44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 23, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/23/23 10:21:20 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today with another opportunity to warn the government about the course it is on.
Winston Churchill is famous for saying, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, and he was right. We can just look at the Liberal government. High taxes, high inflation and corporate socialism are not an innovation of today's Liberals. It has been going on for years. This is a lefty obsession: raising the taxes of everyday Canadians, and then turning around and spending so much money that the government runs massive inflationary deficits and runs up the debt. The only people who benefit are the wealthy Liberal insiders and their corporations. In the 1970s, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau did this exact same thing. At the time, he spent more than all his predecessors combined, driving up Canada's debt and leaving in his wake nearly two decades of high inflation and high interest rates.
Canadians are turning in their house keys, taking on more household debt just to survive and worrying about whether they can afford to heat their homes, buy groceries or gas up their cars. It sounds very familiar. It is another example of history repeating itself.
We know that, just as in the days of Pierre Trudeau, the current Prime Minister created the inflation and cost of living crisis we see today with his out-of-control spending. While he got Tiff Macklem and the Bank of Canada to cover his massive deficits with money printing, he did nothing to address the inflation concerns or ease the inflationary pressures of higher taxes. Instead, the Prime Minister passes on the taxes. He takes from everyday Canadians and spends their money on high-priced consultants and Liberal insiders who get cushy government contracts.
The concept of money printing and inflation is not even the invention of the Liberals of the 1970s. In the 1700s, French banker and economist Richard Cantillon observed that the rich and the insiders get all the benefits when the government increases the money supply. In those days, the rich and the insiders were the aristocracy closest to the French king. When a gold mine was discovered and the supply of gold increased, Cantillon saw that the value of gold did not increase, and neither did the wealth of the everyday people. Instead, the value of gold diminished. Instead of one gold coin purchasing a loaf of bread, it now took two, yet the wealthy gold mine owner and the landowner growing grain for bread were better off. They could keep spending money on luxuries, while everyday people fell further behind.
Today, Canada sees the same thing happening. We are not just witnessing the 1970s repeat themselves. We are seeing fundamental economics return with a vengeance. Leave it to the Liberal government to ignore an at least 300-year-old lesson in inflation.
Today's aristocracy is the ones benefiting from the $600 billion spent in the last eight years. These insiders enjoy privileged access to billions of tax dollars stashed away in Liberal programs like the Canada Infrastructure Bank or the Canada growth fund. These are the same insiders who will benefit from the so-called “just transition”, which will eliminate hundreds of thousands of good-paying, responsible Canadian energy jobs. They are the same insiders who will benefit from the $21.4 billion the Prime Minister is handing out to consultants like McKinsey, and from what his ministers are handing out to their besties in cushy contracts. These insiders are the same ones getting rich off the inflationary deficits and wasteful spending.
Do not get me wrong. As a proud Albertan and Conservative, I support the free market and individuals' ability to make and use their money the way they want to. What I have a problem with is when the Liberal government takes more out of the pockets of everyday Canadians and in some quasi-corporate socialist way redistributes these tax dollars to the rich and the Liberal insiders.
This is such a disregard for freedom, free enterprise and Canadians' money. The blatant payoffs to Liberal friends using taxpayers' money only make life more expensive for the rest of us. As the Leader of the Opposition has clearly explained to this House, just as Cantillon observed 300 years ago, it is this type of government waste that causes the people to suffer while the rich insiders have never had it so good.
What is most frustrating is how the Liberals cannot see that the increasing cost of government is tied to the increasing cost of living. That is what I take issue with. In the study the finance committee overtook, despite the warnings and voices of everyday Canadians pleading with us to address the real issue, the cost of living crisis, the Liberal-NDP costly coalition joined forces to make recommendations that will not restore affordability.
In our dissenting report, Conservatives were clear: The Liberal government must rein in its inflationary deficit spending and address its ballooning debt. We reiterated our calls for no new taxes and no new spending, including all planned tax hikes, such as the tripling of the carbon tax, the second carbon tax, the luxury tax, the escalator tax on alcohol, and the payroll tax increases. We called on the Liberal government to adopt the pay-as-you-go law the Conservative leader proposed, which was endorsed by the Minister of Finance in a letter to her own ministers last fall.
The reality is that, after eight years of the current Prime Minister, Canadians are out of money and the Liberals are out of touch. We cannot saddle future generations with borrowing for current spending and deficits. Interest rates are the highest they have been since the 2008 global recession. One in five Canadians is skipping meals, out of money or accessing charities for basic needs. Newcomers are being driven out of this country. One in five newcomers wants to pack up and leave. The number one cause of that is the high cost of living in this country.
Mortgages and rents have doubled since 2015. The average rent across Canada's 10 biggest cities is now over $2,200 a month, compared to almost $1,200 a month in 2015. Mortgages are now above $3,100 compared to $1,400 a month in 2015. All the while, Canada has the lowest homes per capita in the G7, and the lack of supply has home prices still inflated 30% above prepandemic levels. This is the result of eight years of out-of-control Liberal spending and increasing tax hikes.
That is why Conservatives are calling for budget 2023 to reverse the economic mismanagement brought on by the Prime Minister. Canada needs to stop printing money and, instead, make more of what money buys; axe the damaging and failed carbon tax, especially for farmers, so they can produce the food that Canada and the world need; remove gatekeepers to free up and speed up permits for homes, so that people can afford homes and so that job-creating energy projects can get built, which will create paycheques at home in Canada. By addressing inflationary deficit spending and high taxes, we can bring home lower prices and more powerful paycheques so that hard work pays off again.
This pre-budget consultation report fails to address the inflation and the cost of living crisis, and fails to provide real solutions. That is why, while I am on my feet, I move that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
the 10th Report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented on Friday, March 10, 2023, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Finance with instruction that it amend the same so as to recommend that the government create a “Blue Seal” National Professional Testing Standard to quickly license professionals, like doctors and nurses, who prove they are qualified, and that anyone who has passed the common national test for their profession would get a “Blue Seal” certificate allowing them to work in any province or territory that chooses to join the Blue Seal Standard.
1386 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/23/23 10:32:12 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, if government programs were responsible for inflation, we would see everybody up and down the line pinching pennies to get by.
Could the hon. member explain why big food is making record profits and why big oil is making record profits, while people are jacking up the cost of rent and the price of houses because of the lack of supply? This has nothing to do with government actions. In fact, I would ask the member whether or not it really justifies government action, in terms of regulation, because the free market has clearly been responsible for these distortions.
101 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/23/23 11:01:22 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, our agricultural industries throughout the country are of critical importance. When the member talks about infrastructure, there is no government that has invested more in infrastructure, at least in the last 50, 60 or 70 years, than this government has over the last five, six or seven years. In agriculture, of course it is important.
We have to be careful when we talk about interest rates or inflation. Let us do a fair comparison. Take a look at what is happening in the United States. Take a look at what is happening in the G20 countries. To say that interest rates in Canada are going up and that we are not comfortable with the inflation rate in Canada, yes, the government is aware of that. We are taking action. In relative comparison to other jurisdictions, we are doing well, but that is still not good enough. That is the reason why someone such as myself, being from the Prairies, looks at agriculture and the diversity of agriculture.
I am very proud of how the pork industry, for example, has grown. I will add comments as—
188 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/23/23 11:02:30 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is always interesting to listen to my colleague. There are two things. One thing he just mentioned was interest rates and inflation. Right now, Alberta has a 3.2% inflation rate, whereas we are at 5.2% for the rest of the country. Part of the reason for this is that the province is cutting taxes and making sure people have money in their pockets so they can invest in things that are important. This is something different than what we see in the government, and we start to worry about whether the taxes are going to be increased and make it more difficult.
The last point I want to make is about health care, which the member talked about. Could he explain what the Liberal government did in the 1990s, when it slashed the money that was going toward health care?
145 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/23/23 11:03:26 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, when one thinks about the different fluctuating rates of inflation across the country, one also needs to take a look at natural resources, the provincial GDPs and so forth. All of that has an impact on inflation rates.
On the health care issue, I am glad the member brings it up. Jean Chrétien established a clear cash transfer on health care. Prior to that commitment, we were working on a tax point shift that ultimately would have seen Ottawa defunding health care into the future. I was concerned.
I was in the Manitoba legislature at the time as a parliamentarian, and there was a great deal of discussion that Ottawa was getting out of health care. Thanks to Jean Chrétien and that particular government, we not only established a very strong presence in health care, but we also continued to grow that through health care agreements and accords to ultimately reach what we have today. That is a $198-billion commitment under this particular administration for health care.
174 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/23/23 12:56:10 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country.
Today, we are discussing the finance committee's pre-budget consultation report. I want to start off by saying right out of the gate, and I have talked about this many times in the House, that we as Conservatives oppose all tax increases at this time. That includes the excise tax increase, the payroll tax increase and the carbon tax increase, the last of which increases the price of everything that is shipped across the country.
To set the stage, inflation is at a 40-year high and we know that food inflation is higher. When inflation was around 6%, food inflation was over 11%, almost double.
I did a survey in my community. I send out surveys that go to every residence, and it is amazing how many thousands of people mail them back. It is such great information for me. It is such a great way for me to gain feedback from the community, in addition to all the other types of outreach I do. I would say that over 70% of the people who filled out that survey said their food costs were up 20% to 30%, and food prices can be higher regionally across the country. When food inflation is this high, it definitely makes it very hard for everyone to pay their bills, in particular people who are on fixed incomes, like seniors. It has been reported that 1.5 million people went to a food bank in just one month.
Before I came here to debate this motion today, I had the honour of sitting for a while on the finance committee, where a chief economist from a bank said that he expects insolvencies to increase. The CIBC has said that one in five mortgages it has in its portfolio is in a position where the borrower's monthly payment is not high enough to cover even the interest portion of the loan. People are struggling, and now is not the time to increase any taxes.
What I would like to talk about for most of my time today is the excise tax increase. To go back a bit regarding this tax increase, in 2017, the Liberals put in place an escalator tax on the alcohol excise tax. “Escalator” is just a fancy bureaucratic word for automatic, so it is an automatic tax increase that does not go into budgets and is not debated every year. At the time, Conservatives, industries and stakeholders asked the government not to do it. They were very concerned that it might trigger trade challenges. In fact, it did with Australia. During that time, Australia said that it was unfair, and over the course of a few years, an agreement was made with Australia and was announced on the Canadian side.
I should mention that previously, some wineries with domestically grown grapes that were made into wine were exempt from paying the excise tax. This was done many years ago to build up and assist this value-added industry and agriculture. The agreement made was that these wineries, and we later learned cideries as well, had to start paying this excise tax. That was the agreement the Canadian government announced. However, back in Australia, they were announcing they won the trade challenge, so it was interesting how the communications came out. What has happened with that? The Canadian government has had to come up with different formulas to fix that situation with domestic wineries.
In addition to that, the excise tax is increasing every year, and it is tied to the CPI, which means it is tied to inflation. Therefore, when inflation is higher, this tax increase is higher, which then perpetuates inflation even more. As of April 1, there will be the highest tax increase ever, at 6.3%, and because inflation has been high this year, we are already tracking to have a high tax increase as we go into next year.
Just dealing with this year, this is really going to affect the producers. It is not only the manufacturers, which could be the wineries, breweries, cideries and distilleries, but this tax increase then trickles down to the retailers who will be selling these products. It trickles down to the restaurant owners, who are still having a really tough time coming out of the pandemic, and, of course, ultimately to consumers.
For disclosure, I worked for 27 years in the British Columbia beer and wine industry, so I worked on all sides of the industry. I remember at different times, when, for example, the provincial government was changing some of its formulas around taxation, so winery or brewery operators would have to make a very difficult decision on how long they would absorb that increase.
To really simplify things, as an example, people's wine might be on the shelf at $19.99 a bottle. Now they have to make the choice. Do they put it up to $20.19? It is such an odd number. Therefore, they make the decision to keep it at that price for a while and then realize they cannot and they have to eventually pass this on. They will make a decision. They will take the hit for a while, but ultimately it has to be passed on. Those are the tough decisions that business owners, especially small business owners, make every day.
In Kelowna—Lake Country, there are 27 wineries, 21 breweries, and eight cideries and distilleries combined. These are farm-to-glass industries. These are value-added industries. All of these will be affected. This is just another cost that will be added on, which does not have to be because there is no benefit to those organizations. It is strictly a tax, and we should not be increasing any taxes at this time.
We know that small businesses represent most of the businesses in Canada. They represent most of the businesses in my community.
As I was talking about the trickle-down effects of this, Restaurants Canada shows that more than 50% of the licensed restaurants in Canada are losing money or barely breaking even. Again, as these cost increases are being passed on, it will affect them.
The CFIB reported that the average small business owner took on $150,000 in new debt. Most business owners have not paid off this debt. Of course, with rising interest rates, their debt is costing more. Therefore, for any of them who work in this industry, this will just be affecting them even more.
Beer Canada wrote on behalf of eight brewery worker unions. I will read a quote from it. It states, “Canada is experiencing the highest cost of living increases in a generation. This is squeezing family budgets and making workers in the brewing sector nervous about their jobs.”
Wine Growers Canada wrote to the Minister of Finance and said that with the addition of federal/provincial ad valorem taxes in the pricing chain, the next rise in excise duty would increase wine prices by at least 10¢ per litre, with long-term impacts on restaurants, hotels, bars, retailers, farmers and wine growers.
Members can see that this is going to dramatically affect a lot of these industries.
I wrote to the finance minister recently. I will just quote part of what I wrote to her. I said, “Producers will be left with the choice of absorbing this cost increase and adding it to their debt loads or passing on this cost to both consumers and our restaurant and hospitality businesses, fuelling inflation more.” I have not heard back from her.
I will also say that when I was first elected back in 2019, this was one of the first topics that I started advocating on, because I had so many small business owners in my riding coming to me, saying that this affected them every year, That was before we had this record high inflation.
With that, I am standing with small business owners in my riding and across Canada, and we need to stop all tax increases.
1370 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
