44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 16, 2024 10:00AM
- Apr/16/24 12:13:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his passionate and factual remarks opposing the costly Liberal-NDP coalition and all its ridiculous programs.
My question is this: When the Bloc Québécois has the opportunity, will it vote against the budget, the government and the costly coalition?
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- Apr/16/24 12:14:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we will look at the budget. Just yesterday, given Ottawa’s encroachments into areas of Quebec jurisdiction, the Bloc Québécois House leader said that we could not vote for this budget. We will indeed vote against the budget.
However, I will let our critics take a position on this. That is not my job, as I am the health critic. I will not presume to take anyone else's job. In principle, the Bloc Québécois should vote against this budget because it does not respect the Quebec national state or the Quebec nation.
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- Apr/16/24 2:22:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in this budget, like all others, we will take into account the economic context as well as the needs of Canadians. That means, for millennials and gen Z as well, we will unlock supply in housing, we will ensure there are supports for renters and we will make sure there is a national school food program. On this side of the House, we will make sure we do that while maintaining a strong fiscal position, AAA credit rating and the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7.
Slogans do not make good policy.
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- Apr/16/24 2:31:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years under the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister, Canadians know that he is not worth the cost. Even proud Liberal and former Bank of Canada governor, David Dodge, who worked for Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien, says that this budget is on track to be the worst one since 1982.
Canadians know that this budget will bring higher taxes and higher spending, meaning even more misery for families that cannot afford to eat.
Instead of drowning everyone, will the Liberals fix the budget, axe the tax on farmers and food, and stop the endless spending with a dollar-for-dollar law so that Canadians can afford to live?
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- Apr/16/24 2:35:14 p.m.
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These are spendy ways, Mr. Speaker.
David Dodge said that this was likely to be the worst budget since 1982. Who was prime minister then? How out of control was that budget? How broke did Canada and Canadians become before Pierre Elliott Trudeau finally took his walk in the snow?
The more things change—
With two million visits to food banks in a single month, is it not clear that Canadians are desperately hungry for change? How many more Canadians need to visit food banks before the Prime Minister realizes that today's budget is a recipe for disaster?
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- Apr/16/24 2:36:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if we want to lower inflation and enable the Bank of Canada to reduce interest rates, we have limited options.
We need to cap spending by applying the dollar-for-dollar rule. If we spend a dollar, we have to find a way to save a dollar. It is simple. That is how ordinary Canadians manage their household budgets. That is how every minister in this government should run their department.
Will the Prime Minister cap spending in his upcoming budget to bring down inflation and interest rates?
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- Apr/16/24 2:38:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are calling for three things today. It is not complicated.
One of the three things the Conservative Party is calling for is to build homes, not bureaucracy. The government insists on announcing inflationary measures that are costing Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars and only serve to increase inflation and the cost of living. Even David Dodge, the former Liberal governor of the Bank of Canada, has predicted that this will be the worst budget since 1982.
Will the Prime Minister commit to heeding the calls of the Leader of the Opposition and building homes, not bureaucracy?
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- Apr/16/24 2:50:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, indigenous people in Winnipeg make up nearly 75% of the unhoused population. Almost 90% are sleeping outdoors or living in encampments. The Liberals' inadequate response is costing lives, and the Conservative leader cut 8,000 affordable units when he was the minister in charge. It is clearly not a Conservative priority.
In today's budget, will the Liberals commit to increasing funding for affordable housing, with rent geared to income, and get serious about ending homelessness?
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- Apr/16/24 2:54:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, like the old song, it is “Stop! In the Name of Canadians”. There are 28 bodies in a freezer because families cannot afford to bury their loved ones. Houses have doubled. Food bank usage is higher. Families are losing their homes. It is enough. Today, the Liberals are announcing their budget.
Will they show some compassion and ensure there is a dollar of savings for every dollar of spending, so Canadians can afford to live?
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- Apr/16/24 2:55:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, this Liberal government is not worth the cost. After eight years of astronomical deficits and spiralling debt, this government has never managed to control spending. This is a perfect recipe for inflation.
Canadians know what inflation is. Rents have doubled. Mortgages have doubled. Things have reached a point where it is cheaper to stay in a motel than have an apartment.
At the very least, will there be a plan, if only to control spending, later on when the budget is tabled?
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- Apr/16/24 3:09:29 p.m.
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I will ask hon. members to please restrain themselves. I know that it is budget day; it is a big day.
The hon. minister has 20 seconds left on the clock.
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- Apr/16/24 3:59:50 p.m.
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It being 4 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Ways and Means Proceedings No. 20 concerning the budget presentation.
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- Apr/16/24 4:14:25 p.m.
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We will also launch a national school food program—working with provinces and territories to expand access to school food programs and help 400,000 more children get good, healthy food—so that they can have a fair start at a good, healthy life.
The list of supportive, cost-saving measures goes on. The GST credit arrives every three months to put some extra money in the pockets of millions of Canadians.
The Canada carbon rebate ensures that we fight climate change in the most cost-effective way, delivering hundreds of dollars to Canadians, every three months, including yesterday. Eight out of 10 Canadians get back more than they pay in the provinces where the federal price on pollution applies, and in this budget, we are delivering on our promise to return carbon pricing proceeds to small- and medium-sized businesses.
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- Apr/16/24 4:26:42 p.m.
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In this budget, every single one of these objectives is being met, as is our fiscal anchor, which is a declining federal debt-to-GDP ratio over the medium term. In fact, Canada has the lowest deficit and net debt-to-GDP ratios in the G7, as recognized in our AAA credit rating.
Private sector forecasters are now predicting a soft landing for the Canadian economy—avoiding the recession and heartbreaking surge in unemployment that many had thought was inevitable.
Canadians know how important it is to responsibly manage a budget in the face of rising costs, and they rightly expect their government to do the same.
That is why, going forward, federal public service organizations will be required to cover a portion of increased operating costs through their existing resources. Most of these savings will be achieved through natural attrition in the federal public service. As a result, over the next four years, we expect the ranks of the public service to decline by approximately 5,000 full-time equivalent positions.
To responsibly build a fairer future for younger Canadians, we need to make sure our tax system is fairer too. In Canada and around the world, the 21st century, winner-takes-all economy is making those at the very top richer, while too many middle-class Canadians are struggling just to avoid falling behind.
The job of our tax system is to lean against this structural inequality and to fund investments in the middle class, especially in young Canadians, by asking those who are benefiting from the winner-takes-all economy to pay a little more. Today, our tax system does not do that. Today, it is possible for a nurse or a carpenter to pay tax at a higher marginal rate than a multi-millionaire. That is not fair. That must change, and it will.
Our government is raising the inclusion rate to two-thirds on annual capital gains above $250,000 for individuals. This new revenue will help make life cost less for millions of Canadians, particularly millennials and gen Z. It will help fund our efforts to turbocharge the building of more homes. It will support investments in growth and productivity that will pay dividends for years to come.
Who will pay more? Most Canadians have no capital gains in a typical year, so they will not pay more. The first $250,000 in capital gains every single year enjoyed by each individual Canadian will be taxed at the current rate. Individual Canadians enjoying this substantial annual gain will not pay a penny more.
The lifetime capital gains exemption, an amount fully exempt from taxation, will be raised to $1.25 million, and this change will not, of course, apply to the sale of Canadians' principal residence, which is and will remain fully exempt from the tax on capital gains. Only 0.13% of Canadians with an average annual income of $1.4 million will pay more on their capital gains. For 99.87% of Canadians, personal income taxes on capital gains will not increase.
Taxing capital gains is not an inherently partisan idea. It is an idea that everyone who cares about fairness should support. In fact, the idea of taxing capital gains in Canada was first broached by the government of former prime minister John Diefenbaker and his Royal Commission on Taxation, which was chaired by Kenneth Carter, and former prime minister Brian Mulroney raised the capital gains inclusion rate to 75%, higher than the rate we are establishing today.
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- Apr/16/24 4:40:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is the ninth deficit budget since the Prime Minister said that budgets balance themselves. Everything he spends money on only gets worse.
He promised that these deficits would make housing affordable. Then rent, mortgage payments and down payments for buying a home doubled.
He said that food would become more affordable. Now it costs 30% more, and one in four children do not have access to a nutritious meal.
After nine deficits, the government is rich and the people are poor.
Today, he is doing much the same with a $40-billion inflationary deficit in new spending, which is the equivalent of $2,400 in inflation for every family. We are spending more on interest on the national debt than we are on health.
That is why common-sense Conservatives will be voting against this pyromaniac firefighter who is pouring fuel instead of water on the inflationary fire he has set.
This is the ninth deficit after the Prime Minister promised the budget would balance itself, and what did he do with the money? Everything he has spent on has become more expensive. He has doubled the rent, doubled mortgage payments, doubled the needed down payment for a home and forced 3,500 homeless encampments. In Halifax alone, one in four kids cannot afford food, and now he is adding $40 billion of new debt and new spending, which is $2,400 of new inflation.
That is why Conservatives will vote against this wasteful inflationary budget, which is like a pyromaniac spraying gas on the inflationary fire that he lit. It is getting too hot and too expensive for Canadians, and that is why we need a carbon tax election to replace him with a common-sense Conservative government.
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- Apr/16/24 4:49:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, common-sense Conservatives told the Liberal-NDP Prime Minister to stop his spending, his deficits, inflation and his tax hikes, but the Prime Minister blew right through that stop sign, dumping $40 billion of fuel on the inflationary fire, which he started.
This photo op budget would do nothing for average Canadians, who cannot afford a home and groceries today. Will the finance minister tell us how much each Canadian household is on the hook for, for the $54 billion just in interest charges on the Prime Minister's debt?
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- Apr/16/24 4:50:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for the ninth time, the Prime Minister promised that if he spent more and taxed more, Canadians would be better off. For the ninth time, we see that quality of life declined, especially for the middle class he is always talking about.
The cost of rent doubled, and then there were big government programs for affordable housing. According to the government itself, one in four children do not have enough to eat, even after programs were created to make food affordable.
Furthermore, the government talks about a state-funded pipeline like it is the biggest accomplishment there could be in a society. If the government had not gotten involved, it never would have happened. This is a project that is 500% more expensive than planned. The money to buy the project went to Texas. This is another example of massive waste.
That is why common-sense Conservatives are going to vote against the budget and in favour of an election that will allow Canadians to choose a party that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. That is common sense.
Here we have, today, a ninth consecutive deficit, with the budget still not balancing itself. Everything on which the Prime Minister spends gets worse and gets more costly. He is spent and Canadians are broke. The country is broken.
We have a doubling of housing costs. We have 8,000 people joining a Facebook group to study how they can get a meal out of a garbage can after food prices have gone up faster than at any time in a generation because of the carbon tax he is imposing on our food, a carbon tax that, with the help of the NDP, he plans to quadruple to 61¢ a litre.
Today, did he learn anything from these catastrophic failures? No. He doubles down on the same failure, with $40 billion of new deficits and $40 billion of new spending, and that is to say, it is $2,400 for every family in new debt and in new inflationary spending. Now, for the first time in a generation, we are spending more on debt interest than on health care. That is money for bankers and bondholders rather than doctors and nurses.
The great example of how wonderful government can be, given after a tremendous theatrical pause, was the government's purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline. What would have happened if the government had just gotten out of the way, asked the finance minister.
The answer is that the thing would have been built with private money rather than $30 billion of taxpayer bailouts. In fact, a project the Prime Minister said would cost $5 billion is up to $30 billion. That is 500% over budget. It is $2,000 in costs for every single Canadian family for a project that the private sector was going to be building on its own. The company that was going to build it was bought out, and it took the money to Texas, where it is building Texan pipelines with Canadian dollars. All of our exes are in Texas.
Then, to close it off, we have got some of the most hair-raising, ideological fervour from the minister, who says that what Canadians really need is a stronger government. They have created a stronger government in order to make for weaker and more suffering people. This is not a government that gives people everything they want; it is a government that takes everything they have.
The good news is that we want big Canadian citizens with a smaller and more efficient government, where the state is servant and not master, where our priorities are clear, to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
As soon as the NDP takes away its support from the Prime Minister, we will have a carbon tax election, where the people will be able to make that decision for themselves, in a country where they can earn powerful paycheques that buy affordable food, gas and homes in safe neighbourhoods, the country that we all knew and that we still love, a country based on the common sense of the common people, united for our common home: their home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.
I now move:
That the debate be now adjourned.
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