44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 31, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/31/22 10:16:26 a.m.
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moved:
That, given that,
(i) excessive government spending has increased the deficit, the national debt, and fuelled inflation to its highest level in 31 years,
(ii) taxes on Canadians continue to increase, from the carbon tax to escalator taxes to Canada Pension Plan premiums,
(iii) the government refuses to provide relief to Canadians by temporarily reducing the Goods and Services Tax on gasoline and diesel,
the House call on the government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance, and a meaningful fiscal anchor.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I want to let you know that I am splitting my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.
Excessive government spending; deficits as far as the eye can see; the largest national debt this country has ever seen, in fact doubled in a short six years; inflation running rampant; skyrocketing housing prices; seven years littered with broken promises: that is the record of the failed Liberal government.
The motion before us today is hoping to right the ship somewhat. As members know, next week on April 7, the Minister of Finance is going to be tabling in the House a budget that is intended to chart the pathway forward for this country when it comes to our finances and how we spend taxpayers' money. Given the fact that the last six years of the Liberal government has been such an unmitigated financial disaster, we would like to make some suggestions for what it could do to actually restore some sanity and probity into our fiscal situation here in our country.
Let me begin by talking about what Canadians have come to expect. Over the last two and a half years we have been fighting the COVID pandemic. Rightfully Canadians have been concerned about their health and the health of their neighbours, so we were asked to be vaccinated. Remember that? We were told if we were vaccinated we would not pick up the COVID virus. Of course, now we find out that is not true. I am triple vaccinated and I have not had the COVID virus. My wife is triple vaccinated. After she was triple vaccinated, she got the COVID virus and we live together, so the health authorities had that wrong.
I support vaccination, but the Liberals told us if Canadians got vaccinated we will have life return to normal. Lockdowns will be gone, mandates will be lifted and life will be back to normal. What happened? It was quite the opposite. We are still under lockdowns. We are still under vaccine mandates at the federal level, which is the Prime Minister's responsibility. Now we are faced with an even greater challenge and that is inflation. Today, our inflation rate is somewhere in the order of 5.7%.
House prices are up a whopping 30% in just this year alone, so how does the government expect young Canadian families who have this dream of home ownership to ever fulfill that dream? Millions of Canadians have lost that dream of home ownership.
We have seen gas prices at the pump go up 32% since February of this past year, 2021. Of course, those gas prices continue to climb in my region of Abbotsford and the greater Vancouver area. Some gas stations were charging $2.09 per litre of gas and right now there is no prospect of that going down at all. In fact, the prospect is that those prices will keep going up.
In order to address that issue, we as Conservatives, presented solutions. One of those solutions was tabled in the House a week ago, which was to, temporarily at least, lift the GST on gasoline purchases. Give Canadians a break. We had a debate in the House and guess what. Our NDP-Liberal friends voted against relief at the gas pumps. We brought forward another proposal, which was, why do we not lift the carbon tax? Let us get rid of the carbon tax and give motorists a break. We know the NDP-Liberal coalition is opposed to that. In fact, it is the government of high taxes.
Inflation is being driven by a number of factors. I have already mentioned taxes. Every time the current government raises taxes, whether it is carbon taxes or the rising GST revenues that it gets because of the rising gas prices, every time it imposes an escalator tax like it did for alcohol and every time it raises CPP premiums, that is a burden on Canadians and it is driving inflationary pressures in Canada.
However, it gets worse. Less than a year ago, the Minister of Finance was given a mandate letter from the Prime Minister in which she was instructed to engage in no more new permanent spending. Do members remember that? It was a directive to the finance minister for no new permanent spending. Guess what happened. Today, we are looking at pharmacare. That is new permanent spending. We are looking at dental care. That is new permanent spending. We are looking at transit. We are looking at numerous new spending programs, including child care for example. It goes on and on with broken promises.
By the way, in the most recent mandate letter, less than a year after the original one that prohibited new permanent spending, suddenly the mandate letter had no reference at all to new permanent spending. It is a government that loves to virtue signal on finances, on deficits, on debt and on spending, but it never delivers.
It gets worse. April 1, tomorrow, is April Fool's Day, and of course the Liberals are going to treat Canadians like fools. What are the Liberals going to do? They are going to increase the carbon tax by another $10 per tonne. Do members know what that means? For those provinces that have the carbon tax backstop it means another 11¢ at the pump. That is on the current Liberal government. They cannot blame that on anyone else.
It gets worse. Do people remember the last budget, a year ago, when the Minister of Finance talked about the stimulus that she was going to pump into the economy to get the economy going? The economy was already starting to grow and bounce back, but she insisted that she needed over $100 billion of additional money to pump into the economy. Guess what happened. There was so much money pumped into the economy that it has caused inflation, especially in the housing market. As I already mentioned, in one year alone, there was a 30% increase in housing prices. How are Canadians supposed to cope with that? How are Canadians supposed to cope?
We are facing an inflation crisis. We are facing a tax crisis crisis in this country. We are facing a spending crisis in this country. That is why today we are calling upon this finance minister, this Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal government to do the right thing, which is to rein in spending. In this coming budget next week, we are calling on the government to make sure that there is a clear pathway toward balanced budgets, where we return to living within our means. That is what responsible governments do. We have not seen that for the last six years.
We are solution-oriented. We are asking the government to come up with a defensible, firm fiscal anchor that has a clear pathway to a balanced budget in the medium term. In the motion before them, members see that we are asking the government to address inflationary pressures, to address taxation that is going through the roof and to address the needs of Canadians.
Canadians are really struggling. They have lost their dream of home ownership. They cannot pay for gas for their cars to take their kids to hockey lessons, to school and to music lessons. They cannot afford life anymore. They cannot buy groceries. My goodness, we are living in one of the richest countries in the world and the current government has made it virtually impossible for many families to even afford groceries.
I am asking the government to do the right thing in its upcoming budget. I am asking it to find a pathway to balance, restrain spending and control the urge to spend. I know Liberal tax-and-spend is the way of this country whenever we have a Liberal government. However, I ask the Liberals to listen to us. We are solution-oriented.
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- Mar/31/22 10:32:10 a.m.
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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.
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- Mar/31/22 10:47:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to take part in today's debate. It is also great see you in the chair. I appreciated our time together on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
I also want to thank the member for Abbotsford for presenting today's opposition motion, which gives us this opportunity to further exchange ideas on important issues such as making life more affordable for Canadians, combatting climate change, prudent fiscal management and strong fiscal anchors.
I have always believed the quality of any decision is directly proportional to the quality of the debate. It is my hope that through the robust exchange of ideas we perhaps can find common ground and pursue policies that will benefit Canadians today as well as in future generations.
I understand that much of the time the role of the opposition is to oppose the government of the day. However, there is also the opportunity for the opposition to propose workable solutions or even work collaboratively with government to move our country forward.
In that spirit, I will start my speech today by addressing some key points on this motion I think we can agree on. I would like to start with our government's commitment to strong fiscal anchors.
In 2015, we inherited a significant deficit. This was not just financial; this was a social deficit as well as an environmental deficit. There was also a deficit in hard infrastructure. We promised to invest in the future of Canada by incurring further small deficits while targeting investments in economic growth.
In our first four years, we made significant investments in housing, transportation and indigenous reconciliation. We grew the economy while reducing poverty and unemployment to all-time historic lows. We lifted 1.3 million Canadians out of poverty and began to tackle climate change in a serious and meaningful way. We grew the size of the economy while reducing our debt-to-GDP ratio every single year.
This was an enviable financial position that was built on fiscal prudence. This position would allow us to invest further in the growth of our nation or prepare us for any economic shocks that might come in the future. While we could not foresee a global pandemic or a war in Europe, when it comes to the finances of our country, if members will allow me to lean on my previous experience in Boy Scouts, it is always prudent to be prepared.
The fact is that not only did we enter the pandemic with the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, but we also increased our relative financial advantage throughout the crisis. Our focus on keeping Canadians healthy has translated to better economic outcomes. Even though our economy lost three million jobs at the depth of the crisis, we have successfully recovered 112% of these jobs, while the United States has only recovered 90%.
The truth is that we remain committed to the fiscal anchors we outlined in our 2021 budget. This means reducing our debt-to-GDP ratio and unwinding the COVID-19-related deficits.
I remind all members of the House that despite the federal government taking on more than 80% of pandemic-related costs, we were able to maintain our debt servicing cost to less than 1% of the size of our economy, which is a number six times lower than where we stood as recently as the mid-1990s.
Our prudent fiscal management was noted when Moody's and S&P reaffirmed Canada's AAA credit rating. Perhaps on the issue of strong fiscal anchors, there is an opportunity for us to find some agreement.
It would also be prudent to address inflation and our government's commitment to affordability. Make no mistake: Our government cares about tackling global inflation and we care about making life more affordable. In fact, in two speeches I gave just last week, I outlined many of the very real solutions our government has put forward to make life more affordable.
With regard to the recent Conservative motion to temporarily cut the GST on gasoline and diesel, I argued that this was an elegant, simple but wrong solution. Gas taxes represent a small portion of the price consumers pay at the pump, so cutting them would be ineffective in protecting Canadians from these strong global market forces. In fact, daily changes in gas prices can be greater than the 5% tax cut previously proposed. In some regions, we have already seen that level of decline without having to sacrifice the revenue that funds programs like child care, OAS benefits and the national housing strategy.
Instead of continuing to find new ways to ignore climate change and subsidize the oil and gas sector, I would recommend that all members of the House focus on building a fair tax system that makes life more affordable for all Canadians.
The opposition motion charges our government of excessive spending during the pandemic. While it is true that the cost of the pandemic was significant, it was more than reasonable for the federal government to use our strong fiscal position to take on this burden. We did this so small businesses, Canadian workers and family household budgets did not have to.
While Conservatives may see these investments as frivolous or unnecessary, I would expect the nine million Canadians who were able to feed their families and the 450,000 employers who were able to keep 5.3 million employees on the payroll would disagree with their position.
The motion alleges that taxes on Canadians continue to rise, but this ignores the fact that we lowered taxes for the middle class multiple times. It ignores the fact that we reduced small business taxes from 11% to 9%. It ignores the fact that we increased support for families and low-income workers through programs such as the Canada child benefit and the Canada workers benefit, which have helped lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. It ignores our increased GIS and OAS supports for seniors and it certainly ignores the fact that our most important benefits increase with inflation.
To further offset the impact of inflation and make life more affordable for Canadians, we have increased the basic personal amount that Canadians can earn before paying federal income tax. When this measure is fully implemented next year, single individuals will pay $300 less in tax and families will pay $600 less every single year.
With respect to the price on carbon pollution, which is falsely characterized in today's motion and often in the House, the reality is that we will continue to return the direct proceeds from the federal carbon pollution pricing system to their province or territory of origin. Our climate action incentive gives payments directly to households, and these payments actually represent more than the increased costs households face from the federal price on pollution. Going forward, the federal carbon price will continue to be revenue-neutral for the Government of Canada. The Conservative plan would allow energy companies to line their pockets while offering no real guarantee of savings for Canadians at the pump.
Climate change is real, and so are the costs. We are only starting to realize the staggering costs of doing nothing, not only with regard to floods and forest fires in B.C. but also right across Canada. The Conservatives choose to ignore these costs and they choose to ignore the benefits of being an environmental leader. Our climate plan is not just good for the planet; it is good for the economy. It will help Canadians create good-quality, high-paying jobs while producing clean technologies that we can export all over the world.
The demand for climate solutions is only going to increase, and our plan leverages this opportunity for all Canadians. A price on pollution is the most effective and fair way to protect Canadians from the very real costs associated with climate change while incentivizing Canadians and businesses to make sound ecological decisions.
This is in staggering contrast to the plan the Conservatives presented in the last election, when they suggested incentivizing Canadians to use more gas. That was the bank account program the member was talking about in his previous reply.
I would be very interested in having a more thorough discussion on contemporary Conservative climate policy, if one exists. At their last convention, they could not agree on a resolution that simply stated that climate change is real. Their last platform admitted that they would not pursue meeting targets of the IPCC, and their position has only regressed further since the last election.
Just this week, I heard Conservatives in the House doubt that carbon pricing is even effective. In B.C., one of the first jurisdictions in the world to implement carbon pricing, we know that in the first five years, carbon usage per capita decreased significantly in British Columbia, while it increased by more than 3% in the rest of Canada. British Columbians should be proud of their leadership on this issue.
British Columbians should also be suspicious of any federal Conservative promise to eliminate the tax. This is because the carbon price of British Columbia is administered by the province, so removing the federal backstop would not change anything. In fact, it would mean British Columbians would continue to put a price on pollution, while other, primarily Conservative, jurisdictions would not. A more thoughtful approach, in my humble opinion, would be to encourage the provincial government in B.C. to return the carbon price to revenue neutrality. This is a position that I would hope the member for Abbotsford and I could agree on.
The opposition motion suggests that there should be no new taxes in the upcoming budget. However, the opposition also knows that a main tenet of the federal backstop is to gradually and consistently raise the carbon price. To adopt this motion would mean abandoning a core piece of Canada's climate change strategy. This on its own should be reason enough to oppose this motion.
We also know that some businesses have done extremely well during the pandemic and that our government has committed to increasing taxes on profits of over a billion dollars by 3% for banks and insurance companies. This measure, which speaks directly to building a fair tax system, also runs counter to the motion that is being proposed today.
The motion also highlights the escalator tax and the Canada pension plan premiums. I want to assure Canadians that the escalator tax is reasonable, predictable and fair. We are talking about one-fifth of one penny on a can of beer. That means that if one purchases a can of beer today, one would have to wait almost five years before seeing a single penny of increased taxes.
With regard to the Canada pension plan, our government worked diligently with premiers to secure the financial security of our next generation of retirees. This agreement ensures that future pensioners will have access to more generous benefits. However, I think is important for us to agree that the Canadian pension plan is not a tax, and it is unfortunate that the Conservatives have repeatedly chosen to characterize it in this way, a point that was raised by my NDP colleague in an earlier intervention.
The Canada pension plan is an essential part of Canada's social security framework, and it is critical to providing Canadians with a dignified retirement after a lifetime of work. Certainly the Conservatives cannot be suggesting that we should reduce the retirement security of future generations. Perhaps they are; after all, this is the same party that increased the retirement age of 65 to 67, robbing seniors of thousands of dollars right when they needed it most.
Of course, it is not just seniors who are more secure. Families now benefit from our $10-a-day community-based early learning and child care system, which will make life more affordable for families, create new jobs, get parents back into the workforce and grow the middle class while giving every child a real and fair chance at success. Of course, the federal Conservatives oppose this plan as well.
While I have covered a lot of ground on fiscal policy today, I think the importance of a strong monetary framework would be worth mentioning as well.
A strong monetary policy framework is crucial for keeping prices stable and keeping inflationary pressures in check. This is why, last December, our government and the Bank of Canada announced the renewal of the policy targeting inflation at 2% for another five-year period. This renewed framework will keep the bank focused on delivering low, stable and predictable inflation in Canada.
Canadians and Conservatives are right to be concerned about inflation, but we have to make sure that we address it in a way that recognizes the underlying causes. While inflation in Canada is 5.7%, I would remind members that inflation is a global phenomenon and that Canada's rate of inflation continues to be lower than the United States, the OECD, the G20 and the G7.
Supply chain challenges, climate change, energy prices and the war in Ukraine are all contributing to inflationary pressures, aside from the challenges of reopening the global economy in the ongoing global pandemic. These are indeed significant challenges, but I am truly optimistic that Canadians will endure to overcome them.
We know that there are more businesses open today than there were before the pandemic. We know that the GDP has fully recovered, and so has employment. We know that our trade surplus has hit 13-year highs. We also know that Canadians' health outcomes are among the best in the world. Of course this is good news for families that avoided unnecessary deaths, but it is also good news for our economy, which has performed remarkably well, given that we have recently faced the greatest economic shock since the Second World War.
I hope that I have thoroughly responded to today's opposition motion. We will continue to maintain strong fiscal anchors and exercise prudent fiscal management. We will maintain a strong, independent and stable monetary framework. We will continue to cut taxes for hard-working Canadians while ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share, and we will continue investing in Canadians' highest priorities while growing our economy and making sure that all Canadians have a real and fair shot at success.
While we may not agree on everything in the motion before us, there are many things we do agree on. It is my hope that by working in good faith with our government's official opposition and with all members of this House, we will be able to continue to put forward legislation that will help Canadians today as well as help future generations. That is what I am expecting to see in the upcoming budget, and it is exactly what I expect from all members in this House.
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- Mar/31/22 11:12:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today's motion is so incoherent that I do not know where to start. I will begin, however, by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
I must admit that I had to check my calendar when I read the motion. The motion contained so many contradictions that I was sure it was April 1.
Let us start with point 1, concerning excessive government spending during the pandemic. Here is what I remember about the past two years. When the pandemic started and we needed to help our businesses, implement rent assistance policies for our SMEs, and create the CERB, there were discussions among the parties. Everyone around the table thought it was a good idea to take action. Everyone saw that there was a crisis and that it was urgent. It seems that the Conservatives forget things as often as they change leaders. Now, all of a sudden, they are talking about excessive spending. All of a sudden, there is absolutely no call for it.
The motion mentions inflation and the carbon tax. Last week, I went to gas up in Mirabel, in my riding. I paid about $2 a litre, even though Canada is a net exporter and almost all of the oil refined in Quebec is from North America. Moreover, the “Alberta rebate” was not even displayed. Alberta benefits from increases in the price of a barrel of oil. I invite my colleagues to look at Alberta's budget, which went from a deficit to a surplus. Let us see who is benefitting. The motion contains nothing about supply chains, either. It only mentions excessive spending.
It also talks about premium hikes and tax increases. The Conservative amnesia is now affecting memories from 24 hours ago. I was in the House at 6 p.m. yesterday when the hon. member for Lévis—Lotbinière proposed extending EI benefits to 52 weeks for people with a serious illness, which the Bloc Québécois supports. The Conservatives are saying they will do that, but at the same time, they are saying that we should not increase payroll taxes or employee and employer premiums. That is okay, they can be right wing. However, it bothers me as an economist when the numbers do not add up. This is absolutely incoherent.
The Conservatives say one thing in English and another in French. In question period yesterday, they said in English that the carbon tax should be axed. In French, they talked about scaling back the carbon tax increase in western Canadian provinces. That is crazy. It is almost enough to make me want to be a translator. They are totally inconsistent.
When I got to the motion's third point, I thought things might be looking up. The Conservatives were talking about giving Canadians breathing room, and I was glad about that because for once they were not talking about CO2. However, there was nothing in there about the energy transition, nothing about reducing our dependence on oil even as they complain about rising prices. I personally like consistency, but the Conservatives are just as likely to say black as they are to say white.
Actually, I would like to make an announcement. Liberals, New Democratic Liberals and Conservatives are all about Paul Martin and his fiscal responsibility. They talked about Paul Martin during question period yesterday and again today in my colleague's speech.
Do members know what Paul Martin did? He merged the Canada health transfer with the Canada social transfer and then made cuts. He forced the provinces to deal with their deficits on their own.
Do members know what that cost Quebec? It cost us ambulatory care and home care, and we are still suffering as a result. That is what Paul Martin did.
It is all well and good for the Conservatives to say that they respect provincial jurisdictions, but they do not respect the underlying principle. To them, respecting provincial jurisdictions means that the money stays in Ottawa while the provinces shoulder all the responsibilities; it means starving the beast. The provinces can have their jurisdictions and starve, because they are not going to be given any transfers.
I congratulate the Conservatives. I congratulate them for liking Paul Martin. Personally, I find this disturbing. We are familiar with Paul Martin's approach. We are familiar with the approach to fiscal responsibility. It is the typical federal approach. We know that the important responsibilities fall to the provinces and that when citizens like me need services, they never turn to the federal government, unless they need a passport. They seek help from the health care system, the education system or the child care system. All of those areas fall under provincial jurisdiction. Like the Liberals, the Conservatives tell themselves that, in order to be popular and win elections, they need to get involved in a certain issue because it is important, even though they have no jurisdiction in that area.
Once in power, the Liberals got involved in mental health. They appointed a Minister of Mental Health. They have never run a hospital, but they appointed a minister.
In Quebec, we are in favour of the child care system; we have had one for more than 20 years. However, if the Bloc had not been there and there had not been an election, the federal government would have imposed its conditions on us and told us what to do in an area in which we have more than 20 years of expertise. That would be like taking driving lessons from someone who does not have a driver's licence. What could go wrong?
We are in favour of dental insurance, of course, but it is not in their jurisdiction.
As far as the property tax is concerned, the Liberals say it will generate $700 million. In reality, it will generate just $600 million, but that amount does not include the cost of implementing the new tax.
Universal medicare is an intrusion by the NDP into provincial jurisdictions. It does not bother the NDP one bit to meddle in our territory. There are all kinds of offices and commissioners for this and that, but in the end, there are always conditions that are imposed. The Liberals are so unfamiliar with provincial affairs that they need to create offices to fine out how to impose conditions.
Let us talk about microtransfers and programs for small conditional transfers. Quebec has come to realize that being accountable to a federal government that knows nothing about the issue is so costly that it is almost better to turn down the money. The federal government is interfering more and more in provincial jurisdictions.
Now our Conservative friends are talking about fiscal responsibility and the need to reduce taxes because there are too many.
I cannot wait to see a Conservative finance minister. The Conservatives can balance a budget without decreasing spending or increasing revenues. I do not know if any of them have ever taken any accounting courses, but I would be curious to see their résumés.
Let me get back to the cuts. What are they doing? They are taking the path of least resistance and cutting transfers, like Mr. Harper did. The Liberal government is more subtle. It is not indexing the transfers; it is letting the population age and the system costs increase by 4%, 5%, 6% or 7%, with no indexation. They are letting the water get up to our chins, and they think we will not notice. That is exactly what they are doing.
This is not fiscal responsibility, it is poor federalism. It is populism, and it shows a lack of respect for the provinces. We are still waiting for the Conservatives to support our request to increase health transfers to 35% of system costs.
What we are saying is that we need to offer solutions to the crisis and to inflation. Let us start with seniors' purchasing power. We need to help our seniors, who are waiting for a cheque. What did we do this week? We debated a motion to undertake a study on seniors' finances, among other things.
When I am at my riding office, I never get calls from seniors telling me that prices are going up, that they cannot afford groceries and that we should conduct a study. No one has ever said that to me, but the House decided to conduct a study anyway. What the government is doing is putting seniors' concerns on the back burner. It never puts forward any suggestions.
Farmers and truckers are facing increases in the price of gas. Alberta is not going to do them any favours. We need a program to help them, but there is nothing there. People buying groceries need direct financial support. It could come in the form of better indexation of the GST credit or more frequent cheques. That would cost the government peanuts, but there is absolutely nothing about that. We need to strengthen the weak links in the supply chain, but there is nothing about that, either. There is absolutely nothing about the housing crisis. As my colleague said earlier, there is a problem with the supply of housing, but there is nothing about that.
Now the Conservatives are talking about fiscal responsibility. They are saying that the spending is not their fault, because they were not in power during the pandemic, they were not at the table and they had nothing to do with it. I have news for them: We are in the sixth wave of the pandemic, and we are not out of the woods yet. What they call fiscal responsibility, I call magical thinking. Personally, I will listen to what the Conservatives have to say once the budget is balanced.
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- Mar/31/22 11:38:56 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech. I hate to interrupt members, so I did not do so, but I am a stickler for the rules in this place where we speak of matters that are relevant to the bill. I would like to bring his attention to the actual motion, which reads:
That given that,
(i) excessive government spending has increased the deficit, the national debt, and fuelled inflation to its highest level in 31 years,
(ii) taxes on Canadians continue to increase, from the carbon tax to escalator taxes to Canada Pension Plan premiums,
(iii) the government refuses to provide relief to Canadians by temporarily reducing the Goods and Services Tax on gasoline and diesel, the House call on the government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance, and a meaningful fiscal anchor.
I invite the member to address those points as he failed to do so in his remarks.
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- Mar/31/22 11:42:41 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to today's motion because it provides an opportunity to understand a little better some of the thinking of our Conservative colleagues in the House. It lays out quite nicely some of the deficiencies in their thinking about the current economic problems that we are facing in Canada. It is also an opportunity to highlight some of the ways in which New Democrats think differently about these things and the different kinds of solutions that we would propose to the problems of our day.
I thought I might proceed just by walking through the motion, as it were, beginning with its first premise, paragraph (i), which says:
excessive government spending has increased the deficit, the national debt, and fuelled inflation to its highest level in 31 years....
There is clearly a sense in which it is trivially true that government spending increases the deficit. It is hard to have a public deficit if the government is not spending money, so that is true. It is always important to ask what the government is getting for that expenditure or, perhaps more specifically and importantly, what the public and what Canadians are getting for that expenditure, because there are different kinds of expenditures.
There are expenditures that are simply passing expenditures, and then there is expenditure that represents investment. Of course, one of the important aspects of investment is return. When we talk about public spending, there are different ways that we can get return on investment. We can get return on investment on the public books themselves. Sometimes we see that when governments invest in things that increase government revenue, the government actually ends up getting more money coming back. That is reflected on its books.
When we talk about public investment, there is an important difference from investment in the private sector. We see this far less, because it is a different mandate. Having a mandate to increase private profit is very different from having a public interest mandate. Sometimes when we invest from the public purse, the return on investment is experienced not on the government books but by the public. Sometimes it is in their household books, and sometimes it is in the benefit of employment and other things that obviously affect household budgets.
For instance, when New Democrats talk about public expenditure on something such as pharmacare, that is not because we love larger government programs for their own sake or because we think that this spending will not benefit Canadians or that there will not be a return on investment. It is quite the contrary. We support, and have fought a long time for, and are looking forward to making further progress on, a national pharmacare plan because we understand that it is going to have a direct impact on the household budgets of Canadians, so many of whom we have heard from.
In fact, I have heard Conservatives raise the issue of Canadians who are struggling to afford their medication, having to cut pills, and having to raid other budgets, such as their food budgets and their rent budgets, in order to get the life-saving medication that they need. That is why New Democrats support public investment in something that will lower the cost of prescription drugs. That makes sense to us.
That is a philosophical difference, because it says that we should be sharing the cost of trying to provide the things that our families and communities all need. It says that it is wrong for a small cross-section, the top 1% or 10% depending on how we measure it or look at it, to get to walk away with an increasingly larger piece of the pie while so many in Canada continue to struggle.
When we say let us get it off the government books, it does not go away. The federal government could give itself a pat on the back, as Conservatives did in the Harper years, for having smaller deficits, but those deficits do not go away. They get transferred to the household budgets of Canadians who continue to struggle with the cost of prescription drugs. They continue to struggle in the context of a housing market that has gotten out of control, and they continue to struggle with the cost of dental care, for which very few Canadians have ever had any meaningful help. We are optimistic about children from low-income families and their parents being able to afford to get help with those real problems that can have a lasting impact on their lives. There are real financial costs of them being able to get access to that service.
Is it true that government spending contributes to deficits? Of course, in fact there are no deficits without government spending. However, is that spending addressing other real deficits in the household incomes of Canadians? I have just argued that in the case of pharmacare and dental care, and I could go on but I will not because I want to get to the other parts of the motion. Depending on the expenditure, that has an impact by reducing the household deficits of many Canadians while increasing their access to services. That is a deficit that exists. It is just that low-income Canadians are facing that deficit on their own. It is not measured and publicly reported somewhere.
By having a public program, we could increase access to those services that are so important for Canadians' lives, and that means we are actually going to be measuring and recording that deficit somewhere. Gladly for me and for New Democrats, it means somewhere we are sharing that cost collectively, including with the people who have the most ability to pay for those things. Unfortunately many Canadians are just not in a position to pay for those things, fewer and fewer Canadians, as inflation increases.
The other issue with this first clause is that it pretends, wrongly, that government spending is the only driver of inflation. I think it is pretty obvious to anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see that this is not the case. Certainly we heard at the finance committee that some are of the opinion that quantitative easing in the context of the pandemic has increased the access to capital and that has allowed, particularly investors, to drive up the cost of housing.
There are actually ways to address this that do not involve any more public expenditure. For instance, having a higher down payment requirement for investors, as opposed to people who are trying to buy their own family home, is a way the government could cool the investment climate in the Canadian housing market without spending a dime. Having a differential rate on CMHC mortgage insurance for people who are buying investment properties as opposed to principal residences is another way to do that without spending a dime. In fact it would cause more revenue to come in. To the extent that the investment culture continued and to the extent that it did not, it would relieve demand in the housing market, which presumably should have a cooling effect on prices.
However, some pretend that quantitative easing is the only reason there has been incredible inflation in the housing market, which incidentally is not even really represented in the CPI figures, and that has been the subject of some debate at the finance committee. In fact, as housing prices cool in response to higher interest rates, it is likely that we will see inflation go up in the short term, because that is actually recorded. These are questions about how accountants and economists record inflation, and I think are less directly connected to what Canadians are actually experiencing. Even if the nominal inflation rate goes up, if housing prices are coming down, Canadians are going to benefit even in the context where apparently inflation is going up.
It makes no sense to talk about inflation in the current context without recognizing the production stoppages that have occurred as a result of the pandemic. There is still a lot of recovering happening, because we have a just-in-time economy. It is not like there were massive piles of inventory. Production capacity is pretty well attuned, in many industries, to demand.
Trying to make up for lost time is a difficult thing. That is going to take time. In the meantime, we have seen climate-induced natural disasters wreak havoc on the infrastructure required to deliver goods in a timely way in that just-in-time economy I was just talking about, and that drives up costs as well. There are a number of other causes of inflation that are well outside the control of government. That is why we think it is so important that the government act on the things it can act on and make a difference where it can.
The second bullet recognizes that there is a carbon tax increase coming. There is no question. It talks about escalator taxes, specifically referring to the escalator on the excise tax. It talks about Canada pension plan premiums as a tax.
Again, there is a kind of trivial sense in which that is true. As it happens, accountants, for convenience, have chosen to record Canada pension plan costs in their payroll tax ledger. That is fair enough. I am glad that is convenient for accountants, but we should not allow ourselves to be duped by a reasonable professional standard that allows them to talk about the cost per person on their payroll into thinking that the Canada pension plan is really a tax, because it is not. It is part of the wage package Canadians expect when they go in to work. They do not just look at their hourly wage. They look at their benefit package, if they are fortunate enough to be employed at a workplace that has one, and that is certainly something we want for more Canadians.
We also recognize that when we have universal programs, whether they are pharmacare or dental care, they help provide a competitive advantage to Canadian companies over their international competitors, because these are things that help them to attract workers, in the context of a labour shortage, without having to pay the costs of those plans. They might pay them through their taxes. If we have a fair tax system, they will pay for it. They will pay for it through their taxes, but the simplicity of being able to offer employees good benefits makes locating in Canada a more competitive and attractive option for international firms.
We know this to be true because that has been true of medicare over the years, and that is something many companies look favourably upon when they are considering where to locate their companies, but the Canada pension plan is not a tax. It is part of the wage package for which employees show up to work every day.
I have heard Conservatives get up in the House and talk about how difficult inflation is on seniors because their pensions are not keeping up with expenses. One of the ways we can do that is by building in a better pension for Canadian workers, and the only universal fully portable plan we have is the Canada pension plan. In fact, over 70% of Canadian workers right now do not have a workplace pension, which means the CPP is the only pension they have, apart from their own individual investments. We can be sure, when we talk about Canadians who are only $200 a month away from bankruptcy every month, they are not able to put a lot into any kind of personal savings vehicle to have their personal plan for retirement. This means the CPP is what they will be left with. That is why it is important to have higher CPP premiums in order to build a public pension plan that can actually allow people to retire with dignity and to bear some of the additional costs that happen over time.
As we see prices increase, it has been a problem that pensions have not kept pace with the cost of inflation, and the way to do that is by building a stronger public pension plan. If we mislead Canadians by calling that a simple tax increase, then I think we are leading them down the garden path and we are perpetuating a problem of pension income that has already been the case for far too long.
Yes, there are some tax increases. I would also say there are some things being called tax increases in this motion that are not, in fact, tax increases, and it does a disservice to Canadians to pretend that these things are tax increases, when they are clearly not.
The Conservatives say that the government refuses to provide relief to Canadians by temporarily reducing the goods and services tax on gasoline and diesel. That is true; it is not happening. For our part, I would remind the House that last week New Democrats proposed an amendment to the Conservative motion. We said we are willing to consider broad-based temporary tax relief as one way to try to help Canadians through a difficult time, but we proposed that this tax relief come on home heating instead of gas at the pump, and there were a number of reasons for that.
There are more people who heat their homes than drive. There are people who heat their homes with things other than gasoline, so providing tax relief in that way would be a way of providing tax relief that is not prejudiced in favour of the oil and gas sector, but would recognize a more diverse suite of energy proposals. We also argued that, in many cases when it comes to utilities for home heating, there is regulation on price increases, which means it is harder for companies to simply make up the difference that is caused by the lower tax by raising prices to capture that fiscal room for themselves to increase their profits instead of passing it on to consumers.
We thought those were at least three very good reasons to provide that broad-based temporary tax relief on home heating instead of gas at the pump, and all we have gotten from the Conservatives so far on that was a simple no.
Canadians may not know that on opposition day motions, the person who presents the motion has to agree to an amendment in order for it to be debated and voted on. Earlier today, I asked the member who brought this motion forward, the member of Parliament for Abbotsford, if he could explain to the House why Conservatives were not prepared to entertain temporary tax relief on home heating instead of gas at the pump. While he did say a lot of things in response, he did not mention home heating at all, so we continue to wait on that answer.
I would say the motion misrepresents the will of the House. There is an opportunity to compromise on the question of temporary broad-based tax relief, but when we proposed a solution to that and a way forward in an attempt to co-operate and find consensus, the Conservatives declined that opportunity and should not have been surprised that their motion, therefore, did not pass.
What is the final call to action of this motion? It is that “the House call on the government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance, and a meaningful fiscal anchor.” Here is the incoherence in the motion. It talks about a path to balance. It talks about fiscal responsibility, and it explicitly excludes the entire revenue side of balancing the books. Rare is the conversation around corporate boardroom tables where they say their books are in bad shape, they need to figure this one out for the sake of their investors and they want to be able to pay out higher dividends and a better return on shares, but they are not going to talk about how the company can raise new revenue or increase its revenue and they just want to get back to balance without any question of revenue. That makes no sense.
In the public context, it makes no sense because, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported just in December, 1% of Canadians now own and control 25% of the wealth that is generated in Canada. They are walking away with it without paying any taxes on it through tax haven agreements. Previously, the PBO estimated this is costing Canadian taxpayers $25 billion a year. The fact that the Conservatives would talk about balancing the budget and deliberately exclude looking at that as a way to try to bring things back to balance, instead of simply cutting things that Canadians are depending upon, mystifies me.
It is one of the important differences between Conservatives and New Democrats, because we think tax havens should absolutely be part of the conversation. New Democrats have also run on having a wealth tax on fortunes over $10 million. There is not a lot of people with fortunes of $10 million or more in Canada. In terms of asking them to pay a little bit more, particularly in light of having seen Canada's billionaires expand their wealth exponentially during the pandemic, it is ridiculous to me that idea would be ruled out of order and not a possibility without further debate or discussion.
We have seen a number of large companies in certain industries, which were profitable before the pandemic, become even more profitable during the pandemic. It is why New Democrats continue to insist on the idea of having an excess profit tax, where we look at their average profits over the years in advance of the pandemic, we look at their average profits postpandemic and on the amount that their pandemic profits exceed their prepandemic average, we have a higher incremental rate of tax to make sure they are paying their fair share and not profiteering on the pandemic.
That is a reasonable way to fund the services that Canadians need and to fund some of the things that Conservatives themselves, depending on the day, will call for to provide relief to Canadian households that are in economic distress, but this motion says, no, none of that. Conservatives are not interested in hearing those ideas or talking about the revenue side of balancing the budget.
We, in the NDP, think that is preposterous and it is why we will not be supporting the motion today.
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- Mar/31/22 12:21:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak in the House today on this important opposition day motion, and I will be sharing my time with the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis.
Next week we will find out what is contained in the Liberals' budget. This will be a historic budget, as the NDP has already pledged to vote in favour without even knowing its contents. If my NDP colleagues are not nervous, I certainly am.
The pre-budget leaks have not started just yet, but we know that in the coming days a few selected journalists will be given a couple of tidbits to help set the narrative. It is a tactic that is as old as time, and I am hoping the Minister of Finance will be signalling to the media that she will be tabling a plan to balance the budget.
Our motion today is starting the important conversation about getting our nation's finances back in order. It does not dictate what the government must spend money on, but it does ask the Liberals to finally table a plan that outlines a path back to balance.
The government's budget is by far the most important document of the parliamentary cycle. Louis XIV's finance minister stated, “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” Well, I doubt the Minister of Finance will agree with that statement.
I know that every member of Parliament is hearing from their constituents about the cost-of-living crisis that we are in today. If Liberal MPs went to their local grocery store or gas station and asked their constituents if they wanted the government to provide some tax relief, the overwhelming answer would be “yes”.
This government's nickel-and-diming is starting to add up. This is the government that said it would never introduce a Netflix tax, and then it did. Now it wants the CRTC to regulate online content providers, and inevitably those costs will be passed down to businesses and consumers.
The carbon tax is going up this Friday, tomorrow, as my colleagues were just talking about, which will push the price of fuel even higher. Just last week, the Liberals voted against our Conservative motion to provide GST relief at the pump, but are now refusing to press "Pause" on the carbon tax hike, and they are raising payroll taxes on businesses just as many are clawing their way out of this terrible pandemic.
While the Liberals may view themselves as Robin Hood, in reality they are more like the Sheriff of Nottingham, ever on the hunt for whatever they can scrounge up. We have never seen a government so committed to class warfare as this one. They fought my private member's bill on the transfer of small businesses and farms because they thought it would provide tax loopholes for families. I, like many of my colleagues in this place, had to endure listening to speeches by the ever-present members for Winnipeg North and Kingston and the Islands about how awful my bill was. Thank goodness most of the Liberal MPs who studied my bill had the fortitude to ignore their nonsensical rhetoric and voted in favour of it. Let us never forget that this is the government that called entrepreneurs, farmers and small business tax cheats.
I remember all too well when the Liberals rolled back the TFSA limits because they said it was only helping the wealthy. This is a government that also put up an escalator tax on Canadian spirits and alcohol, another needless cash grab.
I also get the fact that the Liberals want us to fight them on their tax hikes on big-ticket purchases. That is politics, and it is part of the parcel of how the government wants to define itself and to wedge the opposition. If anyone on the Liberal bench does not want to admit that fact, they can save their breath and start proposing solutions rather than just tax hikes.
In the budget next week, I am eager to see a plan to get inflation under control. I want to see a commitment to stop raising taxes. I want to see a plan to provide relief for families and seniors. I want to see a plan that brings spending levels back down to earth. I want to see a strategy that encourages the private sector to start building homes, that gets energy and mining projects built and that acknowledges that Canada can be a food superpower.
Regardless of what some may have us believe, there is not an unlimited supply of money. A good finance minister has the strength to tell her colleagues “no”, the courage to defend those tough choices and the ingenuity of reprioritizing spending where it matters the most.
It was not that long ago that this government vocalized such commitments. Back in the budget of 2017, Scott Brison was tasked to conduct a spending review to find government waste. He was tasked with finding and eliminating poorly targeted and inefficient programs, wasteful spending and ineffective and obsolete government initiatives.
Like many parliamentarians, I was eager to see what Mr. Brison would discover and what he would decide to eliminate. We already knew by then that the government's most modest deficits had turned into permanent deficits. Here we are, four or five years later, and no savings were ever found and no waste was ever eliminated.
I do not know a single Canadian who believes that the government is running at peak performance. If one exists, they are probably on the other side of the House across the floor. Knowing Mr. Brison, he probably did offer some solid ideas to reduce spending and improve government efficiency, but did his proposals fall on deaf ears?
One can only speculate on how difficult it must be for a minister in the Liberal government to reduce government spending. Now Mr. Brison is retweeting the thoughts of a Conservative leadership candidate on approving an energy project and is providing his thoughts on the new NDP-Liberal alliance. He is now a distraught Liberal, worried about the possibility of the decades of economic damage that this new parliamentary alliance with the NDP will cause. When the Liberals have lost Scott Brison, it is clear they have lost their way.
I too am worried. Taxpayers, job creators and entrepreneurs are already bracing themselves for next week’s budget. They are worried about the never-ending deficits. I have already said that today's deficits are tomorrow's taxes, but I remain hopeful. I am hopeful because the best day to adjust course is today. If steps are taken today, it will be all the easier to restore Canada’s fiscal future. Waiting, on the other hand, will only make things worse.
It is easy to look the other way. It is easy to pretend Canadians are not facing a serious cost-of-living crisis and it is easy to make popular short-term decisions for political reasons. However, there is courage in recognizing when the old approach is failing. I am asking the Liberal government to think outside of the narrow lines it has drawn for itself and do what is right. There is no question that we must respond to today’s challenges, but there is much to be said about also being ready for whatever tomorrow brings.
I fully understand that we had to help people get through the pandemic. As we look to the future, it is now time for the Liberals to make some tough decisions. They can no longer kick the can further down the road. The budget next week must tell ministers to start looking inwards for funding to help pay for any new spending commitments.
If a minister wants to introduce a new spending initiative, the Minister of Finance cannot just add that to the deficit. Ministers should review how their department delivers programs and see if there are ways to trim costs to reallocate those funds to pay for new commitments. This would force every minister to scrutinize every program they oversee. It would task them with determining if every program is meeting its objectives or can be delivered differently. I know these conversations will not be easy, but they are necessary. For those thinking this is common practice in government, I can assure them it is not.
In closing, I know there are going to be costs in the years ahead to purchase equipment the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces need to do their jobs. There are going to be further expenditures to invest in our health care system and to support our seniors. These are things every member in the House recognizes. I implore my colleagues to vote in favour of this motion, which calls on government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance and a meaningful fiscal anchor. That is something that we should all support. Our responsibility is not only to Canadians today but to future generations, and the budget should signal as much.
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- Mar/31/22 12:36:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has announced that she will table a NDP-Liberal budget on April 7. We are very worried. We have serious concerns. We moved a motion, which I will read, because that is what we are debating today.
That, given that,
(i) excessive government spending has increased the deficit, the national debt, and fuelled inflation to its highest level in 31 years,
(ii) taxes on Canadians continue to increase, from the carbon tax to escalator taxes to Canada Pension Plan premiums,
(iii) the government refuses to provide relief to Canadians by temporarily reducing the Goods and Services Tax on gasoline and diesel,
the House call on the government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance, and a meaningful fiscal anchor.
I rise today to try to make the government listen to reason. This government listens only to itself and prefers to focus its efforts on making deals behind closed doors with the NDP. As we know, the NDP is a party that pushes for very expensive plans. The Liberal Party of Canada is now the NDP-Liberal party. Take a hard left, everyone.
Times are tough for Canadians, Quebeckers and the people in my riding. Inflation is at 5.7%, the highest it has been in 30 years. This runaway inflation is crippling our families, who are struggling to pay for groceries, which will cost them $1,000 more this year. They are struggling to pay for fuel. This morning, in my riding, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, gas was going for $1.75 a litre. Seniors are wondering what they should pay for first among the essentials that they need.
As for real estate, young people are unable to achieve their dream of owning their first home because of skyrocketing real estate costs. On March 15, the Canadian Real Estate Association released the highest real estate inflation numbers ever recorded. In fact, house prices have increased by 3.5% over the past month alone and by nearly 30%—29.2% to be precise—over the past year. It is crazy.
House prices have doubled since the Liberals came to power in 2015, when the average house price was $434,500. That same house now costs $868,400. How is a young couple supposed to buy their first home? This makes the dream of home ownership impossible for families and young people all across the country.
Even better, recently released documents show that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, paid more than $48 million in bonuses over the past two years, while four in five Canadian families were forced to cut spending and tighten their budgets. The CMHC's only purpose is to make housing more affordable for all Canadians, yet it is rewarding its own employees with exorbitant bonuses when the real estate sector has become untenable.
That is a snapshot of the Liberals' management style, which is reckless, illogical and indulgent.
Our regional economies are under pressure as well, because businesses cannot find the workers they need.
Add to that huge issues with processing foreign workers' applications, and it makes for the perfect storm.
My colleague from Beauce could talk about immigration issues, a perennial headache for the people working in our riding offices. We have asked the government countless questions about this, but we have never received an answer, even though it is a very serious problem that affects our regions.
Last August, Chaudière‑Appalaches elected officials and business community representatives carried out a study documenting the impact of the labour shortage on the economy of this very productive and very large region of Quebec.
According to the study, the 309 manufacturers surveyed have 3,300 vacancies. The labour shortage is responsible for $2 billion in losses due to low productivity in the Chaudière‑Appalaches region alone. Because of the labour shortage, production drops and businesses have to turn down contracts and miss out on all kinds of opportunities. It also means less money in government coffers. Here again, as usual, the government is a very bad manager.
This government has been spending recklessly ever since it came to power. The Parliamentary Budget Officer even said that it was time to stop spending so much. The debt is out of control, and this government is like a rudderless ship, adrift on the ocean, with no plan for balancing the budget. The Liberal government's objective is to stay in power by forming dubious alliances with the NDP rather than working to balance the budget through rigorous management of public funds, and yet that is what Canadians expect of us.
Our constituents want a serious government that properly manages public funds, the money they work hard to earn every day. Doing so requires courage and political will. This government has been running a deficit since 2015 and has not delivered a single balanced budget since it came to power. It has been plunging us into deficit for six years, and that has to change. It is long overdue.
Since 2015, deficits have been building up and the debt has been growing exponentially. It is now at $1.234 billion. I have said it before, but I do not even know how many zeros come after that number. It is alarming. As it drafts its budget, the government is selling its soul to stay in power. In exchange, the Liberal Party is bringing in measures from the NDP's election platform, a platform that Canadians did not want. Our constituents did not vote for the NDP, and that party does not even have 10% of the seats in the House. What a mess. What an affront to democracy.
This will only breed public cynicism.
As if it were not enough to call an election that no one wanted at a cost of $620 million and that produced the same result, now the Liberal government is not respecting the will of the people. That is too bad. It is pathetic, really. The Liberals clinched their agreement with the NDP just before presenting the budget, and that is no coincidence because it has been all planned since the beginning of this Parliament. What can we say about the arrogance of this new government led by two centralists who will have both hands, or should I say all four hands, in provincial jurisdictions?
They have been warned. The provinces are keeping an eye on them.
Instead of spending its time thinking about how to remain in power and concocting secret agreements with another party, the government should do its job and listen to Canadians, consider their concerns and come up with solutions.
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- Mar/31/22 12:51:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Kings—Hants.
It is a great pleasure, as always, to rise in the House on behalf of my riding of Davenport to speak to the opposition day motion put forward by the Conservatives, which calls on our government to present a “federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility with no new taxes, a path to balance and a meaningful fiscal anchor”. We are well aware that elevated inflation and the rise of gas prices are leading Canadians to worry about the cost of living and how this is affecting their everyday lives. Let me remind everyone in this venerable House today, and all those listening, of a few things.
Inflation is a global issue. Initially, it was due to global oil prices, pandemic supply chain problems and the way the virus changed our spending habits. We also know that inflation is being exacerbated by Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the pandemic, our federal government has been tireless in our efforts to protect Canadians, to support them through ongoing challenges and to bridge them through the postpandemic recovery. This significant fiscal policy support has contributed to a rapid and resilient recovery so far. I would add that we have provided if not the most generous, then among the most generous emergency supports in the world.
The motion we are speaking to today asks the federal government to present a federal budget that is rooted in fiscal responsibility and also to provide meaningful fiscal anchors. We have been fiscally responsible every step of the way during the pandemic, as well as since we were first elected in late 2015. Indeed, throughout the entire pandemic we have been in strong fiscal shape with the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio of the G7.
Our GDP returned to nearly prepandemic levels in the third quarter of 2021, and it grew by an annual rate of 6.7% in the fourth quarter of 2021. On top of that, Moody's and S&P have reaffirmed Canada's AAA credit rating. In addition, the Stats Canada labour force survey showed that the labour market gained 337,000 jobs in February of this year, and we have recovered overall 112% of the jobs that we lost at the peak of the pandemic. Therefore, we have been fiscally responsible, we continue to be fiscally responsible, and we will be fiscally responsible moving forward.
We have also had meaningful fiscal anchors. Those anchors have been net GDP-to-debt ratios that, as was mentioned earlier, are the best in the G7, as well as an outstanding jobs growth number in addition to our overall GDP growth. The result is that our economy is growing back as it continues to try to come out of this pandemic into the postpandemic world and economy. I just want to point out that it is because of the generous emergency supports provided throughout the pandemic by our federal government that the economic foundation is strong and that companies can pivot back quickly as we are trying to come out of this pandemic.
Saying all that, I want to highlight some elements of the federal government's recovery plan that we have announced so far.
Our current recovery plan is targeted toward growth-enhancing and job-creating initiatives such as investment to support child care and the adoption of new technologies that will help boost supply. Increasing supply will help the economy to grow without the risk of higher inflation. As the situation across the country has improved, our federal government has moved from very broad-based support to more targeted measures that will provide help where it is needed and when it is needed.
When the new variants and major outbreaks occurred, lockdowns and capacity restrictions were painful but necessary last resorts to break the chain of transmission and to save lives. That is why, this past December, we announced that we were temporarily expanding the Canada worker lockdown benefit as well as the local lockdown program to support workers and businesses that were affected by capacity restrictions of 50% or more. We also temporarily lowered the current month revenue decline threshold requirement, from 40% to 25%, for employers to access the local lockdown program. This means that eligible employers could receive wage and rent subsidy support of from 25% to 75%, depending on how much revenue they had lost.
For workers who work in a region that introduces capacity restrictions by 50% or more, this means they can qualify for the Canada worker lockdown benefit. This enables Canadians to put $300 a week in their pockets to supplement lost wages.
Like all Canadians, we hope that lockdowns and capacity restrictions will be a thing of the past. We know Canadians are tired of COVID-19, but the unfortunately reality is that COVID-19 is not quite tired of us. We put these supports in place so that public health authorities could make the right, albeit difficult, decisions knowing that the federal government could be there to continue to support workers, small businesses and other employers in their communities when needed. We extended these key, enhanced lockdown support programs to ensure that Canadians were protected and workers and businesses had access to the help they needed to sustain them during the omicron wave.
There are a number of additional measures we have taken to support Canadians and address top issues affecting Canada's economic growth and prosperity. Last December, we introduced Bill C-8, which seeks to address housing affordability through the implementation of a national annual 1% tax on the value of non-resident, non-Canadian-owned residential real estate in Canada that is considered to be vacant or underused. It is something our federal government announced as part of budget 2021 to crack down on underused housing. The bill would introduce a new act, the underused housing tax act, to ensure that non-resident non-Canadian owners, particularly those who use Canada as a place to passively store their wealth and housing, pay their fair share of Canadian taxes beginning in the 2022 calendar year.
We are also working to address the issue of supply chain disruptions from around the world and shipping bottlenecks that have made it harder for Canadians and businesses to get the products and supplies they need, and that in many cases are contributing to rising prices. To help strengthen supply chains and address bottlenecks, the federal government has launched a new targeted call for proposals under the national trade corridors fund to assist Canadian ports with the acquisition of cargo storage capacity and other measures to relieve supply chain congestion. The fund will dedicate up to $50 million to support eligible priority projects.
Today, we are on strong economic footing. Our federal government has also prioritized putting the lives of Canadians first. This has meant that we have had one of the lowest mortality rates in the G7 due to COVID-19. In addition, we are making vaccines free and a priority. As of March 25, over 85% of Canadians five and older were fully vaccinated, and the Canadian economy has seen the benefits of prioritizing our health.
Given all of the aforementioned emergency and economic supports, the Canadian labour market rebounded strongly from the omicron wave in February. I would add that the recovery and economic growth have been broad-based and supported by solid underlying fundamentals, with ongoing rebounds in sectors hardest hit by the pandemic.
In conclusion, our federal government is determined to continue to do what is necessary to sustain the recovery, to provide help where it is still needed, to create jobs and to set the stage for strong growth for years to come. From the start of the pandemic, we understood that having a job was essential to Canadians' economic well-being. That is why our investments have been so singularly focused on employment and why Canada has experienced one of the fastest job recoveries in the G7. Canadians can remain confident that they have a strong hand at the wheel of the federal government in safeguarding and growing our economy.
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- Mar/31/22 1:06:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in the House of Commons, even in a virtual manner, to address the opposition day motion today on what I think is an important element for us to talk about: economic and fiscal policy.
What I am going to do in my 10 minutes is to try to tackle some of the elements in the actual text of the motion and also to provide some of the recommendations and thoughts I have as a member of Parliament about things that I think all parliamentarians should be thinking about in the days ahead as we start to work our way out of COVID and look to how we can maintain fiscal balance but also continue to pursue the social programs that Canadians expect.
Before I get into the text of the motion, I want to take us back to the period before the pandemic, from 2015 to certainly just the early part of 2020, and how this government approached spending and its parameters around what it felt was important.
The member for Burnaby North—Seymour, who is the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance, made what I thought were really important remarks this morning when he talked about the government coming in at a time when the Harper government had really underfunded a lot of really important programs. He spoke about not just economic deficits but social and infrastructure deficits that had essentially protruded over time.
When we look at the level of spending the government took on during that time frame, it ran relatively modest deficits of around 1% of GDP at a time when the economy was continuing to grow. We would remember that, following the global economic crisis in the 2008-09 period, there was a lagging economic recovery that had been evident under the Harper policies. We really saw a lot of economic growth from 2015 to 2020. I will remind colleagues that unemployment was at a 40-year low just before the pandemic, and although the government was spending deficits, the economy and economic growth was far outpacing the cost of the debt taken on at the time.
Essentially, we came into the pandemic with the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. We were in a very strong fiscal position to be able to tackle what was a once-in-a-generation type of pandemic. We had not seen this level of uncertainty since the Spanish flu and the influenza crisis just following World War I, so I want to remind Canadians and colleagues that this government has been able to walk the line between not only investing in Canadians but also maintaining important fiscal balance in the same sense.
I will go to the text of the motion. The first part speaks about “excessive government spending” during the pandemic. I think it is an open debate whether or not that was indeed the case. Other colleagues, and also perhaps the Minister of Finance, have said that, if we are putting out a fire, we are usually not critiqued on how much water we use to eliminate the fire. It is easy for armchair quarterbacks on the opposition side to sit and suggest that the government spent too much, but private sector economists, Canadians and the people who needed support during this extremely difficult time would tell us that these were important investments to ward off the economic scarring that would have happened in a similar light to what happened during the 2008-09 financial crisis.
Of course, the job of Her Majesty's loyal opposition is to critique and hold the government to account, but I think on the whole the government was responsible in making sure there were programs in a timely manner that were there to support Canadian businesses, Canadian individuals and even the provinces and territories because we had a strong fiscal footing going into the pandemic. Therefore, I would take issue with the fact that there is text in the motion that talks about “excessive government spending”. During the magnitude of the challenge we have just gone through over the past two years, which I would remind my colleagues we are not completely out of, I think it was proportionate to what we saw.
I also want to remind my Conservative colleagues that, in the 43rd Parliament and leading into the election in September, they were proposing to spend more money than what the government had allocated in its platform commitments. I remember sitting, virtually, during the height of the pandemic, listening to Conservative members get up and say in one breath that the government was spending far too much money, which goes to the excessive spending piece they are talking about now, and in the same breath would come back and say the government is not doing enough and it needs to do even more. That inconsistency around how best to move forward is why I think the Conservative Party continues to not have a true idea of where it necessarily sits on this issue.
I want to talk about fuelling inflation. The idea in the text of this motion is that the government spending during the pandemic has fuelled inflation. I think, in part, it has, but this is a much more nuanced question. Governments around the world have invested to try to ward off the worst economic implications. We know that had to happen. Otherwise, we would have had an economic collapse.
This has to do with the supply chains that were impacted. This has to do with climate change. The member for Abbotsford's community and certainly the communities close to him were severely impacted by the atmospheric rainstorms that we saw in British Columbia, which then created supply challenges. Climate change is having a major impact on global inflation, as well as is the war in Ukraine. I would also argue that low interest rates contribute to this. There is a fiscal piece to this, but there is also a monetary element, where the Bank of Canada significantly lowered its interest rates, which also stimulates investment and spending, which is also part of what we are seeing now.
There is a piece of this motion that talks about the taxes continuing to increase with reference to the carbon price. What the motion does not mention, of course, is that the carbon price is designed to give money back to Canadians. On a per capita basis, money is returned so that it actually incentivizes change in behaviour.
As the chair of the agriculture committee, I will recognize that in some instances, in particular, our farmers have been impacted in the sense that they may pay a higher proportionate cost. That is why we have made adjustments in the economic update, which we are still trying to get through the House as the Conservatives continue to delay, to get measures that will actually give rebates to farmers who many not have otherwise had the opportunity to get around those challenging circumstances.
There is also a provision around relief to Canadians through the GST. I had lots to say on that with the member for Abbotsford about a week ago. I think there is merit at looking at affordability. I think the manner in which the Conservatives are proposing to go about this allows members of Parliament, who are some of the higher income earners in the country, to benefit from something. It is not targeted. I think there are more targeted ways we can try to focus on supporting individuals who truly need the help, given the circumstances we are under.
The last piece, and this is the piece I tend to agree with, is that “the House call on the government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility”. I do fundamentally believe that is an important element that this government is going to have to tackle in the days ahead. There has to be a balance between social progress, which I believe in, and the programs that matter, and having a plan for how those can be sustainable over time. I would agree on that point.
I also agree that the economy is very hot right now because of the investments that we have made and because of how we have been able to support businesses. Unemployment is at historic lows right now. Members opposite and members in the House writ large have talked about the importance of immigration to make sure that we can fill job vacancies that exist in the country.
I do think we have to be mindful about not continuing to put liquidity in an already hot economy, which is ultimately going against the principles of monetary policy when the Bank of Canada is signalling that it will be increasing interest rates in the days ahead.
Just quickly, on no new taxes, I think the Conservatives are either going to have to come clean that they do not necessarily want to support some of the social programs that are being talked about, whether it be dental care or pharmacare, or they are going to have to say that there is going to have to be a revenue generation to pay for those. Whether that is growing the economy or looking at ways to work in a multilateral form so that we do not price ourselves out in a competitive sense around tax policy, there are going to have to be serious questions around revenue to make sure that these programs that are being introduced are sustainable over time.
Let me just say again, as I have said in the House before, I think this country has a tremendous opportunity on foreign policy. We have the propensity to feed the world. We have the propensity to provide energy to the world. We have the propensity to provide critical minerals that are key to the energy transition.
There is a great opportunity on foreign policy, but it is also an important economic driver that can help pay for some of the very important social programs the government has introduced and is planning to introduce in the days ahead.
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- Mar/31/22 1:35:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Kenora, for his great intervention and speech.
It is always a pleasure to rise in this House, and today it is in response to the announcement of the tabling of the first NDP-Liberal budget on April 7, to represent my constituents of Kelowna—Lake Country and to speak on this Conservative opposition day motion, which looks to make recommendations to give people a break from higher taxes and out-of-control debt. We have made many recommendations to help Canadians, to help get our fiscal house in order and to have fiscal anchors. I will be gladly speaking to some of these points.
I hear from constituents every day who cannot afford basic necessities and cannot afford housing costs, which are up over 30% in the past year alone, and I hear from businesses and not-for-profits that are being squeezed by higher costs. This situation is becoming critical for many people.
We have heard one word from the government a lot in the last few weeks: “tired”. The government likes to say that it recognizes that Canadians are tired: that they are tired of federal COVID-19 restrictions, tired of paying so much at the pumps and tired of an escalating grocery bill. However, we never hear anything from the government afterwards about giving any peace of mind to Canadians, or any hope.
There is a reason for that. It is because it would involve reversing the government's stated choices. Provinces are reopening and are removing restrictions and mandates, but the federal government chooses to not even set a date. It chooses not to bring forth any data or any metrics on how it is making decisions around this issue. This is holding back the economic recovery of Canada and creating uncertainty for my residents and businesses in Kelowna—Lake Country and across the country.
Small businesses might be coming out of the pandemic struggling with debt, labour shortages and squeezed margins, but ministers in Ottawa still choose to raise their taxes. Consumers might find it harder to manage grocery or gas bills, but the Prime Minister chooses to leave tax relief off the table.
Let us not kid ourselves about who these choices harm the most. It is the poor, the vulnerable, struggling young people, families and seniors. The Liberal elites, multinationals and large real estate investors seem to have nothing to complain about. They have fared well during the pandemic.
A report released a few weeks ago from the government's own finance department showed that single parents, lower-income households and recent immigrants are more likely to see 50% or more of their earnings offset by higher taxes, clawbacks in benefits or a combination of the two. Calls are coming from inside and outside this House to halt taxes and take action on inflation, but the Liberals still refuse to listen. As made-in-Canada inflation continues to rise, even former advisers to Liberal finance ministers, such as Robert Asselin, are calling for the government to rein in its spending to reduce our inflationary levels.
It was not long ago that ministers in the government called our rise in inflation rates “transitory”. Well, inflation has transitioned—from bad to worse. Other governments in the U.K., Germany and the United States have set out plans to tackle inflation, and it is long past time for the government in Canada to do the same. Failure to deliver a budget that will reduce inflation will be a budget that will fail to reduce our cost of living. With government’s coffers growing as a result of inflation, there is no reason to celebrate, yet with families facing an increase of more than $1000 in their annual grocery bill alone, Liberal insiders choose to brag in the press about the extra tax revenue they are collecting from them.
People are being squeezed with lower paycheques due to the January payroll tax increase and rising costs on everything. That is why we are bringing forward this motion to call on the government to not implement new taxes and to bring forth a path to balance to aid them.
I am sure there is no member of this House who has not heard from their constituents about how they are being hammered by high gas prices. Constituents in my part of the country have seen prices rise as high as $2.145 this month. If parties here today had joined in our call to introduce a 5% GST reduction on gasoline and diesel, the government would have been given the opportunity to reduce the average price by approximately 8¢ per litre. Unfortunately, the other parties voted against this motion last week.
What we are asking for today is common sense to help people. It is a practical way we could improve lives today.
Another way Conservatives are looking to provide relief is by calling on the federal government to end its upcoming April 1 tax increases. The first April Fool's Day tax increase is on excise tax on alcohol products. The kicker with this is that it is based on the CPI, meaning it is based on inflation; therefore, the increase would be higher than ever before. It is basically a tax increase on inflation, and what is worse is that it is automatic. It does not have to be debated and voted on by parliamentarians every year.
Wineries, cideries, breweries and distilleries in my riding cannot afford increases to the excise escalator tax after two years of pandemic damage to their bottom line. This measure affects dozens of small businesses in my riding of Kelowna—Lake Country that have deep roots in our agriculture history. We have craft beer tours, winery tours and a cider festival. This is an emerging sector, and there are dozens of businesses in my riding that would be affected. The tax increase will ultimately have to be passed on through the supply chain and to consumers. That is why I was pleased earlier today to second a bill from my colleague, the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, that would eliminate this escalator tax.
Poor policies and poor leadership by the Liberals caused rolling COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns and left producers with the least profitable avenues of sale, such as government liquor stores. Even with restaurants, hotels and farm gate sales slowly returning, they have a lot in their bottom lines to recoup, and recovery will be sluggish. Their efforts to survive should not be penalized with more taxes and new taxes, as domestic producers who have not been applicable will have to start paying on July 1.
We have to remember the average small business took on $170,000 in new pandemic debt and was hit with payroll tax increases on January 1. These costs came directly off their bottom line. When both the finance minister and the small business minister, who have not had to make payroll or read financial statements in their past careers, are making decisions that will affect people’s lives, we can see why they have no clue about how businesses are being squeezed.
The second April Fool's Day tax increase is to the federal carbon tax, and we have called for it to be halted. The government's decision to proceed with raising the floor of the carbon tax is entirely out of touch with people who are just trying to fill their car with gas or heat their homes. The government's choice to then worsen this situation by adding 11¢ a litre to Canadians' gas prices is really to act without compassion. It is choosing to commit to an ideological agenda rather than appealing to common sense
The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently reported that the government is taking in more in carbon tax than it is rebating, and many people will receive far less than they pay. The carbon tax is not reducing emissions and is nothing more a windfall for the government on the backs of Canadians and small businesses.
In addition, if Canada was more energy dependent, we could be helping our allies right now.
Lastly, I want to touch on another financial penalty that will affect every Canadian: the growing size of our national debt. A recent mandate letter of the finance minister stated that creating any new permanent spending should be avoided. With this new Liberal-NDP backroom coalition, this will be another broken promise. We are calling today for a meaningful fiscal anchor.
Kelowna—Lake Country was recently visited by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's national debt clock. The Liberals broke the former debt clock when it went over $1 trillion. Every second, $4,531 is being added to our national debt. By the time I am done my fifteen-minute debate today, Canada’s national debt will rise an extra $4,077,900. Any member in this House who ignores the responsibility of this House to manage this is leaving the future of our children and grandchildren at risk.
Choosing to offer relief today to Canadian families and seniors with immediate savings on daily costs while ensuring our financial stability for the next generation is how this House should be choosing to act. A commitment to an ideological tax-and-spend agenda will not help either of those goals. I hope all members of this House will support our motion today to give people hope and give them a break.
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- Mar/31/22 1:46:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the reality is that my future grandchildren, which I do not have yet, will be paying off this debt, as will the future grandchildren of other people in this House. We have to be cognizant that someone will have to pay back this debt that we are creating right now. We are not setting up our children and grandchildren very well here.
Regardless of what others are doing, we have to focus on Canada and on the fiscal prudence of this country. We need to get our fiscal house in order. Yes, we need to help people who really need help, but at the same time we also need to be looking ahead. We need to look ahead for how we can increase investment in Canada and increase the prosperity of Canadians.
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- Mar/31/22 2:32:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us recall a bit of history. Canada entered this crisis in a strong fiscal position, allowing the government to take decisive action to put in place the supports that Canadians needed during the worst health crisis in a century. Our response to COVID was $511 billion invested in the lives, livelihoods, communities and provinces of this country. It kept people in their homes and in their jobs.
While the other side is fighting itself over leadership, we are going to keep fighting for Canadians and affordability every day.
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- Mar/31/22 3:32:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, tomorrow morning we will continue with second reading debate of Bill C-13, which would amend the Official Languages Act and enact the use of French in federally regulated private businesses act. On Monday we will have the fifth day of debate at report stage of Bill C-8, which is an act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update that was tabled in Parliament on December 14. Tuesday shall be an opposition day. Further, Wednesday we plan to start debate on Bill C-14, which concerns electoral representation in Quebec. We will continue debate on Bill C-13 and official languages on Thursday until 4 p.m., at which time the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance will be presenting the budget. Friday will be the first day of the budget debate.
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- Mar/31/22 3:51:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague and more so a dear friend, the hon. member for Calgary Centre, for the question. There were lot of questions within that statement.
First, I very much look forward to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance delivering the budget next Thursday here in the House. I always like to see a budget that is full of measures that encourage business investment, encourage job creation and encourage productivity. That makes more efficient our tax system and our regulatory burdens on industry and on the private sector, and it ensures that we are good fiscal managers of the purse, which we have been to date and we will continue to be in the future.
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- Mar/31/22 3:55:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Calgary Centre.
Far too often, it is easy for us to sit in this symbol of democracy and lose perspective on what is happening within our constituencies. The affordability factor is real right now. What many people were saying was a transitory inflation period has actually become a state of permanent inflation, and it is affecting everything from gasoline to home heating.
The impact it is having on Canadians is very real, specifically in my constituency of Barrie—Innisfil. A little later I am going to be talking about some of the impacts that were told to me directly from people so that not only this place but Canadians can understand the real impacts inflation and the affordability crisis Canadians are facing today are having on my constituency.
Canadians have been resilient for the past two years dealing with COVID. There have been many government programs that have been implemented. As a result of that, we have seen increases in debt and deficit. The latest figures I heard were $400 billion in deficit and $1.3 trillion in debt. What we are saying, through this motion, is that there needs to be some semblance of getting back to a fiscal framework where we are not seeing those levels of increase in debt and deficit through unsustainable government programs.
There is no question some of these measures that were implemented needed to be implemented. They needed to be targeted. In many ways, Conservatives supported some of those measures, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. We are getting to a point right now where many Canadians, young Canadians, seniors and families, are losing hope that there is a prosperous future for them because of the fiscal situation they are in. This is a fiscal situation that has been exacerbated by government debt and deficit, which is leaving us vulnerable. We are starting to see increases in interest rates and the service level of that debt is going to have a profound effect on families with mortgages, lines of credit and credit cards.
However, it is even going to have a more profound effect on government as this debt piles up and the cost of servicing that debt increases. I would argue there is an attack on many aspects of revenue in this country. We have seen certain sectors of our economy, like the natural resource sector, the fisheries over the last several weeks and other sectors, attacked through legislative and regulatory burdens. Traditional sectors that normally create revenue for the government have been attacked, and that is increasing the vulnerability of not just government revenues but the ability to pay for those increases in servicing costs.
Canadians are struggling more than ever as a result of inflation, which is now at 5.7% and is the highest inflation in a generation. It is the highest inflation rate in over 30 years. Canadians are being burdened not just by the inflation but by the level of debt. We saw just recently a Statistics Canada report that showed $1.86 of every household income coming in is going toward servicing debt. Think about that. Just a year ago or two years ago we were at $1.70. That number is steadily increasing and it is causing a problem. The amount that households have added to their debt burden has amounted to $50 billion just over the last quarter. These are staggering numbers that really put at risk those working-class, middle-class and lower-class households in this country that have been struggling and will continue to struggle under this burden of debt.
What we are talking about today is at least attempting to get this fiscal house in order. History in this country has shown that previous Liberal governments like the Martin and Chrétien governments were very good at fiscal responsibility and social Liberal tendencies. This is where I would classify my politics. I believe we need to be responsible in our finances, but we also need to look after the most vulnerable.
It is the most vulnerable who are at the greatest risk as a result of this debt increase, this debt burden and this out-of-control government spending, debt and deficits. The social safety net programs that many Canadians rely on are at risk as a result of the servicing costs of debt. We really need to get to a point where we are focused on this fiscal framework and getting things aligned. It does not have to come from austerity and it does not have to come from cuts. I will speak about that in a couple of minutes.
We know that the government's spending is certainly out of control. Two-thirds of Canadians say that inflation and an affordability crisis are their top economic concerns. Canadians are requiring real solutions to skyrocketing inflation and the cost of living.
This is not just hitting households; it is hitting businesses. I just had a meeting with the Barrie Chamber of Commerce, and the increase of costs is a very a real and serious threat and concern to the economic recovery of businesses. A friend of mine who owns a local business just got his carbon tax bill, for example, and that bill alone was $1,384. Businesses with tight margins of, say, 10%, have to come up with 13,800 dollars' worth of sales just to pay for the carbon tax. Again, businesses are getting to a point right now where they are becoming uncompetitive.
Gas price is another significant concern. It is up 30% since last year. The price of gas in Barrie today is 167.9¢. Tomorrow the carbon tax is going to see a 25% increase, which means that the price of fuel is going to go up by 11¢. This may not be a problem in downtown Toronto, downtown Montreal or downtown Vancouver, but it is a problem in Barrie—Innisfil, where there are a lot of people who drive to the GTA. They drive for an hour and are filling up their tanks for over $120. I have heard stories that it is costing $120, whereas a year ago it might have cost $65 or $70. This is how much of an impact it is having on affordability for families, and it is taking away from other things. There are seniors who are no longer driving to places for fear that they will have to put gas in their cars, so they are limiting their social interaction at a time when they should be increasing it after the COVID crisis. It is becoming a real problem.
There is a story about the Innisfil Food Bank. It is seeing an increase in demand, but it is also seeing an increase in the costs of servicing that demand because of grocery prices. Here is what happens. When the prices increase and the carbon tax increases, the manufacturers and wholesalers pass that on and we end up paying a price for it at the grocery store. We are already seeing that day in and day out every time people go to the grocery store. The Innisfil Food Bank says that more donations will not be enough because as prices skyrocket, more people can no longer afford to buy groceries.
Just a month ago, I took advantage of the resources available to me through the House. I sent out a householder to my residents and asked this question: “How concerned are you about the rising cost of groceries, gas and heating your home?” I will give a sample of some of the responses that I heard from Barrie—Innisfil.
“I fear my children in their 20's will never be able to afford a home of their own. It's quite heartbreaking”, says Christine of Barrie.
“The price of living makes things extremely hard to live. The amount of taxes we pay is ridiculous. If you don't save while you're young, by the time you retire how will you survive? You work for 30 years in a job and just have a Canada pension”, says John of Innisfil.
In another one from Innisfil, Garry says, “$6.00 increases in OAS. It's time to get something for seniors. We are staving.”
Robert from Barrie says it is “$1.50 per a litre of gas”. That was last month. It is $1.67 this morning. He says it is “$255.00 for 1 month's heating bill. Housing prices + rent [are] out of control.”
Monica from Innisfil says she is “finding it difficult to advance and afford an adult life (kids) and keep up with bills even on a teacher's salary”. She is worried about inflation and says, “a recession will happen”.
Those are examples of what I am hearing.
How do we recover from this? We do not attack those sectors that produce. We make sure that it is about the power of businesses, the people who they employ and the products and services they produce in every sector and region of this country, and that Canada becomes competitive, not just domestically but internationally, so we have the confidence for domestic investment and foreign investment. Let us make sure that we are firing on all cylinders. We have focused on the expense side of the ledger for the last two years. It is time we focus on the revenue side of the ledger, have a budget that Canadians expect, with no wild, out-of-control spending, and make sure that we do things right in this country.
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- Mar/31/22 4:54:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Souris—Moose Mountain, who I know has a dynamic speech members are going to want to hear right after mine.
The member opposite made a comment just now. He said that the more we do now in climate change, the less our kids will have to do when they get older. It is a good comment and a true comment, but it also applies to many other things we do here in government, and that includes fiscal and financial responsibility. It means saying we are going to take responsibility for how we spend our money now so that our kids do not need to make difficult choices of the kind we had to make in the nineties.
I thought I would take a trip down memory lane on what happened in the nineties, because some of these members need to understand exactly what that was like. Even going back into the eighties, I can remember coming out of high school looking for a job, and I and 30 other kids were applying at McDonald's. I remember thinking that would have been a great job, because that was all that was available.
I remember high inflation rates. I remember buying my first house in the nineties and being excited about getting an interest rate of 14%. I was excited at 14%. Now if I cannot lock it in for 3%, I am really upset. How things can change, and how things can change back.
In the nineties we had former finance ministers Ralph Goodale and Paul Martin under Chrétien, who were faced with a situation that was very, very dire. There had been 27 years of unbalanced budgets, 27 years of mismanagement and overspending. All of a sudden we had foreign bankers and bondholders telling this country what we could and could not do. They were basically putting the thumbs to us and saying that we needed to balance our budget or the IMF was going to come in. I know former prime minister Chrétien said that this was not going to happen and took responsibility, and I credit him for doing that.
Those were tough times, and I do not want to see our kids having to make the same decisions. Let us look at the cuts they had to make. When we look back to 1993-94, we see that basically the transfers to the provinces were just stifled. In fact, it took about 15 years to get the amount of money that was cut to health care back to where it was.
I remember times when I had grandparents who were looking for surgery, and all of a sudden there was no surgery. I remember people screaming that we needed more health care funding, but there was no money for it. I can remember people saying that we needed to have more social services, but there was no money for those social services. We did not have it. We had wasted it.
In 1995 The Wall Street Journal called Canada a third world country. That is where we were in 1995. According to Edward Greenspon and Anthony Wilson-Smith's 1996 Double Vision, Jean Chrétien's three priorities in 1993 kept the IMF out of here. That is because he made some really tough decisions. He had to take extreme measures and cut government spending in real terms. He cut as much as we had ever seen since before World War II.
Chrétien got rid of a lot of the grants. He got rid of a lot of the things people took as staples. In fact, he cut the CBC so badly that the president of CBC resigned the next day. That is what can happen when we let spending get out of control. That is what can happen when we do not have a balance in place, and that is what is really concerning about the government at this point in time.
As we go into new spending, there are things I would love to see. I would love to see a dental care program. I think it would be wonderful, if we can afford it. I would love to see a pharmacare program, if we can afford it. You bet I would love to see a national day care program, if we can afford it. What bugs me in this situation is that we possibly could afford it if we did not keep shooting ourselves in the foot.
If we would allow our resource sector to actually do what it does best in the world, we would actually make a difference and be able to pay for a lot of these things. If we let the oil actually get to market, we would have the royalties at the provincial level and the federal level so that we could transition our economy in a way that would not be burdensome to our kids. We would not have to borrow money to do it. We could actually pay cash for it. What an amazing idea: paying cash for something. There is nothing wrong with that.
I was listening to members across the aisle talking about every country being in deficit and having inflation. Who cares? This is Canada. This is what Canada needs to do. Canada has inflation so Canada needs to worry about its inflation. Canada needs to worry about its own spending.
I do not worry about U.S. spending; the U.S. can worry about its spending. I do not worry about European spending; they can worry about their spending. They can let their kids figure out how they are going to pay for it. I would rather to take care of things in my own house here in Canada so I know my kids have a great standard of living, so I know my kids can get surgery when they need it, so I know my kids can get EI and CPP when they need it.
That means we need to be responsible. It means we need to show respect for taxpayer dollars here and now, not 10 years from now, because what I am seeing right now is that fact. We just spend it.
When we see a bank making huge profits of $6 billion or $7 billion, what do we see the coalition government here say? They say that is bad. Where does that money go when they make revenues of $6 billion or $7 billion? It goes to Canadian shareholders. It goes to pension funds. It goes to groups that distribute it back into the economy. What do those people do? They pay taxes. Let us look at what the banks are also doing. They are lending to small businesses, to farmers and to medium-sized enterprises and big companies. They are actually providing the capital for them to operate so they can hire people. That is how capitalism works.
If they want to go to communism, let them ask Venezuela how that works or ask Russia or USSR how that works. It does not work. Let them ask Cuba how it works. It does not work. Big government does not work. The more we can get our fiscal house in order and the more we can take responsibility, make responsible decisions and be proactive in deciding what we are going to do moving forward, the better this country is going to be.
We have a few examples of what happens when the government is not proactive. I will just take the war in Ukraine right now and how ill prepared Canada would be if Russia had decided to come to Canada instead of Ukraine. We are naive. We think that will never happen and that the U.S. would protect us. Really? Ukrainians might have thought the same thing until 2012 when it happened. Then they thought it would never happen again. Well it happened again. People in Poland are certainly second-guessing that right now.
Are we prepared? We are going to buy 88 jets, it sounds like. That is a good thing. We could have bought them eight years ago, though. We would have been prepared then.
They have a habit in the current government of actually waiting to dig a well until we are thirsty. Then it is too late. Can we not be proactive? Can we not do things ahead of time? Can we not anticipate things? Can we not look at things and say, “This is what we need to do”? Can we get beyond just one focus, which is the environment? The environment is important. I am not criticizing that, but what I am saying is that we can do that and do three, four or five or six other things at the same time. They can link together and they can actually work in harmony and, again, leave a better country for our kids.
There are some serious structural problems happening here in Canada. I hear it every day in my meetings with different groups and organizations. There are the vineyards, for example. The wine association people were talking this week about the excise tax escalating. They have repeatedly told the government it is a problem that is driving them out of business and that, if the government drives them out of business, all those small grape producers do not have a home for their grapes in Ontario. The winemakers actually gave notice to the grape producers this week that they will not have a home for those grapes. Therefore, that sector is going to die.
I go to the manufacturing sector and talk to Canadian manufacturers and exporters. They say their costs of production are too high and they cannot compete anymore. They say, “We have all these free trade agreements and all this market access. It is wonderful and I am glad we have it, but if I cannot produce it in Canada what good are they?” Why do we not look at how we get those costs of production down and get the manufacturing to cost?
If we want electric vehicles to be in Canada, then make it an attractive place to build them in Canada and do not chase the manufacturers to the U.S. and other jurisdictions. They should look at Canada and say it will be great building here because we have a good labour force, a good cost of production and market access right around the world. We have a stage that is set to be successful. However, we are missing pieces of that equation, and the current government is not addressing any of those items.
When companies do come here and invest, members might notice a certain characteristic: government subsidization in order to get them to come here. We have to give them money to get them to locate here. Why not give them a good environment to do business in? Why not give them a good educational force? Why not give them the benefits that Canada historically has had all along? We have given up those historical advantages because we have overspent. We do not have anything left to give.
There is a D-Day coming. There is a day when all of a sudden somebody is going to come in and a bondholder is going to drop our rating and we are going to say, “Oh my god, we have to correct things.” Probably our kids will have to make some very difficult choices like the Liberal government in 1993, 1994 and 1995 had to make. We will see health care cuts. We will lose our social benefits programs. That is coming.
We can stop that if we show some responsibility and show some awareness of what our strengths are and take advantage of those strengths and help transition our country into being the next country in the next generation that can be number one throughout the world. Let us quit worrying about everybody else in the world. Let us worry about Canada.
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- Mar/31/22 5:07:21 p.m.
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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—
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- Mar/31/22 5:10:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Prince Albert for his fantastic and riveting speech, which not only brought us back in history but also focused on Canada and not what the rest of the world is doing.
Today’s debate is an extremely important one, not just because of the upcoming federal budget but due to the fact that this issue has been a major concern for my constituents for a number of years now. I would like to thank my Conservative colleagues for their tireless advocacy on behalf of the Canadians who are being negatively impacted by the government’s financial mismanagement, both now and in future generations.
The government continues to fail to recognize that it has doubled the national debt from $612 billion in 2015 to over $1.2 trillion today, and who knows what that magic number might be, if announced at all, next Thursday. It seems that we, on this side of the House, are the only ones who truly understand the long-term impacts of a federal government that racks up debt and deficit without a second thought. On top of that, inflation, which we know is at 5.7%, is the highest it has been in 31 years, so it is impossible to stay silent, especially knowing that next week’s budget will likely contain even more reckless government spending that will only push our country further into debt.
The last two years have been extremely difficult for Canadians across the country, with many still trying to get back to some sense of normalcy. With that said, the government continues to forget that any money produced comes from the people of this great country. It comes from the taxpayer. It comes from them now and it will always come from them. We need to respect that.
Small businesses were hit particularly hard, especially those in the service industry. Some who did not have the luxury of working from home had to be laid off or lost their jobs completely. The last thing they need to be concerned about right now is a government that will impose even more taxes on them than they are already pay, which is the equivalent to kicking them when they are down. Canadians deserve, and quite frankly, need, a break from the skyrocketing cost of living that we have been experiencing lately.
In my riding, one of the biggest and most pressing issues is the carbon tax. As members know, the carbon tax will increase from $40 per tonne to $50 per tonne on April 1, which happens to be tomorrow. I wish I could say this is a poor attempt at an April Fool’s joke, but it is unfortunately a reality we must face. Life has already been made significantly more expensive because of the carbon tax, and instead of helping Canadians who need it, the Liberals are only making things worse.
While I do not expect the Prime Minister to know everything about my riding, my constituents and I would certainly hope that he knows what rural means. In rural Canada, we do not have access to public transportation through things like bus systems or light-rail transit. If we cannot reach a place by foot, by bicycle or horse, taking a car is the only option. The increased carbon tax, increased food costs and escalator taxes, combined with the astronomical gas prices, have put a heavy additional burden on Canadians who have already struggled through the pandemic.
Small businesses will continue to suffer under these increases, especially those who work in transportation. One small trucking company in my riding is now paying tens of thousands of dollars more to fuel its fleet of vehicles than it was paying before the carbon tax came into effect. This is not including the increase happening tomorrow or the increase in gas prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Furthermore, this business employs a number of people in the community it is based in, and if it has to shut its doors because it can no longer afford fuel, jobs will be lost and the trickle-down effect will certainly have negative ramifications for the community as a whole. If we add inflation into this equation, the outcome is even worse. How are small business owners supposed to stay afloat when they are constantly being taxed left, right and centre?
These inflationary prices are throughout the economy. In fact, I just read today that Dollarama, which sells its stock for one dollar a piece, will be increasing up to five dollars for the sale of its wares. That is a huge inflationary increase.
I received a letter in February 2022 from a constituent who owns a small Home Hardware business with his wife. He states, “I have an item in my store that in July last year sold for $52.99. That same valve this week now retails for $144.99. It is nearly three times that retail in six months. This is by no means the only item. We have been advised that over 7,500 items are facing this increase in just the next couple of months.”
Those figures are absolutely outrageous. To think that any small business could weather a financial storm of that magnitude is unconscionable. The government needs to find some way to provide relief for Canadians when it comes to inflation and taxes or local economies will suffer: not just the businesses, but consumers as well.
He goes on to say, “The concern is that I am a fairly new corporation: under six years old. I live paycheque to paycheque as it is. I cannot and do not have the funds to invest more money into the business to even maintain the inventory level I have now. I have just over $1 million in inventory. I am now looking at needing $3 million in inventory just to stay where I was. I just can’t do it. We don’t have any more money to give. Our mortgages are maxed. So in addition to mass shortages and massive delays in getting inventory, I am having to greatly reduce my inventory quantities just to stay in budget. This cannot continue, or I will be out of stock and business in months, possibly before summer.”
The closure of a business is a scary thing.
He continues, “The current policies and mandates are destroying the businesses of our country. I am unsure as to how much longer any of us with moderate to high debt loads can continue. I have spoken to many business owners, and even those that are 30-, 40-, and 50-year-old businesses are considering selling off and closing their doors forever. I have been in this business for almost 34 years and absolutely love it, but I can’t afford to stay in business like this.”
This is a real tragedy. These businesses have been institutions in their local communities, some for generations, and the government’s inability to take control of inflation, on top of its incessant and relentless taxation, will be the death knell for these businesses.
Canadians want to see real, practical solutions and a meaningful plan from the government, but instead they are being left behind. They are scared of a new hidden or escalating tax to further eat away at them from a government that does not understand how to work a business.
Canadians have had enough of this parasitic approach of the Liberal government that puts up a front while eating away at them internally.
I think the ending of the letter will resonate with many small business owners, not just in southeast Saskatchewan but all across the country.
He says, “More and more mom-and-pop shops have started working six days a week up from five, just to try and make enough to make ends meet. I am looking at downsizing staff and closing Sundays as it isn’t feasible and I have to cut costs somewhere. We have already gone from 25 staff a year ago to 18, and may have to go to 14 or even 12 to maybe survive. I don’t even know if I could make the current business work with 12 to 14 staff. I would have a lot of land not making any money to help pay bills. I would have also about $400,000 dollars of equipment to try and sell in a downhill market. I would have a loss here as well. I am unsure how to get this across to the Liberals and their buddies, but it is getting real ugly, real fast financially, for most of us.”
Unfortunately, whether it be from a lack of understanding or a lack of care, this issue is clearly not getting across to the Liberals. Canadians want to see a plan for growth, with targeted investments in the places that need them the most. We need a concrete plan to fight these inflationary pressures. Taxing Canadians even more is not the solution.
We all know most seniors also live on a fixed income and many have no additional source of revenue outside of their CPP and OAS. I regularly receive correspondence in my office from seniors who express just how tight their budgets are, as well as their concerns about future government decisions that will negatively impact them going forward. One constituent of mine who is now retired stated, “I’d like to bring to the attention of our Prime Minister and the governing members of our country what it is like to live in rural Canada. We are so tired of hearing how easy it should be to use public transportation and not rely on natural gas. All these things are available to large city dwellers, but not in my community.”
This senior also brought up the fact that he has no choice but to travel long distances to attend medical appointments. These have a huge impact on his family.
My constituents have completely lost faith in the government’s ability to fiscally manage our country. Excessive government spending, increased taxes and record high levels of inflation are symptoms of poor fiscal management and a lack of responsibility. As I see my time is quickly ending, I call upon the government to ensure that next week’s budget contains no new taxes and outlines a much-needed plan to balance the budget. Canadians need, and certainly deserve, a break.
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