SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 218 - Jun/21/23

Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Jun/21/23 9:25:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member talked about getting help to people, but what has the government done? When it comes to seniors, the government increased the OAS by 10%, but only for those who are over 75. It created two tiers of seniors. The Liberals decided to neglect those seniors who are between 65 and 75. This is despite the fact that over a third of women over 65 are living in poverty. That is actually shameful in a country like this. The PBO costed out expanding it to include those seniors who are between 65 and 75, and it would cost $1.4 billion. Guess how much that is. It is a half-point increase in corporate tax. What did the Liberals decide to do? They decided to choose corporate welfare instead of taking care of seniors, leaving the third of women who are over 65 hung out to dry. The GST rebate that people are going to see in July is to help just with inflation and groceries, never mind this increase that is needed. When will the government decide to increase corporate taxes to take care of those who need help the most, including seniors over 65, women and single women, one-third of whom are living in poverty in this country? It is unacceptable, and it is an injustice.

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Mr. Wilson Miao

Jun/21/23 9:27:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his concern. I have full respect for seniors across Canada. Here is a little background about seniors in my riding of Richmond Centre. We have the highest poverty in our seniors community. Before I was elected, this was already the case. Understand that our government has also implemented the new horizons program to support seniors in need, adjusted the age from 67 back to 65 and supported our seniors with a one-time GIS support. These are things that our government is considerate of in helping and supporting seniors in Canada.

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Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)

Jun/21/23 9:28:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member about something he said in his speech right at the end. He said that they will leave no one behind. That is what the Liberals said in 2017 when they talked about the just transition for the coal workers. I have looked at that program very thoroughly, and every one of those coal workers got left behind. We know we have to transition off coal, and we have been transitioning off coal. However, the Liberals said they had $185 million for coal workers. They spent $58 million of it, and all of that went into a slush fund for government revenue. If members take a look at what happened to the actual workers, they will see that unemployment in those cities went up by 10% and the value of people's houses went down by two-thirds. Can the member across the way tell me how that actually translates into not leaving anybody behind, like the Liberals promised to do? It is completely false.

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Mr. Wilson Miao

Jun/21/23 9:29:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if I can really listen to opposition members saying this because, when they were in government, they cut off a lot of support for Canadians. Although, yes, there was a lot of tax being cut, let us keep in mind that there are a lot of families who also suffered from these tax cuts. What I meant, personally, by saying that no one is left behind is that we are there to listen to all Canadians and to understand their needs so that our government can address the solution directly. This is important because we want to make sure that all Canadians are being served.

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Mr. Marty Morantz (Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, CPC)

Jun/21/23 9:29:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to take a moment to thank the great folks of Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley for placing their trust in me to represent them in this austere chamber, as we have reached the last day of the session. It has really been the honour of a lifetime, I have to say. The topic we are discussing today, at the end of the day, is a fairly simple concept. The motion is just asking the House to call upon the government to table a plan to return to balanced budgets. I have been listening patiently to the speeches from opposition parties tonight, and other than in the Bloc, it is difficult to find a member in the Liberal or NDP caucuses who can even really say the words “balanced budget”. It is almost like it is sacrilege to even raise the topic or it is somehow a partisan argument to say that governments should strive to balance their books. It is like they are allergic to the concept. However, it has not always been that way. Liberals have not always been this way, and the NDP has not always been this way. I remember back in the early 2000s, in my home province of Manitoba, when Gary Doer was Premier of Manitoba. He was Premier of Manitoba for just over 10 years. It is interesting. I know the members of the NDP caucus are fans of Gary Doer, and many Manitobans are still to this day fans of Gary Doer. In fact, he was appointed as the Canadian ambassador to the United States by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a very well-respected parliamentarian. Do members know what Gary Doer did for 10 years between 2000 and 2010, every year? He brought in balanced budgets: 10 of them. Another interesting thing about Mr. Doer, and the reason I am talking about him, is that one of his MLAs was a lady by the name of Jennifer Howard. Jennifer was a very popular MLA. She was part of that government that brought in 10 balanced budgets, and she voted every year, 10 years in a row, for all these balanced budgets. Today, Ms. Howard is the chief of staff to the leader of the NDP, so I am hoping that at least Ms. Howard might have a conversation with the leader of the NDP and talk to him about the real history of the NDP and the sense of fiscal responsibility that the NDP has had throughout its history. When it comes to the Liberal Party, we do not have to go back very far to find the desire to have balanced budgets. I mentioned earlier in one of my questions that Paul Martin recognized this. Unfortunately, he was forced to recognize it. The Government of Canada had hit the wall by 1995. It could not borrow any more on international markets; news media sources were calling Canada an economic basket case. The government had no option to get things under control, so contrary to the partisan spin many of the Liberals like to say, that Liberals would never cut anything, the fact of the matter is that the deepest cuts in Canadian history were made by finance minister Martin and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in 1995 cut transfers to provinces. I remember it very well, because Gary Filmon was the Premier of Manitoba, and he was all of a sudden looking at billions of dollars in shortfalls to fund health care in Manitoba, and provinces across the country were scrambling. To be fair to Paul Martin, I do not think he did it because he wanted to. He did it because he had to, but the problem is that it should have never gotten to that point, and that is the point of my speech. We have the chance to right the ship. All we are asking the government, and it is a very reasonable request that I do not see how one could say is partisan in any way, is just to come up with a plan to say how it is going to balance the budget. It is actually not so remote, even for the current government, at all, or for the finance minister, because in November she tabled the fall economic update. In the fall economic update, she projected a balanced budget, in fact, a $4.5-billion surplus in the 2027-28 fiscal year. Obviously, the Liberals had a plan to bring the budget back into balance. I really think this was a very reasonable request. I want to talk a little more about the motion. It basically says that budget 2023 adds more than $60 billion of new spending, or $4,200 per family, and that inflation in Canada increased following the introduction of the $60 billion in new Liberal spending. I should have mentioned earlier that I will be splitting my time with my esteemed colleague, the member for Calgary Centre. I apologize for not mentioning that earlier. The reality is that members opposite will make the argument that inflation has come to our shores. It is not the government's fault, it is a worldwide phenomenon that Canada is certainly not immune to. The problem with that is that many economists have now confirmed that inflation is homegrown. In fact, one of them is the Governor of the Bank of Canada. We had the opportunity to question him in the finance committee. I asked him if government spending had been less, would inflation have been less. He said that, yes, inflation would have been less. Clearly, fiscal policy has an impact on inflation, as does monetary policy. I know members opposite do not want to take it from me. They view all Conservatives as coming at this from a partisan perspective, but maybe they will take it from the IMF, which just released a report. The International Monetary Fund, which Canada has a member of since 1944, put out a report that urged Canada to bring back a debt anchor—

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The Speaker

Jun/21/23 9:37:27 p.m.
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I am just going to interrupt the hon. member. I am going to ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to step outside. I know it is the year-end and people are having a fun time in the hallway, but the sound is echoing into the chamber and it is making it difficult to hear everything the hon. member has to say. I am sure everyone is listening with bated breath. The hon. member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, who has two minutes and 22 seconds remaining.

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Mr. Marty Morantz

Jun/21/23 9:37:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the compliment. I know everybody is waiting with bated breath to hear what I have to say next. I will try not to disappoint. The fact of the matter is the IMF is now urging Canada to bring a debt anchor and to keep fiscal policy tight. What does that mean, keeping fiscal policy tight? It means moving toward balanced budgets, not just relying on what they might call fiscal guardrails or reducing debt-to-GDP ratios, but actually having a hard fiscal anchor. This is the IMF talking, not me. A hard fiscal anchor. What they mean is a plan to get back to balanced budgets. The Bank of Canada, to its credit, has been engaged in a policy of fiscal tightening, trying to reduce the money supply and raising interest rates, trying to grapple with the scourge of inflation. The problem is that the fiscal policy of the Government of Canada is running counter to that. We have loose fiscal policy in this country, meaning that billions and billions of dollars are still going out the door of the budget this year. It was $495 billion, almost half a trillion dollars. Mr. Speaker, I know you have been here for a while, and I know you know that is a lot of money. It is way more than it was even in 2019. We have a real issue in this country, and I think we need to bridge the gap. We need the government and its coalition partners to take this concept seriously, go back to the drawing board and at least come back with a plan. That is all this motion asks for, not to balance the budget tomorrow or at two o'clock this morning when we are voting on the appropriations, but to come back soon with a plan, just like they had for 2027, to bring the budget back into balance.

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Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)

Jun/21/23 9:39:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we often hear from the other side that the price on carbon is fuelling inflation. However, I look at reports of the Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem's appearance before the finance committee in February. I will quote a newspaper article. In terms of the impact of the price on carbon on inflation, he said that, “prescribed annual increases to the price on carbon add about 0.1 percentage points to headline inflation.” That is not very much. Also, “He added later that scrapping the carbon tax completely would reduce inflation by half a percentage point in the year that it was done, but would not have any impact on inflation in future years.” The idea of always coming back to the price on carbon as the culprit contributing to inflation is a bit misleading, really. It does not reflect the thoughts of the Bank of Canada's governor.

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Mr. Marty Morantz

Jun/21/23 9:41:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not think there was a question in that. I will take it as a comment. I did not talk about the price of carbon in my speech.

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Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)

Jun/21/23 9:41:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about a plan to return to balanced budgets. We agree that governments need to be able to plan ahead. It is only right for us to be able to see a plan. My colleague is worried about inflation. Pensioners on fixed incomes and seniors are struggling to make ends meet. Does he not think that instead of giving $20 billion in subsidies to oil companies that made $220 billion in profits in 2022, we should take some of that money and increase old age pensions and ensure that our seniors can live better?

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Mr. Marty Morantz

Jun/21/23 9:42:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, finally I hear another member of Parliament say it is a good idea to have a plan to balance the budget. I hope that the members of the Liberal Party are paying attention to the good common sense of the Bloc MP, the instruction of the IMF, and not just relying on how they view partisan interests of other members of Parliament.

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Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (London—Fanshawe, NDP)

Jun/21/23 9:43:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I actually really enjoyed the hon. member's speech, especially at the beginning when he talked about how incredible the NDP has been in balancing provincial budgets. It is because, at the time, the NDP ensured all people were paying their fair share, including CEOs and corporations. The share they paid was equal to what they owed. Considering the NDP's incredible record of good fiscal management, building a social safety net and ensuring there was balance while supporting people, I want to ask the hon. member this. Why will the Conservative Party not follow our lead and call on this government to implement a windfall tax on excess profits?

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Mr. Marty Morantz

Jun/21/23 9:43:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, only the NDP members could think that increasing taxes on Canadians will make life more affordable for Canadians. I do hope they pay attention to Mr. Doer's record, and come around and support our motion.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Jun/21/23 9:44:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to be fair, the question was not on raising taxes on the average person but on the largest oil and gas companies in the country, which have made over $38 billion in profit this year alone. Is the hon. member not supportive of making sure that kind of money goes to support Canadians who need it most?

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Mr. Marty Morantz

Jun/21/23 9:44:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, again, only the NDP and obviously the Green Party could think that increasing taxes will make life more affordable for Canadians.

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Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)

Jun/21/23 9:44:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think I am the last speaker in this session of Parliament before we take a summer break, and it is my pleasure to be serving here for the constituents of Calgary Centre. I hope I have represented what I said I would represent in the House for them. If I have let them down in anything I have done or said in the House or anything I have done publicly, I apologize to them for that. I hope to represent them well on all these things, with the highest regard for this House. Let me take 10 minutes, and this will be as concise as I can make it, to talk about where we are going in the financial future of this country. We need to link here exactly what is happening with the government. It is about truth and consequences. The truth, of course, is that we are running bigger and bigger deficits. Our debt is getting higher and higher. There are consequences to this going forward, and those consequences are going to be borne not by the government in power here but by the Canadian people, who are going to continue to face mounting debts, deficits, interest payments and household debts going forward. Three months ago, we had a Liberal finance minister deliver a budget. In it, there was a lot that she put in front of Parliament, including another $40 billion-plus deficit added to Canada's debt, which has now reached $1.3 trillion. That is only federal government debt. Layer the provincial government debt on top of that, of all the combined provincial governments, and there is another $900 billion. We are talking about a society that, from a government perspective, is very much in debt. The government, in its fiscal wisdom, says that the provincial governments are starting to actually get more money. There is one provincial government that received money last year, and that was my home province of Alberta, because of a boom in oil prices that led to a whole bunch of royalties. This translated into over $21 billion being forwarded to various governments across Canada as a result of a prosperous industry. We need to make sure we understand what is happening here. This is an industry that suffered for a number of years before it actually made any profit. This is the economic basis of what is holding up the social welfare of this country at this point in time. I am going to go back to the finance minister's speech. There was federal debt and provincial debt, but she was also facing an inflation regime at that point in time that was around 4%. It had come down from last summer from about 8.2% to 4%. How did that happen? It happened because the Bank of Canada, an instrument of the Government of Canada, had raised interest rates from 0.25% to 4.5%. It had done its job in trying to control inflation. This is the mandate of the Bank of Canada. It performed that mandate, but it had to do so because of government overspending. The Bank of Canada did what it had to do to bring that rate back down. It came down to 4%. What happened in April? The consumer price index went back up. Inflation in Canada's economy went back up. Why did it go back up in April? It is because the government imposed a 30% increase on the carbon tax upon the backs of Canadians. Of course, that rippled all the way through the economy and caused inflation at the pumps, inflation at the food stores and inflation in everything we do that involves energy. There is something the government does not seem to have a hold on. If it increases the costs in the economy, it is going to increase inflation. It is doing this in two ways. It is increasing the costs to Canadians, and it is increasing deficits. These are all monetary mechanisms, fiscal mechanisms, that increase inflation. The government asked the Bank of Canada if it could come in and fix its mess from imposing more costs upon Canadians. When the minister delivered her budget, the Bank of Canada rate was 4.5%. That went up this month, on June 7, to 4.75%. What was declining in both respects has gone up. The cost of inflation has gone up, and the cost to Canadians has gone up again. They are all refinancing their mortgages, and it is another 0.25%. Where will this end? We do not know at this point in time. It is costing Canadians more and more. What is the principal cause of this inflation? The number one cause of inflation in the economy is money printing. The government continues to print money. It has doubled Canada's debt in eight years. The government is going to say that we had to do that to keep people safe during the pandemic. I say to my friends on the other side that the pandemic is over. We have to get back to some sort of balance, where we are actually paying for the goods we consume in society today with today's dollars. We keep taxing the future generation of Canadians to pay for our spending today, and that is something that has to change. That is something my party is asking the government to change, because it is a necessity for the future of this country. Now, I will talk about this recipe for inflation that the government has imposed upon this country at this point in time. It has asked the Bank of Canada to come in and fix our mistakes again and again. What is the consequence of the Bank of Canada coming in and raising the interest rates throughout the economy? It is having higher mortgage rates. This means that the actual cost of maintaining the mortgage on the same house has risen by 122% in the last eight years, which is significant. I will explain what the issue is. When mortgage rates are low, as they were up to a year ago, people buy houses. However, we have a saying in finance that we do not really buy the house that we need; rather, we buy the house the payment will afford. A 25-year mortgage at 0.25% with a $100,000 down payment, for instance, will equate to a bigger house than if the mortgage payment is around 4.75%-plus, which is what we have done to Canadians. We have added four and a half points of interest to mortgages, which is hundreds of thousands of dollars to the average Canadian. We have actually picked their pocket here, or pulled a bait and switch as to the house they can buy. The end result for many Canadians is that they are going to have to walk away from their house, because the equity in their house is not going to equal what it was when they bought the house. They are losing value in their house because of the current government. However, there is not enough housing in this country anyway. We have to get building again, and we have to make sure we get back to balance. We have to ensure that we serve Canadians to make sure that they have the ability to build a life in Canada going forward. Canada's GDP is $2.3 trillion at this point in time, and the consumer debt of Canadians equals 107% of that; therefore, it is over $2.3 trillion, and about 75% of that is mortgage debt. This is the most indebted ratio in the G7. We are more exposed to a downturn in the economy than any other economy in the world is at this point in time. This is on the cusp of danger. We call it moral hazard. The government has not faced the fact that, in supposedly good times, it is supposed to balance the budget, pay back some of the debt and bring down interest rates so that people can actually get the economy going. However, it continues to spend more money, ramp up the cost of everything and make sure that Canadians are bearing it on their backs. The back it is going to bear the most on is mortgage rates, which are going to push many Canadians out of their homes as the rates rise and Canadians have to refinance. That is the great tragedy we are visiting upon Canadians without balanced budgets. My party has actually been pushing the government for a long time to show us a plan where it gets back to balance, because in every budget it has shown us so far, it says, “Well, you know, we are going to continue to spend more and more.” A $10-billion temporary budget deficit in 2016 has turned into hundreds of billions of dollars per year. There is another $40 billion-plus this year and more of that going down the road. This is to say nothing of the debt service charge, which has doubled in the last two years. We are up to $44 billion that we are going to have to pay as interest. All of this is contributing to inflation. We have to get back on track. I will tell the government to please bring us a plan so Canadians can see that they will actually get back on track.

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Ms. Leah Taylor Roy (Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, Lib.)

Jun/21/23 9:54:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, through you, I would like to ask the member opposite some questions. First, I thank him for that very fact-filled discourse. He spoke authoritatively on a number of fronts, and I would just like to check some of those facts. He started off by saying that we were running bigger and bigger deficits every year. In 2021, the deficit was $328 billion; in 2022, it was $90 billion; and it is projected to be $40 billion this year. Could he reconcile his statement with these facts? Second, he said that we do not know where this is all going to end, and it is true, we do not; the future is always uncertain. However, the Bank of Canada expects inflation to come down below 3% by the end of the summer and interest rates to follow in decline. Third, he said that printing money was the cause of inflation. I understand that this is one economic theory, and it is the economic theory that the Conservatives follow. However, many economists have said that, in fact, the war in Ukraine and the COVID pandemic have been the causes of inflation worldwide. Could you comment on a few of those apparent contradictions to what you said?

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The Speaker

Jun/21/23 9:55:42 p.m.
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I would remind hon. members that when they ask questions or make comments, they should do it through the Chair and not directly to each other. It makes things run a little more smoothly. The hon. member for Calgary Centre.

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Mr. Greg McLean

Jun/21/23 9:55:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been corrected. The member is correct that there were larger deficits during the pandemic than there were after the pandemic. Every year, we look at the deficit the Liberals put on the table for the next year, and it always rises. This is the point I was trying to make, and if I misspoke in that respect, I owe her an apology. There were three questions, but the member talked about economists, Conservative theories and all this stuff. These are not Conservative theories; these are economic theories. I know that, sooner or later, the Liberals will have to start paying attention to economics and finance. The numbers will actually matter at the end of the day. I apologize to the member because I have forgotten her second question out of the three. If she could ask me again later, I would appreciate it.

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Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

Jun/21/23 9:56:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party stated in its motion what is wrong, and I think it has a good read on the situation. The problem is the solutions it proposes, because it seems to think they would magically solve all the problems. I want to talk about one problem in particular, and that is the price of oil. History has shown us that the biggest factor in price fluctuations is the price of oil, over which we have no control. It is a global price. It depends on wars, like the war in Ukraine. It depends on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which just said it is going to reduce output. It depends on all sorts of things. Does the member not think that the best way to stabilize prices would be to end our dependence on oil as soon as possible?

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