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Results: 31 - 45 of 120
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2021-05-06 14:27 [p.6797]
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Parliamentary Budget Officer debunked the Liberal myth that the recent budget was about growth. In his report, Yves Giroux said the minister had overstated how much her avalanche of spending would boost economic growth. The minister claimed that her budget would create over 300,000 jobs, yet Mr. Giroux confirmed that only one-quarter of that number would materialize. This budget had nothing to do with growth, and everything to do with fighting the next election. Why did the minister mislead Canadians?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-06 14:28 [p.6798]
Mr. Speaker, it is that member who is misleading the House with his very question. The PBO report that he refers to examined only a portion of Canada's pandemic recovery strategy, and left out over $30 billion in emergency supports to ensure households and businesses would be bridged through this pandemic so they can contribute to the recovery on the back end. Canadians can rest assured that, unlike the Conservatives, our government is going to be there for households and businesses in our communities, as long as it takes and no matter what it takes.
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2021-05-06 14:29 [p.6798]
Mr. Speaker, the member completely missed my point.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that this so-called growth budget would not grow the economy as promised. He said the minister had overstated revenues, understated deficits, and that much of her spending had nothing to do with stimulating the economy. Clearly, the minister exaggerated how much growth the budget would produce. What is clear is that this is not a growth budget, it is a budget that misled Canadians. In fact, the government used the pandemic to recklessly spend on its own political survival. Why?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-06 14:29 [p.6798]
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is wrong as a matter of fact and as a matter of principle.
On the facts, his partisan argument contradicts the evidence of the IMF, private-sector forecasts outlined in the budget, and major credit-rating agencies that have reaffirmed Canada's AAA rating.
As a matter of principle, his solution to the false problem that he depicts is to yank supports for households and businesses at a time when they need it most. Our strategy from the beginning has to been to extend a life raft to those households and businesses to prevent economic scarring, because we know that the economic recovery depends on everyone's participation when COVID-19 is a thing of the past.
View Richard Martel Profile
CPC (QC)
View Richard Martel Profile
2021-05-06 14:30 [p.6798]
Mr. Speaker, not only did the government take far too long to put out a budget, but it is also overestimating how much this budget will stimulate our economy. Its growth projections were twice as high as those independently calculated by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Some of its employment projections were even eight times higher.
As usual, the Liberals are posturing. What are they hiding from Canadians? Why are they artificially boosting their numbers?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-06 14:31 [p.6798]
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member ought to appreciate that the economic growth projections included in the budget are the result of the private sector forecasts, on average, by the major economists at Canadian banks. This is not something that the government has done for partisan reasons; it is designed to ensure objectivity.
One of those particular banks, Scotiabank, actually pointed to the growth agenda outlined in this budget, when it stated that, “Overall, measures seem well targeted to raise potential output by focusing on economic inclusion, the green transition and measures to encourage business investment.” We know that to bust out of this recession, we need to invest in measures that will include growth, and that is precisely what budget 2021 is doing.
View Glen Motz Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, recently I asked the government how much debt interest costs when rates rise by 2%, which is the same stress test that new homebuyers are faced with. The Bank of Canada has announced that interest rates will be rising, so with $40 billion a year being spent on interest, the government has already put critical infrastructure systems at risk.
Why does the minister not have a credible plan to manage debt and ensure that things like infrastructure, security and safety, clean drinking water and our health care systems are sustainable for the long term?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-06 15:01 [p.6804]
Mr. Speaker, I direct the hon. member to annex 3 of the budget, which lays out in specific detail the debt management strategy of the government. I point in particular to the fact that by fiscal year 2022-23, we anticipate that the raw debt servicing charges for Canada will be $1.6 billion less than was projected in the fall economic statement of 2019, before the pandemic. The reality is that our AAA credit rating has recently been reaffirmed, specifically because of the measures we put in place to support households and businesses and prevent economic scarring.
The outlook for Canada is positive according to any economist with credibility in this conversation. I would invite further conversations with the member if he would like to dig into greater detail.
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-06 15:08 [p.6805]
Mr. Speaker, in my response to the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, I had a small slip-up. I referred to our debt management strategy being in annex 3 of the budget. It is in fact in annex 2 where the member will find the government's debt management strategy, including the reaffirmation of our AAA credit rating and the fact that Canada currently has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7.
View Michael Chong Profile
CPC (ON)
Madam Speaker, this is the longest budget in Canadian history. As Andrew Coyne pointed out in The Globe and Mail, this budget comes in at 739 pages and 232,903 words. Paul Martin's landmark budget of 1995 was fewer than 200 pages. Michael Wilson's budgets of the late1980s, which put Canada back on fiscal track and had operational surpluses, averaged less than 120 pages.
The longest budget in Canadian history is the biggest disappointment. Never has a budget proposed so little with so many words. There is no plan to tackle the immediate problem Canadians are facing, which is the lack of vaccines. There can be no economic recovery without vaccines.
In Halton region, for example, where part of my riding is, only half the people who could have been vaccinated have been. This is because the federal government has failed to secure vaccines. Last month, in places such as Burlington, Oakville, Milton, Georgetown and Acton, Halton region was only able to vaccinate 90,000 residents. It could have vaccinated 216,000 residents, or 7,200 residents a day, more than double the number of people it actually vaccinated. The reason only half the number of people were vaccinated was because of a lack of vaccines.
I will quote Halton region directly, which stated, “While we have the capacity to book approximately 7,200 appointments per day through our clinics, the availability of consistent vaccine supply continues to constrain the Vaccination Program rollout.”
The budget does nothing to fix this lack of vaccines. As a result, we are experiencing a third wave, unlike countries who were able to secure an adequate supply of vaccines like the United States and the United Kingdom.
This budget has no plan to build back better. It has no plan to create jobs and growth. Instead, it leaves us with a bigger debt, bigger deficits and an avalanche of unfocused spending.
The budget has no plan for regulatory and tax reform to help us in a fiercely competitive global economy. It has no plan to address Canada's chronically low levels of productivity, the only long-term determinant of prosperity. It has no plan for Canada's natural resources sector, which is so important to the race for critical minerals as the energy transition heats up.
There is no plan to address the overheated housing market, which has put the dream of affordable home ownership out of the reach of millions of Canadian families and saddled them with sky-high levels of indebtedness. There is no plan to achieve budget balance and rein in the skyrocketing debt and deficits that are threatening our children's future.
Members do not need to take it from me. They can take it from the experts. This is what David Dodge, the deputy minister of finance during the Chrétien government of the 1990s and former governor of the Bank of Canada, had to say about the budget in The Globe and Mail. He stated, “My policy criticism of the budget is that it really does not focus on growth”.
Referring to growth and the finance minister, he continues, “over the longer haul, we face a very real challenge. And I don’t think she tried to seriously address that in the budget”.
He went on to say that the vast majority of the extra $100 billion in spending is consumption not investment. He also said the budget does not have a prudent fiscal plan. He stated, “To me, it wouldn’t accord with something that is a reasonably prudent fiscal plan, let me put it that way”.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Canada has incurred the largest deficit among major economies in the last year at 20% of our GDP, yet the IMF estimates that, compared to our economic peers, Canada's economy has contracted more and will recover more slowly. Despite this, the budget does nothing to create jobs and growth.
There is no plan in the budget to balance public finances. The budget itself indicates that in the next five years alone, interest charges on the national debt will double, increasing from about 20 billion dollars a year to about 40 billion dollars a year.
Other experts have also been critical of the budget, as my colleague just said in his most recent remarks in the House. Here is what the finance minister's former policy and budget director, Robert Asselin, had to say about the budget in The Hub.
He said, “The federal budget has no answers on the question of growth”. He went on to say, “it was clear for some time that the government’s decision to spend more than $100 billion in so-called short-term stimulus was a political solution in search of an economic problem.” He concluded by saying, “After doubling our federal debt in only six years, and spending close to a trillion dollars, not moving the needle on long-term growth would be the worst possible legacy of this budget.”
This budget has no plan for growth, no plan to make Canada more competitive on the global stage and no plan to deal with Canada's aging labour force and chronically low levels of business investment. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has noted that a significant amount of the spending in the budget would neither stimulate jobs nor create economic growth. Like many others, he has concluded that a good portion of the spending is not stimulus at all.
Much of the spending in the budget is designed to help get Liberals re-elected. It is clearly a pre-election budget with a shotgun approach to spending. For example, the budget promises a national child care program. They do not mind the fact that it is provincial jurisdiction and some provinces have already set up universal child care programs. They do not mind the fact that the social union framework agreement, which was negotiated in 1999 by a previous Liberal government, requires the government to get the support of the majority of provincial governments to proceed. They do not mind the fact that provinces are rightfully skeptical about a federal government setting up new shared-cost programs in provincial areas of jurisdiction, only to have the federal government reduce funding at a later date, leaving the provinces on the hook to make up the deficit.
This promise of a national child care program is one Canadians have every right to be skeptical about. The Liberals first made this promise in the infamous red book of 1993, some 28 years ago. Over the last 28 years, they have continued to trot it out, and they keep failing to deliver. The government had two years to prepare for this budget. The fact that after two years all they could come out with is a budget soaring in rhetoric, but lacking in substance, is not surprising.
This is a government with an unprecedented gap between its rhetoric and reality. It is a government that said it was about gender equality, yet forced out of its cabinet and caucus the first indigenous female minister of justice and forced out of its caucus Jane Philpott, someone whose medical expertise we could have desperately used as minister of health during the last year of this pandemic. It is a government that said it was feminist, yet ignored the specific allegation of sexual harassment against the head of the armed forces
It is a government that said it would introduce electoral reform. It is a government headed by a Prime Minister who arrogantly proclaimed to the world in 2015 that Canada was back, and who made it a centrepiece of his foreign policy to secure a seat for Canada on the UN Security Council. However, Canada lost the vote for the Security Council seat with six fewer votes than it received a decade earlier. It is a government that came to office promising to do more for the world's poor, but that has spent 10% less on official development assistance than the previous government. It is a government that came to office promising to do better on climate change, but emissions have risen each and every year it has been in office.
In 2016, the first full year the current government was in office, emissions were 708 megatonnes. Just last month, the government announced emissions for the latest year, 2019, at 730 megatonnes. This is a 22-megatonne increase from its first full year in office, when it stood at 708 megatonnes, and so, too, it is with this budget.
This is a government that says it is focused on the middle class. It says it is focused on jobs and growth and focused on fiscal prudence, yet it presents a budget that is focused on anything but. For all those reasons, I cannot support this budget.
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2021-05-05 17:15 [p.6699]
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the minister for reaching out to me last week after the budget had been tabled. We had a good conversation. However, had she reached out a little earlier, we could have helped her craft a budget that was truly a growth budget.
I noticed that her speech was almost exclusively about how much she had spent. There are certainly elements within the budget that we support, but as she is the finance minister, I would have expected her to talk about debts, talk about deficits and talk about the impact inflation and interest rates could have on the sustainability of our economy and our national finances. She mentioned none of that.
The minister's mandate letter from the Prime Minister directed her to come up with a “new fiscal anchor”. However, the fiscal anchor she came up with was the old one based on the debt-to-GDP ratio, except it did not have any targets attached to it this time.
Why has the minister not directed her mind to the financial sustainability of the country? Why did she not—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, earlier on, the parliamentary secretary spoke about his personal high regard for the member for Abbotsford and, I believe, his fondness for him. I must confess to the same weakness. I was glad to speak with him last week, and indeed to speak with him while we were putting the budget together. Notwithstanding that high regard, I disagree with some of the hon. member's contentions.
When it comes to the fiscal sustainability of our budget, let me point to something that is important for Canadians to know. I am holding it up now. A week after we delivered the budget, S&P Global, the ratings agency whose job it is to determine which sovereign borrower has a good plan and which does not, reaffirmed Canada's AAA rating. S&P said that it expects the Canadian economy will post a strong recovery in—
View Rachael Harder Profile
CPC (AB)
View Rachael Harder Profile
2021-04-26 13:51 [p.6150]
Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague on being the first female Canadian finance minister to introduce a budget in the House of Commons. Though we are on opposite sides of the House, it is phenomenal. I do want to acknowledge that.
Although I am glad the government finally decided to introduce a budget after more than two years, it must be pointed out that we are the only country in the G7 that went this long without one. Despite the unprecedented amount of government spending that has taken place, it is only now that we are being presented with a spending plan. This, I believe, is absolutely unacceptable.
It certainly does not speak of a government that is striving for openness, transparency and accountability, as it often advertises. I recognize there has been a pandemic, but nearly every other government in the country, whether provincial and municipal, has put forward a budget during this time. If they were able to do so, then surely the Liberal government was also able to do the same.
Before the budget was tabled, constituents shared with me that they were hoping to see a real plan for economic recovery and for reopening society as we know it. They were hoping for a restoration of hope and confidence in our future. Those who are unemployed shared with me that they were hoping to see a plan to create new jobs and economic opportunities for their families.
Those in the oil and gas sector shared with me that they were hoping to see some support for this world-class industry. Those who own local businesses and create jobs were hoping they would no longer have to be on the verge of permanently closing their doors. They were hoping that proper supports would be offered to them and that we would go back to normal.
Sadly, what the Liberal government delivered was a 700-page budget that will increase Canada's debt load by $1.3 trillion by 2022 and includes very little for those who call Alberta home. This is not stimulus spending focused on creating jobs, but rather spending on Liberal partisan priorities. Although there are some necessary support measures contained in this budget for Canadians who are still getting through the economic challenges due to the pandemic, it goes well beyond what is necessary. This is like the government going to Gucci when it really should be going to Walmart. It is not going with its own credit card. It is going with ours, the Canadian people. This is the deal: The government racks up the debt, and Canadians foot the bill.
A strategic budget would have targeted revenue-generating industries in our country so that one dollar would turn into three dollars. Instead, we see massive amounts of cash being flushed through the country in a manner that benefits the current government's partisan interests, rather than the well-being of Canadians as a whole. The budget will extend the pandemic economic recession longer than necessary due to its exorbitant spending.
Canada is in a rough situation right now. People are hurting emotionally, psychologically, economically and physically. That must be acknowledged. Canadians are looking for a way out, a change, not more of the same. Sadly, that is what this budget is.
It is a perpetuation of our current fiscal state where unemployment rates are high, government handouts are a primary source of income and the human spirit is severely damaged. It is a superficial solution that does not fix the real problem of a struggling economy and a struggling people. This was an opportunity for the government to chart a course toward a return to pre-COVID times. Of course, I would propose 2014 to take that opportunity, but that said, I would take 2019 at this point.
Instead, we see a Liberal government that is extending the pandemic economic recovery efforts with this budget. This will put us at a serious competitive disadvantage globally, especially when we see other countries returning to normal. Their economic engines are running again and ours is being flooded with no hope of a jump start. It is hard not to be envious of countries such as the United States, where concerts are taking place on Fridays, sports stadiums are full on Saturdays and churches are bustling with life on Sundays. In Taiwan, life is basically back to normal and has been for a long time due to its rapid response to the virus. It had a total of 1,100 cases and only 12 deaths. That is amazing.
The current government seems to wear federal debt as a badge of honour. It is bizarre and troubling. More borrowing and spending does not equate to good governance. Under the Prime Minister, Canada has incurred the largest per capita deficit and hit the highest unemployment rate in the G7, which means Canada has spent the most to achieve the least. Money spent is not a measuring stick for success as much as the government would like to use it as such. Lowering the unemployment rate or growing our national GDP are things that are worth celebrating and using as measures of success.
Just a few weeks before the Liberal budget was tabled, the Deputy Prime Minister said, “I really believe COVID has created a window of political opportunity”. This mentality is truly shocking and troublesome, but it also explains how the Liberals view this pandemic. They see it as an opportunity to re-engineer society according to their value set. It is exploitive and wrong.
The Prime Minister's “reimagined economy” is a risky Ottawa-knows-best approach that picks winners and losers by design. He is dictating which jobs, sectors and regions of our country will stay afloat and prosper and which will be left to perish. Never before has there been such a divisive prime minister in this nation.
Canadians know the government has no money of its own. Anything the government spends comes from taxes and borrowing. What the government borrows, Canadians pay back through taxation. There is no such thing as a free lunch, regardless of how the government tries to package it. The thing about government spending is that it always comes back to the people at a significant cost. It is common knowledge that when taxes go up, an unfriendly or even hostile environment is created for business. High taxes result in businesses leaving the country for other jurisdictions where they are not taxed to fill government coffers. The problem with businesses leaving the country is that they take jobs with them. When they take jobs with them, they also take the revenue that the government relies on for the social safety net that Canadians enjoy so much. This results in higher unemployment and more Canadians being dependent on the government for support, as opposed to being independent and self-sufficient because they have jobs. This pattern is extremely detrimental to the Canadian people, but highly beneficial for a political party that only maintains power when Canadians are dependent on government.
Instead of working to get Canadians out of the dole line, it seems as though the Liberals are doing everything in their power to prolong the current situation and to capitalize on an obliged and increasingly indebted electorate. So much federal money has been spent on COVID-19 benefit programs that, on average, Canadians now have more personal income than they did pre-COVID, even though the average employment income has fallen dramatically.
Let us talk about big government. This is not a budget that a responsible government would put forward: It is a budget that sets up an opportunistic Prime Minister for success in the event of an election. Notably, despite the massive debt incurred, this budget failed in a few key areas. There is no plan to fight the pandemic. This is interesting, because the Prime Minister touted this budget as his pandemic response. There is no new money for health care transfers, no fiscal anchor or debt-management strategy. That is atrocious for a national budget.
Canada needs a prime minister who sees the solution to our country's current challenges and where they truly lie. It is not the government—
View Colin Carrie Profile
CPC (ON)
View Colin Carrie Profile
2021-04-26 15:50 [p.6183]
Madam Speaker, I am getting calls from constituents in Oshawa who remember Pierre Elliott Trudeau and what happened when he left office. I remember it was Jean Chrétien who said, “We left the cupboard bare”. My concern is that we seem to have maxed out our credit card, our kids' credit card and now it seems to be the grandkids' credit card.
When does the government plan to return to a balanced budget?
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-04-26 15:50 [p.6183]
Madam Speaker, this is what I mean about the Conservatives being like a rudderless ship. There is no leadership coming from their party. One day they are talking about deficit, deficit, deficit and asking why we are spending all this money, and on other days they are saying how good it is and they support legislation that spends the money that we need to borrow money for.
I gave a list of programs that were absolutely critical to support, not to mention things such as $19 billion for a provincial restart and $2 billion toward schools. There is so much money there that was absolutely needed in order to support Canadians. Some days the Conservatives support it, other days—
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