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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Apr/25/22 12:11:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member has selective memory when it comes to health care. He is really off base. When we think about it, Stephen Harper did absolutely nothing. He did not negotiate with the provinces and, in fact, let the Canada health care accord retire. There were no negotiations at all. One of the first things we did when we came into government was negotiate individual health care accords with the provinces. Today we have record amounts in health care transfers going to the provinces, but that is not enough. We have recognized the importance of mental health, long-term care and the cost of drugs for Canadians. We are prepared and willing to do more, and our consecutive budgets have demonstrated that. How could the member, after reflecting on the last number of years, possibly give the speech he has just given when in fact things are quite the opposite? This is a government that cares for Canadians and the health of Canadians, and it is demonstrated in every budget, including this budget.

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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Mrs. Anna Roberts (King—Vaughan, CPC)

Apr/25/22 12:16:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, before I start today, I would like to wish our Orthodox community a happy Easter. Today, I will be addressing the Liberal government's recently proposed federal budget for 2022. The budget presented an opportunity for real action on serious issues facing Canadians when our country is in desperate need of prudent financial planning. The cost of living is sky rocketing, the housing market remains out of reach for families, and vulnerable Canadians are in serious need of support. In the community of King, home prices from February 2020 to February 2022 have increased by 142%. In Vaughan, prices increased by 57%. My community of King—Vaughan has become unattainable. The Liberal tax-free savings plan is not going to benefit first-time homebuyers with the rising cost of homes, and the Liberal finance minister has proposed a strategy described by Scotiabank's economic director as “spend, tax and pray”. With the new NDP-Liberal coalition, Canada expects a $52.8-billion deficit for the coming fiscal year, and the finance minister apparently has no plans to balance the books until 2027. This comes as no surprise. With the Liberals in power, we have grown to count on excessive debt and the instability that comes with it. Having to appease the NDP, fiscal responsibility has gone out the window, further fuelling the affordability crisis. Only a few short years ago, the Prime Minister was praising the value of balanced budgets. Who would have thought the Prime Minister would return to his old ways of thinking and would favour budgets that do not balance themselves? The central bank has started lifting its benchmark interest rate to combat record inflation exacerbated by the Liberals' financial incompetence. Although the increase in rates will help slow inflation, it has already hiked the cost of paying off the enormous debt we have accumulated. We are presently paying over $2 billion each month to service the national debt, and this burden will continue to expand with each hike. Higher liability payments will make it more difficult for the federal government to weather new storms, follow through on promises and invest in Canadians. If the bank continues increasing rates above 2.5% as some predict, families that recently secured a variable-rate mortgage could see their payments increase by over 30%. The Liberals have been promising since 2015 to make housing prices more affordable, but the average house price has doubled since they took office. More expensive mortgages will not help anybody afford a new home, and the Liberals' plan of a new tax-free first home savings account will not assist Canadians with achieving their dream. This NDP-Liberal budget also failed to address the needs of our seniors. Seniors 75 and older recently received a one-time $500 payment as part of the Liberals' election strategy campaign. A question remains, though: Why were seniors aged 65 to 74 excluded from this benefit? Seniors who planned on retiring now may be forced to continue working as the cost of living makes the prospect of retirement unattainable. Our seniors have contributed to our economy their entire lives and are now faced with the tough choices of their next employment opportunities in an effort to combat the cost of living. As the primary health care providers, the provinces have asked the federal government for an additional $28 billion in health transfer payments, but this was not included in the budget. Instead of more money for hospitals and nurses to help care for our elderly parents and our children with disabilities, there is no option available to them once their parents are no longer able to care for them. The Liberals are caving in to the NDP's outrageous multi-billion dollar dental proposal. Dental care is under provincial jurisdiction, but not one province has asked for the federal dental care program, including the NDP in British Columbia. In addition to physical health, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a massive toll on the mental health and well-being of millions of Canadians. I have personally spoken with parents of children with disabilities who say they are in dire need of support. On top of letting down adults with disabilities by failing on their promises to reintroduce a disability benefit, the Liberals are failing to address the needs of children with special needs. Although funding for mental health support is being expanded in general, the Liberals are seriously missing the mark when it comes to caring for the physical needs of our country's most vulnerable. Finally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts that Canada will be the worst-performing G7 country over the next 40 years. Based on this estimate, young Canadians entering the workforce today should expect to spend the majority of their working life in the slowest-growing economy. Is this the expectation we now have of our federal government? Conservatives understand this is shocking, depressing and utterly unacceptable for the resource-rich nation we call home. The Liberals and their NDP colleagues are squandering our hard work and our children's future, as there is no serious plan for long-term growth in this budget. Conservatives will stand up for Canadians who want a better future, as the government's budget is not the best road ahead for our country.

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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Mr. Ken Hardie (Fleetwood—Port Kells, Lib.)

Apr/25/22 12:45:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the occasion to comment on the 2022 federal budget includes an opportunity not only to highlight certain aspects of the government's plan that people in Fleetwood—Port Kells and indeed right across Canada will find of great value, but also an opportunity to illustrate the budget as yet another sign of a choice Canadians have in their relationship with the federal government. Prior to 2016, we had 50 years of social and economic ideology that counted a great deal on the free market lifting us to prosperity. The results, though, have been economic and social inequities and gaps that have become more deeply rooted. The legislation our government has shepherded through Parliament, including our budgets, has sought to address the gaps that the free market cannot or will not address. These are economic gaps between those few who have the leverage to grow their wealth much faster and the rest of us, social gaps that threaten the well-being of too many marginalized people, and gaps in the security of achieving and maintaining a quality of life that those who work hard should reasonably expect in a nation as wealthy as ours. The highlights of budget 2022 I will cover today are the ones chosen by independent third parties. It is all right for us, as government, to say that this or that is important, but it is really interesting to see what people at street level, and the commentators and observers, have to say. My own thoughts will focus on areas where perhaps the budget itself has been silent. In the time available, I am going to concentrate only on the number one issue at home in Fleetwood—Port Kells: The budget's measures concerning housing. Budget 2022 takes steps to return some semblance of equity for first-time homebuyers. Here is an area where the underregulated laissez-faire free market has left the dream of home ownership entirely out of reach for too many and has left some Canadians literally out in the cold. The Edmonton accounting firm Hahn Lukey Houle highlighted the tax-free first home savings account, which would help first-time homebuyers save up to $40,000 to help with their down payment. Money going into the account would be tax-free and money taken out of the account to buy the home would be tax-free. The market could not offer something like this. Only the government could do it, and this one is. The market has been unwilling or unable to deal with practices that disadvantage homebuyers and distort prices along the way. The Vancouver legal firm Clark Wilson, the most named firm in rankings by the publication Business in Vancouver, highlighted the concept of a homebuyers' bill of rights in budget 2022. Over the next year, this bill of rights would put an end to blind bidding, where buyers have no idea what has been bid by others for a property. That is a key driver of higher housing prices. Prospective buyers would have the right to get the property inspected. Too often, it is a corner now being cut by people forced to rush some kind of a home purchase. There would be more transparency on the sale price history of properties and a new disclosure agreement for real estate agents if they happened to be working both sides of a transaction. The bill of rights could also include a requirement for lenders to offer a six-month deferral of mortgage payments when families experience a job loss or other major life event, such as a pandemic. Most media outlets have identified the provision in budget 2022 of a two-year prohibition in Canada on the sale of non-recreational residential property to foreign commercial enterprises and people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Exemptions to this ban are expected to include refugees, individuals in Canada on work permits and international students who could be on the path to permanent residency. That last group has been identified by people I have spoken with as one that needs to be carefully monitored, because many believe the treatment of international students creates loopholes for foreign capital to buy up real estate. Most commentators expected something on property flipping, and the budget delivered. Any individual selling a property that has been held for less than 12 months would be subject to full taxation on any profits as business income. The measure would apply to residential properties sold on or after January 1, 2023. There would be some exceptions to this for Canadians who sell their homes due to certain life events or hardship circumstances. Another version of speculative trading in the Canadian housing market has to do with assignment sales. Those occur when someone reaches a deal to buy a housing unit that has not even been built yet and then flips the right to buy the unit for a profit. This can happen multiple times as a townhouse, condo or home is under construction, and each time, the ultimate cost goes up for the family who will eventually actually move in. GST will apply to all assignment sales of newly constructed or substantially renovated housing. That is going to happen very soon. It will be a week from Saturday, in fact, on May 7. Storeys, a real estate news and industry publication, noted that the housing accelerator fund will apply $4 billion in 2022 to help municipalities speed up their development permit and approval process. I know this is a huge issue in Surrey, one of Canada's fastest-growing municipalities and soon British Columbia's biggest city, but the long lag to get construction approved by city hall is driving up the prices of finished homes because labour and material costs increase over time, especially during the long lag that it takes to get something built. Add the flipping and assignment sales and the development cost charges, and the cumulative impact on prices is significant. I have heard stories too about another area that we really have to pay attention to. During the two weeks we had away from Parliament, I had a chance to touch base with a lot of people. I heard stories of people who leveraged the lift in their own home's value to qualify for another mortgage to buy a revenue property. Then, using the rise in that property's value, they got another mortgage for another property and so on. Is this actually going on? It would be worth finding out, because it sounds like the whole thing is a gigantic bubble, and if it pops due to mortgage rate increases, the banks could end up owning a lot of property. Then there are trusts. The Globe and Mail, in an article focused on money laundering, noted the still unresolved issue of large, suspicious transfers between lawyers' trust accounts. These transfers are shielded from reporting requirements that are in place for banks, accountants, real estate companies and securities dealers. Even casinos have to report, but lawyers do not. In 2000, the federal government passed a law that allowed FINTRAC to carry out warrantless searches of law firms and seize materials. The Federation of Law Societies lawyered up, and by 2015 it was ultimately deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which told us to go back and improve the language. One would hope an improved version of that legislation is somewhere on someone's to-do list. More broadly, trusts are perceived as offering perfectly legal loopholes to avoid taxes and obscure the real ownership of property. Watchers at street level say there is a fairness problem here. While budget 2022 aims to tackle the long-standing need to identify the beneficial ownership of real estate through a public registry, right now it is only going to apply to federally chartered companies. This is a good start, but for the provinces it is voluntary, a gap that knowledgeable people say needs to be closed. Our government is attacking affordability issues that have been allowed to grow and mutate for decades. Fixing them is going to take time plus the talent and commitment to adjust and refine measures as we move forward. That said, all of us here should not underestimate the talent and commitment out there in the community to find ways around any step we take. This is more than a high finance or sound legal game of whack-a-mole. To the people faced with no prospect of qualifying for a mortgage, much less actually owning a home, this is not a game. It is in their interest that we get to the heart of a question our citizens ask at every election: What should government's role be when things are tilted against people? Just over a year ago, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney spoke about what the role of government should be if Canadians believe in free enterprise but with a social conscience. Mr. Carney called our free markets “the most powerful instruments we’ve ever created. Their energy and dynamism can be...directed to serve great purposes, but the market is also indifferent to human suffering, and it can be blind to our greatest needs.” That's why politicians who worship the market tend to deliver policies that hurt people, and those who default to laissez-faire, or who leave the free market to its own devices, leave us unprepared for the future. Put simply, as he goes on, “Markets don’t have values, people do. And it’s our responsibility to close the gap between what we value and what the market prices. That’s the work of politics.” Or, in a view well represented in budget 2022, it should be and it will be.

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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Mr. Bernard Généreux (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, CPC)

Apr/25/22 1:01:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss what disappoints us the most, as Conservatives, in the wake of the tabling of what could be described as a very bad budget on the Thursday before Easter break. I remember a time when the Conservatives were accused of acting in bad faith for tabling bills or budgets just before a long break. The transparency of this Liberal government leaves something to be desired. We are disappointed because this is a document that shows once again that the government sees Canada's finances through rose coloured glasses. Instead of focusing on returning to a balanced budget, it is offering a host a new spending to fund new programs in order to buy—indeed, buy—the NDP's support. We knew long before the pandemic that a budget does not balance itself. The Liberal government was running a deficit long before the pandemic. It had to add to the deficit during the pandemic, a necessary move that we agree with. However, the economy is now firing on all cylinders and government revenues have drastically increased, in large part because of inflation and the increased cost of energy products such as oil and gas. The Liberals have posted another deficit and plan to keep us in a deficit for five years, which is absolutely ridiculous. The government will claim that the deficit will help stimulate the economy and that the additional revenue generated by inflation will cancel out the deficit and reduce the debt. It will once again trot out the infamous debt-to-GDP ratio it loves to talk about every chance it gets. However, there are big differences between the current deficit and past deficits in response to economic crises, such as the Great Depression, the Second World War or even the 2008-09 financial crisis, which was comparable to the crisis in the 1930s. A lot of money went towards building sustainable infrastructure during and after the war. The governments at the time had the foresight to spend when unemployment was high and construction costs were much lower. This money was recovered over time, and much of the infrastructure built then is still used today, such as the many bridges that cross rivers all across the country. The previous Conservative government made similar expenditures through its recovery plan, which helped build some now-essential infrastructure in our communities, in particular in rural areas. I was there from 2009 to 2011. People today are benefiting from the Harper governments' investment in our communities' infrastructure, as will future generations. Fundamentally though, all the new spending in the current Minister of Finance's budget will go to new government programs, programs the NDP clearly demanded. As if the Liberals did not already have enough on their plate, now they are getting involved in areas under provincial jurisdiction, such as childcare, dental care and so on. These are things under provincial jurisdiction, but the government will be investing billions more and imposing conditions, and the Canadian provinces are really not happy about it. Here is the difference: Infrastructure is built once and its cost is amortized over a long period, with the relative weight of the expense diminishing over time. In contrast, a new program means annual funding that will vary and not shrink over time, as we have seen lately. These costs can only go up, and there is no doubt they will rise with inflation. Plus, does anyone truly believe that early childhood educators and dentists will not eventually demand wage and fee increases, with inflation at 6.7%? Of course they will. This budget has not even been approved yet, and spending estimates are already out of date. Interest rates are going up too; the Bank of Canada now has no choice but to raise them to fight inflation. Well over a year ago, we asked the government to make sure interest rates were appropriate. Who would have believed that, in the space of just a few months, the key interest rate would rise from 0.25% to 1%? Hold on tight, because it is expected to hit 2% in the coming months. New programs are being created that are not funded by current taxes, but by deficits. It is borrowed money that will have to be paid back later. Inevitably, there are costs associated with this. The interest costs are projected to be staggering for the federal government now and in the future. Furthermore, the interest costs are equivalent to the increase that the provinces are asking for in health transfers every year. Imagine that. Of course, surveys are being done. The media conducts surveys, all the political parties conduct surveys and the government conducts surveys. What comes up most often? The cost of living, the cost of living, and the cost of living. That is what we are experiencing right now. A visit to the dentist is expensive. That costs a few hundred dollars, but there is nothing as expensive as the cost of housing for the young and the not-so-young who do not already have a house in their name. The government may well claim that the staggering price increases experienced in recent years are a global and inevitable phenomenon. The Minister of Finance's defeatist attitude was evident in her budget speech in the House on the Thursday before Easter, as well as in the media interviews in the hours that followed. Because the federal Liberals have been mismanaging the economy since 2015, real estate has become the only attractive economic sector for investors. It has come to the point where between 30% and 40% of homes in Canada are not owned by people who actually want to live in them themselves, but rather by individuals who already have a home and want them as investment properties. I just got back from a trip to western Canada, to Jasper and Banff, an area where there are a lot of construction workers, especially for the Trans Mountain pipeline. These workers are given extra money for housing, because it costs $3,500 a month just to rent a room in someone's basement. It is completely ridiculous. It is crazy. This is out of control. Budgets do not seem to acknowledge how absurd this situation has become. The average price of a house in Canada is now over $850,000. That is the average price. It is not uncommon to see houses in some places, even quite modest houses, priced at between $1.5 million and $2 million. I am not talking about posh neighbourhoods in London, New York or Singapore. I am talking about the suburbs of Toronto. Many young people from generation Y and generation Z have no hope of owning a home. Time is of the essence if they even hope to have place to call their own, to pay off a mortgage and then diversify their savings so that they can retire at age 65. Contrary to popular belief, a home is not a retirement plan. The walls are not edible. Selling a home does not guarantee that there is something cheaper out there to live in. Using a reverse mortgage essentially means the home you worked for your entire life goes directly to the banks instead of to your children when you die. There seems to be no sense of urgency on the Liberal side, and even less so on the part of the NDP who support them, to address this problem. In some cases, they even try to normalize the situation. That is clear when we look at the ceiling for the new FHSA to help individuals access home ownership. By saving $8,000 a year for five years, they can reach $40,000. Imagine what saving $40,000 means for young people who earn on average $50,000 a year. We can agree that it is very hard to save $8,000 with the current cost of living. That represents a 5% down payment on an $800,000 home. Does the government think it is normal and acceptable that a young person or a couple today is starting out $760,000 in the red because homes cost $800,000 on average? The government estimates that it takes five years to save up a 5% down payment. How can it expect these people to repay the remaining 95% within 25 years? All financial planners agree that an acceptable price for a house is about three times the buyer's salary. According to Statistics Canada, the average salary in Canada in 2019 was $51,740. Multiply that by three and we get roughly $155,000. Try to find a $155,000 house in Canada. There are not many left. There are some in my riding, but I will say that they are not very big houses. I have not finished my speech, but unfortunately my time is up. I hope I will be able to answer my colleagues' questions. The government has totally mortgaged the future of today's young people. It is appalling. All the debt that the government has racked up over the past seven years is going to have an impact on young people's lives and future.

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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

Apr/25/22 1:16:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to get up this afternoon, on the first day back after a couple of weeks back in our ridings, to speak about the budget. It reminds me of that old adage that people of integrity expect to be believed, and when they are not, time will prove them right. Time is certainly proving us right on predictions that were made a year and a half to two years ago, when the money-printing machines were going at full force to provide the types of supports that were needed for COVID. There were predictions on this side at that time, and right across the spectrum economists were predicting that inflationary pressures would begin to increase. We are now seeing those inflationary pressures affecting Canadian families in a way that they have not for a generation. I have been in my riding for the last couple of weeks, as all members have, and received emails, phone calls and text messages from the people of Barrie—Innisfil, who are quite concerned about the inflationary pressures that are happening within my community and in communities across Canada. This morning I happened to be watching the finance committee, and the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, was on there. He was asked a point-blank question by our shadow minister of finance: “Can we still consider inflation as transitory?” His answer was no. We are entering into a period of permanent inflation, it seems, and we know, based on Statistics Canada, that last month it was at 6.7%. We can think of the impact that has on Canadian families and the families I represent in Barrie—Innisfil. The price of everything is skyrocketing. The prices of gas, home heating, consumables, groceries, commodities and the necessities of life are increasing dramatically right across this country, and the expectation, according to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, is that this inflationary period we are in is going to be lasting for a long time. This is going to further impact affordability for families, further erode their retirement savings and really dramatically impact their ability to pay for things, especially at a time when they can least afford them. We heard, even in the last couple of weeks, in some of the surveys that came out, about how Canadians are desperately clinging to affordability. In many circumstances, over half of Canadians do not have enough money at the end of the month to pay for the things they need, the necessities of life. This budget actually increases government spending. There are certain things that are sure in life, and the one thing we can count on is that this budget is going to pass. Because of the coalition between the NDP and the Liberals, the New Democrats have signalled that not only are they going to support this budget, but they are also going to support subsequent budgets. We can sit here and criticize, and I have some things that I want to bring up specifically with respect to the budget as it relates to local issues in my riding of Barrie—Innisfil, but when we want to get an assessment of what people think about this budget, we can go to the experts. People do not have to listen to us; they do not have to listen to the government or the other opposition parties. They can listen to what respected economists are saying about this budget and the impact it is going to have on Canadians. Don Drummond, who is a former senior Department of Finance official, former TD Bank chief economist and current Queen's professor, said this: If I were in the business world I’d be extremely depressed, because we are at some point going to have to turn to how we fund all this spending, and it would seem the go-to funding source is corporate income tax. It was the first seven words, “If I were in the business world”, that caught the eye of another expert, who said: The problem is, we are all “in the business world,” whether we like it or not—as workers, consumers, and taxpayers. Tax business, and you tax almost everything we consume and most of the services we depend on. Those services will be hardest hit as a result of this. We have spoken about this many times. The impact of this type of continued spending is that taxes go up and services get cut. It is that simple, especially entering into a period in which we have higher interest rates. Even the—

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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Apr/25/22 1:31:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak on yet another budget from this administration. Since 2015, we have seen budgets and legislation that, in many ways, have been there to invest in real people, economic growth, and a clean future. From day one, this government has ultimately been there to support Canada's middle class. At the start of and during the pandemic, there were budgets to support Canadians through that very difficult time and ultimately to now. Before I go any further, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge. I want to pick up on a few points that were raised already today in the debate. I am very sensitive to the issue of the cost of housing. It is of great concern for me and, I believe, for all members of this House. As we serve our constituents, we want to provide them the assurance that all politicians, at all different levels, are in fact listening. I put this in the form of a question earlier today to a member from the Conservative Party. When we talk about the issue of housing, I believe the national government has been playing a very strong national leadership role. Never before have we seen a national government invest as much as this government has into housing. There are a number of programs. I often see the Minister of Housing in the province of Manitoba announcing yet another program, whether it is a specific program where a project is being announced, or a more general announcement that everyone could benefit from, such as the benefit for first-time homebuyers, where there was a doubling of the tax credit. The multi-generational home renovation tax credit is one that I really would encourage people to get a better understanding of. I believe it is around $7,500. That program is there to encourage people to construct live-in suites for family members. I can see how, in many ways, that would be of great value and benefit for many of the residents of Winnipeg North. We have seen legislation and budgetary actions to deal with issues such as people abroad purchasing homes but not living in them. There will be a special tax in one situation and, in another, an outright ban. The point is this: As we have made these investments, we have also worked with municipalities and provinces to encourage a holistic approach when dealing with the issue of housing, because as much as the national government can provide that strong federal leadership, we need to recognize that the way to overcome these types of prices is with the different levels of government working together. All of us have a role to play. A local city or municipality, for example, can zone properties to make more lots available for individuals to acquire. Today, in the city of Winnipeg, if one tries to purchase a lot, it is virtually impossible because it has to be done through the developers. Allocating 150 acres, 300 acres or 400 acres in a municipality like Winnipeg would go a long way to making lots available. In order to increase the supply of housing we need to recognize that it is not just Ottawa that has to play a role, and that is a good example. I say that because I believe that what we have seen over the years is a national government that has recognized the importance of working with other jurisdictions. We have seen excellent examples of that. The CPP comes to mind and the increase for the first time in many, many years. It was one of the first actions we took a number of years ago. With respect to the health care accords, today we have record amounts of transfers going over to the provinces. Provinces are always going to want more money when it comes to health care, but let us recognize that no government in the history of Canada has given as much money to our provinces and territories toward health care. We did get health care accords with the individual provinces. Let us look at the most recent huge development and financial commitment in terms of a national child care program. There are even, from what I understand, some Conservative leadership candidates who actually support this initiative. It is not all of them, so we do not know where the Conservative Party will land on this issue yet, but the bottom line is that it took the different levels of government to work with Ottawa in order to make it happen. The minister responsible did a fantastic job in terms of pulling it together and making it happen. I say that because, when we went into the pandemic, we saw provinces, municipalities and Canadians as a whole take a team Canada approach to taking on the coronavirus, and we worked together. As a result of working together, what we see is that Canada is probably, I would ultimately argue, one of the best countries getting out of the pandemic. One just needs to look at the job numbers. Job creation and economic growth are important. When we look at how Canada is faring, we see the unemployment rate is around 5.5%. We would have to go back generations to get that kind of unemployment rate, and that is where we are today. We were able to do that because there was a high sense of co-operation taking place. The government, in particular the Prime Minister, has been very much focused on Canada and how we can make our country a better place for all. We have seen much attention given to the issue of inequities in taxation policies. We have seen a deficit of social programming, and we now have a Prime Minister who is committed to addressing some of that. We have seen expenditures in things such as infrastructure. We have seen areas of our society, such as seniors, where there have been historic amounts of investment to ensure that, for example, our seniors have a better standard of living. These are the types of programs that have made a difference in a very real and tangible way. It is about investing in people, in economic growth and in a clean future. When I think of our environment, I think of recent announcements by the government, in co-operation with the private sector and other levels of government, in regard to zero-emission vehicles being manufactured here in Canada. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars combined between different levels of government and the private sector in order to ensure that we are on the right road in terms of investing in zero-emission vehicles. We see that in terms of public policy, whether from our Minister of Environment or our Minister of Natural Resources, who are saying the same thing in all the different regions of our country. This is a government that recognizes the true value of having a budget that provides hope, and budget 2022 does just that. It is a budget we can all be proud of. It deals with all the different sectors, whether it is business or individuals, to ensure that we will be able to continue to grow our economy and support the many different social programs that are there and that Canadians value.

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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Hon. Jim Carr (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

Apr/25/22 4:29:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will begin with just a short personal comment that tomorrow will be the 34th anniversary of my first election to the Manitoba legislature. My colleague for Winnipeg North will remember very well that exciting night, and I only make the point to remind my colleagues in the House that I have been around for a while and have seen a lot of budgets. I counted them last night as I was getting ready for today. I think that I have seen something like 80 provincial and federal budgets over an adult lifetime. They are all different, but what they share is that they capture a moment in time and a reflection of the financial state of the province, or of the nation, at the moment. What does this moment in time look like? It looks unlike any other, because we have come through a pandemic that has changed the lives of our citizens and the very fabric of the country. What have we learned? We have learned that governments work best when they work together. That was true during the first months of the pandemic, and Canadians benefited from it. We have also learned that following medical advice is the best guidepost, but the advice shifts with changing circumstances, so decision-makers need to be nimble. Governments had to move quickly, which is not in their DNA, but we did because the need was so great. We also know that the sky is not the limit and that the time to change gears is now. The role of government and its responsibility to act in the public interest were widely accepted by Canadians. It is not about me: it is about us, but what I do can affect all of us. We know that reconciliation with indigenous peoples is a leading priority of our government. Last week, a proud moment occurred during a gifting ceremony, when the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company handed the ownership of the historic Bay building in downtown Winnipeg to the Southern Chiefs' Organization. The federal government has committed $65 million, and the province of Manitoba has pledged $35 million, so that when it is complete this historic site will be the new seat for the Southern Chiefs' Organization, which represents more than 81,000 people from 34 Anishinabe and Dakota nations. It will offer 300 affordable housing units with spaces for gathering and for business. This is reconciliation in action, because everyone is acting together toward a common goal. This is an inspiring project. What are the essentials for living a full life? They are affordable housing to rent or to own; affordable child care from trained and caring professionals; access to a well-run health care system; and protecting and nurturing our natural environment, which has become the preoccupation of this generation of young people, as it should. Each of these aspirations, and there are so many more, needs investments that draw on the nation's wealth. Sometimes the lead comes from governments, federal, provincial or municipal, and sometimes the lead comes from the private sector. Governments distribute wealth, but the private sector creates it. Finding that balance is what distinguishes political parties. I have always been comfortable with my party, because it appreciates the relationship between social and economic policy that reflects the Canadian sensibility of being pragmatic, yet principled, and rooted in the goals of fair opportunity and reward for initiative. That favours a fair tax regime, an equitable distribution of public resources and a collective commitment to the shared values of a healthy and vibrant democracy. Budget 2022 recognizes this. However, this noble ambition cannot come to fruition if there is not the national will to make it happen, and in a country such as ours, which is so diverse and spread out across a continent, and with citizens whose backgrounds are as varied as all the world's peoples, the challenges are daunting, but we have largely succeeded because we are bound together by values stronger than the forces that would divide us. The budget reinforces the vital relationship between and among governments and community leadership. Our politics and political discourse are under great stress. In this chamber, some members shout and some members resort to personal attacks. False accusations are made, and name-calling can be mean-spirited and destructive. We can and should do better than that. The people we represent expect more from their parliamentarians, and they deserve it. If we play to the few who encourage division and clamour, and whose comfort zone is in deception and division, then we are not leading, we are succumbing. Our national values are reflected in our foreign policy, and now, as we battle the Russian dictator, Canada's integral role in the NATO alliance is more important than ever before. More than 120,000 Manitobans are of Ukrainian descent, including two of my grandchildren. This is personal for many of us. This budget recognizes Canada's increasing obligation to secure our defence capability and be an important part of the international effort to stop wanton aggression. I have been immersed in the social and economic development of the Prairies as a member of Parliament and as a minister. This budget acknowledges the critical contribution that prairie resources, natural and human, have made and continue to make to the Canadian economy. The new realities of the energy world and the growing importance of value-added agriculture, the life sciences, water management and artificial intelligence advances are only a few examples where the Prairies lead the nation and the world. Whatever images or stereotypes people may have about Albertan, Saskatchewan or Manitoban dwellers, they are wrong. Stereotypes are obstacles to progress. Do colleagues know that Dr. Michael Houghton, who works at the University of Alberta, is a Nobel prize laureate for his work on hepatitis C? Do they know that Saskatchewan is the province that trades most with the rest of the world? Do they know that its advanced research and production of sources of protein is exactly what the world needs and wants? Do they know that we are not only feeding the world, but also powering it too, and that canola crops are food and energy? We always have to keep a close eye on the national balance sheet, the bottom line. This budget does that with prudent investments, modest stimulus, incentives for private sector investment and an abiding confidence in the Canadian population to adapt to changing circumstances. Our young people are facing a different world and a more challenging future than many of us in this chamber confronted at their age, but they will adapt. They will take full advantage of our colleges and universities to equip themselves with the tools to compete in the dynamic international marketplace. We are at a critical moment in our country's history. Our challenges are many and our abilities are impressive. We are on the road to reconciliation with indigenous peoples. Our public finances allow us to invest in people and ideas. Our values position us to take an honoured place among the nations of the world. We live in a great country. We will build from strength to strength.

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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Ms. Melissa Lantsman (Thornhill, CPC)

Apr/25/22 5:59:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to rise and add the voice of the people of Thornhill to today's debate. I am deeply concerned on their behalf by the latest NDP-Liberal budget. Every single day, we ask the government what it is doing to make life more affordable for Canadians, and every day it tells us how much it is spending. I was hopeful today that we could see some results for the money spent rather than just a projection of answers we will get when, again and again, we ask the government what it is doing to make life more affordable. The answer for the people of Thornhill and Canadians across the country is that it is doing nothing much. We can skip the partial answers and gloss over the large sums of money in an effort to distract Canadians from the government's failure to deliver actual results for a while, but Canadians had every reason to fear the federal budget, especially after a deal between our colleagues on the other side of the House. The deal is frightening to the future of the fiscal health of Canada, driving the government further and further astray in an effort only to hold on to power, because after seven years, many simply cannot understand the plot. Canadians were treated to over $50 billion of new spending, which, of course, could have been far worse given the government's propensity to spend beyond its means at every available opportunity. I suppose aiming for “it could have been worse” is the best that we can hope for, but with spending levels that far exceed the prepandemic highs, it could have been much more responsible, and it should have been. Most troubling, however, is what was absent from this budget, which was any meaningful attempt to address economic growth by lowering taxes and reducing the choking regulations raised by nearly every industry, every stakeholder and every union at every opportunity, only to fall on what are seemingly deaf ears. Families are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. That much is clear. In survey after survey and poll after poll, they have made their voices heard loud and clear. Two-thirds of Canadians say that inflation and affordability are their top concerns. It is hard to get by. That is what that means. I know members of the House hear that refrain constantly when they are at home in their constituencies. It is hard not to. It is hard not to run into somebody we know at the grocery store or the gas station who does not bring up the cost of living as the first issue they talk about, yet after two of the highest spending sprees in Canadian history, even before the gigantic splurge during the pandemic, the Liberal government had bigger spending plans all along. Child care, dental care and the possibility of pharmacare in 2023 represent the biggest social program expansion in the past couple of decades. While there might be gleeful cheers from the other side, I think Canadians, including members opposite, need a reality check on the numbers. They tell a very different story about our fiscal health than the fairy tales we have been hearing about. Liberals are coming in with a federal debt projected to reach $1.25 trillion this fiscal year. Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio is 47.6%. We have a $52.8-billion deficit. We have a record high of personal indebtedness to disposable income of over 186%. We have inflation at a staggering 6.7%, and the reality that the Bank of Canada will aggressively raise interest rates beyond what we have already seen. There is more. There will be more reality checks for those who will be responsible for the sharpest rise in cost-of-living expenses in a generation. The problem is that inflation is only going to get worse, not better, over the coming months. It will be much worse than I have ever seen and than most adults today have ever seen. Maybe they heard stories from their parents' trials and tribulations or saw a historical reference in a book, but while some in the House are not students of monetary policy, and that is fine, others will know that the latest inflation numbers do not account for the increase in the carbon tax or the annual increase in alcohol and tobacco taxes. Also missing from that number is the recently hiked interest rate. It is the first of the aforementioned number of raises that may, of course, lower inflation over time, but in the immediate term, will drive up housing and borrowing costs. There is more. We also learned that Stats Canada will add used-vehicle prices to the CPI in next month's report. For those who are still keeping score, that may bring us to about 8%. This will be a new number for many Canadians, and most certainly a disastrous new number for average Canadians. While members opposite will twist themselves into a frenzy listing off the countries and their corresponding inflation rates, Canadians should know that, if this was an entirely international problem, then others would mirror our rates, others like Japan or Australia. I could do the same thing. There are two ways to control inflation. One, of course, is the rate hikes, the aggressive rate hikes we are about to see, and the other is to slow spending. We see no evidence of slower spending. That should be of great concern to the over 65% of Canadians who have indicated that inflation and affordability top their list of anxieties. Many of these numbers may be abstract to those across the aisle, because it is the only plausible explanation for why they continue to spend at this rate, but let me remind members of the real toll that these abstract numbers have on Canadians working harder and simply not getting ahead. Gasoline is up 11.9%, compared to just February, and a shocking 39.8% compared to a year earlier. Some might find glee in that, whispering to themselves quietly that the plan is working. To them I say that it is actually not working. It is hurting Canadian families. It is hurting our industry. It is hurting our recovery, on the odd chance that the government might want to include oil and gas in their plans. How about the groceries? I cannot think about why a government would be ideologically opposed to food as they would be opposed to oil, so let me try to get its attention with the cost of groceries in the country. It is an area where people notice it the most. It is an area that I am sure members opposite have heard about in their constituencies from their neighbours time and time again. Overall, grocery prices have gone up 8.7%, but most items are much, much higher. On average, the basket was $100 last March, and it is almost $109 this March, but for some items, the increase is much, much more severe, such as for milk, cheese, butter, cereal and beef. These are the staples. These are unsustainable increases for most family budgets, and most families will tell us that. To make matter worse, our country is confronting supply chain constraints, scarcity of materials and labour shortages, all compounded, of course, by a war in Ukraine. We are seeing the continued rise of unaffordable housing for those trying to make the dream of home ownership a reality, as well as urgent military commitments in a time of global instability and an infrastructure deficit lacking the private capital investments we need to actually get things built. Even more concerning is the lower productivity and lagging long-term growth and what that means for GDP per capita. Its decline relative to those of our allies is the appalling reality of the government's policy failures and the likely failure on the horizon for the magnitude of promises in the wings, which we have not even seen reflected in the government's upcoming fiscal document. The government's approach has become a silly mix of virtue signalling and expensive promises and rerun after rerun of not being able to deliver on them. How does a government spend so much and accomplish so little? How does a country rack up so much debt for the goodies that it believes we need today without thinking for a moment about tomorrow? What is of greater concern are the policies of intrusion into people's lives, the intrusion into provincial jurisdiction, the pretend projects about tree planting and an ideological drive against the country's natural resources at a time when the world is begging for them. The government has trafficked in divisiveness, othering those who do not agree with them while affecting economic fortunes at the cost of choosing winners and losers in different geographies based on different identities they see as tolerable and therefore worthy of their reward. Now the concern is that the NDP influence will accelerate this spending, pump up the virtue signalling and leave future generations with a bill, just so activists and alarmists could be placated in 2022 without thinking about a day in the future. A laser focus on growth would have helped the multitude of fiscal, economic and social problems brought on by the government, and still, I suppose we should be relieved, though hardly gratified, that this could have been worse. If the government was aiming for “it could have been worse”, then, I guess, mission accomplished, but on this side of the House, we think Canadians deserve better.

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