44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise and speak this afternoon to the budget implementation bill at report stage. The bill seeks to implement certain measures found in budget 2022.
It was encouraging to see the opposition parties work together to improve this bill at committee. However, I believe that more amendments are needed.
I also want to recognize the hard work of my colleague, the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, in his role as the shadow minister of finance.
Through these deliberations, parliamentarians will decide the direction of our country for the next year and beyond. These decisions will have long-lasting effects. That is why it is very important for all members in this place to have the opportunity to speak to this legislation. Regrettably, the government, with the support of the NDP, has once again stifled debate on legislation by imposing time allocation.
An issue that remains top of mind for millions of Canadians, and many in my riding, is health care. If the pandemic highlighted anything, it is the importance of having a strong health care system in place, one that can respond effectively and efficiently in a crisis. While health care falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces, I had hoped that, given our system was nearly driven to the breaking point, the government would have supported them in addressing their respective needs.
The first ministers were clear. They asked for an increase to health transfer payments to deal with the remaining effects of the pandemic. However, once again, the Liberals, supported by the NDP, decided to disregard the requests of the provinces and not provide any additional support to them.
With respect to the cost of living, the pattern set by the government over the years is a complete disregard for the needs of Canadians and an inability to properly manage Canada’s finances. In 2015, the government inherited a balanced budget, which was made possible by the careful management of Canada’s finances through the 2010 financial crisis and the years that followed. While the Liberals continue to claim that the pandemic caused inflation, we know that high deficits pre-2020 were already setting the stage for inflation. The reckless spending in the five years that preceded the pandemic put Canada in a more precarious position than we needed to be. This is having dire consequences on the ability of Canadians to manage their finances.
Record government spending has caused the cost of living to rise dramatically, with inflation at a 31-year high, reflected in rising food and gas prices and astronomically high home prices. This has been devastating to many Canadians across the country. While the NDP-Liberal government brags about the amount of money it has spent, it fails to recognize that its programs inevitably end up costing more with little to no results. Now, with this budget, it is doubling down on many of the same failed policies.
Over the past seven years, the Liberal government has hampered Saskatchewan’s growth by implementing job-killing policies, increasing regulations, increasing taxes and scaring away investment.
Having said that, in budget 2022, the government is finally following the leadership of my home province of Saskatchewan with respect to the development of small modular reactors. In March of this year, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario and New Brunswick came to an agreement for the construction of these reactors. This was great news for the respective provincial economies, as well as the environment.
Conservatives have long been proponents of nuclear energy and have pointed out numerous times that the development of nuclear energy would greatly improve our domestic energy sector, as well as assist in the reduction of emissions. Rather than attacking our oil and gas sector, which is among the safest and cleanest in the world, the federal government could have been more proactive in promoting nuclear energy as a way for Canada to reduce carbon emissions.
I am sure the agreement between the provinces went a long way in convincing the federal government to jump on board with the good work being done by the provinces.
Staying on the topic of energy and failed Liberal-NDP policies, the climate action incentive payment resulting from the skyrocketing costs of the carbon tax is desperately hurting my constituents. The PBO has reported that households in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario will face carbon taxes which exceed the climate action incentive payments.
In a rural riding such as mine, the carbon tax is particularly hard-hitting. During the long, cold winters on the prairies, heating bills increase significantly, which is only further exasperated by the carbon tax. Add to this the large geographic regions and the lack of public transportation in many rural areas, which mean people must drive everywhere they need to go. The rising carbon tax is doing nothing but putting more pressure on my constituents.
That same failed approach is true for the agricultural industry, which is also very important across Saskatchewan and indeed to the whole country. Here was an opportunity for this NDP-Liberal government to demonstrate that it understands and values this industry. However, it let the opportunity slip through its fingers.
With the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, world food security has become a major area of concern, and our ability to feed the world is now more critical than ever. It would have been prudent for the government to focus on supporting our agriculture sector and the complimentary infrastructure farmers need to get their products to market.
Listening to our producers, who are being hit hard by the carbon tax, inflation and higher input costs would have been a welcome change of pace for the government. Instead of listening to the pleas of our farmers, ranchers and other workers in the agricultural sector, and getting behind the Conservative initiative to exempt farmers from the carbon tax, the government hiked it once again.
Budget 2022 also includes an increase in defence spending for which there is broad support. Increased NORAD funding is a good start to improve our ability to protect the integrity of our national borders.
With the complete disregard Russia has shown for international law through its invasion of Ukraine, the need to ensure the integrity of our land in the Arctic has been intensified by the territorial claims put forward by it, which encroach on our northern borders. The promise of an additional $8 billion of funding over the next five years looks good on its face, however, the funding plan that has been put forward has been woefully underwhelming.
A PBO report shows that from the 2017-18 fiscal year to the 2020-21 fiscal year, there was $10 billion in lapsed funding. Setting aside the lapsed funding, the additional funding amounts to little more than a top up.
Due to the inflation crisis, which the government has treated with callousness, the impact of increased defence spending will be significantly lessened. Further, the NDP voted against a Conservative motion to increase defence spending to meet our NATO obligations. How can we trust the government to take the funding of our armed forces seriously when it has allied itself with a party that has made clear its lack of support for military spending? Perhaps this is the reason that the announced funding does not bring us up to the requirements of our NATO obligations.
In closing, Saskatchewanians and all Canadians needed a budget that would address the issues facing our energy and agriculture sectors, the cost of living, and our failing health care system. Instead, the Prime Minister chose to buy the NDP’s support so that he can continue to govern rather than earn back the trust of Canadians. This budget is symbolic of broken promises and the Liberal track record of leaving Canadians behind.
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Madam Speaker, what I will say is that the budget makes it very clear that the NDP-Liberal government has no plan to increase defence spending to reach the target of 2% of GDP, which Canada committed to as a NATO member. Despite promising to invest $6 billion in the Canadian Armed Forces, there is no plan to ensure that the NDP-Liberal government will follow through on any of its commitments.
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Madam Speaker, the simple answer is no, I do not agree with that member. I believe that we should be developing our resources here in Canada to meet the needs of not only our country but the world, when it comes to ethically produced and developed oil.
From the beginning, the Liberal government has been anti-energy. Its policies have been destructive to the energy sector in my home province of Saskatchewan and the west.
I would urge this colleague to reconsider his stance on the ethically produced oil within our own country.
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Madam Speaker, one of the important things to note in this debate is that after two years, the Liberal government has still not demonstrated any national leadership. This has caused provincial governments to have to spend more on health care. I truly do believe that, with the dental care program that the Liberals negotiated with their NDP counterparts to put into the budget, they are attempting to infringe on provincial jurisdiction. Provinces have been bearing the brunt of dealing with COVID and now the government is repaying them by trying to infringe on their jurisdiction.
I would encourage that member to continue to hold those members to account for the decisions they are making.
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