Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, on behalf of the opposition and the Senate Conservative caucus, I am also pleased to rise in this chamber to welcome our new colleague.

Where Manitoba has possibly lost a great practitioner and surgeon, I know that the Senate has gained another strong voice from our province, Manitoba. As the dean of the great province of Manitoba, which we both represent, I wish to extend to you a very warm welcome to the Senate of Canada, Honourable Flordeliz Osler. Please know that everyone here today looks forward to working with you in a collaborative way.

As you look around and find your bearings in this chamber, please know that we have all felt the same excitement and nervousness brought on by our very own swearing-in ceremony. It is my hope that you will find reassurance by the fact that you not only find yourself among colleagues and future friends but have also gained a new family — the Senate family.

Like normal families, while our Senate family has a lot of different opinions and perspectives, it’s a family that represents different regions and viewpoints, a family that doesn’t always agree with one another, but one that must always focus on putting Canadians at the forefront of all their decisions.

As you begin to embark on this new role, you will feel the weight of responsibility that has been entrusted in you in this chamber. I trust that in the days, months and years to come, you will always keep in mind that, during deliberations, our duty — yours and mine — is to ensure the best interests of not only Manitobans but also all Canadians.

Everyone in this chamber brings a unique perspective to our debates and discussions, and I trust that you will as well. I look forward to having another strong voice representing the people of our province.

Canadians are looking at the Senate to not only bring sober second thought and due diligence. They are looking at the Senate for hope, hope that their voices are heard, that their concerns become ours and that, together, this chamber ensures the best path forward for everyone, especially minority groups, across our beautiful country.

The Conservative caucus is determined to work towards making sure not only that all Canadian voices are well represented in Ottawa but that we as parliamentarians work and fight for them.

As I said to Senator Shugart just over a week ago, you are already on the right side of the chamber. You can move one seat over if you wish. We would welcome you with open arms.

On behalf of the opposition and the Conservative caucus, I want to warmly welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): My question today is again for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Senator Gold, I want to follow up on my question to you from yesterday, which revealed that the Prime Minister’s office — along with Minister Hussen — sat on its hands for over a month.

Let me repeat this, Senator Gold. It took them both more than a month to publicly condemn derogatory tweets written by a government consultant who was granted taxpayer funds. This story became outrageous when we learned the minister knew about the situation for more than a month prior to doing anything, but now it’s hit a new level. The Prime Minister’s office — the highest office in the land — was aware of this, and it also took them more than a month to publicly condemn the anti-Semitic tweets of Laith Marouf, after being informed of the situation.

I can’t even understand the rationale here. Were there hopes that the comments of xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism would simply disappear out of nowhere? The Trudeau government has lost its way, leader. Canadians deserve better leadership than this. What is even more bonkers is the fact that the Prime Minister himself said the government had acted quickly.

My question to you, Senator Gold, is a simple one: Do you believe that taking more than a month to publicly condemn comments is acting swiftly?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I’m not using this podium because of the length of my speech but rather because, as we get on, we all have different issues, and I may need something to lean on.

Colleagues, I rise this afternoon as well to speak to Bill C-30, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act. To be honest, colleagues, it’s difficult to know where to begin. I’ve seen a lot of bills introduced in this chamber since I was appointed as a senator, but I do not think any of them were as misleading as what this bill is.

The word “duplicitous” comes to mind, and if you Google the definition, you will find that Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “marked by duplicity: deceptive in words or action.” These are strong words, but allow me to explain and then judge for yourself if that description does not indeed fit this bill.

On the surface, the purpose of this legislation makes sense. It will put money back in the pockets of Canadians. It basically amounts to a tax refund, and for that reason, our Conservative caucus supported it unanimously in the House. I expect that it will be passed with the same support here in this chamber, and this is something I assured the Minister of Finance of when she was in this chamber. But as soon as you scratch the surface of this bill, you find that this bill is not at all what the government says it is.

While it is claiming to be a “Cost of Living Relief Act,” it is little more than a Band-Aid being applied to a gaping wound that the government insists on repeatedly poking. It does nothing to address the root of the problem and, in fact, will make it worse.

COVID-19 caused supply chain issues, and Vladimir Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine has driven up energy prices. Both of these have been significant factors in the increased cost of living we are currently experiencing. But even prior to these developments, colleagues, the government was on a collision course with reality, as it opened the floodgates on spending with no regard for the longer-term impact on our economic health. Much of the spending during COVID was necessary — it helped sustain individuals and our economy while we were trying to navigate uncertain waters with a novel coronavirus — but much of it was not.

The Fraser Institute last week released a study which documented what has already been observed by others when they wrote:

. . . a significant percentage of Ottawa’s huge spending increases during COVID, which produced large deficits and much more debt, had nothing to do with the pandemic . . . .

They went on to say:

. . . approximately 60 per cent of the federal budget deficit during the pandemic . . . related directly to COVID-19 . . . while the remaining 40 per cent was not related to the pandemic.

This is a government which believes it can spend its way out of any problem with no regard for the negative consequences. Even now, in the midst of an inflationary environment, they continue to pour fuel on this fire. You may recall that at the beginning of COVID, the Liberal government did not even think inflation would be a problem, even though Pierre Poilievre warned repeatedly that runaway government spending would undoubtedly result in inflation by increasing the money supply. An article in the Financial Post echoed these same concerns back in May of 2020, stating:

Theory states that a big increase in the money supply will result in runaway prices, and there are those who are adamant that the hundreds of billions of dollars the Bank of Canada intends to create over the next year can only end in a rerun of the 1970s.

Government debt has a long association with inflation, so the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s April 30 forecast that debt will spike to about 50% of gross domestic product in 2021 from about 30% in the previous year is making some people nervous. Apparently, some people did not include the federal government. Rather than being nervous about inflation, they dismissed the threat and mocked those who dared mention it. Instead, they lined up with the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who captured this Liberal mindset the best when he said the bigger threat to the Canadian economy was deflation, not inflation.

Even when we began to move out of pandemic restrictions, and the inflation rate could be seen to be notching up, it was still not a priority for this government. Instead, their only concern was to not turn off the firehose of cash too quickly, even though businesses were struggling to find workers and begged the government to make benefits contingent on the recipients being prepared to return to work. The government refused. They assured us that inflation would only be transitory. But by January 19 of this year, Statistics Canada was reporting that the annual rate of inflation had already hit a 30-year high, and economists were warning that rates would climb further yet.

The very same day the Parliamentary Budget Officer released his Economic and Fiscal Update 2021, which warned that the government’s planned stimulus of $100 billion was threatening to overstimulate the economy and contribute to inflation. The government, again, ignored these warnings.

By March, the so-called transitory inflation had risen to 6.7%, on its way to 8.1%. And yet, even as the government saw the numbers rising, they refused to consider holding their spending to pre-COVID levels. This year’s Main Estimates showed that the federal government has, in fact, expanded its fiscal policy by over $120 billion this fiscal year when compared to 2018-19. COVID spending is a bare sliver of what it was during the height of the pandemic, yet this government refuses to do the responsible thing and show a little restraint.

The hypocrisy is unbelievable. They claim to care about skyrocketing prices, but they refuse to take any action on the things that are within their direct control. Grocery prices, for example, are up by 10.8%, rising at the fastest pace in 40 years. I’ll just name a few: Fish is up 10.4%; butter, 16.9%; eggs, 10.9%; margarine, 37.5%; bread, rolls and buns, 17.6%; dry or fresh pasta, up over 32%; fresh fruit, 13.2%; oranges, 18.5%; apples are up by almost 12%; coffee, up by 14.2%; soup, 19%; lettuce, 12.4%; and potatoes are up by almost 11%.

The average family of four is now spending $1,200 more each year just to put food on the table, not to mention the rising cost of heat, gasoline and rent.

And in the midst of soaring food costs and people struggling to feed their families, the Liberal government decided it was a great time to target an arbitrary 30% reduction in fertilizer emissions by 2030. This was in spite of warnings from the ag sector that:

. . . reaching 30% is not realistically achievable without imposing significant costs on Canada’s crop producers and potentially damaging the financial health of Canada’s crop production sector.

Furthermore, while family budgets are being crushed by rising energy prices, the response of this government was to raise prices further by increasing taxes. We are the only country in the G7 that has raised fuel taxes during this period of record inflation, and the government is steadfast in its plan to move ahead with a tripling of the carbon tax.

A report by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation last week noted that while more than half the G7 and G20 countries, and two thirds of the countries in the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development are cutting taxes, “. . . the federal government has recently increased the carbon tax, alcohol taxes, and payroll taxes” instead of providing tax relief.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation noted:

Australia cut its gas tax in half. The United Kingdom announced billions in fuel tax relief. The Netherlands cut its gas tax by 17 cents per litre. South Korea cut its taxes at the pumps by 30 per cent. India cut gas taxes to “keep inflation low, thus helping the poor and middle classes.”

But what did our NDP-Liberal government do? Instead of adopting policies to help reduce inflation, this government keeps inventing new ideas to make life even more unaffordable for Canadians.

Colleagues, if the government really wanted to reduce inflation, they could do it simply and easily. They could reduce the GST. In fact, 18 countries, including Belgium, Germany and Norway, have reduced consumption taxes to make life more affordable.

As noted by Senator Bellemare when the Minister of Finance was here, GST revenues have increased by almost 50% in one year. Part of that is linked to inflation, because the one thing that inflation helps is government revenue. Higher inflation means higher tax revenue without even having to increase the tax rate — a Liberal’s dream.

Last week, in his Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated that inflation will add an additional $83 billion to the federal government’s coffers over the next five years.

A reduction in the GST tax rate would automatically lower inflation. And as noted by Senator Bellemare at the Committee of the Whole, this is not a novel idea. She pointed out that:

France has experimented with similar kinds of measures and, according to its National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, they have had a meaningful and significant impact. France’s current inflation rate is 5%, not 8%.

But rather than taking meaningful action, this government decided to do the only thing it knows how to do: try to spend its way out of the problem.

The government’s response to a crisis, which they helped to create through unrestrained government spending, is to spend even more money. After starting the inflationary fire that we find ourselves in today, they cannot resist pouring fuel onto it.

Minister Freeland admitted that increasing government spending can make the problem worse when she said:

. . . We cannot compensate every single Canadian for the rising costs that are driven by the global pandemic and by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. To do so would only make inflation worse and make the Bank of Canada’s job harder.

For what was perhaps the first and only time that I have found myself agreeing with Minister Freeland, blasting inflation with more spending is like a fire department that sprays gasoline on a fire in an attempt to put it out. What the finance minister failed to acknowledge, however, is that whether you put a little gasoline on a fire or a lot, it has the same result.

Economists around the world have been warning about this.

On September 22, the headline of a Financial Post article was very clear when it said, “. . . Government aid to help with rising prices risks fuelling ‘inflationary fire,’ economists warn.”

The CIBC, Bank of Montreal and Bank of Nova Scotia have all released reports expressing concern over using revenue windfalls for additional spending.

CIBC’s Avery Shenfeld said, “While there are times when fiscal largesse is just what the economy needs, these aren’t such times.”

Andrey Pavlov, at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business said:

. . . while the Bank of Canada is doing quite a bit to bring inflation down . . . the government hasn’t really done much of anything.

Derek Holt from Scotiabank said:

. . . it seems sensible to assume that this will add to pressures on measures of core inflation . . . . Any belief that it will ease inflationary pressures must have studied different economics textbooks.

I have no idea which economics textbooks our finance minister studied or, indeed, if she studied any, but one thing is certain: She is misleading Canadians by making them think that this bill is a cost of living relief act. In the end, it will do nothing to relieve the cost of living and only pretends to do so.

You may have noticed that when the finance minister was here for the Committee of the Whole, I asked her a point-blank question:

Did your department conduct any analysis of the impact that this spending measure will have on the inflation rate in Canada?

It’s a fair question, I thought. If economists are warning that measures such as this could make things worse, then Canadians have a right to know if the government bothered to take the time to determine what that impact would be. Maybe it’s a little or maybe it’s a lot. The problem is that we will never know because the finance minister refused to answer even the most basic of questions — although we shouldn’t think that is a surprise, the way we get questions answered.

In fact, the finance minister refused to answer every question I asked her, and instead used the opportunity to regurgitate her unhelpful talking points like she was attending Question Period in the other place.

I asked if her department conducted an analysis of the impact that this spending will have on the inflation rate in Canada, and all I got was reassurances that she takes spending very seriously.

That we already knew, colleagues. About the only thing this NDP-Liberal government takes seriously is spending, which is why they are still spending $120 billion more than before COVID. They are very serious about spending as much money as they can because they are convinced that the budget will balance itself, and the Prime Minister cannot be bothered to think about monetary policy.

However, colleagues, we did not invite the minister here to parade her talking points in front of us and promote her government’s agenda. Committee of the Whole is to take the place of a committee meeting. At committee meetings we call witnesses to give us answers, not to spout government rhetoric and political talking points. Yet we did not receive a single answer to a question on Bill C-30. For 95 minutes, colleagues, we heard the finance minister talk about everything from fossil fuel subsidies, to mandatory reporting on climate-related financial risk, to dental care and housing benefits.

Yet, when I asked how Bill C-30 would help slow spending in the economy — as the Governor of the Bank of Canada noted is necessary — I was told that we have the lowest budget in the G7. When I asked whether the Prime Minister was beginning to think about monetary policy, I was schooled about the independence of the Bank of Canada.

When I posted the video of my questions along with the minister’s non-responses to social media, people were outraged. I will read a few quotes.

Brian said, “A grade 3 student would give more concise answers than the liberal government of Canada would.”

Melody said:

. . . thank you for your questions . . . and your amazing patience when it is obvious that she will never offer more than tiptoeing through the tulips. I’d be livid!

Roger wrote:

She likes to start with “let me be clear” but every answer is word salad. Her patronizing arrogance is sickening. She talks like she’s reading a 5-year-old a bed time story.

Bill wrote, “Asking a Liberal, any Liberal, a question, any question, is a complete waste of time.”

Sandy said, “So triple the carbon tax, that’s how compassionate they are.”

Charlie wrote, “She’s obviously not taking this seriously, just making a mockery of this and having zero respect for the inquiry.”

Colleagues, I could go on and on, but I have made my point. The Minister of Finance was not the least bit interested in answering questions, and that is unacceptable. If this is the way that ministers of the Crown treat Committee of the Whole, then our caucus is going to start opposing Committees of the Whole.

If we had held regular committee meetings on this bill, we would have had the opportunity to call other witnesses in order to get some answers. I am certain that one of those witnesses would have been the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who confirmed last week in his Economic and Fiscal Outlook that the government’s spending to alleviate the rising cost of living will actually increase the cost of living.

Some will argue that the impact will be minimal, but I would argue that it is inexcusable and irresponsible for the federal government to be working against the Bank of Canada’s efforts to bring inflation down. This, colleagues, is shameful. It’s no wonder the finance minister did not want to answer the question.

Colleagues, if Committee of the Whole is just a way for the government to dodge a proper examination of their legislation, then we will begin to insist that every bill go to full committee hearings regardless of the government’s time frame.

The fact is that this bill did not need to be rushed. The government had ample time to put this legislation together and table it. It is not complicated. Yet, as Senator Martin noted in Committee of the Whole, they appear to have just woken up to the fact that Canadian families are being pummelled by inflation.

We know this because the bill is accompanied by a Royal Recommendation. A Royal Recommendation is required when a bill authorizes new charges that were not anticipated in the estimates.

But consider that the Main Estimates were tabled on March 1 — the same month that inflation hit 6.7%. Supplementary Estimates (A) were tabled on June 7 — the same month that inflation hit 8.1%. Yet neither contained any mention of this spending.

Inflation did not just show up on our doorstep one morning, colleagues. There was ample time for the government to anticipate the need for this bill and include the allocation in the estimates. But apparently, even as inflation was ramping up, the government was asleep at the wheel.

Senators, why is it that this government cannot get legislation to us within a decent time frame even when the bill has unanimous support in the House of Commons? It was tabled in the other place on September 20, and then it took them the next three sitting weeks to get an uncontested bill over here. Let me repeat that, colleagues: An uncontested bill took three weeks to get over here. If there was ever a government that is unable to walk and chew gum at the same time, it is this NDP-Liberal government.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Former Governor of the Bank of Canada Stephen Poloz noted at the recent Global Business Forum in Banff that Canada is a chronic underachiever — a condition caused by poor political decisions and the failure to address unresolved issues.

The problems that he listed were the following: “a political quagmire that requires a crisis to make decisions,” “layers of regulation,” “permit and consultation that take ages to complete,” and the fact that “Canada is one of the most highly taxed economies on earth . . . .”

That is why we find ourselves here tonight, forced to fly back early to deal with this bill. It once again comes down to this government’s never-ending incompetence.

Colleagues, the other thing you need to realize about this bill is that it doesn’t help people as much as the government makes it sound like it does. It’s not that people won’t appreciate receiving the help — they will. But the way the government likes to strut and gloat like they are being the hero by introducing this bill is misleading.

For starters, you need to understand that this money is only going to go to these who would normally receive the GST credit benefit. Numerous senators noted during Committee of the Whole that this doesn’t include anyone who does not file an income tax return.

Secondly, the government likes to give the impression that this money is largely going to help single moms with small children. In reality, out of the 11.6 million cheques that will be sent out, only 1.3 million will go to households with children, and less than half of that will go to single-parent homes. The other 10.3 million cheques will go to households with no children.

Thirdly, as Statistics Canada has pointed out in the past:

Since the economic well-being of an individual also depends on family income rather than just personal income, those who qualify for the GST credit are not necessarily disadvantaged. An example would be a young adult living with parents and working part time at a low-paying job. . . . the majority of recipients . . . are from multiple-earner families or those with more than one recipient (for instance, a child and another relative of the major income recipient living in the same family).

In other words, senators, there is no surgical precision in the deployment of this $2.5 billion.

The fourth thing I would point out is that this program was designed to be a tax rebate of GST expenses, not an inflation-fighting tool. This means that the lowest earners will not necessarily receive the higher amounts.

The way the program is designed, an eligible adult will receive a tax credit of $306 plus $161 for every qualified child under 19. If you’re married, you and your spouse each receive $306 plus the $161 for your child. This comes to $773, half of which is $386.50, which is the benefit they will be eligible for under Bill C-30.

If you’re a single parent, the calculation is the same because there is an “equivalent to spouse” amount for single parents where they receive two times the base credit. However, if you are among the 9 million recipients who are single with no children, then you receive the base amount of $306, but if you earn more than $9,900 a year, you will receive 2% of every dollar earned over and above that amount, up to a maximum of an additional $161.

What this means in practice is that a single person earning just under $10,000 a year will receive $154 under this bill, whereas a single person earning twice that amount will receive $234, which is 52% more.

Colleagues, my point is not only that these payments are small but that they are inequitable. Although this bill is supposed to help those most in need, in many cases those with the greatest need will actually receive less than those who earn twice as much as they do.

For a GST rebate, the program makes sense because if you have more money, then you spend more on GST in a year, but for a measure which is supposed to provide targeted tax relief to those who need it the most, it is a joke.

To make it practical, consider this: A single mother with a $30,000 net income will receive an additional $2.10 per day for six months, for a total of $386.50. However, over the same period, the purchasing power of this single mother’s income will have been reduced by more than $1,000 due to “JustinFlation,” or about $5.43 per day. While the NDP-Liberal government is presiding over the highest inflation hike in 40 years which takes more than $5 a day from a single mom, their solution is to offer $2 a day and pretend to be heroes.

Colleagues, let me be clear that no one is suggesting the government should “compensate every single Canadian” for the rising cost of living, to use the finance minister’s words. We cannot spend our way out of this mess as the Liberals always like to do. We are asking the government to stop raising taxes on Canadian families and use their inflation tax windfall to reduce taxes rather than blowing it out the door in new spending. If we want to avoid a full-blown recession, we need to be fiscally prudent, not careless.

We do not have to look far to see what will happen if the Trudeau government is not careful. The United Kingdom is learning the hard way that the markets will punish a government that does not pay attention to its balance sheet. This could have lasting effects.

As Mr. Torsten Bell from the U.K.’s Resolution Foundation told Politico:

The big picture in a world where interest rates are rising and inflation is high, is that you don’t want to be seen as the one country that everyone decides is a bad bet.

Showing how serious you are is important. If we are really arguing that our growth strategy is to borrow lots more and then that will pay for itself then they [the markets] don’t believe that.

And as Royce Mendes, head of macro strategy at Desjardins Group, told Global News in October:

It’s more important than it has been in many, many years for the federal government to reassure (investors) that it is nowhere close to following the U.K.’s path.

Let’s hope our government is paying attention, colleagues, and will not repeat the British mistakes.

In closing, let me say this: When the Minister of Finance was here in this chamber to give non-answers to questions about this bill, she said, “Canadians are smart . . . .”

On that point, I am in full agreement with the minister as well. Canadians are smart. I believe they will see through this nonsense of ratcheting up costs for consumers and then swooping in, pretending to be the hero by tossing back a morsel here and there. Canadians are smarter than this. And, colleagues, they are going to show this government just how smart they are in the next general election.

Thank you.