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Results: 76 - 90 of 129
View Gerald Soroka Profile
CPC (AB)
View Gerald Soroka Profile
2021-05-26 17:47 [p.7401]
Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to the Liberal budget and raise concerns on several fronts. When I was elected in 2019, and in the years prior during the first mandate of the Liberal government, we saw deficit after deficit with no clear plan for balancing the budget. The grand plan for the budget to balance itself was failing. Now here we are a year and a half since the last election, and the $20-billion deficits we were concerned about then seem like a drop in the bucket compared with the enormous budget we are debating today. For years, the Conservatives warned the government about spending the cupboards bare when times were good, and now we are facing the repercussions of that.
The pandemic was unavoidable. No matter which party was in power, there would have been large costs associated with COVID. However, this brings to mind the famous saying that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond to the challenges thrown our way.
I will take some of my time today to reflect on the failures of the Liberal government and the ways it was too slow to act, which cost Canadians dearly.
First, it was early January 2020 when the Conservatives raised concerns about COVID-19 and called upon the government to take action at our borders. It was not until late March, when numerous COVID cases had already entered Canada, that the government took action. This delay in action would cost us big time. As opposed to a proactive response to the pandemic, what we had was a reactive one.
Second, the government failed to implement and utilize widespread rapid testing. Widespread rapid testing would have allowed more businesses to stay open, as there could have been better testing and tracing. Instead, for the past year, businesses have been teetering on the edge between not being allowed to stay open at all or being allowed to open under strict rules.
Canadians are now 15 months into this climate of uncertainty, with the Liberals only making things worse by not providing them with a clear plan to reopen our economy. I was deeply disappointed when the government voted against our opposition day motion to provide Canadians with certainty and establish a clear plan to reopen our economy.
I believe $354 billion is a staggering number. That is how much debt the government has added to Canada's debt load for 2020-21 alone, bringing the total amount of debt added by the Liberals since 2015 greater than that of all other governments combined. Let us break that number down. The largest purchase that most Canadians will make in their lives is the purchase of a home. Currently, with rapid inflation in the housing market, the average Canadian home is worth $716,000. This means the homes Canadians spend the better part of their lives paying for could be purchased nearly 500,000 times over in this year's federal budget.
When I think about the deficits we are accumulating, what concerns me most is the fiscal mess we are leaving behind for future generations to deal with. The interest on our debt is forecast to be $30 billion per year by 2026, and that is with low interest rates. To put that in perspective, this budget commits $30 billion to child care over the next five years. In the same time frame, we could spend that amount five times over simply just servicing our debt. Therefore, it is extremely important that we return to a balanced budget as soon as possible, so that we are not further increasing what we are paying in interest payments and can instead put money toward helping Canadians get ahead.
A few months ago, I stood in the House and spoke to Bill C-14 and to my concerns with raising our debt ceiling to $1.8 trillion, an increase of $663 billion. My colleague, the member for Abbotsford, compared this to asking for a line of credit from taxpayers but not saying where that money will be spent. Now, in this budget, we finally have some answers as to where this money will be spent and where it will not be.
Alberta's oil and gas industry has once again been forgotten by the Liberals. In the 725 pages of this budget, the words “oil and gas” are mentioned only once in relation to the wage subsidy. While the wage subsidy has helped the sector through COVID, it is not what this sector needs to prosper, and the temporary wage subsidy does not address the root issue of red tape and government roadblocks. When our oil and gas industry does well, Canada does well, and as the most ethical oil producer in the world, we should be creating more economic opportunities for oil and gas by getting pipelines built and supporting our world-class technology and our emerging industry in carbon sequestration. This budget leaves behind the oil and gas industry and all the economic prosperity that comes along with it.
The Conservatives know that spending is required to recover our economy. We had a strong recovery plan after the 2008 financial crisis. We made targeted investments, got Canada's finances back on track and returned to a balanced budget by 2015. However, make no mistake: This budget is not the same thing. It does nothing to secure long-term prosperity for Canadians. Instead, it presents a plan for a reimagined Canadian economy, as the Prime Minister put it. It is a plan that dabbles in risky economic ideas such as abandoning our oil and gas and natural resource industries, leaving our economy in a precarious position. This is not stimulus spending focused on creating jobs, but spending on the Liberals' partisan priorities.
When I talk about targeted support being needed, an area that comes to mind where this budget has a shortfall is tourism. COVID-19 has decimated the tourism industry in Canada, with many businesses on the brink, permanently closing or coming out of the pandemic with large debts. There is no doubt that the programs currently in place are helpful. However, I worry the $500 million allocated to tourism recovery is not enough, especially when the Liberals continuously fail to provide us with a plan to reopen our economy.
Canada's tourism industry has a similar GDP to that of the oil and gas industry, and while at least tourism, unlike oil and gas, is getting some money through this budget, $500 million is not adequate when I look at all the tourism businesses from coast to coast that need support. It is extremely important that we fully recover the tourism industry, especially in communities that rely on the industry as a significant part of their economy, such as the municipality of Jasper in my riding. Approximately 48% of the municipality's GDP was related to the tourism industry.
Another area of the budget that stuck out to me was the unfair and unjustified old age security increase for seniors over 75, as there was nothing for seniors aged 65 to 75, who have also been struggling throughout the pandemic. Statistics Canada recently reported that inflation has surpassed the Bank of Canada's 2% target and is now reaching 3.4%. Policies like the Liberal carbon tax and money printing have driven this inflation, and old age security payments must reflect that. Perhaps when we get to questions after my speech, a Liberal member can explain why they believe 65- to 75-year-olds are immune to inflation. It is far too often that seniors are emailing my office and saying they feel let down by the government's failures to support programs.
To conclude my remarks today, I would like to reiterate that I cannot support this budget because of the staggering deficit and the fact that the new spending in this budget is ideologically driven and completely abandons our oil and gas industry. This long-anticipated budget is a major letdown for western Canadians.
I look forward to questions from my colleagues.
View Mel Arnold Profile
CPC (BC)
View Mel Arnold Profile
2021-05-26 18:01 [p.7403]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-30, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 19, 2021.
As always, I rise to represent the good citizens of the North Okanagan—Shuswap. They have been doing their part during this pandemic, but have seen this government let them down.
In previous budget debates and examining the Liberal deficits in the range of $18 billion to $20 billion, I had stated how these deficits created a public debt amounting to about $500 for every living Canadian. That is $500 for every person in Canada, whether they have the means to repay it or not. For the fewer than 50% of Canadians who are in the workforce and able to repay debt, their share was exponentially more than $500 per person on average.
Throughout this pandemic crisis, I have supported emergency spending, which was necessary to help individuals and small businesses get through the layoffs and business shutdowns caused by the restrictions required to prevent the spread of the virus. Members from all parties, and indeed all Canadians, have invested varying levels of trust in this government to spend where necessary to protect Canadians, to end the pandemic and to help Canadians and employers who required assistance along the way. In more than one way, Canadians had no choice but to trust this government to spend money and deliver a pandemic response.
How has this government treated the trust of those who depend on it? Well, scandals have emerged and proven the self-evident truths that this government has reportedly failed to focus and deliver the investments required to secure the future of all Canadians. Crisis spending was and is clearly still required, but without a plan, spending without controls never delivers the outcomes that are needed.
One outcome of the government's spending that we can all bank on is the additional $343 billion in national debt that the government has already added, which works out to $9,270 for every Canadian, whether they are able to repay it or not. That means, once again, that those in the workforce who are potentially able to pay down debt have been handed another tax bill of $20,000 each by this government. What is worse is that the government still has no clear plan for getting Canadians back to work to start paying down the debt of the 2016 to 2020 deficits, and now this new added debt.
I have reviewed the budget and searched for the priorities identified to me by the good people of North Okanagan—Shuswap; the priorities that I have consistently relayed to this government on behalf of my constituents. Unfortunately, in budget 2021, this government has failed to recognize some vitally important needs.
Affordability is something weighing on the minds of many Canadians and, once again, this government has failed to recognize the reality in this budget. Seniors on fixed incomes see the cost of groceries and everyday living growing faster than their pensions. With no way of increasing their incomes, seniors are already worried that the future increases in taxes to pay for this government's spending will leave them with fewer dollars for daily living.
Young families see the cost of their first home growing faster than their income, and they need a plan to make home ownership more affordable. As the inflation rate has hit 3.4%, the highest level in a decade, these young families can only fault this Liberal government, with its policies of flippantly printing and spending money, for their inability to keep up with rising costs.
On infrastructure, over the years I have advocated on behalf of municipalities and first nations in need of infrastructure programs to help grow their communities and secure the future of their residents and members. The one-time investment of $2.2 billion to address infrastructure priorities in municipalities and first nations communities through the federal gas tax fund is not the long-term commitment the communities are looking for. When major infrastructure projects often take years to implement, a one-time injection is somewhat like the Prime Minister's promise of a one-shot summer. There is no plan to follow through.
On investments in aquatic invasive species, AIS, I have heard from numerous conservation organizations, municipalities, first nations and regional districts that are all justly concerned about the persistent threat of aquatic invasive species to wildlife, ecologies and economies in the North Okanagan—Shuswap.
In 2019, the Prime Minister directed the fisheries minister to make new investments in the fight against invasive species. Nearly a year and a half later, British Columbians are still waiting for the government to finally provide some new resources to protect our waters from invasive species.
Having served with the fisheries minister for years on the fisheries committee, the minister knows that the introduction of Zebra and Quagga mussels to B.C. waters would devastate our ecosystem and local economies, yet she persists in withholding the new investment the Prime Minister mandated her to make.
More needs to be done and Canadians deserve better. Throughout the pandemic, I have heard from hundreds of constituents doing their best to contend with the challenges they face. One common thread that I see in the input and requests I have received is that Canadians need a plan to help them secure their future, a long-term national recovery plan. Canadians want a plan that will secure their jobs. Businesses have been contacting me saying they are unable to fill shifts because of disincentives for people to go back to work.
That is why the Conservatives put forward a back-to-work bonus plan to help Canadians transition back to work, while gradually reducing the need for government benefits. Canadians want a plan that will secure accountability. Constituents have contacted me tired of the breaches of ethics by the Prime Minister, his cabinet and caucus. That is why Conservatives adopted the policy put forward by one of my constituents to strengthen legislation around accountability and transparency.
Constituents want a plan that will secure mental health. We all know someone who has been impacted by mental illness and been unable to access the support they need. Canadians need a plan that recognizes mental health is health.
Canadians also want a plan that will secure the country. Early in the pandemic, we learned that Canada was not prepared and that stockpiles of PPE had been shipped to China by the government. Canadians need a plan that ensures we are prepared for the next threat to our security, whatever threat that may be.
Canadians want a plan that will secure our economy, rather than borrowing and printing more money and driving up inflation. Canadians need a plan that provides stimulus measures that are targeted and time limited to avoid creating a structural deficit.
These are the differences between the Liberal government's budget and the implementation act, and our Conservative plan to secure our future.
When I hear of seniors' drop-in organizations that have been forced to close because they spent their last dollars paying utility bills and got no help from the government to remain solvent so they could be there when restrictions are lifted again, I see a government that has failed its citizens. When I hear from businesses that could be growing except they cannot find workers to fill shifts, I see a government that has failed. When I hear from first nations, municipalities and community organizations that the government is not providing the protective measures mandated by the minister, I see a government that has failed.
Canadians deserve better and I look forward to working with the good people of the North Okanagan—Shuswap in our pursuit of the plans and resources needed to secure the future and the future of all Canadians.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
View Luc Berthold Profile
2021-05-26 21:49 [p.7436]
Madam Chair, I would just like to point out that the minister is taking twice as much time to answer as I do to ask a question.
What is the Bank of Canada's inflation target?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, I greatly respect the independence of the Bank of Canada, which made an important announcement last week.
I do not wish to make a comment.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
View Luc Berthold Profile
2021-05-26 21:49 [p.7436]
Madam Chair, could the minister, who does not know that inflation is at 3.4% in Canada and that the Bank of Canada's inflation target is 2%, tell us whether she agrees that inflation is costing Canadians a lot of money?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, if the member has questions or concerns about inflation and debt, I think it is important to explain to him that our government has a prudent debt management strategy. The government—
View Dave Epp Profile
CPC (ON)
View Dave Epp Profile
2021-05-25 10:31 [p.7281]
Madam Speaker, the Consumer Price Index for last month was 3.4%, which is outside the historical targets of 0% to 2% and, in fact, outside the 3% transitory target.
In my hon. colleague's opinion, does the budget contribute to further inflation or will it decrease inflation, and are further higher inflation numbers, which I believe will happen, good for his constituents?
View Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
I must admit I did not detect a specific question. Generally, he asked me if the current spending will contribute to inflation or encourage consumption, in other words, if this is a stimulus budget. I gather that is the gist of his question.
Public spending is generally key to a sound economic recovery. Of course, we must not invest indiscriminately, but historically, in times of crisis and turmoil, we have relied on an ambitious public spending agenda. We do not like all the public expenditures laid out in the budget, but we are not opposed in principle to public spending.
We also know that most of these support programs will disappear in the near future as the crisis subsides, so we will not have to rack our brains about where to make cuts, because many of the programs will automatically come to an end.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I find it fascinating that the Conservatives are willing to hedge their bets on inflation, when, although it is indeed something we have to be concerned about and pay attention to, it is also something that economists seem to be split on. Indeed, the most recent Harper appointee to the Bank of Canada has indicated that the moves that have been made by this government are important and should be able to be done in a responsible way. If only Conservatives gave that kind of attention to and believed 97% of scientists when they talk about climate change, but I digress.
I wonder if the member could comment as to how he is so certain that inflation is going to be a massive issue, given that the economists right now seem to be split on the issue, and that there is some evidence to suggest that we might have a temporary blip, but it will not necessarily last that long.
View Scott Aitchison Profile
CPC (ON)
View Scott Aitchison Profile
2021-05-25 11:02 [p.7286]
Madam Speaker, it seems as though the member for Kingston and the Islands is constantly digressing.
I would note that inflation is already rising. It is a threat that we have been warned about, and the government needs to think about it cautiously. Instead, we have people like the member for Kingston and the Islands standing and saying, “Just don't worry. Everybody be happy.” I do not think that is really a wise or strategic plan at all.
View Tako Van Popta Profile
CPC (BC)
View Tako Van Popta Profile
2021-05-25 11:22 [p.7289]
 Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-30, the budget implementation act.
The problem with budget 2021 is that it is focused more on the political fortunes of the Liberal Party than on rebuilding the economy post-pandemic. That is not just me, the Conservative member for Langley—Aldergrove, speaking. The former clerk of the Privy Council Kevin Lynch is quoted as saying that budget 2021 is an “intergenerational transfer of debt and risk [that] is unprecedented.”
Mr. Lynch continues:
As a political statement, it should yield electoral dividends. As an economic statement, it favours short-term consumption over private-sector investment, sprinkles...[dividends] initiatives far and wide, adds heavily to the federal debt, and misses an urgent opportunity to rebuild our longer-term growth post-pandemic.
He is not happy with it, but look who is smiling. The left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is smiling. Its senior economist, David Macdonald, advised the Minister of Finance to ignore “ongoing and needless concern about federal interest payments.”
Those pesky debt servicing costs take all the fun out of the party. Let us all just agree the budget will balance itself. That it is modern monetary theory at work, and we should not be surprised this is coming from the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Modern monetary theory says the following: Debt and the deficit do not matter. Why do we even keep track of them because they do not matter? The only thing that matters is inflation, and as long as we keep inflation under control, everything is going to be good and fine. The proponents of modern monetary theory will tell us that inflation is under control, that it is more or less within the Bank of Canada's target range of 2%. Just recently it has gone up a bit, and I am happy to hear the member opposite acknowledging that at least there is a difference of opinion on whether inflation is just a blip or it is long-term and deeply embedded.
Let us hear what ordinary Canadians say about inflation. Talking to many small businesses in my riding of Langley—Aldergrove, I am hearing that they are having to compete to get good workers to come back to work. They are competing with each other, which of course is a good thing, but they feel they are also competing with the federal government. They are being told that maybe they need to pay their employees more if they want them to come back to work. That to them sounds like wage inflation.
I have talked to young families, and there are many of them in my riding of Langley—Aldergrove, who are struggling to buy a house. There is a housing affordability crisis going on. That is not unique to my riding of Langley—Aldergrove, although British Columbia's Lower Mainland seems to be ground zero for this housing affordability crisis.
I ask members to consider a hypothetical family that 15 months ago, at the start of the pandemic, decided it would take one more year to save up for a down payment to buy a first home. Today, that family is somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000 further behind. The goalposts have just been moved further. No matter how hard families kick the ball, and no matter how well they play the game, they are not keeping up. They are losing ground. If we tell them there is no inflation, they are not going to believe us.
I have talked to contractors who are working in construction in the housing industry. If we tell them there is no inflation, they will tell us about increased prices for lumber, plywood, steel, concrete and any products related to construction. The prices are going up. If we tell them there is no inflation, they are not going to believe us.
I believe there is one thing we can agree on with the Liberals, and with the other people in this House, and that is that the solution to fight inflation is to grow the economy and to make sure the economy is producing goods and services in sufficient quantities to meet the demand of the buying public. That is the solution. Unfortunately, this budget does not do that. It misses the mark.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has noted that a significant amount of the Liberal spending in this budget will not stimulate jobs. Nor will it create economic growth. This is a budget that focuses on redistribution of wealth, borrowing money and quantitative easing, but does not encourage private investment.
We have heard on numerous occasions from members opposite that even during the Harper years, Conservative governments engaged in deficit spending. Of course, in a time of crisis, that is exactly what a central government needs to do. It has tools available to it. Debt financing, quantitative easing, tax incentives to encourage further investment and even printing money are all tools available to and must be employed by a central government during a time of economic crisis to ensure there is liquidity in the marketplace. We all agree on that. Where we disagree is when the central government needs to step on the gas and when to ease up, when to pump liquidity into the marketplace and when to step aside to let private enterprise take over.
Do not forget that the Liberal government, even during good times, the first four years of its mandate, did not balance the budget. There was full employment, good government revenues and economic growth, yet there was one deficit budget after the other. I do not think Canadians have confidence in the government to see us through this crisis. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have a great track record of managing Canada's economy during a time of economic crisis, the most recent being the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 when Canada came out stronger than any other G7 country.
Today's Conservatives stand ready, willing and able to take the lead again to do the hard work to get our economy back on track. The Liberals focus on Ottawa-centric policies; we focus on private investment.
Talking about government-centred programs, I will focus briefly on the latest iteration of the $10-a-day universal child care proposal that has been put forward in the budget once again, as it has been put forward many times over many years. I will quote from a recent study report by Cardus, a think tank. This is what it says about the national child care proposal, “The norms of modern work, particularly that of modern working mothers, will be poorly addressed by a nation-wide system, rooted as it is in proposals that were first advanced in the 1970s.”
If there is one thing we learned about Canada and Canadians during this COVID crisis, it is that they are resilient, creative, inventive and engage in entrepreneurial problem-solving. A lot of Canadian families have taken the opportunity during this COVID crisis to move out of urban centres into more suburban centres to get a bigger house for the kids, a bigger home office, maybe two home offices, one for mom, one for dad and maybe even a third one for the kids if they do their school work from home. We should ask these families what they think about a centralized Ottawa-knows-best national child care policy. We should ask them what they want.
I have a few suggestions, three good ideas, that I hope the Liberals will accept. First, they should take the billions of dollars that they are planning to spend on national child care and give it directly to families and allow them to do what they feel is best. Second, let us create more housing by encouraging provincial governments and municipalities to increase supply. Rather than tinker with demand, let us increase supply. Finally, they should do something about rural broadband so we can all work efficiently from home.
View Dave Epp Profile
CPC (ON)
View Dave Epp Profile
2021-05-25 12:24 [p.7298]
Madam Speaker, earlier this morning, I challenged a Bloc colleague on his concern about inflation that is being fuelled by this budget implementation measure. What are my hon. colleague's concerns regarding inflation? I know members across the way accuse us Conservatives of being concerned. I am guilty of that.
View Dane Lloyd Profile
CPC (AB)
View Dane Lloyd Profile
2021-05-25 12:25 [p.7299]
Madam Speaker, I too am worried. I am worried about inflation. If the spectre of inflation were not bad enough, what worries me more is the fact that the Liberal government does not seem to be concerned about inflation. The Liberals bring out a mixed bag of economists, and they say inflation is not a big deal.
I am 30 years old, and I have never really lived in an economy where we had inflation, but I can talk to my grandparents and my parents. It is the idea that the value of that money in a savings account in our bank is going down every day as the government continues to print money and overheat the economy. For example, there are seniors on fixed a income. The threat to our country is real. When is the government going to take concrete action?
View Erin O'Toole Profile
CPC (ON)
View Erin O'Toole Profile
2021-05-25 14:18 [p.7317]
Mr. Speaker, everything is getting more expensive under the current Liberal government, and now we have the proof. Last month, inflation powered through the government's target to a 10-year high. Lumber is more expensive, houses are more expensive, food is more expensive, life is more expensive. How much more is the government's economic failure going to cost Canadian families?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2021-05-25 14:19 [p.7317]
Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of this pandemic, we made a simple promise to Canadians that we would have their backs, however long it took, whatever it took. That is exactly what we did, by supporting Canadians right away who lost their jobs because of this pandemic with the Canada emergency response benefit and by supporting small businesses across the country with things like the wage subsidy and the Canada emergency business account. We have been there to support Canadians through this difficult time and we have seen our economy bounce back quicker than other economies around the world because we have been there to support them. We will continue to be.
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