44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 3, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/3/22 11:28:26 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
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- Feb/3/22 11:28:26 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
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- Feb/3/22 11:43:01 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his maiden speech. I hope we have a lot of opportunity in the future to hear him speak again and not be muzzled like the rest of his colleagues. A lot of the back-and-forth with my hon. colleague is good-natured, despite his rather dysfunctional relationship with the truth.
This is a serious and non-partisan question for my colleague. There is new spending in this bill. New spending is required to go through Treasury Board processes. The departmental results that came out yesterday show that one out of every four programs put forward by the government have not gone through the required Treasury Board processes.
Would he identify which in this bill is the 25% that has not gone through the required legitimate Treasury Board processes?
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- Feb/3/22 4:14:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his passionate speech. It is very important for Canadians to understand the effects of the Liberal carbon tax on our farmers and on our cost of food. One of the things that we have been arguing about for years is that the government will say it is a levy and, therefore, it is not a tax. However, if we look at the OECD guidelines, a forced charge is a tax. This is a tax and they charged the GST on the carbon levy.
The government will say it is okay, because it gives it all back in rebates. The public accounts, if anyone is interested in reading through them like I do, actually states that the government pocketed $136 million above what it actually returned to Canadians with its carbon tax. I would like my colleague to perhaps expand on what that is doing to farmers when we take that extra money out of their pockets.
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- Feb/3/22 4:44:15 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, my youngest son was born in the riding of my colleague for Parry Sound—Muskoka many years ago, and I always have fond memories of living there.
I am very pleased to join the debate on Bill C-8 today. Technically, it is called “An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update”, but it is also known as, “what is another $7 billion between friends or between the government and taxpayers' wallets”.
I am opposed to this bill, not necessarily item by item and bit by bit of the bill, but opposed to the out-of-control spending of the Liberals. It is part of the fiscal update the government introduced in December, which adds $71 billion of new spending: $71 billion of new debt, even before the Liberals' election promises are counted in.
As my colleague mentioned, the government has also put aside $100 billion in added stimulus. The PBO said that the government has reached its fiscal guardrails. It does not need to add that extra spending, yet here we have the government barrelling ahead. That $71 billion in new inflation spending is $71 billion that eventually will have to be paid back.
I want to put into perspective how much $71 billion is. The government brings in about $32 billion to $35 billion a year in GST. Just to cover the new spending the government added from its fiscal update in December, which covers Bill C-8, GST would have to go up to 16%. For Bill C-8 alone, all the GST in the country collected for three entire months would support just this small bit the government is adding, at 16%. Here in Ontario, HST would have to go to 24% just to cover this new Liberal spending, and in Saskatchewan it would go to 22%. In Alberta, we do not have the sales tax, thanks very much, but it still would be 16% GST just to cover this added spending.
My colleagues with the Conservative Party, the Bloc and the NDP, actually agree on something, and that is that the government should be increasing health care transfers to the provinces. According to the Public Accounts, there were something like $42 billion in health care transfers last year. The government could increase health care transfers 58% just with this new spending. It could increase health care transfers to the provinces by 16% just with the money spent in Bill C-8.
Regarding income taxes, we are already among the highest-taxed populations in the developed world. Income taxes would have to go up 41% just to cover the new Liberal spending from December. What could we do with that $71 billion instead? The government could actually fund 75 WE Charity scandals with that money.
We found that the government is great friends with SNC-Lavalin. The government gave the company $150 million for field hospitals. We asked the public works officials and the public works minister who had asked for these. They did not know.
Did the provinces ask for these hospitals? No. Did public health ask for these hospitals? No. Who asked? Public Works says that Public Works asked for them.
We asked, "Who in Public Works?" They answered that they just told us and that it was Public Works.
Apparently, if we look at GEDS, which is the government employees directory, we will see someone called “Mr. Public Works”, because that person apparently asked for this $150-million, sole-sourced, urgent contract for the Liberals' friends at SNC-Lavalin. It was so urgent that the government sole-sourced it without going out to bids from other companies.
By the way, guess how many of those hospitals have actually been delivered or used. It is zero. With this $71 billion, the government could buy 4,700 added hospitals from its friends at SNC-Lavalin.
According to the Public Accounts that just came out, which, by the way, are the latest Public Accounts to have been delivered in about four decades, the interest-bearing debt for Canadians has now reached an eye-watering $1.4 trillion. I am going to break that down a bit. That is $1,440,000 million in debt.
Now, to put it into numbers that perhaps the Liberals can understand, and for their billionaire friends, that is $1,440 billion in debt. I mentioned the Liberals' friends because in the public accounts, $91 million of taxpayers' money was spent last year to subsidize wealthy owners to buy Tesla vehicles. Taxpayers gave $91 million to Tesla so that wealthy Canadians could buy cars made outside of Canada. The wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, got $91 million in subsidies from the government. He owns about 17%, so maybe he gets about $16 million directly. He is a great entrepreneur, I love his tweets and he is hilarious, but he does not need subsidies from the government or from the taxpayers.
I want to put this in perspective so that people can understand the money. The City of Edmonton got $17 million from the government for the rapid housing initiative. In the paper today, there was talk about it. Of the $17 million from the federal government, $11 million will be for buying the old Forum Hotel by the Rexall Centre, where the Oilers used to play. It is $11 million from the government for housing for the homeless, and $91 million to Elon Musk so that wealthy people can afford a Tesla.
In Canada, if one tried to buy a Tesla on a five-year loan at maybe 4.9% or 5.9%, it would cost well over $1,000 a month. I am not sure how many Canadians trying valiantly to work into the middle class could afford $1,000 a month, or who deserves $5,000 from taxpayers so they can stuff Elon Musk's pockets.
Poverty in Edmonton under the Liberal government has gone up, according to the Library of Canada, by 58%, from the most recent StatsCan numbers. For those without housing, like the homeless in Edmonton, the numbers have gone up two-thirds. Nevertheless, former Liberal Amarjeet Sohi, who is the new mayor of Edmonton, a wonderful guy whom I quite enjoy, is cheering on the Liberals because he got $11 million for housing for the homeless. It was $91 million for Elon Musk and $11 million from the Liberal government for the City of Edmonton. It is a disgrace. The money should not be going to corporate welfare, but to people who need it.
Now, for the debt mentioned, the $1.4 trillion, the government says do not worry, as we have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. However, guess what? The government is using what is called net debt. There is about half a trillion dollars in the CPP and QPP set aside for future payouts. This is not the future 30 years down the road, but payouts tomorrow for anyone who is 65. The government is counting that money toward the federal debt when it is claiming that it has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. This is money for seniors, not money for the government to use, to cash in and to pay on the debt. If we take it away, we are fourth out of seven. Consider the top 29 developed countries in the OECD. If we take out the $500 billion that belongs to seniors, because it is not the government's money, nor the Liberals' money, and show the real debt, we are the 25th worst out of 29 countries in the developed world for debt-to-GDP ratio.
The government should stop misleading Canadians. The government should keep its hands off the money set aside for seniors and stop pretending that it will be able to access that money to pay for its out-of-control spending.
I want to wrap up by talking about the need for focused spending. We have the public accounts and we have been going through the money. There is a disgraceful amount of waste by the government. I mentioned the $91 million for Elon Musk. There is another $50 million to General Motors, Toyota and Nissan for electric vehicle rebates. There is also $50,000 that the government prioritized to give to a corporation to develop a new taste for an India pale ale.
The government asked where we would cut. I would cut corporate bailouts. I would also end the corporate welfare and focus money on Canadians where it is needed.
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- Feb/3/22 4:55:42 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my associate for Winnipeg North. He is not my friend, as he is more of an associate.
We in the Conservative Party have been asking for these rapid tests for close to two years, yet now the government is finally saying, “Oh, we'll get around to it, but you better give us the money.” It is not an issue of just spend, spend, spend or we are going to take the rapid tests away. We want the rapid tests.
What I would suggest to this gentleman is that perhaps, instead of using the $20 billion to $30 billion in corporate welfare to pay off Air Canada, Lululemon, Bell, Telus, Rogers and their wealthy insiders with taxpayers' money, they should have spent that money on rapid tests two years ago.
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- Feb/3/22 4:57:53 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, we have a philosophical difference. I do not believe that we should use taxpayers' money to subsidize wealthy people. As members of Parliament, I think we are in the top 4% or 5% of income level in Canada, and we should not be subsidizing members of Parliament to buy electric cars, period.
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- Feb/3/22 4:59:06 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the question and for the rides from the airport. Yes, the more we subsidize it, the more it is just driving up the price. Demand will always expand to take up every free thing offered by the government.
Further to the gentleman from the Bloc's question, study after study shows that the actual return on investment and the reduction of GHG with electric cars is one of the very worst. If the government is going to subsidize something, let us subsidize upgrades to housing, windows, insulation and those items, but not subsidize the wealthy.
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