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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 Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to the budget implementation bill.
Before I do that, I would just like to say thank you to some people. Undoubtedly, one of the problems with a minority Parliament is that we never quite know when that election might come. Whether the rumours are true or not, two years is certainly, by conventional wisdom, on par with the standard length of a minority Parliament, so I will take this opportunity to give thanks to some people.
I have been coming to this House for 75 sitting days in a row. I have been in the House almost every single hour, every single minute. I just referenced my own participation and attendance in the House, which I think I am allowed to do.
I could not have done this work without the incredible work of the folks back in my offices. We all know we have these incredible teams of people who work behind the scenes. In particular, in Ottawa, I have Kaitlin and Kelly, who have been working to help me prepare for here.
Then, of course, because I have been here so much, I have not been able to be back in my riding or working on a lot of that constituency work. I have three incredible women in my Kingston office, Ann, Nicole and Jennifer, who have been handling that case work and working with the government to help people through these difficult times.
I just want to give a huge thank you to them for being so supportive in the functions and for being an incredible team that really knows how to come together.
I also would like to say thank you to you, Mr. Speaker. When you first announced you would not be running again, I said something briefly, but I have really enjoyed you as Deputy Speaker. I hope that means something coming from the riding that also produced the longest serving Speaker of the House of Commons, Peter Milliken. We certainly have a keen eye for a good Speaker.
You have undoubtedly done such a good job in your role as Deputy Speaker throughout the years. Whenever you are in the chair, I have admired your patience with us, even at times when we seem to be at each other's throats. Thank you for that.
Getting toward my discussion on the budget, I would like to talk about the first responders out there who have literally been fighting this pandemic on the front lines for the last 15 to 16 months. We come to this place and we fight, argue, debate and create policy with the hopes that it impacts those on the front lines and makes a genuine difference in the work they do. At the end of the day, they are the ones we need to be looking out for, making sure they have the right tools to fight and do the incredible work they do.
A lot of those frontline workers are probably not even all that keenly interested in what is going on in this place, but nonetheless we have an incredible obligation to make sure they have what they need to do the job they are doing on our behalf.
To that end, I know it has come up in this debate from a couple of different members, I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to members of the House with respect to something that happened in this House yesterday. Hopefully we could learn from the experience.
I learned very early on in my political career, back in municipal politics in Kingston, that it is fair game to be fighting and disagreeing with other politicians. We are elected. We choose to be put in this position. We choose to come forward, voice our opinions and engage in those debates and that dialogue. However, staff do not. What we witnessed here yesterday was something that, quite frankly, has not happened in this Parliament, in this institution, for more than 100 years.
We dragged a public civil servant to the bar of the House of Commons, to Parliament, to receive a scolding from the Speaker. I am appealing to members because of my desire to try to have them recognize that that is not proper conduct toward a public servant. If there is disagreement or concern over the manner in which a government or a particular minister is acting, it would be entirely appropriate to engage in holding them accountable, and if they wanted to, to pull that minister before the bar, if they could do that, and to exercise the same kind of decision or scolding on them.
I just do not think it is right to bring a public servant, especially the lead of the Public Health Agency of Canada while we are in the middle of a global pandemic, to be used as a political tool, as we saw yesterday. It is just not appropriate and, in fact, it has very rarely ever happened. Never has a public servant come before the bar. The last time a private citizen did was in 1913.
For all the differences we have in this place, I really hope we can learn something from yesterday and commit to never doing that again. Politicians are here to be the ones who are in the line of fire, not our public servants, who are doing the incredible work on behalf of Canadians. I will note that my understanding is that that particular public servant has been in executive positions in public health for the last 17 years, which spans multiple governments of different parties.
I did obviously want to speak to the budget implementation act, and I am very proud to be supportive of this. I am very proud not just of the government, but also of this Parliament, for the way it acted 15 or 16 months ago to get supports to Canadians, quite often through unanimous consent motions. We were passing motions in this House to immediately trigger sending money to Canadians who needed it. It was not just because Canadians needed the money, although that is incredibly important, but also because we were encouraging people to stay home.
In the beginning of this pandemic, the objective was to get people to stay home. We did not want people to go out because we did not want them to become infected and for the pandemic to spread. We saw our public service working through the direction of Parliament to send money out in record speeds. When we think about what it did in four short weeks back in March of 2020, it is truly remarkable. I am indeed proud of all members of this Parliament for working together.
I know different parties had different ideas about how much the wage subsidy should be, and I think we ended up with better proposals and better policies as a result of those deliberations and discussions. I am very relieved to see this budget, and it looks like it will be supported and that it will pass, so we can continue those supports through to the end of this pandemic.
We see the light at the end of the tunnel. We can see what is coming, and we can see we are going to be, fingers crossed, in a much better position in the coming weeks and months in terms of relaxing restrictions throughout the country. We can see Canadians will be getting back to life like it was before the pandemic.
I think knowing the government and Parliament were there for them genuinely means a lot to Canadians because, when it was necessary to provide the supports, the government, and indeed Parliament, had their backs. It is extremely rewarding for me personally to see that we were able to do that.
I also think there is a great opportunity here. I will choose my words carefully, because when our Minister of Finance said that there was a political opportunity she was pounced on and her words were taken out of context. At the heart of this, there is an opportunity in all of this to look at the way in which Canadians are supported, where we can do better and where we can make corrections. For example, long-term care homes and developing national standards on long-term care homes is something we can do better in.
This pandemic has provided us with an opportunity to say that we failed many seniors in long-term care homes and must do better. It is a provincial jurisdiction, and I certainly do not want to reopen the debate with the Bloc Québécois about who is responsible for what. I totally accept provinces are responsible for long-term care, but the federal government could play a leadership role in defining how we can develop some long-term care standards, just like we do with our national building code, as one example.
We can also look at this as an opportunity to say we need to invest in our economy now if we want to come roaring out of this and ask ourselves where the best place is to invest right now. If we look throughout the world, we see new technologies developing.
There is an opportunity here for the government to determine if it should continue to invest just in traditional infrastructure like roads and bridges or also look at some of these new technologies. We could help businesses develop them so these technologies and new opportunities can continue to spin off for years and decades to come.
Therefore, I think it is entirely appropriate to look at where we can position ourselves in the global economy in the years to come and use that as a strategy for where to invest money now. It is incredibly indicative of the government to take that approach and quite frankly for any government would take that approach.
I find it concerning and unfortunate that the words of the Minister of Finance were taken out of context when she said that there is a political opportunity to look at child care. The opposition clipped half of her sentence, because what she was really saying is there is a political opportunity to look at the way we are approaching child care.
I am very happy to see the budget announcement on child care. I will start off by saying we probably owe to the Province of Quebec for the desire and need to move toward more affordable child care. Quite frankly, it has done an incredible job of showing what child care supports can mean to individual families and some of the burden it relieves.
It has recognized that, in 2021, it is not only the responsibility of parents to raise children, but also that of our collective society. That is where child care comes in, and why I think we are better off as Canadians because of Quebec's experience with child care.
Not only has Quebec seen an increase in people in the workforce as a result of its incredibly good child care program, it has particularly seen more women in the workforce, which is incredibly important because, more often than not, it is women who end up staying at home with the children. By using child care opportunities to help subsidize those costs, Quebec has seen more women enter the workforce, which has contributed to more economic activity, which means more income taxes paid. It has also contributed to more women pursuing the entrepreneurial desires they may have held back on because they chose to or were expected to stay at home with children.
Therefore, I look at this child care plan in the budget as not only a support for families, but also as an economic opportunity to unleash into the marketplace and the labour force those people who want to work, but for one reason or another, based on their family situation and young children, have chosen not to participate. That would result in more people working and paying taxes.
This would also result in having more entrepreneurs and people running family businesses, generating income and creating ideas, which would be better for our entire society and indeed all Canadians. Therefore, as the government strives to provide more supports with respect to child care, I hope it takes a long, hard look at the incredibly efficient model Quebec has produced and how it has changed the labour force, according to the statistics that have come out.
I will also touch briefly on seniors and the OAS. I know that has been coming up a lot. In particular, there has been a lot of criticism about how the increase should be for every senior over the age of 65, which is a really good talking point. It sells well and delivers well when the Bloc and NDP members continually bring it up. However, the reality of the situation is that, the longer seniors are in retirement, the more of their savings they go through and the less they have as they get older. This is not the case for every senior, but it is the case for low-income seniors in particular.
The government had a choice here. It could either increase the amount for everybody or increase it even more for those aged 75 and over. Of course, in response to that, we are asked why we did not increase it for everybody. Well, there are limitations. There are budgetary limitations and decisions that have to be made from time to time with respect to how much money to spend. I think the government is trying to balance the objective of having meaningful supports with the genuine need for them.
I do not hold the NDP and the Bloc entirely in distain, for lack of a better expression, for using that argument. I think it is a very effective political argument, so I can appreciate why they are doing it, but I think it is important to recognize why the current approach is the right one.
Finally, I want to talk about the debt incurred as a result of the pandemic, because I know that has been coming up a lot. The reality of the situation is that if we had told any member of the House two years ago that the debt would be over a trillion dollars, they would have probably laughed and said nothing. When I think back to the first majority Parliament session that I was a part of, I remember that people were harping about an extra $10 billion being spent or said the deficit was supposed to be $10 billion and it ended up being $20 billion.
We are now talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. It is over a trillion dollars. Indeed it is a lot of money, but the choices were quite clear: Do we invest in Canadians so that we can come out of this in a much better position, or do we leave people on their own? It is not a Liberal, Conservative or NDP thing. Every member agreed on it. Every member voted in favour of it, and we had unanimous consent motions to spend the money because members knew it had to be done.
As I indicated in a question for the member for New Westminster—Burnaby earlier, this was acceptable because every country did the same thing. Every country took on incredible amounts of debt. If Canada had been the only country that took on this kind of debt, it would have been detrimental to a lot of our policies. It would have sent companies running out of the country. It would have done a whole bunch of other things that could have been seen as extremely negative.
The reality is that all of the ally countries that we interact with in the marketplace through commerce and our various trading relationships did the exact same thing. We are going through this together with our partner nations. Also, we had an incredible debt-to-GDP ratio going into the pandemic, and if we expect to come out of the COVID recession with relatively similar economic activity, we will have to invest. I genuinely believe that everybody agrees with that. I think that is why everybody, at the end of the day, supported the measures. They recognized that it was important.
I believe that because of the measures we took and because of the spending that was authorized by the House, we will be in a better place when we come out of the pandemic in a few months. Our economy will come roaring back and we will see the debt-to-GDP ratios return to what they were before. We will also see unemployment return to some of the historic lows that we previously had. Why? It is because when we went through this, we did it in the right way. It cost a lot of money, there is no doubt about that, but we did it in conjunction with our global partners and did it in the responsible way according to the vast majority of economists.
I hope that after my run of 75 consecutive sitting days, this will not be my last opportunity to speak. However, I know I have had my fair share of time over the last 75 days, so if it is, I am entirely content with that. I look forward to questions.
View Karen Vecchio Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Speaker, once again, I get to speak to you while you are in the Chair. To anyone who is tuning in right now, I wish all the best to the Speaker in the Chair right now. I know that the next chapter of your life will be very fulsome. It has been wonderful working with you. Hopefully, we will be able to work together again in September.
I will continue with some of my thanks. I know so many people are involved in making sure that this chamber can run. I am thinking of all the House staff, the interpreters about whom we have heard so much, making sure we are not popping in the mike, the technical support folks for the hybrid virtual Parliament who have been very busy, and the table staff, especially one of my favourites, André Gagnon. I have always said that he is going to be stuck in my living room forever, because one of my favourite photos is of him and me at my second swearing in. Thanks to all of the great people working in our House and making sure the democracy of Canada continues.
It truly has been a great pleasure serving in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session, as the deputy House leader for the Conservative Party. There has been a lot of learning to do and a lot of procedural things, as well. All of us are working together to get that done.
I thank my colleague who spoke before me, because when we talk about results, that is something we really focus on. I would like to see results. When I first got here in 2015, we would talk about the government. We would talk about what we had done in government for nine and a half years, and some of the positive changes that we saw here in Canada. Some very good legislation was put forward. Every single time I was on a panel, I recall that the words used against me were, “Ms. Vecchio, that's rich.” Those were the words of our Liberal government members, all of the time: “That is rich,” any time we asked for something to be justified or asked for verification on things.
The government just does not want to answer. When we see an omnibus bill like this budget implementation bill, we should not be surprised. When we try to have debates, we should not be surprised when we do not get answers. I know that shortly we will be going into Question Period where that will continue.
In this Parliament specifically, we have seen things, such as the WE scandal, prorogation and Bill C-19 being done wrong. I want to focus on that. As of yesterday, Bill C-19 was reported back and tabled in the House of Commons. The fear that I have, and the fear that I think so many other Canadians should have, is that we are putting forward bills that have no witnesses coming to talk about these things. When we wanted to discuss Bill C-19, there was a motion to have important organizations representing everyone from seniors to people with disabilities look at this legislation and ask what it means. We were looking to speak to chief electoral officers who were on the ground and could talk about some of the things we needed to do.
What would a pandemic election look like in London North Centre or London West? I am looking at the member of Parliament for London West right now. What would it look like for London West? What would it look like for Elgin—Middlesex—London? I am seeing that special member look at me right now. I would like to thank her for all of the work that she has done. It has been great having a person beside me in London West who is part of the government and who has always ensured that when I give her a call, she knows what is happening in Elgin—Middlesex—London.
On behalf of all the constituents of Elgin—Middlesex—London, on behalf of my municipalities, I know I can call that member and say that we need an announcement, and the member for London West will ensure that announcement is made. If it is sitting on a minister's table, she is one person I know who can get it done. I really appreciate all of her hard work.
Moving on, when I am talking about some important things, I see that we are truly not doing what we should always be doing. We talk about due diligence. Last night, I got to listen to the member for Winnipeg North talk about the Conservatives and how awful they are. Although the word “corrupt” was not being used, he loved to use the word “obstruction.”
I will tell Canadians what obstruction looks like. Obstruction looks like 101 days in a filibuster when we are talking about prorogation of the government. That is what obstruction looks like. I love looking at the member, because he is laughing. I think it is because he knows exactly what I am getting at. He knows. He has been in politics for over 30 years. He knows how to wing this. He knows when we are playing these games, and we know that when the member for Winnipeg North is coming to a committee, the plan is to filibuster. When some of the greatest speakers who can speak 700 or 800 times in Parliament are brought in, we know the government is bringing in the big guns to filibuster. I would like to commend my colleague for Winnipeg North because that is exactly the type of work that they are able to do.
We have seen committee reports delayed. As the former chair of the status of women and as the former shadow minister of the status of women, I am really concerned that the defence committee could not table a report. Why it could not table a report, I think, has to do with the obstruction in committee. There has not just been obstruction in the Procedure and House Affairs committee. There has been obstruction in the committees for defence, ethics and any other committee in which the reports and information going forward are not to the liking of the government. That is just the type of thing that I have been seeing.
I do a lot of outreach as well in my riding. When reflecting on this budget, what do we see and what is important? I like to go out and speak to my constituents. We do a lot of householders. We do a lot of mailers and get a lot of information back. I would say that we probably got the most information back ever from replies to our last householder. We looked at that data. Do not worry. We were not using Liberalist. We actually looked at this data in our own office to see what my constituents were saying. I did not send it off to somebody to ask them to please look at it analytically and then let us know, while targeting my voters. I actually wanted to hear what they have to say. It is not just about how I am going to get their vote the next time. I want to be sure that I am serving them with a purpose.
However, 66% of our respondents believe there should be an increase in health care funding to the provinces. The government can talk about the funding put forward through this pandemic when it comes to health care. It did have to put some forward, but why? It was not prepared for a pandemic. It had taken some of the money and it had taken some of the programs. We know that the system to alert us of a coming pandemic and its impacts was not there. The information we should have been able to receive was not there because of some cuts and things they were doing while thinking that it was not important.
Sixty-six percent of our respondents believe there needs to be more money put into this health care system, but in this budget we do not see an increase in health care. We can see some things when it comes to pandemic spending, but as the former speaker talked about, we need to look at long-term plans as well. They cannot just be short-term. They cannot just be about how we get people voting for us today. It is about how we can provide good lives and better opportunities for them.
Coming from a farming community, one thing I always talk about is sowing the field. How do we prepare the field so that people can be the best crop possible? How do we encourage great growth? I look at all of these programs coming forward from the government and I am very concerned. What do we see for these people moving forward? I look at my son, who is 27 years old, and know that if he were to try to purchase a house in Elgin—Middlesex—London and put down the $20,000 he has been able to save, it would get him nothing. Why? It is because we have seen a 46% increase in housing prices in my area alone.
Those are some of the things that I think the government needs to tackle, along with the fact that we see inflation going higher and higher. That inflation is going to impact us greatly, especially if the interest rates go up.
I look at my own children who want to buy houses. The rates for getting a mortgage are awesome, but how can they buy houses when the prices start at almost half a million dollars? How are they ever going to get into the housing market and out of renting? I think that 55% of renters have been paying more in the last six months than they were before. How are people able to move forward and go up the housing ladder? How will they be able to go from being renters to being home owners and into those next homes for retirement? How will they be able to do that? I just do not see the path, unfortunately. I am very concerned with that.
We have 73% of respondents who were concerned about Bill C-10, which we voted on last night. At about 1:30 a.m. we saw that some amendments went through. We also saw the bill pass, unfortunately. I can tell colleagues that in my riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London this was an issue about which I heard from tons of my constituents. They said they did not want Bill C-10, and that they believed it needed to be amended. The amendments we put forward did not, unfortunately, go through.
Finally, 86% of respondents were concerned about the level of debt in this budget. These are the types of things I talk about.
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 Bob Saroya Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bob Saroya Profile
2021-06-22 16:54 [p.8996]
Madam Speaker, it is simple, and it is the borrowing. Borrowing in our personal life is no different than that of the government spending. It is just like anybody bringing in $200,000 a year who keeps spending $300,000 a year, year over year. How long will it be until the bank comes to knock at the door?
Yes, we do need to spend money. Yes, we do look into the small and medium-sized businesses. Yes, we have to make sure they are taken care of, but in the meantime, we must keep in mind balancing the books at the end of day. We want to make sure that government spends what it needs to spend and balances the books at the end of the day.
View Scott Aitchison Profile
CPC (ON)
View Scott Aitchison Profile
2021-06-22 16:55 [p.8996]
Madam Speaker, I really did enjoy my hon. colleague's comments. He spoke about the importance of government spending when necessary and having the ability to pay off the debt so it can, in fact, spend. I am wondering if he could talk to us about good debt versus bad debt.
View Bob Saroya Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bob Saroya Profile
2021-06-22 16:55 [p.8996]
Madam Speaker, there is good spending versus bad spending. In the beginning of the pandemic, the Liberals were announcing 10% for the small and medium-sized businesses. We fought with them to make sure we allowed them 70% of their wages on rent and other things. That was good spending and those were good debts.
I read in the newspaper that they are creating $446 billion in debt and, on their priorities, 87% of the debt money is not going toward the right priorities, which are small and medium-sized businesses.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I hear this argument a lot from Conservatives about the amount of debt, and Conservatives like to equate it back to—
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: If the member for Carleton would let me speak, I will ask my question.
Conservatives like to equate a government budget to a household budget. However, the reality is that they cannot be compared, and that is not comparing apples to apples.
The reality is that, if the Conservatives want to make a better comparison, the member needs to consider the fact that, when we have an economy that is continually growing every year, notwithstanding the fact that we have had challenges over the last year, it would be like saying that a person's household income continued to grow every year and therefore the size of mortgage they could take on would grow every year.
As long as the country's economy is growing at a pace that is fast enough to take on that debt, it is entirely acceptable. Members do not need to take my word or the Liberals' word for it, because, indeed, that is what Conservatives did. That is why, between Mulroney and Harper, 14 out of 16 budgets ran deficits, because they recognized that.
The member for Carleton can check it out. There were actually two surpluses, and they were on the back of Paul Martin. Those were the only two surpluses during an extremely long time.
So, can the member not realize that there is a difference between household debt and debt that is being taken on by—
View Bob Saroya Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bob Saroya Profile
2021-06-22 16:58 [p.8997]
Madam Speaker, it is the same thing. A debt is a debt, even if borrowing against Canada. Every Canadian household is on the hook for this $446 billion. The money needs to be paid back. The money the government is printing is on the people. Every family will owe $78,000, as the government borrowed that kind of money.
View Sukh Dhaliwal Profile
Lib. (BC)
View Sukh Dhaliwal Profile
2021-06-22 16:59 [p.8997]
Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my friend on the other side for his success and his family's success for being successful parents, and I want to congratulate his family.
On the other hand, when I look at this, I have a similar situation to him. We might not agree on some of the policy decisions that are made, but certainly he is one of my favourites on the other side.
However, as he talked about education and the families who needed that money to send their children to school, to universities, my question to my hon. friend is this: Did the Prime Minister make the right decision at that time? Instead of putting the cost on the family credit cards, the government took the decision to support those students with $1,500 a month, families that need it the most with $2,000 a month, and businesses with the wage subsidy and $40,000 for start-ups.
View Bob Saroya Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bob Saroya Profile
2021-06-22 17:00 [p.8997]
Madam Speaker, I thank my friend on the other side. He absolutely makes sense. There is that good debt when we were fighting to pay $1,500 to students and many other things.
However, we are more concerned with the 87% of the total debt created. Where did that money go? It was to the government's own priorities, but we will probably find out when we get to be government next year.
View James Cumming Profile
CPC (AB)
View James Cumming Profile
2021-06-22 17:02 [p.8997]
Madam Speaker, the member should be incredibly proud of that intervention, his family, and all he has done and brought to this country.
I have a simple question for you. How concerned are you for those kids of yours, with the massive amount of debt the government is accumulating?
View Bob Saroya Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bob Saroya Profile
2021-06-22 17:03 [p.8997]
Madam Speaker, I am not only concerned about my kids, I am also concerned about all Canadians throughout the country. The debt created by the government is $446 billion and another $437 billion from the last 149 years. All our future generations are on the hook. I really feel sorry for them, and the government should look into balancing the books.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-21 12:44 [p.8830]
Madam Speaker, I have a finance question.
Two great economic historians from Harvard University, Reinhart and Rogoff, have listed five precursors to a debt crisis: asset price inflation, particularly housing price inflation; long-term current account deficits, that is to say buying from the world more than we sell to the world; a drop in output, as we experienced last year with the $100-billion drop in GDP; rising household leverage, and we have the highest household-debt-to-income ratio in the G7; and an increase in overall indebtedness. We now have $8.6 trillion of household, corporate and governmental debt combined, which is four dollars of debt for every one dollar of GDP.
If interest rates rise before these incredible debt ratios decline, does the member believe we could face a debt crisis in Canada of which I have warned in the past and am warning in the present? Does he share that concern, and what would he do to avoid it?
View Warren Steinley Profile
CPC (SK)
View Warren Steinley Profile
2021-06-18 15:42 [p.8808]
Madam Speaker, it is with joy that I enter the debate here on a Friday afternoon to talk about Bill C-30.
There is a lot in this more than 700-page budget that we could go over. One of the things we noticed in this 700-page budget document is that it does not include the words “balanced budget” once. Out of 700 pages, there is no plan to return to balance. There is no plan to actually stop stockpiling debt onto future generations of Canadians. That is where I want to start my presentation today, talking about the next generations of Canadians, what this budget would actually do and how it would set up their life.
There was a column, written by Franco Terrazzano, of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and Kris Rondolo, who is the executive director of Generation Screwed. That is how the next generation is starting to feel right now. In this column, they wrote, “Canadian babies born on federal budget day 2021 had more than $28,000 of debt the moment they opened their eyes.”
I saw today that my friend and colleague from Battle River—Crowfoot had his seven-day-old son, Winston, on the screen today. I am sorry to tell Winston that he already owes the government $28,000 as of today. What will that look like in a couple of years? By the time these little ones are blowing out the candles on their fifth birthday, Ottawa projects their share of the federal debt will be $35,000. That will be for every baby who was born on budget day this year.
That is something we really need to start considering when we talk about budgets and bills like Bill C-30, and what we are doing to the next generation of Canadians.
It is important to know why the debt is soaring. The pandemic caused government revenues to drop by 11% in 2020, but there is a bigger story. Ottawa's spending, and let us remember that revenue dropped by 11%, has increased 75%. Let us take that 75% increase in Ottawa's spending into consideration.
Even worse, the Prime Minister and finance minister are using the COVID-19 pandemic as a cover to increase government spending for the years to come. By 2026, the federal government is planning to permanently hike government spending by $100 billion more than pre-pandemic.
Where would we get the revenue from? I have often said to the people in Regina—Lewvan that the government does not make money, government only has the ability to take money, through taxes, from businesses and Canadians who have made it. That means that in 2026, the Government of Canada will be spending over $100 billion more than pre-pandemic levels. That money has to come from somewhere, and we all know where the government is looking to get some of that money.
It would be out Canadians' pockets, whether it be through a $170 carbon tax, income tax or a tax on permanent residents. We know the CMHC has been looking at that. We talked about in the 2019 campaign. Everyone said that is was ridiculous and that it would never happen. However, the Liberal government has spent a lot of money to look at how it could take money from Canadians.
Let us look at a few more numbers. On a year-to-year basis, the federal government spends $20 billion on debt interest charges each year. The provinces spend nearly $30 billion. By 2026, annual interest charges on the federal debt will nearly double to $39 billion. To put that in perspective, the finance minister's big announcement on a national child care program was that it was planning to spend $30 billion on day care over the next five years.
It would be $30 billion for a national child care program. How much would the federal government spend on debt payment in the next five years? It would be $153 billion in debt interest. The government is going to spend $30 billion on child care, and that was a big, trumpeted, top platform policy, something it was finally going to get done, yet over five years, it would be spending $30 billion on day care and $153 billion on the debt.
There is a lot of spending in this budget. It is 700 pages and there are programs that are going to have to be rolled out. We do not question the Liberal government's ability to spend money. I am sure the Prime Minister and the finance minister are very good at spending money. What we question is where their priorities lie for spending this money.
As my colleague before me asked, where is the job creation in this? When are people going back to work? Where is the plan for people to start earning paycheques instead of receiving government cheques? That is what we on this side are asking. Despite the size of this budget and the long wait, because we waited two years for it, there is still no plan for Canadians to return to normal life. That is what I have been hearing. I had time to do a lot of Zoom calls in my riding and I spoke with Tracy Fahlman of the Regina Hotel Association. She said that her stakeholder groups and the members of the association know they need help to get by, but they want to know when they will be able to welcome clients back through their doors and start making money again. They do not want to be on government programs for years to come; they want to start living their lives, earn their money, have their employees come back to work and get their businesses up and running again. That is what Canadians are looking for in this budget, but what is sorely missing is the lack of a plan to create jobs for Canadians.
Another thing we talked about in this budget is the ability to secure the future for the next generation. We are really looking forward to having this conversation, because I believe the government is really fired up to get ready for a campaign this fall, so we are looking forward to contrasting its lack of a vision with our five-point plan to secure the future for Canadians and recover those million jobs that were lost. The member for Carleton brings that up often in question period. By the end of this month, in the government's detailed department plan, it is supposed to recover all jobs lost due to the pandemic. However, the members on that side do not want to answer if they will fulfill that promise they made to recover the million jobs lost due to COVID‑19. That is the question that Canadians want answered. It is in the detailed department plan of the Minister of Finance, so why can the Liberals not tell us if they are going to reach that goal? It is a simple question that requires a simple answer: yes or no. However, again today no one on that side wanted to answer that question in question period.
I have often stood in this House and talked about the independent travel agents who have really been forgotten by the government. I tabled a petition on behalf of travel agents across Regina—Lewvan who are asking why, if the government has enough money for big bailouts for Air Canada, which can give $10 million to its executives, there is no money being paid to the independent travel agents who have been without income and unable to collect revenues for almost a year. The government is failing average, everyday Canadians. They been left behind by the government's plan and budget.
Another thing we looked for in the budget was support for pipelines. I do not think they are mentioned in this budget at all, not with respect to the oil and gas sector, so I brought that up several times. They really need some support. We need to fight to make sure that Line 5 does not get shut down. The government gave up on Keystone XL, because we know the members on that side of the House do not like the energy sector. The Prime Minister himself said he wants to phase out the oil sector across western Canada. Ironically, that might be the only promise he ends up keeping for western Canadians, to continue to phase out the oil sector where the hard-working men and women in my riding and across western Canada go to work every day.
I am happy to put on the record that the people of Regina—Lewvan did not vote for a Liberal government and that is why I will not be supporting this budget.
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