44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 17, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/17/23 10:11:40 a.m.
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moved:
That, given that,
(i) after eight years of this Liberal government, this prime minister has added more to the national debt than all previous prime minister’s combined,
(ii) a half-trillion dollars of inflationary deficits has directly led to 40-year inflation highs,
(iii) prior to budget 2023, the Minister of Finance said, “What Canadians want right now is for inflation to come down and for interest rates to fall […] and that is one of our primary goals in this year’s budget: not to pour fuel on the fire of inflation," and then proceed to usher in $60 billion in new spending,
(iv) in order to combat inflation, the Bank of Canada has been forced to increase interest rates 10 times in just 19 months,
(v) interest rate increases have increased mortgage payments, and since this prime minister took office, monthly mortgage payments have increased 150% and now cost $3,500 on a typical family home,
(vi) the Liberal-NDP government must exercise fiscal discipline, end their inflation driving deficits so that interest rates can be lowered,
in order to avoid a mortgage default crisis, as warned by the International Monetary Fund, and to ensure Canadians do not lose their homes, the House call on the government to introduce a fiscal plan that includes a pathway back to balanced budgets, in order to decrease inflation and interest rates, and to introduce this in the House of Commons prior to the Bank of Canada’s next policy interest rate decision on October 25, 2023.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Tobique—Mactaquac.
Inflation is the cost of the spending that the government said would be free. We know that the Liberal-NDP government promised a utopia and it said that it would deliver results for free. It said that the cost of this spending would never hit Canadians because the budget would balance itself. It also suggested that because interest rates were so low, the government could magically keep increasing spending faster than the cost of living and the population grew, without any consequences.
Today, after eight years of this government and this Liberal-NDP Prime Minister, it is time to pay the bills. Canadians are seeing that reality in their mortgage payments, which have more than doubled, increasing by an average of 150%.
I talked to a worker in British Columbia who is now spending $7,500 a month on mortgage payments. I repeat: $7,500 a month. He is a middle-class worker with three kids. Of that amount, $4,000 is just for interest, not even to pay down the principal. This worker's family is losing nearly $50,000 a year in interest alone on their mortgage. It is an impossible situation for the average family, but it is the reality after eight years of this Prime Minister.
Ironically, this is the same Prime Minister who promised to help the middle class and those working hard to join it. He no longer says much about the so-called middle class, does he? We never hear him talk about the middle class. It has been forgotten, because he does not want to remind anyone of the suffering his policies have caused this so-called middle class. We now have middle-class Canadians who are homeless. Yes, it is true that, unfortunately, homelessness has always existed in all countries, including Canada. However, we have not seen homelessness amongst middle-class Canadians since the Great Depression. Now, it is becoming more and more common.
Across the country, we find people like nurses and carpenters living in their cars because mortgage payments went up so much, which also pushed up the cost of rent. The Prime Minister promised to bring down the cost of housing eight years ago, but since then, the cost has doubled. Rents have doubled, mortgage payments have doubled, and the down payment required to buy a home has doubled. In fact, when I was the minister responsible for housing, it cost half of what it costs today to pay the rent, the mortgage and the down payment.
The government's decisions have consequences. The government caused the amount of money in the economy to grow by $600 billion, increasing from $1.8 trillion to $2.4 trillion. This 32% increase meant the money supply grew eight times faster than real economic growth. In other words, the money to buy stuff grew eight times faster than the stuff money buys. This is why we have inflation.
The Bank of Canada has to respond by raising interest rates, again hitting the same people who are struggling to buy food and pay their rent or mortgage.
What is the government doing? It is still forcing the Bank of Canada to keep interest rates high. According to former finance minister John Manley, the government is stepping on the inflationary gas pedal by running deficits, which is forcing the Bank of Canada to slam on the brakes by raising interest rates. One might have expected the government to try to rein in deficits and work toward balancing the budget, but it did the opposite.
Six months ago, the government said it wanted to balance the budget by 2028. When budget time came, it suddenly changed its mind and said it would never balance the budget.
Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer told us that the deficit is 15% higher than the government promised in its budget. Things are completely out of control, and Canadians are paying the price, not to mention the price our children will have to pay in the future.
That is why we put forward common-sense solutions, including a “dollar-for-dollar” law, which would force the government to find a dollar's worth of savings for every new dollar spent, and the elimination of wasteful spending on things like the ArriveCAN app, the Canada Infrastructure Bank and other ideas that have jacked up the cost of government.
The goal should be to balance the budget in order to bring down interest rates and tame inflation so Canadians can keep their homes and feed their families. That is common sense.
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- Oct/17/23 11:10:31 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the motion calls for a fiscal plan to be introduced by October 25, which is next week. A fiscal plan requires predictability and planning. What would keep the government from introducing such a plan? Is it the timeline or its own inability to predict and plan?
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- Oct/17/23 11:13:17 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Mirabel.
In 2015, something remarkable happened in Canadian politics. At the time, the Liberals were in third place in the polls. At one point, the current Prime Minister made an extraordinary statement, something that people did not expect at all. He basically said that the Liberals were going to run deficits and that they liked doing that. He said that interest rates were low and the country is like a business, so, in those circumstances, we needed to invest in the economy. People looked at him dumbfounded and wondered what this was all about. At the time, I said that it was the first time in 40 years that a politician had said that he was going to run deficits and that he liked doing so. One thing we can say is that he really does like running deficits, because he has run up some big ones.
At the time, his premise, as economists would say, was that the interest rates were low and we needed to invest in the economy. What does that look like now? Interest rates have gone up 10 times since the pandemic ended. The rate is now 5%. I am no math whiz, but that means that interest rates are quite high now.
The money he is spending is not for investments, not at all, it is for current expenditures. Often, he spends frivolously. He has lost control. He is a compulsive spender. He likes that. He hands out money left and right. When he talks about spending he gets as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.
Let us look at where things stand today. There are current expenditures that are outside of his jurisdiction. He has become friends with the NDP. The NDP are not compulsive spenders; they are master spenders. They like that. They watch movies, they picture themselves spending, they imagine people spending and it is all amazing.
What happened is that the Liberals and the NDP started talking. The NDP said everyone needed dental insurance. However, that falls under Quebec's jurisdiction, but that was okay, the federal government was going to take care of it for Quebec. The Liberals then got to work to bring in dental insurance. I went to my dentist to get a tooth fixed, and he was in quite a state. I asked him what was the matter and he said he could not believe what was going on with dental insurance, that he had been thinking about it for two months. He said it made no sense. This spending is completely ridiculous. At one point, someone—I am not sure if it was the Parliamentary Budget Officer—talked about the excessive spending, saying that it was crazy, that it should never have been done that way and it should have been left to the experts, namely Quebec and the provinces.
We are also talking about $82.8 billion in subsidies for oil companies, which are making $200 billion a year in profits. No one was shocked, but we all should be. We are talking about $82.8 billion in subsidies until 2035 to those poor folks who are already making $200 billion a year in profits. Some might call that insanity, but that is what the Liberals are doing.
They bought a pipeline for fun. They say that they do not like oil, but that they are going to export oil like pigs and put the proceeds into the energy transition. I tried to explain it to my golden retriever, and he was beside himself. How can we explain that to people? The Liberals seem to believe it, to the tune of $30 billion and counting.
Then there is the inefficiency of the public service. A passport costs four times more to produce than a driver's licence. Look at health care costs. The few times the Liberals have administered health care, in veterans' hospitals, for example, it cost twice as much as in the public sector in Quebec and the provinces. That is outrageous. Processing an EI application costs 2.5 times more than processing a welfare application in Quebec. Why is that? It is because Ottawa has money from the fiscal imbalance. When it has that kind of money, it does not look at how much it is spending. The carpets are thicker in Ottawa than elsewhere, and the government is having fun.
We are telling them to rein it in. When the Liberals announced the 2023 deficit in November 2022, it was $30 billion. Now it is $46.5 billion. It keeps going up.
We are not necessarily in an economic crisis. We are at or near full employment, and according to Keynesianism, deficits should only be run in difficult situations like the pandemic or recessions. Right now, there should be few deficits, if any. Most importantly, we should have a plan to restore a balanced budget. That is the responsible thing to do. A plan might force the government to be more conscientious about its spending. It would compel the government to tell people that it is going to try to do better, manage its finances more effectively, and take steps to ensure that an objective set out in the plan is met.
As Émile de Girardin said, governing means planning ahead. This government has a hard time planning ahead. It is always reactive, but very rarely proactive. The important thing is that the plan would send a signal to the market that the government wants to get on the path to a balanced budget. This could relieve inflationary tensions.
The Conservatives want to see that plan by October 25. Why October 25? Maybe they have a party or something on the agenda. They picked October 25, but nobody knows why. Why not ask to see the plan alongside the fiscal update in November? That would make sense.
The Conservatives pull things out of thin air, like this date, October 25. Then they make things sound deceptively simple. They latch onto these mantras. They talk about inflation and convince themselves that they can make it go away just by talking about it. Do they have any actual proposals? No they do not. They have this kind of mystical approach to public finance. They are sitting there with a Ouija board hoping for answers. They are very good at whining and complaining, but they have no concrete proposals. When one of them does come up with a concrete proposal, the others turn a deaf ear. They do not know what to make of it. “What are you talking about?” they say. They decided to complain and talk about the cost of living, the cost of turkeys and carrots. If ever they come to power, those problems will miraculously disappear.
They have no concrete proposals for helping seniors. When the grocery CEOs paraded before the committee, the Bloc Québécois offered up some proposals. Our agriculture critic came armed with a whole list of them. The Conservatives complained that it was pointless and useless. Given that they are the ones talking about the cost of living, they should have some ideas about how to address it. They say the cost of living is appalling. They are right, but do they have any concrete proposals for fixing that? The answer is no.
They are also talking about the housing shortage. Stephen Harper did nothing during his nine years in office. The current situation is one of the consequences of the Conservatives' inaction. The Conservatives are not making any proposals for fixing this issue either. My colleague, the member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, spoke about the $900 million. The federal government needs to give this $900 million to the Quebec government so it can build housing. Do we ever hear a Conservative saying that the $900 million should be paid out? The answer is no.
Then, they had an idea, which is always cause for concern. Their idea is to force municipalities to increase housing construction by 15% every year or face cutbacks in subsidies. Where does that 15% come from? They took out a Ouija board and that is the number that came out. I have spoken with municipal officials in my riding. There is a moratorium in one municipality because of a water shortage. I told the officials in that municipality that they would be forced to increase housing construction by 15% if the Conservatives were to be elected. They said that they are running out of water, and I replied that the Conservatives would cut back their subsidies. They said that if that were to happen, they would run out of water altogether. What do the Conservatives not understand?
They do not talk about the labour shortage either, but that does not matter. Oil prices are high, and renewable energy is a competitor. That is what will save us from spiralling fossil fuel prices. Do the Conservatives ever talk about that? They do, actually; they say that it is futile and pointless. Seriously? In light of climate change, it is a vital solution that must be taken into consideration.
As Talleyrand famously said, “All that is exaggerated becomes insignificant.” I think the Conservatives tend to exaggerate quite a bit when it comes to inflation. My colleagues may extrapolate from there.
I taught economics for 20 years. When discussing the causes of inflation, I used to spend four or five hours on the subject. My students would get sick of listening to me go on and on about inflation, but it is an important subject. I would explain all the different causes, including deficits. However, we have to be careful because it is not as simple as that.
When someone says that deficits equal inflation, we need to be careful. Incidentally, inflation is happening around the world, so the deficit is not entirely responsible for inflation. Of course eliminating the deficit would help, but it is not a magic solution. At some point, the Conservatives are going to have to wake up, because anyone who keeps telling lies is going to become insignificant.
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- Oct/17/23 12:21:32 p.m.
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Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.
History continues to repeat itself today as we see the Liberal-NDP government force the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates due to their out-of-control spending habits. This Liberal Prime Minister is just not worth the cost.
The Liberal-NDP government must exercise fiscal discipline over its inflation-driving deficits, so that interest rates can be lowered in order to avoid a mortgage default crisis as warned by the International Monetary Fund and to ensure Canadians do not lose their homes. The government must introduce a fiscal plan that includes a pathway to balanced budgets in order to decrease inflation and interest rates. Alternatively, it needs to get out of the way, so that Conservatives and our Conservative leader can fix what the Liberals have broken and bring hope back to Canadians.
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- Oct/17/23 1:12:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.
It is a pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to today's opposition day motion, because after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government and the Prime Minister, Canadians are hurting. The Canadian dream that my parents came to this country for is starting to slip away. Life is unaffordable.
Rent has doubled. Housing costs have doubled. The amount needed for a down payment has doubled. Mortgage payments have doubled. They have risen over 150%. Why? It is all because of the Liberal-NDP government's inflationary spending and fiscal mismanagement, which have been continuously fuelling the inflationary fire.
Inflation is nearly double where it should be, and Canadians are now paying more for heating, eating and housing. Canada's federal debt for this fiscal year is projected to reach $1.22 trillion. If we do the math, we are looking at nearly $81,000 per household in Canada. The Prime Minister is simply not worth the cost.
The Prime Minister said, as I am sure many members remember, that deficits were supposed to be temporary, tiny deficits of not more than $10 billion. He said he would only run modest deficits, but he broke that promise. He then promised to return to a balanced budget in 2019, but he broke that promise as well. Now the Prime Minister has broken the banks of Canadians.
To be perfectly clear, the Prime Minister and his Liberal-NDP government have added more national debt than all previous prime ministers combined. The current finance minister acknowledged that one of her goals was not to pour fuel on this inflationary fire, but she continues to spend, spend and spend. All this inflationary spending is causing a domino effect.
Mismanaged federal budgets, like budget 2023, which is adding an additional $60 billion in new spending, are driving up our deficit. Deficits are fuelling inflation, and inflation is causing interest rates to rise. This cannot be argued because we have seen the Bank of Canada in action. The Bank of Canada has raised interest rates 10 times in the last 19 months. Even former Liberal finance minister John Manley said, per the National Post, “Trudeau's deficits press on the inflationary gas pedal, which forces the Bank of Canada to press harder on the brakes”—
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- Oct/17/23 1:20:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree that because of the Liberal-NDP government's mismanagement, we have seen a crisis in housing. New Canadians, who come to this country with a dream of home ownership, are seeing their dreams fade away. We are seeing record numbers at food banks. We had 1.5 million Canadians going to a food bank in one single month. When I talk to local food banks, they tell me the same thing: When they saw interest rates go up, they saw an increase in local food bank use as well.
It is our job to keep fighting for the most vulnerable. We have to get our fiscal house in order. We cannot spend something we do not have. We do not run our households on our credit cards, and we should not run the government that way either.
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- Oct/17/23 1:37:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's opposition motion debate. I first want to congratulate the Conservatives on bringing forward a motion that is not directly associated with the issue they have been bringing forward time after time in the House. Now, we get to talk about something a bit different, although I do have great concern with the premise of the motion they have brought forward. The “whereas” clauses and the assertions they have made are, I think, wholly inaccurate, and I look forward to explaining that in the next 10 minutes or so.
This country certainly took on a lot of debt in order to support Canadians from coast to coast during the pandemic, and we have certainly had to take on our fair share to do that, much of which was unanimously approved by the House, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic. However, it is always important to look at things in terms of context. Obviously, debt is significantly affected by GDP, the amount a country is able to produce in terms of economic activity, because that is exactly what will end up supporting that debt. When we talk about the debt in this country and when we look at the debt-to-GDP ratio, Canada is actually doing quite well.
As a matter of fact, if we look at our debt-to-GDP ratio, we are at 14%. Some people might ask whether that is good or bad. That is fair, because I do not think everybody is an economist and knows the default answer to that, but let us compare that 14% in Canada to the percentage for our G7 partners. France is at 99%. Germany is at 47%. Italy is at 129%. Japan is at 161%. Probably the two most comparable to us, the U.K. and the United States, are at 95% and 96%. When we talk about our debt levels, it is extremely important to compare where we stand on them to the position of our G7 counterparts, our most comparable economies in the world. In that regard, we are in an extremely good position.
I would add that I will be sharing my time with the member for Kings—Hants today.
That is very important for context. I know that Conservatives, including this lot here, like to come into the House and routinely tell us about how theirs is the only party that knows how to introduce a balanced budget. They may want to go ahead and cheer and clap now, because usually they do that when I try to pay them a compliment, before I add the “but”.
It is really important to consider this: Conservatives will tell us that they know how to balance budgets, but if we look back to—
An hon. member: We do.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, they said “we do”. They will then have to explain the following facts to me and why they did the following. Since 1990, there have been only two prime ministers who have significantly added a surplus or balanced a budget. They were Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. This is interesting, because Conservatives will always say that Stephen Harper balanced budgets, but no, he did not, and Brian Mulroney never had a single balanced budget. Stephen Harper did not really either, and I will explain why. The first two budgets Stephen Harper brought into Parliament were on the heels of Paul Martin's surpluses that he had been running for years. The Conservatives certainly squandered those surpluses and went into a deficit position very quickly.
Of course, Conservatives also like to tell us, and I have heard it already this morning, that they left the fiscal state of this country in great shape in 2015 with the last budget they presented in a last-ditch effort to get Canadians to vote them into office one more time. They brought forward a “balanced budget”, and for the purposes of Hansard, I should say I am putting “balanced budget” in quotes, but they did it on the backs of veterans by closing Veterans Affairs offices. They sold off our shares of GM at the time at bargain prices in order to get that off their balance sheet. They did a whole host of things in order to portray the illusion that they had balanced the budget, when they really had not. They did it at the expense of Canadians and the investments the government had on behalf of Canadians.
I know that many will say this was so long ago, 10 years ago for Harper and even longer for Mulroney. Fine, let us just get back to this lot of Conservatives right here. All of them who are here today ran on Erin O'Toole's plan in the last election, and that plan was to run deficits for a minimum of 10 years. Here we have a group of Conservatives who are now coming into the House with a motion that says to develop a plan for a balanced budget by October 25 of this year, a week and a half from now. Meanwhile, they had no intention of doing so when they were running in the last election. They did not care when they were knocking on doors and presenting their plan to Canadians. The plan from Erin O'Toole and the Conservatives was to run deficits for at least 10 years. That is the reality of it.
This should be concerning to Canadians, because this is not the first time that we are seeing hypocrisy come out of the Conservatives. It is actually the second time. They also ran on a plan to introduce a price on pollution and to modify the existing price on pollution that this side of the House had. They ran on that, too.
This morning, somebody challenged them and asked a Conservative member why they ran on that. That Conservative member stood up and said, “I did not believe in it.” That is funny, because that is the second or third Conservative I have heard say they were not running on a price on pollution or a carbon tax. However, they had no problem going along with the plan during the election. They did not say a single word in opposition to it at the time. Now, suddenly, they come in here and think that the buzz phrase of the day is going to be “axe the tax”, and this would bring them into power. That is not the position that somebody who is aspiring to be the leader of this country should be taking, asking what buzzwords happen to work today that would get him into power.
I also find it very interesting when we talk about inflation specifically. Today we have seen that Statistics Canada has reported that the inflation in Canada has dropped to 3.8%. I should add that all the economists who were predicting this in advance of today said it would be anywhere between 3.8% and 4.2%. It ended up being on the lower end of that. Conservatives are laughing.
Maybe it is time to compare that. I did it earlier, and I can compare it again. Let us compare it to the G7 countries. Again, Canada and the United States are tied for second place in terms of the lowest inflation. I think it is extremely important when we talk about our comparative countries.
Canada is heading in the right direction when it comes to inflation, but interestingly enough, when we look at inflation and the different sectors of the economy, transportation is one of the only sectors of the economy contributing to inflation, and it is the biggest contributor. It is interesting because the member for King—Vaughan was up earlier, and I asked her what proposals she would have to reduce the inflationary impact around transportation. Of course, the exact answer that I think everybody in this room would have expected, and I certainly did when I asked the question, was to get rid of the carbon tax, because the carbon tax is contributing to inflation.
The reality of the situation is that the carbon tax is not contributing to inflation. Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, recently said that the overall impact of the carbon tax to inflation is 0.15%. I believe he was in Alberta at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. We could chalk that up to a rounding error. Now I know the default for my Conservative friends would be to jump up and say that they do not trust Tiff Macklem; they have already made their position on that very clear.
I have a whole list, and I will not bother reading it right now, of Conservative MPs who have stood up in this House and invoked the name of Tiff Macklem as the expert when he has all the right things that they want to say at the moment. They cannot pick and choose when they want to use somebody as an expert in the field.
It goes without saying for the rest of us in the House, other than Conservatives, that Tiff Macklem is an expert in this field. When he says that the carbon tax contributes 0.15%, I am sorry to the member for King—Vaughan, but getting rid of the carbon tax is not going to be helpful. It is not going to be the solution as it relates to inflation specifically.
Once again, we are confronted with a motion by Conservatives. All they are interested in is political games and cheap shots at the Prime Minister.
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- Oct/17/23 3:10:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight long years, one would hope that the government would figure out that sound, responsible, economic and monetary policy is key to keeping inflation low. Instead, inflation is nearly double what it should be, resulting in massive increases in food, heating, rent and mortgages. Canadians living paycheque to paycheque recognize that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. To make matters even worse, we have the NDP supporting the government's fiscal incompetence.
Will this NDP-Liberal Prime Minister start listening to Canadians, stop inflationary spending and cancel the carbon tax?
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- Oct/17/23 3:55:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I left off talking about the importance of the government, and ultimately the Liberal Party, being somewhere between the two prisms that we see in the House. As I said, the Conservative opposition day motion is not binding on the government. The opposition party has not put forward any detailed plans of what exactly it would cut in terms of program spending. I think it is important, and it is incumbent upon the government to find that fiscal pathway.
It has been mentioned in the House, both during question period and indeed during this debate, that Canada has the lowest deficit in the G7. We also have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. We have an AAA credit rating. Those things are important, but they are never recognized on the other side of the House.
Can we do more? Absolutely. I am proud of the work that the President of the Treasury Board has done in terms of signalling a program review to look at departmental savings. I think that is a great start, and members know that part of what I talk about a lot in the House is non-cost measures. I am evangelical in terms of reducing red tape, and I think that there is more work, respectfully, that the government can do on that front. However, it is incumbent upon all members of Parliament to actually be providing reasonable solutions, ways that we can do that. I will be presenting a private member's bill tomorrow, in which I will be calling on the government to adopt, either in the fall economic statement or in budget 2024, reduction of the regulatory tape around approvals for products that matter for farmers. I will have more to say about that. There is a lot we can do, but at the same time, we have to walk a careful balance because Canadians are relying on the programs that we have.
The point I want to make before I give way to my hon. colleagues and engage in some great debate questions is on the assumption of getting back to balance tomorrow, which I think is a laudable goal and something we should be working towards. The assumption is that if we did that tomorrow, all of a sudden interest rates would drop precipitously. I do not think that is going to happen. With respect, I think that it is a bit immature or disingenuous for the opposition party to suggest that interest rates, tomorrow, would go from 5.5%-plus all the way down, back to normal rates. That is not going to happen, and there are a lot of global factors that play into that.
As I have said, I think we could actually welcome a very mature debate about monetary policy and how, of course, the Bank of Canada is working to do its job. However, there are other factors that are global in nature in the way that our economy actually works right now and that are fighting against our monetary policy. There are global conflicts that we have talked about, such as the war in Ukraine. There is a new war between Israel and Hamas. There is climate change, and there are demographic challenges and supply challenges. These challenges are leading to increasing costs such that the Bank of Canada, notwithstanding its work, is going to struggle to be able bring down interest rates.
I will leave it at that, and I look forward to taking questions from my hon. colleagues.
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- Oct/17/23 4:01:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I apologize. In normal times, I would try to respond in French, but that was an extended question. I want to give the best answer possible.
We are going to have a great debate on the fall economic statement, where the Minister of Finance will provide an update on the fiscal finances of the country, including what the government intends to do in the days ahead. Therefore, that debate is coming. I agree with the hon. member that the conversations that need to happen are important. The opposition day motion, as I said earlier in my speech, and the member may not have heard it, is not necessarily constructive public policy discussion on where we need to go, what programs we need to consider or whether we are able to actually extend programs that I know some members in this House would like to see. However, maybe now is not the time to be able to extend them in the extenuating circumstances that we are in.
I would encourage the member to look to the fall economic statement. Hopefully, he and I can continue this really important discussion at that moment.
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- Oct/17/23 4:04:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to start my remarks by saying I will be splitting my time with the spectacular member for South Surrey—White Rock. My comments are in no way related to the fact that she happens to be our whip. That is just a bit of levity.
I want to paint a picture here because, as I said in my question for the member for Kings—Hants, we are in serious times. We are in perilous times. When we look around the world with respect to foreign policy and see what is happening in Israel and Ukraine, we see that it is a time that requires serious leadership.
Back here in Canada, things are not all rosy either. Canada's debt for 2023-24 is projected to be $1.2 trillion. That might be hard for the average individual to contemplate and get their head around. I know it is for me. However, that is $81,000 per household. That means people wake up in the morning and their starting place is $81,000 in debt. That is particularly troubling, because Canadians themselves, as individuals, are the most in debt in the G7. Therefore, the amount of debt and burden that is being piled on Canadians is, at some points, overwhelming.
As has been famously said, the first step to getting out of a hole is to stop digging. Unfortunately, the Liberal government continues to dig the hole deeper. This year, the PBO said that the deficit will be closer to $46.5 billion. We have heard some chatter in this House already with respect to the fall economic statement. I look forward to seeing that document. I am the eternal optimist. I am hopeful that there will be some type of path for fiscal sustainability, a fiscal anchor and a return one day to a balanced budget. However, given the last budget, in which the government pushed back the date for a balanced budget from 2030 to never, perhaps my optimism is a little exaggerated.
Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio, which is the other number the Liberals use, is the fiscal anchor that the Minister of Finance put before Canadians and said would never go up. Then, six months later, it did go up. The challenge too, even with the debt-to-GDP ratio, is that it does not take into consideration the per capita calculation. Canada's population is growing. Of course, as all Canadians do, I think that is a great thing. We are growing the number of Canadians, and that is terrific; however, the challenge is that the GDP is not keeping up with the population growth. Our per capita GDP, which in layman's terms just means the amount of money Canadians are earning, is going down. Therefore, while there are more Canadians, they are earning less money. That is challenging. We are getting poorer as a nation as the government takes a larger portion.
After eight years, we have a debt at $1.22 trillion and a deficit approaching $50 billion at the end of this year. We are digging that hole even deeper. We simply can no longer afford the Prime Minister and the Liberal government, as they continue to pound Canadians into the ground with more debt, which is now $81,000 of debt per Canadian household.
It does not stop there. Obviously, that money will have to be recovered somehow. The former governor of the Bank of Canada, David Dodge, recently said at the finance committee that the government will have to do one of two things, which is to cut spending or raise taxes. The money has to come from somewhere. We have no doubt that the government will be raising taxes. If I were a homeowner, I would not be shocked. However, I would be a little worried that the government will start taxing the principal residence exemption. It has a track record of seeking taxes wherever it can get them, and it will be increasingly desperate as we go forward to collect revenue from Canadians.
There would be not only direct taxation but also indirect taxation. When there is deficit spending, and the government continues to spend, that increases the money supply, which increases inflation. If members do not believe me on that, they can just ask a former Liberal finance minister, John Manley. He recently stated that, because the government keeps pushing on the inflationary pedal, the gas pedal or the spending pedal, that is forcing Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, to push down on interest rates in order to fight inflation.
Therefore, we have fiscal policy, which is what the Liberals are doing. They are spending more and more money increasingly recklessly, such as $50 million on the arrive scam. This is causing inflation, which is making everything more expensive. As a result of that increased inflation, the Governor of the Bank of Canada is having to increase interest rates, which is increasing the cost of housing. As I said, after eight years, Canadians simply cannot afford the current government.
Let us look at the current housing situation and how it is going. It might be different in other provinces and other communities, but in the towns of Cobourg, Port Hope and Brighton, it is nearly impossible to get a rental property. If someone wants to get so much as a one-bedroom apartment, they are looking at $2,500, at least. That is a wild amount of money. If someone is fortunate enough to be able to buy a house, mortgage payments have now gone up from an average of $1,500 a month to $3,000 a month. Therefore, inflation is taking a larger and larger chunk of paycheques.
We have taxation that actually takes up more than transportation, housing and food combined. The government is taking a larger and larger share of Canadians' increasingly smaller paycheques. As I said, if someone is trying to rent in Port Hope or Cobourg, they are looking at a cost of $2,500 or $3,000. They are looking at a mortgage payment well in excess of that.
I want to share a little anecdote. This is an actual email that I received from one of my constituents. It says the following:
“[My wife and I] have good jobs and are very thankful to have what we have. We have yet to own a home together in our 5 years of marriage and have been continually renting with our two young children.
“We are again very thankful to have what we have. We are able to secure approximately $400k for a down payment from selling a property I owned in a different city before we were married....
“We were recently trying to purchase our first home together with a listing price of $800k. This means we would be putting 50% down”.
They are two well-heeled individuals, making good incomes and they would have a mortgage payment of approximately $2,200 a month. The email continues: “After redoing our budget with the rising costs of groceries, gas, and everything else, we would be in a monthly deficit of between $1,000-$3,000. We have no debts, no car payments and believe we are financially responsible people.” The constituent goes on to ask, “if people like us have decent jobs and a large amount saved and cannot even afford a home these days, who can?”
These are serious times. These are people who have done everything right. They have had their priorities right. They have saved their income. They got good jobs. They have worked hard for the community, for our country and for their children. The deal is broken. It used to be, in 2015, when houses cost half as much and when food was a fraction of the cost, that these individuals would be rewarded with being able to afford a house, being able to afford a steak dinner once a week and maybe even, God forbid, being able to go on vacation.
Increasingly, the great thief of our prosperity is the current Liberal government. Canadians cannot afford the Liberals. After eight years, they have done nothing but bring us into poverty and away from prosperity. We need a common-sense leader, and I cannot wait for the member for Carleton to be our next prime minister.
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- Oct/17/23 4:24:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are facing an affordability crisis. Everything costs more, from the grocery store to the gas pumps. Mortgages have doubled, rents have doubled and down payments have doubled. The dream of home ownership is dead for nine out of 10 Canadians. Liberal inflationary spending has caused food prices to skyrocket, and one in five Canadians is skipping meals because they cannot afford to eat.
Families are struggling to make ends meet. Food banks are overwhelmed. In my community, food banks are at risk of bankruptcy because of a surge in demand, and 33%, or one-third, of food bank users are children. Overdose deaths have increased 300% in B.C. The leading cause of death among 10- to 18-year-olds is drug overdose.
This is heartbreaking, and the people in my province need some good news. Unfortunately, StatsCan reported today that inflation remains high. After eight years of reckless spending, Canada's national debt sits at $1.2 trillion. Think about that for a second. That means debt servicing costs will be almost $44 billion this year alone. These are tax dollars that could have been used to invest in addiction recovery services or to help address the housing crisis. Instead, those tax dollars will go to rich bondholders.
At a time when everything feels broken, the Prime Minister has spent the cupboards bare and has no plan to bring the nation's finances into a better position to respond to the real needs of Canadians. This is because of years of blatant disregard for fiscal prudence and monetary policy. We now have a tired, desperate NDP-Liberal government that is out of ideas. It has resorted to recycling broken campaign promises and adopting Conservative policy, albeit watered down.
Its housing accelerator fund has not built a single home. It is nothing more than a housing hoax. The Prime Minister has added more debt than all other prime ministers combined. There is no plan to balance the budget and no plan to get his inflationary deficits under control.
This is the Prime Minister who thinks budgets balance themselves and asks Canadians to forgive him for not thinking about monetary policy. His laissez-faire attitude toward public finance has put the well-being of far too many Canadians in crisis. Government spending has driven up inflation rates, and those rates have put Canada at the brink of a mortgage default crisis.
That is why the leader of the Conservative opposition brought a common-sense motion to the House today. Our motion calls on the Prime Minister to table a fiscal plan that includes a pathway back to a balanced budget. He must do so before the Bank of Canada announces its next rate decision later this month. This motion is urgent and necessary. The government must start spending within its means, something that Canadian families do every day to balance their own household budgets.
In June, the Minister of Finance took to social media to declare victory over inflation. She told Canadians the Liberal plan to tackle inflation is “working” and that the Liberals were making “real progress”. Since then, inflation has gone up 43%. She fails to learn the lesson that excessive government spending and cruel tax hikes are the reason she is losing the war against inflation. After eight years, it is clear that the Liberal fiscal plan is not working and that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost.
Common-sense Conservatives have a plan to reverse these deficits so we can bring down inflation, bring home lower prices and bring homes that people can afford. We will cap government spending, cut waste and bring in a dollar-for-dollar law that requires the government to find a dollar of savings for any new dollar of spending. That is common sense.
We will also axe the punitive carbon tax. When we tax the farmer who grows the food, the trucker who ships the food and the store that sells the food, we are taxing the hard-working Canadian family struggling to pay for that food. The Liberal government has failed to reach any of its emission reduction targets, so all of this financial pain is for no environmental gain.
Liberals and their enablers in the NDP justify their position by suggesting that the carbon tax is not high enough. Speaking about the carbon tax, the Liberal member for Halifax said, “Ultimately they don't want to pay for it, but that's what changes behaviour, so if we rebate them everything they've paid for the pollution price, it defeats the whole purpose. There needs to be a bit of pain there. That's the point of it.”
How out of touch can they be? Other Liberals, such as the member for Avalon, finally admitted that the carbon tax is causing harm to Canadians. When asked about the political consequences the Liberals will face because of the carbon tax, the member for Avalon said:
I think it's hurting them a fair bit. Everywhere I go, people come up to me and say, “We're losing faith in the Liberal Party”.
I've had people tell me they can't afford to buy groceries. They can't afford to heat their homes....
It is too little too late. That member voted to implement the carbon tax, and his party continues to punish Canadians with it.
On housing, the Prime Minister does not think it is his responsibility, but the buck stops with him. It used to take 25 years to pay off a mortgage. Now it takes 25 years to save for a down payment.
Vancouver is the third most unaffordable housing market on the planet. In my community, mortgages now cost thousands of dollars more per month, forcing people out of home ownership. We are not building homes quick enough to keep up with demand because big city gatekeepers impose unnecessary delays and red tape.
A C.D. Howe study determined that gatekeepers and regulations add nearly $1.3 million to the cost of an average home in Vancouver. Meanwhile, CMHC bureaucrats in Ottawa are rewarded with millions of dollars in bonuses for a lackluster performance.
Conservatives know we need to build homes, not bureaucracy. We will reward cities that are getting homes built with additional infrastructure dollars and a building bonus, and we will withhold transit and infrastructure funding from cities until sufficient high density housing around transit stations is built and occupied. We will cut the bonuses and salaries for ineffective bureaucrats, and if needed, we will fire the gatekeepers at CMHC if they are unable to speed up approvals for housing programs to an average of 60 days. We will list 15% of the federal government's 37,000 buildings and all appropriate federal land to be turned into homes people can afford.
Conservatives will turn the hurt the government has inflicted into the hope Canadians deserve. Canada should be a place where our citizens can afford to buy a home, put food on the table and save for the future. This is common sense. Only Conservatives will bring it home.
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- Oct/17/23 4:35:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about the carbon tax, as Conservatives are wont to do. Of course, in British Columbia, the federal carbon tax does not apply at all. We have had a provincial carbon tax there since 2008, brought in by a small c conservative government.
Over the past three years, in her riding and my riding, the gas prices that people complain all the time have gone up about a dollar. The carbon tax has gone up five cents, so 95¢ of that increase is something else. What is it? It is corporate greed.
The price of oil has gone up and the oil companies that are producing that gas have had a windfall profit of billions and billions of dollars. The CEO of Shell Canada said that, if they were taxed more, they would be turning money back into the Canadian economy to help people who are suffering. The government is afraid to do that, and the Conservatives do not want to talk about it. The Conservatives in the U.K. have done just that.
I am just wondering if my colleague could comment on the fact that Conservatives and Liberals do not like to talk about the revenue side of the fiscal situation. We should have a windfall tax to bring money to Canadians, to help all Canadians in this time when people are suffering. A windfall fax on groceries and on gasoline would do just that.
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- Oct/17/23 5:09:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, off the top, I note that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.
The policies and decisions of government have real-life impacts on Canadians. Unfortunately, in the case of the NDP-Liberal coalition, that impact has been truly devastating. After eight years of the Liberal government, Canadians are now faced with a cost of living crisis that is a direct result of failed policies.
There are moms and dads across this country who, despite going to work every day to earn a paycheque, are still struggling to put gas in their tanks, put food on the table and keep their family housed. Seniors on a fixed income are being forced to choose between groceries or keeping warm during the winter. With housing costs having more than doubled under the government, more and more Canadians are giving up on the dream of home ownership. That is not okay, but that is the record of the Prime Minister and his government, and the out-of-touch NDP-Liberal government has yet to offer Canadians hope that there is a plan to bring down sky-high costs and mounting interest rates.
In fact, not only is this NDP-Liberal coalition failing to bring down inflation and interest rates, but it is actively making it worse, and its high-tax agenda is only further eating away at the paycheques of Canadians. Life is too expensive, and Canadians have never paid so much to bring home so little. This is a difficult time for many Canadians and they simply cannot afford the NDP-Liberal government.
The Prime Minister has added more to the national debt than all previous prime ministers combined, and that half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits has directly led to record inflation highs and repeated hikes to the interest rate. Instead of acknowledging and reversing course, the Prime Minister and his government continue to pour fuel on the inflationary fire at every turn they take. Expert after expert has warned that the Liberal government's spending is driving up the cost of inflation. Even Liberals have told the government that its deficit spending is driving up inflation.
We know that Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, has said that if governments increase their spending, it makes it more difficult to get inflation on track. Dispelling the often-heard Liberal claim that inflation is a global problem and not a result of the government's own decisions, he has also said that “inflation in Canada increasingly reflects what’s happening in Canada.” We know Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, also said that “inflation is principally a domestic story”. Even former finance minister Bill Morneau has now admitted that his Liberal government put more money into the economy than it needed to.
The inflationary results are crushing. To try to get inflation under control, the Bank of Canada has been forced to increase interest rates 10 times in just 19 months. More than half of Canadians are said to be within $200 of not being able to pay their bills. Half of Canadians are already saying that their mortgages are unaffordable, and Canadians already have the highest household debt in the G7. Also, the International Monetary Fund has said that Canada's housing market is the most at risk of any developed country.
Behind those statistics and troubling findings, there are real Canadians who are trying and who are barely hanging on. Canadian families are set back further and further in their personal finances every time the Bank of Canada raises interest rates. There are families whose dollars are not going nearly as far as they once were and who are desperate for the cost of living crisis in this country to come to an end.
They remember when the Prime Minister told them during the pandemic that the government would take on debt so they would not have to, but there is no comfort in that. It is taxpayers, not the Prime Minister, who took on that debt, and it is that debt that is contributing to high inflation and interest rates.
I have been listening to this debate, so I know that some members across the way will try to justify all of their deficit spending by telling us that it was a result of emergency supports to Canadians and businesses. However, in a 2022 report, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has already exposed the fallacy in that argument. That report confirmed that over $200 billion of new spending introduced by the Liberal government during the pandemic had nothing to do with its COVID response. In fact, I will remind those same members that their dangerous and reckless deficit spending habit began long before the pandemic. In 2015, the Liberal government promised Canadians that there would be a tiny, temporary $10-billion deficit. It immediately broke that promise to Canadians, and after that, it has been broken promise after broken promise. The most honest thing the Prime Minister told Canadians was that he does not think about monetary policy.
Perhaps the finance minister might think about monetary policy herself, but she has failed to take the fiscal steps necessary to put the country’s finances on solid footing. She told Canadians that the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio was her fiscal anchor, that she was committed to ensuring that it continue to be reduced, and that it was a line she would not cross. Then, in budget 2023, she crossed that line. Ahead of that budget, she also acknowledged that bringing down inflation and interest rates was a priority for Canadians and that it was her goal to not pour fuel on the inflationary fire. Then, she introduced $60 billion in new spending, adding fuel to that inflationary fire. Not to be forgotten is that in budget 2023, she also abandoned the government’s path to balanced budgets that she had projected for 2027 just months earlier.
Deficit spending drives up inflation and the costs of goods that Canadians are buying, but let us not forget that Canadians are being squeezed from all sides because of the NDP-Liberal government. The money to pay for its spending has to come from somewhere. Not only has the government printed mountains of cash to pay for its spending, but it has also hiked taxes on Canadians. The increased federal tax burden leaves Canadians with fewer dollars in their pockets to spend on their own families' priorities. Payroll taxes have gone up, directly eating into the paycheques of working Canadians. The government's failed carbon tax is adding to the cost of everything, punishing Canadians for basic necessities like gas, groceries and home heating. Of course, now it has added a second carbon tax that will cost Canadians even more, and the plan is to keep increasing those taxes.
Canadians need a break. Today’s Conservative motion calling on the government to introduce a fiscal plan that includes a pathway to balanced budgets before the Bank of Canada’s next policy interest rate decision is, I believe, perfectly reasonable and is desperately needed by all Canadians, especially those who are barely hanging on. Balancing the budget to keep inflation and interest rates low is common sense, and the NDP-Liberal coalition needs to get its spending under control before it is too late. It is time we restored hope to Canadians.
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- Oct/17/23 5:22:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I note that the motion from the Conservatives talks about fiscal discipline, and Conservative fiscal discipline is an oxymoron. We lived through nine years of the dismal Harper regime. One thing that characterized that was absolutely appalling financial decisions. Members will recall the $116 billion that Harper showered on Canada's big banks to maintain profits, taking money out of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation that should have gone to affordable housing. That helped contribute, thanks to the Conservatives, to the housing crisis that we are seeing today.
The Conservatives also put in place the Harper treaties. Notoriously, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that these handouts to billionaires and profitable corporations cost over $30 billion a year, thanks to Mr. Harper and the Harper regime. However, the Conservatives used fiscal discipline all right; they cut back on veterans services and forced seniors to work years longer.
My question is very simple: What are they going to do now? Are they going to end the dental care for seniors that the NDP is bringing in at the end of this year?
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- Oct/17/23 5:24:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I want to turn my attention to the people of Gaza and Israel. I think we have to set both organizations aside and focus on the people themselves. My thoughts are with them.
I want to thank my colleague from Battlefords—Lloydminster, who gave an excellent speech.
I rise this afternoon to speak to an official opposition motion. I believe it is the role of the official opposition to call on the government to be more diligent and responsible and to deliver concrete results for Canadians. I will quote the different parts of the motion because that is what we are debating, and I think people who are watching at home on the House of Commons network deserve to know what we are talking about.
(i) after eight years of this Liberal government, this prime minister has added more to the national debt than all previous prime minister's combined,
(ii) a half-trillion dollars of inflationary deficits has directly led to 40-year inflation highs,
(iii) prior to budget 2023, the Minister of Finance said, “What Canadians want right now is for inflation to come down and for interest rates to fall […]
If I may say so, that is not what is happening right now.
…and that is one of our primary goals in this year's budget: not to pour fuel on the fire of inflation,” and then proceed to usher in $60 billion in new spending,
(iv) in order to combat inflation, the Bank of Canada has been forced to increase interest rates 10 times in just 19 months,
There is a problem somewhere, but the Liberals do not seem to want to acknowledge it.
(v) interest rate increases have increased mortgage payments, and since this prime minister took office, monthly mortgage payments have increased 150% and now cost $3,500 on a typical family home...
Then it mentions the Liberal-NDP government, because it is important to understand that this is a minority government and that, if this government is kept in power, it is because there is a coalition. The NDP and the Liberal Party are committed to keeping this government in office, despite the fact that it is not delivering results and Canadians are paying the price. Therefore:
(vi) the Liberal-NDP government must exercise fiscal discipline, end their inflation driving deficits so that interest rates can be lowered,
in order to—
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Joël Godin: Mr. Speaker, may I have some quiet?
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- Oct/17/23 5:28:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my NDP colleague for his intervention.
I will continue to read from the written motion, which is an official House of Commons document. If my colleague would like to have the full version, he can ask the table clerks, who are very helpful.
. . . inflation driving deficits so that interest rates can be lowered, in order to avoid a mortgage default crisis, as warned by the International Monetary Fund, and to ensure Canadians do not lose their homes, the House call on the government to introduce a fiscal plan that includes a pathway back to balanced budgets, in order to decrease inflation and interest rates, and to introduce this in the House of Commons prior to the Bank of Canada’s next policy interest rate decision on October 25, 2023.
Yes, the timeline is short, but this government has been in power for eight years. I hope the government members see things the way we do. We are back in the House after a week in our ridings. I have to say that everyone I met in Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier told me that they are struggling to balance their budgets, that they do not know how they are going to put food on the table and heat their homes properly. Unfortunately, in Canada, and particularly in Quebec, winter is pretty harsh. We have to heat our homes, we have to eat and, yes, we have to put gas in the car. My riding covers a low-density area, which means that people need a vehicle. There is no public transit. Unfortunately, that is the reality. We cannot bury our heads in the sand. We cannot ignore the facts. That is a reality, and we have to take it into account.
The Prime Minister stated, with a completely straight face, that budgets balance themselves. I am a father, and there are probably many parents here who have responsibilities and have to manage a budget. I have some news for the Prime Minister. I do not know whether budgets balance themselves in his ivory tower, but down here on earth, on the ground, in our homes, we have to balance our budgets. If not, we will be headed for bankruptcy, so we need to be responsible.
What is worse, at a certain point, the Liberals also said that it was time to borrow money because rates were low and they would not go up. We can see that today's reality is drastically different. Yesterday, I met with representatives of the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers. They travelled here to Ottawa, and I met with them. I think it is important that members of Parliament meet with people to find out what is happening on the ground. I think that the government members should adopt such a practice. According to what the association representatives told me, we are going to hit a wall. It will not be long until the banks will have to start collecting house keys because people cannot pay their mortgages. That is a reality.
Today I met representatives from Pets Canada, a network of manufacturers, retailers and pet enthusiasts. Many of us have pets like cats and dogs. These pets are part of our families. Customers who buy dog or cat food are worried, because they will have to forgo buying food for their pets so that they themselves can survive. We are in Canada in 2023. I think that is important.
I will read other quotes from the Prime Minister, just for the fun of it.
“You'll forgive me if I don't think about monetary policy.” That was from August 19, 2021.
Here is another one: “We took on debt so Canadians wouldn't have to.”
However, as my colleague mentioned, it is taxpayers' money we are talking about. Governments do not make money, they simply administer the taxes collected from Canadian taxpayers.
Here is another quote from the Prime Minister, this one from 2015: “We're proposing a strong and real plan, one that invests in the middle class, so we can grow the economy, not from the top down...but from the heart outwards. That's what Canada has always done well”.
Now I want to talk about the Prime Minister's broken promises. This Prime Minister said the government would run a small deficit in 2015, tiny, temporary, no more than $10 billion. That was a broken promise. Then he said it would never go over $30 billion. Another broken promise. The Prime Minister said he would return to balanced budgets in 2019 and that this commitment was set in stone. What does he take us for? Once again, another broken promise.
As I mentioned, after eight years, the Prime Minister has added more to the debt than all of our country's prime ministers combined. This is serious. During question period yesterday, the Deputy Prime Minister again stated that Canada has the lowest deficit and the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio. I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister to go for a walk in the streets with me to talk to people. What will they tell her? They will tell her they are struggling to get by. There needs to be an action plan, and soon, to get the budget back into balance. It is about being responsible.
Now, on the other side of the House, they do not understand that. It is the job of the official opposition to force them to do their job and do it as quickly as possible, because it has been eight years. I hope they are not just waking up today because of the motion we moved. I hope they woke up several months ago and are working on finding a solution to balance the budget as quickly as possible.
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- Oct/17/23 5:39:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague, but I know that during the Harper years, the Conservatives brought in a system of tax havens that now cost us $30 billion a year, according to the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
My question is simple. How can we believe the Conservatives when their approach of imposing fiscal discipline was such a dismal failure in the past?
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