaffordable when that is what is driving people to poverty and making them unable to pay for food. Our people are going hungry specifically because the Liberals are decreasing the availability of our resource, oil and gas. As far as the green experiment goes, we have lived that in Ontario. It drove up the cost of hydro to the point where people had to choose, back then, whether to heat or eat.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Jun/21/23 8:55:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member spoke about a grift. How is this for a grift? Oil and gas companies, last year alone, raised the price of fuel, on their margins alone, by 18¢ a litre. That helped the five biggest oil and gas companies to create profits of over $38 billion. On top of that, the federal government gave them what the member would call a handout of $22 billion more. How is that not the biggest grift in the country? Is the member going to stand up and say that it is time to get rid of that grift?

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Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Jun/21/23 8:56:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let us talk about “grift”, or should we call it “dark green money”? Not half an hour outside of Ottawa, there is what at one time was the most massive solar farm in Ontario. It was owned and leased by the government of France. Ontario Hydro maps out all the electricity generators in Ontario; it also puts on this map how much electricity they have produced. We have been paying all the hundreds of millions, and every month, we continue to pay this green grift to the country of France. In turn, France puts it in different foundations. These foundations make it into family trust funds to eventually reward the people who directed the money in the first place. After all those millions, not one single watt of electricity has ever been generated in what used to be the largest solar farm in Ontario.

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Mr. Blaine Calkins (Red Deer—Lacombe, CPC)

Jun/21/23 8:57:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, could my valued colleague from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke just remind Canadians why a carbon tax is a tax on everything, why 61¢ a litre for the cost of fuel is going to make life even more unaffordable? Would she remind them that the policies of the current government are a disaster for inflation and that we need to get back to balanced budgets?

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Mrs. Cheryl Gallant

Jun/21/23 8:58:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the cost of fuel impacts the cost of everything. In fact, it takes fuel to manufacture fertilizer. Then they have to use energy to force the fertilizer, spread it across and ship it to the different farmers. Then it costs money to spread the fertilizer. It costs energy that comes from people's money to plant the crops. It takes energy to harvest the crops, ship the crops to the processors, process the crops into food and ship the food to stores. All this costs energy. When the Liberals drive up the taxes on energy, Canadians starve.

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Mr. Michael Coteau (Don Valley East, Lib.)

Jun/21/23 8:59:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour, as always, to be in the House of Commons to speak to this opposition day motion. I will be sharing my time with the member for Richmond Centre. What the House will be hearing from for the next 10 minutes is pretty much a direct contrast to what we heard for the last 15 minutes from the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. I am pleased to speak to this motion, because this allows me to reinforce the objective of the 2023 budget that just recently passed. We know that the Conservatives voted against that budget because they saw that the investments we were making were the opposite of the direction they feel this country should be going in. They see it as a waste of money. I have always seen this budget as an investment in people. I am proud to stand in the House of Commons and speak to this motion, because it allows me to speak about the direction of the Liberal government. There is no question that we have a challenge in Canada. I think we could all agree, on all sides of the House. There is an affordability challenge. Anywhere one goes in the country, many people are struggling. We see it every single day. If one were to go into my community, one would see that people are challenged. We agree on that. What we disagree on is how to respond to that challenge. When we can take resources and invest in children, families, health care, education, seniors and the people of Ontario, it is the best investment we could make. When we invest in our economy and infrastructure, and when we support the belief that polluting is not good for our environment, and therefore not good for our economy, these are the types of things that help define who I am and what brought me to this House. I have been elected for 20 years. It was not all in this House; I have only been here for two years. I was elected to the school board, and I was elected to the Ontario legislature. I have seen the two different responses happen over and over again. One could be at the local municipal level and see Conservative ideology jump in, of course at the Ontario legislature and here. This is nothing new to me. The Conservative game plan is always the same. If they are in opposition, they attack the way in which government is spending. They will criticize and do something to portray that there is a better way going forward, that they could offer a better solution to the challenges that we have. However, we can just look to the past and remember Harper's time in government. When we went through one of the worst economic challenges, back in 2008 and 2009, we saw how the Conservatives responded, and we paid a huge price for it. On that side of the House, people forget that Stephen Harper ran the largest deficit in the history of this country. I do not know if Conservatives remember that. Maybe they have forgotten. Stephen Harper ran the largest deficit in the history of Canada, up until COVID. This is 100% true. One just has to check the records. It seems that Conservatives have forgotten this. During that time, when we were going through our worst economic challenge, back in 2008-09, the Conservatives responded by cutting, not investing. I was around. I was at the school board and then the Ontario legislature, and I saw the cuts that the House made. I will give a couple of examples. They made the largest single cuts in the history of this country for literacy and basic skills. It is hard to imagine. When 42% of our country was struggling with some form of literacy back in 2008-09, the Harper government decided to make the largest cuts ever to literacy and basic skills. Even the statistics by the Conference Board of Canada, a decade ago, said that a 1% increase in literacy and basic skills was like a 2.5% increase in our economy. I do not think there is anyone in the House who could deny the correlations among literacy, education and economic output. No one could deny that. However, the Conservatives made cuts. Let us talk about immigration. In 2011-12, during that challenging time, the Harper government decided to cut health care services to immigrants. Anyone in Canada knows that part of our economic success in this country has been from bringing newcomers into the country, having them working in the economy and boosting the economy. It is what has made Canada great since its inception. However, during those economically challenging times, the former Harper government decided to do what was unthinkable: cut health care services to immigrants and refugees. That was the response by a Conservative government. Our approach has always been different. Liberals in this country invest in education. They invest in the economy. They invest in people. I want to remind anyone who is watching that, during COVID, the Conservatives voted against investing in people. Think of their rhetoric today. They do not want to invest in people. They would rather take the approach of cutting taxes and giving money to big corporations to generate more wealth and more economy. It is based on 1978 Reagan economics, the 1980 Reaganomics ideology, which is so old. It does not work. We know it does not work, because we have seen that. We have seen it fail in the United States and we have seen it fail in Canada. What we decided to do as Liberals is to invest in people. We decided to make sure the young people in our country today have the type of investments necessary so that, when they get older, they can actually contribute to the economy. I brought this up during debate on the fall economic statement. We heard the rhetoric from the other side of the House, rhetoric that said we should not invest in dental care for children. We heard rhetoric around not investing in child care. How about a $500 rebate to help with the affordability issue of housing or different types of incentives that help Canadians, like the grocery rebate? People were debating these, saying they are not good. I will tell members that when people are down, when people are feeling like they are struggling to get by, what they need is investment so they can go ahead and build themselves up to contribute to our great economy. I want to talk about some of the changes we have seen over the last few years. Since COVID, we have seen an increase of almost 900,000 jobs in this country. Correct me if I am wrong, but something must be working if 900,000 jobs have been created since the pandemic. I will go from saying 900,000 to almost a million jobs. If almost a million jobs have been created in that time period, how can anyone on that side of the House argue that the strategy that has been put in place is not working? With a million folks working in the economy, and taking down interest levels from 8.5% to 4.4%, we are doing the best compared to other jurisdictions around the world. Almost a million jobs and cutting the inflation rate by half suggests that something is working, and our economy, the numbers, say everything. The Conservatives will twist things; it is part of the strategy they use. Conservatives will use any tool necessary to divide Canadians in order to seize power. Rather than running on ideas, beliefs and approaches, what Conservatives do is to pick and poke at anything that is frustrating a person out there in Canada, and they leverage it in such a way as to divide Canadians. Once they divide Canadians, they use that to get back into power without offering any solutions. I challenge the Conservatives' approach to building our economy. I will always stand here as a Liberal and speak about how we can invest in people, in this country and in families, and support our seniors and students. I believe without question that the approach we have taken by investing in people will be the approach that will help build Canada up to even stronger economic outputs in the future.

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Mr. Marty Morantz (Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, CPC)

Jun/21/23 9:09:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech. He said something to the effect that Liberals do not cut anything, that they never cut anything and they always make investments. I wonder if he is aware of the most draconian budget in Canadian history, by a government that did not just cut program spending but actually also cut health transfers and education transfers to provinces. It was delivered on February 27, 1995, by then finance minister Paul Martin. I wonder if he could advise us whether he is aware of those cuts.

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Mr. Michael Coteau

Jun/21/23 9:09:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if one goes out there and speaks to the average Canadian, they will tell us they appreciate the work of Jean Chrétien. He is probably one of the most loved prime ministers we have had in this country, so he must have been doing something right. It is wrong for the member to take one specific incident and apply it to everything Liberals do. I can take hundreds of incidents when Conservatives have made cuts and made them part of the way they actually run government. That is just their ideology; it is what their approach has always been, and I do not think it is something the member can actually use as a comparable.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Jun/21/23 9:10:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today I stood with the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, and its members talked about the emergency we find ourselves in in Canada. We are short 15,000 volunteer firefighters. They have seen a rapid decline, while the government has been in power, of 29% of volunteer firefighters. We know they are dealing with inflation. They have not seen an increase in their firefighter tax credit since 2013, which is a decade. They are asking for $30 million to be spread out over the 90,000 firefighters each year. We are talking about less than a 5% increase in overall firefighting costs since 2013. We know public servants have seen it, and we have seen it with the private sector. Liberals continue to find billions of dollars to finance corporations. Does he not agree the government should be increasing the volunteer firefighter tax credit to help with recruitment, respect for firefighters and retention of firefighters?

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