Hansard
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 1 - 100 of 129
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2021-06-22 11:10 [p.8945]
Madam Speaker, in my earlier remarks about the budget, I noted that with this budget, the Prime Minister had squandered a historic opportunity to reposition our economy for long-term success. I did, however, acknowledge that the budget contained a number of temporary measures that were critical to sustaining Canadians as we struggled to get past the pandemic. I commended the government for extending the wage and rent subsidy programs and a number of other measures that would continue to support struggling Canadians.
That is what a responsible opposition does. We offer helpful suggestions where possible and we call out failure when it happens. Therefore, I wish I could say that we Conservatives will support this budget, because we should not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. However, the reality is that this budget completely fails to deliver the growth budget that the finance minister had promised. Instead, it represents, as former deputy finance minister Kevin Lynch recently noted, the largest “transfer of debt and risk” that our country has ever seen. The finance minister failed to recognize the enormity of that challenge and in so doing, failed to include in her budget the strong fiscal anchor and debt management plan for which her own mandate letter called.
This budget would see our massive national debt swell to $1.4 trillion in the immediate term, with a hint from the government that it plans to borrow even more. The only anchor the minister could point to was a trajectory that would see Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio move slightly below 50%, far above what it was pre-pandemic, with endless debt and deficits for our children and grandchildren to repay.
The minister has been asked many times if she ever expects the government to return to balance; in other words to live within its means. She has steadfastly refused to answer, clearly a signal that the answer is no. Is this the growth budget the Prime Minister promised? It is absolutely not. While it would dramatically grow deficits, debt and the size of government, there is little that would position our economy for long-term growth and prosperity.
While other G7 countries have invested heavily in things like critical infrastructure, cut taxes, embarked on regulatory reform, harnessed the value of their innovators and reoriented trade away from hostile regimes like China, our Prime Minister has simply sprayed half a trillion dollars at targets intended to secure his re-election.
There is no plan to reorient our industrial policy from a tangibles to an intangibles economy, and there is no plan to capture the value of Canadian education, research and development, and innovation to ensure our start-ups commercialize and create jobs in Canada. There is no plan to reverse the dramatic flight of foreign capital from our country and to get nation-building infrastructure built. We now have the dubious distinction of being known as the country where nothing ever gets built. The demise of northern gateway, Keystone XL and energy east, and the potential demise of Line 5 under the current Liberal government, are evidence of that. What is worse is that this budget throws our oil and gas sector under the bus by expressly excluding it from the CCUS tax credit.
Again, is this a growth budget? It is not at all. In fact, even the Prime Minister's former policy adviser, Robert Asselin, recently confirmed this when he said that the budget doubles “down on programs that do not address our innovation shortcomings and have yielded few results to date.” He said, “it is hard to find a coherent growth plan.”
The finance minister clearly has not been taking the advice of her own Liberal advisers. She has also failed to act on other pressing issues. Her budget fails to properly address the looming threat of inflation and with it, rising interest rates, which could have a profound impact on millions of Canadians with mortgages.
In fact, last week we learned from Stats Canada that the cost of living continues to rise and is the highest it has been in over 10 years, proving that the minister's trillion-dollar debt and endless deficits are actually making life much more expensive for Canadians. One of the reasons for this is that the minister injected massive stimulus into our economy when economists were warning that she risked stoking the fires of inflation, and here we are. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer commented that the Liberal government may have miscalibrated the necessity to spend on stimulus.
I will not sugar-coat this. The threat that massive borrowing and spending will lead to runaway inflation is real. I know the government does not want to hear that and is hanging on to the belief that inflationary pressures will be transitory. It says there is nothing to see and do not worry and tells us to be happy. However, Germany's Deutsche Bank is not buying it. It recently warned of a ticking inflation time bomb, a warning our minister refuses to heed.
For example, why is the Liberal government spending hundreds of millions of our tax dollars on the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank? It is a bank that makes no investments in Canada and instead supports China's efforts to assert its power and influence across Asia. In fact, why is this government collaborating with the communist regime in China on anything while that regime commits genocide against its own Uighur Muslim population, lays waste to democracy in Hong Kong, engages in harvesting organs from persecuted minorities like the Falun Gong and betrays Canada in the CanSino vaccine debacle? Why are the Liberals partnering with China when the Prime Minister cannot even explain why two Chinese scientists were escorted from a high-security virology lab in Winnipeg and fired? Why is Canadian money being invested in a bank controlled by China's communist regime when our two Michaels continue to languish in Chinese prisons? The minister has refused to answer these questions, as more and more taxpayer money is wasted on the Prime Minister's efforts to appease China.
This budget also failed to deliver a clear plan to safely reopen our common border with our largest trading partner, the U.S. Some two billion dollars' worth of trade crosses our border every single day, yet the budget scarcely mentions border security and trade facilitation, and makes no mention of whether discussions with the Biden administration are under way to safely reopen our border.
We are going to judge the government's budget not on the quantity but on the quality of its spending. Based on that standard, much of this budget remains unsalvageable. We Conservatives are now in a better position to judge the merits of this budget and to determine what it might mean for Canadians in the short, medium and long term. As I said, in the short term there are a number of measures that we can support that will help Canadians through this economic and health crisis, but in the medium and especially the long term, there is very little to get excited about. It is just endless debts and deficits with not even a pretense of the Liberal government ever wanting to return to balance.
As a responsible official opposition, we have no choice but to reject the government's attempt to spend the cupboards bare in order to position the Liberals for re-election, leaving future generations of Canadians to pick up the tab. There is one thing Canadians can be absolutely sure of. A Conservative government will implement a true Canada recovery plan that secures our future by getting Canadians back to work, by helping small businesses recover, by restoring Canada's reputation and competitive advantage and by prudently managing the massive financial burden that the government has left us. The Conservatives have done it before and we will do it again.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-22 16:10 [p.8990]
Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister thinks he has discovered a cornucopia of cash. In the last fiscal year he ran a deficit of $354 billion. From February 2020 until February 2021, the Bank of Canada increased the money supply by, guess what, $354 billion. The Prime Minister thinks this is great: It is easy money. He is starting to get addicted to this idea of cash flying out of printing machines and new coins being machine-gunned off the top floor of the Bank of Canada building, only a few minutes from where we stand.
I raise this today because there is a very interesting debate that is not happening, for which the deadline is quickly approaching, about the Bank of Canada's inflation target. Starting in 1991, the bank and the government signed a deal that inflation would be targeted between 1% and 3%. They called it the “monetary policy framework”: These are sleepy, boring words that may impact the financial health of Canadians more than anything else that happens here in Parliament. That deal to target inflation renews every five years. It comes up for renewal on October 24 of this year. The Prime Minister has made it clear he is going to call an early election during the summer, meaning that if he were to win he would be able to impose a brand new rule about inflation without Canadians having anything to say about it. I suspect that 99% of Canadians do not even realize this is up for debate, but here is why it matters.
If the Prime Minister were to change the bank's mandate this coming October, he could begin to permanently fund larger shares of government spending with printed Bank of Canada cash even if it leads to above 3% inflation, as we have right now. That would have been impossible prior to the pandemic. Based on agreements with the bank, we as Canadians were protected from undue price increases and unacceptable and unjustifiable money creation, but with the renewal of this agreement, about which there has been absolutely no debate in the House of Commons or at the finance committee, the Prime Minister may be able to carry out the biggest unapproved tax increase in Canadian history: the inflation tax.
What is the inflation tax? It is very simple. When the Bank of Canada creates cash to fund the government, it provides the government with a new revenue source. Last year, cash newly created by the Bank of Canada was the single-greatest source of revenue for the government. It was not income tax, the GST, tariffs or even borrowing from private sector lenders, but new cash creation that constituted a $303 billion source of revenue for the current government. The Prime Minister might like to see this go on into the future. The problem is that, like all taxes, it increases costs for Canadians. This tax would be paid in the form of higher prices. The price of housing went up by 30%. The prices of food, lumber, automobiles and transportation have all broken recent records. That is naturally what we can expect when the government floods the marketplace with cheap money. When money is cheap, everything else suddenly gets expensive.
We might ask if it is viewed as a tax by the experts. Let me quote the experts. I will go through them one at a time.
In a 1978 lecture, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman stated:
There has never been in history an inflation that was not accompanied by an extremely rapid increase in the quantity of money. There has never in history been an extremely rapid increase in the quantity of money without inflation....
This is why Dr. Friedman wrote, in his exhaustive study entitled “A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960”, that “inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon”. He also said that “inflation is taxation without legislation”, thereby violating the basic principle that Parliament should approve every single tax before government is able to apply it.
Some might say that this is just a classical economist view. Let us take a look at John Maynard Keynes, who is obviously not a classical economist. He said:
By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.
This has been demonstrably proven. Inflation does benefit the extremely wealthy. That is why, in the last year of inflationary money printing, we saw a large increase in economic disparity between the rich and the poor. In the first six months of the central bank's money-printing bonanza, the 28 richest Canadians got 32% richer. That happened while our economy was tumbling by $120 billion.
Where did they get all the money from? The bank created cash, which inflated the assets of the super-rich while devaluing the wages of the working poor. This is one of the reasons we have the principle of no taxation without representation: It is not simply to approve the quantity of taxes, but the composition of taxes. Quantity refers to the dollar value. Of course, that was gargantuan last year, but composition refers to who pays it.
We know that the poor overwhelmingly pay the inflation tax. In fact, the governor of the Bank of Canada conceded that point to me when he came before the finance committee. He said the poor pay more in inflation because they deal more in cash. They are not able to hold their limited wealth in inflation-proof assets, like gold, land, stocks, bonds, etc. Therefore, the very small amount of money they have gets nibbled away by this silent thief we call inflation.
No one in this chamber would be able to get re-elected if they stood in their place and voted for an increase in taxes on the working poor and used the money disproportionately to inflate the wealth of the super-rich. That is why no such vote was held. The government simply passed that process on to the Bank of Canada to let money creation do the dirty deed on its behalf.
I will return to Dr. Milton Friedman, a Nobel Laureate, who said, “Inflation is the only form of taxation that can be levied without any legislation.” He was, of course, speaking as an economist. I will show the deliberate choice that the inflation tax has made and that has done so without the parliamentary approval of Canadians. I will show it by referring to the undeniable empirical evidence that Dr. Friedman produced.
He showed that, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and Brazil, there was a perfect correlation between the rise in the consumer price index and the increase in the money supply for each unit of economic output. In other words, in all five of those countries on four continents, inflation rose almost perfectly in line with the growth in the money supply. That is empirical evidence proving beyond a doubt that when we create cash, we raise prices to the benefit of the rich and at the expense of the poor.
Modern financial sector experts say the same. HSBC's senior economic adviser, Stephen King, wrote in The Financial Times last year that “inflation and taxes are, in many ways, simply two sides of the same coin”. He further said that this is because “higher-than-anticipated inflation serves to redistribute wealth away from private creditors, pensioners for example, to public debtors. At this point, we come full circle: the distinction between the printing press and taxes begins to break down.” 
Warren Buffett, the greatest investor of all time, said:
The arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislature. The inflation tax has a fantastic ability to simply consume capital. It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation, or pays no income taxes during years of 5 percent inflation. Either way, she is “taxed” in a manner that leaves her no real income whatsoever. Any money she spends comes right out of capital. She would find outrageous a 120 percent income tax, but doesn't seem to notice that 5 percent inflation is the economic equivalent.
Let us say that a widow has $100,000 of savings. If she earns 5% on that, and if inflation is 5%, then she gains nothing. All of her savings income is vaporized by inflation. That would be the equivalent of the Parliament of Canada passing a bill effectively taxing her at a rate of 100% on all of her savings income, something we would never do but yet something that ultimately happens because the central bank does it without politicians being held accountable.
Mr. Buffett's business partner, the famous Charlie Munger, said:
I think democracies are prone to inflation because politicians will naturally spend excessively, they have the power to print money and will use money to get votes. If you look at inflation under the Roman Empire, with absolute rulers, they had much greater inflation, so we don't set the record. It happens over the long-term under any form of government.
Onward to John Kenneth Galbraith, a famous Canadian economist on the left, who said, “Nothing so weakens government as persistent inflation.”
Other international economists, Nouriel Roubini and David Backus, wrote, “Note that since the government, by printing money, acquires real goods and services, seigniorage is effectively a tax imposed by the government on private agents. Such a seigniorage tax is also called the inflation tax.” They go on to explain what impact that tax has, particularly on the poorest people.
This is not simply an opinion. This is a mathematical fact backed up by some of the most renowned economists on planet earth, many of them winning the Nobel Prize for their work, many of them having done hundreds of years of empirical research that proves the taxation effect of inflation. These are the insights of some of the world's best-ever investors. They all concur that inflation, when created by central bank money creation, is nothing more than a tax.
This kind of a tax has been mostly done by the worst possible leaders. We think of Henry VIII, for example. They used to call Henry VIII “Old Coppernose”, and that is because, despite the fact that he inherited a monstrous fortune from his father, and I do not know if that reminds members of anybody, he spent the cupboard bare. He kept running out of money, and the British pound, which was literally a pound of silver, was becoming more and more scarce to him.
He needed more coins, but he did not have enough silver to make them all, so what he did was melt down the existing coins and reconstitute them by making them of copper but putting a tiny, thin layer of silver around the outside. He had his face, of course, on the coin because he was an egomaniac, and his face pointed outward from the coin; it was not a profile picture. Because his nose protruded on the coin, it would rub against the inside of pockets and money sacks and the silver would rub away, leaving nothing but a red copper nose. Everybody would know that King Henry had given them a fraudulent, fake silver coin by virtue of the fact that his nose was red. We often say politicians' fibs can be exposed through the length of their nose. In the case of Henry VIII, it was the colour of his nose.
In fact, he did undergo the mass debasement of the currency. Originally, when he took reign, the British pound was 92% silver. It dropped to 75%, then 50%, then 33% and finally to 25% by 1551. His successor brought it down further. The result was, ultimately, that the amount of silver in each coin dropped by about 87%, and guess what happened to the prices. They rose by about 75%. Things got more and more expensive. Life got better for him. Of course, he was known for having the king's disease, gout, which people get from massive self-indulgence, orgies of food and drink. Therefore, life was very good in the king's court because he had created all of this fake cash that enriched him and his friends, but it was terrible for the peasants and the common people who actually did the work of the land. They got poorer and poorer as their money got more and more worthless.
That is the inflation tax, so this Prime Minister of ours teaches us nothing new. This is not a new concept. In fact, if we look throughout history on these matters of economics, we see that leaders make the same mistakes over and over again. As Kipling would say:
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire—
Therefore, we get burned again and again by making the same mistakes of our predecessors.
That brings me back to the Bank of Canada. The bank recently has been talking about all kinds of different things that have nothing to do with its mandate. For example, the former governor Stephen Poloz regularly commented on things that were completely out of his domain, inappropriately commenting on social policy when he proposed government takeover of child care. That is well out of the realm of the Bank of Canada's mandate. We have seen recent comments by governors and deputy governors of the Bank of Canada on everything from fiscal policy to environmental policy to a whole plethora of things that find their place nowhere within the bank's mandate. Even on the bank's website, Paul Beaudry, a deputy governor, talks about, in his words, “the great reset”, whatever that means. He believes this is part of the Bank of Canada's mandate, and of course it is not.
The worry is that the bank will simply become a political instrument for the agenda of a left-wing government, trying to do undemocratically what it could never convince Canadians to support democratically.
Canadians would never support a massive tax increase on the poor in order to fund the ideological fantasies and the enrichment of the super rich and the super elite. That is why we in Parliament have to reclaim our powers, the powers that have been invested in this chamber and in its predecessor chambers in the mother Parliament for 800 years: that governments, including central banks, cannot tax what the commoners have not approved; that the principle of responsible government remains; that Parliament reigns supreme; that citizen goes before state and commoner ahead of Crown.
View Tracy Gray Profile
CPC (BC)
View Tracy Gray Profile
2021-06-22 16:36 [p.8994]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very informative and well-researched intervention on inflation. From meeting with manufacturers, importers and retailers, I have heard a lot about a number of new regulatory burdens that have either just come into effect or are about to come into effect and concerns about pricing, product availability and Canada's competitiveness.
I am wondering if the member could speak to how regulatory burdens may affect inflation.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-22 16:37 [p.8994]
Madam Speaker, they can affect it very drastically. For example, I think the member has been looking into new appliance regulations that would make the appliances that Canadians buy far more expensive than the same appliances that are available south of the border, even though we live in an integrated market for those same products.
By the way, big corporations do not pay the cost of regulations; they pass it all on to their workers in reduced wages and on to consumers in higher prices. In fact, many of the biggest companies love regulation, because they can use it to shut out their competition by making it more and more difficult and more and more expensive for other entrepreneurs to get into the field.
What does that mean? Less competition always means higher prices for consumers and lower wages and fewer career opportunities for workers.
View Sébastien Lemire Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I enjoyed the historical part of the speech made by my colleague from Carleton, the part where he spoke about the value of currency under Henry IV, if I remember correctly.
I see that my colleague has some appreciation for history. Sovereignists were teased a lot about the “Lévesque dollar”, which was supposedly worth 70 cents. However, in recent decades, there were times when we would happily have taken that 70-cent dollar.
I would like to know what my colleague thinks about today’s “Trudeau dollar”. Can he tell me how much the “Poilievre dollar” would be worth if he were minister of finance?
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-22 16:39 [p.8994]
Madam Speaker, the member did not use my name. He simply mentioned the official name of the currency that I am going to create in the future. If the Bloc Québécois opposes that currency, then I will be able to say that it was a Bloc member who suggested that the Conservatives create a currency bearing my last name. It would be a currency that maintains its value, that workers would appreciate and that would enable them to buy more. That is the best idea I have ever heard here in the House.
View Bob Saroya Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bob Saroya Profile
2021-06-22 16:40 [p.8994]
Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to talk about Bill C-30, the budget implementation act.
I realize this will probably be my last speech before an election. Before I get to the budget, I would like to acknowledge that it is an honour to represent the people of Markham—Unionville in Parliament. When I first came to this country over 45 years ago, I barely spoke English and never imagined representing my community on the town council, let alone in Parliament. I want to thank my community for its continued support.
COVID-19 will be an event people will talk about for generations. A virus ground the whole world to a halt and killed millions. No government was truly prepared, and politicians were put in a position where they needed to make important calls quickly instead of waiting years to address the problem. In come countries, politicians rose to the occasion and worked with one another to help their country overcome the pandemic. In other countries, governments kept people in the dark about the pandemic, denied there was a problem and turned every decision into political showmanship. It is clear that Canada was in the second category.
In this budget, the Liberal government is planning to double down on many of its terrible ideas. Instead of focusing on what Canadians need to get back on their feet, the Liberals are looking for ways to spend on their priorities. Of course, those priorities always include making Liberal insiders a boatload of money. So far, the consultant and lobbyist business has never been better for people with a connection to the Prime Minister. The Liberals' priorities are adding billions of dollars to the debt that we cannot afford.
We know that when Liberal MPs defend their Prime Minister's spending spree, they like to slip into technical terms that make it hard to follow. I am going to try to do the opposite and make my points easy to follow.
When I came to this country, I pinched every penny. I was an Indian teen with almost no English, and finding a job was not easy. Every dollar I spent mattered. I made a lot of tough decisions in those days about what I could go without. That meant a lot of cheese sandwiches.
When I started my family, I had to continue making tough decisions. We could not spend more money than we earned. I remember sitting down with my wife Roopa multiple times and deciding to save for the children's education or for rainy days rather than taking a vacation. For us, education was the most important thing. That education included teaching my children about budgeting.
I believe that the hard decisions I made with Roopa at the kitchen table paid off. My eldest child, Rohin, is a physician now, and I could not be more proud of his success. The savings I put aside when he was still a baby helped him afford his medical education. His wife Preoli is a dentist with a very similar story.
My other son, Tarun, went to university and now works in the provincial government. He also used what he learned in school in business. My daughter Shalin was recently accepted into a law program. All of these events proved to my wife and me that saving had been the right choice. We had gone without many of the things we wanted, but we had the money we needed when tuition was due for our children.
I know that Liberals hate it when Conservatives compare balancing the budget with balancing the household. The Liberals say that it is much more complicated than that. While the federal budget is more complicated, the basic facts remain the same.
When money is borrowed, someone is on the hook for it. That may come as a shock to some members of this House. Every time there is a vote in this House to spend money, I think about who pays. Years ago when people talked about the budget, they would say that the government should overspend in the bad years to stimulate the economy, and in the good years the government should pay off the debts. That way, the next time things took a turn for the worse, there would be money ready to stimulate the economy again.
The Liberal government has abandoned that way of thinking. It wants Canadians to believe that no government has to pay anything back, that through careful planning the government could juggle the debts forever and have all the benefits of overspending with none of the drawbacks. It is a terrible plan.
COVID-19 proved that governments need to have room to spend. Without government support, many Canadians would have been bankrupted by COVID-19. I know that even with some government support, many small businesses did not make it.
The pandemic has raised our debt to new heights. When we vote on spending money in Parliament, we need to remember that we must be ready for the next crisis. That means not spending more than we can afford now.
The Minister of Finance has said:
Canada is a young, vast country, with a tremendous capacity for growth. This budget would fuel that. These are investments in our future and they will yield great dividends. In fact, in today's low-interest rate environment, not only can we afford these investments, it would be shortsighted of us not to make them.
That it would be “short-sighted of us not to make them” is an interesting statement. I wonder if the Minister of Finance can name a time when spending more than we have was short-sighted. The Liberal government seems to believe that more spending is always necessary. Just look at the promise the Prime Minister made in 2015: that the budget would be balanced in no time, with just a couple of small deficits and then smooth sailing. The promises of responsible spending have been nothing more than hollow words.
I am going to get back to who pays. Most Canadians probably do not realize how much Canada is paying for its borrowing. Even with low interest rates, it is well over $20 billion. The Prime Minister's plan to add more to our national debt than all previous prime ministers combined will grow the interest payments to new heights.
The Prime Minister told everyone that budgets balance themselves. If he is still under this belief, let me assure him that this is not the case. When we do nothing to tackle the debt and spending, things get worse. People are told to avoid these sorts of debt traps in their personal life. The Liberals think adding historically high debt is responsible. Their plan requires Canadians to think that debt is a problem far into the future, that Canadians will be okay with giving debt to the next generation. For me, that is unacceptable.
I came to this country for a better life. I knew this was a place where people could raise a family and have their children succeed. The last thing I would want to do is hand them a debt bomb that they and their children will need to deal with.
When I talk to Markham residents, I hear the same thing. People work very hard so that their children will have a better life than they have. They do not want to set up their children for hard times.
A debt crisis always ends in hard times with either tax hikes or cuts to services, or both. The new taxes in the budget are puny compared to the spending. To raise the money needed to put a dent in the debt, the Liberals would need to double some of these taxes every year.
Liberal tax hikes make it more unaffordable to support a family. Canadians cannot afford to pay more. Some people think inflation is a solution, but that is a mistake. It is a tax on everything, and it will make it even harder to borrow money.
The other option of cutting services has been done before. In the nineties, the Liberal government, in the middle of a debt crisis, went to the bank to borrow money, but no one was interested in lending it to them. To get their books in order, the Liberals took a chainsaw to government spending. One of the things they cut was the health care spending. The effects of those cuts are still felt to this day. Does anyone think health care in Canada can take another cut? I do not.
I was shocked, like many Canadians, that health care was not a huge part of this budget. Emergency rooms across the country were stretched to their limit over the past two years. Essential surgeries were put off because hospitals were COVID-19 hot spots. It takes a long time to deal with the backlog of the procedures.
The provinces need help from the federal government to address health care, but the Liberals do not seem to care. This mess can be fixed. The way to get ahead of the debt problem is to get the spending under control now. The government cannot kick this problem down the road.
This budget and plan for the future will create more problems and make life more difficult for Canadians in the future. That is why I will be voting against this budget.
View John Brassard Profile
CPC (ON)
View John Brassard Profile
2021-06-18 11:15 [p.8766]
Madam Speaker, many Canadians are on bended knees under the weight of crushing debt and a new reality of inflation, the levels of which have not been felt for generations. The cost of everything has gone up, but it is those who can least afford it who are paying the price.
Increases in groceries, gas, carbon taxes, housing and rental costs are cascading across communities in Canada, including in my community of Barrie—Innisfil, and it is causing many sleepless nights. Senior Elizabeth recently wrote me, “We now have to pick our food purchases very carefully, even local produce has taken a large jump.” This should not be happening in Canada
We need a government that understands that it will be the power of Canadian businesses, the people they employ, the products they produce in every region, in every sector of the economy, so Canadian businesses can compete here at home and around the world, and bring back investor confidence.
There is only one party that will secure the future, that will unify Canada and bring back hope, opportunity and prosperity for all Canadians, and that is Canada’s Conservatives.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-18 13:13 [p.8788]
Mr. Speaker, I will continue the question of privilege that I began earlier.
As I have demonstrated, the government's decision to use printed money to pay its bills has driven up the cost of living for Canadians and increased inflation of key essentials, effectively creating the exact same conditions as a tax would on the population. Before we hear responses from the government, claiming that this money printing is for some purpose other than generating government funds for spending, let me quickly address the false pretext that the Bank of Canada and the government have ostensibly used to justify this money-printing bonanza.
First, the Bank of Canada told the finance committee in the spring of 2020 that the program of purchasing government debt was designed to restore order in credit and capital markets. In fairness to the bank, there was disorder in the markets at that narrow period of time, in March 2020, as the world was responding to the sudden shock of the COVID closures. The bank officials noted at the time that there was a large bid-ask spread in bond markets, which effectively means that sellers of bonds were asking significantly more than buyers were willing to pay and as a result these markets were seizing up, threatening the ability of governments to raise cash and for markets to function. That was the case in late March 2020, but it only lasted about 10 days. That bid-ask spread vanished by early April, at which point bond prices not only began trading freely on public markets but also began increasing at an extraordinary pace. The bond prices began to inflate as central banks in general, but our central bank in particular, began buying them at an unprecedented pace.
Furthermore, capital markets, while they did take a sudden drop in late March of that same year, had more than recovered by summer. In fact, today, our capital markets are higher than they have ever been. In fact, the Standard & Poor's TSX, which is the largest index of Canadian stocks, rose in market value above the size of our entire GDP for the first time in Canadian history and now stands somewhere around 125% of GDP, reaching record heights.
Furthermore, as I have demonstrated, mortgage issuances have reached records and they rose faster than ever before in our history. The amount of cash in people's and businesses' bank accounts has increased by $200 billion. In other words, the absence of liquidity or the seizing up of capital and credit markets can no longer be used as a justification to continue printing money and pumping it into the financial system. Now we have more cash circulating in markets, both credit and capital, than ever before and more liquidity in the hands of businesses and households than ever before. Therefore, the claim that money printing is just designed in order to protect the liquidity of capital and credit markets is demonstrably false.
Further evidence that it is false is the fact that the central bank has since changed its explanation for why it needed to continue printing money. It claimed then that it wanted to avoid disinflation or deflation. Apparently, they told us, this was the great risk that would result from COVID. However, as the evidence I have already presented demonstrates, there is no disinflation or deflation anywhere except perhaps in movie theatre and airplane tickets because people are effectively banned from buying either of them. Therefore, aside from those areas of the economy in which purchases are actually banned by local authorities for public health purposes, everything is actually increasing in price—
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member has been on the same question of privilege now for about 50 minutes if we include the 45 minutes prior to today. If you listen to the content of what he is discussing, it has nothing to do with a question of privilege, which is what he originally raised at that time. More importantly, I think if you would consider in your ruling the fact that the earliest opportunity he had to continue this question of privilege was yesterday, he chose not to do it yesterday. That should give some indication, being that it was an opposition day, why he chose not to do it yesterday.
Therefore, I think it is clear that what is going on here is filibustering in order to prevent a discussion on government legislation. Indeed, the member is not contributing to a question of privilege, which is what is to be discussed right now. I understand you have given him latitude, I think that is fair, but he really has never come to discuss what the actual question of privilege is. Maybe you want to give him two or three more minutes to do exactly that, but then I think it is fair to use your powers as the Speaker to cut him off, to say you have heard what you have heard and have what you need and that you will come back with a ruling later.
View Gérard Deltell Profile
CPC (QC)
View Gérard Deltell Profile
2021-06-18 13:19 [p.8789]
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There are three elements to consider when you make your decision on the question of privilege.
First, the member for Carleton respected the rules we have in this House of Commons when he raised his question of privilege two days ago and when he raised it again today, and he will conclude it today.
Second, the decision belongs to you and no one else. I know that you will make your decision, and I will respect that decision because you are the Speaker of the House and you have no lessons to take from both sides of the House. The decision is yours to make.
Third, as my colleague from Kingston and the Islands raised the issue of filibustering, I would remind him that his party is super efficient at filibustering, because in five parliamentary committees the Liberals spent 177 hours filibustering. We are peewees compared to them.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-18 13:22 [p.8790]
Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada and the government have then claimed that the reason it must continue to expand the money supply, print cash and provide it to the government is to avoid deflation or disinflation, which they have identified as a great threat from COVID. However, as I was saying, there is no evidence that either of these threats have manifested themselves. Outside of sectors for which consumers are banned from spending their money, like airlines and movie theatres, effectively, there is inflation everywhere. In fact, as I said, inflation has now exceeded not only the 2% target of the Bank of Canada, but the 1% to 3% acceptable range for inflation. We are well out of the woods of any concern that we are going to plunge this year or anytime in the immediate future into a deflationary spiral. Therefore, that cannot be the justification.
Finally, the Bank of Canada has claimed that it is continuing to print money because unemployment remains high. It is true that unemployment is high, we are the second-highest unemployment region in the G7, but there is absolutely no evidence, historical or present, that printing money will do anything about that at all. Money printing has never created jobs and in fact, if the Bank of Canada were to look upon its own history in the 1970s when it began a similar program of money creation, the result was higher unemployment, unemployment that reached 12% and inflation that also reached 12% and then later interest rates to quell that inflation reaching 20%.
That was the stagnation crisis of the early 1980s that, I might add, left us with not just the worst economic situation since the Depression, but also the highest suicide rate among Canadians. In other words, fighting unemployment cannot be the justification for printing money. Quite the contrary, it makes no sense. Therefore, that leaves one explanation for the ongoing money printing, and that is that it is intended to fund government operations.
It is standard and customary for a member making a claim of a breach of privilege of this type to rely on expert witness evidence, that is to say, to rely on the scientists and others who know the facts, the way that they would testify as expert witnesses in a court of law. I will bring to your attention the views on this specific matter of the inflation tax of the most renowned economic scientists in the history of the world. I will start with a 1978 lecture from Nobel laureate economic scientist—
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-18 13:26 [p.8790]
Mr. Speaker, I then address the third and final characteristic of a tax, which is that it is compulsory. This inflation tax is obviously compulsory. If people do not pay the inflation tax, they cannot buy food, which has gone up in price. They cannot buy housing, which has gone up in price. They cannot buy clothing, which has gone up in price. They cannot buy any of the essentials. The only way to avoid paying this inflation tax is to freeze, starve and go without the fuel to power one's life. In other words, other than to die, they have to pay the costs that are applied.
The only alternative to that would be to violate a federal statute in the Criminal Code that bans people from stealing because that is, again, the only way to get around paying the inflated prices the government has imposed upon people.
This inflation has all the three of the defining characteristics of a tax as provided in the Oxford English Dictionary: one, it raises money and is a levy for the government; two, it is paid by the people; and three, it is compulsory. It is all three of those things.
The tradition of requiring every tax increase that is imposed on the population to come before Parliament is one that dates back 800 years to the Magna Carta. It is probably the reason we have Parliament. The number one point of tension between the commoner and the king has always been the king's insatiable appetite for tax revenue and the commoners' desire to resist that appetite and protect the fruits of their labour.
If you were to rule that governments are allowed to do indirectly what they cannot do directly, that is to, for example, print money to fund their spending and pass on that cost through higher inflation to the population, you would effectively be setting a staggering precedent whereby governments can violate the principle of no taxation without representation by simply going around the parliamentary legislation process and raising taxes through the creation of cash.
I finally point out that the reason for this rule is not just to stop the government from taking too much, but to stop it from taking from the wrong places. This is a tax we would never approve because it falls heaviest on those with the least, and in a roundabout way by inflating their assets, improves the fortunes of those with the most.
In conclusion, if you were to put before the House a proposition to raise taxes on the poorest people in the land in order to increase the wealth of the most affluent people in the land and provide government with unlimited ability to spend, that would be voted down nearly unanimously because there is not a person in this chamber who would have the guts to go back to their constituents and defend such a voting decision.
That is precisely why we have this precedent. It is why we have the privilege and the duty to vote on every single tax increase. I ask you to uphold these ancient English liberties that make Parliament relevant and that make this country a place of the commoners, not of the Crown.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-18 13:30 [p.8791]
I thank the hon. member for Carleton for his comments on this matter. We will take it under advisement and get back to the House in due course.
It now being 1:30 p.m., the House will proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
View Luc Berthold Profile
2021-06-18 15:57 [p.8811]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech.
It is now my turn to rise to speak to Bill C-30, the budget implementation act, 2021. This budget looks nothing like any other budget in Canadian history. Before I comment on Bill C‑30, I want to talk about an unacceptable situation in my riding that the government is responsible for.
For years, the federal and provincial governments benefited greatly from the asbestos mines in the Appalaches RCM. Then the Liberal government shut down mining operations in the area. We can live with that. It was bound to happen. We can live with the mine tailings left by more than 100 years of mining operations. We can live with that, because we have turned things around. We have diversified our economy. I am very proud of my constituents' entrepreneurial spirit. They have transformed our mining town into a burgeoning town filled with robust small businesses. We can live with the fact that asbestos is still all around us. Asbestos is a natural fibre found in the ground, and closing the mines did not change the local geology. The asbestos was there long before us, and it will be there long after we are gone.
What I refuse to accept is Environment Canada's latest fearmongering campaign. Environment Canada put an ad in our local paper that says, “If you are using mining residues containing asbestos in your landscaping you could be putting yourself, your family and your neighbours at risk.” The hook reads, “DID YOU KNOW THAT breathing in asbestos fibres can cause life-threatening diseases?”
The answer to that question is yes. Used improperly, as was the case for years, asbestos can cause life-threatening diseases. It is ridiculous to tell people to be careful, because the fact is, their environment is dangerous. The government cannot just tell our people that their lives are in danger and then proceed to do nothing.
In 2018, I asked the Prime Minister to help our people rehabilitate mine lands and fix 100 years' worth of mining mistakes. The only answer I got was that my request had been forwarded to the Minister of Natural Resources. I have heard nothing more since, nothing at all. Then this inappropriate, inexcusable and unacceptable ad was printed in the local paper.
The people of our RCM are being asked to assume the full costs of the environmental clean-up needed after 100 years of asbestos mining, and to do so quickly. They are being told that if this is not done, their lives will be at risk.
What is in the budget to help the people in my region? What is in the budget to help maintain economic diversification in my region? What is in the budget to protect people in regions that produce asbestos? There is nothing, other than an advertising budget, which Environment Canada is using to scare people without providing any real solutions.
It may not look all that exciting, but this is a small town in Quebec that is doing its best to emerge from the asbestos producing era and has diversified its economy. Its people are proud to live there.
The government is not offering any solutions. Time is running out. I wrote to the Prime Minister, to the Minister of Environment and to several offices last week. I did not even receive an acknowledgement of receipt.
Governments are responsible for those 100 years of asbestos mining in my region. I expect the Liberal government to take responsibility and provide the means to ensure the safety and prosperity of our people.
Thetford Mines is like a town in a mine, it is like an oasis in the desert. The government cannot turn a blind eye to this reality and it must immediately end the fear campaign initiated by Environment Canada. It must grant my request to create a rehabilitation fund, and it must assume and accept its responsibilities for the 100 years of asbestos mining in Thetford Mines, in Asbestos and in every mining town in the country where there was asbestos.
Unfortunately for us, it seems that the government is completely disconnected from reality, the reality of regions like mine and the reality of the majority of Canadians.
This budget is historic, but for all the wrong reasons.
This week, we saw one of the negative effects of the Liberals' budget. The inflation rate hit 3.6%, the highest level in a decade.
Statistics Canada reported that costs are rising in all areas: housing, vehicles, food, energy, consumer goods and others. Housing costs increased by 4.2% by May, the fastest increase since 2008. The cost of gas increased 43%, the cost of vehicles rose by 5%. Prices rose by 3.2% in just a few months. Everything is going up, including furniture and accommodation costs. However, Canadians do not have more money.
The leader of the official opposition, the member for Durham, summed up the situation quite well in a speech earlier this week, and I quote:
Today's inflation numbers show the damage [the Prime Minister's] risky deficits and trillion-dollar debt are causing Canadians.
...
From housing to post-secondary education, transportation, and groceries, [the Prime Minister] has made life more expensive for average Canadians who are exhausted and want life to return to normal.
It is clear that this government's spending habits will only make life more difficult and more expensive for Canadians.
What does that debt look like? All told, the Liberals increased Canada's spending from $363 billion before the pandemic to about $500 billion for this year alone, and the deficit from $155 billion to a staggering $354 billion. After all of this government's spending promises, our national debt is going to hit the $1.5-trillion mark, a number that we are going to be hearing more and more in the House, a number that we never used before but that will now become a regular part of our vocabulary.
Canadians, my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will be paying off this debt for generations. The risk of a rise in inflation is currently weighing heavily on people's shoulders because interest rates are going to go up. That means that this budget will be a real problem for all generations of Canadians.
Before I wrap things up, I want to stress that there are two absolutely unacceptable things in this budget.
The first is the government's decision to divide seniors into two categories: younger seniors aged 65 to 74 and older seniors 75 and up. There is absolutely nothing in this budget for younger seniors. In contrast, older seniors, those who will be 75 before July of next year, will be getting a $500 cheque a few weeks before a possible election call this fall.
The government has a lot of nerve if it thinks it is okay to give money to one group of seniors and completely ignore other seniors who, because of inflation, will have to pay higher prices for gas, food and all the other things I mentioned before. The government projects this image of being such a hero for seniors, yet it thinks this is okay. What a crock.
The second item I wanted to highlight is increasing EI sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 26 weeks. The House wanted these payments to go up to at least 50 weeks. For its part, our party is asking for 52 weeks. However, the government is not listening and will only increase the payment period to 26 weeks, and only as of next year.
What will happen to all the cancer cases diagnosed between now and then? What will happen to all the people who become sick before the date the change comes into effect and who will not be able to receive benefits because the government decided that the change should only come into effect next year?
It makes no sense. The government is completely out of touch. I am asking that it put both feet back on the ground. Therefore, it will come as no surprise that I should vote against such a budget, which divides and which will put generations upon generations of Canadians into debt, while doing absolutely nothing to protect our future or create jobs.
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2021-06-17 14:48 [p.8674]
Mr. Speaker, inflation is on the march, and life is getting more expensive for Canadians.
Today, economist William Robson of the C.D. Howe Institute warned that the Liberals may have gone too far with massive borrowing and spending, and they risk inflating away the value of our money. Deutsche Bank warns of an inflation time bomb. Stats Canada says that inflation is higher than it has been in over 10 years.
Yes, inflation is on the march. When will the government finally act to make life more affordable for Canadians?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, let me tell the House who is going too far. It is the Conservatives who are going too far with their partisan games and thereby threatening Canada's economic recovery.
Canadians need the wage subsidy and the rent subsidy to be extended until the end of September. Our government wants to do that, but Conservative partisan delaying tactics are stopping us from passing the budget, and that irresponsible Conservative behaviour is the biggest threat to Canadians' well-being today.
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2021-06-17 14:49 [p.8675]
Mr. Speaker, the same rhetoric we heard yesterday and the day before. The minister's talking points do not make life any more affordable for the many Canadians who have seen their dream of owning a home disappear under the government. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that the minister may have miscalibrated her economic policy.
Meanwhile, the price of everything is going up, food, clothing, rent, gasoline, yet the minister and her plutocrat Liberals refuse to listen. Why is she hell-bent on hurting struggling Canadians?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, yet again, it is the Conservatives who, for reasons I cannot understand, seem hell-bent on hurting hard-working Canadians. They are hurting Canadians by depriving them of the income and business supports they so urgently need. They are hurting Canadians by depriving the provinces and territories of $5 billion to support the vaccination campaign and our health care systems that are working so hard to protect us.
It is time for the Conservatives to stop posturing and to support the budget so we can support Canadians.
View Erin O'Toole Profile
CPC (ON)
View Erin O'Toole Profile
2021-06-16 14:21 [p.8522]
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has confirmed that inflation is at a 10‑year high in Canada because this government's spending is out of control. The cost of everything is on the rise: housing, education, transportation and groceries. Canadians can no longer accept this government's limitless spending.
When will the Liberals rein in their spending?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I will say that the Conservatives' partisan games are the biggest threat to Canada's recovery right now. Conservative tactics are preventing us from passing the budget. This irresponsible behaviour threatens the well-being of every Canadian.
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2021-06-16 14:50 [p.8528]
Mr. Speaker, today we learned that the cost of living is up, way up. Inflation is now at 3.6%, the highest it has been in over 10 years. Prices for everything, gasoline, food, furniture, are up, while millions of Canadians see their dream of home ownership disappear. Canadians need a leader who is focused on governing, not on preening for the cameras at the G7.
When will the Prime Minister finally take his job seriously and make life more affordable for the people he is supposed to be serving?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, it is utterly hypocritical for the Conservatives to even pretend to be concerned about ordinary Canadians. The single biggest threat the Canadian economy faces today is Conservative partisanship, which is blocking our budget. The Conservatives are blocking the extension of the wage subsidy, the extension of the rent subsidy and the extension of income supports.
Canada is ready to come roaring back. We just need the Conservatives to get out of the way.
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2021-06-16 14:51 [p.8528]
Mr. Speaker, even the finance minister does not get it. Inflation is way up. It is at its highest point in a decade, proving that the finance minister's trillion dollar debt and endless deficits are inflicting more and more damage on our country. Meanwhile, the cost of everything is going up, and housing has become unaffordable for millions of families.
How much more expensive does life have to get before the minister and her Liberal government realize how badly they have failed exhausted Canadians?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, let me tell the House what else Canadians, who indeed are exhausted and who indeed do need support, are being deprived of because of the immature partisan games of the Conservatives: $5 billion to support provincial and territorial health systems, $4 billion directly to the health care system and $1 billion for the essential vaccination campaign. That is what Canadians need right now and it is what Conservatives are blocking.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 14:52 [p.8528]
Mr. Speaker, today it is clear that we have an inflationary bubble. The government is just trying to pump even more hot air into that bubble. It has created a trillion-dollar debt, which means too many dollars chasing too few goods and services. Now, in addition to not having paycheques, Canadians who do work are seeing their paycheques nibbled up by this growing level of inflation.
Will the government reverse its inflationary policy, stop spending what it does not have, restore fiscal responsibility and allow Canadians to afford their cost of living?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, let me tell the House what is truly irresponsible today just as we are poised to finish the fight against COVID. What is irresponsible are Conservative partisan games. Canadians need the wage subsidy, they need the rent subsidy and they need income support to be extended to the end of September, but the Conservatives are stopping us from passing our budget. It is that irresponsible behaviour which threatens the well-being of every single Canadian.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 14:54 [p.8528]
Mr. Speaker, so she just wants us to help her give more and more inflationary spending into the economy, driving up the cost of living, particularly on the working poor, and devaluing the wages of the Canadian people.
We have the second-highest unemployment in the G7, higher than the OECD, higher than the U.K., the U.S., Japan and Germany. Now those same unemployed Canadians are facing higher prices for shelter, fuel and food.
Instead of ramming through another inflationary budget that drives up the cost of living, why will she not actually reverse course and protect the value of the dollars Canadians earn?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, first, the member opposite needs to get his numbers right. Canada's labour force participation rate in April was in fact higher than the labour force participation rate in the U.S., the U.K., France and Italy.
I do want all members of the House to help me and to help our government support Canadians. I want them to help me extend the business and income supports. I want them to help me give more support to our seniors and to our youth.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 16:52 [p.8552]
Mr. Speaker, you have notice from me of a question of privilege.
I am rising today because of the government's imposition of a new tax without needed approval of the House of Commons. It has breached the privileges of all members and has done so in contravention of Standing Orders 79(1), 80 and 83.1, as well as principles laid out on pages 827, 828, 829, 831, 833, 835, 841, 893 and 906 through 908 of Bosc and Gagnon's House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, 2017. There are also numerous rulings by the Chair and most important of all section 53 of the Constitution Act, 1867.
In essence, I am rising today to ask that you find a prima facie case of breach of privilege because of the government's imposition of a secretive and insidious tax designed to raise funds for it to spend at the expense of the Canadian people without holding appropriate votes in the House of Commons and possibly in direct contravention of other laws that have been passed by this House.
The new tax of which I speak is designed to raise more money for the government to spend. In fact, it raised more money for the government to spend in the last fiscal year than all other sources of revenue combined. This tax should be called the inflation tax, which is—
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I would ask you consider what the member is suggesting to be a question of privilege and rule whether it is admissible for him to try to filibuster time in the House of Commons right now, which is clearly what appears to be the objective here. Can the Speaker provide some kind of insight as to whether what we are hearing in the House right now is actually a question of privilege?
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 16:54 [p.8553]
Mr. Speaker, I speak of this illegal inflation tax, in which the government is funding its spending with newly created currency that increases consumer prices through the levy of inflation.
Before I go any further, let me clarify the difference between inflation and the inflation tax. It is not a tax when, independent and separate from government, consumer prices rise due to supply and demand dynamics. However, when they rise because the government and central bank coordinate to expand the money supply, thus raising consumer prices above what they would otherwise be and force consumers to pay what they would otherwise pay, that is a tax.
I do not raise this question of privilege lightly, but after careful consideration of the nature of the government's actions and their real-world effects on Canadians, both of which I have described. As well, I rely heavily on the jurisprudence from the Chair and the clear legal definitions of a tax.
To prove this breach, I would have to show three parts. First, that there is a privilege for members of Parliament at stake, and that the privilege is governments cannot tax what the House does not expressly approve through votes by each member in the chamber. Second, I would need to prove the policy in fact imposes a tax. Finally, I would need to provide proof the House did not approve this tax. Together, these points prove the government committed a prima facie case of breach of my parliamentary privilege by denying me the opportunity to vote on this tax increase before it took effect.
Let me start with the first part. Is there a privilege for each member to vote on any new taxes introduced or imposed on Canadians? The answer is yes. In fact, this privilege on Canadian soil originated with the British North America Act, section 53 of the Constitution, which reads:
Bills for appropriating any Part of the Public Revenue, or for imposing any Tax or Impost, shall originate in the House of Commons.
This constitutional principle is further enshrined in Standing Order 80(1), which states:
All aids and supplies granted to the Sovereign by the Parliament of Canada are the sole gift of the House of Commons, and all bills for granting such aids and supplies ought to begin with the House, as it is the undoubted right of the House to direct, limit, and appoint in all such bills, the ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations and qualifications of such grants, which are not alterable by the Senate.
The failure of this House to “direct, limit, and appoint” revenue-raising measures is accordingly not only a violation of the Constitution but also of the privileges of members of the House set out in the Standing Orders.
In the Eurig Estate case, the courts considered the constitutional implications of a tax raised through such improper and indirect means. Justice Jack Major, writing for the majority, wrote that section 53 of the Constitution “...codifies the principle of no taxation without representation, by requiring any bill that imposes a tax to originate with the legislature.”
Justice Major goes on to say “My interpretation of s. 53...prohibits not only the Senate, but also any other body other than the directly elected legislature, from imposing a tax on its own accord.”
Any other body—
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-16 16:59 [p.8553]
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I appreciate very much your wise counsel. However, I missed the last three paragraphs and I was wondering if he could repeat them because I did not quite get the point he was making. For clarity's sake, it might be good if he clarified it.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 17:00 [p.8553]
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, Justice Major made clear that it is his interpretation that no body, other than the House of Commons, can initiate a tax increase. I would submit that “no body” includes the Bank of Canada itself, in collaboration with the government.
When the court said “there should be no taxation without representation”, it got to the heart of my point here today. It stated:
...the Lieutenant Governor in Council cannot impose a new tax ab initio without the authorization of the legislature.... “The Governor in Council has no power, proprio vigore, to impose taxes unless under authority specifically delegated to it by Statute. The power of taxation is exclusively in Parliament.”
The court went on to say that section 53 “ensures parliamentary control over, and accountability for, taxation” and quoted the distinguished legal scholar Elmer Driedger, as follows:
Through the centuries, the principle was maintained that taxation required representation and consent. The only body in Canada that meets this test is the Commons. The elected representatives of the people sit in the Commons...and, consistently with history and tradition, they may well insist that they alone have the right to decide to the last cent what money is to be granted and what taxes are to be imposed.
Elsewhere, the court similarly held in the Westbank First Nation case:
...the Canadian Constitution (through the operation of s. 53 of the Constitution Act, 1867) demands that there should be no taxation without representation. In other words, individuals being taxed in a democracy have the right to have their elected representatives debate whether their money should be appropriated, and determine how it should be spent.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-16 17:02 [p.8554]
Mr. Speaker, I am having a very difficult time understanding the question of privilege. Can the member specifically and concisely indicate what the new tax is that he is referring to. I do not understand the question of privilege at all. He seems to—
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 17:03 [p.8554]
Mr. Speaker, just because the member does not understand the fact, that does not erase that it is indeed a fact.
I thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for his help along the way.
Peter Hogg, who, until his death last year, was Canada's leading constitutional scholar, underscored the point that I am making now in a 2002 article:
It must be remembered that the taxing power is the one upon which the rest of governance depends. As the King and Parliament both recognized in the 17th century, nothing important can be done without resources, and it is control of the taxing power that provides the resources. Moreover, no other power has as direct and immediate an effect on citizens as the taxing power, and (for that reason) nothing government does is as unpopular as the imposition and collection of taxes. There is a huge incentive for governments to offload this power to a delegate, who can raise taxes quietly without any irritating fuss in the Parliament or Legislature, and who can shoulder the blame when the media do get wind of the action.
As Professor Hogg noted, this is not a new problem. In fact, it is one of the oldest and most important matters in the system of parliamentary democracy. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that taxation is the reason we are all here today. The Crown's power to tax and the need to obtain the consent of those paying the taxes is why Parliament exists in the first place. We could look at 800 years of history, going back to the Magna Carta, to find that the principal disagreement between Crown and commoner has been on the subject of taxation.
It is essential to the privileges of every member of this House that every single levy or tax come before us to be voted on before it is enacted. I think I have clearly proven that it is the privilege of every member to vote on a tax increase before it is imposed.
What is the tax of which I speak? The answer is, it is the inflation tax. Is excessive inflation, which results from excessive money creation, in fact a tax? We can look to the definition of “tax” found in Oxford Languages, a 150-year-old dictionary, which defines taxes as follows:
A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.
I will break down that definition. First, it is state revenue, “levied by the government”. Second, it is “added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.” Third, it is a “compulsory contribution”.
First, is the inflation tax designed to generate state revenue, levied by the government? I will give the data to prove that in fact it is. In February 2020, the Bank of Canada owned $106 billion of government debt. As of the end of last month, that number had reached $412 billion. That is an increase of almost $300 billion in one year. It is also an increase of 300%. Last year, the amount that the Bank of Canada produced for the government by purchasing government debt was over $300 billion. It was the single biggest source of revenue for the government, bigger than income tax, consumption tax, tariffs and private loans combined.
Never before has the Bank of Canada been the single biggest provider of funds for the government's operation. It does this through a process whereby the government sells debt onto the market and the bank buys it back at a higher price. This has the effect of flooding government coffers with cheap credit that it could spend liberally, as it did last year and continues to do right now.
The result is a massive increase in the money supply. When the Bank of Canada uses its balance sheet to buy government debt, it increases the number of dollars in circulation. In the period since late winter and early spring of 2020, the money supply has increased by over $300 billion. In fact, from February 2020 to February 2021, the money supply grew by $354 billion. The deficit for the last fiscal year was $354 billion. In other words, the same amount the government needed to borrow was the amount that the Bank of Canada created.
This led to a 20% year-over-year increase in the number of dollars in coins, bills and bank deposits. That is the biggest increase since 1974, which was the last time the government went on a money-printing binge, which led to major inflation crises thereafter. For context, the increase in the money supply is so large that it could fund our Canadian Armed Forces for 10 years. To use another measure, fully one in six dollars in the entire M2 money supply has been created in the last year alone.
In the fiscal year 2021, the Bank of Canada was the single largest source of funds for the Government of Canada. All revenue from other sources was $294 billion, and net new borrowing was $41 billion, but revenue from the bank was $303 billion. That $303 billion is an extraordinary and unprecedented sum.
The bank did not do this on its own. Let me now speak about the direct coordination between the government and the bank that led to this massive increase in the money supply.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance actually said that there was coordination between the bank and the government. The coincidence that we see in the amount of money printed and the amount of money spent demonstrates this coordination as well. For example—
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-16 17:11 [p.8555]
Mr. Speaker, I have been listening very closely and it seems to me the member is saying there is an inflation tax, so whenever inflation goes up or down it should be brought to the House so that members can say no to inflation by way of a vote. That is the best I can tell. If the member could just move on so that you can make a decision on the issue, because I do not see this—
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-16 17:11 [p.8555]
Mr. Speaker, I am getting frustrated as well. I am not really sure where the inflationary tax element comes in, but I am very frustrated by the fact that just because the member for Winnipeg North does not understand something the House has to stop and change direction. I would ask him to let the member finish so we could actually understand whether we agree with him or not. I think it is unfair that whenever the member for Winnipeg North is confused he is always interrupting.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I am getting a real kick out of the fact that the NDP is now on the floor of the House of Commons supporting these antics by the Conservatives. It looks as though the New Democrats have decided they are interested in doing this. I would suggest that you rule that the previous comment by the member from the NDP is out of order because, quite frankly, it was not a point of order.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 17:13 [p.8555]
Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out before the interruption, according to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, the government had been coordinating with the central bank to produce these funds and these funds had been used to spend.
The massive dollar figures involved that I mentioned earlier are not only staggering and unprecedented, they may be illegal. In fact, I stumbled on a section of the Bank of Canada Act, section 18(j), only hours before I was originally planning to make this question of privilege. Having read that section and looked at the numbers, I came to the conclusion that there very well might be a breach of law involved in what the bank and the government have colluded to do.
Allow me to read the section in question, section 18, which states that the bank may:
(j) make loans to the Government of Canada or the government of any province, but such loans outstanding at any one time shall not, in the case of the Government of Canada, exceed one-third of the estimated revenue of the Government of Canada for its fiscal year...
I turn your attention, Mr. Speaker, to table A1.4, “Summary Statement of Transactions”, budget 2021, projected revenues $355.1 billion. To respect section 18(j) of the Bank of Canada Act, which limits the bank's ability to lend money to the government to no more than one-third of projected budgetary revenues, the bank would be effectively capped in its loans to the government at $118 billion, $118 billion being one-third of the $355 billion of projected revenues. In fact, the Bank of Canada balance sheet shows that it now holds $415 billion, almost $300 billion more than the legal cap provided in the act.
When I discovered this apparent breach, I immediately delayed my introduction of this question of privilege to spend the time to verify and re-verify my calculations. I had never seen a government body quite so flagrantly violate limits that Parliament has placed upon it in statutory law, so I thought there must be some mistake. However, as I crunched the numbers, I realized that no, in fact, the one-third limit was breached.
I then reached out to the Library of Parliament to conduct a full review of all the legislation passed to approve emergency COVID spending since the spring of 2020 to find out if maybe the section was temporarily suspended or a special exemption to it was created to allow this kind of dollar figure to be lent from the bank to the government. Sure enough, the Library of Parliament said that there was no such exemption or suspension of the section; it is still in place.
In other words, this research shows, and I ask that you, Mr. Speaker, and your trusted advisers and the officials at the Library of Parliament to verify my claim here, that the Bank of Canada has breached limits that Parliament has imposed on its ability to lend money to the government.
These limits do not exist without reason. There is a reason why Parliament chose deliberately to write a section into the Bank of Canada Act limiting the amount of debt the bank could buy. The reason is this: Parliament foresaw that future governments might try to use the printing presses over at the bank to pay for spending that it could not raise through the more normal process of taxation.
With the limits Parliament placed on the Bank of Canada's purchase of government debt, Parliament effectively banned the government from raising taxes by inflationary money creation instead of by legal and legitimate taxation. That the government and the bank have circumvented that ban and broken a law of Parliament breaches the privileges of every member of the House to vote on laws that are made and repealed.
In the process, the government has breached the principle of the independence of the central bank. This breach is not the result of the independent action of the bank.
The parliamentary secretary to the finance minister, during the appearance of the Governor of the Bank of Canada before the finance committee on June 16, 2020, said, “There's been an enormous coordination between OSFI, the bank and the federal government.”
I have given the fiscal and mathematical evidence to show that this coordination has occurred. In fact, not only did it occur last year when the bank bought effectively 85% of the government's deficit, and wherein the bank increased the money supply by exactly the same amount that the government borrowed in the previous fiscal year, but that “enormous coordination” has continued into this fiscal year.
On April 19, the Minister of Finance introduced a budget in the House projecting a $154 billion deficit, or borrowing effectively $3 billion a week. Two days later, the Governor of the Bank of Canada held a press conference, announcing that his bank would be buying $3 billion a week of government debt. In other words, the government is borrowing $3 billion a week and the central bank is buying $3 billion a week. The government is running roughly a $155 billion deficit and the bank is lending roughly $155 billion throughout the year. In other words, this coordination is not just in words—
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. How much longer are you going to let this go on? When I rise on a point of order or the member for Winnipeg North rises on a point of order, you are very quick to shut us down if we are not addressing the point of order. The member has been going for almost 30 minutes on what is obviously not a question of privilege.
View Gérard Deltell Profile
CPC (QC)
View Gérard Deltell Profile
2021-06-16 17:20 [p.8556]
Mr. Speaker, we shall listen to the member who has raised the question of privilege. It is the basis of the House of Commons to respect the will and thinking of each and every member. We could disagree with what the member is saying, but at least we shall listen to him, especially on a privilege question, which is not easy to address; we recognize that. It is so important for the Canadian taxpayer that we listen to the member.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-16 17:21 [p.8556]
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Kingston and the Islands can attack me all he wants but he cannot attack the role of the Speaker. He should offer you an apology. You were doing your role, and you were doing it in an impartial, non-partisan manner.
I would ask the member to withdraw those comments and apologize to you, Mr. Speaker. for trying to interrupt the work of the House.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I do apologize if I by any means challenged your authority. You do an excellent job as Speaker. However, I certainly did not do that, I do not believe. I merely asked a question as to how long you were going to allow this to go on.
To the point made by the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, let us just be honest about what is going on here. The Conservatives—
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 17:22 [p.8556]
Mr. Speaker, as I said when I quoted the Oxford dictionary, a tax has three characteristics: that it is a state revenue levied by government, that is adds to the cost of goods and services transactions and that it is a compulsory contribution.
I have just gone through the first point in which I have demonstrated that this cash creation is state revenue levied by the government—
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-16 17:23 [p.8556]
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Within our Standing Orders, and you alluded to this yourself, it does state that members do need to be concise and virtually to the point in regard to how a member's privilege might have been taken. There is a bit of frustration in the sense that we have witnessed other members from the Conservative Party use privilege as a way to—
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 17:23 [p.8557]
Mr. Speaker, as I said, the second characteristic of a tax is that it adds to the cost of some goods, services and transactions.
Just today, Statistics Canada released fresh data showing what consumers have known for months; that inflation has rocketed up to 3.6%, well above the Bank of Canada's 2% target. This data was essential to my argument today, thus one of the reasons why I waited for its publication before presenting this.
As of this morning, three of four measures of the Bank of Canada for inflation show that inflation has breached the 2% target. Several product groups were well above that. Gasoline is up 43.4%; home ownership replacement costs, 11.3%; and durable goods, which includes things like cars, appliances and furniture, is up 5%. That is just to name a few. This is demonstrated proof that people are, in fact, paying the cost of the inflation tax.
Food prices are also on sharp rise. According to the latest Canada Food Price Report, food costs increased 2.3% last year, with an expected 4.5% to 6.5% increase in meat, 3.5% to 5.5% increase in bakery and 4.5% to 6.5% increase in vegetables this year.
Housing prices have ballooned 30% from March 2020 to March 2021. This is where the cause and effect is most evident. COVID should have reduced housing prices. The wages with which people buy houses dropped. People lost their jobs, making it harder to place offers on homes. To escape lockdowns, more people moved to the countryside, where prices per square foot are lower. Immigration came to a halt, reducing the number of buyers in the market. All these factors would have driven demand and therefore prices down.
In fact, the country's top housing regulator, CMHC, predicted prices would drop as much as 14% for those reasons, and they did begin to drop in March and April of last year. Then, suddenly, as the Bank of Canada's increase in the money supply began flooding into the market, prices began to reverse. The government pumped $356 billion of brand new, newly created cash into the system, and that was exactly the size of the deficit and the size of the money supply growth—
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-06-16 17:27 [p.8557]
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member is not being concise and to the point. If the member wants to continue to debate the issue, he can have an opposition day tomorrow. There is a budget debate. That is where he can be making these points. From my perspective, I do not hear, and I leave it to you to make that decision, a matter of privilege, but rather a waste of valuable time.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
View Charlie Angus Profile
2021-06-16 17:27 [p.8557]
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I will be very concise. Again, the member for Winnipeg North has interfered multiple times without saying anything. I was hoping we would have this done by now, but with the continual interruptions by the member for Winnipeg North, we are almost going to see the clock out, and that is very unfair.
View Michael Barrett Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Speaker, on that same point of order, the member for Winnipeg North is using points of order as a tactic to interrupt the member for Carleton. The Chair had made a decision and then gave instruction to the member for Carleton to be concise. The member for Winnipeg North then challenged the Speaker's interpretation of what was and what was not concise.
We are seeing this tactic where we have members using their privilege in this place to raise germane questions of privilege, and we have members from the government side who enter into debate instead of accepting the decision of the Chair, and that was with respect to whether the member was being concise. It was not a question of repetition.
I would hope that other members, under your direction, Mr. Speaker, would allow the member to conclude his question of privilege without these interruptions and tactics they are deploying.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-16 17:29 [p.8557]
Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, housing prices were dropping until the bank began printing its money. The increase in the money supply flooded into the mortgage system. From the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021, mortgage lending grew by 41% and, as a result, from April 2020 to April 2021, housing prices went up about 42%. In other words, there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the increase in the money supply and the increase in prices.
This is supported by years of research by academia. For example, Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon”, and John Maynard Keynes—
View Anthony Rota Profile
Lib. (ON)
I am going to interrupt the hon. member for Carleton. Private Members' Business starts at 5:30 and depriving members of their Private Members' Business items is really unfair to them. That is something that they wait on. The hon. member for Carleton can continue either tomorrow or later tonight.
It being 5:30 p.m., the House will proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business, as listed on today's Order Paper.
View Jasraj Singh Hallan Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today to give a speech in response to the government's budget. Many of my colleagues, whether on my side of the aisle or the other side, have already given speeches about this budget, but today I am not here to simply support the budget blindly or criticize it for ideological or political gain. I am here today to speak from the heart. I am here to speak on behalf of my constituents. I am here to make clear to the members of this House how most Canadians from Calgary Forest Lawn feel about this budget.
Let me start with the short hand dealt to my fellow Albertans. This budget fell short in helping Canada's oil and gas, energy, agriculture and forestry sectors to be global leaders in performance and innovation. While there is money going to some sectors in our economy, there is no plan, as usual. As Adam Legge wrote for the Calgary Herald about this very issue, “It is not rooted in the sound recommendations of the government’s own Industry Strategy Council.”
While the government may say that this money will create a fancy new future and make jobs, the truth is that it is more lip service to Albertans. To the single mother who is a field project manager, to the Muslim sister who just got her citizenship and a job in our energy industry as a chemical engineer, and to the eighth-generation roughneck worker in the oil fields, it is very clear that the government has forgotten about them. It has forgotten about the average working class that has made this country great.
While the government's new budget makes life harder for my constituents to earn money, it also makes daily living more expensive and creates great harm for our children and future generations. April's inflation rate was 3.4%. That means the cost of goods is now 3.4% higher, on average. Many of my constituents have been laid off or have taken a massive pay decrease due to this pandemic. Many Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque, and this was even before the pandemic. Many Canadians cannot afford to pay more for basic necessities due to the Prime Minister's reckless spending and budget.
In April, our economy saw 207,000 jobs lost, with an unemployment rate above 8%. What is the solution? It is spending more, says the finance minister. According to her, it is an ideal time to borrow because interest rates are low. That is interesting, because as the global economy recovers, the interest rates are actually rising, and that has been the trend for the last few months. The cost of debt repayment has now reached a skyrocketing $22 billion per year. That means $22 billion less for our seniors, veterans, the health care system and many other important systems and groups that need this money.
Of course, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once said, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Who will pay for this lunch, one may ask. It will be our children, their children and their children's children, and so on. I am already talking to many students who cannot find internships, who are in crippling debt, who struggle with many mental health issues due to this pandemic and even before. Now more over-stressed and with lack of employment due to our weak economy, what will they say when they find out a few years down the road that they will have to pay for all of this mess, a mess that the Liberal government has put us in?
The key word is “inflation”. For every dollar we print, the value of every dollar falls. It is basic economics. I wish we could print all the money in the world and help everyone, but there is such a thing as scarcity. The government does not understand that, and now our constituents have to suffer.
I also have the privilege of being the official opposition's shadow minister for immigration, refugees and citizenship. How does this budget affect immigration, one may ask. The immigration minister promised that Canada will welcome 401,000 immigrants this year, and still there are massive backlogs. We need immigration. Our working population is aging and, unfortunately, our immigration system is aging with it. This budget does nothing significant to address these backlogs. Families remain separated from their loved ones; parents are missing their children's first steps, birthdays and, in some cases, their births.
Just the other month, I received a call from a constituent saying they wanted to kill themselves because they cannot wait any longer to see their loved ones and cannot bear the isolation of this pandemic. My heart breaks for them.
The detail included in this budget is just a timeline or a promise to deliver a new program by 2023. Ignoring the government's track record with broken promises, pushing this problem down the road is not helping anyone. Families are separated for years. People are waiting for half a decade to have their applications processed, and yet the best the Liberals can do is promise an untested program being launched in the future.
There are also no details on whether the government will work with experts, national and cybersecurity professionals or even immigration experts to develop a platform that truly works for Canadians. There cannot be a strong recovery without a strong plan for immigration. What Canada needs now is a smarter immigration system that focuses on our resources and on making Canada a more welcoming place full of opportunity and potential.
A Conservative government will work to replace Liberal platitudes with a system that actually works again, one that does not leave families separated and desperate for hope but hopeful for a prosperous life in Canada.
Again, the government will point and blame when it hears these facts about its budget. Of course it will blame the pandemic and say it stalled efforts for economic recovery and the advancement of the immigration system, but the new question is, what is the government doing to reopen Canada safely? The government had a failed plan to procure vaccines, a failed plan to secure our borders to stop variants and a failed plan to support small business and our energy industry in withstanding the negative effects of this pandemic.
Just recently, a Calgary-based company that was making a vaccine for COVID-19 said it is leaving Canada, after the government ignored its calls for support. The goal is to retain Canadian talent, not drive it away. Before this pandemic, the government's policies against our world-class energy industry led to investment fleeing. I personally saw the tradespeople I dealt with having to lay off their workers and having to go back onto the field themselves. They blame the Liberal government's policies and inaction to help support them.
I ask people, even in the toughest of times and with a bad budget, to stay strong. To the small business owners, the families living paycheque to paycheque and those trying to start a new life in our great country, I say not to give up, not to lose hope, for what makes our country great is the people, not its government or fancy budget plans that do very little to help the little guy.
We are stronger together, and I stand here on behalf of my constituents to speak up against this budget and expose whom it is hurting: the everyday Canadian. Inflation due to this out-of-control spending does not really hurt the rich and privileged that bad. Whom it does hurt is the single mother from Calgary who is struggling to pay for her kids' schooling and groceries, the bus driver from Toronto trying to afford his mortgage, and the family-run restaurant owner from P.E.I. who has to close up shop for good because the government could not secure the vaccines fast enough, unlike our counterparts.
I came to this country as an immigrant and I grew up as an at-risk youth. I still remember the raindrops hitting my face as my family and I waited in line for low-income bus passes. I still remember seeing my parents and myself working multiple jobs to make ends meet and to survive. I do not want to see that struggle for my children or anyone's children, or in fact any Canadian. We came to this country to enjoy prosperity, not government debt and a crippling economy.
A Conservative government will have a real plan, made by the experts and guided by the everyday Canadian. We will have a fresh new vision of hope, so that no matter where people came from, who they are or when they arrived here, they will have a chance to live the Canadian dream, just as I and many members of this House did.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” Together we will fix this mistake, together we will recover this economy and together we will all grow.
May God keep our land glorious and free.
View Brad Redekopp Profile
CPC (SK)
View Brad Redekopp Profile
2021-06-11 13:07 [p.8298]
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today and speak to the budget. I actually did not think I would get the opportunity to do this. I did not think I would see a budget from the government, so I am pleased to speak to it today.
I want to put this into the context of COVID-19. Last March, the government shut down the economy because of the pandemic, and we Conservatives co-operated with a lot of these emergency support measures, which was important to do at the time. I want to highlight the Liberals' approach to this.
The very first thing the Liberals did was use their bills as a power grab. They wanted to have the superpower to be able to do whatever they wanted and spend however much they wanted until December of this year, which is still six months from now. That is what they had asked for. Of course, we did not allow them to do this.
The second thing they did was take the power they did have, which was to spend some money, and direct that money to their friends. We think of former Liberal MP Frank Baylis, who got a contract for respirators even though his company had no experience or specialty in that area, and of course the WE scandal, which we have heard a lot about this week, where the government found a way to funnel money to its friends the Kielburgers.
When we exposed all those things, the Liberals did a third thing, which was to prorogue Parliament. They did not want investigations. They did not want documents to come out, and they did not want people to know what was going on. That prorogation of Parliament has created where we are now, where we have this last-ditch, last-hour effort to get this budget passed.
While all of that was going on, Canada was in a significant recession. Our GDP was negative 11.5% last summer. We had record double-digit unemployment, and many small businesses were shut down, including many in Saskatoon, particularly in the tourism sector. Then finally, in the fall, we got an economic statement. Finally, there was some acknowledgement that the government needed to provide some numbers, and yet even that understated the depth of the economic calamity that was hitting Canada.
While all that was going on, the solution to the problem, which was the acquisition of vaccines, was a failure by the government. The first thing the Liberals did was bet the farm on the Chinese dictatorship supplying all the vaccines Canada would need. Of course, that failed and the partnership with CanSino was a failure.
Once that failed, the Liberals talked a big game about ordering vaccines. They like to highlight all the vaccines they ordered. I was in charge of a manufacturing plant, and my boss was not overly concerned with what I ordered. He wanted output. He wanted me to produce products. When I told him I could not, he did not want to hear excuses; he just wanted the products produced. It is one thing to talk about excuses, about ordering this and that, but the real deal is landing those products in the country, in this case in Canada, and getting the vaccines into the arms of people.
Canada has consistently been at the bottom of OECD countries when it comes to getting people fully vaccinated. Why is that? It is because of this difference between ordering and actually landing products in the country. After all these months, we are still at less than 10% of Canadians fully vaccinated with two doses. The Liberals are very good at talking and not so good at actually doing.
On this budget, it is a major letdown. Unemployed Canadians feel let down, workers feel let down and families feel let down. It is not a growth budget. There is no plan to encourage Canada's long-term prosperity, and even the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said it will not stimulate jobs or create economic growth. This is a budget about Liberal partisan priorities. It is an election budget. There is not even a plan to return to a balanced budget in the forward-looking years.
For Saskatoon West, there was money for Meewasin Trail and for VIDO-InterVac, our vaccine-producing organization associated with the University of Saskatchewan. Both are projects I have been advocating for since my election. I have asked numerous question period questions, raised it at committee, written to ministers and brought media attention to it, and I think the Liberals finally just got tired and provided some funding there.
Was there money in Saskatoon for housing projects? No. Was there money for palliative care? No. Was there money for fighting the opioid crisis? No. Was there money for mental health resources? No. Did the people of Saskatoon West get slapped with the largest deficit and debt in the history of this country? Yes, they did. Let us talk about that deficit and debt.
This past year's debt is $354 billion, and next year's is going to be $154 billion. The deficit control plan of the government is getting the deficit down to $30 billion a year in five years' time. Now, 18 months ago, $30 billion would have been viewed as a massive deficit, and today it is seen as nothing. It is not nothing.
This document is projecting a $1.4-trillion debt. That is $37,000 of debt for every man, woman and child, every Canadian; $150,000 for a family of four. That is a small mortgage. It is like the government stole the identity of every Canadian, took their credit cards and racked up $37,000 in charges that they would have to pay. Not only that, in the background, the government is still taxing Canadians.
Some people would say, “So what? Who cares? Just print more money.” Basic market principles in economics care. Every time in history when a government prints money to pay off its debts, record inflation follows. Inflation means higher prices and the money Canadians earn is worth less and less.
I want to remind Canadians of events that occurred 30 years ago. The government, at that time, had racked up unprecedented debts, and by 1995, the government was unable to borrow money. Former Liberal finance minister Paul Martin was forced to raise taxes and reduce spending. A period of hardship and pain for all Canadians followed those decisions. The government was forced to get its debt in order by the markets.
I want to personalize this a bit, because decisions that we make here in this House affect individuals. My wife and I bought our first house in 1989, right in the middle of this period. Our interest rate on our first mortgage was 13%. To put that in perspective, if someone has a $1,000 mortgage payment today because of a 2% interest rate, and that interest rate were to go to 13%, like my first one, that $1,000 payment becomes a $2,700 a month payment, almost triple. Even if interest rates only went to 5%, that $1,000 becomes a $1,500 payment. It is a 50% higher payment.
With this budget, the Liberal government has made a trillion dollar bet that interest rates are going to stay low forever. Of course history says otherwise. From 1965 to now, the average five-year mortgage rate was about 9%. There was a 20-year period from 1975 to 1995 where the average mortgage rate was about 12%. It is only in the last decade that it has been consistently below 5%, and that is not sustainable.
The government is repeating the same mistakes of 30 years ago. At best, we are mortgaging our children's future. At worst, we are going to face another debt crisis, like Paul Martin did. The Liberals are spending money now, knowing that inflation is going to cost our younger generations.
What did we get for all this spending? We got $52 million for Liberal pet project A, and $300 million for Liberal pet project B, and hundreds of billions more split up against other Liberal pet projects. Will some of these benefit Canadians? Time will tell. Will the cost of Liberals buying votes for the next election burden generations of Canadians to come? Absolutely.
I want to turn to my home riding of Saskatoon West. Our Saskatchewan economy is built on agriculture, mining, forestry and energy. Saskatoon West is the centre of many of these industries. Our downtown houses many head offices. We have industrial parks, and we have a large railway switching hub and an airport that services all of Saskatchewan, especially the north.
I want to talk specifically about the energy sector. I sit on the environment committee, so I have a unique perspective. The budget was a missed opportunity to grow Canada's largest economic sector. In fact, the Liberals are failing our energy sector. Energy East, of course, cancelled. Teck Resources, Kitimat LNG cancelled. Keystone XL cancelled just this week. The Trans Mountain pipeline is in limbo. Also in limbo is Enbridge Line 5, which delivers much of western Canadian oil to Ontario and Quebec via the U.S.A.
What about small businesses in Saskatoon West? I have been a consistent advocate. The Liberal COVID-19 programs failed small businesses. The initial rent program was horribly designed, and left most tenants without help. The wage subsidy was initially written to exclude most workers, and we had to push the government for the rules to be changed. Then, of course, the CRA began auditing small businesses. We had to put forward a motion to end those unnecessary audits. I have spoken about these issues. Conservatives will continue to be there for small business.
I graduated from university as an accountant, and I worked for many years in business management. I worked in different companies, from large multinational businesses to owning and operating my own small business. The reason I ran for office here stemmed from my desire to bring some business acumen to the federal government. I believe we need a good cross-section of skills. We need drama teachers and journalists, but we also need financially minded people who understand economics and monetary policy. I think this budget proves my point very well.
This is an election budget. The foundational question was not what is in the best interests of Canadians. It was, what is the surefire way to get re-elected. Canadians can see right through this. That is why the people of Saskatoon West elected a Conservative MP in 2019, and that is why we need to elect more Conservative MPs next time. Only a Conservative government could secure our economy and secure our future.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-08 16:28 [p.8124]
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock.
We have a decision to make as to whether we want to be a property-owning democracy or a landed aristocracy. That might seem stark, and it is, but it is also true. It is 100% true if we look at the facts.
According to CMHC, for a house to be affordable it should not consume more than 30% of a family's income. Currently, in Canada, the average house would consume 50% of the average family's household income. In other words, the average house is two-thirds more expensive than the average family can presently afford. That is just the average. Across Canada, there are more extreme examples.
For example, in Toronto it takes 68% of the average family's income to own the average house. In Vancouver it is 79%, and that is 79% of pre-tax income, which means that it is mathematically impossible, not just difficult, for the average Vancouverite to own the average home. Why is that? It is because people do not have 79% of their pre-tax income left when the government is done with them. Even if they spent 100% of their post-tax income, it would not be enough. Even if they ate no food, bought no clothes and had zero recreation they would not have enough money, as average Vancouverites, to own the average home.
What is causing that? Why is it that Vancouver is the second-most expensive housing market in the world when we compare average income with average house price? Toronto is number five. Both of them are ahead of Manhattan, London, England, and San Francisco: places with more people, more money and much less land. Is it because we do not have enough land in Canada? We are the 10th-least population dense country in the world. There are more places where there is nobody than there are places where there is anybody in Canada. If we spread our population out equally across the land, there would be only one person standing on every three CFL-sized football fields. That is how much land we have in this country, yet somehow we have a housing shortage. Clearly, it is not because of a lack of land.
Could it be there is a booming economy that is driving up housing prices? Of course not. The GDP went down $120 billion last year and has not recovered.
What else is it? Is it COVID? COVID should have reduced housing prices. When CMHC testified at the finance committee at the beginning of COVID, it said that the pandemic would reduce housing prices by 14%. The Bank of Canada said it would be a disinflationary event, and it should have been. People were moving farther out into the country where per-square-foot costs are actually lower. Furthermore, their jobs were threatened so they would be less inclined to get approved for mortgages, and their earned wages were down, which means they would have less money with which to pay, which should have driven down housing prices. Instead, housing prices went up. They started going down in April 2020 before rocketing up 40% since that time.
What is the real cause? The answer is that the government is restricting supply and ballooning demand.
Let us start with supply. Here in Canada we have one of the slowest processes on Earth to get from buying land to building on it. In some jurisdictions this takes seven years. In Canada in general, it takes forever to get anything approved. In fact, out of 37 OECD nations, we are ranked number 36 for the time it takes to get a building permit for a warehouse, and it is not much different for housing.
Toronto's per-unit-of-housing cost of government is 50% higher than the average in United States municipalities. The charges alone consume almost a quarter of a million dollars in costs for every new unit of housing built in Toronto. The global cost of government for a new unit of housing in Vancouver is $600,000. That is just to pay the cost of government.
This, of course, keeps aristocratic, leafy neighbourhoods gentrified and keeps other people out. It makes the rich richer because they get to have an exclusive domain over these neighbourhoods, where no one else can build and get in. That is very good if someone already has a house as it increases their wealth, but those who are not yet in are shut out. It is as if there was a wall built around these neighbourhoods, where only the rich are allowed inside the wall and everyone else has to try to pay the gatekeeper to get in, but of course most cannot afford to do so. Therefore, the government restricts supply.
What does the government do with demand? It has pumped $356 billion of brand new, created currency into the financial system. The Bank of Canada began printing money in March of 2020, and from February of that year to February of this year the money supply grew by $354 billion. What was the size of the federal deficit? It was $354 billion, exactly the same number, so the printed money was to pay for the government's overspending.
What did that do to inflation? As we know, inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon. As the supply of money goes up, prices rise with it, and this started with housing prices. In fact, from Q1 2020 to Q1 2021, the money that went into the financial system and the mortgage system increased new mortgage borrowing by 41%. Does anyone know what the price increase was for housing between April of last year and April of this year? It was 42%. The newly created money jacked up mortgage borrowing by 41% and housing prices by 42%. Is it coincidence? Of course not. These are the simple laws of supply and demand, and they are working very well for the very rich.
For someone who owns a $10-million mansion, the increase in that person's home value, depending on which month to month is chosen, is somewhere between $3 million and $4 million. That is money that individual gets for doing absolutely nothing. For a working class person with the dream of buying a home, that dream just got more remote and more unlikely. Furthermore, landlords are about to raise people's rents because the cost of property has risen. He or she will use this, perhaps in some cases unavoidably so, to raise the rents of the people who live there. The wages of working-class people measured in the amount of real estate they can buy are down in value by 30% to 40% in just one year. Meanwhile, the wealth of the super rich is way up. Printing money raises the prices of the things that the poor must buy and that the rich already own. It is a colossal wealth transfer from the working wage earner to the wealthy asset owner.
What do we do? Sometimes the answers are actually simple: not easy, but simple. We should open up the country to construction so we build more homes and increase supply, and we should stop printing money in order to avoid pumping helium into prices. In other words, we should start building and stop printing. It is more about what the government should stop doing than what it should start doing. It should allow people to keep the value of their dollar, to buy things that are of worth with that dollar and build things that will make their lives better. That is how we restore our property-owning democracy. It is how we go back from today's aristocracy to what Canada should be, which is a meritocracy.
View Brad Redekopp Profile
CPC (SK)
View Brad Redekopp Profile
2021-06-08 17:29 [p.8133]
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam.
It is my privilege to rise in the House to speak today. Housing is an issue that was important to me before becoming an MP, because in my previous job I owned a small home-building business and we built about 60 homes in the space of 10 years. Today I want to share some of the knowledge I gained over the years of building houses.
The question I want to address is how the federal government impacts the cost of housing. First of all, I want to talk about regulations. Many regulations are provincial and local, but the federal government does have significant impact when it comes to the Canadian building codes. They are set by the National Research Council every few years and then adopted by the provinces.
We always speak about the positive changes that come out of the building code changes. For example, most recently there was lots of talk about insulation, insulated basements and insulated concrete floors, etc. We must remember that everything costs more when we add new features and new things to buildings. There are more materials, more labour and sometimes more costs for testing, such as when we have to test for radon, for example.
We have to be careful when we introduce new rules, new legislation and new building codes because we have to balance the cost of these improvements with the cost that will end up in the cost of the home. If we introduce too much bureaucracy and too much cost, then that affects the consumers and the affordability of houses.
We need simple programs, not complicated bureaucratic ones. A good example of that is in Saskatchewan, with the Saskatchewan home renovation tax credit. Essentially, if people have a project that fits the category, they get the work done, get the receipt, put it on their tax return and get the money back as a tax refund. It is quite simple.
We can contrast that to the Canada greener homes grant recently introduced by the Liberals, which is quite a bit more bureaucratic. For that, people have to actually get an audit done, first of all, to measure the baseline efficiency of their house. Then they get the work done, and then they have a second audit to see if there is an improvement. It is a program with excessive bureaucracy.
I want to contrast that with the CERB program. Of course, that was a program that gave $2,000 a month to people at the beginning of the pandemic. This was a program with almost no rules, no audits and very few checks. It was just money for everyone. Now, it was a pandemic, I understand, but in hindsight I think nearly everybody would agree that it was a little too easy to get money out of that program. If we compare that to the greener homes grant, where there is all this bureaucracy, essentially the government is assuming that people are trying to cheat and trying to get money they do not deserve.
We need to find a balance here, where there are appropriate checks and care given, but it is not too bureaucratic and does not create too many onerous problems. It needs to be simple.
The second thing I want to talk about is monetary policy. This is perhaps the most important. When my wife and I bought our first house in 1989, we paid an interest rate of 13%. To put that in perspective, if a 2% interest rate today is a $1,000 payment, if the interest rate were to change to 13%, that $1,000 payment becomes $2,700. Even if the interest rate only went up to 5%, that $1,000 payment still becomes $1,500 a month.
The government has made a trillion-dollar bet that interest rates are going to stay low forever, but history tells us otherwise. From 1965 to now, the average five-year mortgage rate was approximately 9%. There was a 20-year period in there from 1975 to 1995 when the average rate was about 12%. It is only in the last decade that the average mortgage rate has been below 5%.
Where are interest rates going in the future? Nobody knows for sure. However, the failed policies of the Liberal government are causing significant deficit spending. Deficit spending eventually causes inflation, and inflation will drive house affordability further out of reach for Canadians.
High prices also cause people to opt into high-ratio mortgages. I had an example of a customer who planned to build a house with me with a 5% down payment. I explained to them what the bank did not want to explain, which is that the CMHC charges them a fee for a 5% down payment mortgage, and that fee is 4%. Essentially, it wipes out their down payment completely. Once the customer understood that, they chose to wait and try to save for a larger down payment.
This is where the government can lead. Instead of the government's failed first-time home buyer program, people need a real program. We could increase amortization periods, improve mortgage terms and possibly create a tax incentive to allow people to save for their down payment.
The third area that I want to talk about is rental housing. There has been very little new rental housing built in Saskatoon recently, and in fact in Canada. The simple reason is that developers can make more money by building condos. The government may need to introduce some measures to gently prod the market toward more rental products.
This was done before, around 1980, through the program called the MURB program. This incentivized investors to build rental properties, and it worked great. There were 195,000 units built at a cost of about $2 billion in today's dollars. Let us compare that to the Liberals' national housing strategy. It proposes to build 71,000 units for $26 billion. It would be $26 billion to get 71,000 units, as opposed to $2 billion to get 195,000 units. It seems to me that the program from 40 years ago has a much better ROI, and perhaps the Liberal government should look at that program as it designs its program.
In February we hosted a town hall to discuss housing. What I heard was that affordable housing is key, not just for the obvious things, but for physical and mental health. In Saskatoon at any given time, there are approximately 475 homeless adults. I have received over 210 emails and letters on this issue since becoming an MP. The rapid housing initiative was supposed to address Saskatoon's housing needs, but there was no money in the big city stream for Saskatoon, and in the project stream, applications from Saskatoon were all denied by the government.
I supported three projects in Saskatoon West. I wrote letters and spoke to the parliamentary secretary. The Lighthouse application consisted of an acquisition and upgrading of a motel facility to add residential transitional housing. What was the result? There was no funding. The Saskatoon Tribal Council currently runs the White Buffalo Youth Lodge in my riding, and it has many housing options for indigenous people. It also proposed to buy a hotel and convert it to housing. What did the Liberals do? They denied it. The Salvation Army project in my city was the same story. The Liberal rapid housing initiative failed Saskatoon.
I want to remind the House of the homelessness partnering strategy of the former Conservative government. The HPS of the Harper government earmarked funds for certain regions and then let those regions decide for themselves what specific projects to fund. In Saskatoon, a board of local experts was created to make these investment decisions. They took the decision power away from the politicians and gave it to local people on the ground. They knew exactly where the money needed to be spent. With the rapid housing initiative, those decisions remained in Ottawa, with the politicians. Is it any surprise that Saskatoon, with no hope of a Liberal politician, failed to get any money?
Right now in Saskatoon, rental rates are high, availability is low and the quality is poor. This disproportionately affects single mothers, indigenous people, low-income people and new immigrants. It is especially hard for those living on social assistance, as the allowance for rent is not enough to cover the actual cost of rent.
Conservatives have solutions to Canada's housing crisis, and they are in the text of the motion today. If we put that together with our plan for mental health, we really have something good. I hope the Liberals heed the call. If not, Conservatives will secure our housing when we are elected.
As I close, I could not help but think of immigrants and newcomers as I was putting together these thoughts today. I could not stop thinking about the Muslim family killed in London, Ontario, on Sunday. It takes great bravery to leave one's home, country and family to make a new life in Canada. It takes strong courage to begin living in a country where one has few friends or family, and often one does not speak the language. It is difficult to find a good home to live in, as we have been talking about today. However, someone should not have to worry about their basic safety. That is one of the reasons they chose Canada.
To my good friends Hasan, Ilyas, Afzal, Mohammad, Sadiq, Assad, Sayad, and to all Muslims in Saskatoon and Canada, I am so sorry that one hate-filled man has caused so many to live in fear. He does not represent Canada. I am sorry that they feel afraid on the streets; they should not. To all Canadians, let us work hard to make our streets safe for all ages, all genders, all nationalities and all religions.
View David Yurdiga Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, the government has borrowed and spent an unprecedented amount of money in the time they have been in power. In the past year alone, the debt-to-GDP ratio has grown by almost 20%.
If the government insists on dumping all this new spending onto the Canadian economy, how does the Prime Minister expect the prices will not rise? Why is the Liberal government forcing Canadian people to endure the massive inflation that is coming?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-06-04 12:09 [p.7980]
Madam Speaker, this is a key example of where Conservative ideology gets in the way of formulating successful policy. If he has complaints about the amount of money we are spending, I would point him to the major credit rating agencies. He can take his pick.
Moody's, S&P and DBRS have all reaffirmed Canada's AAA credit rating. If he is concerned about our debt-to-GDP ratio, I would point him to the fact that we have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio of any G7 economy.
The reality is that when we launched into this public health emergency of a scale we have never seen before, we decided we would be there for people and for businesses. The effect of that response—
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
View Luc Berthold Profile
2021-05-28 11:17 [p.7553]
Madam Speaker, on Wednesday evening I asked the Minister of Finance if she knew what the inflation rate in Canada was and I got no answer.
I asked her if she knew what the Bank of Canada's target inflation rate was and I got no answer.
By feigning ignorance, she is showing that she has no idea what is going on in Canada right now. Everything costs more, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer confirmed yesterday that interest on this government's astronomical debt will cost $3.4 billion more a year.
Why did the minister fail to present a credible economic plan to Canadians?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-28 11:17 [p.7553]
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take this question. The hon. member does not tell us that his solution to the supposed inflation problem is to stop spending on supports that are helping businesses stay open and helping workers keep their jobs and put food on the table.
The reality is that the inflation target of between 1% and 3% is run independently by the Bank of Canada. The Government of Canada is in charge of fiscal policy. We used our fiscal firepower during the greatest economic emergency we have seen to help those families and workers keep their jobs and put food on the table, and I will not apologize for it.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
View Luc Berthold Profile
2021-05-28 11:18 [p.7553]
Madam Speaker, let us do a little math. More inflation equals a higher cost of living for Canadians. Higher prices equal less money for Canadians. More inflation equals higher interest rates. Higher interest equals higher prices for all Canadians. Higher prices equal less money for all Canadian families.
Why is the minister standing around doing nothing?
The math is simple, and the minister is ignoring the Parliamentary Budget Officer's warnings.
Why has she failed to present a credible plan for Canada's entire economy?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-28 11:19 [p.7553]
Madam Speaker, the hon. member is selective in his choice of sources. A number of credible experts, including former governors of the Bank of Canada, have described the fiscal framework outlined in the recent budget as being sustainable.
If the member is concerned about inflation, I would point him to the fact that we have been able to lock in long-term interest rates. If he looks at the costs of servicing our debt outlined in budget 2021, he will see that in raw dollar terms, despite the fact that we have had to incur debt to support Canadians, the cost of servicing that debt is actually less than what was predicted in the fall economic statement before this pandemic. We will move—
View Dave Epp Profile
CPC (ON)
View Dave Epp Profile
2021-05-27 12:39 [p.7480]
Mr. Speaker, under the previous Conservative administration, real wage rates increased more than the rate of inflation. We heard just recently that the annualized CPI increase is now 3.4%.
Could my hon. colleague comment on what Bill C-30, and all of the spending that is embedded in it, will do to the inflation rate, and hence to the relationship of inflation to real wages?
View Earl Dreeshen Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, I am a former math teacher and business person. One of the things that we always talked about was the effect of interest rates, as far as the economy was concerned, and how the general lives of individuals were going to be affected. If we look at the amount of debt that individuals have at this point in time and then look at the incredible amount of debt the federal government is looking at, I think we can realize the issues of concern and problems.
If we look at what happened during the days of the other Trudeau government, we had a 22% interest rate. It devastated this country. The target used to be 2% and now we see that it is 3.4%. All we have to do is a little bit of calculation on someone's mortgage to see what happens when the interest rate is doubled. That is a problem that all Canadians will have to sort out if we do not get this under control.
View Brad Redekopp Profile
CPC (SK)
View Brad Redekopp Profile
2021-05-27 13:10 [p.7484]
Mr. Speaker, not to give any secrets away, but I suspect my colleague is of a similar vintage as me. I remember when my first mortgage, for example, was 13%. The interest costs in this budget are admittedly quite low, and we are in a low interest rate time, but they will go up.
I would like the member's comments on the impacts of higher inflation and interest rates and whether there is significant risk to our country with the massive amounts of debt that has been brought on by the Liberal government.
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Mr. Speaker, my colleague is the exact vintage as me, I am pretty certain, so we have very similar memories of our journeys in Saskatchewan.
I remember in the early 1980s when my dad was buying farmland and interest rates were 17% or 18% in a lot of cases. Just to put that in a really simple perspective, which is how I explain it to constituents, if we end up with a 1%, 2% or 3% increase in interest rates, the impact of that on the ability of government to support many of the programs it currently does would be significantly affected. For example, a 2% increase in interest rates is what is spent on national defence in a year. A 3% increase in interest rates is the amount of health transfers to the provinces every year. When we put it in terms like that and with interest rates rising 1%, 2% or 3% not being unrealistic, it would have a huge impact on our ability to support very important programs in our country.
View Tim Uppal Profile
CPC (AB)
View Tim Uppal Profile
2021-05-27 13:28 [p.7487]
Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in this House on behalf of my constituents of Edmonton Mill Woods.
In the lead-up to this budget, the longest lead-up ever, as we went over two years without a budget, there were dozens of news stories and trial balloons talking about how innovative this budget was going to be. We heard time and again about how this budget would be a stepping stone for the Liberal government to build back better, whatever that means. Instead, at 739 pages and nearly a quarter of a million words, the longest budget in the history of our great country is also the greatest disappointment.
There is no plan to deal with inflation. There is no plan to make the dream of home ownership more attainable for Canadians. There is no plan to create new jobs and economic opportunities for families and young people across this country. Instead, we are left with a budget that says so much, proposes so little, and leaves Canadian jobs, productivity, and economic growth behind.
Let me start by looking at the full picture. In my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods and right across Canada, there are countless families and businesses on the brink of losing everything. The jobs numbers that came out earlier this month revealed that another 207,000 people across Canada had to come home and tell their family and loved ones one of the most difficult things to hear, that they had lost their job.
To be clear, Alberta’s economic problems didn’t just start because of this pandemic. The Liberals' Bill C-69, which many people called the “no more pipelines” bill; Bill C-48, the tanker ban; and general disregard for the energy sector have driven away billions of dollars of investment and, with it, thousands of Canadian jobs. The government has failed to produce a plan for one of Canada’s largest economic sectors, the energy sector.
There are some things in this budget that we and our Conservative team are in favour of. For so many Canadians who continue to struggle throughout this pandemic, the budget does have the extension of emergency programs that our Conservative team supports, measures like the wage subsidy, rent subsidy and other recovery benefits, but there are still issues that remain with some of these programs. My office has heard from so many Canadians. It has heard repeatedly from small businesses that opened just before the pandemic or during the pandemic, which have been left behind by these wage subsidy and rent subsidy programs. When asked about it, the Liberals continue to repeat what everybody already knows, that small businesses are the backbone of our community, yet they continue to do nothing to rectify this issue, leaving many small businesses, and the Canadians employed by them, behind.
One thing that I know would bring jobs to Alberta and to Canadians from coast to coast is pipelines. Our natural resources sector accounts for nearly two million jobs and nearly one-fifth of Canada’s GDP. There are mentions of pipelines in this budget. They talk about a vaccine pipeline, a talent pipeline, an innovation pipeline and a PPE pipeline, but no mention of a pipeline to carry our natural resources. Once again, the Liberal government continues to ignore our energy sector, which will be instrumental in our economic recovery coming out of this pandemic. Instead, we continue to import oil from the likes of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, where there are much lower environmental standards and horrific human rights records. Talk about a failure.
Perhaps the biggest failure, and the focus of my speech today, is the government’s failure to take inflation seriously. Canada’s inflation rate in April was 0.6%, or roughly 7% on an annualized basis. For the average family in my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods, that means the inflation tax is going to take nearly $6,500 out of their pocket this year. This has been seen right across the board, as Canadian consumer prices are climbing at the fastest pace in a decade. The average family will pay nearly $700 more in groceries this year because of inflation. Everything from meat and vegetables to cereals and bread has increased by about 5%. Gas prices are continuing to increase dramatically. As Bloomberg reported last week, they have increased more than 60% in a year.
Perhaps the most explicit case I can make here is with lumber prices, which have increased by 300% over the last year. As Kevin Lee, the CEO of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, points out, this drastic rise in lumber costs will add tens of thousands of dollars to the average price of a home.
This leads me to another area of failure in this budget, which is the lack of any semblance of a plan to address overwhelming housing affordability issues in Canada, which has pushed the dream of home ownership further out of reach for far too many Canadians. Prices across Canada are skyrocketing, with young families who were saving for their first home at the beginning of this pandemic even further behind than when they started.
This has led to feelings of hopelessness. A poll from the Royal Bank of Canada released last month revealed that 36% of non-homeowners under the age of 40 have given up on ever buying a home and 62% of respondents said they expect the majority of people will be priced out of the market over the next decade.
What is the government doing to address this concern of people being left out of the market? The hallmark of this budget’s efforts on housing affordability is a 1% tax on foreign owners of vacant housing, which will simply be seen as a very minor inconvenience for wealthy foreign investors who have seen their investments appreciate by 42% this past year. This will not solve the problem at all. Instead, the current government should be focused on the root of the problem, which is the shortage of supply right across Canada.
As a recent Scotiabank report points out, Canada has the lowest number of housing units per capita of any G7 country. If Canada set the modest goal of simply catching up to the United States, Canadian builders would have to complete an extra 100,000 homes. To catch up to the U.K., it would require an extra 250,000 homes. To put these gaps in perspective, we have had an average of 188,000 home completions in the last 10 years.
I believe this serves as a perfect microcosm of the government’s philosophy. When it identifies a problem, it does not address the root cause. Instead, it takes a small reactive step, creates a new government agency or program for it, and then dumps millions, if not billions, into it.
The budget introduces another $101 billion in new spending, pushing our debt-to-GDP ratio to over 50% over the next few years. What are we getting out of this increased spending and debt? The budget predicts that the growth rate will slow steadily starting in 2022, all the way down to 1.7% growth in 2025.
As Robert Asselin, the former policy and budget director to Bill Morneau and policy advisor to the Prime Minister, said of this budget, “it is hard to find a coherent growth plan.... [S]pending close to a trillion dollars [and] not moving the needle on…growth would be the worst possible legacy of this budget.” While the budget is entitled, “A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience”, there seems to be much concern about whether or not it will deliver on jobs or growth.
The budget has no investments to address the structural problems that have plagued productivity and our ability to compete on the global stage. There is no plan to address the unprecedented level of investment that is fleeing Canada. There is no plan for regulatory and tax reform to help us win on the global stage. There is no comprehensive innovation strategy to ensure Canadian tech start-ups keep their job-creating investments here at home.
This budget is not meant for the growth of the economy. I believe Canadians are looking for hope that things will soon get better and they will still have a bright future to look forward to. They want their jobs and small businesses back. They want their lives and communities back. They want the hope of being able to afford a house. Simply put, they want to return to normal and live the Canadian dream.
This budget fails to deliver. There is no growth plan. It is not meant for the people of Edmonton Mill Woods, Alberta or our future generations. It is a failure. That is why we will not be supporting it.
View Ben Lobb Profile
CPC (ON)
View Ben Lobb Profile
2021-05-27 13:44 [p.7489]
Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would just like to thank everybody who lives in the riding of Huron—Bruce for their tremendous work over the last year and a half in combatting COVID. The rates in Huron County and Bruce County are some of the lowest in Ontario, and may be some of the lowest in Canada.
This is because of everybody, not just one person. Everybody's efforts have made the difference. I thank them. We are all proud of everyone's efforts. That is likely the best news of this speech.
When I look at this budget, I think maybe we could call it the “lack of vaccine” budget. Here we are. Just a few days ago, we had our May long weekend. We are near the end of May. We are in Ottawa today. Sparks Street should be full. The markets should be full. The patios should be out. The restaurants should be busy. There should be kids here on class trips, coming on tours. The hotels should be full.
Why are they not? By and large, the reason, and this is just the microcosm of the entire Canadian economy in the service industry, is that we did not have vaccines quickly enough and we did not have enough of them. That is the reality of why we have spent so much more than we ever would have thought we would have needed to spend.
In the process, the Liberal government, in its lack of action, has decimated tens of thousands of people's equity in their business, their savings and equity in their home. That is the truth. There is no bank manager in the country who would argue that fact.
Maybe someone who sells four-wheelers as a business has had the best year of all time. However, certainly for those in the service sector, this has been a humbling experience, to say the least.
The Bank of Canada, and this is unprecedented, has purchased over 250 billion dollars' worth of bonds. Who would have ever thought that we would be doing this? Who would have ever thought? A high of $6 billion a week, currently around $3 billion or $4 billion a week. Clearly, we cannot sustain this at all.
We all know there is inflation. We could go up and down the streets in our communities and see the homes for sale, going for $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 over the list price. I talked to a builder the other day. A two by four that is 16 feet long, I think he told me it was $28. It was $7.50 last May. To the member for Timmins—James Bay, $5,000 to spruce up a home is not going far.
The printing of money, the Bank of Canada buying, is creating inflation. The other day I saw some commentary about how, compared to the U.S. dollar, ours is looking pretty good. The U.S. is probably printing more than we are right now. I think last week I saw the fed bought $92 billion in the United States. The Canadian dollar is doing well against the American dollar, but if we look at it as a Canadian dollar and what could be bought, we can buy less.
What the government has tried to do is it has tried to help. I believe the government has tried to help people, but maybe in the wrong ways. This inflation has cost the very people it was trying to help the most, the ones in the service industry, the ones earning an hourly wage who maybe do not have benefits. In Ontario, the province I am from, that wage is $14 to $15 an hour. The last year and a half has made that $15 an hour more like under $10 an hour. Certainly, if anybody had any hopes of buying a home or a condo, almost 40% to 50% has been added to what people thought would reasonably have to be paid.
For a country that had 75% ownership, when Europe has about 25%, in short order we have almost taken away the opportunity for the middle class to ever own a home. That is a shame.
For the ultra-wealthy, the people who have multiple homes, investments and all sorts of apparatus to accumulate wealth, this has been the absolute best time of all time. If we think about it, the last two or three years should have been the opportunity to raise up everybody. The Prime Minister, his finance minister and the party have diminished the middle class and the poor working class. That is an absolute fact. People are now in bidding wars for rental properties, not to buy a home, but to rent. It is not sustainable and will probably go down as one of the darkest moments of the government.
I live in a rural community, a hard-working, resilient rural community, and I have been mystified for the last five or six years as to how the government continually gets it wrong in rural Canada. Money for rural infrastructure is a pittance compared to what urban centres receive. Rural areas do not carry the burden of so many people, but they also have the biggest burden of protecting the most precious resources. In my area, Lake Huron has fresh water. For rural infrastructure, water, sewage, culverts, bridges, just name it, there is not enough money.
Members do not have to think I am biased. They can talk to the mayors or CAOs of Huron County or Bruce County and they will say it is not enough. It is a bidding war to even get it. By the way, the way it works is backward. One has to pitch it to the federal government, it picks over the bones, then says it is approved, but does not even tell the MPP or MP for the area. It should be the other way around. It should be that the federal government allocates money to the provinces, the provinces pick their priorities based on what the mayors and wardens tells them and then they approve the projects. This is just common sense. We have been doing this now for six years and it does not work.
As for low-income and social housing, forget it. Members can talk to any community in my riding, Saugeen Shores, South Huron or Goderich. They apply, apply and apply and it is never approved. No one has to take my word for it because the mayors call me to complain.
Then there is strategic infrastructure. We are going beyond my riding, looking at other areas and what rural areas produce. In my area there are soybeans, corn, red meat, all those different things, and we are constantly under the pressure of not having enough capacity at the ports and other areas.
As for broadband, the SWIFT project was working. The minister changed it and what a mess. We had consistent funding for rural projects and they were starting to work. Now it has changed and what a mess.
There is a chronic labour shortage throughout Ontario, which is certainly exacerbated in my riding. We need workers. We need to motivate people to get to work. We need to speed up the process of bringing in new Canadians to work in our sectors, such as, for example, meat processing. Just name it and we need it.
God bless the trade minister, but she has made a mess of trade, in my opinion. The U.S. is running roughshod over us. Everybody thought that when Trump was gone, Biden would be Canada's best friend. We do not need friends like Joe Biden, the way he has treated us with buy America and softwood lumber tariffs.
How is it that Canada has a beef trade deficit with the United Kingdom? There are those who do not think we are getting treated poorly. We are getting treated poorly. We have a pork and beef deficit with the European Union. That is not fair trade. That is not a fair partner.
I would love to talk about our borders. What a mess the government has created at our borders. Port Huron is about an hour and a half from my hometown and I know there are a lot of business people awfully disappointed with how they have been treated at the border in an arbitrary way. It is not the officials. It is not the hard-working men and women who work there. It is the mixed messages they receive from the health minister and the public safety minister.
It is not a good situation. If they cannot fix it, we will do the heavy lifting. I am saying we are prepared to do it. They let Line 5 go to this state when in Huron—Bruce and many other ridings we need it. We need it to dry our crops and heat our homes and it is willy-nilly with the current government. I know the Liberals send out the resource minister and he has some things to say, but behind the scenes there is no way the message is getting drilled home to the United States. If they want to shut us down, they are going to shut us down.
View Tako Van Popta Profile
CPC (BC)
View Tako Van Popta Profile
2021-05-27 13:56 [p.7491]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for alerting us to inflation and the risks there too. I wonder if he has any comments about interest rates rising to combat inflation and what that will do to the debt-servicing costs for the federal government.
View Ben Lobb Profile
CPC (ON)
View Ben Lobb Profile
2021-05-27 13:57 [p.7491]
Mr. Speaker, it is going to be out of this world, and it will be more than anything they could spend money on.
What else costs a lot of money? It is raising a family these days, and the proposal the Liberals have for day care is ridiculous. People who are pregnant today will never receive the big $10-a-day day care. Their kids will be in SK. If they have a one-year-old child today, there is this big promise of day care for $10 a day, but their kid is going to be in grade 1, so big deal. If the Liberals really want to do something, help the poor families today.
I talked to my neighbour who pays $2,000 a month for day care and $2,300 a month for rent. How are people getting ahead on that? If the Liberals want to help somebody, help him and his wife out and put it to $10 and give them a chance.
View Colin Carrie Profile
CPC (ON)
View Colin Carrie Profile
2021-05-27 13:58 [p.7491]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for such an excellent speech. I really do not know where to start. He has really pointed out the incompetence of the Liberal government and there is so much to talk about here, but I would like him to focus on one thing he brought up about the quantitative easing, the printing of the money.
I wonder if he could comment on the Liberal inflation tax, which we are all starting to see. I am getting complaints about groceries and the cost of living. It is happening a lot quicker than any of us would have thought. Could he please talk about the secret inflation tax that the Liberals are putting in that Canadians are unaware of?
View Ben Lobb Profile
CPC (ON)
View Ben Lobb Profile
2021-05-27 13:58 [p.7491]
Mr. Speaker, with respect to inflation, if they want to talk about something, how about OAS to seniors age 75? How about 65? Who has been hit the hardest? It is seniors on a fixed income, and the Liberals are offering $500 if they are over 75. My parents are 73 and 75. They laughed. How can my mom not get it and my dad does? I have had more calls on this 75 business than on anything.
Regarding inflation, seniors are hit on gas, groceries, rent, heating. They are getting hit literally every which way. Only the guys across the aisle would be oblivious to this, they would be the only ones. If we talk to any real Canadians out there, they will tell us they are getting hit hard.
View Philip Lawrence Profile
CPC (ON)
Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the member for his passion and I invite him to use the first 10 seconds of his response to finish his speech.
Then I would like to ask him about a very serious concern that my constituents are raising with me over and over again, and that is inflation. The cost of groceries is going up. The cost of lumber is going up. The cost of housing is now out of reach for many millions and millions of Canadians. What in the budget will address this significant economic issue that my constituents keep bringing up maybe because I do not see anything?
View Peter Fonseca Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I cannot thank the hon. member enough for allowing me to conclude. What I want to say to every member in the House of Commons is that this is about helping protect Canadians' health, supporting our workers and businesses and giving assistance to those who have been hardest hit by this pandemic. Supporting this budget and Bill C-30 is what will really help Canada build back better.
As the member heard, it is very comprehensive. It is about taking care of our most vulnerable, assisting our businesses so they can bridge this pandemic and this difficult time. It is about helping our students and our seniors. This is the time to invest in Canadians. We know Canadians work hard and we are going to continue to invest in Canadians so that we will create those million jobs and build back better.
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.
View Erin O'Toole Profile
CPC (ON)
View Erin O'Toole Profile
2021-05-25 14:21 [p.7317]
Mr. Speaker, everything is getting more expensive under the current Liberal government. Inflation powered through the government's target to a 10-year high. We now have proof: Lumber, houses and even food are increasingly expensive. Life is more expensive. That is a fact.
How much is the government's poor management going to cost Canadians?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2021-05-25 14:22 [p.7317]
Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of this pandemic, we promised Canadians that we would have their backs, however long the pandemic lasted. That is exactly what we did with the Canada emergency response benefit, support for businesses, the Canada emergency business account, and support for seniors and youth.
We have been there to support Canadians, as we have been doing for six years. The reality is that the Conservatives continue to vote against our measures to help Canadians, whether it is the tax cut for the middle class and the tax increase for the wealthy that we implemented when we first came to power, or the work we continue to do to present an ambitious budget for Canadians.
View Nelly Shin Profile
CPC (BC)
View Nelly Shin Profile
2021-05-25 16:48 [p.7339]
Mr. Speaker, Canadians have waited a long time for the budget. The last one was tabled in March 2019. The absence of a budget in 2020 is a little bizarre, but here we are with budget 2021.
Having a well-planned budget in this pandemic environment is critical because it is like a compass that can help us find our way out of the wilderness. Canadians are distressed by the pandemic. They want a sense of assurance that the government has a plan to help us move forward toward recovery. Families have tragically lost their parents and grandparents to COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes. Social isolation has exacerbated domestic violence and challenged women from being able to reach out for help or leave their abusive partners. Businesses have been crushed. Entire sectors are hanging by a thread. Addictions and suicides have escalated. COVID-19 has stubbornly held our lives, institutions and finances hostage for long enough. The trauma that Canadians have been facing throughout the pandemic has been daunting, and Canadians need hope.
Our country needs a budget that mirrors a plan for recovery, job creation and long-term growth. Canadians are waiting for a practical plan. Unfortunately, budget 2021 seems like a déjà vu of the original COVID-19 emergency benefits that required many hands from opposition parties to fix so that more than just a select number of people would qualify for the announced supports.
While the budget appears benevolent in its parts, as a whole, when examined, it lacks foresight and at times transparency and clarity. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's May 5 report, a good portion of the recovery-plan spending will not actually be used to stimulate the economy, but is presented as such. Furthermore, the government's projections on growth are inflated. About $24.7 billion in spending from the fall economic statement was already in the economy and accounted for in the figures present when the budget was being written, and much of the $101.4 billion in spending proposed by the budget was already accounted for in the private sector growth projections. It would appear the Liberal government wanted to overstate its generosity.
Furthermore, the increase in jobs, according to the PBO, would grow from 39,000 to 74,000 to 94,000 jobs from 2021 to 2024, while according to budget 2021, the employment growth from the recovery plan would evolve from 315,000 to 334,000 to 280,000 jobs in that period. The PBO report captures this discrepancy in the statement, “Finance Canada’s impact assessment of the Recovery Plan overstates the economic impact of stimulus spending in Budget 2021.”
When it comes to balancing the budget, we experienced yet another déjà vu. The PBO states:
...the Government has decided to effectively stabilize the federal debt ratio at a higher level, potentially exhausting its fiscal room over the medium- and long-term. This means that any substantial new permanent spending would either lead to a higher debt-to-GDP ratio or have to be financed through higher revenues and/or spending reductions in other areas.
Therefore, the next time we have a crisis, who or what are we going to sacrifice? We will have very little reserve to work with.
He also says, “Long-term projections presented in the budget also show the federal debt ratio remaining above its pre-pandemic level through 2055.” In other words, the government does not plan on returning our deficits to at least the pre-pandemic levels.
The Liberal government has left no fiscal room to make future investments and it has no intention to get out of debt. Prolonged deficit spending will bring an inflation hike. We are experiencing this already, with increases in the prices of groceries, lumber, housing and gas. What kind of future does this leave for our country, for our children? Budget 2021 needs a reality check into the future.
The unprecedented needs during the pandemic called for spending from the government to sustain individuals, families and businesses in a temporary time of crisis. The pandemic is a temporary crisis. We are still going through it, but it is supposed to be temporary. We do not need to make it permanent with poor planning or no planning. The deficit will not replenish itself.
As parliamentarians, we need to listen, analyze, process and respond to the needs of Canadians with the foresight of visionaries, the thoughtfulness of problem solvers and the focus and integrity of conscientious leaders who have a plan and purpose greater than ourselves. This is what our constituents expect of us and deserve. However, this budget instead looks like a patchwork of short-sighted, reactionary, electorally driven promises that will leave our country with a larger debt, more deficits and more government interference. Again, the budget strangely feels like déjà vu.
Happily for the Liberals, they have gotten away with the way they have been operating for a long time. However, tragically for Canadians, the government's short-sighted haphazard leadership, which is also reflected in this budget, has delayed our country's path to recovery and has allowed greater plight for businesses and the mental health of Canadians.
Vaccinations were a key part to a swifter path toward recovery, but poor decisions on vaccinations delayed that and caused the third wave of lockdowns. In the business world, this has translated to more losses and fewer reserves to bounce back. Each wave and each lockdown tests the patience of reasonable Canadians, who have been faithfully following COVID-19 regulations for the safety of all.
The CanSino deal between the Liberal government and the Chinese company was blocked by China's communist regime and ended Canada's would-be first procurement of vaccines. This process occurred from May to July last year, when insolvency of businesses was climbing to a peak, and Canadians were gripped with shock and fear. At our most vulnerable stage of crisis, the Prime Minister gambled the health and well-being of our nation on working with a communist regime. I would be curious to know from the Prime Minister's why pursuing this risk took precedence over the lives of Canadians.
Given the Liberals' bad track record when it comes to timely procurement, does the budget reflect a realistic vaccination recovery timeline? Given the extension of the ideal three-week gap between doses that Canadians will receive, the possibility of having to mix vaccines for first-time AstraZeneca recipients and the yet-to-be-confirmed date for the next delivery of Moderna vaccines for second doses, how will the government's abysmal rollout of vaccines impact the effectiveness of the budget?
Our future is uncertain because the government is unpredictable and follows its own convenient electoral clock. How will any efficacy issues outside the government's anticipated success of the vaccinations impact the effectiveness of the budget? Our future is uncertain because the government is unpredictable and follows its own convenient clock.
I would like to speak now on one of the hardest-hit sectors, travel and tourism, which was the first to shut down and will likely require the longest time to reboot. British Columbia's tourism revenue in 2019 was $22.3 billion. The tourism sector provided 149,900 jobs in B.C. The hotels in my riding are dependent on the overflow of the success of tourism in Vancouver at large. Their revenue continues to be tested.
A group of Korean business owners in downtown Vancouver who are also dependent on the tourism sector for their livelihoods reached out to my office to express their struggle. They are primarily owners of small restaurants and convenience stores that are dependent on tourist seasons. They have suffered due to low foot traffic of tourists from international flights and cruise ships.
Because of high commercial rental prices in the downtown corridor, they have been unable to hire employees and are run instead by husband and wife owners. They also have relatively low non-deferrable business expenses that do not meet the $40,000 minimum, therefore they do not qualified for CEBA. They continue to struggle without support. Their recovery will be dependent on the recovery of the travel and tourism sector, which will probably be the last industry to recover.
Where is the support for these small ma-and-pa shops? Will they continue to be left behind? How is the government going to ensure these business owners will make it through?
The President of the United States has told American cruise ships to skip docking in Vancouver because the Prime Minister continues to show no sign of reasonable and safe reopening. The independent travel advisers in Port Moody—Coquitlam and across Canada are concerned and feel left out. They have continued working through cancellations without pay and with clawed back commissions, which are now just starting to get sorted out. Simultaneously, if they were to start booking clients, they would not see commissions for a long time.
Most of them are women, and they are only eligible for CRB. As the travel industry does not anticipate most people will make travel plans until 2022-2023, even though the travel restrictions will be lifted, and their income will be hurt greatly. They need sector-specific help that will support them until the travel and tourism industry operates again. All of this is dependent on the efficacy of vaccinations and safe reopening.
Business owners generally do not want to depend on government assistance in the long term. They want to succeed on the merit of their entrepreneurial excellence and hard work. What they really want to see is for the government to implement a plan to safely reopen. This will let them prosper, and it will create jobs.
They cannot handle one more lockdown. Canadians are moving their businesses from our country to the U.S. because we are so behind in our reopening. A constituent in Port Moody has done just that.
Canadians are waiting for a plan to reopen. Where is it? They are depending on us to give them hope and a pathway to a sustainable future. I hope we will find a way to do just that.
View Corey Tochor Profile
CPC (SK)
View Corey Tochor Profile
2021-05-25 17:46 [p.7348]
Madam Speaker, it is a great honour to enter into debate today on the budget. I would like to share my thoughts and what I am hearing from the people who I represent about how disappointed they are.
They are disappointed that this budget, two years late, has nothing in it to get our economy back and rolling again. It is immensely frustrating, coming from Saskatchewan, to see that, if we look at the sectors that have been ignored over the years by the Liberals, this has continued with this budget. It is frustrating because of what this budget would do for future generations, or what it unfortunately would not do.
It is a budget that unfortunately adds more debt. The Prime Minister will add more debt than all other prime ministers in the history of Canada combined, which is a shocking amount of money, and we are going to have to pay that back. It is generational theft that is occurring here.
Another great concern of mine is how the Liberals are paying for this debt or how they are accounting for it. It has been commented on that in our history regimes around the world have tried to print money to get out of the fiscal issues those countries were facing. Those regimes in other parts of the world all failed, and they failed miserably. They failed their society and their citizens because of what printing money ultimately does. When we print money, additional currency enters into the system, which means existing money is worth less, and that ultimately leads to inflation. We are already seeing this.
When I meet with seniors, they are mostly concerned about the cost of living. When I meet with young families, it is the cost of living they are concerned about. This is combined with professionals who are concerned there will be to be fewer opportunities for them or their children because of the decisions that are being made right now in Ottawa.
On that backdrop is the item I am most concerned with. Once we create this inflation by printing currency, and that is what the Liberals would be doing, the government will attempt to tap it down by measures, which are usually interest rate increases. That would have a cascading effect throughout our country. It would have a cascading effect on other levels of government. Consumers and citizens who are just holding on by the skin of their teeth right now are paying record low interest rates, which we know will rise because of inflationary pressures to combat those effects.
What we would have is an effect of layering on misery with citizens. That mortgage payment for families that are just scraping by right now would be increasing. For anyone who has personal debt, that would be increasing. What choices are those families going to be making because of this budget? I shudder to think what the country would look like.
Let us examine what will happen to other levels of government. The provinces are all running deficits throughout Canada, and some of them are near record deficits because there is a pandemic going on. There are all hands on deck, and we need that to get through this pandemic. Conservatives have been very clear that we support short-term emergency relief, but what we would be getting out of this budget is much more, unfortunately.
The provinces are fighting this pandemic with everything they have and any extra dollars they may have are going into health care. That is probably the most disrespectful and shocking part of this budget. Not one thin cent is going to health transfers to the provinces. We have the provinces on the front line paying for nurses, doctors and everything that goes along with providing health care, and there is not one additional dollar in health transfers from the federal government to the provinces, which are on the front line of this pandemic.
If we go a step further, we are hopefully rounding a corner, but we are severely lacking second doses in Canada. We are 50th out of 70 countries when we look at fully vaccinated people. It is a mammoth mistake that the government has done such a poor job of procuring vaccines for our citizens, worse than any other G7 country in the world.
Another unfortunate aspect of this pandemic is that a lot of health care has been delayed. We know that diagnoses of cancers have been delayed, and that one is quite scary for me. We all know that health outcomes, especially with cancer, improve with early diagnosis. If we push back diagnoses, what does it mean for patients and families?
Let us also consider the elective surgeries that have been pushed back. Other health concerns out there are not getting attention right now in our health care system because every additional dollar in capacity is going to fight this pandemic, and the feds are nowhere.
There is not $1 in health transfer increases this year. They all point out that they are paying for the vaccines and PPE. Of the contracts we are aware of that we have paid for as a country, we paid a premium for slow delivery. We can see the slow delivery in the world.
Now that we are into the playoffs, I hope we are all taking a bit of a breather from our schedules to watch a little hockey. If we turn on the highlights of the teams in the states, because their government procured enough vaccines, they have fans in the stands. This is compared to the stark reality of arenas in Canada that lay empty. The excitement is there, but there are no fans. That is all at the feet of the federal government failing to procure enough vaccines.
Even the aspects the federal government is responsible for, it has failed us. It failed us in getting enough vaccines. Of the contracts we are aware of, we paid a premium for late delivery. One has to ask why that is. Was it the three months wasted at the start of the pandemic when it was negotiating with the Chinese Communist government for vaccines? Why did we pay a premium? Were we late in the negotiations and other countries already had their orders in?
I have never heard a reason for us paying this premium. I am not against paying a premium for vaccines if we have them already. The delay of getting them into the country means the lockdowns and economic hurt is going to continue. That is most disappointing to the people of Saskatchewan.
The VIDO centre in Saskatoon did receive some funding. Members may remember that facility was the first in the world that isolated COVID-19. The leading scientists and doctors working on this vaccine are in Saskatoon, and they isolated COVID-19 first among all other countries in the world. It is a renowned centre. Within days, if not weeks, after isolating it, it had a prototype for a vaccine.
One of the most frustrating days as a member of Parliament was meeting with its representatives. They asked the federal government for additional dollars and they had to wait for the budget before getting the dollars. We are in the middle of an emergency—
View Scot Davidson Profile
CPC (ON)
View Scot Davidson Profile
2021-05-14 12:03 [p.7244]
Madam Speaker, clearly no one in the Liberal government has had to buy a two-by-four lately. Even the most essential items have become unaffordable, like plywood to fix a roof or food to go on the barbecue. It is unbelievable. The Liberals' out-of-control spending is putting inflationary pressures on the middle class, students and seniors, who are struggling just to make ends meet.
Why is the Liberal government forcing working Canadians to pay a hidden tax through growing inflation and the rising cost of living?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-14 12:04 [p.7244]
Madam Speaker, with respect to the hon. member's assertion, I would point him to the testimony of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who appeared before the finance committee and explained in clear terms that the inflation we have seen in the Canadian economy is precisely where he predicted it would be and is well within the 1% to 3% goal.
I would remind the hon. member, however, that his solution to this problem, to stop government spending, would result in the government removing essential benefits that are helping support families and businesses in their time of need. Canadians can rest assured that our government will be there for them, as long as it takes, no matter what it takes, unlike the Conservatives.
View John McKay Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, people are starting to be cautiously hopeful. As vaccines roll out and we approach herd immunity, Canadians can dream, once again, of something approaching normality. What the new normal might be is, of course, anyone's guess. However, some people are starting to turn to thinking about how we are going to pay for the debts and deficits that have been necessarily incurred over the course of the last 14 months. Some 74% of Canadians are worried about the budget deficit, and it is a legitimate worry.
The government rightly injected billions of dollars into the economy. Looking at the charts in this 700-page budget, much of the money is sitting in Canadian savings accounts. I perceive that to be a good thing. Canadians have been notorious under-savers, more spenders than savers, but now, not quite so much.
Chart 22 in the budget shows that 8% of nominal GDP, year over year, has been put into savings accounts. That is a huge amount of money. It is such a huge amount of money that it will be looking for spending opportunities as we emerge from the pandemic. As it says in the budget documents, it may well become a bit of a tailwind to the economy.
However, what happens when significant excess money is released into the economy, money looking for places to be spent, generally speaking prices go up. Labour becomes more expensive, the cost of goods and services climbs and people's savings do not get them as much as before. Then we have another problem, and that is called inflation.
An article in The Globe and Mail caught my eye the other day. It was about the perceived mismatch between the consumer price index, CPI, and people's lived experience. The price of shelter rose 2.4% last year, which was consistent with the CPI of 2.2%, well within the Bank of Canada's inflationary band. Meanwhile, the average resale price of a home went up 32%. This is a mismatch between people's lived experience and the official numbers. As one commentator put it:
That leads to a cost-of-living indicator that doesn't quite reflect what consumers see and feel, and an inflation indicator that doesn't quite reflect the long-term cost of owned housing relative to other things we buy....To that point, there is a consistent mismatch between CPI inflation as Statscan measures it and how Canadians typically perceive inflation.
The article goes on in great detail as to the various means to measure inflation, a quite academic debate which I will spare the House.
However, in an online survey conducted by the Bank of Canada last year, 55% of the respondents said that 2% inflation was not a realistic representation of their experience of inflation, while 66% of respondents believed that the inflation in Canada was generally higher than 2%. All of the budgetary calculations are based upon a range of 2% to 3% inflation and a clear determination by the Bank of Canada to keep interest rates very low. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has repeated himself several times on that point.
The reason that Canadians are concerned about the size of the deficit is the fear that it will become overwhelmingly expensive to the detriment of other initiatives if inflation takes off and therefore interest rates take off. On the present consensus of numbers generated by the absolute best economists in Canada, Canada can afford a very large deficit and debt-to-GDP ratio.
Historically, we have been here before. Post-World War II, we had a debt-to-GDP ratio in the neighbourhood of 116% and, in 1995, we were named an honorary member of the Third World. At the time, we had a 67% debt to GDP. By virtue of economic expansion and some prudent measures, we were able to deal with those situations, and they were worse than what we are presently experiencing, which is a debt-to-GDP ratio around 50%, give or take, projected forward for the next five years.
However, there is a lingering doubt that the CPI does not quite get the picture right, not on housing, not on shelter, not on food, not on lumber, not on steel, not on cement. In this morning's Globe and Mail, the article entitled, “Copper hits record high”, is a commentary on the rise of the price of copper, which is used for everything, from plumbing to electricity to alternative energy as well as Chinese supply-side jitters and accommodating monetary policy, which is motivating companies to ramp up spending.
Virginia-based trader, Dennis Gartman, said, “The monetary authorities, whether it’s the Fed, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, have all been extraordinarily expansionary. Copper, lead, zinc, aluminum, tin, iron ore, steel, are telling you something’s going on in the global economy.” He added, “This is inflationary, and this is more than transitory circumstances. This is secular in nature.” This is where it might end badly.
I started by talking about Canadians having massive amounts of money in their savings accounts, some of which will go to feed a pent-up demand. What will happen if Canadians go to spend their money and inflation has eroded their pandemic savings account? It will create a lot of very unhappy and upset Canadians. As the great philosopher, Wayne Gretzky, once said. one should go to “where the puck is going, not where it has been.” There are indications out there where the puck is going to inflation and if it goes to inflation, we will have yet another problem.
I commend the government on its handling of the pandemic finances thus far, but we, as Canadians, need to recognize that the inflationary pressures are there. How we handle them will largely determine how we get through this period of “normalcy”.
View Pat Kelly Profile
CPC (AB)
View Pat Kelly Profile
2021-05-11 10:58 [p.7027]
Madam Speaker, this is the type of debate we need, where we discuss important issues before the House, and inflation and his concern about it should be duly noted.
I am very pleased to hear the member raise inflation. At finance committee, for example, the testimony from officials and members of the government, members of his caucus, has largely not shared the urgency around getting a handle on ensuring that inflation does not harm Canadians in the months and years to come. The lived experience tells Canadians that prices on the critical things they need have gone up, like heating homes, rent and the price of a home, which has gone up 30% across Canada during the pandemic. I would ask the member continue with his concern on inflation.
View John McKay Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I am glad to hear that the finance committee is actually debating this issue.
I do not profess to be a world-leading economist, but I have lived through the stagflation of the 1970s, the erosion of people's savings and the mismatch between what inflation was doing to their assets and to their income.
The issue is whether the CPI is actually measuring the right things. The argument is that the CPI measures the Canadian economy well and its inflation well during non-pandemic times, but during a pandemic, it may not be measuring quite the right things. This an interesting debate and I hope the finance committee carries on with that.
View Ziad Aboultaif Profile
CPC (AB)
View Ziad Aboultaif Profile
2021-05-11 16:02 [p.7072]
Mr. Speaker, I want to start my speech with a single line: Mr. Speaker, I told you so.
I mean no disrespect, but about a month ago, in mid-April, I said that I would not be surprised if Bill C-14 would not go through the other place by the time we got our hands on this 2021-22 budget. Obviously, I was right. To make it even better, Bill C-14 has not been returned to us and it has been a month since I made that prediction. However, I am not here to speak to Bill C-14.
I am here to speak to another bill. It would spend a lot of money. It would massively increase our national debt and it would not do a whole lot to help Canadians. I am going to be speaking to Bill C-30 because, like I said, this budget would spend a lot of money: $154.7 billion. Even if Bill Gates were to liquidate his entire net worth, that still would not be enough to cover the bill for this. I want to talk about all of this money.
If my colleagues here would think back to last year, when this finance minister started her current portfolio, she was very eager to bring Canada's fiscal firepower to bear if September's throne speech is to be believed. However, there is a bit of a problem with that. This is not Hollywood. We can run out of ammo. Our barrels can overheat. We need some way to not burn through all this firepower too fast or, in other terms, we need some sort of fiscal anchor.
Why do we need a fiscal anchor? Fiscal anchors serve as notional ceilings or caps to the levels of public spending, deficits and debt that governments are prepared to reach in their fiscal policy. They serve many purposes: one, retaining the confidence of lenders and global markets, like credit access and favourable rates; two, establishing a positive investment climate for businesses; and, three, providing a measure of fiscal discipline inside government. If the finance minister does not have one, it becomes very difficult for her to put any sort of constraints on her colleagues in cabinet and caucus, and ensure that the government has the ability to respond to future economic shocks and unforeseen crises.
Before COVID-19, the current government's fiscal anchor was to decrease the debt-to-GDP ratio. That anchor has disappeared. Now the budget has one, a vague, pretty useless one. Great, they are committed to reducing the debt, but the fiscal anchor is supposed to be a prudent, specific debt target, not “we will lower it over the medium term”. Fiscal anchors need to be a target that people can use to hold the government to account with no vague statements.
It is clear that this budget does not have a fiscal anchor. It is clear that this is just written in there to hide the Liberals' lack of future planning. What kinds of fiscal anchors could the government have used? I am not talking about that vague, literally, one line that is in the budget.
The first one is the debt-to-GDP ratio. This is what the Liberals would clearly claim they have got right now, but, again, they need targets and accountability, not vague statements and no accountability. A good example would be keeping the debt-to-GDP ratio under 30%. Any of my colleagues here may remember that as Bill Morneau's favourite target. The so-called anchor in the budget says it wants to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, but it does not provide a goal or a target. Therefore, when debt to GDP is at nearly 50%, a reduction is pretty easy to do, but whether the reduction is effective is another matter.
Another anchor the government could be using is something like the deficit-to-GDP ratio. Again, they have a one-off section about this one, simply saying that the government will reduce COVID spending. Great, but what about other spending? This budget introduces a lot of spending, permanent spending, including stuff like made-in-Ottawa child care programs and made-in-Ottawa pharmacare. This is a lot of new permanent program spending, and these are just small drops in the bucket.
The PBO found that the purported growth spending in the budget would only produce a fraction of the government growth that the government said it would. Therefore, the PBO found that with 1% growth on 74,000 jobs, $100 billion would result in over $1 million per job.
If keeping the deficit-to-GDP ratio down is one of this budget’s fiscal anchors, why would the government spend so much money frivolously? In all honesty, had I asked that in question period, I would have received the government's famous non-answer, which is disappointing.
Since we both know that it will not answer, I will tell the House what the real reason is that the federal government wants to spend this avalanche of cash. It is an election budget. That is why there is a lot of growth funding that would not cause growth. There are no productivity measures, and there is nothing to address Canada’s uncompetitive regulatory regime. It is just a lot of money for programs that look good in a nice, red-covered election platform with a big L on the front of it.
What really, deeply worries me is that the government does not seem to care about what all of this purposeless spending will cause. It is not just from this budget, but all of the previous ones too. The government has spent more than all previous prime ministers in the history of Canada combined. At this point, the government is spending so much that our grandkids, if not our great-grandkids, will still be paying it off. It is like taking out a credit card in their names, maxing it out, and leaving it for them to deal with.
As with actual credit cards, the interest rate is critical to this. I know that the minister would say, “Oh, it’s fine, the interest rate is low so we can borrow easily,” a quote from the minister, but again, our national debt is like a credit card. If there is even a one-percentage-point jump in the interest rate, that is another $10 billion per year in debt-servicing costs. Just like with credit cards, the interest can go up if we do not pay down our debts.
What if another massive crisis comes up, and we end up spending another few hundred billion dollars? Our creditors might start wanting us to pay the money back, and it will be tougher for that future government if it needs to borrow money during that crisis.
We also have to consider inflation. What if inflation goes up in the future? Right now, the Bank of Canada has the inflation rate at 2.2%. I know they like it around 2%, but what if the inflation rate keeps increasing? If we keep injecting all this money into the economy, it could cause inflation to spike.
Consider if inflation rose to 5%. Everything would cost more, which is a normal practice, and the value of our currency would drop by 5% year after year. That might not sound like much, but it would add up if it went on like that for a decade.
I am sure all of us who are old enough to remember the 80s and 90s will remember that it was not pretty stuff. Most of us are only a decade or so out from retirement and we will all get good pensions, but not all Canadians will.
My kids are in their early twenties, and I know a lot of our colleagues have kids who are younger than that. Do we really want to leave this fiscal mess in their laps, or in our grandchildren's laps? I know that I do not.
Our legacy should be having rebuilt Canada with a strong, competitive economy that will be there for decades to come, not spending our money for no purpose other than to help the government win an election. We need to spend within our means, not outside of our means, our kids' means and our grandkids' means.
Results: 1 - 100 of 129 | Page: 1 of 2

1
2
>
>|
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data