44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 8, 2024 02:00PM
- May/8/24 2:28:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have been talking down the economy for a long time now, without understanding that Canada actually has the strongest macroeconomic performance in the G7.
Our perspective is to put that solid footing of the Government of Canada in service of Canadians by investing in housing, by investing in dental care, by investing in child care and by investing in the supports that Canadians need in this difficult time. His solution is for governments to invest less in Canadians, for ideological reasons, and to be there less for people when they need it most.
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- May/8/24 2:44:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as opposed to the Leader of the Opposition's campaign to simply axe the facts, we are going to continue to stand with the science, the evidence, the research and the economists, who have all pointed out, including the Parliamentary Budget Officer, that the Canada carbon rebate puts more money in the pockets of eight out of 10 families in the jurisdictions across the country in which it is and is effective in bringing down our emissions while creating economic growth as we invest in cleaner technology and good jobs and careers for the future. We have a plan for the economy and the environment. He does not.
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- May/8/24 2:45:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with his comedy routine, I was going to say that he should not quit his day job, but actually, he should quit his day job. He should not go into number crunching whatever his next job is, because he does not believe the economy is about numbers. I do not blame him, because if I had his economic record, I would not want to talk about numbers either.
It might help him to go to the library and quietly study just a little. Will he commit to reading page 3 of the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, which demonstrates Canadians pay more than they get back in the tax?
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- May/8/24 3:22:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this project was in the national interest. It will mean more jobs, more GDP and more capacity to pay for the transformation of our economy to be lower emission, and it is fully factored into Canada's climate plan.
With the project now completed, the federal government got the job done. However, I will be honest, it is not the federal government's intention to continue to operate a pipeline. We look forward to divesting it to partners.
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- May/8/24 4:40:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are talking about budget 2024 and the budget implementation act. In the budget report, the Liberal government makes a claim that the GDP, the gross domestic product of our economy, is set to grow by 3.5% this year. GDP is a good measurement because it talks about the health of the economy, and admittedly, a 3.5% growth is not bad, if that is indeed what it is going to be, but members are not to forget that this is just a forecast. However, factoring in unprecedented population growth in Canada, and we are 3.5 million people more now than we were in 2019, the statistics look rather anemic.
David Williams, vice-president of policy at Business Council of British Columbia, notes that annual GDP per person in the province of British Columbia is actually shrinking. Per person GDP has been decreasing steadily under the Prime Minister. The calculations have been done by economists, and it works out to about $4,200 per person. Canadians are not getting richer, despite the optimistic spin the Liberals and the finance minister are putting on what is really an anemic economic performance.
Budget 2024 also announces once again, just as the Liberals have done in every budget since I was elected five years ago, that their economic policies will improve Canada's productivity numbers. Our poor productivity metrics is a well-known problem, which has been admitted to by our current Minister of Finance.
It works out to the following: For every $100 an American worker produces, their Canadian counterpart pumps about $72 into our economy, so only 72% is efficient. That does not mean Canadians are not working as hard as Americans. We are probably working as hard or harder than our American counterparts, but we do not have the tools, the technology or the investment to grow the economy. As America's productivity improves, Canada's is lagging due to mismanagement and bad leadership by the Prime Minister.
His former minister of finance, Bill Morneau, in a book he published shortly after he resigned from his position as the finance minister, said that he tried try to get his boss, the Prime Minister, to focus on the problems with Canada's lagging productivity, but the Prime Minister showed little interest. He said that the Prime Minister was more focused on wealth redistribution rather than on wealth growth, looking at the things that grow the economy, such as encouraging private investment in innovation and resource development, making strategic tax cuts and deregulation, getting new Canadians working sooner and developing strategies for scaling up our technology sector so that job growth happens here in Canada rather than south of the border in Silicon Valley, Boston or Texas.
I would add to this as well that a strategy for growing our productivity is freeing up interprovincial trade. Economists say that would add substantially to our productivity. What are we getting instead are tax increases on Canadian investors, which is scaring people away so their investment dollars might just go somewhere else.
I pointed out that the current Minister of Finance has also commented on this, and she has recently said that economic growth, business investments and productivity are an urgent challenge for Canada, if not the most important challenge for Canada. It sounds like the Minister of Finance understands that this is a challenge for Canada, as did the former minister of finance, but in Canada, our Prime Minister admits he does not spend a lot of time paying attention to these sorts of things, such as monetary policy or the impact his fiscal policy might have on inflation and interest rates.
Leadership sets the tone. What we have here again is lots of promises. The Liberals will say, “Sunny ways are just around the corner”, and that we should just believe them this time. As always, our Prime Minister gets an A for announcements and an F on delivery.
In talking about the budget, I just want to touch on inflation, interest rates and debt servicing. Under the misguidance of the current Prime Minister, Canada's inflation hit an all-time high. The Bank of Canada had to respond with higher interest rates, which are having a negative impact on citizens, on homeowners and on businesses, as well as on the national economy. With a debt of over a trillion dollars now, interest rate payments are over $50 billion a year, which is more money than Canada transfers to provinces for health care.
I just want to summarize with this: Struggling families cannot afford higher taxes and more inflationary spending that drives up the cost of everything and keeps interest rates high. There used to be an understanding here in Canada, an unwritten social contract saying that if one worked hard, got an education or on-the-job training, and then got a good job and a powerful paycheque, that one could save up to buy a house. One could buy the house, maybe pay the mortgage off in 25 years, or if one made a few extra payments early on, in 20 years, and then save up for one's retirement. It was simple but secure. Under the Liberal government, that dream is all but dead. To hear the Liberals speak, sunny ways are just around the corner. The Liberals have been around for nine years, promising that “this time you can believe us”, but they are not delivering.
It is time for the Conservative Party to take over the governing side of the House to get Canada's economy back on track. It is time to turn the hurt that the Liberals have caused into the hope Canadians desperately need.
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- May/8/24 4:49:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would point out that, with Canada's very high real estate costs, many of our investment dollars are going into real estate. One economist called it a “black hole” for investment. That money could otherwise be going to much more productive industrial use.
I believe this is what Canada is lacking: investment in technology and industries that are really going to grow our economy. That is one reason our productivity rate is so much below the rates of other competing nations and, in particular, the United States, our closest trading partner.
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- May/8/24 4:51:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree that the average worker should be able to afford a home in this country. A well-paid carpenter should be able to afford an average house. It may not be the luxury house that he happens to be building or framing; however, every person in Canada who has gone to the effort of getting an education or on-the-job training, and who has a good job, should be able to fulfill the dream of owning a house.
As for the black hole, I just want to clarify that the cost of real estate is so high and there is so much money going into real estate. Sometimes the government states that our debt-to-GDP ratio is not that high, but if we factor in all the debt, private debt for mortgages, the numbers are quite astronomical, and that is a drag on our economy.
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- May/8/24 4:52:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we do not really have a lot of time in this place to dive into things like productivity. What increases Canada's productivity? Why do we lag in productivity? I have long found a line by Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, pretty compelling. It is, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it’s almost everything.”
I have heard answers to that over the years, and I know I do not have time now to get into the research of why that is. The notion that Canada and our economy is based on hewers of wood and drawers of water makes our productivity quite low. Countries with high productivity have value added in their exports. They do not ship out raw logs, raw bitumen or raw product. They have a lot of value added with worker contributions.
As our exports increasingly become low-value, unprocessed resources, productivity falls. However, I do not hear from many of my colleagues in this place, or anyone, decrying that we are shipping out raw bitumen or raw logs. That is what hurts productivity.
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- May/8/24 5:03:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I enjoy working with the hon. member on the finance committee. We have both spoken about the importance of productivity in the economy, though maybe from different perspectives.
The government has been in power for nine years now and this is its latest budget. There is a gap between U.S. and Canadian incomes and GDP per capita, which is now at a record deviation, meaning that the gap between what Canadians are earning and what Americans are earning has never been greater. At what point will that gap start to be reduced?
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- May/8/24 5:04:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I, too, enjoy working with my hon. colleague on the finance committee.
The issue around productivity and business investment is not a new one in Canada. Actually, we have been tackling productivity for more than 30 years, and business investment for the last 20-plus years. I would say that it is not just federal budget 2024 where we have made huge investments in our economy, in our economic infrastructure and in Canadians so that we can continue to give Canadians the tools and the skills to be able to succeed and for Canada to have a prosperous economy, both now and in the future. I think a number of the measures that we have in our budget will help with the productivity issue, as well as with the business investment issue.
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- May/8/24 6:32:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise and represent the good people of Battle River—Crowfoot in the House of Commons.
Today, I do so to enter into debate on what is, ironically, the fall fiscal update. Many people watching must be wondering why we are debating, come springtime, a bill that was tabled in the fall. I had that same question, but it simply comes down to this. While the Liberals tabled their budget a couple of weeks ago, which I will talk about here in a moment, we are still debating the fall economic statement in the spring.
That is a clear example of the utter incompetence that we have seen from the Liberal Party. The Liberals cannot manage their legislative agenda, and they certainly cannot manage the economy. We are seeing debt spiralling out of control. We are seeing pain and suffering in people's lives. We are seeing pain and suffering in the lives of so many Canadians. That is a perfect example.
The reason I wanted to start my speech emphasizing that is that, when folks watch this, they will look on the screen to see that it has “Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023” written across it. Earlier today we were also debating the budget implementation act, 2024, highlighting the true incompetence and inability of the Prime Minister, the Liberals and their coalition partners who prop them up. Come storm or sunny day, their coalition partners are always there to stand with the Liberals, propping up their corruption, their incompetence and, ultimately, the pain that Canadians are feeling from coast to coast. When it comes to the true root of what I hear as I travel across my constituency, related to both the fall economic statement and the budget that was tabled here a couple of weeks ago, there is crime and chaos in our streets and gravel roads.
It is interesting. I am sure many MPs and, hopefully, some Liberal and NDP members as well, keep something similar to what I affectionately refer to as my “call list”. It can take some time to get through that call list, as there are a whole host of people who want to speak to me out of the 110,000 or so people I represent. I find it incredibly important to speak with individuals who are—
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