The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Honourable senators, when shall this bill be read the third time?

Hon. Patti LaBoucane-Benson (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate) moved second reading of Bill C-55, An Act for granting to His Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024.

She said: Honourable senators, I’m pleased to rise again to introduce the appropriation act for the 2023-24 Supplementary Estimates (A).

While the Main Estimates provided an overview of spending requirements for the upcoming fiscal year, the supplementary estimates present information on additional spending requirements.

These additional spending requirements were either not sufficiently developed in time for inclusion in the Main Estimates, or have subsequently been refined to account for developments in particular programs and services.

The Supplementary Estimates (A), 2023-24 are the first of three supplementary estimates planned for this fiscal year.

The government is requesting Parliament’s approval of the spending proposals that are detailed in the Supplementary Estimates (A) through the appropriation bill before us today.

Throughout each supply cycle, the appropriation bill acts as a vehicle authorizing payments from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for government programs and services.

When we approve the budget, that does not actually authorize the government to spend money. Rather, parliamentary authorization of government spending happens through the estimates and associated appropriation bills — like the one before us today.

As honourable senators are no doubt aware, the voted amounts in these supplementary estimates represent ceilings or estimates. It is not out of the ordinary if actual spending turns out to be lower.

Actual expenditures are published in quarterly financial reports, and the total 2023-24 expenditures will be listed in the public accounts, which are tabled after the end of the fiscal year.

As this chamber knows, the estimates are part of a series of documents comprised of the Main Estimates; supplementary estimates; Departmental Plans; Departmental Results Reports; and public accounts. These documents provide important information and help us, as parliamentarians, scrutinize government spending.

The Supplementary Estimates (A), 2023-24 present a total of $21.9 billion in incremental budgetary spending, which reflects $20.5 billion to be voted and a $1.4 billion increase in forecast statutory expenditures.

Before turning to the major voted items in detail, I would like to highlight changes to forecasts of statutory spending.

Statutory budgetary expenditures are forecast to rise $1.4 billion to a total of $236.2 billion.

These changes include a $790.3-million increase in payments for the AgriInsurance Program, which reflects the launch of the new five-year Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, as well as the cost of providing this critical insurance due to rising commodity prices and the increased program demand; a $568‑million decrease to Old Age Security payments based on updated forecasts of the average monthly rate, number of beneficiaries and benefit repayment amounts; and updated forecasts for interest costs and elderly benefits from Budget 2023.

Now I’ll discuss some of the major voted initiatives for which these supplementary estimates seek parliamentary approval.

Three of these initiatives stem from Budget 2023.

The first is $2.6 billion to the Department of Health to improve health care for Canadians. To help ensure Canadians receive the care they need, Budget 2023 proposed an investment of $198.3‑billion over the next 10 years to strengthen our public health care system.

Funding in this supply bill will be used for new bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories to address health system needs. Examples include expanding access to family health services, supporting health care workers, reducing backlogs, increasing mental health and substance use supports and modernizing our health care systems.

Funding will also be used to develop new health indicators, and improve coordination between different health care systems. It will also support the Territorial Health Investment Fund, which assists the territories with health care and medical travel costs.

The second funding request stemming from Budget 2023 is $469 million for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to support the Interim Federal Health Program. This program provides temporary medical coverage to certain foreign nationals, such as asylum claimants and refugees, who are not yet eligible for provincial or territorial health insurance.

The third funding request stemming from the budget is $468.3 million for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. This is part of the $1.8 billion being invested over five years.

As air travel started bouncing back from the pandemic last year, Canadians faced flight delays, long lineups at airports and mishandled baggage.

While delays have been reduced, this funding will help further strengthen air passengers’ rights and improve Canadians’ experiences at airports.

I will now discuss the request for funding stemming from Budget 2022 for the Housing Accelerator Fund. The government’s goal is to incentivize cities and towns to have more housing built and, by increasing the supply of housing, to make it more affordable for Canadians.

Budget 2022 proposed to provide $4 billion over five years to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to launch the new Housing Accelerator Fund.

This fund provides incentive funding to local governments, encouraging initiatives aimed at removing barriers to development and increasing housing supply, as well as encouraging the development of complete, low-carbon and climate-resilient communities that are affordable, inclusive, equitable and diverse.

Funding of $996.7 million for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is sought in this supply bill to support this initiative.

Another important funding request before us today is $464.4 million to the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food to implement federal and cost-shared initiatives under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

This is a new $3.5-billion, five-year agreement between the federal, provincial and territorial governments to strengthen the competitiveness, innovation and resiliency of the agriculture, agri-food and agri-based products sector.

The partnership includes $1 billion in federal programs and activities, and $2.5 billion in cost-shared programs and activities funded by federal, provincial and territorial governments. The partnership provides strong support for science, research and innovation to address challenges, seize new opportunities, open new markets and strengthen the resiliency of the sector.

This supply bill also includes a request for $459.3 million for the RCMP to compensate members for injuries received in the performance of their duties. This compensation will be paid to members of the RCMP and their families in the event of disabilities or death that occur as a consequence of the members’ duties.

Colleagues, I will now address four funding requests in this bill related to reconciliation: One is for the Department of Indigenous Services; two are for the Department of Crown‑Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, and one applies to both departments as a horizontal item.

The first is $4.4 billion for the Department of Indigenous Services to support a final settlement agreement involving the First Nations Child and Family Services program and Jordan’s Principle. This settlement is an important part of Canada’s accountability toward First Nations children who were discriminated against or removed from their homes.

This funding will also be used for the continued delivery of immediate measures required by tribunal orders and items agreed to as part of the Agreement-in-Principle on Long-Term Reform of the First Nations Child and Family Services program and Jordan’s Principle.

The second reconciliation-related funding request is $2.5 billion for the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs for the Specific Claims Settlement Fund. Specific claims settlements help to right past wrongs, renew relationships and advance reconciliation in a way that respects the rights of First Nations and all Canadians. Specific claims are grievances against the federal government that allege failures to fulfill historic treaty obligations or mismanagement of Indigenous lands and assets. Specific claims settlements and tribunal awards valued at up to $150 million are paid from the Specific Claims Settlement Fund. The amount sought through this bill would replenish the fund based on anticipated payments for negotiated settlements and tribunal awards.

The third funding request on this theme of reconciliation is $825 million for Crown-Indigenous Relations to fund out‑of‑court settlements. The federal government is engaged in active discussions related to various legal challenges. This funding will ensure that the department is in a position to quickly implement negotiated settlements should agreements be reached.

Finally, this bill seeks $4.1 billion for both departments — Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, and Indigenous Services Canada — to implement the expedited resolution strategy for agricultural benefits claims related to Treaties 4, 5, 6 and 10. Essentially, when treaties were signed, one of the commitments Canada made was to support the development of agriculture on reserve lands. However, in many cases, colleagues, this commitment was not upheld. This funding is part of Canada paying these outstanding bills at long last.

In conclusion, honourable senators, in the time available, my remarks can only be high-level. However, I’ve tried to use these remarks to provide tangible examples of how the funding sought through this bill will affect Canadians’ lives in a positive way. This includes strengthening our health care system, making housing more available and affordable and advancing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

I hope you will join me in supporting this legislation. Thank you.

Hon. Elizabeth Marshall: Honourable senators, before I start, I’d like to tell my colleagues that I’m going to be brief in my speech. I think people are getting tired.

I want to start by thanking Senator LaBoucane-Benson for her comments on Bill C-55. As the critic of the bill, I have a few other comments.

This bill is requesting parliamentary approval of $20 billion in voted expenditures. When we think about billions of dollars, I think we’re getting used to the big numbers, but it’s $20 billion in voted authorities for 26 government departments and agencies. The bill itself is supported by the Supplementary Estimates (A) document, which provides some limited information on what the money will be used for.

This request for $20 billion is significantly higher than the $8.8 billion requested in last year’s Supplementary Estimates (A). Of the $20 billion requested in this bill, $4.4 billion is for Budget 2023 initiatives — my colleague outlined what they are, so I won’t repeat that — and $1 billion is for Budget 2022 initiatives.

This bill is the third appropriation act for this year. We often refer to appropriation acts as “supply bills” because they effectively supply the government with money to operate and carry out government programs.

The first appropriation act for this year was for interim supply, which approved about 40% of the money identified in the Main Estimates. This provided the government with money to operate until the end of June. This first appropriation act, Bill C-44, was enacted on March 30 of this year. Now we have just debated the second appropriation act for this year, Bill C-54, with the remainder of the Main Estimates. Once it receives Royal Assent, the government will have the authority to spend $108.7 billion.

Since the first two appropriation acts have already provided the government with the authority to spend $198 billion, this appropriation act for $20 billion will increase the spending authority to $218 billion. However, as I have indicated many times previously — they say you have to repeat something eight times before people really get it — the $218 billion requested in the first three appropriation acts does not include all of the government’s spending. The government also has the authority under numerous other acts to spend, and we refer to these amounts as “statutory expenditures.” Statutory expenditures for this year are currently estimated to be $236 billion, which is in addition to the $218 billion that will be approved by the appropriation acts. There is also authority for the Employment Insurance benefits, estimated at $24 billion, and the Canada Child Benefit, which is another $25 billion. When you add up all these amounts, the government’s estimate of what it will spend this year amounts to $490 billion.

Last year in Supplementary Estimates (A), the government estimated that it would spend $452 billion during the entire year, but it actually spent more than the $452 billion it estimated. It spent $470 billion. This year in Supplementary Estimates (A), the government estimates it will spend $490 billion during the entire year. However, we are only three months into the year, and as each financial document is released, the numbers go in one direction — up — so I expect that expenses will exceed $500 billion this year — or a staggering half a trillion dollars.

I will now talk about a couple of the departments requesting funding. The first is the Department of Indigenous Services. Of the $20 billion requested in this bill, the Department of Indigenous Services is requesting $4.8 billion, of which $4.4 billion will support a final settlement agreement related to the First Nations Child and Family Services program and Jordan’s Principle. It will also support the continued delivery of immediate measures required by the tribunal orders and items agreed to as part of the Agreement-in-Principle on Long-Term Reform of the program and Jordan’s Principle.

Honourable senators may recall that I have spoken many times on this recent agreement between the federal government, the Assembly of First Nations and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society to compensate the estimated 300,000 Indigenous children and their families for not being properly funded under child welfare services on reserves. Funding under this agreement is estimated at $23 billion. In addition, child and family services provided by the department are open-ended as the cost and extent of services are dependent on need. Based on the information provided in the Supplementary Estimates (A) document, it appears additional funding is being requested for this program.

Of the $20 billion being requested in this bill, $8 billion is being requested by the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. Of that, $4 billion is to be used to implement “the expedited resolution strategy for agricultural benefit claims” relating to Treaties 4, 5, 6, and 10.

Another $2.5 billion of the $8 billion being requested is for the settlement of specific claims. Specific claims settlements and tribunal awards, valued at up to $150 million, are paid from the Specific Claims Settlement Fund. The $2.5 billion requested in this bill will be used to replenish the fund based on anticipated payments for negotiated settlements and tribunal awards.

The department is also requesting $825 million for out-of-court settlements to ensure that the department is in a position to quickly implement negotiated settlements should agreements be reached.

In reviewing funding requests from the department, there are numerous requests for funding for claims, agreements and treaties, which departmental officials say are maintained in a database for tracking. In terms of claims alone — and I’ve said this before — officials estimate there are 500 of these, which makes it very difficult for us to provide oversight.

Our Finance Committee will continue its review of funding for claims agreements and treaties in the fall.

Of the $20 billion being requested in this bill, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is requesting $996 million for the Housing Accelerator Fund. The Housing Accelerator Fund was established by Budget 2022, which indicated that more housing needs to be built and changes are therefore required to the systems that are preventing the building of more housing. The government’s objective is to incentivize the cities and towns that are stepping up to get more housing built while also ensuring that municipalities can get the support they need to modernize and build new homes.

Budget 2022 provided $4 billion over five years for the Housing Accelerator Fund, and it was supposed to start last year. The fund is supposed to create 100,000 net new housing units over the next five years. The focus will be on increasing supply, including a needed increase to the supply of affordable housing.

Last year’s budget allocated $150 million to the fund and $925 million this year. There is no explanation as to why the fund was not launched last year, as indicated in last year’s budget. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s website, the fund will be launched this summer.

As I have indicated many times, statutory expenditures are expenditures that are not included in an appropriation act. Rather, such expenditures are approved by other acts or statutes, hence the term “statutory expenditures.”

Supplementary Estimates (A) provide updated forecasts of the statutory expenditures of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, the largest increase being $790 million for the AgriInsurance Program. Senator LaBoucane-Benson also mentioned that, so I won’t repeat what she said.

The forecasted statutory expenditures of the Old Age Security program have been decreased by $568 million, from $58 billion to $57.5 billion, based upon updated forecasts of the average monthly rate, the number of beneficiaries and benefit repayment amounts.

Finally, the Department of Finance has increased the statutory expenditures of the estimated interest on unmatured debt by $737 million, which will bring it to $33.6 billion. However, I expect further increases will be included in Supplementary Estimates (B) and (C), since Budget 2023 forecast $4.3 billion for public debt charges this year. However, the Bank of Canada recently increased its benchmark interest rate to 4.75% and may increase rates again this year.

The government expects to borrow an additional $63 billion this year, and, as I have just indicated, it estimated debt-servicing costs to be $43.9 billion this year. However, with the increase by the Bank of Canada of its benchmark interest rate, that $43.9 billion is now expected to increase. But the government has not disclosed a new estimate of public debt charges.

In the area of personnel, Bill C-55 includes $708 million for personnel spending, which will increase the total amount to date for personnel spending this year to $54 billion. It is estimated that personnel spending in 2022-23 will be about $68 billion. When the public accounts for last year are released in the fall, we will have a more accurate number. To put it into perspective, personnel spending in 2016-17 was $40 billion, so the increase in personnel spending from $40 billion over a period of six years to $68 billion last year is 70%.

Over the same six-year period, the federal public service increased from 335,000 full-time equivalents to 413,000 full-time equivalents. In 2022-23, the number of full-time equivalents is expected to be at 428,000.

Honourable senators, this bill, Bill C-55, and its supporting document, the Supplementary Estimates (A), provide a snapshot of planned government spending at this point in time and for this fiscal year. But we really need to think about the bills we’re debating here today. We’re debating the Main Estimates, Bill C-54, Supplementary Estimates (A), Bill C-55 and the budget bill. So in one day, we’re debating three spending bills.

First, the government likes to spend, so that’s one explanation. However, I have spoken about this many times, but I didn’t include it today: There is something wrong with the processes in the government for putting forward their requests for spending. We see today that we have a request for the Main Estimates, we have a request for Supplementary Estimates (A) and a request for the budget bill. It demonstrates that there must surely be a better way to put all this financial information together rather than doing it in bits and pieces, as it is being done.

Additionally, new financial documents are expected in the fall, when we return. Specifically, we’ll be getting Supplementary Estimates (B), then we’ll get more spending in the fall fiscal update, and then we’ll get the public accounts for last year. We’ll be waiting a while for that. Then, interspersed among all of those, I am sure there will be other bills to approve more spending.

So we will continue our review of government spending, but I would really encourage the government to take a look at revising the estimates and their spending processes.

In closing, I would like to thank my committee colleagues again for their work and support: our committee chair, Senator Mockler; our deputy chair, Senator Forest; our committee clerk and analysts and the many staff who ensure our meetings run smoothly and are productive.

I thank my Senate colleagues for listening to this presentation. Thank you.

The Hon. the Speaker: Those in favour of the motion will please say “yea.”

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this bill be read the third time?

The Hon. the Speaker: Those in favour of the motion will please say “yea.”

The Hon. the Speaker: Those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

The Hon. the Speaker: I see two senators rising. Is there advice on the length of the bell?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, let me see if I can spend the next 30 or 35 minutes convincing you to vote the right way on Bill C-47 — we haven’t had too much success today. I have been encouraged by members opposite to see if I can finish before six o’clock. I think we should get pretty close.

It’s a dark day, colleagues.

It was March 22, 2016, when then-Finance Minister Morneau stood up in the House of Commons to deliver the first Liberal budget under Justin Trudeau’s government. With the 269‑page budget document on his desk entitled “Growing the Middle Class,” the Minister of Finance proudly announced the following:

Today, we begin to restore hope for the middle class. Today, we begin to revitalize the economy. Today, we begin a long‑term plan that will use smart investments and an unwavering belief that progress is possible to ensure that Canada’s best days lie ahead.

That first budget was followed by a second in 2017. This was Canada’s one-hundred-fiftieth birthday, and the Liberals were giddy with excitement — not yet realizing that their fantasy of restoring prosperity by running a series of deficits of $10 billion a year was nothing more than a pipe dream. The 2017 budget, colleagues, was entitled “Building a Strong Middle Class.” And once again, Minister Morneau stood up in the House of Commons and boldly declared that his government had:

. . . put together a plan to ensure that, in a changing world, Canada’s middle class and those working hard to join it can — and will — succeed.

This charade would continue with the 2018 budget which was called “Equality and Growth for a Strong Middle Class.” Then again in 2019 with a budget entitled “Investing in the Middle Class.” For Budget 2021, it was “A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience.” Budget 2022 was “A Plan to Grow Our Economy and Make Life More Affordable.” And before us today, we have a budget implementation bill for Budget 2023 entitled “A Made-in-Canada Plan: Strong Middle Class, Affordable Economy, Healthy Future.”

Colleagues, this government reminds me of — and I have used this analogy in the chamber before, and many of us are old enough to remember — the old record players when you put the needle down and they start scratching and skipping. Now, “skipping” might be the wrong word, because they actually became stuck in the same spot, going around and around, repeating the same line over and over again until you either threw something at the record player or you got up and fixed it.

This is where we are today, colleagues: The needle is skipping. And while the Prime Minister’s mouth never stops moving, the message no longer makes any sense. Colleagues, the truth of the matter is that there are certainly people who have done well under this Liberal government, but the middle class is not among them.

After eight years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, everything feels broken: Inflation is crippling the middle and lower class; groceries are becoming unaffordable for more and more Canadians; the levels of indebtedness of the federal government and individual Canadians are unprecedented; interest rates keep rising; housing prices, be it for a house or an apartment, have become unaffordable. The federal public service has never been bigger and has never been as ineffective.

I am sure that a majority of senators think that I am exaggerating — I wish I was — but the facts tell a different story, colleagues. For those of you who still think that things are rosy in Justin Trudeau’s Canada, let me give you a few of those facts.

Let’s talk about inflation. On March 28, the government’s Budget 2023 press release trumpeted that they were “Making Life More Affordable.” This, my friends, is what it looks like to live in a fantasy land. Perhaps life is more affordable for Justin Trudeau and his elite friends, but that is not the experience of ordinary Canadians. By every objective measure, the Liberal war on work is making life more expensive for hard-working Canadians. Under Justin Trudeau, the inflation rate in Canada has reached levels not seen in 40 years.

The last time it was this bad, colleagues, was when there was a different Trudeau managing the finances of the country — imagine that. This is especially true for groceries. The price increases were supposed to be temporary, but not only are they not coming down, they keep going up.

The Angus Reid Institute noted just a couple of weeks ago that more than half of British Columbians are struggling to make ends meet due to inflation. Angus Reid Institute President Shachi Kurl told Global News on June 5 that:

. . . 53 per cent of them say they are either struggling or uncomfortable in terms of their ability to meet their daily costs . . . .

Canada’s Food Price Report 2023 is telling consumers to expect those prices to continue to rise this year with the most substantial increases expected in vegetables, dairy and meat. The report is predicting that an average family of four will spend up to $16,288 on food this year, an increase of over $1,000 from last year.

In case you are not familiar with the annual Canada’s Food Price Report, I would point out that it is not some creation of Conservative Party opposition research. It is an annual collaboration between research partners Dalhousie University, the University of Guelph, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of British Columbia — hardly bastions of Conservatives at those universities.

This research team uses historical data sources, machine learning algorithms and predictive analytics tools developed over many years to make predictions about Canadian food prices. In other words, don’t dismiss their findings when they say prices are going up and that, “We haven’t seen food prices increase this high in Canada for over 40 years . . . .”

Honourable senators, we see the reality of the impact of rising food prices when we hear that 1.5 million Canadians are resorting to food banks, and one in five people are skipping meals because they simply cannot afford the cost of food.

During the COVID crisis, Pierre Poilievre kept reminding the government that you cannot inject hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy and not have inflation as a consequence. Trudeau and his ministers answered that there would be no inflation. Some of their supporters were even warning us against deflation. The fact is — although it pains them to admit it — Pierre Poilievre was right, and the Liberals and those so-called experts were wrong.

When the inflation rate reached the current historic levels, the Liberals told us that we had to blame world inflation and problems in supply chains. As usual, when something goes wrong in Canada, Liberals are telling us that it is not their fault. They are only bystanders in Ottawa. Well, the truth is out. The large part of inflation in Canada is due to the spending by the Trudeau government and the reckless deficits.

John Cochrane and Jon Hartley from Stanford University said:

The most important source of Canada’s inflation is simple: Starting in 2020, the government borrowed more than $700‑billion, and mostly handed it out. People spent it, driving up prices.

Before tabling the budget, Chrystia Freeland admitted that Liberal deficits were causing inflation. She said that the goal of her budget, however, was, “. . . not to pour fuel on the fire of inflation.” She told us she would exercise fiscal restraint, but then the Liberals dumped another $60 billion of additional fuel on the fire.

John Manley, a former Liberal finance minister, said that Trudeau’s fiscal policy is making it harder to contain inflation. Manley described it as:

. . . a bit like driving your car with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake generally, especially if there’s slushy conditions under your tires . . . .

But the worst news is that this inflation may be here for a long time. The Bank of Canada indicated this month that the momentum in demand had increased the odds that inflation could get stuck above 2%, and noted that the neutral rate of interest may be higher than was previously believed.

Honourable senators, we were told that inflation was not supposed to happen. When it happened, it was supposed to be for just a short while. Now we know it is not only here, but it is here for a long time. Justin Trudeau and his government do not have any answers. They are just making the problem worse, which brings me to the issue of the debt.

Since 2015, the Trudeau Liberals have spent at least $500 billion that they don’t have. The Prime Minister promised modest and temporary deficits in 2015, saying that budgets balance themselves. I can’t say he lied — no, I’ll say he lied. Canada’s federal debt for the 2023-24 fiscal year is projected to reach $1.22 trillion. That is nearly $81,000 per household.

Justin Trudeau has added more debt than all other prime ministers combined and still has no plan to balance the budget. He and Minister Freeland have been asked hundreds of times: When will we have a balanced budget? They have no clue. Interest charges on the national debt will cost $43.9 billion this year. It represents a $19.5 billion increase from the pre-pandemic rate of $24.4 billion, an 80% increase.

During the COVID crisis, Justin Trudeau told us that the federal government was borrowing all that money so that ordinary Canadians did not have to. Well, first of all, when the federal government borrows money, it is ordinary Canadians who are borrowing it.

Earlier this month, the rating credit agency TransUnion reported that the combined debt of Canadian individuals has reached a new record: $2,320 billion. Canadian households are now more in debt than those in any other G7 country at 185% of disposable income, and the amount they owe is now more than the value of the country’s entire economy.

The International Monetary Fund issued a warning a few weeks ago: Canada runs the highest risk of mortgage defaults among advanced economies. According to Equifax, Canadians’ credit card spending was found to be 21.5% higher than the levels before the pandemic. Equifax wrote:

In Q1, 175,000 more consumers missed payments on at least one non-mortgage product, representing an 18.8 per cent increase from the first quarter of 2022.

Twenty-seven per cent of Canadians have said that they have had to borrow money from friends or relatives, take on additional debt or use credit cards to meet day-to-day expenses. Numbers from Statistics Canada show that insolvencies are up almost 20% over the last fiscal year, and to make matters worse, a report by RBC notes that these insolvencies could rise by nearly 30% over the next few years.

A couple of weeks ago, Angus Reid found 68% of Canadians say their debt is a source of stress for them, while among mortgage holders, 81% report debt as a source of stress. The poll shows almost 50% say they are in worse shape financially than they were last June — and that was before the latest rate hike. These levels of indebtedness are particularly scary when you see interest rising. In fact, 57% of Canadians said that if interest rates go up, they will be in financial trouble.

On June 7, the Bank of Canada raised its benchmark interest rate to 4.75% — the highest it’s been since May 2001 — making everything from mortgages to credit lines more expensive

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said that the increase in interest rates would see “a lot of people struggling” to pay their mortgages. She said the following:

There are a lot of anxious Canadians right now who will be concerned when they see this step taken by the Bank of Canada. This is entirely understandable. I absolutely understand that anxiety.

Variable rate borrowers will feel the pain first.

A homeowner who put 10% down on a $716,083 home — the average price in Canada in April — with a five-year variable rate of 5.55% amortized over 25 years, will pay $98 more per month, or $1,176 per year, on their mortgage payments after the latest 25-basis-point rate increase.

It’s no wonder that 64% of Canadians say higher interest rates are having a negative, or somewhat negative, impact on their personal spending, according to a Nanos Research survey done this month.

Honourable senators, it is not only mortgage holders, or other people with debt, who will suffer from the increase in interest rates; all taxpayers will.

As I said earlier, the federal government debt servicing charges for the current fiscal year is estimated to be $43.9 billion. That is money which is no longer available for priorities, such as helping more Canadians, as well as properly funding our health care system or our Canadian Armed Forces.

With $1.2 trillion of debt, any increase of 25 basis points in the interest rate on the government borrowing means a $3-billion increase in debt servicing costs.

After eight years of Justin Trudeau, we are looking at the potential of a large credit crisis if rates do not come down soon or, worse, keep climbing. And what is Trudeau’s government doing? They are doing nothing.

On the contrary, they are pouring gas on the fire with increased spending. A report from the CIBC released this month put it clearly:

Reining in government spending could take some of the pressure off the Bank of Canada in tamping down inflation and help limit pain for debt-ridden Canadians.

Speaking of a problem that the Trudeau policies are making worse, let me focus on housing.

Since Justin Trudeau promised to make life more affordable for the middle class in 2015, housing costs have doubled in Canada.

Colleagues, look at these numbers under Justin Trudeau: The down payment needed to buy a house has doubled from $22,000 to $45,000; mortgage payments for a new house have more than doubled from $1,400 a month to $3,100 a month; and rent in Canada has doubled from $1,172 to $2,153 for a two-bedroom apartment — and it has more than doubled in many of Canada’s largest cities.

In 2015, Canadians spent 39% of their paycheque on their monthly housing payments. Under Justin Trudeau, this has risen to 62%.

In June 2023, before the latest interest rate increase, Angus Reid Institute found that 54% of renters and 45% of mortgage holders were finding their monthly payment for housing tough or very difficult to manage.

These prices are taking whole swaths of the Canadian population out of the market for a house.

A recently published report from the mortgage rate comparison site Ratehub.ca suggests that those hoping to buy an average home in Vancouver need to earn about $231,950 a year just to meet the requirements to obtain a mortgage. That calculation includes the average home price in the Vancouver area of $1.2 million.

Terrible housing affordability is forcing adults aged 34 and younger to flee the cities in which they grew up, according to a report from Desjardins from May 2023. Younger Canadians are also putting off marriage and waiting longer to have children, according to the report.

Trudeau’s National Housing Strategy financed the construction of 106,000 homes since 2019. Yet, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, there is an estimated shortage of 400,000 homes per year, and builders are not meeting the demand.

In May 2022, the CMHC identified supply as “the biggest issue affecting housing affordability” in Canada, and that new housing starts have struggled to keep up with population growth in some of Canada’s large cities. To restore affordability, Canada will need an additional 3.5 million units by 2030 beyond those already in the works.

“Canada’s approach to housing supply needs to be rethought and done differently,” according to the CMHC’s deputy chief economist.

A June 2023 report from RBC Capital Markets included this ominous warning: “. . . fixing housing affordability, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver, is likely past the point of no return . . . .”

And yet, colleagues, in the middle of this crisis, the CMHC website opens with this statement: “. . . we are driven by one goal: housing affordability for all.”

You may as well change that headline to this: “We are totally and utterly failing under this Liberal government.”

It would be funny if this situation was not so dire. You would think the Trudeau Liberals would be putting pressure on the CMHC, and that heads would roll.

But don’t worry, colleagues; that is not the case. It is business as usual at the CMHC, with the top brass all receiving their performance bonuses, even if there is no performance. Again, the minister does nothing.

This statement from May 19, 2023, says it all:

Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen said builders need to construct more homes but did not introduce any new proposals to address the housing supply issue.

Again, the Liberals act like they are helpless witnesses of their own train wreck.

Speaking of train wrecks, it is the whole federal apparatus that is now dysfunctional after eight years of Justin Trudeau.

This is from The Globe and Mail on March 24:

Under the federal Liberal government, the size of the core public service has grown, and grown, over the past eight years. At the same time, it is increasing its reliance on contractors.

There is no single area with a bigger impact on spending: Personnel expenses consume half of Ottawa’s operating budget. And yet there has been little effort made to demonstrate whether this has improved program effectiveness.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that federal spending on personnel increased by almost 31% between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 fiscal years. The public service expanded by the equivalent of 31,227 full-time employees between April 2020 and March 2022.

I agree with Senator Gignac when he said — in his speech on Tuesday — that the increase in the number of employees in the federal bureaucracy and, more importantly, the increase in cost are both alarming.

Under Justin Trudeau, growth of the federal public service has outpaced that of local and provincial governments. Provincial governments have grown in part because of the need to hire more workers to relieve the pressure on long-term care and health care systems across the country, exacerbated by the pandemic. Ottawa can’t say the same thing, as it does not deliver those critical services.

If that’s not enough, the federal government’s reliance on contractors has also grown from $12.9 billion in fiscal years 2017-18 to a projected $21.4 billion this fiscal year. There is no plan to reduce the number of employees or the number of contractors.

Under the Trudeau Liberals, the federal government has grown exponentially. If Canadians could get top-notch service, that might be acceptable, but Canadians have been seeing a constant deterioration in the level of service from the federal bureaucracy. So more money is being spent for a lower quality of service. This is what Canadians have after eight long years of Justin Trudeau. No wonder everything feels broken — it is broken.

The truth is that we’ve barely begun to list everything. We could also add to Justin Trudeau’s legacy a 32% increase in violent crime; an opioid crisis that kills 22 people every day; a health system that is in shambles; an Armed Forces that can no longer fulfill its mandate; a Canada that is no longer relevant internationally; an Access to Information system that “. . . has steadily eroded to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose” according to the information commissioner; an outdated and seemingly impossible to reform Employment Insurance system; a record number of homeless people in all Canadian cities; an international aid system stuck in the 20th century; the incapacity to give basic services to veterans; several thousand Indigenous people who live in Third World conditions; an Immigration Department in shambles, not able to issue visas and permits in a timely manner and facing accusations of racism and discrimination; transport and other infrastructure that is crumbling; and a public safety apparatus in such a state that the public is anything but safe.

The incompetence of this government knows no bounds. We have come to a point where it is difficult to decide which member of the Trudeau government was the most incompetent this year — although you have to say that Marco Mendicino is doing his best to win the top prize. I could go on and on, and don’t get me started on all the scandals and the odour of corruption surrounding this government.

I know I have unlimited time here, but I’m afraid I would not even have enough time to cover them all.

The captain of this drifting ship is, of course, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who reached new heights of incompetence this year — or maybe it’s new lows. He can’t give a straight answer on anything, especially about Beijing’s interference — because he benefited. He’s giving Canadians a second carbon tax on Canada Day of all things when we have record food bank usage.

He hid behind President Biden’s visit to finally confess that it was him who stayed in the $6,000-a-night hotel room in London last fall. And we learned yesterday that he and his entourage charged over $61,000 just for hotel rooms to attend — get this — an anti-poverty summit. The phrase “Let them eat cake” comes to mind.

In February, the former ethics commissioner said the entire Trudeau cabinet needs ethics training. One hopes the Prime Minister took him up on that so that Canadians are not going to suffer through more of this behaviour this fall.

With a record like that, it is no wonder why 80% of Canadians want a new government. And with Canada in such a dire situation, you would have thought that the government would come up with a serious budget to address the problems we are facing.

This is what Minister Freeland said on March 8, just before tabling the budget:

I am very conscious that we’re putting together this budget at a time of meaningful fiscal constraint and that fiscal constraint is exacerbated by the fact that the Canadian economy is slowing.

Did the Liberals come up with a budget and a budget implementation act that will address all those challenges? Of course, they didn’t. They went for the easy little measures, the gimmicks, like a “grocery rebate” that is not a rebate and has nothing to do with groceries.

In Justin Trudeau’s Canada, it is not the Department of Finance that leads the preparation of the budget. It is the communications department of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Do you think I’m exaggerating? Former federal finance minister Bill Morneau himself said that Justin Trudeau and his top advisors in his office favour scoring political points over policy rationales, leading to him feeling like a rubber stamp — similar to what we feel here many days with this government.

Let me quote from Mr. Morneau in his latest book:

My job of providing counsel and direction where fiscal matters were concerned had deteriorated into serving as something between a figurehead and a rubber stamp.

This is the former finance minister.

I would be curious to have an exit interview with Michael Sabia, the departed deputy minister of finance. I have no doubt that the urge he felt to go back to Montreal was fuelled by the fact that Justin Trudeau and Katie Telford are focused on managing the message instead of managing the country.

Because the communications department of the Prime Minister’s Office could not come up with the right slogan following their focus groups, the budget implementation act contains nothing concrete about how the government plans to manage the economy. What is the plan on inflation? When is the budget going to be balanced? When will the obese public sector go on a diet? How do you address the challenges Canadians face? Justin Trudeau and company have no clue.

Budgets are about deciding where to spend and, just as important, colleagues, where not to spend. The biggest fiscal failure of the Trudeau Liberals has been their insistence on ignoring this basic tenet of sound finance and, instead, layering new spending on old each year, while blithely ignoring the mounting pressure of the national debt. Instead of addressing the very real challenges facing Canadians today, this government insists on making them worse with this budget implementation act.

I will not go into the details of Bill C-47. Several senators have outlined the flaws of this bill — why it will not only do nothing to solve the problems we face but only make them worse. Let me, however, highlight some issues this bill and the overall fiscal policy of the Trudeau Government raise.

As I said, the Trudeau Liberals are adding over $60 billion in new spending, which translates to a staggering $4,200 per family. This means more inflation, more taxes and higher costs for hard-working Canadians who are already struggling to make ends meet.

The federal government’s spending spree has been nothing short of alarming. From fiscal year 2019-20 to 2020-21, federal spending skyrocketed by a staggering 73%, ballooning from $363 billion to a mind-boggling $639 billion.

If this had just been a one-off due to the pandemic, perhaps we could rest easier at night, but this was by a government that was already addicted to overspending. Before you excuse this government’s track record of burning through taxpayers’ dollars because of the pandemic, you should consider that there is no COVID spending in this year’s budget and yet the federal government’s spending is still 37% higher compared to pre‑pandemic levels. This works out to an average annual increase in spending of about 12%, which is simply unsustainable.

However, it doesn’t stop there. In fact, this government has no plan to get spending under control. Spending is expected to reach $556 billion by 2027-28 — almost back to COVID spending levels, but without the COVID. God forbid we should see another pandemic.

To make matters worse, this uncontrolled surge in spending has been funded by deficits, leading to a dramatic increase in federal net debt from $813 billion in 2019-20 to a staggering $1.3 trillion by 2022-23.

By 2027-28, Ottawa’s debt is anticipated to surpass $1.4 trillion. Thank God we have an election coming before then, and Pierre Poilievre and company will do their best to bring this back into reason.

An Hon. Senator: Now.

Motion agreed to and bill read third time and passed on the following division:

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Loffreda, seconded by the Honourable Senator Gold, P.C., for the third reading of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023.

The Hon. the Speaker: Those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

The Hon. the Speaker: I see two senators rising. Is there advice on the length of the bell?

The Hon. the Speaker: In my opinion, the “yeas” have it.

And two honourable senators having risen:

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, let me see if I can spend the next 30 or 35 minutes convincing you to vote the right way on Bill C-47 — we haven’t had too much success today. I have been encouraged by members opposite to see if I can finish before six o’clock. I think we should get pretty close.

It’s a dark day, colleagues.

It was March 22, 2016, when then-Finance Minister Morneau stood up in the House of Commons to deliver the first Liberal budget under Justin Trudeau’s government. With the 269-page budget document on his desk entitled “Growing the Middle Class,” the Minister of Finance proudly announced the following:

Today, we begin to restore hope for the middle class. Today, we begin to revitalize the economy. Today, we begin a long-term plan that will use smart investments and an unwavering belief that progress is possible to ensure that Canada’s best days lie ahead.

That first budget was followed by a second in 2017. This was Canada’s one-hundred-fiftieth birthday, and the Liberals were giddy with excitement — not yet realizing that their fantasy of restoring prosperity by running a series of deficits of $10 billion a year was nothing more than a pipe dream. The 2017 budget, colleagues, was entitled “Building a Strong Middle Class.” And once again, Minister Morneau stood up in the House of Commons and boldly declared that his government had:

. . . put together a plan to ensure that, in a changing world, Canada’s middle class and those working hard to join it can — and will — succeed.

This charade would continue with the 2018 budget which was called “Equality and Growth for a Strong Middle Class.” Then again in 2019 with a budget entitled “Investing in the Middle Class.” For Budget 2021, it was “A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience.” Budget 2022 was “A Plan to Grow Our Economy and Make Life More Affordable.” And before us today, we have a budget implementation bill for Budget 2023 entitled “A Made-in-Canada Plan: Strong Middle Class, Affordable Economy, Healthy Future.”

Colleagues, this government reminds me of — and I have used this analogy in the chamber before, and many of us are old enough to remember — the old record players when you put the needle down and they start scratching and skipping. Now, “skipping” might be the wrong word, because they actually became stuck in the same spot, going around and around, repeating the same line over and over again until you either threw something at the record player or you got up and fixed it.

This is where we are today, colleagues: The needle is skipping. And while the Prime Minister’s mouth never stops moving, the message no longer makes any sense. Colleagues, the truth of the matter is that there are certainly people who have done well under this Liberal government, but the middle class is not among them.

After eight years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, everything feels broken: Inflation is crippling the middle and lower class; groceries are becoming unaffordable for more and more Canadians; the levels of indebtedness of the federal government and individual Canadians are unprecedented; interest rates keep rising; housing prices, be it for a house or an apartment, have become unaffordable. The federal public service has never been bigger and has never been as ineffective.

I am sure that a majority of senators think that I am exaggerating — I wish I was — but the facts tell a different story, colleagues. For those of you who still think that things are rosy in Justin Trudeau’s Canada, let me give you a few of those facts.

Let’s talk about inflation. On March 28, the government’s Budget 2023 press release trumpeted that they were “Making Life More Affordable.” This, my friends, is what it looks like to live in a fantasy land. Perhaps life is more affordable for Justin Trudeau and his elite friends, but that is not the experience of ordinary Canadians. By every objective measure, the Liberal war on work is making life more expensive for hard-working Canadians. Under Justin Trudeau, the inflation rate in Canada has reached levels not seen in 40 years.

The last time it was this bad, colleagues, was when there was a different Trudeau managing the finances of the country — imagine that. This is especially true for groceries. The price increases were supposed to be temporary, but not only are they not coming down, they keep going up.

The Angus Reid Institute noted just a couple of weeks ago that more than half of British Columbians are struggling to make ends meet due to inflation. Angus Reid Institute President Shachi Kurl told Global News on June 5 that:

. . . 53 per cent of them say they are either struggling or uncomfortable in terms of their ability to meet their daily costs . . . .

Canada’s Food Price Report 2023 is telling consumers to expect those prices to continue to rise this year with the most substantial increases expected in vegetables, dairy and meat. The report is predicting that an average family of four will spend up to $16,288 on food this year, an increase of over $1,000 from last year.

In case you are not familiar with the annual Canada’s Food Price Report, I would point out that it is not some creation of Conservative Party opposition research. It is an annual collaboration between research partners Dalhousie University, the University of Guelph, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of British Columbia — hardly bastions of Conservatives at those universities.

This research team uses historical data sources, machine learning algorithms and predictive analytics tools developed over many years to make predictions about Canadian food prices. In other words, don’t dismiss their findings when they say prices are going up and that, “We haven’t seen food prices increase this high in Canada for over 40 years . . . .”

Honourable senators, we see the reality of the impact of rising food prices when we hear that 1.5 million Canadians are resorting to food banks, and one in five people are skipping meals because they simply cannot afford the cost of food.

During the COVID crisis, Pierre Poilievre kept reminding the government that you cannot inject hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy and not have inflation as a consequence. Trudeau and his ministers answered that there would be no inflation. Some of their supporters were even warning us against deflation. The fact is — although it pains them to admit it — Pierre Poilievre was right, and the Liberals and those so-called experts were wrong.

When the inflation rate reached the current historic levels, the Liberals told us that we had to blame world inflation and problems in supply chains. As usual, when something goes wrong in Canada, Liberals are telling us that it is not their fault. They are only bystanders in Ottawa. Well, the truth is out. The large part of inflation in Canada is due to the spending by the Trudeau government and the reckless deficits.

John Cochrane and Jon Hartley from Stanford University said:

The most important source of Canada’s inflation is simple: Starting in 2020, the government borrowed more than $700-billion, and mostly handed it out. People spent it, driving up prices.

Before tabling the budget, Chrystia Freeland admitted that Liberal deficits were causing inflation. She said that the goal of her budget, however, was, “. . . not to pour fuel on the fire of inflation.” She told us she would exercise fiscal restraint, but then the Liberals dumped another $60 billion of additional fuel on the fire.

John Manley, a former Liberal finance minister, said that Trudeau’s fiscal policy is making it harder to contain inflation. Manley described it as:

. . . a bit like driving your car with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake generally, especially if there’s slushy conditions under your tires . . . .

But the worst news is that this inflation may be here for a long time. The Bank of Canada indicated this month that the momentum in demand had increased the odds that inflation could get stuck above 2%, and noted that the neutral rate of interest may be higher than was previously believed.

Honourable senators, we were told that inflation was not supposed to happen. When it happened, it was supposed to be for just a short while. Now we know it is not only here, but it is here for a long time. Justin Trudeau and his government do not have any answers. They are just making the problem worse, which brings me to the issue of the debt.

Since 2015, the Trudeau Liberals have spent at least $500 billion that they don’t have. The Prime Minister promised modest and temporary deficits in 2015, saying that budgets balance themselves. I can’t say he lied — no, I’ll say he lied. Canada’s federal debt for the 2023-24 fiscal year is projected to reach $1.22 trillion. That is nearly $81,000 per household.

Justin Trudeau has added more debt than all other prime ministers combined and still has no plan to balance the budget. He and Minister Freeland have been asked hundreds of times: When will we have a balanced budget? They have no clue. Interest charges on the national debt will cost $43.9 billion this year. It represents a $19.5 billion increase from the pre-pandemic rate of $24.4 billion, an 80% increase.

During the COVID crisis, Justin Trudeau told us that the federal government was borrowing all that money so that ordinary Canadians did not have to. Well, first of all, when the federal government borrows money, it is ordinary Canadians who are borrowing it.

Earlier this month, the rating credit agency TransUnion reported that the combined debt of Canadian individuals has reached a new record: $2,320 billion. Canadian households are now more in debt than those in any other G7 country at 185% of disposable income, and the amount they owe is now more than the value of the country’s entire economy.

The International Monetary Fund issued a warning a few weeks ago: Canada runs the highest risk of mortgage defaults among advanced economies. According to Equifax, Canadians’ credit card spending was found to be 21.5% higher than the levels before the pandemic. Equifax wrote:

In Q1, 175,000 more consumers missed payments on at least one non-mortgage product, representing an 18.8 per cent increase from the first quarter of 2022.

Twenty-seven per cent of Canadians have said that they have had to borrow money from friends or relatives, take on additional debt or use credit cards to meet day-to-day expenses. Numbers from Statistics Canada show that insolvencies are up almost 20% over the last fiscal year, and to make matters worse, a report by RBC notes that these insolvencies could rise by nearly 30% over the next few years.

A couple of weeks ago, Angus Reid found 68% of Canadians say their debt is a source of stress for them, while among mortgage holders, 81% report debt as a source of stress. The poll shows almost 50% say they are in worse shape financially than they were last June — and that was before the latest rate hike. These levels of indebtedness are particularly scary when you see interest rising. In fact, 57% of Canadians said that if interest rates go up, they will be in financial trouble.

On June 7, the Bank of Canada raised its benchmark interest rate to 4.75% — the highest it’s been since May 2001 — making everything from mortgages to credit lines more expensive

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said that the increase in interest rates would see “a lot of people struggling” to pay their mortgages. She said the following:

There are a lot of anxious Canadians right now who will be concerned when they see this step taken by the Bank of Canada. This is entirely understandable. I absolutely understand that anxiety.

Variable rate borrowers will feel the pain first.

A homeowner who put 10% down on a $716,083 home — the average price in Canada in April — with a five-year variable rate of 5.55% amortized over 25 years, will pay $98 more per month, or $1,176 per year, on their mortgage payments after the latest 25-basis-point rate increase.

It’s no wonder that 64% of Canadians say higher interest rates are having a negative, or somewhat negative, impact on their personal spending, according to a Nanos Research survey done this month.

Honourable senators, it is not only mortgage holders, or other people with debt, who will suffer from the increase in interest rates; all taxpayers will.

As I said earlier, the federal government debt servicing charges for the current fiscal year is estimated to be $43.9 billion. That is money which is no longer available for priorities, such as helping more Canadians, as well as properly funding our health care system or our Canadian Armed Forces.

With $1.2 trillion of debt, any increase of 25 basis points in the interest rate on the government borrowing means a $3-billion increase in debt servicing costs.

After eight years of Justin Trudeau, we are looking at the potential of a large credit crisis if rates do not come down soon or, worse, keep climbing. And what is Trudeau’s government doing? They are doing nothing.

On the contrary, they are pouring gas on the fire with increased spending. A report from the CIBC released this month put it clearly:

Reining in government spending could take some of the pressure off the Bank of Canada in tamping down inflation and help limit pain for debt-ridden Canadians.

Speaking of a problem that the Trudeau policies are making worse, let me focus on housing.

Since Justin Trudeau promised to make life more affordable for the middle class in 2015, housing costs have doubled in Canada.

Colleagues, look at these numbers under Justin Trudeau: The down payment needed to buy a house has doubled from $22,000 to $45,000; mortgage payments for a new house have more than doubled from $1,400 a month to $3,100 a month; and rent in Canada has doubled from $1,172 to $2,153 for a two-bedroom apartment — and it has more than doubled in many of Canada’s largest cities.

In 2015, Canadians spent 39% of their paycheque on their monthly housing payments. Under Justin Trudeau, this has risen to 62%.

In June 2023, before the latest interest rate increase, Angus Reid Institute found that 54% of renters and 45% of mortgage holders were finding their monthly payment for housing tough or very difficult to manage.

These prices are taking whole swaths of the Canadian population out of the market for a house.

A recently published report from the mortgage rate comparison site Ratehub.ca suggests that those hoping to buy an average home in Vancouver need to earn about $231,950 a year just to meet the requirements to obtain a mortgage. That calculation includes the average home price in the Vancouver area of $1.2 million.

Terrible housing affordability is forcing adults aged 34 and younger to flee the cities in which they grew up, according to a report from Desjardins from May 2023. Younger Canadians are also putting off marriage and waiting longer to have children, according to the report.

Trudeau’s National Housing Strategy financed the construction of 106,000 homes since 2019. Yet, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, there is an estimated shortage of 400,000 homes per year, and builders are not meeting the demand.

In May 2022, the CMHC identified supply as “the biggest issue affecting housing affordability” in Canada, and that new housing starts have struggled to keep up with population growth in some of Canada’s large cities. To restore affordability, Canada will need an additional 3.5 million units by 2030 beyond those already in the works.

“Canada’s approach to housing supply needs to be rethought and done differently,” according to the CMHC’s deputy chief economist.

A June 2023 report from RBC Capital Markets included this ominous warning: “. . . fixing housing affordability, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver, is likely past the point of no return . . . .”

And yet, colleagues, in the middle of this crisis, the CMHC website opens with this statement: “. . . we are driven by one goal: housing affordability for all.”

You may as well change that headline to this: “We are totally and utterly failing under this Liberal government.”

It would be funny if this situation was not so dire. You would think the Trudeau Liberals would be putting pressure on the CMHC, and that heads would roll.

But don’t worry, colleagues; that is not the case. It is business as usual at the CMHC, with the top brass all receiving their performance bonuses, even if there is no performance. Again, the minister does nothing.

This statement from May 19, 2023, says it all:

Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen said builders need to construct more homes but did not introduce any new proposals to address the housing supply issue.

Again, the Liberals act like they are helpless witnesses of their own train wreck.

Speaking of train wrecks, it is the whole federal apparatus that is now dysfunctional after eight years of Justin Trudeau.

This is from The Globe and Mail on March 24:

Under the federal Liberal government, the size of the core public service has grown, and grown, over the past eight years. At the same time, it is increasing its reliance on contractors.

There is no single area with a bigger impact on spending: Personnel expenses consume half of Ottawa’s operating budget. And yet there has been little effort made to demonstrate whether this has improved program effectiveness.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that federal spending on personnel increased by almost 31% between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 fiscal years. The public service expanded by the equivalent of 31,227 full-time employees between April 2020 and March 2022.

I agree with Senator Gignac when he said — in his speech on Tuesday — that the increase in the number of employees in the federal bureaucracy and, more importantly, the increase in cost are both alarming.

Under Justin Trudeau, growth of the federal public service has outpaced that of local and provincial governments. Provincial governments have grown in part because of the need to hire more workers to relieve the pressure on long-term care and health care systems across the country, exacerbated by the pandemic. Ottawa can’t say the same thing, as it does not deliver those critical services.

If that’s not enough, the federal government’s reliance on contractors has also grown from $12.9 billion in fiscal years 2017-18 to a projected $21.4 billion this fiscal year. There is no plan to reduce the number of employees or the number of contractors.

Under the Trudeau Liberals, the federal government has grown exponentially. If Canadians could get top-notch service, that might be acceptable, but Canadians have been seeing a constant deterioration in the level of service from the federal bureaucracy. So more money is being spent for a lower quality of service. This is what Canadians have after eight long years of Justin Trudeau. No wonder everything feels broken — it is broken.

The truth is that we’ve barely begun to list everything. We could also add to Justin Trudeau’s legacy a 32% increase in violent crime; an opioid crisis that kills 22 people every day; a health system that is in shambles; an Armed Forces that can no longer fulfill its mandate; a Canada that is no longer relevant internationally; an Access to Information system that “. . . has steadily eroded to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose” according to the information commissioner; an outdated and seemingly impossible to reform Employment Insurance system; a record number of homeless people in all Canadian cities; an international aid system stuck in the 20th century; the incapacity to give basic services to veterans; several thousand Indigenous people who live in Third World conditions; an Immigration Department in shambles, not able to issue visas and permits in a timely manner and facing accusations of racism and discrimination; transport and other infrastructure that is crumbling; and a public safety apparatus in such a state that the public is anything but safe.

The incompetence of this government knows no bounds. We have come to a point where it is difficult to decide which member of the Trudeau government was the most incompetent this year — although you have to say that Marco Mendicino is doing his best to win the top prize. I could go on and on, and don’t get me started on all the scandals and the odour of corruption surrounding this government.

I know I have unlimited time here, but I’m afraid I would not even have enough time to cover them all.

The captain of this drifting ship is, of course, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who reached new heights of incompetence this year — or maybe it’s new lows. He can’t give a straight answer on anything, especially about Beijing’s interference — because he benefited. He’s giving Canadians a second carbon tax on Canada Day of all things when we have record food bank usage.

He hid behind President Biden’s visit to finally confess that it was him who stayed in the $6,000-a-night hotel room in London last fall. And we learned yesterday that he and his entourage charged over $61,000 just for hotel rooms to attend — get this — an anti-poverty summit. The phrase “Let them eat cake” comes to mind.

In February, the former ethics commissioner said the entire Trudeau cabinet needs ethics training. One hopes the Prime Minister took him up on that so that Canadians are not going to suffer through more of this behaviour this fall.

With a record like that, it is no wonder why 80% of Canadians want a new government. And with Canada in such a dire situation, you would have thought that the government would come up with a serious budget to address the problems we are facing.

This is what Minister Freeland said on March 8, just before tabling the budget:

I am very conscious that we’re putting together this budget at a time of meaningful fiscal constraint and that fiscal constraint is exacerbated by the fact that the Canadian economy is slowing.

Did the Liberals come up with a budget and a budget implementation act that will address all those challenges? Of course, they didn’t. They went for the easy little measures, the gimmicks, like a “grocery rebate” that is not a rebate and has nothing to do with groceries.

In Justin Trudeau’s Canada, it is not the Department of Finance that leads the preparation of the budget. It is the communications department of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Do you think I’m exaggerating? Former federal finance minister Bill Morneau himself said that Justin Trudeau and his top advisors in his office favour scoring political points over policy rationales, leading to him feeling like a rubber stamp — similar to what we feel here many days with this government.

Let me quote from Mr. Morneau in his latest book:

My job of providing counsel and direction where fiscal matters were concerned had deteriorated into serving as something between a figurehead and a rubber stamp.

This is the former finance minister.

I would be curious to have an exit interview with Michael Sabia, the departed deputy minister of finance. I have no doubt that the urge he felt to go back to Montreal was fuelled by the fact that Justin Trudeau and Katie Telford are focused on managing the message instead of managing the country.

Because the communications department of the Prime Minister’s Office could not come up with the right slogan following their focus groups, the budget implementation act contains nothing concrete about how the government plans to manage the economy. What is the plan on inflation? When is the budget going to be balanced? When will the obese public sector go on a diet? How do you address the challenges Canadians face? Justin Trudeau and company have no clue.

Budgets are about deciding where to spend and, just as important, colleagues, where not to spend. The biggest fiscal failure of the Trudeau Liberals has been their insistence on ignoring this basic tenet of sound finance and, instead, layering new spending on old each year, while blithely ignoring the mounting pressure of the national debt. Instead of addressing the very real challenges facing Canadians today, this government insists on making them worse with this budget implementation act.

I will not go into the details of Bill C-47. Several senators have outlined the flaws of this bill — why it will not only do nothing to solve the problems we face but only make them worse. Let me, however, highlight some issues this bill and the overall fiscal policy of the Trudeau Government raise.

As I said, the Trudeau Liberals are adding over $60 billion in new spending, which translates to a staggering $4,200 per family. This means more inflation, more taxes and higher costs for hard-working Canadians who are already struggling to make ends meet.

The federal government’s spending spree has been nothing short of alarming. From fiscal year 2019-20 to 2020-21, federal spending skyrocketed by a staggering 73%, ballooning from $363 billion to a mind-boggling $639 billion.

If this had just been a one-off due to the pandemic, perhaps we could rest easier at night, but this was by a government that was already addicted to overspending. Before you excuse this government’s track record of burning through taxpayers’ dollars because of the pandemic, you should consider that there is no COVID spending in this year’s budget and yet the federal government’s spending is still 37% higher compared to pre-pandemic levels. This works out to an average annual increase in spending of about 12%, which is simply unsustainable.

However, it doesn’t stop there. In fact, this government has no plan to get spending under control. Spending is expected to reach $556 billion by 2027-28 — almost back to COVID spending levels, but without the COVID. God forbid we should see another pandemic.

To make matters worse, this uncontrolled surge in spending has been funded by deficits, leading to a dramatic increase in federal net debt from $813 billion in 2019-20 to a staggering $1.3 trillion by 2022-23.

By 2027-28, Ottawa’s debt is anticipated to surpass $1.4 trillion. Thank God we have an election coming before then, and Pierre Poilievre and company will do their best to bring this back into reason.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this bill be read the third time?

An Hon. Senator: Hear, hear.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: The vote will take place at 5:59. Call in the senators.

Motion agreed to and bill read third time and passed on the following division:

Leave having been given to proceed to Other Business, Reports of Committees, Other, Order No. 50:

The Senate proceeded to consideration of the eighth report (interim) of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy, entitled Needed: An Innovation Strategy for the Data-Driven Economy, tabled in the Senate on June 15, 2023.

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: All those against the motion will please say “nay.”

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: All those in favour of the motion will please say “yea.”