44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 3, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/3/22 10:26:55 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the fact that the Liberal government likes to make announcements, put out press releases and try to pretend like it is doing something. That is what we have seen from the Liberal government. This is another great example. It makes announcements about all kinds of money it is going to put into Veterans Affairs, but it does not spend it. A report just came out this week about almost a billion dollars in lapsed funding this year. That is money that was set aside to spend on programs for veterans that the government did not spend.
The government has certainly been accused many times, and rightly so, of spending far too much money, but one area where it should never save money is on our veterans. When there is money that has been put out there for veterans, when there is almost a billion dollars in lapsed funding sitting around while veterans' needs are not being filled, that is not providing service to veterans and their families. That is a press release designed to fool the Canadian public into believing the government cares when it clearly does not care about veterans or their families.
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- Nov/3/22 11:10:06 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in his remarks, the Liberal member made the comment that one homeless veteran is one too many. I certainly agree with him on that, but it is everything that came after that which I disagree with.
He mentioned all kinds of dollar figures they are spending on studies and things like that. It is not a question of more money being spent on studies. This is a question of will. It is time for the Liberal government to take action instead of talking about the problem.
There are 5,000 homeless veterans and we have almost $1 billion in lapsed funding this year. How much of that lapsed funding was in these programs? When will the Liberal government stop keeping our veterans out in the cold and take action to address this issue, rather than study it and talk about it?
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- Nov/3/22 2:11:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government's inflationary policies are forcing Canadians to tighten their belts like never before.
We have learned that 1.5 million Canadians had to turn to food banks last month alone. That represents a dramatic 35% increase since 2019. Rising interest rates on a $400,000 mortgage are increasing interest costs by over $15,000 a year for a Canadian family.
We call on the Liberal government to reform our tax system in order to incentivize work, eliminate taxes and tariffs on fuel and fertilizer for farmers, cap spending with legislation requiring ministers to find a dollar of savings for every new dollar spent, cut wasteful spending like ArriveCAN, and work with all levels of government to increase production efficiency and produce more of the things Canadians buy.
Those are all part of the next Conservative government's strategy.
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- Nov/3/22 2:12:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the burden on Canadians has never been heavier. The Prime Minister's tax-and-spend policies have driven a record number of Canadians to the food banks. Recently, 1.5 million Canadians used a food bank in one month. Nearly a third, or 500,000 of them, were children. This is unacceptable, and it is an increase of 35% from 2019.
The government is raising taxes on gas, groceries and home heating, which has increased the cost of essentials that Canadians rely on. Its continued reckless spending has led to record inflation, causing it to get rich off the backs of Canadians. As a result of rising interest rates, Canadians who were already on the edge are being pushed over that edge. The Liberal government needs to stop working for itself and its friends and start working for Canadians.
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- Nov/3/22 2:20:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is clear to see from that answer that the Liberal government's greed knows no bounds.
The government's solution to every problem is to make Canadians pay even more. Liberal inflation led to higher interest rates. A single mom who works as a youth worker reached out to me saying her variable mortgage payments just went up another $500 because of the Liberal inflation tax, and she is barely hanging on.
Canadians are hurting, and cannot afford more spending and higher taxes. Will the Liberals just stop spending?
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- Nov/3/22 2:21:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, only Liberals would think that they can fight their own inflation with more inflation.
Fifty-three percent of Canadians say that they are concerned with making mortgage payments when it comes time to renew. Over a third of them are already planning to cut back on spending and food. That comes at a time when grocery prices are too high and Canadians cannot afford their home heating bills anymore.
Will the Liberals stop the spending spree and stop the record taxes, or should Canadians just prepare for a long, cold, hungry winter instead?
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- Nov/3/22 2:22:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada aims to keep inflation at 2% of the consumer price index.
The bank has failed to do that, but the Prime Minister is in no hurry to see inflation go back to its normal level because that would reduce his government's revenues. That explains why he is continuing with his inflationary spending and trying to raise taxes. Canadians are suffering because this Prime Minister is taking advantage of the inflation he created to make more money.
Today, will he commit to not increasing taxes on Canadians and to stop wasting public funds?
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- Nov/3/22 2:23:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, actually, we are blaming all the measures that have been put in place by the Liberals over the last seven years. Because of those measures, we are now experiencing inflation the likes of which we have not seen in 40 years.
Mark Carney, who could potentially be the future leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, said that inflation in Canada is domestically generated. This government created the problems we have today. People are going hungry and 20% of Canadians are skipping one meal a week because of this government's actions and irresponsible spending. Will it commit to taking action that will help Canadians instead of hurting them?
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- Nov/3/22 2:31:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about what the government is spending on. We are spending on the Canada dental benefit, which is going to support hundreds of thousands of Canadian children access to dental care. We are spending on the Canada housing benefit, which is helping the lowest-income Canadians pay their rent. To suggest that is inflationary is absolutely absurd. Then we are spending on the Canada child benefit, which is helping nine out of 10 Canadian families, thousands of dollars a month, so they can pay for basic necessities.
We know what the Conservatives would cut if they were in power.
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- Nov/3/22 2:44:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, under the current Liberal government, Canadians are paying record high taxes. Liberal inflation means Canadians are also paying record high prices for gas, groceries and home heating bills. Millions of Canadians are skipping meals or using food banks because they cannot afford to buy groceries, and millions more will have to choose between heating and eating this winter. Canadians are out of money and the government is out of touch.
Why do the Liberals not stop making things worse, stop their out-of-control spending and stop the Liberal inflation taxes?
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- Nov/3/22 2:45:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievable for the government to brag about a system and policies that have 1.5 million Canadians using food banks every month and that have one in five Canadians skipping meals because they cannot buy groceries. We will take no lessons from a government whose policies are creating higher interest rates, higher inflation and out-of-control spending that is driving up the cost of living to the worst record and the worst situation in decades.
Why do the Liberals not stop making it worse, stop their out-of-control spending and stop their Liberal inflation tax?
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- Nov/3/22 2:45:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a bit rich coming from the member opposite that he wants to talk about supporting Canadians when, with every single chance, he has voted against measures that support Canadians.
When they talk about the spending that we have done, that is thousands of dollars that are helping Canadian families with the high cost of living. We know what would happen if the Conservatives were in power. They would abandon those most vulnerable Canadians who need that support. When they are talking about taxes, they are talking about things that pay for EI. They are talking about things that pay for CPP. The things—
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- Nov/3/22 2:54:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are out of money and this spend, spend, spend Liberal government is out of touch. People are losing confidence, faith and patience. Simply put, people cannot afford these record-high taxes and inflation any longer. They are sinking in debt. Families, business owners, seniors, students, all Canadians expect more from the government.
When will the Prime Minister commit to no new spending and no new taxes?
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- Nov/3/22 2:54:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, do we know what Canadians cannot afford? They cannot afford an official opposition that is proposing cuts to the things they rely upon, like employment insurance, the Canada pension plan, the Canada child benefit, affordable day care, Canada dental benefits and housing supports.
What Canadians cannot afford right now when they are feeling the economic pinch are the cruel spending cuts that the Conservatives are suggesting.
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- Nov/3/22 2:57:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Governor General undertakes important work representing Canada at home and abroad. Costs are a product of a number of factors, including the size of delegations, destination and local fees.
As always, our government makes ever effort to ensure that spending on official trips is responsible and transparent.
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- Nov/3/22 2:58:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the more the Liberals tax and spend, the more expensive life gets for struggling Canadians. The Prime Minister racked up more debt than all other primer ministers before him combined, and he claimed it was so Canadians would not have to. However, today, Canadians cannot make ends meet, while government contracts are up 74%, $14.6 billion a year, going to insiders, former Liberal MPs, anti-Semites and foreign consultants, and hundreds of millions of dollars the Liberals will not account for at all.
When will the NDP-Liberal costly coalition stop its tax hikes and wasteful spending?
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- Nov/3/22 2:59:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in fact, Canadians' paycheques and savings go up in flames as the Liberals fuel the inflation fire that they set.
The Bank of Canada says that inflation is due to what is happening in Canada. BMO says that sending cheques as inflation support is inflationary. Even Liberal Mark Carney says that inflation is “a domestic story”. Canadians are using food banks at record levels, half are almost bankrupt and a million cannot afford home heating.
The Liberals are fine with spending the average Canadians' yearly rent on a single hotel room, but will they actually give Canadians a break, cut taxes and cap spending?
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- Nov/3/22 3:03:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal-NDP coalition's policies and resulting higher interest rates have fanned the flames for this cost of living wildfire. Given the debt that the Prime Minister has accumulated, how can Canadians now trust him to control spending? After all, does one trust the arsonist to put out the fire? We cannot inflate our way out of this mess, out of debt either, because that just erodes the purchasing power of Canadians. The only positive action is to unlock investment from the private sector.
Will the Prime Minister stop his new spending, and no more taxes?
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- Nov/3/22 3:06:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling to pay their bills. They are lying in bed at night wondering how they are going to survive the devastating effects of the Liberal government's inflationary spending. Canadians simply cannot afford anymore of this costly coalition. Today, the Liberal government is presenting its economic update.
The Conservatives have a very clear demand. Will the Liberals commit to no wasteful spending and no new taxes?
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- Nov/3/22 4:41:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when we learned that the costly coalition would be introducing this economic update today, we had two demands: no new taxes on workers and seniors and no new spending unless matched by equal savings. Today, this inflationary scheme triples the tax on home heating, gas and groceries, and adds $20 billion of inflationary spending that will drive up the cost of living.
The Conservatives will stand up for Canadians, their paycheques, their homes and their savings, and we will vote against this inflationary scheme.
How did we get here? Well, the cost of government is driving up the cost of living. Half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits have bid up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes have increased the costs for businesses, farmers and workers to produce those very same goods.
The Liberals will pretend that they had no choice but to double the debt. The Prime Minister will claim that it is not his fault that he added more debt than all previous prime ministers combined.
Let us start with the fact that he added $100 billion of debt before the very first COVID case was ever discovered here in Canada. He cannot blame COVID for that. In fact, he blew through his promise that the deficit would never exceed $10 billion. It was already $100 billion in total before the first case of COVID.
Then when COVID came, 40% of all the new spending measures had nothing to do with COVID, according to the Prime Minister's own named Parliamentary Budget Officer. There was $200 billion of spending unrelated to COVID, and even among the COVID spending, there was an “all you can eat” buffet of waste and mismanagement.
The Liberals sent CERB cheques to prisoners. They sent them to public servants who were simultaneously drawing public salaries. They gave wage subsidies to wealthy corporations that were rich enough to pay out dividends and bonuses to their executives, even after I warned that they should ban that hideous practice. They tried to give half a billion dollars to the WE Charity, an organization that had given half a million dollars to the Prime Minister's own family.
The Liberals then spent $54 million on app we did not need, that did not work and that could have been designed in a weekend for $250,000. The previous Conservative government had successfully delivered apps that were necessary, useful and of a similar complexity for $200,000 to $300,000, but somehow this one went up to $54 million.
Many of the recipients of the money admit they did not do any work. They just hired other people to do work. The Liberals gave the money to people who did not do anything other than delegate the work to someone else. Do we not have public servants getting paid within the government to deliver that type of contracting? The government will not even tell us the identities of all the recipients of that money.
Do not tell me the government had to double the size of the national debt. Do not tell me that every dollar of inflationary spending was necessary. The Liberals were irresponsible and unnecessarily profligate with the dollars of Canadians, and now people are paying the price.
The Prime Minister will now say that Russia caused the inflation in Canada. Of course, we do less than 0.3% of our trade with Russia and Ukraine combined, beyond which the stuff they make is the stuff we have here already. They have energy and food. We have energy and food. If only the Prime Minister would get out of the way of our farmers and energy workers and let them produce those things.
Beyond that, under the previous Conservative government, there were wars. There was a massive war in Afghanistan, and there were others in Iraq and Syria, but we never had inflation anywhere over 4%. In fact, we were able to successfully contribute to defeating terrorists and tyrants in those conflicts while keeping the inflation level low here in Canada. We were able to get our spending under control and our budget back into balance.
By contrast, the government's spending today is 30% higher than in the pre-COVID year 2019. Why? The Liberals said all the deficits were the result of COVID. COVID is now behind us and spending is still 30% higher because we know it is not COVID that has caused the costs to rise. It is a costly coalition and an irresponsible Prime Minister who put these burdens on Canadians' shoulders.
This is a Prime Minister who has no control and no respect for Canadians' money. Canadians are the ones paying the bills here in Canada. The more the government spends, the more Canadians pay. That is why we have the highest inflation rate in 40 years. It is “justinflation”.
The Prime Minister also loves to blame all the cost of living rises on other people. Why is it, then, that house prices in this country are the second most inflated anywhere on planet earth? Why is it that land costs have gone through the roof? Land is not imported from Ukraine or Russia; land is right beneath our feet. We have the second biggest supply of it anywhere on earth, yet Vancouver is the third most overpriced housing market on planet earth and Toronto is the 10th.
Can members imagine that? Two of our biggest cities have more inflated housing prices than New York City; London, England; and countless other big metropolises that have more people, more money and less land. In fact, Vancouver's house prices are more inflated than Singapore's. Singapore is an island. It is out of land. Canada has more land where there is no one than it has land where there is anyone, so why is it that we cannot find a place to house everyone?
The first reason is that local government gatekeepers prevent housing construction by piling on massive delays that drive up costs and drive down the supply of housing. The Prime Minister has had seven years to stand up to the municipal and provincial gatekeepers who stand in the way of housing construction, but he would never do that because he does not want to confront the Liberal and NDP radical left in city halls across the country that has made this problem worse. What he has done instead is continue to shovel money into their local bureaucracies to reward them for blocking the poor, our immigrants and our working-class kids from ever owning a home.
When I am prime minister, we will impose conditions so that if cities want more federal infrastructure money, they will have to remove the gatekeepers. We will connect their infrastructure dollars to the number of houses that actually get built so that young people can find a place to live. We will also sell off 15% of the 37,000 federal buildings we have so they can be converted into housing and our young people can have affordable homes.
The second reason we have such expensive housing and such expensive everything is the Prime Minister has engaged in a massive orgy of money printing over the last two years. He said money printing would not cause inflation, even though that is exactly what it has done every single time it has been tried over the last roughly 3,000 years.
Here is how it worked. The Prime Minister wanted to be able to claim that he was borrowing all this money on the cheap. He loved to stand in the House and say his debt was not costing any money, because interest rates were so low.
The only reason he could borrow for next to nothing was that his central bank was creating the cash out of thin air. If it had been a real lender, it would have demanded a real rate of return on the loans. What happened was that they created something called “quantitative easing”. Whenever they invent new, incomprehensible terminology, we can be sure that there is something sinister behind it.
Here is how it works. It is very simple. The government sells bonds to lenders. The Bank of Canada buys back those bonds at a higher price. The lenders love it. That is why the banks thoroughly endorse this strategy, because they made the money on the difference. It is simple arbitrage. The government sells them something on a Monday and buys it back from them at a higher price on a Wednesday. Who would not go for that deal?
Unfortunately, only about 100 financial institutions are eligible to participate in it. The rest of the ordinary, hard-working Canadians who pay for it are not, but the banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions profited off of this transaction.
The Bank of Canada pays for those bonds by depositing money in the accounts of those large financial institutions held on reserve at the Bank of Canada. Those reserves skyrocketed over the last two years as the bank bought up to $400 billion of new debt.
What happened? That exploded the money supply, and more dollars chasing fewer goods caused higher prices. Much of the money then funnelled into the financial system and was lent out in mortgages to wealthy investors, who saw a massive expansion in the number of real estate holdings they could accumulate. Thus, housing prices went up 50% in two years, creating the biggest housing bubble in Canadian history.
Now that the central bank is forced to raise interest rates, it risks bursting that bubble. All of the people who got on the balloon when it was on the ground floor and went up into the sky now risk coming crashing down as that balloon is bursting.
Worse than that, the Bank of Canada now has hundreds of billions of dollars of deposits that it made into the accounts of those large financial institutions that it has on its reserves. What has happened to those deposits? They now bear more interest, because interest rates have gone up. The wealthy bankers who participated in this arbitrage transaction at the beginning and were paid for it by having more money deposited into their accounts at the Bank of Canada now collect 3.75%, because that is the policy rate that the bank pays.
What does that mean? It means that the central bank is now losing money for the first time in its history and Canadian taxpayers are forced to bail them out to a tune of $4 billion every year. This entire wretched scheme, of which I warned two years ago, will, maybe in the end, amount to the single biggest wealth transfer from working-class people to ultrawealthy insiders, from the have-nots to the have-yachts, at any time in our history.
Now we see the painful consequences. It is not just about numbers on a ledger. It is about 1.5 million people forced to go to a food bank in a single month. It is about one in five people skipping meals or cutting portions because they cannot afford their food. It is about the forthcoming winter, of which the minister spoke in metaphorical terms. People are now not going to be able to heat their homes, as the cost of home heating is expected to double or even more for those people who are on home heating oil.
It is about the 35-year-old living in his parents' basement, despite the fact that he did everything we asked him to do. He got a job. He got an education. He worked hard every day, and now he cannot afford a home, which means he cannot build up collateral, cannot build a credit history, cannot build savings for his future and, therefore, cannot start a family. In Canada, a country with among the most abundant supply of land on earth, we cannot find places for people to live.
These are the real-world consequences of irresponsible decisions. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister sits and smirks at the fact that he took a $6,000-a-night vacation to sleep in the fanciest hotel on planet Earth, staying up in opulent hotel lobbies and jazzing it up with his friends while people back home cannot pay the rent. Canadians are out of money and the Prime Minister is out of touch.
We are going to inherit this mess, all of us, and we are going to have to fix the problem. We have a big job ahead of us; do we not? We have a very big job ahead of us. He will leave a big mess just like his dad left. He will be off on a beach somewhere surfing, and the rest of us will be busy working to clean up the mess he left behind. The sooner that happens, the better it is. Only then he will have to pay for his own hotels. We will not be paying for them anymore. He will have to pay his own way like Canadians are today.
How are we going to clean up this mess? For one, we are going to bring in a pay-as-you-go law so that every time we bring in a new dollar of spending, we will find the savings to pay for it. Do members know who does that? Everybody in the real world.
That is how single mothers pay their bills. When they want to send their children on vacation, they find a way to save money in other areas. The same goes for small businesses. When they want to increase their advertising spending, they find ways to save money in other areas of the business. It is normal. It is the reality of every person living in the real world.
In fact, scarcity is the condition that faces every creature in the universe as there is only so much to go around, every one except for the Prime Minister, who just takes everyone else's money to pay for his own wants and desires. In the real world, if a family wants a new deck, they might pass up on their vacation, or find a deal on the vacation and maybe pick up some used lumber at a local construction yard to save some money so that they can do it all within the same budget. Imagine if instead of just piling on new spending all the time, the government actually had to find savings to pay for it. That would force the same real-world trade-offs—
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