44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 21, 2023 02:00PM
- Jun/21/23 2:21:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of Liberal scandals and ethics issues, there is a laundry list of wasteful spending growing by the day: $27 million in bonuses for federal housing bureaucrats as housing costs double and the building of new homes is dropping; $116 million in consulting fees to the Prime Minister's buddies at McKinsey; $210 million to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which we will never see again after the Liberals have admitted the bank is being controlled by Beijing; and $54 million for the arrive scam app. How can we forget the stunning $4.6 billion in COVID program abuse that the Liberals could not be bothered to recover?
After eight years, the wasteful spending has added to endless Liberal deficits and painful inflation, and now to skyrocketing interest and mortgage rates for Canadians who are struggling to get by.
Conservatives will bring down inflation, get spending under control and scrap the Liberal tax hikes punishing Canadians. After all, it is just common sense. Let us bring it home.
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- Jun/21/23 2:30:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister can say all the right things, but he does not get anything done.
I will give a perfect example. I know that the Prime Minister is trying to plagiarize my message on housing, but he cannot actually deliver on it. The reality is he brought in a $4-billion housing accelerator fund that has decelerated home building. Home building is actually down 19% versus what it was before he brought in this acceleration program.
Instead of just spending money irresponsibly, why will the Prime Minister not tie dollars to houses that are actually complete?
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- Jun/21/23 2:43:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says there is no room for savings in his sumptuous government spending, but I found some. For example, he gave CMHC $26 million in bonuses for making housing less affordable; he gave $181,000 for the Governor General's travel; $116 million to McKinsey, a company that supports him but actually helped cause the opioid crisis; $54 million for the ArriveCAN app; and $6,000 for one night in a hotel for the Prime Minister.
Does he not think we can pass on that spending and put the money back in Canadians' pockets?
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- Jun/21/23 5:35:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the Conservative leader for his speech and for introducing this motion. The Bloc Québécois is in favour of tabling a plan to return to a balanced budget. I think that the least a government can do is to state its intentions.
I agree that the government or the Liberal Party may be spending too much money, but above all, I think that the money is being spent unwisely. It cannot expect to magically balance the books. To do that, it will need a better way to spend and invest, and the Bloc Québécois has some suggestions to make.
For example, we want to support seniors to stop their purchasing power from eroding. We want to ensure that health transfers are in line with what the provinces are asking for. We want a real plan for social and affordable housing and an EI system that works. Does the Leader of the Opposition support these measures?
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- Jun/21/23 5:51:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is a perfect correlation in the fact that all governments that ran greater deficits ended up with higher inflation.
Something that we do not hear bandied around any more, although we used to in the beginning, is the modern monetary theory, this whole new proposition that we can spend our way out of a pandemic, out of a major problem, and that budgets would balance themselves. There was new thinking, although money has been around for thousands of years, that we could just keep spending and there would be no consequences. Well, the consequences are here and they are very real, and Canadians see them every single day.
This motion that we have is perfect, because it talks about going back to the table to return to balanced budgets. We have identified so clearly that Canadians know—
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- Jun/21/23 6:02:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are talking about taxation, the budget, the management of public funds and, most importantly, how we are going to manage the money that Canadians give us through their taxes.
Just seven months ago, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance tabled an economic update and gave the following warning. She said that we needed to control spending and avoid deficits because deficits throw fuel on the inflationary fire. Those were the exact words used by the Minister of Finance. Now, here we are seven months later and she has completely changed her tune after getting a slap on the wrist from Liberal supporters who said that they wanted more deficits and that there was no problem.
How can the member explain the fact that, just seven months ago, the Deputy Prime Minister was saying that we should not run deficits, that we should control spending and that there was a plan to balance the budget, but now all of that has gone out the window.
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- Jun/21/23 6:08:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to the opposition motion that has been put before the House.
I will start by saying that I am concerned about the rhetoric in the preamble. However, the motion and the result clause is fairly short. It talks about a balanced budget and committing to a balanced budget immediately.
I found this very interesting because I asked the member for Bay of Quinte how many times Conservatives introduced balanced budgets in the House, and I even gave him the answer. It was three times in the last 30 years that Conservatives have introduced balanced budgets in the House, under Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper. There was a grand total of 20 budgets introduced, and three were balanced.
Do members know when they came? The first came in 2006-07. This was on the heels of Paul Martin's surplus, which was a $13-billion surplus. Stephen Harper axed that the next year, and in 2007-08, the surplus was only $9.6 billion. After that, he started to run deficits immediately. He blew away that surplus that Paul Martin had left for him and started running deficits immediately. Then, of course, there is the famous balancing of the budget in 2014-15, when Stephen Harper slashed veterans services and sold off GM shares at bargain prices just so that he get himself in a position on paper that he was bringing in a surplus because he felt he needed to do that to solidify his base that was demanding it.
However, rather than dwell on the fact that Conservatives have done this historically, at least in recent history, I think we have to ask ourselves something: Why do governments run deficits?
There are two reasons. A government can run a deficit, one, because it is expecting the taxpayer to pay more to make up that deficit and plans to charge or tax them more or, two, because it is investing. The whole idea behind investing is assuming that a government will get something in return for that investment. When governments are running deficits to invest in Canadians, they are doing it with the expectation that something is going to come out on other end to grow our economy. When we grow our economy, people are better off and there is more wealth in our economy.
What about population growth? We are growing at historic rates. We are just past 40 million people in Canada. When we continue to grow in such a fashion, we need to make new investments, and we are seeing it on the other side through the growth, which is why Canada is continually rated to have one of the best credit ratings in the developed world. That is why we have such a low debt-to-GDP ratio, which is what people really need to focus on. However, I know that it is not intuitive for people to want to focus on that, especially when Canadians are managing a household budget, and they cannot look at it the same way, but the reality is that we have to look at our debt in relation to our GDP.
As our GDP continues to grow, if we are spending less than that growth, we have a net benefit at the end of the day, which is essentially what we see when we bring forward these budgets that are investing in Canadians. Quite frankly, that is something that Brian Mulroney understood. It is something that Stephen Harper understood, and it is something that former Liberals, such as Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien, understood.
They understood that, if we invest in Canadians and actually use the money to invest in Canadians when running those deficits, we will get to a place eventually where Paul Martin got to, which was a $13-billion surplus, and a surplus the year after that as well. We will get to those places naturally. The point is that we can get to that place by investing in Canadians because we see the economic growth, see the opportunities, see people being better off and see the debt-to-GDP ratio. We see the debt specifically as it relates per capita to the lowest among the G7, as we are hearing.
There is one thing we should be concerned about, and I rightfully share it with so many other people. It is the debt level each household is experiencing right now in Canada, but we have to ask ourselves why. Why is that? Is there something unique about Canada and our spending habits that puts us in that position? It has a lot to do, I would suggest, with the age of our population.
In the G7, Canada has one of the youngest populations. These are people who are buying new homes and investing for the first time. These are people who do not have the retirement savings that other G7 countries have. Am I excusing anything? I am not. I am saying that we have to be mindful of this and we have to be vigilant in the approach and ensure Canadians do not put themselves into situations they do not want to be in.
I stress that there is a reason for the circumstances we are in, but regardless of all of this, Canada still puts itself in a position of being among the best in the G7, as it relates to the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio and the lowest deficit-to-GDP ratio, and I think it is very important that, as we reflect on this, we consider that.
I have brought these up on a number of occasions recently, and I want to talk about them again. They are the recent comments made by former prime minister Brian Mulroney on the job this government has been doing. I mean no disrespect to any living Liberal prime ministers, but I have not even heard a former Liberal prime minister speak this highly of the current government.
Brian Mulroney said, “I have learned over the years that history is unconcerned with the trivia and the trash of rumours and gossip floating around Parliament Hill. History is only concerned with the big ticket items that have shaped the future of Canada”. The article continues, “He said [the current Prime Minister] and the premiers 'conducted themselves as well as anybody else in the world' in dealing with COVID, something Mulroney called 'the greatest challenge that any prime minister has dealt with...in 156 years.'”
We have heard Conservatives tell us many times in the past how we failed the country on NAFTA, but here is what the architect of NAFTA, the Prime Minister who was the lead at the time and negotiated the original NAFTA deal, had to say about the job this government did. The article describes, “On NAFTA, Mulroney said that he saw first-hand how the current Prime Minister made 'big decisions at crucial moments' and won 'a significant victory for Canada'. He said, 'It's due to the leadership that we saw from the government of Canada'”. That is Brian Mulroney, a former Conservative prime minister, absolutely praising the work this government did in relation to keeping our economy in a good position when we had to renegotiate NAFTA.
I remember the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle at the time standing up in question period demanding the government capitulate to Donald Trump's demands, but we did not. The government stood firm. Our finance minister negotiated this, and we got a better deal at the end of the day. Brian Mulroney will even tell us that. Also, we can look at the various other things that have occurred.
I know that my time is running to an end. I think that once again we have an opposition motion in front of us that is troubling. I am getting tired of challenging the Conservatives day in and day out, but here we are. It is the last one. Hopefully when we return in the fall, we will have motions with perhaps a little more substantive measures to them than what we are seeing now.
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- Jun/21/23 6:33:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, a few years ago, the pandemic happened and the economy shut down. The House was unanimous in stating that we needed to implement protective measures and safeguards. That came at the cost of significant debt. There was a consensus in the House about that.
Since then, the spending has continued, however, and that is concerning. What concerns the Bloc Québécois in particular is the interference in areas under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. That really is not warranted.
I, too, want to salute my hon. colleague. It is a pleasure to work constructively with him at the finance committee.
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- Jun/21/23 7:50:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are a number of things that we might decide not to spend Canadian taxpayers' money on.
Let us talk about the carbon tax. We would cut the carbon tax. We would stop paying high-priced consultants. We would not allow the Prime Minister to consider exorbitant spending on vacations. We would not provide sole-source contracts to Liberal insiders that have cost Canadians millions of dollars. We might get rid of the infrastructure bank.
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- Jun/21/23 8:06:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals seem to have two contrary positions. In budget 2022, it talked about a strategic policy review, and said, “These efforts would target savings of $6 billion over five years, and $3 billion annually by 2026-27.” That is coincidentally when, in last year's fall economic update, the Liberals showed there would be a return to balance.
Could the member say whether he supports a return to balance and believes we need to have those guardrails in place? Does he also think that the Prime Minister's characterization of anything that denotes a responsible spending review as austerity is a bad situation for a Canadian government?
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- Jun/21/23 8:07:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is someone I have known for many years in the House, and I have travelled with him. I can say the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola is a dear friend.
That is a very important question that I, as an economist, would definitely like to address. I have always believed in Canada maintaining its AAA credit rating. Our deficit-to-GDP ratio should always be on a declining trend, as our deficit-to-GDP ratio is now and is being maintained. I also believe that we must always review our spending. I think that is a natural thing to do. In the budget, we have identified a number of savings, and that was in budget 2023, so we should continue to do that.
We have maintained fiscal prudence in our government. We have done the right thing in having the backs of Canadians during the pandemic. That is why we have recovered so quickly. That was the right thing to do, and any economist I ask would state that. At the same time, we must be fiscally prudent. I have always believed in that. I will continue to believe in that, and I will continue to advocate for that. That is the path we are going on, and we will continue to be on that path.
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- Jun/21/23 8:08:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. However, I would like to talk to him about something he did not cover, namely the fiscal imbalance. The Liberal government has too much money for its budget items, so it is spending like there is no tomorrow in areas under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. Then it tells us it has no money for critical expenses like health transfers.
I hope no one will try to tell me that Quebec and the provinces wanted it this way. In classic style, they were given no alternative.
What does my colleague think about the fiscal imbalance?
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- Jun/21/23 8:24:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I put the question to a Conservative colleague earlier. I am going to ask my colleague the same question because he tells us that he is concerned about the fight against climate change.
In 2022, $275 billion was spent to clean up the mess. That same year, the five big oil companies made $220 billion in profits.
This government, which spends a lot, but also very badly, because it prioritizes bad things, doled out $20 billion to big oil. It also put $30 billion into Trans Mountain.
Does my colleague think that this is consistent with a desire to fight climate change? Does he consider this to be acceptable, wise spending?
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- 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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- 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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- 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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- Jun/21/23 10:24:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by wishing you and all my colleagues here in the House a wonderful summer.
Regarding my colleague's speech, I would like to share one of the conclusions reached by the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation, which has analyzed federal spending since 2015. It found that “the current trend is toward a more directive and less collaborative use of the spending power....Partnership seems to be conditional on a province accepting the federal government's policy vision”.
I would call that federal paternalism. In other words, if the provinces want money, they have to do what the federal government wants. The federal government can behave this way because it has too much revenue for its budget items.
I would like my colleague to comment on the fiscal imbalance, which is precisely why the government is increasing its initiatives in areas of jurisdiction that are not its own.
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