SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 337 - Sep/17/24

Mr. Terry Duguid (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and Special Advisor for Water, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 7:33:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that the government shares the member's concerns and his desire to hold those responsible to account. This is an issue that the government is not taking lightly. The members of this House and all Canadians are justifiably concerned by what they have been hearing in the media and at committee. We are using many tools and following many avenues of inquiry to understand what went wrong in the case of ArriveCAN. These avenues include the rare and extraordinary measure of a public rebuke in the House, for which the government did vote in favour. This speaks to how seriously we take this issue. It is why we voted for Mr. Firth to present himself here in the House and why we will continue to support the various investigations and inquiries into this matter. While we await the responses that Canadians need and deserve, I can tell everyone about the swift and decisive actions this government is taking to strengthen and protect the integrity of government procurement so that something like this can never ever happen again. When something goes awry, the government takes decisive action to restore trust in the system. That is exactly what our government is doing. Budget 2024 clearly outlines the actions we are taking to enforce and uphold the highest standards of procurement to ensure sound stewardship of public funds. They include new steps to strengthen the government's procurement and conflict of interest regimes and updated procurement guidance for managers to reinforce the prudent use of public funds. This means examining human resources and staffing strategies before procuring professional services, strict evaluation criteria when a supplier is selected, clear due diligence protocols to ensure no conflict of interest and ensuring all contractual obligations are upheld by third party vendors. It also includes government-wide audits to ensure governance, decision-making and controls associated with professional service contracts uphold the highest ethical standards. The results of these audits are expected by the end of this year. Changes are also under way to modernize the new master-level user agreements for a professional services supply arrangement to improve transparency regarding costing and subcontractors. We will launch a new risk and compliance process to ensure government-wide trends, risks and departmental performance meet the highest standards and take corrective actions whenever necessary as soon as possible. We are also bringing forward stronger accountability guidelines for managers when procuring professional services, which include robust validation that a potential contractor is the best fit for the requirements. In closing, our government is committed to ensuring that Canadian tax dollars are used wisely and responsibly. We recognize the seriousness of the ArriveCAN issue, and I want to assure Canadians that we will be acting swiftly and decisively to ensure that it cannot happen again.

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Sep/17/24 7:37:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary claims that the Liberals are good stewards who ensure the responsible and wise use of tax dollars. He talked about taking this seriously and wanting to get to the bottom of it. My question is very simple. In this $60-million arrive scam scandal that lies at the feet of the Liberal Prime Minister, himself twice found guilty of breaking ethics laws, the member, the cabinet, the Prime Minister and all members over there voted against having the Auditor General investigate. If they wanted to get to the bottom of it, were not trying to protect their friends and Liberal insiders and wanted to do the right thing for Canadians, even if it made them look bad, why would they not allow Canada's Auditor General to investigate? The motion passed in the House without the Liberals' and the member's support. Why did the parliamentary secretary and his government vote against the Auditor General investigation?

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Mr. Terry Duguid

Sep/17/24 7:38:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, perhaps the hon. member did not hear me. Just to repeat what I said, the Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that Canadian tax dollars are used wisely and responsibly. The issues that have emerged around the procurement of professional IT services and the management of the ArriveCAN application are indeed deeply troubling. We know from the reports of various investigations into the matter that Canada's procurement system can be strengthened and improved, and that is exactly what we are doing. Budget 2024 outlines the important steps we are taking to enforce and uphold the highest standards of procurement to ensure sound stewardship of public funds. We will continue to actively explore all possible ways to further bolster our processes. We are working relentlessly to make sure that what happened in the case of ArriveCAN does not happen again.

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Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)

Sep/17/24 7:39:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank you very much for allowing me to speak here tonight. I appreciate my colleagues who are here. Let me address this escalating problem we have with government debt in Canada. I asked a question a long time ago in which I really tried to nail down the government on its debt-to-GDP ratio calculation, which is a fabrication. Canadians understand what debt costs them and the mounting cost of debt that has been happening across the economy. They are particularly looking at their own accounts, but they are also looking at the government accounts. The projected amount the government is going to have to spend servicing the debt this year is $47 billion. Within four years, that is going to grow by about 50%, to over $67 billion, because of the mounting and escalating debt the government is adding on to the backs of Canadians at the federal government level alone. There is one thing I want to make sure people are clear about here. There is more than one debt in Canada. There is more than one government debt. There is $1.4 trillion of federal government debt outstanding. We add in an extra $700 billion of provincial government debt, and that is about $2.1 trillion of debt held by governments across Canada, for a country whose GDP is about $2.25 trillion. Those numbers are not updated. When we look at the IMF, it states that our debt-to-GDP ratio in Canada is north of 100%; its number is 107%. However, the government, in its pretense, said that it is 40%. How does it arrive at 40% at the federal government level alone? What it does is it takes the money that is in the Canada and Quebec pension plans and it says that is an asset of the Government of Canada. That is the money it takes off people's paycheques that goes into a separately managed account for the retirement of Canadians; the government uses that as collateral to jump into, to piggyback off and to make sure it does not have to pay the debt that is due in the future. This is a problem. I am going to talk, first of all, about the IMF. I know my colleague across the way tried to say that Canada has the best debt-to-GDP ratio in the group of seven countries. That is completely false. He needs to look at the chart, and I can point him to the website if he would like. There is an additional problem here, of course, because debt is not just government debt in Canada but also personal debt and corporate debt. We call it nonfinancial debt. The personal debt alone in Canada is about $3 trillion, on top of the government debt, which is $2.1 trillion. If we add the private debt on top of that, which is about another $3.75 trillion, we have a massively debt-financed economy here in Canada. The amount of interest spent by Canadians is exorbitant, and it is going to continue to rise because of the government's profligate spending. We have to get this under control. The problem with debt is that, once it is a problem, it is an escalating problem. There is a reason the International Monetary Fund was going to interfere in Canada's public budget processes back in the 1990s. The Chrétien government, at that point in time, had to intervene and cut the actual amount it spent on health care by half and put it on to the backs of the provinces. This was because the country was loaded up on debt, and it had to be dealt with very quickly. The way it dealt with that was by loading it on to the backs of the provinces. We are going to see the same thing again because the government is going to face a problem in the very near future. Will it please address this debt-to-GDP ratio, which we have to get under control?

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Ms. Rachel Bendayan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 7:43:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member opposite is a graduate of the Ivey Business School. He knows numbers very well. Clearly, he is a fan of numbers, and I am too, so I will follow along his line of argument around the number 40, a debt-to-GDP ratio at 40%. As a woman in her forties, I feel like I know this number well. The member opposite mentioned 40% debt-to-GDP ratio, and I understand why most people feel like that is a large number. After all, 40% is close to half. Forty per cent is usually enough to be elected in a riding in Canada, so 40% can seem impressive to my Conservative colleagues. However, when it comes to government debt, it is a different story. The last time the U.S. had a debt-to-GDP ratio of 40% was in the early 1980s, before Ronald Reagan blew a hole in the American financial system with his irresponsible tax cuts for the very wealthy. What is the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio today? In the U.S., it is around 120%. Yes, members heard that right. It is actually over 100%. Is the U.S. an isolated case? I do not think so. Let us look at our G7 peers. In France, it is over 90%. In the U.K., it is over 100%. Italy is at over 140%. In Japan, it is over 200%. What do these numbers tell us? First, Canada has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, and our comparative advantage is growing. Why does that matter? It is because when comparative advantage grows, that is when foreign investment flows into the country. That is what creates more jobs, more good-paying jobs. Second, Conservatives are desperate to gaslight Canadians and scare folks with scary-sounding numbers without context. Third, Conservatives argue that we should not make the tax system fairer, that we should not help Canadians feel like the playing field is actually level. My time is short, so I would like to touch on another 40 that my colleague raised in a previous conversation in this House, which is a $40-billion deficit. That also sounds like a big number, but I like another even bigger number, which is $2.2 trillion. That is our gross domestic product in Canada, the size of the entire great, amazing and beautiful Canadian economy. That is $2,200 billion. That is what the deficit is measured against, and that means our deficit is actually below 2% of GDP. That is to be compared with about 6% in the United States and about 5% in France. Yes, numbers do matter. Context matters.

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Mr. Greg McLean

Sep/17/24 7:46:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the numbers, but the numbers have to be correct at the end of the day. I was hoping she would listen to my speech, because the 40% she is stating is actually a fabrication. She is using Canadians' assets as collateral, which proposes also to go into their private pension plans in order to get the balance she is looking for here, the 40%. On the numbers she states, as far as where the U.S. and France are, the comparable number for Canada is 107%. I challenge her to look at that very website she took those numbers from for the other countries. The number 40% is a fabrication. It raids the piggy bank of the pension funds of Canadians, and that is not the federal government's money. We have talked about that several times in the House. She is also not counting the provincial debts, which are also on top of it and are included in the other numbers of the countries she has referenced along the way. Her numbers need to be more forthcoming. She needs to be more forthcoming with Canadians.

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Ms. Rachel Bendayan

Sep/17/24 7:47:30 p.m.
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No, Madam Speaker, I do not include provincial debt in the federal debt. Since I only have one minute and my colleague raises several points, I thought I would take the opportunity, given the news of today, to remind Canadians that inflation has fallen from its high, at over 8%, to just 2% in Canada. That is a reduction of over three-quarters, beating all forecasts, and is now perfectly in line with our target rate set by the Bank of Canada. Canada was actually the first among all of our peers to cut interest rates, and then cut them again and then cut them again, bringing relief to homeowners today and tomorrow. That will help not only homeowners right now in our country but prospective homeowners. I have many more numbers on my sheet, but I see that my time is coming to a close. I would be happy to respond to additional finance questions from my Conservative colleague in the future.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/17/24 7:48:24 p.m.
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The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 7:48 p.m.)

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