- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Simcoe North
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $121,028.17
- Government Page
- May/17/23 2:44:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, before tabling the budget, the finance minister said that “by exercising fiscal restraint” and by not pouring fuel on the inflationary fire, the Liberals would ensure they could responsibly invest in Canadians. However, we need to pay attention to what the government does and not what it says, and what the government did was increase spending by $60 billion, or $4,300 for every family in Canada.
When will the government take its own advice and realize its spending is making life more unaffordable for Canadians?
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- Feb/14/23 2:59:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the government now believes that it no longer needs the Auditor General's advice.
The Auditor General identified $27 billion of COVID support payments that should be investigated, except that the CRA says that it is not worth the effort to review those payments. The Parliamentary Budget Officer is now ringing the alarm bells saying that he, too, is concerned that the CRA will not review these payments.
Will the government finally take the advice of the Auditor General, review these COVID payments and make sure that Canadians recover the improper payments paid by this government?
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- Feb/14/23 10:32:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure in this place. Today, I want to talk about inflation and spending. I have been here for just over a year. I have driven all over Ottawa, and I still cannot find the money tree that the government seems to have in its backyard, which it finds to spend on just about everything.
Let us find out why spending matters. It drives inflation. There are two kinds of inflation. There is demand-side inflation, where there is too much demand for too few goods or, as we often hear, too much money chasing too few goods. There is also supply-side inflation, which is not enough goods to meet the demand. We have both of those in Canada.
The problem is that the government would have us believe that the only issues causing inflation are supply-side issues that are outside of Canada's borders. However, many are now pointing out that inflation is being driven by too much demand in Canada, because we have too much money chasing too few goods. That is because we extended COVID supports longer than we needed to. We have prominent Liberal members, former members of Parliament, former finance ministers and former governors of the Bank of Canada suggesting that there is too much demand in Canada.
The Bank of Canada is trying to lower demand. That is why it keeps raising interest rates. However, when one raises interest rates, it really hurts people, including those vulnerable folks who are looking for shelter.
Inflation is even worse. Inflation hurts the lowest-income people, seniors and the most vulnerable Canadians the most. Every time they go to the grocery store, they feel like they are getting squeezed. They see it every day.
One of the main drivers of inflation is energy prices. It has been happening for the last number of years. Consistently, on this side of the House, we have put forward ideas to reduce the cost of energy. If one reduces the cost or the price of the thing causing inflation, one will reduce inflation.
I talked about spending and COVID supports. The government would have us believe that this is a binary discussion, and if one does not believe in government spending, then one did not support any of the COVID supports. That is not what we have been saying on this side of the House. In fact, this side of the House supported, in the very earliest days, the government putting forward programs to help people.
However, as COVID wore on and it became clear that there was abuse and that people were receiving COVID support payments that they should not have received, including prisoners, people who were lying, fraud artists and organized crime, people said, hang on a second, maybe we should consider making some changes. Even the Auditor General recommended that the government make some changes to the process they were using.
The government said not to worry. At the end it would go back, it would audit everybody and it would recover the money. However, the cheques were cashed and the money is gone. The CRA, which is supposed to be in charge of auditing the payments, said that it is not really worth the effort to go after everybody the Auditor General identified. That seems a little unnerving.
We are talking about $32 billion that the Auditor General said should be investigated. That is for payments that went to individuals who were ineligible but who got money anyway. There are also additional billions of dollars that went to people who were eligible, because of the government's poor design of a program, who should not have been eligible. That includes corporations that paid dividends to their shareholders, and they took the wage subsidy. They also had money to repurchase shares. That was about $7 billion or $8 billion. The Canadians for Tax Fairness put out a report yesterday showing how much abuse there was of the wage subsidy by very high-earning corporations.
In addition, we gave money to students, when the economy was open, to stay home and not work. That was another $8 billion or $9 billion. We are talking about almost $50 billion of COVID support payments out of a total $200 billion that might have gone to people who should not have had it. That is like 25% of the program.
That is why we are concerned. That is why we think that the Auditor General has given the government pretty good advice when she says that it should identify, go after and recover the payments.
It will increase Canadians' confidence in the integrity of the system. If the government just hopes that we all forget about it, Canadians are not going to believe that the government is working in their best interests. In fact, we need the government to take more seriously those who abuse the system so that it ensures the integrity of the system.
Canadians' support for institutions is falling, because the institutions are failing Canadians. We cannot simply say it is going to be too hard to look at these payments or to recover the money, so it is not really worth the effort. It should always be worth the effort to make sure that we recover payments that were improperly paid to Canadians.
We could have an honest discussion about those very low-income individuals who made an honest mistake when they applied. The amount is probably one or two billion dollars, and we could have a discussion about what kind of program, repayment or amnesty would make sense.
The Auditor General has called into question some of those payments. The Parliamentary Budget Officer also identified that over 40% of all spending that happened during COVID never actually went to helping Canadians through COVID. Those are two respected, independent officers of Parliament who have called into question the government's entire COVID support plan.
In times of inflation, we should always worry about top-line government spending, because when the government spends, it competes for goods. The government is spending 25% more per year, every year, than it did pre-COVID. The government calls that fiscal restraint. I have never met somebody who increases their spending by 25% and says they are spending a lot less money than we think they are.
We also have the tightest labour market ever seen. Unemployment is at an incredible low, yet the government continues to hire employees at a blistering pace. The private sector is trying to hire employees. They want to grow their businesses, to recover from COVID, to employ people who pay taxes and who pay corporate taxes. They cannot find anybody to work.
We have hotels with entire floors shut down, because they cannot find anybody to work there. It is not that they do not have the demand. They are turning people away. However, they do not have people to work, to open the rooms, to get the revenue, to pay the taxes, to pay the labour and to grow the GDP. Instead, the government wants to hire all those individuals and have them work for the government. That is not the way to grow ourselves out of this issue.
The government said, for almost five or six years, that we have to spend money because interest rates are so low. When the government was asked what happens if interest rates go up, it said not to worry because interest rates were going to remain low for the foreseeable future. When the government was asked what would happen to the cost of servicing the debt if interest rates went up, it said that was never going to happen.
Just this year, the government is going to spend $43 billion a year servicing and paying interest on the debt. Last year, it was $24 billion. Do members know how much we will spend on health care transfers to provinces next year? It will be $45 billion. We are going to spend almost as much money on servicing the debt as we will on transfers to the provinces for health care.
Everybody is wondering where we could find more money for health care. How about we spend less money on interest on the debt so that we would have more money for the things that Canadians rely on. However, that means we would have to spend less money on the things that are not important. The government has so many priorities that it has absolutely none at all.
The other issue is that the government does not need more revenue. The government has decided to continue to increasing taxes on things like the excise tax, which is a great example. The excise tax is going up on alcohol, beer, spirits and wine. It is going to cost industries tens of millions of dollars, which may even increase the price of those libations that members of Parliament and Canadians enjoy.
The government is increasing the excise tax because it linked it to inflation. However, when it decided to link that tax to inflation, no one believed that inflation was going to be 7%. All reasonable people are saying to take a pause on raising that tax. We do not need to continually hurt people as they try to purchase a six-pack of beer, a bottle of wine or a bottle of their favourite spirit.
The government does not need the revenue. It is making more money than it has ever made before. It is breaking records every day. The government needs to reduce its spending, to make sure that it is not taking on as much debt, to reduce the interest cost on the debt and to make sure that it does not compete with the private sector.
We need to make sure that we reduce inflation and to make sure Canadians can afford to live in this country.
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- Feb/2/23 3:03:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of fiscal mismanagement, the Liberal government is not even hiding it anymore. It has now decided it no longer needs to accept the advice of the Auditor General, who says $27 billion in COVID support payments need to be investigated. Instead, the CRA says it is not worth the effort.
Will the government take the advice of the independent Auditor General, or does it believe it is not worth the effort to recover money for taxpayers?
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- Dec/6/22 2:46:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the problem is that the Auditor General said very clearly the postpayment verification process is anything but rigorous.
The problem is that taxpayers are now on the hook for these billions of dollars they may never receive back. This is the same failed process the government is relying upon when distributing its new dental and rental benefits.
Will the government admit it had no controls and finally put some controls in place before it distributes any more government money?
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- Dec/6/22 2:45:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General stated that the process the government relied on to distribute COVID benefits led to $4.6 billion in overpayments to ineligible individuals, and at least another $27 billion that needs to be investigated.
How much of this $32 billion can taxpayers expect to recover? How much money is the government going to spend in administrative costs to recover money for taxpayers?
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Mr. Speaker, I have only been here for a year, but I have been driving all over the city and I still cannot find the money tree. I do not know where it is, but the government spent $100 billion of added debt before COVID and spent $500 billion of debt during COVID. Forty per cent of the money spent during COVID was not even related to the pandemic. That is not from us. That is from the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Annually, spending is now 30% higher than it was prepandemic. The only answer that this government has to any problem is to spend, spend, spend. Every six months, its members come back to the House and say they found fiscal restraint and do not worry. However, they just keep moving the spending line up; they just shift it up on the graph. Every time they do, they say, “Wait. From here going forward, we are only going to increase spending by 1% or 2%”, but when the real tally comes in at the end of the year, spending is up 6% or 7%, as it has been for every single year.
By the way, this spending profile, the 1% to 2% by which the Liberals are saying spending will grow, does not include new money for pharmacare. It does not include new money for the disabilities act we are passing in the House. It also does not include any new money for long-term health care. After a pandemic, one would think the government would want to give provinces additional money to spend on health care. We are seeing health care systems crumbling across the country, and the Liberals campaigned in 2015 on increasing health care funding long term.
The government initially said not to worry; it can spend because interest rates are so low. The Governor of the Bank of Canada said not to worry because interest rates are going to stay low forever. It was people on this side of the House who asked what happens if interest rates go up. Now we are going to spend more next year in interest on the debt than we do on national defence. We are going to spend almost as much on interest on the debt than we are transferring to the provinces through the Canada health transfer, which is what they spend on health care. Members can let that sink in. In 2024, the government is going to spend $24 billion more, for a total of $54 billion, on interest on the debt.
This is also a government that said inflation was not going to happen. It initially said that we would have deflation. The Deputy Prime Minister even went on TV and asked for people to please send her their ideas so Canadians could spend the cash they have in their bank accounts. I wonder if she still feels the same way.
The Liberals are now slowly sleepwalking us off a cliff. We are walking into economic uncertainty, and they refuse to admit that the world has changed. They are also committed to raising taxes. In the face of economic uncertainty, we are the only country in the world to raise taxes. We are going to raise the carbon tax and are going to raise EI premiums. By the way, I hope members do not like beer, because in June of next year, the excise tax on beer is going up 6.3%, which is incredible.
All the while, the government has also been growing the size of government. It has added 10,000 to 12,000 new full-time equivalent people every single year since 2015, yet services are going down. People cannot get a passport, cannot get immigration papers and cannot get a new pilot licence. Transport Canada will not even review medicals for people who want to become air traffic controllers. It is incredible.
What is the Liberals' answer? Well, it is okay; they will just spend more money. There is $400 million more in this economic statement for the CRA to hire more people, and I hope they are going to be answering the phone. In 2017, the Auditor General said that out of 50-some-odd million phone calls that went to CRA, 27 million got a busy signal. That is incredible. I hope those new individuals are not going to be auditing small businesses and middle-class Canadians across the country to make up for the spending hole that the government put us in.
Let me talk about the interest on student debt for a minute. The government is now going to give interest relief on the debt of students, which some might think sounds like an okay idea. However, here is the issue: We are in a deficit. The government is going to spend $500 million a year on taking interest away from the debt of students who are in post-secondary education.
The government's role should be making sure that additional students go to post-secondary education, not giving people a break who are already there. The government should be playing at the margins to increase the number of people, if they can go, who can afford to go to post-secondary education. It should not be giving that money to people who are already there, as this $500 million a year is money we will not have. Do members know who gets the economic benefit of going to post-secondary education? It is the student.
In fact, Alex Usher, who is a very well-known post-secondary education expert analyst, has tracked that students graduate with about the same amount of debt as they did in the early 2000s. That number has not gone up. It has been anywhere between $23,000 and just under $30,000 every year since the early 2000s.
This is not the United States. I know the government likes to import all of the U.S.'s problems here, but we do not have a student debt problem like they do in the United States. We can surely find better uses for this $500 million. Maybe we should give grants to low-income people who are not going to post-secondary education but who could afford it if they had more support. Instead, we are just going to give it to people who are already there for a problem that does not even exist. It is also expensive.
Dental care featured quite prominently in the House in a previous debate and also in the economic statement, so it is worth spending a couple of minutes on that now.
The government is going to spend almost $100 million in administrative costs to write cheques to people. It is going to use the same process that it used to give out the CERB, which relies on a self-attestation. Two results will occur: There will be fraud or there will be very little use of the program because people will be worried given what is happening now. They are getting calls from the CRA saying they need to give money back for the CERB.
The Auditor General is reviewing the process that the government used for the CERB and has not reported back her findings. I suspect that the government wanted to rush the dental care bill through this chamber before the Auditor General had a chance to tell us what she thought about the process for the CERB. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer has serious concerns with the fraud that can happen.
I listened to a very good podcast called All-In. There is a guy on it, David Friedberg, whom I agree with maybe the least, who always says there is room for nuance in everything. He says that everything is not black and white, it is not elite or populist and it is not left or right. He is encouraging us to embrace nuance, but the government wants people to believe that if they are against the dental care plan, they are somehow against kids getting healthy smiles. If the government was really interested in that, it would have taken the same $100 million, given it to the provinces to increase the provincial programs' eligibility criteria and used the exact same funding mechanism that already exists.
Thinking that people on this side of the House are not interested in healthy smiles is not what this is about. This is about process. This is about efficiency. We are going to spend $100 million in money we do not have to set up a cheque-writing scheme that is going to be used for a few years. It is incredible. This is all happening while service levels are going down and employee and staff costs are going up. Canadians do not have any more patience with this high-spend, high-tax Liberal government.
In closing, I would like to say that the government seems more interested in wealth redistribution schemes than it does in growing the economy. That is pretty clear. Every program is taxed more, put in a pot and then given away to Canadians at their choosing. The Liberals hold strings over the provincial governments, which is very paternalistic, and meddle in a bunch of provincial affairs, saying they have to spend money on this and have to spend money on that, instead of just getting out of the way, giving more money to the provinces and letting them do their jobs.
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- Oct/26/22 3:12:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, interest rates are up again, and the Bank of Canada says more raises are coming. Now the bank says that inflation reflects Canadian domestic factors, not the global factors the government keeps blaming. The government said interest rates will remain low, and then it went on a spending spree. It said it was irresponsible not to spend. It said there would be no inflation and then it said inflation would just be temporary. Now inflation is out of control and Canadians are paying more.
Will the Prime Minister finally admit his spending has made life unaffordable for Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill today but also to follow my friend from Vaughan—Woodbridge. I appreciate the opportunity.
First, I would ask for members' indulgence to address what many members already have this morning, and that is what we are seeing happening in geopolitical affairs, in particular in Iran. As I walked home last night, we saw the colours of Iran's flag flashed on Parliament Hill, but I could not help but feel just a little embarrassed because that seems to be what the government wants to do, which is to put out more signals or do things that do not cost much money as a way to show our solidarity.
It would be okay if we were doing many other things, but let us remember that the government said it would put these colours on the Peace Tower on Sunday. That was the first thing it said it would do when 50,000 people gathered at a rally to show their solidarity with what is happening with people in Iran and those who are fighting for their fundamental freedoms. It is almost like it was the same ministers holding up the sign that said, “I stand with Ukraine,” but never following it up with concrete actions.
I have to commend at least one member from that side of the House while I have the floor, the member for Willowdale, who had the courage to go on TV and say that the government has not done enough. I hope that more members in the House feel empowered to speak on behalf of themselves and the issues they feel strongly about.
Now let us talk about Bill C-30 while we are here. This is the temporary enhancement to the goods and services tax, the HST tax credit. I want to commend our chair for getting this bill through Parliament very well. It was a very lively committee with the minister. It is always a pleasure to have her there. I cannot say many questions were answered, but it was nice to see some co-operation on all sides of the aisle to get this bill back to the House in short order.
Inflation is at a 40-year high. The Bank of Canada says inflation crushes the most vulnerable people the hardest. That is why it is important we get inflation under control. I do believe this measure is supported on all sides of the House. It is important that we stand together with our most vulnerable. This tax credit would help those individuals.
The government needs to be doing more to help Canadians with inflation. This is why I was surprised the Deputy Prime Minister could not answer the question at committee yesterday of whether this initiative would lead to more inflation. I was not asking the question of whether it would lead to more inflation so we would not do this policy. It was so that maybe the government could take other steps elsewhere to reduce its impact on inflation.
We are paying for this with more debt. We are still in a deficit. Let us remember it was not long ago that people were questioning spending in this House and other people were saying it was irresponsible not to spend because interest rates were so low. Now, interest rates are much higher, so the cost of the debt we are putting on future generations is incredible.
The PBO says interest costs could potentially double if the trajectory of interest rates continues. That is a lot of money that is not going to be able to be spent on social programs in this country, programs that everyone relies on: health care, helping seniors, making sure that our social security safety nets are there for generations.
At committee yesterday, we were told that the government has a new-found religion called fiscal restraint. I think the young kids these days would say that fiscal restraint has entered the chat. However, I am not really sure if that is going to happen. Let us let history be our guide. This is a government that is addicted to debt and spending. It is placing an incredible burden on our future generations.
The solution to every problem that the Liberal government sees is more spending. The government has grown spending by well over 8% every year since coming into office. In fact, its spending is up 25% this year when compared to pre-COVID levels. Now we are to believe that, from this time going forward, the government is going to keep spending growth to 2%. I find that very hard to believe. In fact, some would say it is very unlikely.
If we were at a party and saw a teenager going back to the punch bowl and could not tear them away, and all of a sudden that teenager had one last big swig and said, “That's it. I'm done,” would we believe that youngster? I do not think so.
The dirty secret of the government right now is that it is awash in revenues. It has never made as much money as it is right now. The NDP want to discuss windfall tax profits from those corporations that are having record profits this year, but let us talk about a windfall tax on the government. Why does it not give some of that tax money back to Canadians or maybe cut some taxes to begin with? Every week that goes by it is breaking a record for the amount of money it is bringing in due to inflation.
I would submit the government does not need more money with additional tax increases. It has to provide relief to Canadians by either cutting taxes or providing additional relief. Germany, the U.K., France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and I could go on, but I think I only have four minutes left and I would exhaust that. These are all countries that have reduced taxes on fuel or paused tax increases. They have provided relief for people with energy bills in their countries. We are approaching a cold season. It is going to be hard for many Canadians across this country to heat their homes, yet they hear the government talk about how important it is that we pay a carbon tax.
Let us just take a break. We do not have to be all or nothing. If gasoline is at two dollars a litre, maybe the carbon tax could be reduced to zero. If gasoline is $1.25 a litre, perhaps the government could come up with a much lower number to be applied. It should at least give us a break. At two dollars a litre, people cannot afford it. It is not as though people have a choice. Many people have to put a certain amount of gas in their car every week to get to work, to take the kids to soccer practice and activities or to get to the grocery store. Not everybody lives near a subway line. Not everybody lives with public transit right around the corner. They cannot walk anywhere. We do not have horse and buggies everywhere, at least not in many parts of this province. Although some very wonderful people rely on that mode of transportation, it is not realistic for all Canadians.
Therefore, let us acknowledge that people are hurting right now. Instead of lowering our taxes like our peers, our answer to higher energy prices is to make them higher. The carbon tax is inflationary. The Bank of Canada admits this, but the government does not seem to want to answer that question. What is it that our government knows that all of these other countries somehow do not know? We are the only country in the world that is choosing to make energy more expensive.
As I conclude, I want to say that, on our side of the House, we were pleased to see this bill move forward quickly because it is going to provide relief, albeit a small relief, to Canadians in need. I appreciate that opportunity.
I would also like to say that I will be splitting my time with the wonderful member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, whom I very much look forward to hearing on this matter as well.
I welcome any questions from my hon. colleagues.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's intervention. I hope he took a break over the summer and was not here speaking the whole time. It is not surprising to hear his voice again in this chamber.
My question is relatively simple. The member claims, as do many other members of his party, that this would help hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty, which may be true. Has the Department of Finance booked any amounts of money for this program, or do we still not know how much the program is going to cost?
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- Apr/25/22 3:58:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise, as it always is, in this chamber to talk with my colleagues. We are talking about the budget today, so it is helpful to first ask the question and set where we are: Does the budget meet the expectations that Canadians had?
Gas prices have almost never been higher. Our food prices are going up and up. Retail prices are continuing to increase. Construction material prices and housing prices are going up too, and that includes rent, so both home ownership and rental accommodations are becoming incredibly more difficult to obtain for Canadians.
On the day after the budget, Canadians woke up. There was no immediate relief, no tax holidays and no tax rebates. In fact, on April 1, the government increased the carbon tax, which we know causes inflation. The Bank of Canada has been so kind to tell us that it has provided at least 0.5 of a percentage point to the inflationary measure that StatsCan puts out every year. The real question is, why is the government not doing everything in its power to reduce inflation?
I will give it to the government that all the inflationary pressures are not domestic. We have supply chain issues. We now have a war in Ukraine. However, the government has an easy lever to pull with respect to the inflationary pressures that it creates. It is the spending and carbon tax.
Let us talk about spending. Let us go through a few numbers and facts that are irrefutable. These are from the government's own documents. In 2015, the government spent about $300 billion. In 2019, the government spent $426 billion. In 2022, it is projected to spend about $452 billion. That is a 25% annual growth rate for this year compared with 2019. It is 53% growth in annual spending from 2015 to today. All the economists have been telling the government to take its foot off the pedal of spending because it is increasing inflationary pressure, so any assertion that this budget is prudent is comical.
Furthermore, we are led to believe that, while the government has been increasing spending by 7% to 8% every year since 2015, now all of a sudden, from this year going forward, it will hold the rate of spending growth to 2% to 3%. The only problem is that nobody believes the government. Absolutely no one thinks that it is possible for the current government to hold spending growth to 2% to 3%. In fact, in this budget, we do not even have projections for spending on the promise of pharmacare. We do not have projections for the spending on new health care transfers. We are just coming out of a pandemic and the government is saying that it is not going to increase health care transfers.
However, we have a fiscal anchor, we are told. The debt-to-GDP ratio is going to continue going down. The only reason the debt-to-GDP ratio is going to go down is inflation. The entire government's fiscal plan is based on inflation. It is the only way it is going to work. In fact, in just one year, from last year to this year, the government is projecting $170 billion in new revenue that it did not project last year. That money is coming from Canadians in the form of higher prices. That is money people are having to pay. Their dollar is not going far enough. It is a silent tax and it hurts the most vulnerable in our society.
In fact, in the tightest labour market in a generation, the government has spent money on hiring 10,000 civil servants a year every year since 2015. What do we have? In the tightest labour market, the government still wants to spend money and hire new civil servants. Where are these people going to come from? All of our small business owners across the country are crying for more people, so the government's decision is to hire some more people. Those are individuals who now cannot work in the private sector, cannot help a business grow and cannot help a business get back on its feet.
They pay taxes and salaries. That is going to lead to private sector growth, but let us talk about some specific measures. I am a balanced person. There are some good things in the budget, no doubt.
Employee trusts set up an opportunity for individuals to pass their business on to employees, and I think that is a welcome measure. What the government proposes to do with the ready, willing and able initiative, which is a policy, by the way, that was started under former finance minister Jim Flaherty, is to give organizations some additional funds to encourage those people with intellectual disabilities to enter the workforce. It should be applauded.
The Great Lakes fishery investments are well needed, and there is some money for freshwater cleanup. On the freshwater cleanup, it was nice to see Lake Simcoe referenced. However, it is a much smaller number than what had been previously promised.
Everyone talks about how Conservatives just like to talk about all the spending and not about what they are going to cut. Here we go. Here are some ideas for the government to consider.
On the infrastructure investment bank, breaking up is really hard to do, it seems. Instead of walking away from something that is not working very well, the government expands the mandate and gives it more money. Not only that, but it is taking the same failed model and saying it is going to create a new $15-billion innovation fund. Again, superclusters are reintroduced, with some expanded money. It would be unparliamentary to say the word I am thinking of right now.
The government is planning on spending money on a buyback program for guns, instead of taking that money and putting it into reducing crime. We need to do much more of a comprehensive spending review. It is nice to see that there was one mentioned, but it is not nearly going to be enough.
Let us talk about young people for a minute. The new, shiny, tax-free home savings account sounds amazing, except when one finds out that it is going to take a full year before it comes into effect, and then it is going to take another five years for an individual to max out on the contributions. Also, the home tax-free savings account cannot be used with the homebuyers plan, so people must make a choice. It is one or the other. Really, one program is going to be gutted and replaced with another, for a shiny new object. It is mostly a marketing ploy, in my opinion.
Instead, what the government could have done was to tell individuals who use the homebuyers plan that they do not have to pay the $35,000 back. That would have been a far more effective way to accomplish what it is trying to accomplish and have an immediate effect.
We asked young people to stay at home for two years. We asked this of all Canadians, but young people in particular put their lives on pause for two years for a virus that represented very little risk to them. Yes, Canada had a very low death rate, and I think that is a positive outcome of the pandemic and some of the responses. However, young people have now come forward and are re-emerging back into the economy. What have they found? The thanks they have found is that they now have a national debt that has doubled and that they are now responsible for, and a housing market that is completely unattainable. The Bank of Montreal released a report and singled out Orillia, which is in my riding, for having a 300% increase in house prices in six years. It is incredible to think of how young people are looking at this housing market and believing it is attainable.
I have talked about the bank tax before in this chamber. If the government thinks there are excess profits in that industry, we should really be revamping competition law. My prediction right now is that we will see an increasing number of bank branch closures across this country, particularly in rural Canada. It is no surprise that just last week, after the budget, banks made closure announcements in small communities across this country, including one in Brechin, which is in my riding, along with others in Pefferlaw, Cannington and Stayner.
I will close on another matter that is very close to my riding: the boat tax. There are 25 marinas and 15 boat dealers in my region. The government thinks that if a person can afford a boat, they deserve to be taxed. With the price of cottages and housing, these individuals are looking for other options for recreation, and boating is one of them.
However, this tax is only going to push jobs and investment elsewhere. These individuals are going to buy their boats south of the border and bring them here. That is going to hurt the people in my community, and that is going to bring in far less revenue than the government believes.
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- Apr/4/22 3:44:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for talking about this issue again in the House of Commons.
Of course, it is very important that we think about our fish harvesters and those who are very close to insolvency. We absolutely need to be there to help those who are nearing bankruptcy. At the same time, there are Canadians across the country who are very close to bankruptcy, so when we talk about increasing the cost of living through higher carbon taxes or higher taxes period, it is going to push people closer to insolvency. Additionally, the Bank of Canada has said it is going to increase interest rates for the next number of meetings, so we can expect a much higher interest-rate policy. Where are families going to come up with the additional funds?
I think we should be talking in this place about how not to increase the burden on families and should really make sure we can support them in the way they need.
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- Apr/4/22 3:42:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the question is not whether child care is good or not. We had a debate in the last election about different child care policies. The question is, what are the priorities of the government? If it has so many priorities, then it really does not have any at all. If we want to talk about how to fund child care, we should not be taking on additional debt to fund operational costs of government. Why do we not just have an honest discussion about what is no longer working and where we can find the money to fund some of these programs?
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- Apr/4/22 3:31:32 p.m.
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moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented on Monday, March 21, 2022, be concurred in.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to members this afternoon. I would like to mention that I am splitting my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.
The world is different now than it was just a year ago. We have an unprovoked invasion and war by the Russian Federation against Ukraine that threatens our global security and shattered peace in Europe, inflation is anything but transitory and COVID restrictions are lifting across Canada, giving hope to our nation that we can return to some normalcy. However, it is in this global context that we must consider the budget.
Our committee heard testimony from a number of witnesses about what they would like to see in this year's budget. The budget can provide some opportunities and can deal with some challenges that our country faces. There is no question that our government needed to provide unprecedented levels of support to Canadians and businesses during the early days of the pandemic. However, as pandemic concerns abate through our greater understanding of the virus, we must be prepared to evolve our approach to government spending.
Closer to home, Canada must put its own economic house in order so that we can respond to the changing global context. We have to re-establish Canada as a destination for investment, and supply the world with ethical, conflict-free energy. If we want to stop Mr. Putin's war machine, we must help our allies reduce their dependence on Russian energy by ensuring that our energy can reach global markets. Furthermore, we can create a secure North American energy market that uses all sources of Canadian energy, including renewables, traditional fuels and nuclear energy. That is how we will help defeat Mr. Putin.
At home, the number one issue affecting Canadians is affordability. At the grocery stores, at the gas pumps and at retail shopping locations, prices keep going up and up. Our purchasing power is shrinking faster than at any other point in the last 30 years. This is a silent tax that hurts the economically vulnerable and those on fixed incomes, such as seniors, the most.
There are several ways the government can address this, and we heard some of them at committee.
We can reform competition policies and help lower prices for consumers by increasing competition in key sectors, which includes banking, air travel and telecommunications. If we believe excess profits exist in these industries, the answer is not additional taxes to increase government revenues. Rather, consumers should capture these excess profits in the form of lower prices.
We should reform the one-for-one rule on regulatory burden. Instead of taking out a regulatory rule for every one we bring in, why do we not just cut the regulatory burden by 50% over five years? Let us be ambitious.
We can quicken the implementation of the beneficial ownership registry for Canadian corporations that look to the Canadian market to hide assets in the form of money laundering. Most of those laundered funds end up in real estate, which distorts our local real estate markets. Just last week, the Bank of Montreal indicated that in six years there has been a threefold increase in housing prices in Orillia, which is in my riding. How can we expect young Canadians to look at this country and think that home ownership is in the cards for them?
We need to focus on economic growth. We have seen an unprecedented growth in the size of government by every available measure, but at this point we must focus on the private sector to take advantage of the entrepreneurial spirit of Canadians. The government has seemed more interested in wealth redistribution than it is on underlying economic growth, and this must change. We do not need new superclusters or national consultations distorted by well-connected lobbyists and rent-seekers. We must create an environment where businesses of all sizes can thrive. Businesses that grow create jobs and pay taxes.
An overarching opportunity following the pandemic is the rapid deployment of high-speed Internet across all regions of the country, and that is very important to the people in Simcoe North. It is nice that, as we heard just today, the government might be subsidizing and working with those who are of low income so they can access high-speed Internet, but this really will not help those who do not have access to high-speed Internet in the first place.
Tax policy that penalizes success also drives investment away. It is not a surprise that in the year following the changes the government made to the marginal tax rates in 2016, the government received far less revenue than it anticipated. These short-sighted policies can drive businesses, jobs and tax revenues to other jurisdictions. This hurts Canada through lower tax revenues that are used to fund social programs enjoyed by all Canadians: health care, retirement security and, of course, education.
Furthermore, industry-specific tax policy is a very poor idea. The government should set a consistent rate applicable to all sectors. Capital can move freely across borders, and in some sectors, like financial services, companies can shift operations and profits to other jurisdictions. Additional taxes on oligopolies are only going to result in higher prices for consumers or lower levels of investment.
We must carefully understand the negative impacts of certain tax policy changes. For example, the luxury boat and car tax we heard at committee will only increase the sales of these products in foreign markets, notably the United States. This will drive investment, jobs and taxes out of Canada with very little revenue increase for federal coffers. My riding has one of the largest freshwater marinas in the world, plus another dozen or so other marinas. This is going to take jobs out of my community and will hurt the people of Simcoe North.
When it comes to fiscal responsibility, now is the time to make a new path. The Bank of Canada indicates that the economy is robust and is operating near full capacity, which means additional fiscal expansion will just create inflationary pressures. These warnings are coming from all corners of the country. It has been almost 10 years since the federal government underwent any serious scrutiny of its spending, and it is unhealthy for an organization of its size to go this long without reviewing its expenditures.
It is even more important now to rationalize our non-core expenditures to focus on priority areas, including our national defence. We must support our allies, such as Ukraine and those in NATO, and we need to be able to defend our Arctic sovereignty. Pulling forward defence expenditures to displace other planned spending is a sacrifice that Canadians are willing to make in the face of increasing threats from the Russian Federation.
Additionally, the government is going to see a windfall of revenue resulting from persistent inflation, higher-than-expected oil prices and, yes, higher taxes. These excess revenues should be used to reduce the size of the deficit or provide relief to Canadian families in the form of tax holidays. Significant deficit spending at all stages of the economic cycle will have a protracted impact on the fiscal sustainability of government finances. It will threaten our AAA credit rating, which is only going to drive up the cost of borrowing. We cannot continue to erode the country's fiscal position with no plan to rein in unnecessary expenditures. The ability of future governments to deal with the emergencies of their time depends on the responsibility of our government today.
We also must think about the overarching regulatory framework in the country with respect to financial regulation. We are still waiting for open banking regulations. We are still waiting for the government to get serious about innovation in the financial services sector. However, we need to consider asking our agencies to get back to basics. The emerging housing affordability issue and related financial system vulnerability expose serious concerns about the effectiveness of our regulatory system in Canada. We have agencies on one day saying one thing about the housing market, and on the next day, a different agency says the complete opposite. That cannot be left to continue. We also need to make sure we have the right people and HR strategy to attract those who have knowledge about the financial services sector to help us through this transition.
Finally, there are a few items I would like put forward that we heard at committee that the government should be considering.
We talked about high-speed Internet. We need to re-establish the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund. We have to fund the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. We have to implement a two-year ban on purchases of real estate by non-resident Canadians. Let us take the wind out of the sails of this red-hot property market. We have to follow through on the existing mental health and addictions commitments for an opioid addiction strategy. Finally, we need to ensure that we can introduce employee-owned trusts that will help our business owners transition business interests to employees. I hope we will make some headway on affordable housing and all kinds of housing in this budget.
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- Mar/4/22 1:00:37 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, it is very nice to see you in the chair. I hope we will see more of you there. It is a pleasure working with you at committee, but it is nice to see you in the chair today.
It is nice to intervene with my colleagues on Bill C-8, the economic and fiscal update implementation bill, but before I get to that, it seems rather appropriate to acknowledge the devastation that we see in Ukraine. What we see in the unprovoked aggression of the Russian Federation in Europe is heartbreaking. The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the government have my full support to continue to respond in the harshest of terms. I would support them to take an even more aggressive approach and I look forward to a Canadian response that includes an increase in our humanitarian efforts and aid.
I have listened to many colleagues speak in the chamber about Bill C-8. We studied the bill at committee. I take this job very seriously. On its face, there are many items in Bill C-8 that seem rather reasonable, such as measures to support educators on an annual basis by increasing tax relief and measures to extend the COVID supports provided to businesses. How we will procure additional vaccines in the future is also addressed.
There are other areas that I have significant concerns about, in particular the proposed housing tax and the carbon rebate that the government has proposed for farmers. However, before I turn to these issues, I would like to address an overall objection that I have to the bill.
Legislation is constantly being sent to the House that has significant amounts of spending attached to it. We are never told how it will be funded, because the assumption is that these bills will be funded with debt. The assumption is that there is no limit to the debt this country can absorb and that when we want to fund our programs, the answer is to just add them to the deficit.
This is not sustainable. I am appealing to all my colleagues that we must hold the government accountable for its spending plans. If members agree with all the expenditures in the bill, that is completely fine, but unless the government is also going to propose areas where it will cut back in order to fund priorities, I cannot support this legislation. We are missing an opportunity to set priorities. There will be no objection from me on spending on the priorities that all Canadians rely on, including health care, education and social support programs, including those programs for our low-income and most vulnerable members of society, and of course our seniors.
We cannot just keep piling on debt and pretend that there are no consequences for future generations. On this basis alone, I am against the legislation, and until the government brings forward a proposal to review its spending and shows how any new spending will be met with reductions in other areas, it will be hard to persuade me to support future bills.
Until the government gets serious about setting priorities for its spending, we will continue to see difficulty passing legislation through the House. I think there is a reasonable debate we can have about what those priorities are, but I also want to know where it would like to cut back. I agree with a former Liberal leader who indicated that it was hard to set priorities. That is right, and if we have 100 priorities, I submit that we have none at all.
The Bank of Canada raised interest rates just two days ago, and it is projected that the bank will raise interest rates many more times before the end of the year. The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a projection indicating that the federal government alone could see interest payments on its debt increase to $40 billion a year annually. That is $40 billion a year that we are not spending on health care, that we are not transferring to the provinces for education, that we are not using to grow an inclusive economy.
A social democrat friend of mine recently told me that social democrats should care about fiscal responsibility because it means that governments do not waste in some areas so that they can spend in priority areas.
Let us think about that. We could be having a debate right now about how we could spend $40 billion. We could be debating pharmacare, a universal basic income or doubling or tripling the support for certain vulnerable groups in society. We could also be debating about how to provide much-needed tax relief for Canadians to keep the burden of taxation low on families and individuals, especially in an inflationary environment.
The Bank of Canada tells us the economy is robust. It tells us that the economy is operating at capacity. That also means new spending will have upward pressures on inflation. Many economists are recommending to the government that it review its spending and reconsider its proposals to introduce new spending plans, because at this point in the business cycle, new spending will have upward pressures on inflation, and we know the budget coming before us in a month or so will introduce new spending.
Last year's budget introduced almost $100 billion over three years, and curiously, I did not see one additional dollar for health care. At a time when health care expenditures in provinces are going up without any end in sight, at a time in a pandemic when health care spending is of the utmost importance, the government has not shown an approach that would see an increase in spending on health care.
Now I will turn to Bill C-8, and specifically to the two proposals I wanted to mention today that we had challenges with. We have just heard one of them in the recent intervention: the proposed underused housing tax for foreign purchasers or foreign owners. If we think a 1% tax is going to have any impact on purchasing behaviour or increase the level of supply across this country, we are sorely mistaken. When an asset price rises by 30% or 40% in a year, a 1% tax is not going to change somebody's behaviour and will not deter money launderers, so we put forward a reasonable amendment, which was to introduce a temporary ban to provide a reprieve on foreign purchases of Canadian real estate for two years.
This was a campaign commitment of both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party in the last election. The Liberals are famous for making promises, but they typically make two kinds of promises: those they intend to keep and those they hope we forget about. Canadians want to know whether this is a commitment the government is walking away from.
With respect to the carbon tax as it relates to farmers, I have heard from farmers in my riding and across the country that the rebate does not go nearly far enough. I had one farmer send me a bill for $13,000, just in carbon tax, for natural gas to dry their product. We need to provide farmers with relief. They are the ones who feed our cities. They cannot afford additional taxes.
A carbon tax is supposed to do two things. It is supposed to raise revenue for the government and it is supposed to change behaviour. However, sometimes there are no alternatives available for changed behaviour, and with prices going up somewhere between 30% and 40% over the last year on natural gas and fuel across the country, the outcomes the carbon tax is hoping to achieve are already being achieved. The government needs to provide much-needed relief to farmers, but it also needs to reconsider raising the carbon tax on April 1 of this year, because in and of itself, this is an inflationary pressure.
I look forward to questions and comments.
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- Nov/30/21 1:33:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Carleton.
I want to thank the voters of Simcoe North for placing their confidence in me to advocate on their behalf in this special place. I thank all the volunteers who helped out on my campaign.
I want to recognize my fellow candidates and their volunteers for supporting the political process and making our democracy stronger.
I will remember that, standing here, I represent the views of all my constituents and will balance all sides of an issue for the best interests of my community and our country. The recent months of knocking on thousands of doors and talking to constituents has informed my views.
I must also thank Mrs. Downer's grade five class who welcomed me to my new role with letters reminding me of the continued need to work on truth and reconciliation with indigenous peoples.
I have large shoes to fill. Great people from multiple parties have stood in my place before me: Paul Devillers who was an excellent representative for Simcoe North; and, of course, the great Doug Lewis, who guided me through both my nomination and general election campaigns. Most recent, Bruce Stanton, a man of integrity and who has immense respect for this institution, served Simcoe North admirably for almost 16 years.
Many of us would not be here without the love and support of family and friends, so I would thank my parents for providing a supportive environment at every opportunity; my sunny ways gang; and, of course, my amazing spouse, Jane. In fact, I like to say that I am already an expert in bipartisan compromise because if my spouse was in this chamber, she would be sitting across the aisle. There are also many people who took an interest in my professional career development over the years, such as Hugh Moncrieff, for which I am grateful.
My political mentor was the late Jim Flaherty, a man well known in this place for his fierce loyalty, great oratory skill, deft handling of crisis and an unwavering commitment to public service. In a letter, Minister Flaherty once challenged me to not forget the importance of public issues and to seize the opportunity to change the world for the better, sometimes for individuals and other times the public. He taught me the value of fiscal responsibility and public service.
It is with that context that I am proud to take my seat in this 44th Parliament and discuss the Speech from the Throne.
I have the benefit of having been in the Department of Finance during the last major economic crisis, the great recession. During that time, we learned that stimulus spending should be temporary, targeted and timely. With the Liberal government, we are batting about one in three. Even the great musician, Meatloaf, would not be satisfied.
Right now, economic growth is projected to be 5% in 2021 and 5% in 2022. This is hardly the time for additional spending. The Speech from the Throne lays out a $100 billion of new spending, which will be deficit financed. The truth, when it comes to debt, is that we cannot say no and we just cannot help ourselves. All levels of government, persons and corporations have never been more in debt. If debt was a drug, we would be addicts. We should care about this because of what it costs to service the debt and how it impacts our ability to deliver services to Canadians.
If interest rates rise to 2019 levels, the costs to service the federal debt will go up almost 60% or about $13 billion per year. That is before we include any measures in the throne speech. This money has to come from somewhere. It will either be taxed in the economy, services will be cut or we will have to take on additional debt.
This additional spending is creating a significant risk for our economy and for future generations. I have two young children, Davie and Cooper. I worry that the government they inherit will be permanently impaired from dealing with the challenges of their time. Our spending decisions today will impact future generations from paying for their social services on which all Canadians rely: our health care, education, supporting our seniors or even being prepared for the next pandemic or environmental catastrophe.
I would ask my colleagues to imagine for a moment if the government had been in power during the great recession. We would have spent multiples of what was spent and it would have meant we would have had less fiscal capacity to deal with today's pandemic. As it was, the government spent almost $100 billion of money we did not have before the pandemic. It spent that money when unemployment was near record lows and the economy was growing well.
When times are good, it appears the answer is to spend money. When times are bad, the answer is to spend more money. The government spends money with no regard for the consequences for the future. Now some economists are warning the government to take its foot off the pedal, that we do not need to keep spending and that it may only make inflation worse.
Of course, the government needed to step up and help people during the pandemic. The government was right to do so and to support Canadians most affected. However, the spending had its time. It is now time to refocus on growing the economy and expanding the productive capacity of Canadians and businesses.
We could build up rural broadband much faster than the current plan, implement comprehensive tax reform, focus on productivity, economic growth, the labour shortage or even reduce internal trade barriers. All of these are important economic drivers that were absent from the throne speech. It is unfortunate that we are not here debating which programs work and which programs no longer serve their intended purpose. If the government were proposing to trim back in some areas to fund these new priority areas, we would welcome that discussion.
We have to be willing sacrifice and give some things up to focus on our priorities. Spending on everything is an easy way to govern; it is politically expedient.
One would think that with all this money being spent, nobody is being left behind. However, in my riding, there are small business owners, including a bowling alley, that find themselves on the outside looking in. They see other individuals and businesses and, in some cases, reports of even organized criminals taking advantage of the COVID supports, but Andy and Kathy cannot get the help they need to keep their business running.
Another example is independent travel agents. There are about 12,000 independent travel agents in Canada, 85% of whom are women. Throughout this pandemic, they have been on the outside looking in. It does not look like they qualify for the new COVID pandemic supports relief funding, even when the government is encouraging people not to fly. They have been overlooked for supports from the beginning.
We did have money to give billions of dollars to publicly traded companies. We gave hundreds of millions to air carriers. However, we told some of our smallest businesses that they were not important enough. Therefore, when the government does spend, it does not seem to do it all that well. It is important for the government to be measured, focused and effective, but, unfortunately, we do not see much of a plan.
If my colleagues are unpersuaded by what I have to say, I will offer a quote from a well known Globe and Mail columnist who said, “Don't be fooled.” The Speech from the Throne is “many things, but it's devoid of vision for an economic rebuild.”
We need to do everything we can to unleash the economic opportunities for all Canadians and do so in a way that spends within our means. If we provide a coherent economic vision for our country, we will be far less reliant on government spending to support our recovery.
It is through increased economic activity of the private sector, small businesses and innovators that we will find wealth and prosperity for Canadians. We will not find prosperity by relying on excess government spending that will only restrict future generations. Our children's future depends on it. In fact, many times in the chamber we have talked about intergenerational equity with respect to the environment. I would submit that this same passion should be brought when we talk about fiscal responsibility.
I believe all members in the chamber want the same thing. We want to leave our country in a better place for our children and grandchildren. I look forward to working with members from all sides of the House on this shared objective.
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