SoVote

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

Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 2:20:25 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad I get to answer a question about Canada's economy because it gives me the chance to celebrate the good news that we got this morning. Inflation was at 2% in August. It is back down to where it was before the pandemic. That is real progress for our country, and the Conservatives should be celebrating that.

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

Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 2:21:52 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, once again, the Conservative leader is displaying his incompetence as far as the economy is concerned. In reality, 2% is where Canada was before the pandemic. In reality, inflation has been within the Bank of Canada's target range since the start of this year. In reality, wages have been rising faster than inflation for 19 months now. The Conservatives are not happy, however. They wish we had bad news for Canadians.

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

Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 2:23:25 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad to have the chance to talk about the economy. That is because today we had good news for Canadians. Inflation is back down to where it was before COVID hit. Inflation has been within the Bank of Canada's target range this whole year. Wages have outpaced inflation for 19 months in a row. However, Conservatives do not want to talk about it. They are so weak and spiteful that, for them, good news for Canadians is bad news they want to ignore.

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

Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 3:10:42 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I want to reassure my colleague that we are working closely with scientists. For several years now, herring stocks have been struggling in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. To avoid a repeat of what happened with shrimp in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, we are making smart decisions, unlike the Conservatives, who would gladly scrape the sea bottom clean. That is out of the question. We reduced herring stocks to save the regional economy.

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

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

Sep/17/24 7:43:28 p.m.
Watch

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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