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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 305

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 30, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 305 - Apr/30/24
Mr. Glen Motz (Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, CPC)
  • Apr/30/24 10:31:32 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, spending last week in and around my riding of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, two things were abundantly clear. The first was that spring has finally sprung. People are out enjoying outdoor activities and righting their lawns and gardens. Farmers and ranchers are busy seeding and calving. The second thing was that, despite the spring bloom, the economic outlook for most people was absolute gloom. The reason for that was the state of our nation's finances after nine years of the Liberals and the troubling path of wasteful spending and ever-increasing debt. Let us talk about deficit spending. That is when the government spends more money than it brings in revenue from Canadian taxpayers. Governments have nothing, unless they have taken it from us first. The government's insatiable appetite for spending means it seeks to tax and increase taxes on most everything, even our carbon footprint. That footprint got 23% more expensive this year, as we know, and the Prime Minister and his radical environment minister are hell-bent on continuing to make it even more expensive. Even with all these extra taxes, the Liberals still overspend. Under the current Prime Minister's leadership, Canada has seen its deficit spending increase significantly. In 2015, our federal debt was $616 billion, accumulated since the country was formed in 1867. Today, it has doubled to $1.2 trillion, which is over $30,000 per Canadian, thanks to the current Prime Minister's borrowing more than all of Canada's previous prime ministers combined. In fact, it will cost Canadian taxpayers $54.1 billion in interest just to service our national debt this year. That interest payment is more than the government spends on the annual provincial health care transfers. It is also about the same amount as the government collects in the GST, and maybe the GST's name should be changed to the DST, the debt servicing tax. The alleged intention behind this spending was to create sunny ways, to grow the middle class and to create fairness for all generations. These are all nice-sounding words, but in reality, when a prime minister does not think about monetary policy, nice words quickly get replaced by nasty results. Housing costs have doubled. Interest rates have risen faster than at any time in our history. Mortgage payments, down payments and rents have doubled. The cost of gas, groceries and home heating have skyrocketed, and people cannot afford to eat, heat or house themselves. This growing debt means that future generations of Canadians will be burdened with higher taxes and higher interest payments. That is why I, along with most Canadians, shook my head when the title page of this mess of a budget read, “Fairness for Every Generation”. There is absolutely nothing fair about the Liberals wasting Canadians' money to buy the support of the NDP. It is a way of spending their own way to feed their addiction to power. There is nothing fair about running up scandal-ridden bills, changing an election date to secure pensions on their way out and then leaving that bill for our children and grandchildren to pay. Conservatives are not the only ones who are critical of the Prime Minister's years of deficit spending. Economists and the financial sector have warned the Liberals that their spending is the major contributor to Canada's high inflation. Current Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, cautioned that this excessive spending will make it harder for the bank to lower interest rates. Even former Bank of Canada governor and Liberal supporter David Dodge says that the federal budget hurts the fight against inflation and that budget 2024 has the potential to be the worst budget since 1982. Who was in charge back then? It was another Trudeau. Speaking about inflation, more than 40 years ago, American economist and statistician Milton Friedman had something to say. It still holds true today, and maybe our Prime Minister and finance minister need to listen. He said: Inflation is just like alcoholism. In both cases, when you start drinking or when you start printing too much money, the good effects come first, the bad effects only come later. That is why, in both cases, there is a strong temptation to overdo it—to drink too much or to print too much money. When it comes to the cure, it is the other way about. When you stop drinking, or when you stop printing money, the bad effects come first and the good effects only come later. That is why it is so hard to persist with the cure.... Every country that has had the courage to persist in the policy of slowing monetary growth has been able to cure inflation and at the same time achieve a healthy economy. Besides the inflation problem that the Prime Minister and finance minister have created in Canada, we also find ourselves confronted by the concerning trend of decreasing productivity. What is more, while the government continues to spend, our productivity as a country is not keeping up. Our productivity is effectively how we efficiently produce goods and services. High productivity is key to improving our quality of life, increasing our wages and maintaining a competitive edge globally. However, Canada's productivity has seen a decline, which is a sign that we are not maximizing our potential. I will read what the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, Carolyn Rogers, noted in a recent speech in Halifax. She said, “Back in 1984, the Canadian economy was producing 88 per cent of the value generated by the U.S. economy per hour. That’s not great. But by 2022, Canadian productivity had fallen to 71 per cent.” Further, a recent Financial Post article observed that, over the current government's time in office, labour productivity has declined by an average of 0.8% per year. How can the government, based on the entirety of the budget, plan on strong labour productivity growth by recent standards? In reality, it is a “fudge it” budget, where they make up the numbers to try to make the budget work. The Liberals are treating productivity as just a number that they can manipulate to make their budget look slightly less horrible. However, productivity is not just a number; it is about how well we can sustain our quality of life. We must confront these challenges head-on, and it starts with demanding accountability and prudent financial management from our leaders in government. It starts with treating our proud resource development sectors and all the family-supporting jobs they provide with respect, instead of using them as a scapegoat. For example, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany asked Canada to be a trusted supplier of LNG. Other countries have also made that request. What is our Prime Minister's response? In effect, it is, “Oh, sorry folks, there is no business case for that here in Canada.” We can look at what has happened with that. Our American neighbours stepped up and are reaping the benefits. Their productivity went up 2.6% last year, while the Liberals were happy to see ours decline. Since 2019, the American GDP per capita has grown 7%; Canada's has fallen 2.8%. This is the single largest underperformance of the Canadian economy in comparison to the United States since 1965. Stats Canada recently published a report confirming that Canadians have gotten poorer under the current government. Our GDP per capita is now 7% lower than it should be, meaning that Canadians are $4,200 poorer per person. With the Liberals in charge, we should not be surprised by these numbers. We also need to be investing efficiently in areas that genuinely boost productivity, such as skills training, technology and innovation. We need to ensure that spending will bring about real, sustainable growth, not just a temporary quick fix. It is about finding balance in terms of supporting our current needs without compromising the ability of future generations, and Canadians, to meet theirs. We need a balance between investing in our country and ensuring we are not reckless and recklessly adding to a mountain of debt that would be impossible to climb down from. Mr. Speaker, the path forward requires courage, leadership and discipline. By advocating for responsible spending, investing wisely in our future and boosting our productivity, we can ensure that Canada remains a prosperous, vibrant place for generations to come. The time to act is now. The time to fix the budget is now, to ensure that Canada's financial health, productivity and the hope of Canadians are not just restored but allowed to flourish. Conservatives are ready and able to make that happen.
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Context: House Hansard - 305 - Apr/30/24
Mr. Richard Martel (Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, CPC)
  • Apr/30/24 1:17:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for her remarks. For nine years, the government has been pumping money into programs and constantly driving up the debt. Moreover, productivity is in free fall in Canada. The government spends, spends, spends, but we see that people are lining up at food banks, that grocery costs have doubled, and that people are unable to put a roof over their head or pay their mortgage. I have a question for my colleague. When are we going to see results?
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