- Member of Parliament
- Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
Leader of the Opposition
- Conservative
- Carleton
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $61,288.13
- Government Page
- Apr/18/24 10:27:14 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
After nine years, he has doubled the cost of housing, doubled the down payment needed to buy a home and doubled the mortgage payment for an average home. Let us not forget that nine years ago, the average down payment was around $20,000. I remember because I was the minister responsible for housing at the time and it was possible to buy a home with a modest down payment of $20,000. Now, the down payment that is needed has doubled. Roughly 64% of the average monthly income is needed to pay the monthly costs associated with housing. That is nearly double what it was nine years ago. As a result, only the rich, only the children of the wealthy can buy a home right now.
“Do they want to live in a country where we make the investments we need in health care, in housing, in old age pensions, but we lack the political will to pay for them and choose instead to pass a ballooning debt on to our children?” I am quoting the Minister of Finance.
This Prime Minister is the one who doubled our national debt nine years after saying the budget would balance itself. He said he would run three small deficits totalling less than $10 billion. Now he has added nearly $700 billion to the debt, most of which has nothing to do with COVID-19 spending. He continues to rack up deficits of approximately $40 billion, three years after COVID-19. He can no longer say that the dog ate his homework and that the deficits are tied to COVID-19. He is choosing to go deeper and deeper into debt.
I would like to tell the minister that we do not want to live in a country where we leave our children with a growing debt, but that is the country we now live in after nine years under this prime minister.
“Do they want to live in a country where those at the very top live lives of luxury but must do so in gated communities behind ever-higher fences using private health care and private planes because the public sphere is so degraded and the wrath of the vast majority of their less-privileged compatriots burns so hot?” I am again quoting the finance minister.
That is the country that we are living in now after nine years under this Prime Minister. Yes, the wealthy, like him, have private planes. He uses his private plane more than anyone else, while he is forcing single parent mothers who dare to drive their Toyota Corolla to pay a carbon tax. He is spending taxpayers' money to take illegal vacations on private islands. He and his cronies are the ones benefiting from this, while things on our streets and in our neighbourhoods are worse than they have ever been. It is complete chaos. Auto theft has become so commonplace that the police are telling people to leave their keys next to the door so that the thieves will have an easier time of it. That is the country that we are living in after nine years under this Prime Minister.
Minister, do we want to live in a country where we can tell the size of one's paycheque by their smile? No, but that is the country we live in. Do we want kids to go to school hungry? No, but the government says that is the country we live in now. Do we want to live in a country where the only young people who can buy a home are those with rich parents? No, but that is the country we now live in after nine years of this Prime Minister. Do we want to live in a country where our children are saddled with more and more debt year after year? No, but that is the country we now live in after nine years of this Prime Minister. Do we want to live in a country where the rich, like this Prime Minister, can travel around the world in private jets, while the majority live in the chaos and hell of our crime-ridden cities? No, but that is the country we now live in.
We do not want that kind of country. That is exactly why we need an election to elect a new common-sense government, a government that will deliver the country we love for all Canadians.
Just for a minute, let us talk about the myth that they are very rich. Nine years ago, members will recall, the Prime Minister said that he was going to spend, spend, spend, that it would not cost anyone a cent, and that some rich guy on a hill was going to pay all the bills. Where is he?
After nine years of this government, the rich are paying less than ever. After nine years of this Prime Minister, and for the first time in our history, owning a home is beyond the reach of an entire generation. After nine years of this Prime Minister's promises to help the so-called middle class, the middle class no longer exists. The middle class is poor.
If anyone thinks I am exaggerating, I have one simple question: Can a middle-class person afford to buy a house today? It is mathematically impossible for a middle-class person to buy an average home. I am not the one saying it. According to the Royal Bank of Canada, it takes 63% of the average family's pre-tax income to pay the average costs of a home today. It is a mathematical impossibility. Nine years ago, it took 38% of a monthly paycheque to pay the mortgage. Now, it takes twice as much.
If someone cannot buy a house, they are not part of the middle class. One in four families cannot feed their own children—one in four, and that is from the government's own statistics. That family is not part of the middle class either.
Yesterday's budget tabled by the Finance Minister was a major admission of failure. She admitted that after nine years of her government, life is hell for the so-called middle class. Middle-class Canadians have become Canada's poor. This Prime Minister has presided over the worst decline in middle-class quality of life in the history of our country. Things may even be worse than during the Great Depression. That is not me saying this, that is the minister herself and the Prime Minister.
When the Prime Minister talks about the condition this country is in, he describes it as a living hell for the poor and for workers. He describes a hell for the children who do not have enough food to eat. He describes a country where the elderly cannot pay their bills.
It is as though he has not been Prime Minister for a decade. Waving a magic wand, he tries to convince us that this is his first day on the job. After nine years, the Prime Minister is right: Life is hell for the middle class, and it is because we have a Prime Minister who is not worth the cost.
Fortunately, it was not like that before this Prime Minister and it will not be like that after this Prime Minister. We will replace him with a common-sense government that will lower taxes, build housing, fix the budget and stop the crime. I will explain how we will do this.
First, Canadians pay more in tax than they spend on food, housing and clothing. That is how things are after nine years of this costly government. That is why the trend must be reversed. Spending must be brought under control so that taxes can be lowered and Canadians' paycheques can go farther. Workers, businesspeople and seniors must be allowed to keep more of their hard-earned money.
Second, more housing must be built. After nine years of this Prime Minister, we have less housing per capita than any other G7 country. That is because we have the worst bureaucracy. Our bureaucracy prevents housing construction, adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of each home and causes years-long delays. Among OECD countries, Canada is the second slowest to issue building permits. This adds $1.3 million to the price of each new home in Vancouver and $350,000 in Toronto. The City of Montreal prevented the construction of 25,000 homes. The City of Winnipeg prevented the construction of 2,000 homes next to a public transit station built specifically for these future houses. That is absurd. The federal government should not be sending $5 billion to municipal governments for them to build bureaucracies that prevent home building.
On the contrary, we must begin to encourage municipalities to allow more construction by freeing up land and authorizing construction more rapidly. Real estate companies are paid for each house sold. Builders are paid for each house built. We should pay municipalities for each housing unit approved. My common sense plan will require municipalities to allow 15% more construction per year and authorize the construction of high rise apartment buildings near transit stations funded by the federal government. That will be the condition to meet to receive this money.
We will do this by entering into agreements with the provinces, fully respecting their areas of jurisdiction and allowing them to achieve these results as they see fit, without federal interference. Then we are going to sell 6,000 buildings and thousands of acres of federal land to allow for more construction. We will also reduce taxes on housing construction to accelerate construction. This is a common-sense plan to return to a situation where housing is affordable, as it was nine years ago, when I was the minister responsible for housing.
Third, we are going to fix the budget by imposing a dollar-for-dollar rule. For each new dollar spent, my government will find a dollar of savings somewhere else. That is how we cap the cost of government to allow taxpayers and the economy to grow and reduce the size of the government relative to the country.
It is a decentralizing and responsible approach. This is how we will eventually balance the budget, reduce interest rates and bring down inflation.
I find it very ironic that the Bloc Québécois has voted more than once to increase the size of the federal government. It voted in favour of $500 billion in centralizing, inflationary and discretionary spending by the current Prime Minister. I am talking about the kind of spending that increased the size of the government and the number of federal employees by 40%. The Bloc Québécois voted to double spending for external consultants, who now cost $21 billion, in other words, $1,400 in taxes for each Quebec family just for consultants.
We understand why this Liberal centralist government would want to do that, but we do not understand why a so-called sovereigntist party would vote for such an increase and concentration of powers and money at the federal level. It makes no sense. It is because the Bloc Québécois does not want to free Quebeckers from federal costs. It wants to implement a leftist ideology born on the Plateau Mont-Royal. It just wants a bigger role for government, whether federal, provincial or municipal. The Bloc Québécois's leader is obsessed with more government, more costs for workers. We Conservatives want a smaller federal government for a bigger Quebec. We want less control by Ottawa and more power for Quebeckers. A smaller federal government for a bigger Quebec is simple common sense. We are the only party that will be able to do it.
At the same time, we need to eliminate inflation, which widens the gap between the rich and the poor. A monetary system of printing money naturally favours the wealthy. It is something the Prime Minister borrowed from the United States. The United States' monetary policy causes inflation year after year to inflate Washington's spending and to inflate shares on Wall Street. It is an alliance between Wall Street and Washington, between big companies and big government. Of course, it favours the wealthy. The people who live in Manhattan and Washington are the richest people in the country. This is due in part to the fact that the United States prints a lot of money to help both groups.
Here in Canada, for the first time, a Prime Minister tried to copy and paste that approach by printing $600 billion to finance his own spending. It caused the worst inflation since the time of his father, who did the same thing. What are the consequences? Those who have shares or investments in land that is ripe for speculation, in gold, or in exclusive luxury wines get richer. The value of their assets is inflated. Conversely, people who rely on a paycheque or pension get poorer. The value of their paycheque diminishes. It is a transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest, and it is a benefit that often goes untaxed.
It is a benefit the Prime Minister keeps adding to day after day, causing this inflation. I would add that the people who receive these big financial gifts from governments often pay no taxes at all because they never sell their assets. They borrow money by using their assets as collateral to purchase more assets, whose value swells more with inflation, and then they use those assets to purchase even more assets, and so on. Wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of the infamous 1% or 0.1% of the population. This trend has been accelerating since the Prime Minister came to power, because it helps the wealthiest Canadians and also allows his government to indulge in uncontrolled spending. Both sides get what they want. The Prime Minister can spend the money he prints out of thin air, and the wealthiest benefit from the inflation of the value of their assets and their wealth. It is always the working class that ends up footing the bill for this irresponsible approach.
I will put an end to that. I will restore the Bank of Canada's mandate, which is to keep inflation low and the dollar higher. We will make sure that we do not print money just to spend it, because that is an inflation tax. It is an unjust and amoral tax. I will axe the inflation tax by fixing the budget. I want people to bring home more powerful paycheques.
Speaking of home, home is more dangerous after nine years of this Prime Minister, who automatically releases criminals on bail or allows them to be sentenced to house arrest, the “Netflix sentences” that he implemented with bills C-5, C-75 and C-83. These laws have allowed people to be released mere hours after their arrest so that they could commit more crimes. That is why street crime is surging all across Canada.
Yesterday we heard reports of a major shootout in downtown Montreal. There has been a more than 100% increase in the number of car thefts in Montreal, Toronto and other major cities. My common-sense plan will keep the most dangerous criminals in prison by making those with dozens of convictions ineligible for bail, getting rid of “Netflix sentences,” forcing car thieves to serve their sentences in prison, and not going after our hunters and sport shooters. If someone has a gun they bought legally after going through an RCMP background check, receiving training and passing tests to prove that they are a safe, responsible person, they will be able to keep it. However, if they are criminals, we will stop them from having guns. We will strengthen the border and our ports. We will scan containers to make sure that no weapons or drugs enter the country and that no stolen vehicles leave. That is the common sense needed to stop the crime and make our communities safe again.
We are going to implement a common-sense plan that will rebuild the country that we want, a country that is the opposite of what the Minister of Finance described in her speech. It will be a country where it pays to work, where everyone who works hard can afford to buy a home and put food on the table in a safe neighbourhood. That is what Canadians are entitled to and deserve, and that is what they will have with a common-sense government.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton for introducing Bill C‑228, which seeks to protect our workers' and our seniors' pensions.
I would like to begin by describing the current situation. Right now, companies offer pension plans with specific eligibility criteria and benefits. However, when such a company goes bankrupt, the pension plans may not contain enough money to cover the cost of all the promises the company made to its employees. That has happened a number of times in this country's history. One example is Nortel, once the largest employer in the national capital in Ottawa. When that tech giant went bankrupt, the pension funds were insufficient. There was not enough money to pay the pensions promised to the company's retirees. Many employees have asked me why the company was not required to use the proceeds of the sale of its assets to make up that shortfall.
Under the legislation that was in place at the time and is still in force today, in the event of bankruptcy or insolvency, a company must sell all its assets and pay back anyone who has loaned it money and all the individuals or entities to whom it owes money. Obviously, when a company goes bankrupt, it does not have enough money to pay all its creditors, and this means that some people will lose out. Those who lose out may be the banks that have loaned money to the business or the suppliers to the business that have not been paid. In some cases, it could be the pensioners, because there is not enough money in the pension fund to pay the promised pensions.
There is no good solution, and inevitably, some people will lose out. In most cases, it is good people who lose out when there are bankruptcies. Also, when a bankruptcy occurs, pensions are in a difficult situation, because big companies typically go bankrupt when the economy is in bad shape or when stock markets are falling. It is possible that both situations may happen at the same time, depriving the pension funds of the money needed to pay out the pensions.
Businesses should obviously set aside sufficient funds to guarantee that, in the event of bankruptcy or falling stock markets, it will have enough money to fund these pensions. However, right now, businesses do not have to pay these pension liabilities before paying other creditors. That is legal and the courts decide who gets what.
Some are opposed to the idea of giving priority to pension funds as the bill proposes. They believe that this will make it more difficult for a business to raise money from investors and get loans from banks. Bankers will not want to lend them money because, in the event of bankruptcy, the money will go to the pension fund. It is true that it will be more difficult to repay other creditors if the pension fund does not have enough money, but this bill would incentivize CEOs to properly fund their pension fund so that investors will be confident that, in the event of a bankruptcy, the money will be there.
Personally, I think this bill is not only compassionate towards people who have worked and expected to receive this money, but also a way to force the market to consider whether the pension fund is adequate today, not 20 years from now, when the company declares bankruptcy.
This will force CEOs to invest enough money today to secure the future and the retirement of their workers. If they want to get loans, they will have to prove themselves to the market.
People who work their entire lives and are promised a pension should receive it, and that is why the official opposition will support this bill and we will work to bring it into force.
I would like to thank the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton, who represents working-class people in her constituency. We know of the grand refineries that do so much of the necessary energy refining for Ontario and that turn our raw materials into final end-use products. These are the hard-working people who should be able to count on their pensions. That is why our colleague, the member for Sarnia—Lambton, has brought this initiative forward.
As a quick background, right now, when a company goes bankrupt, all the creditors are roughly on equal footing unless they have secured credit and unless they have collateralized their loan against a particular asset within a company. This means the money can run out as the liquidation happens before a pension shortfall is corrected. This happened to Nortel when it went bankrupt in Ottawa: The largest private sector employer at the time went bankrupt and the pension fund was down. Often, bankruptcies happen when the economy crashes, and that is just when the stock market crashes, which means the funds invested in the pension fund drop dramatically. That awful convergence of factors means that pensioners could be down 30%, 40% or 50%.
This bill would put pensioners at the top of the list and give them superpriority in the event of bankruptcy so that when assets are sold, the pension fund gets made whole before other creditors get paid. Some will say this will make it harder for businesses to raise money. That is only the case if their pension is not properly funded. If it is funded properly, the investor will not have to worry about being knocked back behind the pensioners in the event of bankruptcy. The pension fund will already have sufficient dollars with a significant buffer that will protect the viability of the pensioners, and all the other creditors will be in the same position they were without this bill.
What the bill would do is incentivize CEOs to make the investments today to make sure their pension funds are in good shape down the road. What happened during the 2008 financial crisis was similar to when Warren Buffet said: When the tide goes out, we find out who was not wearing a bathing suit. That is the case with pension funds. When the tide goes out and the economy crashes, we find out which companies were not investing enough in the viability of their plans. They are then in trouble and are looking for a bailout from everyone else, including the workers who have to take a shortfall.
I would like to think that CEOs today would put aside the money for that ugly day down the road when there is a recession so that if God forbid they go bankrupt or God forbid the markets crash, their pension fund is secured. This bill would incentivize them to do that. If they do not, lenders will be worried about lending to them. A lender would go to them and say, “Listen, I would like to buy your bonds or give you a directed loan, but I'm concerned that your pension fund isn't fully solid and that I would fall behind that fund in the event of a bankruptcy.” That would put real-time, immediate pressure on the management of every country to solidify its pension funds in the here and now while times are good in order to raise debt and raise capital for the future.
It is for that reason, and for the reason that we must be compassionate to those who have worked hard all their lives, who are counting on those pensions to pay for their golden years and who have earned them, that we have made a promise and that the promise will be kept. That is why the Conservatives are proud to be supporting the bill by our fellow colleague, the member for Sarnia—Lambton, to secure and protect the pensions of our hard-working Canadians.
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- Nov/2/22 2:29:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, actually, Conservatives are the only ones protecting pensions and employment insurance against the inflation that is eating up the paycheques and the benefits of Canadians. Now the finance minister is suddenly pretending to agree with me on all of this. She sent a memo, that has since been leaked, in which she says that her ministers will have to find savings to match any new spending in the fall economic update.
It is not clear whether the Prime Minister got the memo. He still wants to continue to pour inflationary fuel on the fire with more spending still. Will he listen to his finance minister, who has started to listen to Conservatives, and cap spending and taxes?
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