44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 27, 2022 10:00AM
- Sep/27/22 10:31:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the centre of my economic plan is to make government affordable so that life is affordable. The reality is that the cost of government has driven up the cost of living. The half-trillion dollars of inflationary deficits have meant more dollars bidding up the price of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes have driven up those costs further.
The Canadian dollar is and will always be our only national currency. It will be the only currency with which we ever do government business, pay taxes or receive benefits from the government. The problem here today is that this government has been ruining the purchasing power of that dollar by printing cash through inflationary deficits. It has given us a 40-year-high in inflation, which I predicted and warned this government would happen. I will make sure it never happens again.
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- Sep/27/22 12:36:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech.
If there is one thing the Conservatives are very good at, it is creating a diversion. They think that eliminating the carbon tax or the carbon tax increase will solve the whole inflation problem.
The 70% figure quoted by the experts applies to inflation all over the world. To be precise, this means that the increase in inflation is not just due to the carbon tax, but is linked to the pandemic and current economic conditions, including the repercussions of the war in Ukraine.
The Bloc Québécois has proposed concrete solutions, such as targeting certain industries and helping low-income people, including seniors. I have a solution of my own to offer, because we also know that the Conservative Party is the champion of budget efficiency. It cost about $23 billion to buy Trans Mountain.
Would my colleague be willing to sell the pipeline to help people who are genuinely in need?
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- Sep/27/22 1:54:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I entered politics and decided to run for the nomination within my riding because the government of the day's economic record was anemic. We had low growth in Canada, a high unemployment rate and we did not have a plan to move the economy forward. Just as important, there was no plan to deal with the issue at hand, which was climate change and how we would part and parcel work together to create a strong economy and also a healthy environment. They go and in hand.
In the global financial market, I saw the transition that was happening to deal with climate change, with new technologies and industries being created. I worked for over 20 years in New York, London and Toronto, and I saw companies moving toward that.
Our party put forward a plan to grow the middle class, strengthen it and assist those working hard to join the middle class. We created an environment for job creation and investments to raise the standard of living for all Canadians. To deal with the issue of climate change, we put forward a real plan on climate change.
That is what we did as a government. We put forward a plan that, over the long term, would lower emissions and get us to net-zero by 2050. A crucial element of that plan was pricing an externality, as we say in economic terms, and create pricing pollution. We put together that plan with applause from across the spectrum. When I use that term, I mean economist and policy-makers, whether they were on the right, the left or the centre. We were using a market system to price something and use those proceeds—
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- Sep/27/22 2:10:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the new Conservative leader will put people first: their paycheques, their homes, their retirements and their country, unlike the current government. The people of Saskatchewan are sick and tired of the government promising support and then offering them absolutely nothing. Rural communities are going to be decimated because of it.
While the minister talks publicly about his government's support for the workers who will be out of a job following the shutdown of coal-fired power in 2030, he has taken zero steps to provide them and their communities with the resources needed to avoid this catastrophe. A study showed that the town of Coronach in my riding stands to lose $400 million in GDP, have a 67% loss in population and an 89% loss in household income, yet of the funds provided by the government, only 3.5% were for economic development activities.
The minister put out an op-ed last week on how these workers need certainty, but he needs to put his money where his mouth is. He says he wants to kill the emissions but he is killing an entire industry and communities instead.
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- Sep/27/22 2:27:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us get serious. Canadians know that the Conservative leader does not have a serious climate plan, and that means he does not have a serious economic plan. The economic reality is that our most important trading partners, the U.S., the EU, our customers and our markets are all taking aggressive climate action. Canada cannot afford to fall behind. Our economy cannot afford it.
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- Sep/27/22 4:41:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the hon. member raises the Quebec cap-and-trade system. It is a really good thing to focus on. As the carbon tax increases in other parts of the country, tripling, and causing all sorts of economic hardships for families, as well as for industries I should add, if the Quebec cap-and-trade system does not increase, then it will be out of sync with the government's own stated plans.
The second part of that point is that if the cap-and-trade is artificially raised by the Government of Canada, either through a second carbon tax or by pressuring the Government of Quebec, we will not have people in the American markets purchasing them in Quebec markets. That will nullify that system and make it so that it is impossible for Quebeckers to be able to carry on with the system.
The government needs to start actually deciding which is more important. Is it to have affordability, to deal with inflation and to allow for proper functioning of some of these markets? They are just talking about more intervention, higher prices and more inflation for everyone.
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