- Member of Parliament
- Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- Conservative
- Calgary Midnapore
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $141,419.87
- Government Page
- May/3/23 7:00:03 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-6
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House and speak on behalf of the constituents of Calgary Midnapore. Of course, as the shadow minister for the Treasury Board, I am responsible for critiquing this bill and overseeing the debate for the official opposition this evening, and it is a pleasure to do so.
I am sure members are aware that Bill S-6 is the second piece of regulatory legislation aiming to clean up small pieces of legislation throughout a series of departments and ministries that have required these small pieces of legislation to be cleaned up for some time. I will add that the first was completed before the pandemic. This one, the second, is unfortunately a little behind schedule as a result of the pandemic, but the government expects to conduct this exercise on a yearly basis.
What I think is very interesting is that in the third round, the government will start to consult with outside stakeholders. Of course, as the official opposition, we are always for consultation and transparency with Canadians, for Canadians working for themselves and for Canadians making decisions for themselves, so I certainly encourage the government to pursue this route of consultation and stakeholder talks in its next round before its proceeds to it.
In respect of the Bill S-6 document we have before us today, one thing is evident to me, and it is seen, I would say, throughout all of the correspondence I have received at my house, all of the conversations I have had with my hon. colleagues and all of the debate we have had in the House: Canadians are defeated and exhausted. With this bill, it is easy to see why.
First of all, as members know, the cost of living has skyrocketed in this country at a time when Canadians need measures to reduce their cost of living. I need not remind members that both rents and mortgages have doubled since 2015, since the government has been in power. Also, food inflation has increased at the fastest pace in 40 years, up by 10.8%. Butter is by 16.9%; eggs are up 10.9%; breads, rolls and buns are up 17.6%; lettuce is up by 12.4%; and apples are up by 11.8%.
Really, this is a time when Canadians need cost of living reductions. It means we need a government committed to balancing the budget, lowering deficits and working toward getting rid of our national debt. I really do not see this bill working toward that.
I am sure members are aware that over a million Canadians are using food banks at this time. In fact, it is 1.5 million, I believe. I am sure everyone saw the social media post, which was very unfortunate, of the Fort York Food Bank about the lineup there. Again, at a time when we need a government to be thinking about reducing waste instead of having red tape and additional measures that will cost more for government and more for Canadians, the government simply does not have that on its mind.
With that, I will make reference again to some of the numbers we see from the government.
As shadow minister for the Treasury Board, I can tell members that the cost of the public service has increased by over 50%. It is 53%, in fact, and it is crazy. If members can believe it, that is an additional $21 billion spent on our public service. We have this cost of living crisis, yet we have these incredible increases in the public service and in spending.
As I know everyone is well aware through conversations we have had in the House, in addition to that $21 billion spent on public servants, $22 billion was spent on outside consultants. Of course, one of them was McKinsey, a firm that was studied in depth at the committee on which I sit, government operations. I hope the transport committee will finally get an opportunity to discuss that after some back-and-forth among its members relating to the motion they passed to consider it.
The different types of waste evident in Bill S-6 come at a time when we need to be thinking about saving money for Canadians and not having these incredible expenses. The federal debt, as I am sure members are aware, reached $1.22 trillion. That is $81,000 of debt per household. This is the type of thing we need to focus on. The deficit for this fiscal year is projected to be $43 billion, and that is something we need to really think about. Also, the deficit for next year is projected to be $40.1 billion. That is really something.
If we look at these incredible numbers, our debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to increase from 42.4% in this fiscal year to 43.5% in the next fiscal year. The finance minister indicated prior to the budget that she was going to consider fiscal restraint, but we do not see anything like this. The result is that we end up with a bill like Bill S-6, with more—
866 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/1/22 1:09:31 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, this motion is about an application that was supposed to cost $80,000, but instead ended up costing $54 million. Furthermore, a group of experts said that they could have created this app for $200,000 in a weekend.
What this app represents is so much more than the app itself. It represents the level of government bloat we have come to see under the costly coalition. It represents the lack of transparency that we have come to expect from this coalition. Most of all, it reflects the serious situation that Canada finds itself in now of inflation, and the cause is inflationary spending.
As we know, the bank rate started this year at 0.25%. It recently jumped to 3.75%. It is true that some external factors have contributed to this rate hike. Of course, there is the oil price spike, which began with the recovery of demand after COVID and was made worse by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That was one of those external factors. Also, China's hyper-restrictive COVID lockdowns disrupted international supply chains. However, there has been a consensus that the main reason for this inflation is inflationary spending by this costly coalition.
An article was recently published by one of my favourite economists, Jack Mintz. In it he points to a study of the U.S. Federal Reserve last July. It concluded that countries with the largest-spending binges tended to have much higher inflation rates. Therefore, this is not something that is unique to Canada; it is something that has been seen as a trend, but certainly something of which the costly coalition is guilty.
We know that Canada's headline inflation rate has eased to 6.9% from a peak of 8.1%, but food costs are still accelerating and underlying price pressures remain sticky. At the same time, the Bank of Canada has hiked interest rates by 350 basis points in just seven months, one of its sharpest tightening campaigns ever, to try to force inflation back to what was supposed to be a 2% target. Unfortunately, the bank last week signalled its tightening campaign was nearing its peak, but made it clear that it was not done yet as it hiked rates by 50 basis point to a fresh 14-year high.
The average family will spend $3,000 more next year as a result of these inflationary effects. Food inflation is at a 40-year high. Grocery prices have been raised by 11.4%, and interest rates are going up. Energy costs are up 100% to 150%, some even 300%, and winter is coming of course. Mortgage payments, groceries, fuel and consumer goods have all gone up.
We talk about what other nations are doing. Other nations have managed to fair much better than Canada. Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan and Hong Kong have all managed to keep their rates below 3%. Other nations are providing tax relief to their citizens. Fifty-one other national governments have provided some form of tax relief. That includes more than half of G7 and G20 countries, and two-thirds of the countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It found that at least 25 countries were choosing to provide tax relief at the pumps. Australia cut its gas tax in half. The United Kingdom announced billions of dollars of fuel tax relief. The Netherlands cut gas tax by 17¢ per litre. South Korea cut its taxes at the pumps by 30%. India cut gas taxes to keep inflation low, thus helping the poor and middle classes.
Instead, the Prime Minister is also choosing to take more money from the pay of Canadians. If people are making $65,000 this year, the federal government is taking nearly $4,500 directly from their pay through the Canada pension plan and employment insurance taxes. Their employers are also coughing up an extra $4,800. This year, the annual payroll tax bill, including employer and employee payments, increased by $818 for each middle-class worker. Over the past decade, seven of which the Liberal government has been in power, it increased by $2,435.
Our peers are choosing to reduce income taxes.
Former U.K. chancellor of the exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng said, “We believe that high taxes reduce incentives to work”, as he announced payroll tax relief.
Down under, the Australian government said that by putting more in their pockets, families would keep more of what they earned, allowing them to spend more on what they needed, as is provided by permanent tax cuts of up to $2,500 for individuals in 2022-23.
Eighteen countries, including Belgium, Germany and Norway, chose to save their citizens money by reducing consumption taxes.
As we can see, many of the nations I have named have made the choice to provide tax relief to Canadians. The costly coalition, the Liberal-NDP coalition, has not chosen that.
The numbers are in. Canada ran a $90.2 billion deficit last year. That deficit is equivalent to almost $2,400 per Canadian and at the rate of $172,000 of new debt for every single minute of the fiscal year. That is not a small amount. It also means that Canada's total debt now stands well north of a trillion dollars. As of March 31, the Government of Canada also had an accumulated deficit of $1.13 trillion.
We wonder where this is coming from. The Auditor General says that there are $500 million in overpayments to civil servants that need to be collected. A new report from Canada's Auditor General said that 28% of civil servants in its sampling had errors in their pay. If a government cannot even handle the payroll, why should it handle our nation's finances or even our country?
Another example of this wasteful spending is the $12 million to Loblaws for new fridges.
Where are Canadians at with this? Forty-seven percent of respondents in a survey of Canadians felt that their finances had worsened over the last year. Fifty-three percent believe that we will be in a recession next year. Even worse, 30% believe that we are in a recession right now.
Canadians have long forgotten the sunny ways of the NDP-Liberal coalition.
The good news is that relief is on the way. Relief is on the way with a Conservative government. We pledge no new taxes. We pledge the “pay-as-you-go” system. For every new dollar of spending, we must find a new dollar of savings.
The motion today is not just about a $54-million application that was supposed to cost $80,000, which experts say could have been made for $200,000; it is about much more than that. It is about how the NDP-Liberal coalition has lost its way and how it needs to stop the taxes and stop the inflationary spending, now.
1160 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
