44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 31, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/31/22 10:02:27 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 107(3), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the liaison committee, entitled “Committee Activities and Expenditures: April 1, 2021 - December 31, 2021”.
This report highlights the work and accomplishments of each committee, as well as detailing the budgets that fund the activities approved by the committee members.
63 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/31/22 10:32:10 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, on April 7, the NDP-Liberal government will table its first budget. This is happening at a time when Canadians are facing the highest rate of inflation in the past 30 years and when groceries are going to cost Canadian families an average of $1,000 more a year. As my colleague from Abbotsford mentioned in his excellent speech, the cost of gas is at $2.09 a litre in the Victoria area. The cost of living is hitting record highs and families are having trouble making ends meet.
Today, the Conservatives are going to ask the NDP-Liberal government to present a fiscally responsible budget, a concept that the Liberals may have forgotten about. The Conservatives are asking the government not to impose new taxes and to propose meaningful fiscal anchors to return to a balanced budget.
That is what Canadians need right now. They need solutions, a serious plan from the NDP-Liberal government, in order to fight against the inflation that is affecting families, young people, seniors and workers. Everyone knows that Canadians are tired of paying and that 60% of them are worried about not having enough money to feed their families. Seven out of 10 Canadians say that their finances are a source of stress and frustration, but this government has not yet presented any real solutions to address the inflation crisis.
In fact, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is only making the crisis worse. I remember the 2015 election campaign very well. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government likes to bring up the Conservatives' election promises. Well, I would like to remind him of the election promise that the current Prime Minister made in 2015 in order to get elected.
He said that his government would run only small deficits of merely $10 billion and then return to a balanced budget when the 2019 election rolled around. That was the first big promise that was broken. Who would have believed that Canada's deficit in 2015 would surpass the trillion-dollar mark? One trillion dollars, that is 1,000 billion dollars.
As my colleague from Abbotsford so aptly said in his speech, not even a year ago, the mandate letter for the Minister of Finance indicated that no new permanent spending would be introduced in the budgets. Perhaps it became clear to the Prime Minister that spending was going through the roof.
The Prime Minister changed that requirement in the minister's most recent mandate letter. There is nothing about introducing new permanent spending.
Since the last election, this government has held meetings behind closed doors to reach an agreement with the NDP. The meetings must have started very early on, most likely before the ministerial mandate letters were written, so we are worried that next week's budget will include many new spending categories and a record number of encroachments on areas under provincial jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, the Minister of Health announced as much during a press conference last week, when he talked about the five strings the federal government is attaching to higher provincial health transfers.
That confirmed the fears of Quebec's premier, François Legault. In response to the NDP-Liberal coalition announcement, he said: “The federal government has no jurisdiction over how much money we should be spending on long-term care, how much we should spend on mental health, how much we should spend on hiring more nurses.... They have no jurisdiction over health care management.... We have two very centralist parties—the Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP—that want to impose their vision on all the provinces. I think they will run into a wall”.
The provinces said where they stood beforehand, and the government was aware of their position. Even so, on Friday, the government set out five conditions for talks with the provinces about provincial health transfers.
That is not surprising from an NDP-Liberal government. That is why we have concerns about the upcoming budget. Canadians need real solutions.
The Prime Minister is only making the crisis worse. He has racked up debt and increased the tax burden on Canadians. He is going ahead with a new tax on alcohol. On top of that, the government is coming at us again with a 25% increase in the carbon tax, effective tomorrow. This means that gas will cost more. If gas costs more, then everything that is transported by gas-powered trucks will cost more. If everything costs more, then the government will collect even more taxes. Yes, if things cost more, Canadians will pay more taxes.
The government has created an inflationary spiral in order to have additional revenues to supposedly cope with the looming crisis. What is it going to do with the additional revenues? It is not going to relieve any of the pressure on Canadians' wallets. The government's alliance with the NDP means that it will further increase spending. It will spend even more using money belonging to Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet. Putting any money back in the pockets of Canadians will therefore be impossible. This is unbelievable.
How many young professionals have given up their dreams of owning a home, as their parents and grandparents did? The cost of inflation has driven housing prices up by more than 32%. This makes owning a home almost impossible. The dream of young families to become homeowners has turned into a nightmare. Rather than addressing Canadians' concerns, the agreement between the Prime Minister and his NDP deputy prime minister has had the opposite effect.
While businesses and consumers expect inflation to continue to rise, some experts have said that the new coalition could further undermine Ottawa's credibility in its commitment to fight inflation. That is a fact.
The Liberals are tied to the NDP. What is more, if I may say so, the days of financially responsible prime ministers, the days of Jean Chrétien or Paul Martin, are over. Today's Liberals are not the same. For years, Liberals made it their duty to do everything they could to return to a balanced budget and responsible management—we can give them that—but that is no longer the case now.
How many Liberals were consulted on drafting the next budget or on the agreement with the NDP? Not a lot of them were. I am sure that there are a lot more financially responsible Liberal MPs than we might think, than the Prime Minister might think. It is not for nothing that he had to find some new backers through his government coalition with the NDP. He needed support. Indeed, given the budgets he wants to table, he would have surely lost the support of many of his backbenchers.
Ultimately, Canadians are the ones who will foot the bill for this alliance. After years of deficits and fiscal imbalances, the Prime Minister will have to resort to taxes to fund his excessive spending. The perfect example is that he is refusing to remove the carbon tax, which will go into effect tomorrow.
The motion moved today is calling on the government to present a federal budget with a meaningful fiscal anchor and to limit government spending. Instead of spending money on partisan projects, it is time for the Prime Minister to invest in important sectors such as broadband connectivity in the regions. This will make it possible to accelerate the arrival of foreign workers and help our economy.
I am asking all my colleagues to vote for the motion moved by my colleague from Abbotsford.
1281 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/31/22 11:39:59 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, it is all part of an economic philosophy. We keep hearing about two options: budget cuts or spending increases. There is a third option, one that I have put forward before, and that is coming up with ways to increase productivity to bring in more money. It is a philosophical issue.
I am a firm believer in state intervention, which can increase budgets and really make the energy transition happen.
It will be interesting to see what emerges from the new NDP-Liberal coalition agreement. Perhaps we will see a new government philosophy that is keener on invoking closure, as we saw yesterday, thereby allowing the Liberal government to do whatever it wants. If that happens, it could end up being much harder to make that energy transition happen, and that is a problem.
I believe in the value system that enables a country to take advantage of times when huge amounts of money are coming in to better redistribute wealth and engage in long-term change strategies. We learned that from Keynes.
I am not at all in favour of the solutions put forward in the Conservatives' motion. I think we need long-term solutions, and I have made several such proposals, which the Bloc Québécois have championed and I am proud of.
220 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/31/22 12:35:22 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, we have a system in Canada today that has over a 50% tax rate for a lot of Canadians who are in those brackets the member was just talking about. How much further can we go? As an example, what the Liberals did in one of their first budgets was to increase the tax on those making over $200,000 by 1%. Only a Liberal government could do what it did. It raised the tax to 1% but received less money. All I am saying is that Canadians will find new accounting processes to change the law or get around what the Liberals are trying to do with regard to this, even though we tried to be fiscally accountable in the years I just pointed out and did balance the budget with a plan. All I am asking for today in this budget is that there is a plan to allow Canadians to escape from some of the inflation that has been caused by the pandemic.
168 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/31/22 1:50:57 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, to start off, it was only a couple of weeks ago that President Zelenskyy from Ukraine spoke to Canadians virtually through the House of Commons. Just down the hall today, there are a number of Ukrainian members of Parliament shared a very strong message with parliamentarians and Canadians in terms of the need for support with lethal weapons in Ukraine, and the need to continue with sanctions. They talked about the importance of our friendship and the infrastructure needs of Ukraine, not only today but going forward. I believe that unanimously in the chamber, there is a very strong sense of solidarity with our Ukrainian brothers and sisters. We will do what we can.
I should mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.
Having said that, I want to provide a bit of an overview in the time that I have, if it is possible, of what I believe is an opportunity for members to get engaged and talk about budgets and the importance of the budgetary process. It will come as no surprise to members that I have a difficult time with the Conservative Party's approach to dealing with budgets.
Let us look at budgets in general. We have presented budgets since 2015, after the election. Every time the government has presented a budget in the House, the Conservatives have been true to form and voted against it. That includes budgets that provided tax breaks, for example. Members will recall that when the Liberals first became government, we said the priority for the Government of Canada was to support Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be part of it. That was priority one.
In that budget, there was a tax break for Canada's middle class, which the Conservative Party voted against. There was a hike on the tax rate for Canada's wealthiest 1%, which the NDP voted against. Inequality of income was addressed through such things as the reformation of the Canada child benefit program: a program that saw hundreds of millions of dollars go into communities across the country to deliver children from poverty. There was the delivery of hundreds of millions of dollars to the poorest seniors in Canada, lifting hundreds and thousands of seniors out of poverty.
Through our budgets, we have consistently provided supports to the provinces and to our infrastructure. Historic amounts of money are being invested in Canada's infrastructure. As we continued to support Canada's middle class prepandemic and were there in very real and tangible ways through legislative and budgetary measures, we saw the Canadian economy grow. In fact, in terms of economic growth, such as employment opportunities, we were able to achieve more in the first four years than Stephen Harper did in 10 years. At the end of the day, I would argue that by investing in Canadians and infrastructure, we were able to build a stronger and healthier economy, because we understand that a healthy middle class is the best way to deliver a stronger economy going forward.
The first number of budgets people saw were heavy on supports for the middle class and building our infrastructure. Then the pandemic hit, and through the pandemic we saw the continuation of a government that recognized the value of being there to support Canadians and small businesses in particular. We saw it in the form of programs such as CERB, which put literally billions of dollars into the pockets of Canadians at a time when they needed that support.
By doing that, we ensured that Canadians were able to pay critical bills that needed to be paid. We supported small businesses, whether with wage subsidy programs that preserved literally thousands of jobs across this country and prevented businesses from going bankrupt, or with loans and other forms of support for small businesses. Our budgets reflected that.
When Canadians needed a government that was going to be there, we were there, not only with words but with legislative and budgetary measures. Throughout, we constantly saw a Conservative opposition more focused on character assassination and flip-flopping on different policies than on recognizing and contributing to the ideas that were flowing to support Canadians and build our economy.
In listening to the Conservative Party, one would think that Canada was in a doomed state when it comes to inflation. Let us compare Canada's inflation rate with that of the United States, or look at Canada's inflation rate compared with those of the G20 countries. If we take a look at the average of the G20 countries and the United States, we find that Canada's inflation rate is less.
My colleague for Kingston and the Islands just made reference to the GDP and how Canada is in a good position to continue to build strength for our economy and to continue to be there for Canadians. Unlike Conservatives, we believe in investing in the people of Canada. A good example of that is what recently happened in the province of Ontario: My Ontario colleagues were very happy the other day when we finally got Doug Ford to recognize the true value of a national child care program. This is a program that now stretches coast to coast to coast. It is a program that is going to enable more people to enter the workforce.
The Conservative Party would look at that program and say that the government was spending money. It would say that all the government does is spend money and that we need revenues. Education 101 is that enabling more people to get engaged in the economy generates more revenue for the Government of Canada. Not only does a national child care program help by providing much-needed child care spaces, but it is good for Canada's economy too. I only wish the Conservatives would recognize that.
When the Conservatives talk about issues of taxation, they are so confused. They do not care about the middle class, because when it came time to increase the CPP, which would benefit the working class of today for tomorrow, they are just as likely to call it a tax and say that it is a bad thing. No. We are thinking about tomorrow's seniors. The working class of today also needs to be protected.
This is a government that is progressive and that understands the importance of being there for Canadians. We will continue to have their backs, as we have demonstrated in the past six years.
1094 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/31/22 4:47:32 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I remember one of the comments from the member previously, and it was about the path to balancing a budget. I would say to the member for Calgary Centre that the most important thing is to be aligning ourselves in a favourable position as it relates to our debt-to-GDP ratio, because that is what is important. That is what signals the ability we have to repay that debt, and that is so much more important, as previous Conservative governments themselves signalled through their budgets.
On the member's question specifically about how we deal with the challenge as it relates to lack of employment, yes, it is a big challenge that we have. My understanding is that in 2021 alone, half a million new immigrants who came to Canada became permanent residents. I think that is one of the ways, quite frankly, that we are going to deal with this.
My parents came to Canada in the 1950s, post World War II, in search of new opportunity. Their parents looked at Canada as a shining light in the world; as a place to become prosperous and a place to set up new roots. I think we can do the same thing now to make sure that we keep growing our economy so that we can take care of baby boomers.
224 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/31/22 4:48:57 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I want to put something on the record to clarify it, because I know that my hon. colleague for Kingston and the Islands would appreciate this point of clarification.
The member was talking about Conservatives and balanced budgets and the myths that go along with it. I would like to remind the House that in the time of the Conservative government when the Conservatives did try to balance the budget, it was because they raided the EI fund; those deferred wages from taxpayers and from those workers. Of course, when they raided that EI fund, they learned from the best, the Liberals, who had done it three times before them to the tune of over $50 billion.
119 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/31/22 4:49:42 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I would certainly agree with the first part of what the member said.
The reality is that I do not think that running deficits is coming from a place of not properly managing a budget. Conservatives, as the member rightly said, did it, and in 16 budgets between Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper, only two were either balanced or ran a surplus. I talked about those in my speech earlier.
The important thing here is that people understand, and governments know, that the most important thing is growing our economy faster than we are taking on debt. That is how we end up paying for it. That is how developed countries throughout the world are doing it. Conservatives know that. It is a great talking point for them, because they know it resonates well with people out there. I do not blame them for doing it, but the reality is that they should know better than to speak like this, especially the member for Calgary Centre who—
170 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/31/22 5:07:21 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for a great question, and I agree with him 100%. Coming out of a crisis, we need that physical capacity to take the decisions we have to make. We had that fiscal capacity because we balanced our budgets in 1993, 1994 and 1995 and we maintained budgets, so that in 2008 when the great recession hit Stephen Harper had a buffer zone so he could spend money, keep the economy going and then balance the budget again in 2015.
The current government needs a plan to balance its budget now so that, if we need to help people out as they come out of the crisis, we can help them. If we want to get to a green environment I am saying let us move there if that is where the world is going to go, but let us not take and throw away all the benefits we have right now that could pay for that changeover. Why not embrace them, take the royalties from oil and critical minerals, and use them to plan accordingly and build up our green energy infrastructure?
I find it interesting that we would subsidize a car but not tell people how they are going to plug it in. We do not tell them where they are going to have to plug it in. We do not tell them that if they have a condo built in the 1970s there is no power grid that they can plug in to. Those are the things we need to solve and we need the resources—
265 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/31/22 5:25:51 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I am very happy to have five minutes to talk about a very important issue: this government's approach to spending.
It is 2022, but we need to look back in time a little. Back in 2015, the sunny ways era, this government made a campaign promise to run three small $10‑billion deficits and said that the budget would then balance itself. Surprise, surprise, in 2019, the deficit was over $80 billion. History has made it very clear that budgets do not balance themselves. Quite the contrary.
That has been this Liberal government's track record ever since. With the arrival of COVID‑19, it has added over $600 billion to our existing debt. Our debt now represents approximately 47% of our gross domestic product, our GDP. When the Liberal government took office back in the 1980s, it was about 25% or 28%.
This is an extremely important matter. The budget will be tabled next week, on April 7. By the way, that is a Thursday. The following day, April 8, is a Friday and the last sitting day before members are away for two weeks. I remember the years when the Liberals accused the Conservative government of disrespecting the House of Commons. Today, I believe it is the Liberals who are disrespecting this chamber with their decision to present a budget before a Friday, on the eve of a break that we will spend in our ridings.
Of course, I am going to come back to the GDP. We have a debt-to-GDP ratio of 47%, and I am wondering how much more the Liberals will add to the deficit in the coming years. The two words “balanced budget” are not part of the Liberals' vocabulary. That is absolutely unconscionable and unacceptable.
In a country such as ours, a balanced budget is extremely important. I used to be the mayor of La Pocatière, and in Quebec, we were required by law to balance our budget. I do not see why this could not apply to a federal government that should be mindful of its spending. The problem with this government is that it spends money hand over fist, without considering the medium-term effects and especially not the long-term effects.
Interest rates are going to increase, and in fact, it has already started. The Bank of Canada predicts that interest rates will increase to at least 1.5%, maybe 2%, within a year. We can imagine what impact that will have on Canadian households that have gone into debt because of the cost of living and because inflation is at 5.7%, nearly three times the Bank of Canada target of 2%.
House prices keep going up and have doubled in the span of 10 years in Canada. For last year alone, that represents 30%. Let us not forget the price of gas. When I bought my car in 2009, it cost me $32 to fill up the tank. Last week, a full tank cost me $120, a fourfold increase in the span of 11 years.
All these things end up having an adverse effect on people's quality of life, especially for the most vulnerable, whose expenses far outweigh their income.
I will stop there because I could go on for hours. I often have people in my riding call our offices to tell us about the trouble they are in because of this government.
580 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
