44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 15, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise once again as Thornhill's voice in Ottawa. I will be sharing my time with my friend, the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.
Everything is fine; Canadians have never had it so good. That is the constant refrain we hear from the Liberals and their NDP coalition partners, while Canadians from coast to coast to coast are struggling and while everyone in Canada pays the highest taxes on record, ever.
We have a problem in this country, and the Liberals must know it by now. It is hard to ignore. They either are not listening or they do not care. The Liberals have doubled our national debt since they came to power. The Prime Minister has incurred more debt than all prime ministers who came before him. The Liberals have doubled the debt. They have tripled the carbon tax. They have quadrupled Canadian mortgage payments, because Liberal inflation has led to Liberal interest rate hikes. We have a cost of living crisis in this country. The Liberals must have some inkling of that now.
The fall economic statement really could have helped. However, unfortunately it would do nothing to address the immediate cost of living crisis the Liberals seem to be ignoring. We asked for two very simple things from the Liberals: no new spending and no new taxes. This statement delivers neither. We asked for compassion for Canadians trying to get by and fiscal responsibility for future generations, and this statement delivers neither.
For weeks, Conservatives told Liberals this statement would have the opportunity to change the course, to freeze spending, to freeze taxes and to reverse the failed policies that are causing the chaos we see all over the country. It seemed like the Liberals were finally getting the message. The Deputy Prime Minister told Canadians it was time to cut back, that we should live within our means and that the era of big government spending was over. We even heard the Prime Minister utter the words “fiscal responsibility”. I almost fell out of my chair when he said those words together in the same sentence. However, when the update was delivered and Liberal promises and talking points collided with reality, like on every other issue, they fell short. Only a Liberal would think that this year's fall economic statement shows fiscal restraint.
Since April, the Liberals have added $11.6 billion to new government spending, and this update will add another $11.3 billion. The Liberals are addicted to spending, and Canadians are paying the price. On top of all that are the new taxes that this statement fails to do away with, like tripling the carbon tax and putting new taxes on paycheques, and inflation is already at 6.9%.
Interest rates are the highest they have been since the financial crisis. Rental rates are up 15%, and food inflation is at 11%. Where do families find that money? Gas is up to over $2 in many parts of the country. Diesel hit $3. Canadians have never felt worse about their finances. Every survey to every Canadian comes back with exactly the same refrain. All the Liberals have to do is check out of the $6,000-a-night hotel room, turn off the Disney+ and talk to Canadians to understand what is going on in this country.
The Liberals are flooding the market with cheap cash that is driving up the cost of goods, while simultaneously making people pay even more in taxes. How does that make any sense? They hear from the same people as we do, who are just struggling to get by. They read the same statistics as we do. The fact that 1.5 million people in this country used a food bank in a month should not be lost on anyone. This is Canada. The Liberals go back to their constituencies at the end of the week, just like we do. Therefore, why are they not changing course? Why are they not listening? Why are they continuing to do the same thing that got us into this in the first place?
The Liberals know their actions, their policies and their spending are causing inflation. The Deputy Prime Minister said it herself. The Bank of Canada governor said it, and the one before him said it. The banks have said it. Everybody except for members on the other side has said it, with the exception of the Deputy Prime Minister. The simple answer is that the Liberals care more about the power of government than the power of people. They care more about helping making their friends rich than helping struggling families get by. They care more about the voices on the cocktail circuit than the voices of real, everyday Canadians telling them to stop.
It is time to start listening to real people who know that budgets do not balance themselves, real people who know that monetary policy is important, real people who know that cancelling Disney+ is not a solution to put food on the table, real people who know that $6,000 for a hotel room is absurd, real people who know that $12,000-a-month grocery bills at the Prime Minister's house are ridiculous, and real people who know that private jets and limousines are insulting as they cancel their vacations and struggle with driving to work every day. Maybe this is a statement of fiscal restraint for the Liberals, but it is not a statement of fiscal restraint for anybody else in this country.
I will promise Canadians that fiscal restraint, for the Conservatives, means deficits are at zero, not $15 billion and not $30 billion, but zero. For every dollar spent there will be a dollar found, because that is how real people live in the real world. The Deputy Prime Minister herself has warned of difficult times ahead, and for her to spend so recklessly despite knowing all that is, frankly, unacceptable.
What will the government do when the cupboards are already bare? That is the position we are in. How will it be able to deal with the rising interest rates on our debt, which will soon exceed the amount of money the government transfers to provinces for health care in a crisis? We are going to pay more interest on the debt than we are going to pay for health care in this country, from the federal government. Here is a spoiler alert: It will not. It will be the fault of this government, and Canadians will suffer more for it.
As I have said before and will say again, I have been part of budget processes before. In fact, the last one I was a part of in this country was balanced. I have never seen a government's fiscal policy so lacking in vision and so utterly meaningless. At least in the last crisis, Canada had a plan; we had a direction. It was because of our strong fiscal management that we were able to make it out of the worst economic crisis in a generation at the top of the G7. We were the last ones into the recession and the first ones out. We need a plan, no more platitudes, no more talking points and no more half measures of NDP fantasies to keep the Liberals in power.
I would support the economic statement if it had a meaningful solution anywhere in the document, but instead I will tell Canadians what we need to do. Consider this a bit of an edit. There is hope for the future, because we live in the best country in the world. We have so much of what we need right here, like our farmers, our oil sands, our natural resources, our minerals and, of course, our people. It is just a shame that we are not doing more to support any of those things. We are squandering our riches. We need to spend less cash and make more of what cash buys right here in Canada.
We need to build more infrastructure, pipelines and LNG facilities, and get government out of the way to make that happen. We need to increase building new homes by 15% in the biggest cities, where they are needed most, and make sure the people who can help with this, qualified immigrants being blocked by pointless government rules and perpetual backlogs, can get the certifications they need to get the jobs they truly deserve. I am a child of an immigrant, an uncredentialled engineer, who came here to drive a cab. Almost 50 years later, the story is the same, only that uncredentialled engineer will be driving an Uber.
We need no new taxes: no new carbon taxes and no new paycheque taxes. We need to ensure the documents presented to this House have a plan to grow the economy and not flood it with cheap cash. We have the lowest projected growth in GDP of any advanced economy in the world, and that ought to terrify anybody who wants to see this country remain competitive in a race we are losing.
It starts now. It starts with rejecting everything in the fall economic statement and what it stands for. “Bigger government, more spending and higher taxes” should be its title, and it will end when we elect the member for Carleton as the next Prime Minister of Canada.
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Madam Speaker, perhaps the member opposite should listen to my remarks. I talked about being the last ones into the last global recession and being the first ones out. In 2008, this country ran deficits of $58 billion and paid them back by 2015, because there was a plan. There was a responsible plan with leadership put on the table.
The government has spent $500 billion, $200 billion of which had nothing to do with COVID, and instead of showing a modicum of fiscal restraint, the Liberals keep spending to fuel the crisis that they themselves started.
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Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying that I am sharing my time with my colleague from Jonquière.
I rise today to speak to Bill C‑32, on the 2022 fall economic statement. Unfortunately, this bill seems more impressive in form than in substance. Bill C‑32 contains maybe 25 various tax measures and a dozen or so non-tax measures. It may seem like a lot at first glance, but these are in fact two kinds of measures. Some are just minor amendments, like the ones this Parliament adopts on a regular basis, while others were already announced in the spring budget but had not been incorporated into the first budget implementation bill in June, Bill C‑19. In cooking we call that leftovers.
Simply put, like the economic statement of November 3, Bill C‑32 does not include any measures to address the new economic reality brought on by the high cost of living and a possible recession. This is a completely missed opportunity for the federal government. This bill will not exactly go down in history and its lack of vision does not deserve much praise either.
However, it does not contain anything “harmful” enough to warrant opposing it or trying to block it. The government often tends to bury harmful measures in its omnibus budget implementation bills, hoping they will go unnoticed, but that is not the case here. The bill contains no surprises, either good or bad.
As my colleagues can see, I am trying very hard to show some good faith. Bill C‑32 contains some worthwhile measures, but they were already announced in the last budget. I will go over them briefly.
An anti-flipping tax has been implemented to limit real estate speculation. That is a good thing. A multi-generational home renovation tax credit has also been created for those who are renovating their home to accommodate an aging or disabled parent. The Bloc has been calling for such a measure since 2015, as have many seniors' groups that have contacted me many times about this issue. I commend the government for introducing it.
There is also a first-time homebuyer tax credit to cover a portion of the closing costs involved in buying a home, such as notary fees and the transfer tax. It is hard to be against apple pie. There is also a temporary surtax and a permanent increase to the tax rate for banks and financial institutions, as well as the elimination of interest on student loans outside Quebec. Quebec has its own system, so it will receive an unconditional transfer equivalent to the amount Quebeckers would have received had they participated in the federal program.
In addition, a tax measure that supports oil extraction has been eliminated. It is just one drop in the bucket of subsidies, but it is a start. A tax measure is being implemented to promote mining development in the area of the critical minerals that are needed for the energy transition. In addition, assistance can be provided to a particular government. That is interesting. A total of $7 billion to $14 billion will be available for all foreign countries, when previously, it was $2.5 billion to $5 billion. While we are still far from the United Nations goal of 0.07% of gross GDP, the government is enhancing Canada's international aid, something the Bloc has been calling for for some time. As the status of women critic, I am regularly reminded that Canada can and must do more and better to safeguard the health of women and girls internationally.
Bill C‑32 sidesteps the big challenges facing our society, but there is nothing bad in it. It puts forward a few measures and does some legislative housekeeping that was necessary under the circumstances.
As such, I will reiterate, half-heartedly, what other Bloc members have said: We will vote in favour of Bill C‑32 even though the economic statement was disappointing. We take issue with an economic update that mentions the inflation problem 115 times but offers no additional support to vulnerable people and no new solutions despite the fact that a recession is expected to hit in 2023. The government seems to think everything will work out with an “abracadabra” and a wave of its magic wand.
Quebeckers concerned about the high cost of living will find little comfort in this economic update. They will have to make do with what is basically the next step in the implementation of last spring's budget, even though the Bloc Québécois did ask the government to focus on its fundamental responsibilities toward vulnerable people.
For the rest of my speech, I will therefore focus on the lack of increased health transfers, the lack of adequate support for people aged 65 and over, and the lack of much-needed genuine reform to EI, which, I should note, is the best stabilizer in times of economic difficulty. Sadly, the government dismissed our three requests, even though they made perfect sense. We can only denounce this as a missed opportunity to help Quebeckers deal with the tough times that they are already going through or may face in the months to come.
First, the Bloc Québécois asked the federal government to agree to the unanimous request of Quebec and the provinces to increase health transfers immediately, permanently and unconditionally. ER doctors are warning that our hospitals have reached breaking point, but the federal government is not acting. It clearly prefers its strategy of prolonging the health funding crisis in the hope of breaking the provinces' united front in order to convince them to water down their funding demand. It is the old tactic of divide and conquer.
I want to remind my colleagues that yesterday, at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, on which I sit, during our study on the mental health of women and girls, the ministers of Women and Gender Equality and of Mental Health acknowledged that the national action plan concept, which seeks to impose national standards, was slowing down the process. Meanwhile, the women and girls who are suffering are being held hostage. The government's feminist posturing must end.
Second, people between the ages of 65 and 74 continue to be denied the increase to old age security, which they need more than ever before. Seniors live on fixed incomes, so they cannot deal with such a sharp rise in the cost of living in real time. They are the people most likely to have to make tough choices at the grocery store or the pharmacy, yet the government continues to penalize those who are less well-off and who would like to work more without losing their benefits. Unlike the federal government, inflation does not discriminate against seniors based on their age.
Currently, Canada's income replacement rate, meaning the percentage of income that a senior retains at retirement, is one of the lowest in the OECD. We cannot say that the government is treating seniors with dignity.
There is also the increase to old age security, which should prevent demographic changes from significantly slowing economic activity. Contrary to what the government says, starving seniors aged 65 to 75 will not encourage them to remain employed. That is done by no longer penalizing them when they work.
Not a day goes by that I do not receive a message from citizens about this. This morning, I again received comments from important seniors' groups such as AQDR and FADOQ, and they can be summarized in one word: disappointment. I do not even want to talk about the brilliant decision-makers who want to delay the pension process for 10% of seniors.
Third, let us remind the government that employment insurance is an excellent economic stabilizer in the event of a recession. While more and more analysts fear the possibility of a recession in 2023, the Canadian government seems to be backtracking on the comprehensive employment insurance reform that they promised last summer.
Essentially, the system has been dismantled over the years. Currently, six of 10 workers who lose their jobs do not qualify for EI. That is significant, it is a majority, it is 60%. Seven years after the government promised reform, time is running out. We must avoid being forced to improvise a new CERB to offset the shortcomings of the system if a recession hits.
During the pandemic, we saw that improvised programs cost a lot more and are much less effective. Above all, the government's financial forecasts show that it does not anticipate many more claims. In fact, the government is forecasting a surplus of $25 billion in the employment insurance fund by 2028, money that will go to the consolidated fund rather than improve the system's coverage. As for the 26 weeks of sick leave, the measure was in Bill C‑30 to update budget 2021, passed 18 months ago, even before the last elections. All that is missing is the government decree to implement it, but those who are sick are still waiting.
One last important thing: Last weekend, I attended the Musicophonie benefit concert for a foundation in our area, the fondation Louis-Philippe Janvier, which helps young adults suffering from cancer. I was told that the organization does indeed have to make up for the government's lack of financial support. That adds to the unimaginable stress on those who are sick, who should instead be focusing on healing with dignity. Even 26 weeks is inhumane. A person cannot recover properly in that time frame.
In closing, the government is acknowledging the rising cost of living without doing anything about it. It is warning of difficult times ahead this winter without providing a way to get through them. It makes some grim economic predictions without ever considering any of the opposition's proposals as to how to prepare ourselves.
As a final point, I want to talk about supply chains. We learned how fragile they are during the pandemic. Last spring's budget document mentioned the problem 71 times. The budget update mentioned it another 45 times. Neither one includes any measures to tackle the problem, leaving business owners in limbo. The new Liberal-Conservative finance minister missed the opportunity to send a clear message of leadership and instead raised fears about potential austerity. The government is rehashing past measures, implementing what it already announced in the April budget, but there is no indication that it has a clear sense of direction, leaving the people who really need it out in the cold.
For those who lose their jobs, we need EI reform. For those who are sick, we need to increase health transfers. For our seniors, we need to give them more money so they can age with dignity.
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Mr. Speaker, I will say at the outset that I am splitting my time with the fabulous member for Haldimand—Norfolk.
We are debating the fiscal update, or the fall economic statement, and when we look at the update, it is important that we have some context for the environment it was put into. Let us go back seven years to when the government was elected.
At that time, the soon-to-be Prime Minister said there would be a tiny deficit, one so small that we could not even see it: a measly $10 billion that would disappear by the end of his first term. At the end of his firm term, there was $100 billion in pre-COVID deficit spending. That is literally thousands of dollars of burden that he put on the backs of Canadians. During COVID, there is no doubt there was some good money spent to support Canadians. The Conservatives supported programs like the wage subsidy, but we wanted controls on the wage subsidy to make sure multi-billion dollar corporations were not buying back shares or giving dividends at the same time they were receiving government money.
In addition to that COVID money, $200 billion, according to the Prime Minister's own Parliamentary Budget Officer, went out the door in non-COVID-related dollars. That equates to $5,400 for every woman, man and child in Canada. That is $5,400 for non-COVID-related spending. For a family of four, that is $20,000.
I spend a lot of time, as I am sure all members in the House do, with Canadians when travelling. Of course, we had the unnecessary, unneeded and very expensive election, but I did have the great opportunity during that time to spend my time talking to constituent after constituent. Not one of them had an extra $20,000 in their bank account because of this excess spending, so I question the value of that money spent.
The reality of an extra $200 billion, $400 billion or $500 billion in spending is that the government does not have the money. The government has three ways of raising money. One is by going to the markets and asking for a loan, and it did not have the fiscal framework or the ability to borrow $500 billion from the markets. The second is by raising taxes. Even the current government did not have the stomach to raise taxes that much that quickly. Finally is by printing money. That is through a fancy term called quantitative easing, where the government sells bonds and buys them back itself. In reality, it has the same effect as printing money.
For the last more than 2,000 years, we know what happens in this story, from the ancient Romans to the Weimar Republic to Yugoslavia shortly after War World II to Argentina, to name just a few examples. Actually, there is one right here in Canada. There was a prime minister here by the name of Pierre Elliott Trudeau who engaged in the same type of money printing, and guess what we got. We got inflation.
There was one individual who stood up over and over again and said that we would get inflation and that we should be worried about inflation. That was the member for Carleton, who was to become the official opposition leader. He said that inflation was on the way, and I heard heckles and people saying no. In fact, I cannot believe this is not the biggest news headline every day as we sit in perhaps the biggest monetary crisis of my lifetime.
We had a deputy leader saying that there was going to be no inflation, none. The Liberals said we should not worry about it and that the real problem was deflation. Talk about getting it wrong. Holy mackerel. Then we heard the Prime Minister say in public, not just in the quietness of his own home, that he did not think about monetary policy. Well, that is obvious.
As we see now, inflation is out of control. The inflation numbers will be coming out again and we will see what they are, but I guarantee they will not be in the Bank of Canada's target rate of 1% to 3%. Inflation is not just the numbers, it is not just the spreadsheets, it is not just the statistics; it is having a real impact on the lives of Canadian.
Parties on the other side of the spectrum like to say that the Conservatives are heartless. What is heartless is releasing a fall economic statement in the throes of one of the greatest affordability crises, with high inflation rates, and not addressing it. That means we will continue to see record use of food banks. In one month alone, in this great country that I love so much, 1.5 million Canadians went to food banks, a third of which were children. Five hundred thousand children in our great land were forced to go to a food bank, because the Prime Minister does not think about monetary policy. He should think again. Canadians are really struggling. Twenty per cent more than ever before are using food banks because the Liberals have failed Canadians over and over again.
What was the response in the fall economic statement to the affordability crisis, such as single moms not being able to feed their children; seniors not being able to make it to the end of the month, not being to pay their rent; young adults not being able to afford houses? We are going to have a 2% tax on share buybacks. I have had a number of constituents, neighbours and friends come to me saying they are having a tough time. They are having challenges. What we really need is a 2% tax on share buybacks, because that will create greater amounts of capital incorporation, which will create economic prosperity for all. Is this for real? Is this serious? This is a real document.
As we go on in this document, a document prepared by the Liberals, here is what it says. The bad news is that we are going to have high inflation. The bad news is we are going to have high interest rates. The topper is that we might be going toward a recession. The way the government assembled this document would be funny if it were not so sad. In their economic projection, the Liberals have said that we will have one-quarter of negative growth at baseline and the other one at 0%. Two negative quarters make a recession. It was like my nine year old changed his homework a little so he did not have to call it a recession. By the way, somehow inflation rates, which will come out tomorrow, will drop to 3.5% in 2023, less than 50 days from now. I am not going to buy some swamp land from the Liberals and I am certainly not going to accept that ridiculous notion.
With the fall economic statement, the government had a real opportunity to do something great to help Canadians with the affordability crisis to get them back on their feet by getting off their backs. It could have reduced the carbon tax. We are the only country in the G7 that did not do that. The Liberals had the opportunity to truly help Canadians by reducing the payroll tax, but they seem intent on penalizing, not rewarding, all those Canadians who are working so hard. They take more and more. Their greed knows no end. The government is out of ideas and it needs to be taken out of its misery.
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