SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 170 - Mar/21/23

Mar/21/23 2:13:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, repeatedly the Liberal government proves that it does not care about Canadians. If it did, then inflation would not be at a record-breaking 40-year high. The Liberals' solution: an automatic escalator on the alcohol excise tax, increasing taxes on beer, wine and spirits by 6.3% on April 1, alongside the carbon tax like a sick April fools joke. This tax increase will devastate consumers; beer, wine and spirit producers, 95% of which are small businesses; and other Canadian entrepreneurs who can barely make ends meet as it is. This tax hike will also have sweeping negative impacts on industries like tourism, food and hospitality, among many others. Enough is enough already. Taxpayers should not have to pay for the Liberal government's chronic fiscal mismanagement. They should not have to struggle under this cost-of-living crisis. Will the Liberal government axe the planned excise tax, yes or no?

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Context: House Hansard - 170 - Mar/21/23

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Mar/21/23 6:50:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to the government's relationship with McKinsey in a follow-up to a question I had asked. This has been an important issue for me and an important issue for the opposition. Why is it important? Well, there are a number of reasons. First, the government has spent over $100 million on contracts for McKinsey, work that public servants have told the media that, in many cases, could have been done inside the public service. More broadly, we are seeing a significant increase in spending on outside consultants by the government at the same time as we are seeing growth in the public service. The government is spending more inside the public service, and it is spending more to contract out activities as well, so there is a basic fiscal probity question at play here, but there are also some other issues that I think are very important as we look at the government's relationship with McKinsey. One is that Dominic Barton, the managing partner of McKinsey, was leading the Prime Minister's growth council, having special access through that growth council to ministers and the government at the same time that McKinsey was pitching services for sale to the government. We know from emails that a Mr. Pickersgill, who was working for McKinsey, was supplying analysts for the growth council at the same time as he was sending emails to the government requesting work. We have seen those emails, so, very clearly, there are questions of conflict of interest. There are other issues of conflict of interest. The fact that the Minister of Defence, yesterday, at the operations committee, was asked if it is acceptable for McKinsey to do work for the Canadian Department of Defence at the same time as it is potentially working for other departments of defence for hostile actors around the world and learning things from our Department of Defence that it may be using in those other interactions. The Minister of National Defence did not know, or was not willing or able to tell the committee, which other departments of defence around the world McKinsey was working for, but we were told by the deputy minister not to worry because the information and the issues that McKinsey are working on are not that secret. Really, they are just talking about operational structural details, which it is not getting access to national security. They are just operational aspects of the work of government and so forth. On the other hand, the minister was unwilling to provide basic information about these contracts to the committee unredacted. What we heard from the Minister of National Defence and her department was effectively that the information is not so secret that we need to worry about what McKinsey may be learning and using in its engagements with other hostile powers, but at the same time, the information is so secret that it could not even be shared with members of a parliamentary committee, despite the order to produce that content. A final issue I will raise tonight is the fact that McKinsey worked for Purdue Pharma and gave them advice specifically on how to supercharge opioid sales. That is not an issue of something happening beyond our borders. The opioid crisis has affected so many Canadians. I think that every family has, in some way, been touched by the opioid crisis. McKinsey specifically advised Purdue Pharma on how to turbocharge its sales engine. That advice included, for instance, how to circumvent traditional pharmacies by operating mail-in pharmacies to circumvent the controls that were being put in place in traditional pharmacies. That advice included paying bonuses for overdoses that occurred. This was advice that McKinsey provided to Purdue Pharma at the same time that McKinsey was working for the Government of Canada, and at the same time that Dominic Barton was leading McKinsey and leading the Prime Minister's growth council. Why is the government willing to do business with McKinsey? Why is it comfortable with the risks this poses in fundamental ethics, the opioid crisis issues, as well as the conflict of interest issues? We have repeatedly raised the broader question of all the money that is being spent on these outside consultants. The government's relation with McKinsey stinks, and it needs to be addressed.

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Context: House Hansard - 170 - Mar/21/23

Mr. Terry Beech (Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Mar/21/23 7:14:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in tonight's debate about affordability as well as fiscal responsibility in Canada. I share the concern that many Canadians are struggling to make ends meet in this period of elevated global inflation and the fact that the high cost of food and housing, in particular, is having significant economic repercussions. We have disagreed significantly on the cause of inflation, and that has led to significantly different policy outcomes. While the Conservatives have made proposals such as cutting seniors' pensions and reducing employment insurance, we have put forward an affordability plan with measures to support Canadians, such as increased retirement security as well as inexpensive access to child care and dental care. Thankfully, we continue to see a gradual decrease in inflation, and the OECD predicts that we will return to target by 2024. Last June, inflation in Canada was at 8.1% and, as we heard earlier today, it is down to 5.2%. That is still much too high, but it is lower than what we are seeing in peer economies. For example, in Europe, inflation is at 8.5% and in the U.K. it is at 10.1%. In fact, Canada is facing global economic headwinds from a position of fundamental economic strength. In the member's opening statement, he spoke of worrying about Canadians losing their jobs, while Canadians have actually created more than 800,000 new jobs since the pandemic. This represents a 126% recovery rate from jobs lost due to COVID, compared to just 114% in the United States. In fact, the unemployment rate in Canada remains at historic lows. Also, the International Monetary Fund projects that Canada will have the strongest annual growth in the G7 by the fourth quarter of this year. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, our government provided over $119 billion of support, which benefited 8.9 million Canadians through the CERB and over 900,000 small business owners through the CEBA. This allowed our most vulnerable families to put food on the table, and it helped to keep small business owners from going bankrupt. It is always difficult to demonstrate counterfactual arguments or, in other words, what would have happened if we had not stepped up to support Canadians during the pandemic. However, it is fair to say that our recovery would have been significantly worse and that thousands of businesses, whose doors are still open, would not have survived. The Conservatives have criticized us by saying that not all of these funds went to their intended recipients. However, the Conservatives also know that we are continuing to audit and cost-recover those specific cases. Further, it was actually the Conservatives who put forward and passed a motion to stop auditing businesses that claimed the wage subsidy. As we prepare for budget 2023, I would like to reaffirm our government's continued commitment to prudent fiscal management. We continue to enjoy a AAA credit rating as well as the lowest deficit and lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. This allows us to continue to support our most vulnerable citizens who are struggling with elevated levels of inflation. It includes $2.5 billion for 11 million Canadians with low and modest incomes through the special GST credit payment. It is spending that was supported by the Conservatives, including the member opposite. I thank the member opposite for his support because it benefited over 50% of seniors. We are also providing dental care for 230,000 children under the age of 12 and providing affordable child care so that working parents can re-enter the workforce more easily. We will continue to invest in our economy to provide opportunities for middle-class Canadians, while making life more affordable and getting inflation under control.

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