- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Simcoe North
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $121,028.17
- Government Page
- May/29/23 9:07:35 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, it is very clear that the Minister of Finance does not want to stand behind her government's record and its choices in issuing debt.
Here is another question. How much more will the government have to pay if inflation does not come down and interest rates do not come down, as it is projecting them to come down in its own budget, when it rolls over its debt in the next two years?
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- May/29/23 9:06:46 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, it is obviously clear that the minister is ashamed of the government's record in choosing to issue short-term debt when rates were so low.
Could the minister tell the House and Canadians what the average interest rate is that the government expects to pay on the debt that is maturing and rolling over in the next two years?
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- May/29/23 9:05:36 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, 52% of all of the debt issued in that time frame was for under three years. In fact, only 10% of that debt was issued with 10 years or more maturity.
How is it possible that the government says its debt management strategy is fiscally responsible when at the lowest interest rates, it financed most of that debt in the short term, which is all going to roll over in the next two years?
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- May/29/23 9:04:59 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, it is true. It is a fact. The government issued $471 billion of debt between February 2020 and January 2022.
Could the hon. minister tell us how much of that issued debt is maturing in under three years?
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- May/29/23 9:04:22 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, could the hon. minister tell us this? Is it not a fact that between February 2020 and January 2022, the government issued approximately $471 billion of debt?
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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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- Oct/20/22 2:34:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government increased the debt by over $100 billion before COVID and then increased the debt another $500 billion during COVID, half of which it did not even spend on pandemic measures. Now we are supposed to believe the government has a new-found religion called fiscal restraint.
If the government has not shown Canadians any fiscal responsibility in seven years, why should we trust it now?
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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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- 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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