44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 30, 2024 10:00AM
- Apr/30/24 10:45:59 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to share with Canadians, especially my constituents of Richmond Centre, the significance of budget 2024. I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver Granville.
Budget 2024 is a road map that outlines the path toward a more prosperous, fair and sustainable future, a future that is not only for young adults but also for future generations. The budget has four main focuses: building more homes faster, lowering the cost of living, being fair to every generation and building a climate-resilient generational economy.
Through budget 2024, our government is introducing a bold, fiscally responsible Canada housing plan to unlock 3.87 million homes by 2031. Housing is a necessity and is the foundation of the stability and well-being of individuals and families. As our communities in British Columbia and across Canada are growing, Canada is expected to experience the most growth among G7 countries in 2025. The federal government is taking concrete steps to support the growth of our community and economy. In budget 2024, the federal government is unlocking homebuilding on public lands to utilize our federal resources and address Canadians' housing priorities. We are proposing $1.1 billion in federal funding to convert underused spaces, public land, into homes.
We are also proposing an additional $15 billion in new loan funding for the apartment construction loan program, bringing the program's total to over $55 billion. This investment would help build more than 30,000 additional new homes across Canada, bringing the program's total contribution to over 131,000 new homes by 2032. While we are spurring housing construction across Canada, we are providing over $6 billion to launch a new Canada housing infrastructure fund. This fund would not only accelerate construction but also upgrade and enable infrastructure for water, waste water, stormwater and solid waste, which would directly enable housing supply and help improve densification. That also means more housing near transit, equivalent to accessibility. Through budget 2024, we are leveraging the federal public transit fund to take action that directly unlocks the housing supply where it is needed most. To build all of this, we propose to increase the number of construction workers by creating new opportunities for apprentices and recognizing foreign credentials.
In budget 2024, we are also making it easier for Canadians to rent or own homes, by introducing initiatives such as the tenant protection fund, the new Canadian renters' bill of rights, the Canadian home buyers' plan and an updated version of the Canadian mortgage charter. We are making sure that renters in Canada have better rental protections while enabling them to use their rent records for credit, and much more.
An important initiative that our housing plan is moving forward on is to establish a national flood insurance, a subsidiary of the CMHC to deliver flood reinsurance. This would help communities in my riding of Richmond Centre by improving flood prevention and insurance. It would also help put many Canadians and their families at ease in Richmond.
Most importantly, we all have seen the significant impact the housing accelerator fund has brought to communities across Canada. I am quite proud and pleased that in January of this year, I was able to announce with the City of Richmond bilateral agreements to fast-track more than 1,000 housing units over the next three years and 3,100 homes over the next decade. These agreements provide $35.9 million to eliminate barriers to building the housing we need, faster. In budget 2024, we are providing an additional $400-million top-up to further even more the impact of the housing accelerator fund.
The budget is making housing more accessible and affordable for Canadians across the country. It is also equipping Canada to compete even further with respect to its economy, including the highest growth among the G7 countries in 2025. Furthermore, budget 2024 is also a plan to lower the cost of living for Canadians, and we are continuing our leadership in making sure every generation has the support it needs in order to succeed.
The Canadian dental care plan continues to roll out, providing oral health care access to over nine million uninsured eligible Canadian residents. In budget 2024, we are building an even stronger social safety net. We are introducing the first phase of the national pharmacare plan, providing immediate support to over three million Canadians living with diabetes and over nine million women and gender-diverse Canadians with free coverage for medications.
For parents in Canada the national school food program will deliver nutritious meals to over 400,000 children across Canada each year, saving the average participating family as much as $400 per year per child in grocery costs.
For Canadians with disabilities we are providing $6 billion, for the first time ever, through the Canada disability benefit, to provide additional support that will impact over 600,000 low-income Canadians with disabilities.
As we continue working with provinces and territories to better our health care and our social care system, in 2024-25, we have provided for over $7 billion through the Canada health transfer and over $2 billion through the Canada social transfer to British Columbia. These two transfers will help B.C. strengthen its health care system and further the impact of social programs like $10-a-day child care.
Budget 2024 is about fairness for every generation. It is about making life cost less and ensuring Canada's social safety network for every generation. We are helping youth in Canada with more support in student grants, loans, housing, mental health, employment and young entrepreneurship. For seniors in Canada, through the ongoing old age security program, we are delivering over $80 million in benefit payments to over seven million seniors this year alone.
Budget 2024 introduced a tax change on capital gains to make Canada's tax system more fair. We are increasing the inclusion rate on the capital gains that will impact only the wealthiest 0.13%. Personal income tax on capital gains will not increase for 99.87% of Canadians. Through our lifetime capital gains exemption, 88% of businesses in Canada, especially small businesses, will be exempt from tax on capital gains.
Budget 2024 is about fairness for every generation. That also includes our economy and a global earth where our children and their children and grandchildren can succeed and thrive. This is where we continue to build a climate-resilient generational economy, and we are securing the future of the Canadian economy in innovation sectors such as artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, research, renewable fuels and green infrastructures. We recognize the urgency of combatting climate change and building a climate-resilient economy. Budget 2024 seeks to minimize the impacts of climate change and safeguard the well-being of future generations.
Budget 2024 takes a team Canada approach, which has always been a core belief of our Liberal government. We will work together with provinces, territories, municipalities, the private sector and indigenous communities. We will not marginalize anyone who wants to do the right thing for Canadians; rather, we will be there to support them. As we continue on this transformative journey, let us seize the opportunities and work together to build a better future for all Canadians.
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- Apr/30/24 11:31:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the people of Edmonton Manning have been very clear in the emails I have received in the past two weeks.
Franks says, “Stop spending our money like a drunken sailor, we cannot afford the debt.” Trevor tells me, “It is absolutely ridiculous as to how much tax Canada is being charged, where does it stop?” David asked me to “Please put pressure on the P.M. to start cutting Canada's debt and balancing the budget.” Mariette says, “This budget puts our kids further into debt.” Michael writes of his “utter disgust with the latest Federal Budget.”
The feelings are unanimous: This budget is a disaster. I can only conclude that no one in the government actually considered the contents. Maybe they were too busy watching television to think about managing the country.
I must confess that I do not watch much television. When I do, I watch documentaries or live sports events. Two of the things that I avoid completely are reality television and game shows. To me, there is very little reality involved, and the games do not seem to be all that real to me.
As a result, I have to admit that I have never watched the show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, which aired more than 15 years ago. It was a short-lived program with only five episodes made. The idea was to have a panel ask questions from elementary school textbooks to see if the contestants were smarter than a fifth grader. The top prize was a million dollars, tax-free. The idea probably offends the Liberal members opposite. They do not believe that anything should be tax-free, ever.
Contestants on the show have to answer questions about Canadian history, Canadian geography and Canadian culture. However, history, geography and culture were not the only categories covered on the show. There was also mathematics, which may be the reason no Liberal MP ever appeared on the program. When it comes to math, budget 2024 shows very clearly that the Liberals are nowhere near as smart as a fifth grader.
When children are in fifth grade, math is pretty simple: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It is not rocket science. Fifth graders know that if they receive a weekly allowance from their parents, they must spend that money wisely. Common sense tells them that they cannot spend more than they have. There is no such thing as deficit spending to a ten year old.
If they spend all their money, Mom and Dad will tell them that they have to wait until next week to get any more. They are not made of money. They have to live within their means and they expect their children to learn how to do that also, especially as they feel financially stressed by all the extra taxes the government has piled on them.
If children want some shiny toy that costs more than their weekly allowance, then they have to learn to save until they can afford to buy it. Stores are reluctant to extend credit to a ten year old, especially one who has not learned the value of saving.
As I look at this budget, I wish the Minister of Finance could go back in time and become a fifth grader once again. It is apparent that she and the Liberal Party failed to learn some important lessons in childhood, and now it is all Canadians who are paying for their inability to understand basic math.
A fifth grader could tell us that money does not magically appear. It does not grow on trees. We cannot just pick up loose bills on the sidewalk. A fifth grader could tell us that spending more money to pay the interest on the national debt than we have for health care is a recipe for disaster. Adding more debt does not fix the problem.
I will not delve deeply into economic theory here. However, the Prime Minister has asked Canadians to forgive him for not thinking about monetary policy, and it would probably be wrong of me to expect his caucus to have any more interest in such matters.
I must say, though, that there have been some changes over the past eight years in the way the government approaches its responsibility to manage the nation's finances. No longer does the government think it is possible to pluck numbers out of thin air, put them in a spreadsheet and magically produce a budget that balances itself.
Fifth graders could tell us that a deficit is not just a line on a piece of paper. It is a debt, borrowed money that has to be repaid at some point. They would also tell us that until that debt is paid interest will be charged.
In simple terms that even a Liberal could understand, running a budgetary deficit costs money. If interest has to be paid on a debt, then there is less money for the things that government is supposed to do for Canadians, things like health care.
Where does the government find money to pay its debts? It raises taxes. In other words, it charges Canadians for something they did not ask for and for some reason expects them to be happy to pay.
Parents who explain to their fifth graders how important it is for individuals and families to live within their means are being undermined by a government that spends and spends, while expecting someone else to pay its bills.
This budget would increase government spending and taxes and would bring us no closer to a balanced budget than we have been at any time in almost nine years of Liberal fiscal mismanagement. Apparently the Liberals' coalition partners in the NDP approve of this highway of economic ruin. This budget would bring in $40 billion of costly new spending that Canadians cannot afford.
In 2022, the finance minister said that the budget would be balanced by the year 2027. In 2023, the date was revised to 2028. Why do the Liberals not just admit that they have no idea how to balance the budget, since magic is not working?
Before the Liberals were elected in 2015, their leader suggested that perhaps his government would run modest deficits, about $10 billion annually before returning to the balanced books that he inherited from the previous Conservative government. We all know what happened. Record deficits followed record deficits to create a national debt never seen before in the history of Canada. With this latest budget, the Liberal-NDP government is farther than ever from doing so.
What we have now is a government that will spend more money next year servicing the debt than on health care. There is no sense in that, except perhaps to the members opposite.
Canada's per capita GDP is now lower than it was six years ago. While other countries have grown their economies, Canadians are poorer. The government's solution is inflationary spending and more taxes. It needs to go back to the fifth grade.
There is a glimmer of hope. Soon we will have a Conservative government with members who are indeed smarter than a fifth grader. Conservatives will balance the books, making the spendthrift finance minister and her fiscally unaware boss a bad memory.
The common-sense Conservative plan will axe the carbon tax, balance the budget and build homes, not bureaucracy, to bring lower prices to Canadians. Even a fifth grader knows that the Liberal government is not worth the cost.
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