SoVote

Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC)

Mar/28/22 5:38:35 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and add my voice to the report stage debate on Bill C-8. Here we are on March 28 debating the so-called fall economic statement, which was tabled just before Christmas, three full months after the summer election. That election was supposedly called to establish a mandate for an urgent, transformational, once-in-a-lifetime moment. I do not agree with the rationale that was offered for last summer's snap election, that it was a transformational moment, but what has been transformational is what has happened since this bill was tabled and during the more than three months during which this bill has been debated and studied. It might not be reasonable to have expected the government to have taken an invasion of Ukraine into account when it tabled Bill C-8, but Vladimir Putin has long threatened Russia's neighbours, including Canadian friends, such as Ukraine. Putin's Russia has also long been a threat to Canada's Arctic lands, Canada's territorial waters and Canadian airspace. There is nothing in this statement that will address the now critically urgent need to prepare for our own self-defence and to increase our capacity to provide all forms of aid to our friends and allies. Financial aid, humanitarian aid, logistical aid and, yes, lethal military aid are all urgently needed by Ukraine. Since this bill was tabled, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed that the government's military capital spending, including its 2017 strong, secure, engaged funding announcement, is hopelessly behind schedule. In other words, even the spending that has been approved and authorized by Parliament is not being spent. The PBO went on to point out that more money will probably still be needed in addition to what has been approved to meet the goals of existing capital procurement. This is a critical failure of government at a time when Canada's ability to defend itself and support its allies is at the most urgent point that it has been in decades. I am pleased that the government has reversed its earlier positions and finally announced that it will buy the F-35s. That is good. Now it should buy ships. Canada was a founding member of NATO. It is our principal alliance and it has secured our peace since 1949. We have an obligation to it to increase military spending to 2% of GDP, yet we cannot even get our act together to spend the money that Parliament has already authorized. Russia is not going to wait for us. China is not going to wait for us. The time to act is now, and there is nothing in this bill that will fix systemic failures in Canada's long-broken defence procurement system. Also, since this bill was tabled, the true structural nature of Canada's inflation crisis is becoming increasingly clear. When I spoke on this bill at second reading, the most recent report said that the average Canadian house price was $717,000. That is about 14 times the annual earnings of an average Canadian worker and absolutely unaffordable for a typical Canadian household, but now, just within the last couple of months, new reports show that the average price is now $100,000 higher than it was when this bill was debated at second reading. Just moving from one stage of debate on this bill, the price of a home in Canada has gone up $100,000. It is certainly not just housing that has gone up. Groceries continue to go up and, of course, the price of energy has also gone up. The war has enormous effects on the price of energy, but the government must take responsibility for its role in the inflation crisis. The government is charging ahead with its annual carbon tax increase set to take place this Friday. Gasoline is already over $2 a litre in some parts of Canada, and the government will push gasoline prices higher, along with the cost of home heating. Since this bill was tabled, the Bank of Canada has published research confirming that the carbon tax alone is responsible for 0.4% inflation. While the bank's target rate is 2%, the actual rate is now just under 6% and the carbon tax, one single piece of government-engineered inflation, contributes 0.4% of that inflation. The government should be fighting against inflation, not explicitly contributing to it with punitive and increasing taxes. The real shame of the global crisis of affordable and reliable energy, given the situation with the degree to which many parts of the world rely on Russian imports, is that the current government has done everything it can to prevent Canadian energy from reaching foreign or even domestic markets. Canada could be doing its part to keep the price of energy under control by replacing Russia's exports, but this bill is a continuation of the government's anti-energy, anti-Alberta agenda. We now find ourselves in an inflation crisis exacerbated by both high energy prices and a punitive domestic carbon tax. It is not just the carbon tax going up this Friday. This Friday is also the day that the tax on beer, wine and sprits will automatically go up and further fuel inflation. We will not see this tax increase in this bill, because the excise escalator is an April Fool's gift that the government announced in budget 2017 that keeps on giving every year, which raises taxes without a vote in Parliament. There is no bill and no vote, but a tax increase nevertheless. Another thing that is not in this bill is any demonstration of short-, medium- or long-term fiscal discipline. The endless deficits, enabled by monetary expansion and increasing taxes, mean that inflation will make life increasingly unaffordable for Canadian families. Again, I will refer to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, whose recent report confirms that the conditions for the withdrawal of stimulus spending in budget 2021 have been met, yet the spending continues. The Liberals laid out criteria to withdraw the stimulus, and then they got rid of the criteria and just kept the spending in this fall statement. The bill contains $70 billion in inflationary new spending on top of $176 billion in extra non-COVID spending that the government has run up. It would bring Canada's debt total to over $1.2 trillion. I remind the House that the government was teetering on the brink of a recession with a horrifically blown deficit projection, even before Covid struck. The government blew all of its fiscal credibility long before COVID. It has ignored every single fiscal anchor, guardrail or election promise it has made on deficits. Now, against this fiscal backdrop, the Liberals invited the NDP to abandon its opposition role and join the government in a de facto coalition. I can already hear the howls of protest. I can hear the desperate explanations. I imagine New Democrats saying, and we have heard it before, that just because they have entered an agreement to support the government on all confidence and supply votes until October 2025, that the government has agreed to brief them on any such potential motion before it is made public and that they have promised to snitch if they get wind of opposition procedural tactics that might slow down the government's agenda at a committee, it does not mean it is a coalition. They will say that none of them is in cabinet, so it is not a coalition. They will ask whether I passed political science 201, and say it is not really a coalition. We will let Canadians be the judges of what is really going on here. They can call it whatever they want, but the really sad part about what we have seen here is that an opposition party is now supporting the government rather than opposing it. This comes at a time when the current government increasingly fails to govern competently and transparently, which takes us right back to the beginning and the circumstances around which this bill was tabled. This bill was tabled just before Christmas, and in the briefing on the fall economic statement the PBO told us: This year both the Annual Financial Report and Public Accounts were published on December 14, 2021, the latest publication since 1993-94. Comparatively, Canada was among the last of the G7 countries to publish their [reports].... Canada falls short of the standard for advanced practice in the [IMF] financial reporting guidelines, which recommends that governments publish their annual statements within six months. ...the delay in the Government's release of its audited financial statement undermined [Parliament's] ability to meaningfully scrutinize proposed Government spending. This matters because it is symptomatic of declining basic government competency. We have a government that needs to be challenged by a loyal but vigorous opposition, which will challenge the government to better serve Canadians. Instead, it is emboldened by the defection of the members of the NDP caucus to the government in support of this tired and—

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Context: House Hansard - 47 - Mar/28/22

Mr. Pat Kelly

Mar/28/22 5:50:10 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, the member seemed to refer to something that happened at finance committee. I am not sure I caught exactly the piece of tax legislation that he was concerned about for provincial jurisdiction, but provincial jurisdiction is something that Conservatives always respect. We respect the Constitution and the delineation of provincial responsibilities. I am not certain I have a specific answer to his question, but I certainly believe in provincial jurisdiction.

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Context: House Hansard - 47 - Mar/28/22

Mr. Pat Kelly

Mar/28/22 5:51:44 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, I do not know that I would object, but I cannot speak for all the members in the chamber, so he is welcome to try that on. He must not have listened to much of my speech, because I spoke about a number of things that the bill does and a number of things that the bill fails to do. I drew attention to the way the bill withdraws the criteria around the continuation of stimulus spending. The Liberals just dropped that and then continued with $70 billion in non-COVID additional spending. I did not get to that in my speech for lack of time. I will not support the bill. I do not think any of my Conservative colleagues will. We have no confidence in the government.

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Context: House Hansard - 47 - Mar/28/22

Mr. Pat Kelly

Mar/28/22 5:53:31 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, I do not think I caught a question there, but I will respond to the member's comment. He is a thoughtful member. I have served at committee with him before and I know that he is a champion of transparency and accountability from government. I certainly hope that he will continue to demand that, even as his party is choosing to support the government through until 2025.

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