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House Hansard - 211

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 12, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 211 - Jun/13/23
Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)
  • Jun/13/23 12:00:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today because of a question I asked some time ago in the House of Commons, which went unanswered in many respects. We talked about, at that point in time, the inflation and the toll it was taking on Canada's businesses, both in their ability to borrow and with respect to the bankruptcies that were happening across Canada. That is on the rise as well. When I asked that question, it was just before the budget came out on March 28. I asked the Prime Minister and I asked the government to ensure there were no new taxes coming forward in the budget so there would not be more burden felt by Canadians, and by Canadian businesses in particular, from the rising cost of CPI, the Consumer Price Index in Canada. This is something that continues to haunt Canadians, and it has haunted us more again, as we have seen in the last little while. There was a point when it looked like the Bank of Canada was actually getting inflation under control. When I say “under control”, I mean back down to about the 4% level, or about double where it needs to be in order for the economy to manage to the point where it is deemed to be stable, which is between 1% and 3%. Usually, we say about 2%. That is not happening anymore. On June 7, the Bank of Canada raised the bank rate again because the CPI was continuing to increase. Why did the CPI increase after April? What happened after the budget? The government imposed an increase in the carbon tax, a new tax, 30% of which was felt directly by consumers. The government will tell consumers that they get all their money back, yet it has been proven time and time again by objective officers of Parliament that it is in fact an in-and-out scheme, where Canadians are being fooled about how much they are getting back. On top of that, the government is designing a new tax from July 1, which is going to double the effect of the clean fuel regulations, which is going to take a total now of 61¢ on average per litre of gasoline out of the pockets of Canadians. One cannot sit there and impose more taxes and more costs on Canadians without it having an effect on everything they buy, and that in itself creates inflation. These things all flow all the way through the value chain. When one increases the cost of things, one increases inflation. When one increases inflation, one increases the cost of debt and devalues the work people do, because everything costs more. Therefore, what they used to take home does not buy as much. It is not worth as much to them as it was before the inflation was created. We have more inflation and we are on a spiral. The government continues to create more inflation. We must think about everything it is doing here. It is over-budget on everything it is doing. A $41-billion deficit plan for this year is already out of date. Three months into when that budget was planned, we are already well past that. We have all kinds of industrial commitments for which the government never foresaw, for some strange reason, that it would have to pay the bill at the end of the day. In addition, interest rates go up, and interest rates are going up again. They go up not just for Canadians; they go up also for the Canadian government. The Canadian government is going to pay more in interest this year because the bank rate just went up, and that causes more interest to be paid by the government, which causes more interest to be paid by Canadians. This is a vicious cycle. The government needs to get over it. Will it please commit to looking at inflation and stop the increase in costs upon Canadians?
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Context: House Hansard - 211 - Jun/13/23
Mr. Greg McLean
  • Jun/13/23 12:08:21 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know it is late and I know my colleague across the way probably did not even listen to what I had to say. The answer was obviously disconnected from any question I actually had. We talked about inflation. I did not talk about much else that he referred to in there. Nevertheless, I will go on here about inflation and what his government is causing. He did say one thing that I wanted to address here. He did say that the more things go up and the more Canadians get harmed by the inflation the government has caused, the more they will give them cheques and find ways to put a little bit of money back in their pockets, much like with the carbon tax they talk about. They take a bunch of money out of one's pocket but do not worry, they will give one a cheque for a little bit back and one will be happy with it. They will give a bunch of misinformation in the House of Commons that 80% of us are better off. I think that a lot of people have disputed that rather substantially. In any event, continuing to abet inflation is not the way to address inflation. Would he please commit to doing something to actually address the inflation that he is causing?
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