- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Louis-Saint-Laurent
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 63%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $128,105.00
- Government Page
- Oct/17/23 1:22:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to participate in this official opposition day debate on the cost of living, which is having a major impact on all Canadians.
First of all, let me pay my respects to my new colleague from Oxford, who delivered a very great and powerful speech, as everybody does here on this side of the House.
When we talk about inflation, that is a topic that, unfortunately, Canadians are concerned about the most today. Inflation is affecting everyone, but has the biggest impact on the least fortunate among us and on people who earn the least. That is the problem: Inflation affects everyone, but hits the least fortunate the worst. We have also seen that inflation is greedy and it infiltrates everything from housing to food to transportation.
The government has a major role to play in controlling inflation. Yes, inflation is affecting everyone, but it would not be so bad if we were fortunate enough to have a government that acted responsibly and controlled spending, which it has never done in eight years of governing. After eight years of Liberal governance, what do we see in this country? Inflation is too high and the cost of living is very high. Everything is more expensive and unfortunately the government is to blame for that.
We should remember that these fine people were elected in 2015 on a promise to run three small deficits and balance the budget in 2019. Many people thought it was bold to do that, ambitious even. Many people also knew that it would not work. Unfortunately, we were the ones who said that, and we were right because, in eight years, this government has never been able to balance the budget, control spending or keep its promise of zero deficit. This has a direct impact on inflation.
We should also remember that every time she is asked a question about this these days, the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister keeps repeating to wait, that the economic update is coming and that we are going to see measures to control inflation.
I would remind the House that a year ago, almost to the day, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance tabled the economic update. What did she say at that time? Quite a lot, when you quote her. She said, “What all Canadians want right now is for inflation to keep coming down, and interest rates to fall....that is one of our primary goals in this year's budget: not to pour fuel on the fire of inflation”.
What the minister said was ludicrous, to put it politely. A year ago, she said that we would have a balanced budget by 2028, and that anything less would amount to pouring fuel on the fire of inflation. Six months later, unfortunately, we got $60 billion in new spending, $60 billion worth of fuel that she poured on the fire of inflation. Today, we are struggling with that.
A year ago, the Minister of Finance said that the budget would be balanced by 2028. She did not meet that goal. Six months ago, she tabled a budget that not only ran a deficit, but, more importantly, did not include a plan for achieving a balanced budget. Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer observed that the deficit was set to exceed $46 billion, 16% more than forecast six months ago.
These people have no management skills. After eight years of a government whose spending is out of control, Canadians are suffering the direct effects of inflation across the board.
Earlier, my colleague from Oxford was talking about food banks. My riding has the great privilege of having extraordinary volunteers, people whose hearts are in the right place and who work hard to help the less fortunate. However, they tell me over and over again, every time I see them, that food is a basic necessity and demand for their services is going up. Two years ago, people were bringing food to our most vulnerable to help them. Today, those same people are going to the food bank for help. It is outrageous that middle-class people in a G7 country have to line up at food banks. That is the reality of Canada after eight years of this government.
Inflation is affecting young people who want to buy a home. Mortgages, down payments and rents have doubled in the eight years this government has been in power. When people cannot afford proper food and a decent home, that means there are some deeply rooted problems. They are very significant problems that are hitting Canadians and Quebeckers who are struggling with inflation.
That is why this government needs to seize the opportunity. Continued overspending will lead to broken dreams for the next generation.
This morning, the Journal de Québec and the Journal de Montréal, issued by the QMI Press Agency, published a survey conducted by Centraide of Greater Montreal, an agency that has been helping people everywhere for decades. This survey is quite worrisome because it reveals that people are experiencing increasingly high levels of financial anxiety. Some 85% of people say they feel anxious when they talk about their personal finances.
The survey reports on the financial anxiety index of Centraide of Greater Montreal and was conducted in collaboration with Leger. Claude Pinard, director of the Centraide of Greater Montreal, said the following:
People in poverty don’t have a cushion, they’re people who live day to day and try to get through the month. However, when you are this tight, your budget items are entirely occupied by housing and food. If you have credit card or other debts, and if they increase, you no longer have the capacity to pay the essentials.
This is increasingly the reality for many Canadians who are currently struggling with inflation and who see, as we do, as everyone does, that the government is doing nothing to curb inflation. As we know, the best thing a government can do to control inflation is to stop its uncontrolled spending.
I was talking about young people. It is unworthy of a G7 country like Canada to let its young people lose their ambitions and dreams. The survey shows that 85% of Quebeckers are experiencing varying degrees of financial stress. One of the fears reported is that young people aged 18 to 34 will never be able to own their own home. Nearly two-thirds of them think that way. Fully 61% of young Quebeckers have given up on the possibility of becoming homeowners one day. What a sad reality. We need to get a handle on this situation.
To quote Mr. Pinard again, “When we know that it takes an annual income of more than $100,000 to buy in Montreal, many young people say to themselves: we will never be able to buy. Many also do not see the suburbs as an option. They must therefore give up their dream”.
This is heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. At the ripe age of 59, I think I can say that we were all young once. We all had ambitions. We all dreamed of owning a home, as beautifully expressed in the song Dégénérations, which was quoted by our leader in his speech at the Conservative Party convention in Quebec City. If young people lose this dream and see that home ownership in Canada has become impossible after eight years of this Liberal government, it means that we, as a country, as a nation, and despite all our pride, have really gone off the rails. We have to get back on track.
That is why today's motion aims to get the government back on track. The government needs to get its head out of the sand. The government needs to realize that after eight years of uncontrolled spending, we are now paying the cost. It is never too late to do the right thing. That is why we are asking the government to do what any manager should do when a crisis hits: Have a game plan for balancing the budget. We are not asking for a miracle. We are simply asking the government to do what it promised in 2015 but then promptly forgot, and that is to balance the budget. It is the very foundation of the economy. It is at the very basis of respecting the promise made in 2015. It is at the very basis of restoring the confidence and hope of young people who one day want to own their own home, but who today are seeing that dream being shattered by the inflationary crisis that has hit the country and by the irresponsibility of this government, which continues to spend, spend, spend.
In good faith and with the best of intentions, I invite the government to pull itself together, get back on track, and introduce a plan to return to a balanced budget, for the good of all Canadians.
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- Jun/21/23 6:02:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are talking about taxation, the budget, the management of public funds and, most importantly, how we are going to manage the money that Canadians give us through their taxes.
Just seven months ago, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance tabled an economic update and gave the following warning. She said that we needed to control spending and avoid deficits because deficits throw fuel on the inflationary fire. Those were the exact words used by the Minister of Finance. Now, here we are seven months later and she has completely changed her tune after getting a slap on the wrist from Liberal supporters who said that they wanted more deficits and that there was no problem.
How can the member explain the fact that, just seven months ago, the Deputy Prime Minister was saying that we should not run deficits, that we should control spending and that there was a plan to balance the budget, but now all of that has gone out the window.
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- Jun/6/23 2:39:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, members will perhaps recall one of the most ridiculous statements made in the history of Canadian politics when the Prime Minister said that budgets balance themselves.
No one repeated it because it makes no sense. The problem is that, after eight years of Liberal governance, budgets have never balanced themselves. We have had deficit upon deficit.
I will share something. Last November, we thought we saw the light at the end of the tunnel when the Minister of Finance said that we should not throw fuel on the inflationary fire, meaning that spending must be controlled.
Why did she change her mind, with the disastrous results we are seeing today?
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this afternoon's debate on Bill C‑19, which affects public finances, of course. I will have the opportunity to come back to that in a few seconds.
Today being June 6, I would like to begin by honouring the memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, to liberate all of humanity from the Nazi menace. We owe them our eternal gratitude.
Let us turn to the topic that has been affecting all Canadians for far too long now: inflation. Unfortunately, this problem will not go away overnight. Inflation is affecting everyone to varying degrees, from humble workers to retirees, students and business people. Unfortunately, as economic studies from top universities have found, it is having more of an impact on the least fortunate citizens.
Inflation is currently hovering around 8% in Canada. We would have to go back 30 years to find such a high inflation rate. As I was saying earlier, it is the least fortunate citizens who are the primary victims. No one will accuse members of the House of being the least fortunate, to say the least, considering how much we earn a year. If anyone has a problem with that, they should know that there will be 338 positions available in three years. We have to keep the least fortunate citizens in mind, and the government has a duty and a responsibility to do something to soften the blow for many Canadians and Canadian families.
The member for Mégantic—L'Érable, the deputy leader of the official opposition, kicked off today's question period brilliantly with the sad fact that according to media reports, 20% of families have chosen to eat less in order to save money because of inflation. This is a G7 country with an abundance of natural resources ready to be developed wisely. We also have an active, intelligent, articulate and healthy population that should be able to curb this inflation. Unfortunately, we are living in the shadow of this government, which is slow to act and curb inflation.
Let us not forget that this government got elected in 2015 by saying it would run three small deficits and achieve a zero deficit by 2019. However, during its first mandate, each deficit was more staggering than the last. Then the pandemic started, and it was party time. The chequebook was wide open, and no one was paying attention to how much was being spent.
Why am I bringing this up? It is because, in times of economic prosperity like we experienced in 2015, when the budget is balanced, it is the perfect time to set aside any surplus. Canada was in an enviable position. We recovered from the global crisis of 2008, which was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, better and faster than any other G7 country. Our country had the best debt-to-GDP ratio because our economy was strong.
The Liberals were elected because they promised to run small deficits, but their deficits were massive. Now we are paying the price. When the government spends freely and operates at a deficit, sooner or later, the piper must be paid. The government injected too much money into the economy, and that sowed the seeds of inflation.
When the pandemic struck, we all understood that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. It was a crisis, and we agreed with providing immediate help, lots of help, just like every other country. Nevertheless, we were aware that, when a government prints a lot of money, that money has to be paid back eventually.
That is why we constantly reminded the government that what it needed to do was help business owners, businesses and especially families and workers, but that it also had to control spending. That is not even close to what happened. Two years ago, during the first summer of the pandemic, we sounded the alarm about the fact that too much money was being given to people who could have worked. People got $2,000 a month to stay home and do nothing rather than work.
During the summer, hardly a day went by when I was not hassled, and rightly so, by entrepreneurs, restaurant owners and people who needed workers, but who were told by young people in their twenties that they had enjoyed working from home the previous summer and did not see why they should go back to work this time when they could get $2,000 and still stay at home.
When a government spends too much money, sooner or later it is sowing the seeds of inflation. Now we are paying the price. When the first seeds began to grow in this inflationary soil, we were the first to sound the alarm a year ago. However, the government did not listen to us, and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance took far too soft a tone, saying that it was temporary and everything would be okay. Even U.S. President Joe Biden has admitted that he was not quick enough to curb inflation when the first signs appeared. Now Canada is paying the price.
Was anyone surprised when, in the midst of the fourth wave of the pandemic, in the middle of an election that Prime Minister had said he would not call, he announced that he did not think about monetary policy?
I understand that each of us has our own area of expertise. Even though a prime minister may not necessarily be an expert in every field, he should at least be interested in everything. We cannot help but notice that the Prime Minister's interest was not where we needed it to be today.
One of the factors contributing to the brutal rise in inflation is the price of gas. It affects everyone. We need to stop thinking of gas purely as something we put in cars. It is much more than that. Every time we need food, which is an essential good if ever there was one, it does not fall from the sky. Someone grew the plant or fed the animal that ends up on our plate. Genies do not exist. We cannot simply blink our eyes and fold our arms and have food appear. Someone, somewhere had to transport it, probably in a gas-powered vehicle. That is today's reality when it comes to the price of gas.
I know that some people are very keen environmentalists, and I commend them for it and have no problem with that. However, not everyone can get around by only using public transit. As my colleague said so well earlier, there are regions where there is no public transit. If people want to get from point A to point B, they have to go by car, which might very well consume gas. This has consequences for everyone.
A week ago, this government's former finance minister, the Hon. Bill Morneau, took an indirect shot at his former colleagues when he stated that he was worried about the economy. He believes that the future of the economy is worse now than it was in 2015. This is fitting, because we thought the same thing when he was the finance minister.
He believes that the current government has no long-term vision for Canada's economy and is more interested in sharing wealth than acquiring it. Everyone agrees with sharing wealth, provided there is some. The more we have, the better, because we will be able to distribute more.
It was fitting that the former Liberal finance minister said that, because that is essentially what we were saying when he was minister. I had the great privilege of being his counterpart as my party's shadow minister for finance under our former leader, the Hon. Rona Ambrose. I touched on how a Bay Street fat cat came to invest in the House of Commons, which I would consider a positive for Canada as a whole, had he proposed the kinds of measures that made him successful on Bay Street, but he did not. To make matters even worse, Mr. Morneau said that Canada's lack of competitiveness was setting us up for difficult decisions in the future.
Before I take questions from my colleagues, I want to officially say that Canada's number one priority right now is inflation. The best way that the government can deal with inflation is to limit spending. It must also reduce taxes, not increase them.
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