44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2023 10:00AM
- Nov/23/23 1:12:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, but once again it was little more than an infomercial for the Liberal government's action on housing.
That is rather unfortunate, because the housing crisis is a major problem, and the further along we get in the debate, the more we see that the government is not facing the facts when it comes to this crisis. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, we need to build 3.5 million housing units by 2030. That is a huge task. In a report published two weeks ago, the federal housing advocate even indicated that we need to build nine million housing units in Canada in the next 10 years. That is a huge task.
In the economic statement, the government announced the construction of approximately 30,000 housing units in 2025-26. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Any housing needs that are not met now are just going to accumulate. The government is not going to get off that easy. In Quebec alone, 500,000 households are in dire need of housing.
I look forward to hearing from a government that will stand up and say that we are on the verge of a serious humanitarian crisis in Quebec and Canada and that it is going to take strong action to deal with it. I look forward to hearing that.
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- Nov/23/23 1:13:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, nobody is going to build houses overnight. It takes time. I have spoken to developers in my area in Newfoundland and Labrador. They are anxious for this bill to get passed, so they can take advantage of the incentives to build affordable rental units and affordable housing for seniors, low-income families and the whole gamut.
Will it be completed in a year or six months? No, it will not. This is a long-term initiative that we want to make sure gets rolled out the right way, gets done the right way and delivers the right results.
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- Nov/23/23 1:14:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member talked about there being more funding this year than there was last year and how the current government and previous governments did not invest in housing.
We know that housing is a human right. I very much appreciated the question today from my colleague from the Bloc, who talked about the urgency of this crisis. Why has it taken the government this long to get serious about investing in affordable housing?
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- Nov/23/23 1:15:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I cannot answer for why it took so long. I do not sit around the cabinet table for discussions on which policies come forward and which do not.
However, I am delighted, and I know the people in my riding are delighted, that we are actually moving this envelope forward. We are going to make more houses and rental units available and have more people living in homes that they deserve. It should be a right, not an option, for people to have homes.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Saskatoon West.
I rise today to address Bill C-56, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act. This debate is crucial, as it concerns not only the legislative process but also the fundamental issues of housing affordability and market competition that affect Canadians nationwide. This bill, introduced by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, demands our careful consideration and thorough analysis to ensure it meets the needs of the people we represent.
In discussing Bill C-56, it is imperative to address the manner in which it is being ushered through the House, specifically through Motion No. 30. This motion, a procedural manoeuvre by the government, significantly limits the time allocated for thorough debate and consideration of this substantial piece of legislation. By limiting parliamentary discussion and expediting the bill’s passage, Motion No. 30 undermines the democratic process that is fundamental to our legislative system.
Such a hastened approach is particularly concerning given the bill’s wide-ranging implications for housing affordability and market competition. These are complex issues that warrant detailed scrutiny and thoughtful debate, ensuring that every aspect of the bill is examined for its potential impact on Canadian society.
The use of Motion No. 30, in this context, suggests a Liberal government preference for achieving catchy headlines on affordability instead of democratic thoroughness. Such a stance risks overlooking critical nuances and potential shortcomings of the bill. As representatives of the Canadian people, we have a duty to ensure that legislation, such as Bill C-56, receives the comprehensive attention it deserves.
Turning our focus to the housing affordability aspect of Bill C-56, it is essential to analyze its proposed measures and compare them with the initiatives outlined in our Conservative leader's building homes not bureaucracy act. While Bill C-56 suggests removing the GST on new purpose-built rental housing, this approach is merely a fragment of what is needed to genuinely address Canada's housing crisis.
Our Conservative vision, as set forth in the building homes not bureaucracy act, offers a more comprehensive and robust plan. It aims not only to reduce the financial burden on housing construction but also to tackle the systemic barriers that hinder the development of affordable housing. This includes removing the gatekeepers who delay the building of homes, as well as all the other red tape and bureaucratic hurdles that are adding to the housing crisis. These aspects are notably absent in the government’s current proposal.
Our plan mandates significant yearly increases in housing construction, ensuring a steady growth in supply, and it proposes punitive measures for cities that fail to meet these targets. This strategy recognizes that the housing crisis is not just a matter of fiscal policy; rather, it also requires structural changes in the way housing projects are approved and developed.
Moreover, our proposal goes beyond the mere construction of housing. It includes incentives for municipalities that exceed their housing targets, promoting not only the quality but also the quantity and expedience of housing developments. In contrast, that Bill C-56 has a singular focus on GST removal, but does not address the broader regulatory and procedural challenges, demonstrates a lack of understanding of the complex nature of the housing crisis. Our approach also recognizes the importance of building communities, not just houses.
By tying transit and infrastructure funding to the construction of high-density housing around transit stations, we ensure that new housing developments contribute to the creation of sustainable, well-connected urban environments. This is crucial for improving the overall quality of life for residents and fostering community development. While Bill C-56 makes an attempt to address housing affordability, it falls short of offering a holistic solution.
The Conservative Party's building homes not bureaucracy act, in contrast, presents a detailed, actionable plan that addresses the root causes of the housing crisis and proposes viable, long-term solutions. It is a plan that not only addresses the immediate need for more affordable housing but also lays the groundwork for sustainable urban development and community growth.
In addressing the amendments to the Competition Act within Bill C-56, it is crucial to recognize their inadequacy in effectively tackling the real issues plaguing our market competition. The proposed measures, though seemingly progressive, fail to address the root causes of the problems they aim to solve.
The government’s approach to amending the Competition Act, as stipulated in Bill C-56, primarily focuses on empowering the Competition Bureau with greater investigative powers and addressing collaborations that limit competition. However, this approach overlooks the broader, more systemic issues within our market structures. For instance, the highly concentrated nature of certain sectors, such as the grocery industry, remains unaddressed. This concentration is a critical factor contributing to the lack of competition and the resulting high prices that Canadian consumers are forced to endure.
Moreover, the bill's omission of the efficiencies defence repeal is a significant shortcoming. The efficiencies defence, which allows certain anti-competitive mergers under specific conditions, has been a point of contention, undermining fair market competition and consumer interests. The Conservative Party has long advocated for the repeal of this defence, recognizing its role in facilitating monopolistic practices. By neglecting to address this defence, Bill C-56 misses an opportunity to make substantial, meaningful reforms to our competition laws.
In addition, the amendments proposed in Bill C-56 lack clarity regarding the specific entities they cover and the concrete standards for service. This vagueness creates uncertainty about the legislation's effectiveness in tackling market challenges. Effective competition law reform requires precise, targeted measures that directly address the issues at hand. Generalized amendments, without clear direction or focus, risk being ineffective in bringing about the necessary change.
While the amendments to the Competition Act in Bill C-56 represent a step towards addressing market competition issues, they fall short of offering a comprehensive solution. The Conservative Party's stance on this matter is clear: We need more than just surface-level changes. We need a thorough overhaul of our competition laws, one that addresses the deep-rooted issues within our market systems and ensures a fair competition environment for all Canadians.
It is important to emphasize that while Bill C-56 makes an attempt to address housing affordability and market competition, it falls short of the comprehensive, proactive strategy that Canadians desperately need in these challenging times. As Conservatives, we are unwavering in our commitment to implement solutions that tackle the fundamental issues affecting our nation's housing supply and the integrity of our market systems.
The Conservative leader's building homes not bureaucracy act offers a road map for real, tangible change, in stark contrast to the limited scope of Bill C-56. Our approach is about addressing the root causes of these critical issues with a long-term perspective. We believe in creating legislation that not only meets the immediate needs of Canadians but also sets the stage for sustainable growth and prosperity for future generations.
Conservatives call upon the government to look beyond short-term fixes and consider more holistic, impactful measures. It is time to move away from reactive legislation and towards forward-thinking policies that genuinely reflect the challenges of Canadians. We must acknowledge these challenges and address them rather than pursuing this legislation.
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- Nov/23/23 1:25:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member made reference to more of a holistic approach in dealing with the issue of housing, and I will use that as an example.
I have said in the past that no government in the history of Canada, at least not in the last 50 to 60 years, has actually invested more in housing than the current government has. We can talk about the national housing strategy of billions of dollars, as well as a litany of different types of programs to encourage the development of housing and working with provinces. We can go to the fall economic statement, where we are seeing an expansion being proposed under the housing co-ops for alternative forms of housing.
Would the member not recognize that this legislation is just one aspect of that? Does he not support the holistic approach that the government is actually proposing?
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- Nov/23/23 1:26:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the hon. member's talking about the failures of the government. He is correct. It has spent the most amount of money on housing to get the least number of returns, so good on you that the Liberal government is doing such a horrible job and admitting it to the House. Thank you very much for that.
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- Nov/23/23 1:26:47 p.m.
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I do want to remind the hon. member that he is to address his comments through the Chair and not directly to the members.
The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.
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- Nov/23/23 1:26:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there was one part of my colleague's speech that I really liked. When he talked about the housing crisis, he said it is a complex issue. He is right.
At some point, the government is going to need to wake up and face the facts. Those 3.5 million housing units will require hundreds of billions of dollars in investments. I am not even convinced we are going to get there.
However, there is one issue the government could work on, and that is the financialization of housing. That is a significant issue. We are talking about the fact that a growing share of rental housing is being bought up by large private investors, often international ones. It is estimated that, in Montreal, less than 1% of owners own 32% of the rental housing stock. They could not care less about the right to housing. All they want to do is make money. They buy buildings with 60, 80 or 100 units. They demolish or renovate them. They renovate and double the price of the units. They have a major impact on the rise in housing prices. We absolutely have to tackle this issue.
Could my colleague suggest some measures today to deal with this?
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- Nov/23/23 1:28:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that is what we have always talked about, which is making sure we have affordable housing. There is a big difference between having housing at a high price and having actually affordable housing.
The majority of Canadians do not have six-figure salaries. There are way too many Canadians who have lower incomes, and we need to do exactly what the member is recommending: build affordable housing for all Canadians. That is something that the Conservative plan would definitely address.
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- Nov/23/23 1:28:38 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, I am glad that the member was talking about prosperity. In my region, retail grocery stores outside my riding are allowed to prosper by being subsidized by the nutrition north program. I think that the bill before us is particularly important so we could ensure that nutrition north becomes a social program that would change that system so it is not subsidizing for-profit grocery stores, so my constituents can also prosper.
Does the member agree that the nutrition north program needs to tax the rich grocery stores better and become a social program so my constituents can also prosper?
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- Nov/23/23 1:29:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really do not think we need more social programs. What I really think we need to start doing, especially for the north, is to start a program where people can grow their own food in the north through greenhouses, making sure they can produce top-quality food and do it on their own terms, with the kinds of food they want to produce, not being brought in from different levels of government or different corporations.
That is what we need to start looking at: more self-sufficiency in the north as opposed to reliance on government.
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Madam Speaker:
Tuesday is a day where if you thought there was something wrong in this country you would have more evidence you are right.
If you sense the system and those in charge, the high-and-mighties thought to be smarter than the rest of us, have let us down big-time and without apology, you would be right again.
If you feel a general sense of unease, dissatisfaction, your gut telling you there should be a shake-up you would be far from alone.
I just quoted a passage from Rick Bell's column in the Edmonton Sun newspaper yesterday. Mr. Bell was commenting on Tuesday's fall economic statement by the finance minister, a speech she delivered that ties directly into the legislation we are discussing today, Bill C-56. I want my friends in Saskatoon West to hear what else Mr. Bell had to say:
Sunny ways have turned into darkening storm clouds....
If this was supposed to be a Hail Mary pass in the direction of [the Prime Minister's] political redemption, the pass was incomplete, under-thrown, hopelessly off-target.
The high cost of living. Groceries, mortgages, rents, the price of so many things. Up. Federal government spending. Up.
The ever-increasing carbon tax. Up.
It is true. After eight years of the costly NDP-Liberal coalition, Canadians are facing the worst affordability crisis in decades. Spending on the bureaucracy in Ottawa is out of control. The money supply has been severely increased to the detriment of consumers and wage earners. The Bank of Canada is strangling our economy with massive interest rate hikes. The NDP-Liberals keep turning the screws on Canadians with every increase of the carbon tax and with the introduction of a second carbon tax. This has led to massive inflation and grocery bills that families cannot afford. The fact is that everybody is spending more money. The uber-rich are the only ones who will be able to afford a house in the future. This needs to change.
The NDP-Liberals tell us not to worry, that they have legislation, Bill C-56 which we are supposedly debating today. I say “supposedly” because what we are actually debating today in the chamber is not Bill C-56 but an NDP-Liberal programming motion. I think it is important that the folks in Saskatoon watching this understand that while I want to be debating the legislation on its merits, the NDP-Liberal government is actually forcing us to debate what we colloquially refer to as a programming motion.
Motion No. 30 is almost 900 words long, and it would take me half of my time here to recite the whole thing, but here are the highlights. First, it would limit the amount of debate MPs are allowed on Bill C-56. Second, it would limit the amount of time the finance committee has to hear from witnesses on the legislation. Third, it would limit the amount of time and the capacity to make and then debate amendments to clauses in the legislation. Fourth, it would instruct the committee to accept amendments beyond the scope of the bill, which, under our regular procedures, would be out of order. Fifth, it would limit the amount of time for debate of Bill C-56 for report stage amendments and third reading to one day when it returns to the House.
This may sound complicated, but it is not. Each of these would override long-standing rules or procedures of the chamber that guarantee the rights of members of Parliament to represent their electors and to speak to legislation. In what is supposed to be, by design, a lengthy process of debate and a cautious and thoughtful examination by MPs, this motion would cut the committee process down to three days, and the remaining time in the House, between second and third reading, to a day and a half.
I know that defenders of the NDP-Liberals in the mainstream media will scream from the rooftops that we are approaching Christmas and that Bill C-56 was introduced in September, so Conservatives should just let it roll through. Is it really the job of Conservative MPs to roll over for a government that has so badly mismanaged its work calendar that it is in a panic to take its Christmas holidays? Does the average Canadian get the ability to ram their work through without any scrutiny just because Christmas is approaching, or does it wait there until they come back after their two or three days off?
Of course the Prime Minister does not know how regular people live. The National Post reported earlier this week that since he became Prime Minister in 2015, he has taken one-quarter of his days off. Would it not be nice if every Canadian could get one-quarter of their days off? That is the ridiculous nature of the programming motion. The NDP-Liberals are so inefficient and hopeless at getting anything done in the House that when faced with the upcoming Christmas break, they panic and go to extreme measures to get anything done.
Let me get into the legislation. Would the legislation work? Would it actually solve anything? The stated purpose of the legislation is to eliminate GST on rental builds and make changes to the competition laws that govern retail stores like grocers. It is meant to be a solution for Canadians who are stretched to their limits, but does it actually solve these problems? The answer is no. That is not my answer; that is the answer the Minister of Finance stated in her own fall fiscal update just two days ago in the chamber. She said, “The apartments that renters need are not getting built fast enough, in part because the builders who would like to build more currently don’t have access to enough of the financing needed to make rental projects financially viable.”
Whose fault is it that builders do not have access to the capital and the financing they need? It is the current government that has put in place economic conditions so dire that the Bank of Canada has increased interest rates to their highest level in 40 years. The central bank, in direct response to government actions, is cutting off the lifeblood of our economy: the ability to borrow and finance the building and buying of new homes.
John Ivison, in the National Post, succinctly put it this way: “[The finance minister]'s fall economic statement was bulging with statements that, if not outright whoppers, were certainly distortions....Growth is expected to be muted....Unemployment is forecast to rise to 6.5 per cent by the middle of next year, from 5.7 per cent now.” Conservatives agree with these damning indictments of the government’s economic policy, the fall economic statement and its failure to get housing built. It is a pattern of failure that the costly coalition repeats over and over again. The costly coalition claims that the legislation is the solution that Canadians are looking for.
Do members remember this time last year? The NDP-Liberals were singing the praises of their one-time GST rebate, which nobody even remembers now. Then, earlier this spring, the Liberals cooked up another scheme with the NDP, a one-time rent rebate for low-income wage earners that nobody remembers now. Now, they think this latest idea will take a bite out of inflation. Did they not say that of their toothless dental program last year? It was another failure, because all of these ideas are temporary and do not get to the root of the problem. Instead, the Liberals are always scheming to stay in power, never delivering tangible, real results for Canadians. It has been failure after failure.
Why is there this overwhelming record of failure? It is because with the current government, the underlying economic landscape is set to fail. It is no wonder. We only need to look back at what the finance minister passed off a couple days ago as an update to the government’s budgetary policy, the costly coalition’s fall economic plan. With $20 billion of costly new spending, the mini-budget can be summed up very simply: prices up, rent up, debt up and taxes up. Time is up.
The finance minister announced more than $20 billion in new inflationary spending that will keep inflation and interest rates higher than Canadians can afford. It is an NDP-Liberal mini-budget that proposes to increase taxes on the backs of middle-class people. It is an NDP-Liberal mini-budget that will spend more money on servicing the debt than on health care. The signature policy in this mini-budget was to pour $15 billion into a fund to build barely 1,500 homes a year, while we need 5.8 million new homes built by 2030.
Do members remember when the finance minister told Canadians that the budget would be balanced by the year 2028? Since then, the costly coalition of the NDP and Liberals has announced $100 billion dollars of additional debt. After eight years, it is clearer than ever that the costly coalition is not worth the cost, and this mini-budget does nothing to help everyday Canadians. The only way to undo the damage the Liberals have done is by reversing course and doing the opposite. The common-sense Conservative plan would axe the tax, balance the budget, and build homes and not bureaucracy to bring home lower prices for Canadians.
Despite warnings from the Bank of Canada and the Canadian financial sector that government spending is contributing to Canada’s high inflation, the Prime Minister ignored their calls for moderation and yet again decided to spend on the backs of Canadians, keeping inflation and interest rates high. These interest rates risk a mortgage meltdown on the $900 billion of mortgages that will renew in the next three years. High inflation means the government is getting richer while Canadians are getting poorer.
Under the costly NDP-Liberal coalition, here are the facts. There are a record two million food bank visits in a single month. Housing costs have doubled, and mortgage payments are 150% higher than they were before the Liberals took power. Canadians renewing their mortgages at today's rates will see an increase from 2% to 6% or even higher. The International Monetary Fund warns that Canada is the most at risk in the G7 for a mortgage default crisis. Over 50% of Canadians are $200 or less away from going broke. Business insolvencies have increased by 37% this year. Tent cities exist in every major city, including in Fairhaven in my community of Saskatoon. Violent crime is up 39%, and drugs are everywhere.
Instead of listening to common-sense Conservative proposals to reverse the damage, the NDP-Liberal government has introduced more half measures and photo-op funds that will do nothing to solve the problems that Canadians have. It is time for common sense to return to the Canadian government's decision-making process. It is time for Canadians to say to this costly coalition that enough is enough. It is time for a Conservative government. Let us bring it home.
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- Nov/23/23 1:40:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting when Conservative members talk about the government not allocating enough time. It was not that long ago when the Conservatives were trying to adjourn the House and filibuster debate. In fact, they bring in concurrence motions. I said during the debate on one concurrence motion that the Conservatives liked to waste time, that they were filibustering, preventing debate from occurring. I also said that there would be a time in the future when they would stand and criticize the government for bringing in time allocation.
If we do not bring in time allocation, we can never get anything passed. This is what the member just demonstrated at beginning of his speech. He is criticizing the government because the government is not allotting enough time for debate, yet the Conservative Party continues to filibuster and be a very destructive force on the floor of the chamber. I suspect it has a lot to do with the extreme right of the Conservative Party today to try to be disruptive in the chamber.
Maybe the member can explain why the Conservatives continue to do things like adjourn debates and bring in concurrence motions to prevent debate from occurring in the chamber.
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- Nov/23/23 1:41:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the one member in the House who has spoken more than anybody, and I guess we could call that filibustering, is the member who just spoke. He loves to speak all the time.
The Conservatives have a job to do in the House. Our job is to defend the Canadians who we represent. Our job is to prevent foolish policies from being implemented by the government. We do our jobs. I am sorry to say that the member is admitting, I guess, that he is not very good at his job, being the secretary to the House leader, and that we can do a better job of it.
Our job here is to hold the government to account and to do everything we can to ensure good laws and good legislation are passed by the House.
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- Nov/23/23 1:42:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am always happy to talk about housing.
Earlier, I asked my Conservative colleague a question about the financialization of housing and the growing number of large investment funds buying up housing in Canada. This is a huge problem. We know that, for every affordable housing unit built in Canada, we lose 10 to the private market because those units are being bought up by big investors.
The Bloc Québécois wanted the economic update to include an acquisition fund to take affordable housing off the private market and keep it affordable for the long term. That is what non-profit housing organizations across Canada want, too. The goal would be to shelter the $600, $800 and $850 units that are still on the market. The government could buy them and take them off the market. Everyone agrees that this would be a solution.
Does my colleague agree?
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- Nov/23/23 1:43:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very hesitant to say that the solution to the housing problem is to get the government more involved, to have it owning and producing houses. The current government especially has proven it is unable to get that done. I was a home builder before I became a member of Parliament. I probably built more houses than the government has ever built.
The fact is that we cannot rely on governments, especially the NDP-Liberal government, to have any hope of building more houses. We have to engage all different parties. The more the government gets out of the way, the better it will be for our future in housing and the economy in general.
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- Nov/23/23 1:43:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are supposed to be discussing the Competition Act this morning, but we are discussing the delay tactics of the Liberals.
Some have said that the reason we have high grocery prices is the lack of competition in the grocery industry. Could the member think of any other reasons why there are high grocery prices?
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- Nov/23/23 1:44:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canadians are certainly suffering from high prices. At the root cause of almost everything is the carbon tax.
The carbon tax adds costs, first of all, to the growers who grow and produce food. Then the tax is added to the companies that truck the food to the places that process the food. Then there is the grocers who pay carbon tax on their facilities and everything else. There is carbon tax throughout the system. We are not talking a little, we are talking tens of thousands, and, in some cases, hundreds of thousands, of dollars for a farmer, for example.
Those costs have to go somewhere and they do not get those costs back. Those costs end up in the price of food Canadians need to buy every day, and it is one of the big drivers in why things are getting more expensive, whether we are talking about bread, meat or whatever it might be.
For that reason, two million people a month are going to food banks. People I have talked to tell me they cannot afford to buy meat anymore and are feeding their children cereal. This has to stop. We have to get rid of this terrible, destructive carbon tax.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House of Commons to speak on behalf of the wonderful constituents of Calgary Midnapore. I will be splitting my time with a fellow Albertan, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton.
I am going to tell members something that they know, that their constituents know, that my constituents know and that all of Canada knows. Without question, Canada is in an economic crisis. We see record inflation rates. We have certainly seen this across all consumers products, most specifically food where we saw a 40% hike across Canada. All families need to put food on their tables. As well, the cost of clothing, home heating, all these things have increased.
We have seen horrific interest rates as a result of the government's out-of-control spending. Every single opportunity it has, it throws more fuel on the inflationary fire, as we saw this week with the fall economic statement. People who are currently trying to renew their mortgage, as was brilliantly pointed out by my leader, the member for Carleton, are now in a crisis as they attempt to get the best rate possible, as they attempt to hold onto their homes since mortgage rates have doubled, as have rental rates.
We are in a housing crisis. The government has a failed housing accelerator plan, which I believe built, at the last count, 15 homes in the last fiscal year. It is an absolutely shameful number. What did the Liberals do? They brought forward this bill, Bill C-56. We have hope when we hear there is a fiscal bill on the horizon. We hope that somehow the Liberals will get the message, that they will do something sweeping for Canadians, something that will move the dial, that will make even a small change in the lives of Canadians.
What did the Liberals do in the bill? They put forward two measures. We have inflation, interest and a housing crisis, and they put forward a bill with two small measures. The theme here is the same as it always is. The government could be doing so much more to help Canadians, but it consistently does the minimum. It consistently makes the choices that harm Canadians. This bill is another example of that, where it did the tiniest thing possible in the face of the economic crisis across the country.
I am sure members are aware that the most recent deficit this year was at $46.5 billion. The President of the Treasury Board and the finance minister were off by over $6 billion. Certainly, $6 billion is an absolutely incredible amount, but this shows the lack of respect they have for Canadian taxpayer money. Canadians work hard to bring home this money and the government cannot even get it right in a single year.
In fact, the deficit will be going up an average of $4 billion a year through fiscal year 2028-29. To put this into context, that is the year my son, who is now 12, will graduate from high school. He can only hope for the possibility that the government might balance the budget and get out of deficit by 2028. As we have seen, the government is incapable of that by putting forward Bill C-56 with two small measures.
Recently, the Parliamentary Budget Officer was at the government operations committee, and will be returning today to discuss the supplementary estimates. I am sure he will give us a lot of good information. Last time he came to the government operations committee, he did not have very positive things to say about the government and its fiscal management in this time of an economic crisis. I asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer if the government reduced spending, would it have to rely less on nominal GDP, which is another area that is suffering, the productivity of Canada. In addition to having a spending problem, the government has a productivity problem. As my leader said, Canadians just want to get to work. His answer was yes, if I was asking if the government spent less could it reduce taxation.
It is not surprising as we see the government's obsession with taxation, including the carbon tax, which has now quadrupled. It will go to any extent in an effort to support this carbon tax. We heard the Minister of Rural Economic Development admit that if other Canadians had just supported the governing party, they too might get this carve-out, the exemption from the carbon tax. This is the way the government operates. It cannot manage its finances and it cannot increase productivity for Canadians. There is this level of corruption, as is evidenced by the comment from the Minister of Rural Economic Development. The government could be doing so much more.
On August 15, the President of the Treasury Board, my counterpart, said that she would find $15 billion, which is a tiny drop in the bucket, by October 2. As we have seen, $15 billion is not even a quarter of the current deficit. October 2 came and went, and what was announced? Nothing. There was one thing. One billion dollars was removed from our defence budget, at a time when we have significant instability in the world, with the war in Ukraine, with what we see currently in the Middle East and with Taiwan continuously under threat from its aggressor, China. Even she was not able to keep her promise of finding $15 billion by her imposed date of October 2.
If the deficit is going up an average of $4 billion a year, that does not even negate the increase in the deficit. As I said, the President of the Treasury Board did not even meet her own target. Again, the government, with Bill C-56, had the opportunity to do something significant for Canadians and chose not to. It could be doing so much more.
We will have the Parliamentary Budget Officer at the government operations committee today. The government is seeking approval for another $20.7 billion of spending in the supplementary estimates, which is more than a significant amount. It is a horrific amount.
What has the government spent a huge sum of money on? Not surprisingly, and unfortunately, it was on consultants and consulting services. My Conservative colleagues and I tried to raise the alarm last year about McKinsey, not only with respect to the amount being spent on consultants but how the Liberals did not take their instructions from their constituents, as we do on this side of the House, but from their Liberal insider friends. The spending on professional and special services continues to increase and will be a record $21.6 billion in this fiscal year, in addition to the significant deficit I mentioned. Again, it will probably only increase based upon the spending request in the supplementary estimates.
We have seen a failure with the Liberal-NDP government over the last eight years and a failure with the supplementary estimates. Then, when we are looking for hope in the fall economic statement, it is not there. It is more disappointment, as we see another $20 billion worth of fuel poured on the inflationary fire. We have seen this time and again. The government has a spending problem. It has a productivity growth problem. It has no leadership in Canada or in the world.
The government could be doing so much more with Bill C-56, but it again chose to do nothing.
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