SoVote

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

Sep/17/24 10:39:29 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, my colleague wants a real answer. Here is one that is simple and straightforward. We voted in favour of the Bloc Québécois bill on this matter. We voted in favour of it. To suggest otherwise would be false. Unfortunately, apart from claiming that I said things that were inaccurate, he could not identify a single one. On the contrary, all I said in my speech was that the Bloc Québécois has supported $500 billion in inflationary spending by this government. That is true; those are the figures, and everyone can see them. The Bloc Québécois does not want to commit to defeating this government at the earliest opportunity. That is also true. Quebeckers are struggling. Groceries are expensive. Housing prices have doubled. They increasingly cannot make ends meet. It is getting harder and harder for families to buy their first home. That is all true. Unfortunately, Bloc Québécois members do not seem to want to talk much about the problems, because they want this Liberal government to stick around a while longer. I do not think that is the best solution for Quebeckers.

202 words

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

Mr. Luc Berthold

Sep/17/24 10:41:26 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the reason we are in this situation today, with housing prices doubling, food prices doubling and Canadians unable to make ends meet, is because the NDP signed a coalition agreement to support spending, thereby creating the current situation with the Liberal government.

44 words

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

Mr. Jacques Gourde (Lévis—Lotbinière, CPC)

Sep/17/24 2:49:57 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is a costly proposition to Canadian taxpayers, but especially to Quebec taxpayers. What use is the Bloc Québécois when we know that it voted for the the largest-ever expansion of the federal government, for more spending than ever, for more public servants than ever and for the most scandals ever? Aside from keeping the Liberal government on life support for the next year, what is the “Liberal Bloc” good for?

86 words

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

Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

Sep/17/24 7:29:20 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the Liberals have had many chances to do the right thing for Canadians: remove corruption from their spending. It is shocking that they actually put it in their budgets, and we have called on them to cut the corruption and save Canadians some money. One in four Canadians is going to be using a food bank this fall. That is a heartbreaking number for me to hear, knowing that in my communities, like Brockville, Gananoque, Prescott and South Grenville, food bank use has doubled. While there are still many generous people in the community who are giving food and funds, it is also just not going as far as it used to. Even the food banks are struggling with life after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government. We heard from the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands today, who talked about the devastating effects of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister's carbon tax. The Canadian Trucking Alliance in the last week spoke out about the costs that they are incurring, the billions in increased costs for them that will have to be passed on to consumers because if we tax the farmer who grows the food and the trucker who ships the food, it is of course a tax on the person who sells it, and the person who buys it is paying that tax. Canadians are having a hard time getting by, and we do not think it will get any better with Mark “carbon tax” Carney now advising the Prime Minister, knowing his affinity for making others pay. He follows a different set of rules, jet-setting around just like the high-carbon hypocrite at 24 Sussex, the Prime Minister. Canadians are struggling, and we hear often the Liberals' caution about Conservative cuts. Conservatives are going to cut the corruption. We are going to cut the scandals and we are going to cut the waste. Just look at the billion-dollar green slush fund. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were misappropriated that we knew about just when we started out, and now the chair of the fund has been found to have been in a conflict of interest. Another government-appointed board member as well is being investigated. The $60-million arrive scam, two guys in a basement, is how we found out that there is grift, a 30% markup on everything the government outsources. It is spending more than $21 billion in a year outsourcing, and we find out that oftentimes 30% of that is just going to Liberal insiders who line their pockets. Common-sense Conservatives have made a commitment to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, and Canadians deserve that. They deserve a carbon tax election, and we are ready to put that motion before the House at the first available opportunity. In the meantime, the Liberals need to do one thing: The parliamentary secretary can stand and say that they will cut the corruption from their budgets and stop the madness. Canadians deserve better.

513 words

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

Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)

Sep/17/24 7:39:39 p.m.
Watch

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?

682 words