44th Parl. 1st Sess.

May 8, 2024 02:00PM

Mr. Chris Warkentin (Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, CPC)

May/8/24 5:21:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The bill before us is a combination of the worst features of Liberal budgets over the past nine years. It is more out-of-control spending, more massive deficits, higher debt, higher interest payments and more waste. After nine years of Liberal budgets, everyone agrees that Canada is a mess. Listening to the Prime Minister over the last few weeks, we have heard him say just how broken he believes that this country has become since he became the Prime Minister. His admissions have been frank. He has said that Canada is no longer fair for Canadians. He said that life sucks under his leadership. He has said, “It used to be that the deal was, if you worked hard at a good job, you could afford a home. That doesn't seem the case anymore.” He has talked about the hardship that he has caused: In today's Canada, more people are renting than ever before and that number is growing at double the rate of those able to buy a new home compared to a decade ago. Nearly two thirds of young Canadians rent their homes and they spend a greater share of their income on housing than other generations. He has talked about the desperation that he has caused: “The idea of a really strong, exciting future seems further and further away now than it did just a few years ago...[the] loss of hope and optimism is devastating for people's morale.” He also said: Maybe young people want to start a family, but they don't know how they can afford something bigger than a one-bedroom apartment and with the costs of groceries, monthly bills and all the other realities of life going up, up, up, well, that can make it hard to save for the future, hard to get ahead. The Prime Minister is right. Over the past nine years, Canadians' lives have become harder. People are suffering more today than at any other time in recent generations. Over two million Canadians are lining up at food banks every month because they cannot afford to feed themselves. There are networks of Canadians sharing tips on how to dumpster-dive because they do not have enough money to pay for food. Mothers are adding water to their kids' milk so that it will go further. Homeless encampments are now popping up in communities that have never witnessed this type of homelessness or hopelessness before. Seniors are turning down the heat in their homes during freezing winters because they are unable to afford to heat their home anymore. Canadians are suffering, and the Prime Minister has been forced to admit it, but he seems curiously oblivious as to how all of this happened. At least he wants people to believe he has not intentionally devastated their lives. He seems legitimately dumbfounded by it all. I half expect him to launch an inquiry to try to figure out who did this to Canada. Who has been in charge for the past nine years? It is not a secret: He did it. His recklessness and extremist economic policies have devastated the lives of Canadians of every generation across this country. Over the past nine years, he has doubled the national debt, driving inflation to 40-year highs and forcing interest rates to skyrocket faster than at any other time in our history. Over the past nine years, he has made it easier on his wealthy friends to become wealthier, while the middle class and those trying to join it no longer dream of doing better. They just hope that they can survive. Seriously, over the past nine years, the Prime Minister has added more to the national debt than every other prime minister before him combined. That is a staggering stat. He has doubled the national debt in Canada in just nine years. He has added more to the debt while he has been Prime Minister than all 22 previous prime ministers added together over 147 years. He was warned that the debt would cripple our national economy. He was warned that his policy of printing and pouring $600 billion into the economy, not backed by economic growth, would drive up inflation, followed by sharp increases in the interest rates. He laughed it off, saying that the interest rates are at record lows, and he disregarded the simplest of economic principles by claiming that interest rates would remain low for a very long time. However, his ignorance of economic and monetary policy did not save Canadians from the inevitable fallout of his reckless deficit spending. Inflation skyrocketed to levels not seen in 40 years, driving up the price of everything. Food, homes, vehicles and all of life's essentials became more expensive as the Prime Minister's newly printed cash chased fewer goods. In response to the Liberal-created inflation crisis, the Bank of Canada tried to douse the flames by increasing interest rates, just like the Prime Minister had been warned would happen. Rates shot up faster than at any time in our history. Those higher rates forced some families out of their homes. Those needing to refinance or renew their mortgages faced higher payments, and some of those have doubled. Those who were forced to sell or who lost their homes are now forced into an overheated rental market, driving up rental rates even further. Since the Prime Minister got elected, mortgages have doubled, interest payments have doubled, and now rent has doubled, and the crisis has grown and expanded. Unlike he promised, everyone is paying higher interest rates. Everyone who has a student loan, small business loan, line of credit or who has any loan of any type, is now paying the price for the Prime Minister's extremist and lazy economic policy. The horrifying reality is not only that Canadians are being forced into austerity in their personal lives by this Prime Minister's reckless deficit spending, but also that Canadians are now paying the price at the national level as well, with higher interest rates on the national debt, a debt that is now twice the size from when the Liberals took office. The devastating information found in the Liberals' budget document, which was just released a couple of weeks ago, is the revelation that Canadian taxpayers are now paying more in interest payments on the national debt than they are for health care for all Canadians. That is the cost of running up the national credit card way past the max. As a matter of fact, put a different way, every penny that is collected from the GST, in every transaction across Canada, is now being sent to wealthy bankers and bondholders for the interest on the Prime Minister's destructive debt. The devastating news that is found in the budget document is that the Prime Minister now intends to add $300 billion more in binge borrowing. The Prime Minister said that under his leadership, the wealthy are getting richer, while regular Canadians are getting left behind. He is right. However, the Prime Minister's buddies who are the bankers and bondholders are not the only ones getting rich under his leadership. The Liberals have opened the floodgates of the public treasury to the consultant buddies as well. The government is now handing over $21 billion, every year, of borrowed money to these guys for projects—

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