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Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

John Brassard

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Barrie—Innisfil
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 69%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 310 - May/7/24
Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)
  • May/7/24 4:52:18 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand up on behalf of the people of Barrie—Innisfil in the House of Commons and, in this case, in particular, to discuss the budget implementation act. If one listens to the Liberals, and I have been in the House for most of today, one would almost get the sense that Canadians have never had it so good as what they have right now. The member for Ajax stood up before, and I recall asking him a question about Canada's productivity. We are seeing declines in productivity, investment and capital investment, other than government investment; it is at a point where our productivity is heading into developing nation status right now. It is obvious that the ability of Canadians to have some sort of lifestyle or provide for a quality of life for themselves is clearly diminishing after nine years of the current NDP-Liberal government. There is not one day that I am in my Barrie—Innisfil office, not one phone call and not one email that is telling me that their life is better after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government. In fact, I would say that we spend most of our time, and my staff's time, in my Barrie—Innisfil office walking people in off the ledge, because they are so concerned about their economic future. I recall that, a couple of months ago, I had a senior come into my office. Fortunately, he had a mortgage, but he had to renew it. With the new interest rates, mortgage renewal rates, the way they are, he was only going to be left with $600 at the end of the month to pay his property taxes, to pay his heat, to pay his hydro and to buy groceries. That is an indictment of nine years of failed economic policy, and it is having a severe impact on Canadians right across the country. The budget does nothing to address that. In fact, I will subscribe to the idea that it actually makes things worse for Canadians, especially in the younger generation. In 2015, younger Canadians voted for the Prime Minister; he was talking about providing them with hope over fear and all the other things he was talking about. He said that things were going to be better for the next generation; in fact, things have gotten worse. Young people right now do not just feel as though they have been lied to and let down. Rather, they feel as though they have been left behind after nine years of the Liberal-NDP government. I will go one step further. Any young person whom I talk to right now does not just feel that. Young people are despondent right now, because they do not feel as though they are going to have the same opportunities as their parents had. They have done everything right. They have gone to university. They have gotten educated. In some cases, some of them are working three or four jobs just to get by. However, because of the economic policies of the government, they still cannot afford to come up with the down payment to buy a home. Those who have bought a home are now facing a mortgage renewal crisis that this country has not seen in generations. Moms are being kept up at night, trying to figure out how they are going to pay for their mortgages, because mortgage rates have tripled as a result of the failed economic policies of the Liberal government. When one listens to the Liberal government, it is almost as though Liberals do not realize that they have been in government for nine years and that they have created the mess we are in right now through failed economic policies. When one injects as much liquidity into the system and one creates as much debt and deficit as we are dealing with right now, what does one think is going to happen? The Leader of the Opposition was predicting three or four years ago that we were going to see interest rates increase as a result. The only lever that the Bank of Canada has to curb inflation is to raise interest rates. We have heard from former Liberal finance ministers and from former Bank of Canada governors, who keep saying the same thing: It is almost as if the Bank of Canada is pressing on the brakes while the Liberal government is pouring more fuel on the inflationary fires. There is no greater example of that than what is within the budget: There is $40 billion in additional spending and $56.1 in interest costs, just to service the debt. The debt has been doubled by the Prime Minister; his insatiable appetite to spend is putting at risk the economic prosperity of millions of young Canadians, including my kids. That $56.1 billion is more than we spend in health care transfers to the provinces, and it is almost an equal amount to what we take in on the GST. It was the former NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair, who said just shortly after the budget that the GST is designed to pay for many of the services Canadians rely on. Every time somebody goes out and fills up their car with gas, goes out for dinner or buys a ticket to something, they pay the GST. They pay it knowing that it is designed to go towards providing for the social safety net that Canadians rely on in this country. However, right now, almost every single penny of the GST is going toward servicing the cost of the debt accumulated by the Prime Minister and the failed NDP-Liberal experiment. As Tom Mulcair said, “It is no longer the GST. It is the DST, the debt service tax”. He could not have been more correct. The government is hiding behind generational fairness, but the generational mess it has created for younger Canadians is not going to be fixed by the budget. It is going to be fixed by a government that lives within its means and that focuses on the revenue side of the ledger rather than solely the expense side. By that, I mean not attacking income-producing sectors of our economy that have historically created great wealth for our nation, such as our natural resource sector and agriculture sectors. Those sectors have contributed greatly to not just providing for that social safety net but also to being able to provide for Canadians. In the natural resource sector, we have a big role to play in providing clean Canadian energy to the rest of the world, and there is no greater example of that than when the President of Germany came to Canada, begging for LNG. Energy security is the number one issue that Europe is facing right now. He came to Canada, and our Prime Minister shooed him away as though there was no business case for that. Two weeks later, the same German president signed a $27-billion deal with Qatar, which has fewer environmental, labour and human rights standards. That $27 billion could have come to Canada to be used to improve health care, education and the quality of life of not just the next generation but also future generations to come. We have seen an increase in housing costs. We have seen rent and house prices double. We are seeing mortgage rates that, in some cases, have tripled. Hundreds of thousands of homes are now due for mortgage renewal, and these next couple of months and the budget would do nothing to allay the fears that moms have when they go to renew their mortgage, already facing an increasing affordability crisis and a housing attainability crisis. The last thing I want to focus on is the fact that the government has raised the carbon tax again by 23%, and that is not the end of it. We are at $80 a tonne right now, and we are heading up to $170. After the 2019 election, the government said the price would never go up past $50 a tonne. We are already past that point, and it is expected to double, which is going to increase the cost of everything, such as the necessities of life, as well as housing costs, the cost of groceries and the cost of transporting goods. Everything will become more expensive in this country, and as our productivity continues to decline, so too will the quality of life of Canadians. I am going to vote against the budget because it would do nothing to improve the quality of life for future generations or this generation today.
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Context: House Hansard - 310 - May/7/24
Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)
  • May/7/24 4:01:45 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, if one were to listen to the hon. member, one could not help but think that Canadians have never had it so good, but what we are seeing, and one just has to scan the headlines to see it, is that Canada's productivity is lagging. It has reached crisis levels. Productivity will take years to remedy. Weak productivity is threatening Canada's postpandemic recovery, and this has a direct impact. Lagging productivity is a threat to Canadian living standards. There is a lack of investment, a lack of capital, fleeing capital and fleeing investment. Wages are not keeping up. Just last week the finance minister announced the government would increase the debt ceiling by another $295 billion, adding to the interest that needs to be paid on the debt for future generations. That is going to have an impact. I do not know how that member can stand there to say that the Liberals are doing everything right, when all of the indicators are that they are doing everything wrong.
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