(i) after eight years of this Liberal government, this prime minister has added more to the national debt than all previous prime minister’s combined,
(ii) a half-trillion dollars of inflationary deficits has directly led to 40-year inflation highs,
(iii) prior to budget 2023, the Minister of Finance said, “What Canadians want right now is for inflation to come down and for interest rates to fall […] and that is one of our primary goals in this year’s budget: not to pour fuel on the fire of inflation," and then proceed to usher in $60 billion in new spending,
(iv) in order to combat inflation, the Bank of Canada has been forced to increase interest rates 10 times in just 19 months,
(v) interest rate increases have increased mortgage payments, and since this prime minister took office, monthly mortgage payments have increased 150% and now cost $3,500 on a typical family home,
(vi) the Liberal-NDP government must exercise fiscal discipline, end their inflation driving deficits so that interest rates can be lowered,
in order to avoid a mortgage default crisis, as warned by the International Monetary Fund, and to ensure Canadians do not lose their homes, the House call on the government to introduce a fiscal plan that includes a pathway back to balanced budgets, in order to decrease inflation and interest rates, and to introduce this in the House of Commons prior to the Bank of Canada’s next policy interest rate decision on October 25, 2023.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for .
Inflation is the cost of the spending that the government said would be free. We know that the Liberal-NDP government promised a utopia and it said that it would deliver results for free. It said that the cost of this spending would never hit Canadians because the budget would balance itself. It also suggested that because interest rates were so low, the government could magically keep increasing spending faster than the cost of living and the population grew, without any consequences.
Today, after eight years of this government and this Liberal-NDP Prime Minister, it is time to pay the bills. Canadians are seeing that reality in their mortgage payments, which have more than doubled, increasing by an average of 150%.
I talked to a worker in British Columbia who is now spending $7,500 a month on mortgage payments. I repeat: $7,500 a month. He is a middle-class worker with three kids. Of that amount, $4,000 is just for interest, not even to pay down the principal. This worker's family is losing nearly $50,000 a year in interest alone on their mortgage. It is an impossible situation for the average family, but it is the reality after eight years of this Prime Minister.
Ironically, this is the same Prime Minister who promised to help the middle class and those working hard to join it. He no longer says much about the so-called middle class, does he? We never hear him talk about the middle class. It has been forgotten, because he does not want to remind anyone of the suffering his policies have caused this so-called middle class. We now have middle-class Canadians who are homeless. Yes, it is true that, unfortunately, homelessness has always existed in all countries, including Canada. However, we have not seen homelessness amongst middle-class Canadians since the Great Depression. Now, it is becoming more and more common.
Across the country, we find people like nurses and carpenters living in their cars because mortgage payments went up so much, which also pushed up the cost of rent. The Prime Minister promised to bring down the cost of housing eight years ago, but since then, the cost has doubled. Rents have doubled, mortgage payments have doubled, and the down payment required to buy a home has doubled. In fact, when I was the minister responsible for housing, it cost half of what it costs today to pay the rent, the mortgage and the down payment.
The government's decisions have consequences. The government caused the amount of money in the economy to grow by $600 billion, increasing from $1.8 trillion to $2.4 trillion. This 32% increase meant the money supply grew eight times faster than real economic growth. In other words, the money to buy stuff grew eight times faster than the stuff money buys. This is why we have inflation.
The Bank of Canada has to respond by raising interest rates, again hitting the same people who are struggling to buy food and pay their rent or mortgage.
What is the government doing? It is still forcing the Bank of Canada to keep interest rates high. According to former finance minister John Manley, the government is stepping on the inflationary gas pedal by running deficits, which is forcing the Bank of Canada to slam on the brakes by raising interest rates. One might have expected the government to try to rein in deficits and work toward balancing the budget, but it did the opposite.
Six months ago, the government said it wanted to balance the budget by 2028. When budget time came, it suddenly changed its mind and said it would never balance the budget.
Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer told us that the deficit is 15% higher than the government promised in its budget. Things are completely out of control, and Canadians are paying the price, not to mention the price our children will have to pay in the future.
That is why we put forward common-sense solutions, including a “dollar-for-dollar” law, which would force the government to find a dollar's worth of savings for every new dollar spent, and the elimination of wasteful spending on things like the ArriveCAN app, the Canada Infrastructure Bank and other ideas that have jacked up the cost of government.
The goal should be to balance the budget in order to bring down interest rates and tame inflation so Canadians can keep their homes and feed their families. That is common sense.
[English]
After eight years of the and his NDP-Liberal government, we are starting to see the hard reality that inflation is the price one pays for all of the programs the government told us were free. We will remember that the Prime Minister said he could double the debt, but not to worry, because the budget would balance itself. He said that interest rates were low, so not only were deficits permanently affordable, but also we could not afford not to spend. Here we are, with the devastating human consequences not so long after that because, as Pythagoras says, numbers rule the universe. No matter how many words are spoken, no matter how many soft lullabies are sung, the reality is that when we spend what we do not have, we drive up the cost for everyone else.
Here we are. The cost of government has driven up the cost of living. Half a trillion dollars of inflationary debt has bid up the goods we buy and the interest we pay. According to former Liberal finance minister John Manley, government spending is pressing its foot on the inflationary gas pedal, which forces the Bank of Canada to press on the brakes with higher interest rates. Now, I bump into people across Canada who are living in financial terror. A shipyard worker in Vancouver told me that his monthly mortgage payment is now $7,500. He is a shipyard worker. Of the $7,500, $4,000 is just for interest. His family is basically spending $50,000 a year on interest for their mortgage. This is after the , his budget documents and his bank governor told that man that rates would stay low.
One would think the government would reverse its policies, but it is doing the opposite. A year ago, it said it would balance the budget by 2028. Six months ago, it changed its mind and said it would never balance the budget. Last week, we found out from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that the deficit is 15% bigger than the government claimed only six months ago. It has totally lost control of the spending.
Our common sense plan is to cap spending and cut waste in order to balance the budget and bring down interest rates and inflation. Let us do it before the hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgages renew into these higher rates. Let us save people's homes and our future. It is common sense. My colleagues will work to bring home this common sense here in Canada. It is your home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.
:
Mr. Speaker, it is an absolute honour to rise in the House today, and it is somewhat intimidating to follow the hon. member for , the leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition.
We heard a very compelling case for supporting this motion. The fact is that Canadians are hurting from coast to coast to coast. They are feeling the effects of the soaring cost of living, the ever-increasing cost at the fuel pumps, the ever-increasing heating costs and the soaring costs of having a place to live. That may be the mortgage rates, which have doubled over the last eight years, the rent doubling, seeing interest rates going up or seeing the dream of home ownership quickly falling away for so many of our young people.
It is something that all of us in this House see if we take the time to visit the communities we represent; I am sure many do. In my travels and in the conversations I have experienced recently, I have heard from Canadians back home in western New Brunswick. In recent visits, I engaged with people on the beautiful Island of Prince Edward; I heard it there as well. Throughout Atlantic Canada, Canadians are hurting. They are experiencing the pain of this ever-expansive cost of living that challenges them even when they go to get necessary supplies at the grocery store.
Perhaps some of the most heartbreaking stories I have heard have come from seniors. They have worked hard all their lives. They were counting on the pensions they have and what they paid in to be able to carry them through. However, they are honestly and sincerely worried about what they set aside and what they worked hard to save up. Will it be enough to sustain them as things continue to rise in cost?
Some seniors, especially in Atlantic Canada, have had to make tough decisions. They are facing another long winter, wondering if they have enough left over to pay their heat bill and make sure they have adequate groceries, let alone put a little fuel in their gas tanks. These challenges are very real. When we take the time to hear seniors' stories, we cannot help but be affected.
It is our job as their representatives in this House, which is the people's House, to bring those concerns here. Our job, as His Majesty's loyal opposition, is to make sure that the Liberals are held to account, that they are responsible in the legislation they bring forward and that this legislation has a positive impact on the lives of the people we all represent.
I believe that it behooves this House and that it would be the responsible thing for the government, and this entire House, to move and bring forward motions and legislation representing the concerns that we are hearing right now. The top-of-mind concern for Canadians from across this country, bar none, is the soaring cost of living and inflation. I am hearing it everywhere I go.
I believe it would be good for us to all consider what is happening right now to cause Canadians this kind of angst and concern. What is leading to the increased levels of anxiety and despair we are seeing? There are desperate situations happening not only in our inner cities but also in our rural communities. What is causing this?
After eight years, we have seen things that have led to the current circumstance we are in. There has been a multiplicity of factors. One of them that cannot be discounted is the fact that the has added more national debt than all other previous prime ministers combined. That is a staggering fact.
When we double the debt in under eight years, we are doing something that will have devastating consequences in the long term. I am talking not about the deficit but about the debt of this country. We have half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits that have led directly to inflation rates that are at a 40-year high.
We saw that, prior to the budget in 2023, even our own said that what Canadians want right now is for inflation to come down and interest rates to fall. That was one of the primary goals of this year's budget. It was not to pour more fuel on the fire and then proceed to usher in $60 billion in new spending. The government did not hear what was being said, or if it did, it is certainly applying the wrong fix to the problem. We cannot stop inflation and soaring interest rates by spending increasing amounts of money. That is adding fuel to the fire. As has been previously stated, the former Liberal finance minister John Manley said that we cannot keep doing that and expect to be successful.
We have seen this all throughout history, any time governments have gone down this road. In order to increase the revenues to pay for their ever-expanding debt and deficits, they inevitably increase taxes. If we ask the citizens of this country if they can afford more tax; I think the answer would be a resounding no. They have more bills than they have paycheques. When they get to the end of their paycheques and all they have is another bill waiting, then the government suggests that it is going to quadruple the carbon tax, because it will make them feel better and somehow cause the weather to change and the climate to improve.
A short time ago, when we asked the environment commissioner at the natural resources committee if there is yet in place in Canada a metric that can tell us how much the carbon tax has reduced the amount of carbon in Canada's atmosphere, he responded by saying that there is no such metric in place as of yet. The carbon tax is one of the major factors of inflation in this country. Therefore, the landmark signature piece of environmental legislation that has led to huge inflation in this country does not even have a metric by which we can tell Canadians its impact on the overall environment of Canada. That is a disgrace, and it is impossible to justify to the Canadian population. At a time of economic duress, when people are feeling the heat economically and their finances are depleting, we as a government are going to tell them yet again that we are going to keep augmenting the carbon tax. However, we really cannot tell them why, because we cannot demonstrate its effect on the environment. That is unjustifiable.
It is time for a course correction. It is time for the government to rearrange its priorities and get back to what it needs to be doing, which is to develop the incredible potential that Canada has. If we want to tackle the inflationary problem that we have in this country, let us get our economy growing and our people working. Let us get off their backs and start removing the hindrances to their prosperity and growth.
Do members know what the definition of “frustration” is? It is impeding progress, feeling that we have all this potential we cannot touch and that we can never attain what we want, because of the weight that is currently on our backs. That is why there is an increasing sense of frustration among Canadians; they are crying out for change. They want the government to get out of the way, stand by their side, say it will unleash their potential and let them do what they do best. That is to grow, develop, work, make money and, yes, make a profit so that they can better their future and the lives of their children and families.
I hope the government will do the right thing and support our motion today.
:
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my friend and colleague, the hon. member for .
We learned just this morning from Statistics Canada that inflation fell to 3.8% in this country. That is well below market expectations and good news for Canadians as our economy continues to stabilize.
We know that many Canadians are still having trouble making ends meet.
[Translation]
Our government understands that many Canadians are having a tough time these days. That is why our government is working hard to build an economy that works for everyone, with stable prices, strong and sustained growth and high-paying jobs. That is what matters most to Canadians.
There are over 1 million more Canadians in the labour force today than before the pandemic. The OECD and the IMF predict that Canada will have the strongest economic growth in the G7 next year. Moreover, rating agencies, including DBRS Morningstar, confirmed our AAA credit rating last month. That is the foundation for more investments in Canada. Our plan is working.
I want to highlight certain measures that our government introduced recently to continue to support Canadians. We know that for too many of them, including youth and new Canadians, the dream of being homeowners is increasingly unattainable, and the cost of rent keeps rising. I see it back home, especially in Côte-des-Neiges. People are struggling to pay their rent because it keeps rising all the time.
The housing crisis is also affecting our economy. Because of the shortage of housing in our communities, it is difficult for businesses to attract the workers they need to grow and succeed. When people spend more of their income on housing, it means they are spending less money in our communities and on necessities.
[English]
That is why we began this fall parliamentary session by introducing Bill in the very first few days. This bill would enhance the GST rental rebate on new purpose-built rental housing to encourage the construction of more and more rental homes throughout the country, including apartment buildings, student housing and seniors residences right across Canada. For a two-bedroom rental unit valued at $500,000, this GST rebate for residential rental buildings could mean a tax break of $25,000. This is just one more tool to help create the necessary conditions to build the types of housing that Canadians need and families want to live in. This measure would also remove the restriction in the existing GST rules to ensure that public service bodies, such as hospitals and charities, as well as qualifying non-profit organizations that build or purchase purpose-built rental housing, are permitted to claim that 100% enhanced GST rebate.
The government is also calling on provinces that currently apply the provincial sales tax or the provincial portion of the HST to rental housing to join us by matching our enhanced rebate for new rental housing. In fact, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island have already announced that they intend to follow our lead by eliminating the provincial component of the HST on those new purpose-built rentals.
Since we moved to remove GST on new rental housing, home builders from coast to coast to coast have announced they will be moving ahead with new or stalled projects. This means more housing for Canadians. I would certainly hope that Conservatives will stop playing procedural games with this bill so that we can deliver this important measure to Canadians because I do fundamentally believe that the Conservatives are supportive of creating more supply in the housing market.
In addition to the enhanced GST rebate, our government recently announced the next step in our plan to address the lack of housing in this country.
[Translation]
To ensure builders have the low-cost financing required to build more rental projects, the government is increasing the Canada Mortgage Bond issuance limit by $20 billion per year and designating the increased amount for funding mortgage loans on multi-unit rental projects insured by CMHC. Eligible rental projects must have at least five rental units and can include apartment buildings, student housing, and senior residences.
[English]
There is no fiscal impact for the Government of Canada as a result of this particular measure, and I would like to make that very clear. This is fiscally responsible policy, using policy tools at the government's disposal. This new measure alone would help build up to 30,000 additional rental units every single year. The increase to Canada mortgage bonds builds on the federal government's recent actions to make housing more affordable for Canadians, including the $4-billion housing accelerator fund, which was launched earlier this year, as members know. That fund helps to cut red tape to address outdated local policies, such as zoning issues that are preventing construction. It allows us to build more homes faster.
The government also introduced the new tax-free first home savings account, which is helping Canadians to contribute up to $40,000 tax-free toward their first down payment.
[Translation]
Since we implemented this new tax-free first home savings account in April, most of Canada's large financial institutions have started offering it. Today, 150,000 Canadians have already opened a tax-free first home savings account and many new accounts are being opened every day.
[English]
Our government also understands that inflation is, of course, challenging when it comes to the essentials Canadians must purchase every single day, such as food. Earlier this year, we addressed the rising cost of food by delivering targeted inflation relief for 11 million low- and modest-income Canadians and families, those who needed it the most. That was through our one-time grocery rebate, which meant up to an extra $467 for eligible couples with two children and over $200 for single Canadians without children, including single seniors.
I know that this support was welcomed by Canadians, but I also know that more work needs to be done. That is why Bill proposes to take immediate steps to help make groceries more affordable.
[Translation]
This crucial legislation would introduce a series of amendments to the Competition Act to strengthen competition, especially in the grocery industry. These amendments would give the Competition Bureau more power to investigate and take action when industries engage in unfair competition, such as price-fixing or unreasonable price hikes. They would eliminate the efficiencies argument to stop anti-competitive mergers that end up driving up prices and limiting consumer choice here, in Canada. These amendments would also allow the bureau to block collaboration efforts that undermine competition and consumer choice, for example, when major grocery chains prevent SMEs, their smallest competitors, from opening stores nearby.
[English]
The government continues to work with leaders of Canada's five largest grocery chains and, of course, domestic and international food processors, to take this action to stabilize food prices. Price stabilization requires the full engagement of everyone, of the entire supply chain. We are encouraged that grocers and manufacturers have agreed to work with us to find solutions that are in the best interests of Canadians.
In closing, these are real, concrete actions that will make life more affordable for Canadians. More competition will ease the sticker shock at the grocery store checkout line, and that is important. Eliminating the GST on the construction of new homes will get more homes built faster. That, too, is critically important.
:
Mr. Speaker, let me start by providing a comment reflecting on what is happening in our communities from coast to coast to coast.
We do not necessarily need to be lectured by Conservatives on the issues of inflation and interest rates. We understand, as we are often told by the and others, that when we look at what is happening in our constituencies, it is important that we bring those concerns to Ottawa, as opposed to trying to tell our constituents what Ottawa is doing for them.
If we look at the most recent budget that was passed by the House, we will find that it is very much a reflection of what is happening in communities from coast to coast to coast. People need to understand that, yes, we are very much concerned about the interest rates and the impact they are having on Canadians in a very real and tangible way.
Last weekend, the came to Winnipeg to meet with some of my constituents who are primarily entrepreneurs. We talked about the impact of interest rates. We talked about homeowners, and so forth. We also talked about the rates of inflation. We are all concerned about that. That is one of the reasons why we brought forward legislation, such as Bill . That is one of the reasons we brought in the inflation or grocery rebate, affecting 11 million Canadians, last spring, which came into effect in the summertime.
The budget and the type of legislation we are bringing forward are a reflection of what we are hearing from our communities. Therefore, one needs not lecture us on what is happening in and outside of the Ottawa bubble. We are very much aware of it.
At the end of the day, we look at not only what is happening around us, but what the Conservative Party is saying, particularly in the motion it presented today. Today, it wants to give the impression that there is this huge debt that has been acquired over the last number of years, and there is a huge debt. It is a huge debt that, in good part, was supported by the Conservative Party when we were borrowing money to help Canadians through the worldwide pandemic, and I underline the word “worldwide”.
Yes, we borrowed extensively, billions of dollars, in order to have the backs of Canadians. We spent that money, most of it supported by the Conservative Party, on things such as small businesses.
Yesterday, I heard a Conservative member talk about small businesses being so important to Canadians and Canada as a nation. I have talked about small businesses as the backbone of our country when it comes to economic development. During the pandemic, this government spent billions of dollars supporting small businesses, preventing them from going bankrupt in many ways.
We supported Canadians, who were no longer in a position to work, through programs such as CERB. Millions of Canadians were supported by billions of dollars, which did increase the debt. However, the , this government and many members of this chamber supported spending that money. It is like the giving a child a chocolate bar and then condemning the child for eating it.
However, at the end of the day, it was important for the government to spend that money to support Canadians and small businesses, not to mention the billions of dollars that were there to support our seniors through one-time payments for those on GIS and OAS or individuals with disabilities.
The Conservatives talk about this huge debt. In part, they supported us at the time and now they criticize us for it. They need to be more transparent and honest with Canadians about that when they criticize the government for spending money. Are they now saying, retroactively, that we should not have supported Canadians, that we should not have supported small businesses and others? That is what it sure sounds like. Today, in a question that I put forward to the leader of the Conservative Party, I challenged him on that point.
It is interesting when we look at the waffling of the Conservative Party. The best example is the previous speaker, the seconder on the motion. After I posed a very straightforward question for him, the member spent so much time, as many members of the Conservative Party have, criticizing the price on pollution, or as they call it “the carbon tax”. Like their apparent flip-flop on the need to support Canadians during the pandemic, the member failed to acknowledge that he supported a price on pollution, or the carbon tax, and he was not alone. Every member of the Conservative Party who ran in the last federal election supported it. When I pointed that out, he replied that he personally did not support it. It would appear that the first thing we need to ask every Conservative candidate is whether he or she personally supports this.
Imagine how many statements are made in an election platform and somehow the Conservative caucus believes that it is not responsible for that platform, that it can just opt out, much like it is opting out of the price on pollution. It makes one wonder about the Conservatives.
The Conservatives like to talk as if they know things about finances. Today it is about budgets and deficits, even though, compared to the G7 countries, Canada is doing exceptionally well.
I still remember when the was telling Canadians to invest in cryptocurrency, which is incredible. He still has not apologized for that. If people had followed his advice, they would have lost thousands, depending on how much they invested, 60%-plus of their investment.
We need to ensure that we put things into proper perspective. Yes, let us be concerned about inflation and interest rates. Let us take actions like bringing in Bill .
I would suggest that the Conservative Party get behind legislation such as Bill and vote for it. It will ensure that more homes are built. It will ensure more stability in grocery prices. Actions speak louder than words.
:
Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from .
In 2015, something remarkable happened in Canadian politics. At the time, the Liberals were in third place in the polls. At one point, the current made an extraordinary statement, something that people did not expect at all. He basically said that the Liberals were going to run deficits and that they liked doing that. He said that interest rates were low and the country is like a business, so, in those circumstances, we needed to invest in the economy. People looked at him dumbfounded and wondered what this was all about. At the time, I said that it was the first time in 40 years that a politician had said that he was going to run deficits and that he liked doing so. One thing we can say is that he really does like running deficits, because he has run up some big ones.
At the time, his premise, as economists would say, was that the interest rates were low and we needed to invest in the economy. What does that look like now? Interest rates have gone up 10 times since the pandemic ended. The rate is now 5%. I am no math whiz, but that means that interest rates are quite high now.
The money he is spending is not for investments, not at all, it is for current expenditures. Often, he spends frivolously. He has lost control. He is a compulsive spender. He likes that. He hands out money left and right. When he talks about spending he gets as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.
Let us look at where things stand today. There are current expenditures that are outside of his jurisdiction. He has become friends with the NDP. The NDP are not compulsive spenders; they are master spenders. They like that. They watch movies, they picture themselves spending, they imagine people spending and it is all amazing.
What happened is that the Liberals and the NDP started talking. The NDP said everyone needed dental insurance. However, that falls under Quebec's jurisdiction, but that was okay, the federal government was going to take care of it for Quebec. The Liberals then got to work to bring in dental insurance. I went to my dentist to get a tooth fixed, and he was in quite a state. I asked him what was the matter and he said he could not believe what was going on with dental insurance, that he had been thinking about it for two months. He said it made no sense. This spending is completely ridiculous. At one point, someone—I am not sure if it was the Parliamentary Budget Officer—talked about the excessive spending, saying that it was crazy, that it should never have been done that way and it should have been left to the experts, namely Quebec and the provinces.
We are also talking about $82.8 billion in subsidies for oil companies, which are making $200 billion a year in profits. No one was shocked, but we all should be. We are talking about $82.8 billion in subsidies until 2035 to those poor folks who are already making $200 billion a year in profits. Some might call that insanity, but that is what the Liberals are doing.
They bought a pipeline for fun. They say that they do not like oil, but that they are going to export oil like pigs and put the proceeds into the energy transition. I tried to explain it to my golden retriever, and he was beside himself. How can we explain that to people? The Liberals seem to believe it, to the tune of $30 billion and counting.
Then there is the inefficiency of the public service. A passport costs four times more to produce than a driver's licence. Look at health care costs. The few times the Liberals have administered health care, in veterans' hospitals, for example, it cost twice as much as in the public sector in Quebec and the provinces. That is outrageous. Processing an EI application costs 2.5 times more than processing a welfare application in Quebec. Why is that? It is because Ottawa has money from the fiscal imbalance. When it has that kind of money, it does not look at how much it is spending. The carpets are thicker in Ottawa than elsewhere, and the government is having fun.
We are telling them to rein it in. When the Liberals announced the 2023 deficit in November 2022, it was $30 billion. Now it is $46.5 billion. It keeps going up.
We are not necessarily in an economic crisis. We are at or near full employment, and according to Keynesianism, deficits should only be run in difficult situations like the pandemic or recessions. Right now, there should be few deficits, if any. Most importantly, we should have a plan to restore a balanced budget. That is the responsible thing to do. A plan might force the government to be more conscientious about its spending. It would compel the government to tell people that it is going to try to do better, manage its finances more effectively, and take steps to ensure that an objective set out in the plan is met.
As Émile de Girardin said, governing means planning ahead. This government has a hard time planning ahead. It is always reactive, but very rarely proactive. The important thing is that the plan would send a signal to the market that the government wants to get on the path to a balanced budget. This could relieve inflationary tensions.
The Conservatives want to see that plan by October 25. Why October 25? Maybe they have a party or something on the agenda. They picked October 25, but nobody knows why. Why not ask to see the plan alongside the fiscal update in November? That would make sense.
The Conservatives pull things out of thin air, like this date, October 25. Then they make things sound deceptively simple. They latch onto these mantras. They talk about inflation and convince themselves that they can make it go away just by talking about it. Do they have any actual proposals? No they do not. They have this kind of mystical approach to public finance. They are sitting there with a Ouija board hoping for answers. They are very good at whining and complaining, but they have no concrete proposals. When one of them does come up with a concrete proposal, the others turn a deaf ear. They do not know what to make of it. “What are you talking about?” they say. They decided to complain and talk about the cost of living, the cost of turkeys and carrots. If ever they come to power, those problems will miraculously disappear.
They have no concrete proposals for helping seniors. When the grocery CEOs paraded before the committee, the Bloc Québécois offered up some proposals. Our agriculture critic came armed with a whole list of them. The Conservatives complained that it was pointless and useless. Given that they are the ones talking about the cost of living, they should have some ideas about how to address it. They say the cost of living is appalling. They are right, but do they have any concrete proposals for fixing that? The answer is no.
They are also talking about the housing shortage. Stephen Harper did nothing during his nine years in office. The current situation is one of the consequences of the Conservatives' inaction. The Conservatives are not making any proposals for fixing this issue either. My colleague, the member for , spoke about the $900 million. The federal government needs to give this $900 million to the Quebec government so it can build housing. Do we ever hear a Conservative saying that the $900 million should be paid out? The answer is no.
Then, they had an idea, which is always cause for concern. Their idea is to force municipalities to increase housing construction by 15% every year or face cutbacks in subsidies. Where does that 15% come from? They took out a Ouija board and that is the number that came out. I have spoken with municipal officials in my riding. There is a moratorium in one municipality because of a water shortage. I told the officials in that municipality that they would be forced to increase housing construction by 15% if the Conservatives were to be elected. They said that they are running out of water, and I replied that the Conservatives would cut back their subsidies. They said that if that were to happen, they would run out of water altogether. What do the Conservatives not understand?
They do not talk about the labour shortage either, but that does not matter. Oil prices are high, and renewable energy is a competitor. That is what will save us from spiralling fossil fuel prices. Do the Conservatives ever talk about that? They do, actually; they say that it is futile and pointless. Seriously? In light of climate change, it is a vital solution that must be taken into consideration.
As Talleyrand famously said, “All that is exaggerated becomes insignificant.” I think the Conservatives tend to exaggerate quite a bit when it comes to inflation. My colleagues may extrapolate from there.
I taught economics for 20 years. When discussing the causes of inflation, I used to spend four or five hours on the subject. My students would get sick of listening to me go on and on about inflation, but it is an important subject. I would explain all the different causes, including deficits. However, we have to be careful because it is not as simple as that.
When someone says that deficits equal inflation, we need to be careful. Incidentally, inflation is happening around the world, so the deficit is not entirely responsible for inflation. Of course eliminating the deficit would help, but it is not a magic solution. At some point, the Conservatives are going to have to wake up, because anyone who keeps telling lies is going to become insignificant.
:
Mr. Speaker, my speech may not appeal as much to the member for . We shall see. First, let us talk about the text of the motion.
I would like to thank the Conservatives. For once, they made our job easier. Entertaining a Conservative opposition day motion is usually quite difficult. We have to separate truth from fiction, sense from nonsense, and populism from statecraft. This happened with their carbon tax motion. The Conservatives force us to vote against their motions sometimes when they fill them with too much nonsense. We cannot support a motion that is 90% nonsense and 10% good sense. This motion, however, is about 70% nonsense and 30% good sense, and we will support it. I congratulate them.
Mr. Speaker, in the most substantive part of its text, the motion essentially states that the government should submit a plan to achieve a balanced budget. We are not told, however, the number of years it will take. We ask that positive signals be sent to Quebeckers, Canadians and the markets, along with steps showing everyone that government management is not haphazard, despite current appearances to the contrary.
There is obviously the date, October 25, which I will come back to later. It is yet another thing the Conservatives pulled out of thin air. Members may recall that we supported a similar motion in June. The Conservatives moved the motion when there was no upcoming economic statement. This illustrates their ability to manage their time and resources in the House well. Now they are moving the same thing a second time before an upcoming economic statement.
I would like to talk about context. I have been listening to the Conservative leader make populist, misleading statements for months. We see that in ads on TV. I would like to remind him that the federal government has always churned out deficits and mismanaged public funds. The Conservative leader was a minor minister—which was a very good thing—in Stephen Harper's government. That government churned out one deficit after another—seven in a row, in fact. Back then, the Harper Conservatives set the record for deficits, but the current Conservative leader never said boo. None of the people who were here then and are still here now said boo. Nobody thought it was a problem.
The Conservatives did well one year thanks to the financial crisis fallout when interest rates plummeted and, like a gift from on high, interest payments on the debt shrank. Interestingly, as the Conservatives went from one deficit to the next, the member for , who I appreciate and whose office is next to mine, never rose to cry “scandal”. It is easier to criticize others than oneself. Still, I congratulate them on taking an interest in the management of public funds.
The Liberals have the same problem. As my colleague from pointed out earlier, the current came on the scene in 2014-2015. Essentially, the Prime Minister figured that he had a credit card. People who manage their personal finances will understand what I am about to say. The Prime Minister figured that it did not matter if he maxed out the credit card and paid the minimum balance each month, because everything would work out fine. He would not lose his job, his car would not break down and he would not have any bad luck. He would just always have to walk a financial tightrope.
Then, in 2020, the car broke down. The pandemic hit, along with a lot of bad luck, and the government was unprepared. The country found itself in a situation where we had to borrow heavily. This pandemic spending was supported by the Conservatives, for one. It is high time these people wake up and realize that being unable to properly manage the public purse—which comes out of the pockets of taxpayers, who are having a hard time paying for groceries these days—is a deep-rooted issue here in Ottawa.
Let us come back to the October 25 deadline. It took seven years for the Harper government to learn how to balance the books, sort of. The Liberals have been at it for eight years and they still have not gotten the hang of it. That is 15 years total. The Liberals could not do it in eight years, and the Conservatives, allegedly acting in good faith, are giving them eight days. They are telling them to come up with a sensible plan in eight days. That is the Conservatives' new turkey. I listened to the Conservative leader this fall. I do not know what he does with turkeys and I am not sure I want to know, but it was all about turkeys with him this fall. I do not want to assume anything.
What did he do? He spent two or three weeks talking about the price of turkey and asking what the price of turkey would be at Thanksgiving. He wanted the government to promise to lower the price of turkey. Thanksgiving is over now, and the Conservative leader can no longer use turkey as a pretext for annoying the Liberals and trying to appeal to the public. Incidentally, he forgot to mention that the price of gas went down 18¢ at Thanksgiving. He was not interested in telling us that.
What did he do then? He found a new turkey. His new turkey is October 25. Now, we are going to hear him talk about the plan that was not introduced until he can talk about the price of Christmas trees in December. Then, he will tell us all about Christmas trees until he can come up with something new to talk about. In reality, the Conservative leader is not interested in having a good plan. The mature thing to do, the thing that would make sense, would be to tell the government to do its job, to come up with an intelligent plan, to take more than eight days to think about this and to table the plan in the upcoming economic statement.
What could that plan include? The Bloc Québécois and I have all kinds of ideas that we have been thinking about and repeating for years, while they are just now starting to wake up. For example, there is a basic principle for properly managing taxpayer money and the public treasury: Stop giving money to those who do not need it, including the oil companies. Why will the government not stop giving money to those who do not need it?
From now until 2035, despite all the planned tax benefits and carbon capture subsidies, the government is going take money from people who are having a hard time paying for fuel, groceries and home ownership and give it to the oil companies. The amount of subsidies oil companies will be getting by 2035 is equivalent to what they would get if we lined up 40 million Canadians every year and asked them each to give these same companies $20. It is exactly that. The numbers show it.
I did the math on what could be done with the money the government will be giving to oil companies, money that has already been promised and committed until 2035. For Thanksgiving, with the Conservatives' subsidies to the oil companies, we could have bought 21,789,473.7 turkeys for Canadian families. We could have paid for 1,815,789.47 turkeys for Canadians every year for Thanksgiving.
That does not bother the Conservatives, because they do not care about food prices. That is the least of their worries. The cost of living is the least of their worries. Home ownership, the $900 million for Quebec that my colleague from is fighting for, that is the least of their worries.
I can think of something else the federal government should do. It should stop behaving badly. How does it do that? It has to stop doing what it is not allowed to do, what the Constitution says it cannot do, something it has never been good at. It needs to focus on what matters.
The government is unable to issue a passport, unable to take care of veterans and unable to take care of immigrants. We are the ones who deal with all this in our offices. I have files from Liberal ridings piled on my desk in Mirabel. Some ministers, whom I will not name because of the little self-respect they have left, are incapable of doing what little they have to do themselves. They are unable to order planes, to repair the Prime Minister's plane, to order ships, or to look after shipyards. I was going to say “shipwrecks” here, given their track record.
We can imagine what their dental care is going to look like. I care about my teeth. I want to keep them. I would like them to keep their hands off dental care. We can also imagine what their pharmacare will look like. There is no doubt that it will cost more than $10 billion.
They need to focus on the basics, stop subsidizing the oil companies, put the money where Quebeckers need it and focus on the little they have to do because, historically, they have never been able to manage well, much like the Conservatives. I think they should go back to the bare minimum, because the minimum for a Liberal is already a lot.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to a Conservative motion that is not what it pretends to be, presented by a who is not who he says he is. What I mean by that is that this motion pretends to be an analysis of the causes of inflation in Canada, except that it only includes one factor, which is government spending and government deficits. Yes, there is a deficit. Yes, there has been government spending. Yes, some of that may have contributed in some ways to inflation. However, that is far from the whole story. Canada has had deficits at the federal level in periods when there has not been inflation, or at least not inflation of this significant type that we are living with today. It has been inflation within the target zone. The seven consecutive large deficits that the Harper Conservatives ran when they were in power did not coincide with the kind of significant inflation we have seen.
Obviously, there are other factors at work here. It is dishonest to pretend that only government deficit is what is driving inflation, or even that it is the major factor in what is driving inflation. There are supply chain constraints that arose through the pandemic, a reordering of purchasing, first towards goods and then back towards services. There are a number of strictly market forces that we could talk about. Chief among those is the role that corporate greed plays. It is a glaring deficiency of this motion, and not just this motion but also the Conservatives' analysis generally, that they do not talk at all about the role that corporate greed has been playing in fuelling inflation.
What do I mean by that? When we look at corporate profits, for instance, in the grocery sector, at the very same time that Canadians are struggling, and we are hearing more and more about Canadians having to choose between paying rent and paying for groceries, we have seen massive increases in the profit margins of Canada's largest grocery retailers. That is not a function of their simply passing on costs from the carbon tax, supply chains or whatever else to their consumers. If they were just passing on the cost, their profits would not be increasing. The fact of the matter is that the profit is going up because they are charging Canadians more than the additional costs they are facing right now. That is important to talk about.
When it comes to the Liberal government, corporate greed is just as much missing from their analysis of what is driving inflation as it is from the Conservatives', and they are doing just as little about it, which is certainly a frustration of ours in the New Democratic Party. The Liberal government called the big grocery retailers to Ottawa to give them a slap on the wrist, ask them to do better and ask them to not reduce but stabilize prices, which is to say, to consolidate the gains they have made by raising prices unfairly over the last number of years so Canadians have to continue to pay that going forward, rather than talking about ways to try to make food more affordable than it currently is.
We cannot look to the Conservatives for solutions on food prices, because they have nothing to say other than to reduce the carbon tax, as if those very same grocery retailers who have shown that they are quite happy to raise prices to eat up whatever extra disposable income Canadians get would not just turn around and do that very same thing. Conservatives are silent when it comes to corporate greed in the oil and gas sector, which has been driving inflation for Canadians. When we talk about the role that energy costs play in driving inflation, it is important to note that the price increases on energy far exceed the increase in the carbon tax. That is why, from 2019 to 2022, oil and gas companies in Canada saw an increase in profits of 1,000%. Where is the analysis from the Conservatives on what that does to grocery prices?
If oil and gas companies are going to gouge the farmer who grows the food, gouge the processor who makes the food and gouge the shipper who ships the food, Canadians are going to get gouged at the grocery store, notwithstanding anything that happens in this place or the level of tax. They are going to get gouged based simply on the outsized increases in oil and gas prices that oil and gas companies are using to pay larger dividends to their shareholders and bigger cheques to their CEOs.
We have to talk about that if we are going to get real about the challenges Canadians are facing. We have a Conservative Party that talks about very little else other than inflation and about the housing sector. Canadians are experiencing pain, but to pretend that somehow deficits derived from payments so kids can get their teeth fixed is causing inflation in the housing market is either stupid or dishonest. The fact of the matter is that there is a ton of private capital in the Canadian real estate market, domestic capital that is bidding against Canadians when they are trying to buy a family home, in order to turn that house into a long-term investment. That is a big part of the story of what is going on.
Conservatives talk about how we need lower taxes in spite of the fact that now, 1% of Canadians own 25% of the wealth in this country, while fully 40% of Canadians have to live sharing only 1% of the wealth being created in this country. The 1% that owns the 25% is a big part of the problem in the housing market. They have a lot of extra cash, which they did not get from government and which they are investing back into the housing market to buy up more housing and make more money off the backs of Canadians who are already strapped.
That is not to knock business. Small and medium-sized businesses are an important driver of economic growth in this country. They are important employers. They help make the world go around, and there is a lot of room for legitimate business. We know that a lot of small and medium-sized enterprises are actually struggling right now. They are not the ones that are the problem, so let us not conflate our criticism of big corporations and big capital with the small business owner who is providing services in their community and trying to break even in a very difficult time.
I heard earlier from a Conservative MP, “Well, don't go after the wage payer if you want to help the wage earner.” When we talk about the oil and gas industry, look at what happened the day after the Alberta election. A big oil and gas company laid off 1,500 workers, despite the fact that it is extracting more oil than ever and making more money than ever. The fact is that more and more employment in the oil and gas industry has been decoupled, through technological advances and other things that do help with productivity growth, from the employment of Canadians. That oil and gas company timed the announcement of those layoffs in order to help its political friends in the Conservative Party in Alberta, to spare them the embarrassment of bringing that fact to light during an election.
That is why this motion is not what it pretends to be. Furthermore, as I said earlier, it has been presented by a who is not who he pretends to be. He talks about the housing crisis. In fact, earlier in his speech on this very motion, he took credit, naming himself as the minister who was responsible for housing in the Harper government. This was the government that lost 800,000 affordable units during its tenure. It was the government that, when operating grants to create affordable rents were set to expire because they were tied to 40- or 50-year mortgages signed in the sixties, seventies and eighties in order to make rent more affordable, took the decision not to continue providing that operating grant money but to let it drop.
That is why we are seeing places like Lions Place on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg get sold off because, without the operating subsidies, they cannot continue to provide the deeply affordable units that they were providing. What happened there? A big corporate landlord swooped in. It is going to superficially renovate the building, kick out the existing tenants and start charging a lot more rent for the people who can afford to move in. I do not begrudge those folks the housing, because we know that no matter where one is in the housing spectrum, there is a need. We do not have enough supply of any of those kinds of housing.
I will not begrudge Canadians' taking the opportunity to find a home they can afford, but it is no excuse for a government that is not willing to do what it takes to make sure that those people who need those deeply affordable units have a place to go. That is where we need a federal government that is willing to take responsibility for that. I am sorry, but we have not seen that from the government. We are not building enough deeply affordable and affordable units in this country. We are simply not. If we leave it to the market, it will never get done. As a developer at the finance committee said yesterday, they are never going to build affordable housing. It is not their job. Their job is to build housing that they can make a buck on, and they are not going to make a buck if they undercharge on the rent.
We know that. That is why the federal government for decades made serious repeated, regular and predictable offerings in the social and affordable housing space for a generation. That is why, during that generation and for a little while after, we did not have the kind of housing crisis we currently have. The problem is that we have a government that is focused too much on simply effecting market solutions in the very market that let us down and that said it would not fix the problem.
If we look to the Conservatives, how are they different? They are not, because they too only offer solutions predicated upon the market. It is not that we do not also need market solutions, but if we focus too much and only on those market solutions, we are never going to get to where we need to be. We have a who wants to talk about housing and says that he has the answer, but who, just like the government, is overly focused on market mechanisms instead of the kind of non-market housing that we need and used to have in the past, in the period when Canada was not facing this kind of housing crisis.
He is not who he pretends to be. He says that he wants workers to have powerful paycheques. I agree; I want workers to have powerful paycheques. That is why when workers are on strike, I am out on the picket lines with them, supporting them to bargain for better wages, working conditions and health and safety standards in their workplace. I have never run into that guy on a picket line. I have never seen a picture of him on a picket line. I have never seen him support picketing workers with a tweet, a post or anything. What I have watched him do is vote with the Liberal government on back-to-work legislation to prematurely end strikes on terms that are favourable to the employer, so do not tell me that this guy has the backs of workers.
We watched as he sat at the cabinet table and raised the age of retirement from 65 to 67, denying Canadian seniors their old age supplement for a further two years. Why was that done? It was to keep them in the workforce. That is not having the backs of Canadian workers who have worked their whole life in order to be able to enjoy their retirement. Anyone who has had a member of their family fall ill with cancer in their sixties knows how precious those two years can be and what a difference it can make in their life and that of their family in benefiting from some of the things they worked hard to build during their life. Those two years are not nothing.
I have watched the bring three opposition day motions in the last five months. He has put them in his name. He has given the lead speeches for them. I watched a special debate about the allegations that the Government of India had killed a Canadian on Canadian soil as a result of his political beliefs and activity. I watched as just about the whole Conservative caucus, except for its , was silent. I watched a very intense protest and counterprotest on the rights of children to be safe and to make some of their own judgments about what is safe or not in their home. I watched as the Conservative leader told his members not to go, not to speak and not to post.
This is the apparent champion of freedom of speech, but just not for his caucus, I guess. I watch as Conservative MPs rehash the same member's statement over and over again, clearly formulated out of the talking points of their , who says that he wants people to say what they will. I want to know why, if the Conservative leader does not trust Conservative MPs to speak for him, Canadians should trust Conservative MPs to speak for them in this place. I watched when the Conservative leader was a member of the Harper team that pioneered the electoral tactic of telling its candidates they were not allowed to go to local debates, speak their own mind and offer their own position. Perhaps he is worried that if they speak too much, they will reveal that he is not who he says he is.
I noticed earlier that the Conservative MP for got up and said that he never supported a carbon tax. Maybe if he had read his platform in preparation for debate in the last election, he would have noticed there was a carbon price in that platform. Maybe the does not want his MPs talking too much in this place or elsewhere because they would expose the fact that what he is saying now is not what they have said in the past and is not what they will do in the future.
I heard the member say that we cannot support wage earners without supporting wage payers in respect of the oil and gas industry. As I said earlier, the wage payers in the oil and gas industry are making more money than they have ever made before and are laying off workers, so I really do not think that is an example we can take to heart.
This motion calls for a financial plan with a path back to a balanced budget, which is fair enough. I don't think that is a bad thing. Perhaps we will see something like that in the fall economic statement, but I will not hold my breath. We listen to this guy talk about the incompetence of the government, and there are some very compelling arguments on that front. We may not make all the same arguments, but we certainly have our own. Then he wants Canadians to believe it is plausible for them to come up with a plan to balance the budget in a week's time. Come on. It is not serious, and fundamentally, the is not serious.
This motion is not serious either, because it does not get to the bottom of what is driving inflation in Canada. It just singles out one thing that incidentally is to his electoral advantage to have people believe and leaves out all the ways he will help the corporate players that are driving inflation in Canadians' household budgets. He does not want Canadians thinking about that, because then they would know those problems will persist.
He likes to quote a former Liberal minister, John Manley, which is curious because we have seen him be very disparaging of anyone with any connection to the Liberal Party. I understand the impulse, but I find it passing strange that a long-time Conservative and strong public servant of this country, David Johnston, could have his character assassinated by the when he happened to not necessarily agree with everything the Conservative leader thought. Then he is willing to turn around and hold up a former Liberal minister, whose advice I never took very seriously but who is now suddenly an authority for the Conservative caucus.
It is the surest sign of despotic tendencies in a political leader when they are willing to disparage and engage in character assassination, even of their own folks who come out of their own political movement, for the simple cry of disagreeing with the leader and then hold up people they would otherwise criticize as authorities when they agree with them. To do that in a context where he has shown he is quite happy to silence his own people in order to make sure they do not expose some of the web he is weaving and the wool he is pulling over Canadians' eyes is another sure sign.
It is just like when it comes to the opportunity my private member's motion offers to Conservatives to curtail the powers of the to unilaterally prorogue this place and dissolve this chamber, providing more political accountability for that. One would think the would be interested in putting some meaningful constraints on the gatekeeping powers of the Prime Minister, but he is not. The Conservatives were first out of the gate to say they would not support that motion, and it is because this leader wants those powers for himself, not because he has an objection to the gatekeeping powers of the Prime Minister's Office.
Those are just some of the reasons the is not who he says he is, just as this motion is not what it says it is, and that is why the New Democrats will be voting against it.
Everywhere I go, people come up to me and say, you know, we're losing faith in the Liberal Party... I've had people tell me they can't afford to buy groceries. They can't afford to heat their homes, and that's hard to hear from, especially seniors who live alone and tell me that they go around their house in the spring and winter time with a blanket wrapped around them 'cause they can't afford the home heating fuel and they can't afford to buy beef or chicken.
It is heart-wrenching when you hear someone say that you.
This is a quote from the lone Liberal member who was brave enough to vote for his constituents instead of this high-inflationary .
These are the same sentiments I hear day after day as I tour the country hearing from seniors. Last week, I had the opportunity to spend time with a group of seniors from the Northumberland—Peterborough South area. Their concerns mirror the same concerns as our friends from the Atlantic coast.
I will be sharing my time with one of my favourite MPs, the member for .
After eight years of the Liberal government, the has added more to the national debt than all previous prime ministers combined. A half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits has directly led to a 40-year inflation high.
Prior to budget 2023, the said, “What Canadians want right now is for inflation to come down and for interest rates to fall. And that is one of our primary goals in this year’s budget: not pour fuel on the fire of inflation.” Then she proceeded to usher in $60 billion of new spending.
In order to combat inflation, the Bank of Canada has been forced to increase interest rates 10 times in just 19 months. These rate increases have increased mortgage payments. Since the took office, monthly mortgage payments have increased 150% and now cost $3,500 on a typical family home.
I want my colleagues in this place to think about a few statistics I found on the Nesto mortgage company website. In Toronto, as of 2021, the average house price was just over $1 million. The down payment required to purchase a home was just in excess of $232,000. It would take an average person 42.2 years to save for the down payment. To make a comparison, it took roughly 4.2 years to save up for the minimum down payment on a home in Toronto 10 years ago when our country enjoyed a Conservative government. In Vancouver, there is a similar situation. The average cost of a home is just in excess of $1.2 million with a minimum down payment of $242,000. The time to save for a down payment in Vancouver is 44.3 years. Just 10 years ago, it took an average of only 5.2 years to afford the minimum down payment for a home in Vancouver.
On June 5, CTV News Toronto reported that the National Bank of Canada released its housing affordability report, indicating that it will take Torontonians about 25 years to save for a down payment on a house and the qualifying income level to purchase a property is in excess of $236,000. Does the average Canadian earn $236,000? I do not think so.
If this does not make it clear, this just is not worth the cost.
Let us think about it. According to TransUnion, the average credit card balance for Canadians in the second quarter of 2023 was $4,185, which is up from $3,909 in the second quarter. That is up from average monthly credit card spending of almost $2,447 in the third quarter of 2022, which is up 17.3% from the same time in 2021, and up 21.8% from 2019.
From another report, Canadian consumer debt has risen to $2.4 trillion, with an average debt load of approximately $21,131, excluding mortgage payments. Canadians are using credit cards more as there was a 9% increase in credit card balances in June 2023 compared to the same time last year.
These trends are a repeat of the past. Let us reflect on the 1980s when the lending rate for a five-year fixed mortgage was 22.75%. This caused homeowners with mortgages to struggle with high interest payments, resulting in foreclosures.
Let us do some comparisons. In 1981, the average price of a home was $110,000. At an interest rate of 22.75%, the monthly payment was just under $2,000. Today, the average price of a home in Toronto is $1.2 million. At an interest rate of 7%, the mortgage payment is $6,724. What was the similarity during these two periods? Can anyone guess? Both prime ministers shared the same last name.
In my previous life as a bank manager and mortgage specialist, I witnessed the hardship of many Canadians, friends and neighbours who lost their homes to the inflationary, out-of-control spending by the Trudeau Liberal government.
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Madam Speaker, I want to start by congratulating my good friend, the passionate member for for her incredible speech. She is a great advocate for her community,
Canadians are going through housing hell right now. Nine out of 10 young people say they have lost the dream of home ownership. Newcomers will not be able to achieve home ownership. The IMF is now saying that Canada is the most at risk in the G7 for a mortgage default crisis. There is a major housing crisis in this country, which we need to take seriously before people start losing their homes.
We need to understand how we got here in the first place. The Liberal-NDP government spent more money than all governments before it combined. Let me put this into context. Between 2015 and 2023, the Liberal-NDP government spent more money than every single government did from 1867 to 2015, combined. That has led to 40-year highs in inflation, which has led to the most rapid mortgage interest rate hikes we have seen in the last three decades.
The Bank of Canada had to counter with something, and it did so with the interest rate hikes. That was done in reaction to something, and that something was the government deficit. It is not just Conservatives who admit that government deficits fuelled inflation, making interest rates go up. Random Liberals and others have said the same thing.
I will point to the three Ms: Manley, Macklem and Morneau. They have all admitted that government spending fuels inflation. Mark Carney, who could possibly be the next Liberal leader, also said that inflation was due to domestic pressures. It was nothing to do with outside pressures, as the Liberals and NDP try to make everyone believe. They say that it is always someone else's problem and never theirs. Even someone who could become a Liberal leader admits that the inflation we see today is due to domestic pressures.
Even the current has admitted this. Though she does not believe in it, she still admitted that government deficits do fuel inflation. It is too bad that, after she said she wanted to be careful to not fuel the inflationary fire, she dumped a $63-billion jerry can of fuel on that inflationary fire. What ended up happening? Inflation went up and so did mortgage interest rates. Once again, this is why Canada is now the most at-risk country in the G7 for a mortgage default crisis.
The Liberal-NDP government shows its incompetence over and over again. These are the geniuses who ended up spending $89 billion, almost $90 billion, on housing only to have housing costs double in this country. Mortgages have doubled. Rents have doubled. Let us look into that a bit deeper.
Why have mortgages doubled in this country? As I identified, it was a domino effect. All the money printing the government did was bounced off by bonds. What ended up happening? We flooded the market in doing that, and there was too much money chasing too few goods, which is literally the definition of inflation.
When inflation went up due to all the government deficits, the Bank of Canada had to do the opposite of what the government is doing. Former Liberal finance minister, John Manley, put it perfectly. He said that today's situation is much like the Liberal-NDP government deficit. It is like it is pressing the gas, the inflationary gas, while the Bank of Canada is slamming on the breaks as hard as it can with its interest rate hikes. Both things are happening at one time. They are working in opposite directions and the engine is going to blow.
Who will be left paying for this mess? Canadian taxpayers will be. There is only one party in the House that cares about taxpayers' money and wants to make sure that Canadians do not lose their homes. That is why our leader, the next prime minister of Canada, the hon. member for , put this motion forward. It is because we are more worried than ever that Canadians may lose their homes because of the out-of-control deficit spending of the Liberal-NDP government.
Housing costs have gone up. They have doubled in this country after the Liberals spent $89 billion on housing. How does that even happen in a country like Canada?
This is the reality of the failed policies of the Liberal government. I met a single mom in Calgary recently, a single mom with three kids. Her rent went up by $600 a month. She was already struggling to feed her kids and keep a roof over their heads. She was literally in the stat of being the one in five who are skipping meals today. She told me her heartbreaking story of, because of the cost of her rent going up due to these deficits, having to move back in with her abusive ex-husband.
This is the reality of Canadians today. The Liberal-NDP government's failed policies have put Canadians in these types of positions. We can only imagine how many more of these stories we will hear as we travel the country. It is a sad state in Canada today. It should not be. However, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, it is definitely not worth this cost.
We are talking to industry stakeholders and everyday Canadians. We are hearing that people cannot get into housing because of supply. We are also talking to the people who actually build the homes. The number one issue today is interest rates, which were fuelled by the government's deficits. Builders will be sitting on land, and they will not be able to build. In some cases it does not make sense, with all the bureaucracy and with all the red tape created by the government. Along with a willingness to let municipalities create more and more bureaucracy, it is getting harder and harder to build, let alone how much housing costs have gone up for the builders. In some cases it does not make sense to build.
That is why we need to see a balanced, fiscally responsible plan for back-to-balance budgets. I hope the finally understands that budgets do not balance themselves.
An hon. member: Don't hold your breath.
Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan: Madam Speaker, my colleague says, “Don't hold your breath”, and I will not.
Let us put this back into the context of why we brought forward this motion in the first place. It is because of a looming crisis that could take place in this country if the Liberal-NDP government does not bring back balanced budgets. I want to remind Canadians, once again, that it was the , back in November, who told Canadians, and promised Canadians in writing, that she would bring in balanced budgets in 2027-28.
I will take a step back to before that. It was the same finance minister who told Canadians to go out and borrow as much as they want, that interest rates would be low for a very long time. People started getting mortgages. We saw a big boom in people wanting housing. What those borrowers did not expect, after she said that, was that she would dump hundreds of billions of dollars of fuel on the inflationary fire, which made their interest rates go up. Now there is a looming crisis.
In November of last year, the finance minister promised to bring in balanced budgets. We had a hope that maybe the Liberal-NDP government had seen the light. However, once again, it was only months after that when she said that she was just kidding, that she was never going to balance budgets anyway, and then promised to balance the budget in the year never. Canadians lost all hope.
What we need to do today, under our common sense leader, is bring in a common sense plan to balance the budget, to bring down the inflation and to make sure that Canadians do not lose their homes. When the member for becomes the next prime minister of this country, we are going to bring home more homes, which people could actually afford; bring down costs; bring home lower prices by axing the failed carbon tax, which is inflationary and making the cost of everything go up; make sure that once we bring down the inflation by controlling deficits, people will not lose their homes.
We are going to bring it home for Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for .
I am thankful for this opportunity to take part in today's conversation and debate.
To say Canadians are living in a turbulent world would be an understatement. Right now, it is clear the rising cost of living is one of Canada's most significant economic challenges, and the last three years have been hard. Canadians, like most people around the world, have been unable to avoid the financial pain caused by the last few years, but despite all these challenges, the Canadian economy represents resilience and stability amid the tumult.
In so many ways, we are faring much better than our international peers. Our government is tireless in its drive to build an economy with stable prices, consistent growth and abundant good-paying jobs for middle-class Canadians, and we have impressive results to show for it.
There are currently more than a million additional Canadians employed today than before the pandemic. Both the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predict that Canada will see the strongest economic growth in the G7 next year. Despite the global economic headwinds and slowing growth across the world's economies, Canadian growth in July was 3.3% above its pandemic levels. DBRS Morningstar also recently confirmed Canada's AAA credit rating.
[Translation]
Our excellent credit rating proves how responsible our plan is. Through a number of measures that I will describe in detail in a few moments, we have strengthened the social safety net that millions of Canadians rely on. We have implemented these measures while ensuring that Canada maintains the lowest deficit and lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on fiscal restraint. The government is strongly committed to reducing the federal debt-to-GDP ratio to ensure that the country's finances remain viable.
[English]
It is my pleasure to walk members through some of the powerful steps our government has taken since 2015 to support Canadians and address the cost of living concerns. These actions are having a real impact in terms of putting more money into the pockets of Canadians across the country. Our government has given Canadians a boost through the Canada child benefit, tax cuts for the middle class, a commitment to implement a new dental care plan and affordable early learning and child care right across the country, with six provinces and territories already providing regulated child care for an average of just $10 a day or less, significantly ahead of schedule.
Our affordable Canada-wide early learning and child care system has a record labour force participation rate; earlier this year, this was 85.7% for working-age women. It is also helping to grow the economy and to make life more affordable for families from coast to coast to coast.
[Translation]
The result is that in 2020-21, the most recent years for which we have data from Statistics Canada, close to 2.3 million fewer Canadians were living in poverty compared to 2015. In other words, in 2021, 7.4% of Canadians were living in poverty, a 14.5% decrease compared to 2015. Our government remains committed to reaching its goal of a 50% reduction in poverty by 2030 based on 2015 levels.
I would remind the official opposition that even the central plank of our climate plan, the federal carbon pricing system, is giving Canadian households more money back in climate action incentive payments than they pay in. Since 2019, there has been a price on carbon pollution, a measure that survived two federal elections and that was upheld by the Supreme Court. In April 2023, the price increased to $65 per tonne. The money collected goes straight back into Canadians' pockets, as 90% of fuel charges are returned directly to households through climate action incentive payments. In the provinces where the federal system applies, a family of four can now receive up to $1,500 per year under our plan.
[English]
The global economic environment has driven up the cost of far too many necessities, everything from housing to groceries. We know the urgency around affordability is even greater now, and we are responding to it.
In budget 2023, we announced targeted relief for Canadians that was carefully designed to avoid exacerbating inflation. These measures included a one-time grocery rebate for 11 million low- and modest-income Canadians and families; it provided, for example, up to $467 for eligible couples with two children. We also increased the Canada student grants and raised the interest-free Canada student loan limit for the current school year to help post-secondary students pay for their education and pursue their dreams. Budget 2023 also announced a crackdown on predatory lending and hidden junk fees.
Our actions have made an impact. In budget 2023, our government has continued to tackle affordability issues for Canadians. Just last month, we introduced Bill , which would implement powerful measures to foster more competition in the economy, including the grocery sector. The government met with the leaders of Canada's largest grocery chains after calling on the industry to take immediate action to stabilize food prices. Each of the top five major grocery chains have since committed to an initial series of price-stabilizing steps that will be implemented in the coming days and weeks.
We know that we have to boost Canada's housing supply to address the cost of living challenges that Canadians are facing, and we have been doing that. New commitments in Bill would remove the GST on new purpose-built rental housing. This is one of the many steps that the government is advancing to help get more homes built in a fast way. I hope that all hon. members here today will support the swift passage of Bill , the affordable housing and groceries act, to help us improve the financial footing of all Canadians.
We have recently announced several agreements under the government's ambitious $4-billion housing accelerator fund, which my community has already benefited from. The cuts in red tape fix outdated local policies, such as zoning policies, and ensures that more homes are built in our cities in a fast way. Our agreements include one with the City of London, Ontario, which is my city; the fund will provide $74 million to increase the city's housing supply.
Last month, the also announced the government's housing accelerator fund agreement with the City of Vaughan, to fast-track over 1,700 new housing units and incentivize thousands of additional homes over the next three years. This work in Vaughan, for example, will help spur the construction of more than 40,000 homes over the next decade and help meet the demand in one of Canada's fastest-growing cities. We expect many more agreements to come soon.
In conclusion, we have been dogged in our quest for real, concrete solutions to Canada's affordability challenges, and we will not let up. We have made much progress, while maintaining a robust economy and fiscal responsibility. We have had Canadians' backs all along, and we will continue to do more for them. We also know that more work is needed, and Canadians can stay tuned for more from our government.
Canadians can rest assured that our government has the strong plan to help navigate the stormy economic world, and we will continue to have their backs.
:
Madam Speaker, it is wonderful for me to have the opportunity to participate in today's opposition day debate on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport.
The topic touches on Canadian debt levels, inflation and mortgages. It is not a surprise, as I am sure it is the case right across the country, that inflation is top of mind for Davenport residents. Affordability is a huge issue, so it is an important topic for us to be discussing today.
I always like to start with context. It is always good to remind ourselves of a few things.
In early 2020, we had the start of a global pandemic. During the first half of 2020, 95% of the world's economy suffered a simultaneous contraction. This has never happened before. Three billion adults were laid off from their jobs or tried to work from home.
The sum of lost earnings just in the first months of the pandemic was $10 trillion U.S. That is more than one-tenth of the global GDP. It was a massive shock to the global economy, the Canadian economy and all economies around the world, and our economies have been recovering ever since.
Never mind that since then we have also had the unprovoked and brutal attack on Ukraine by Russia and the recent violent and shocking attack by Hamas on Israel and Gaza, among other events in the world. All of these events are putting a further strain on our global economy and its ability to fully recover.
In addition, during the pandemic the Canadian government spent a lot of money to support individuals, small, medium and large businesses and non-profits. We did everything we could to support Canadians and the economy, and to provide an economic foundation from which to pivot, as we knew we would inevitably start coming out of the pandemic at some point.
We spent a lot of money and accumulated debt. We had to do that because we needed to save lives, businesses, non-profits and protect our jobs. We provided a strong financial foundation from which the economy could pivot.
Canadian economists have lauded our actions and have verified that federal government actions have provided that strong economic foundation we need in order to pivot away from a massive recession or depression. We have succeeded.
We have also recovered all the jobs that were lost. I think we have recovered more than 129% of the jobs lost from the initial days of the pandemic.
Given that the opposition day motion speaks to mortgages and the risk of higher interest rates on mortgage defaults, I would like to speak for a few minutes on the work we are doing to help Canadians have a safe and affordable place to live.
Let me begin by reminding everyone in the House that our federal government is focused on building an economy that works for everyone, with a strong social safety net, and where everyone plays by the same set of rules. An important component of that is ensuring that every Canadian has a safe and affordable place to call home. We know that for too many Canadians, including young people and new Canadians, the dream of owning a home is increasingly out of reach and paying rent has become more expensive across the country. This lack of affordable housing has an impact on our economy. That is why our government has launched the most ambitious plan that Canada has ever had to ensure they are able to afford a home sometime in the future.
We introduced a national housing strategy in 2017. We have committed over $82 billion to that strategy and to other housing initiatives. We are investing in building more homes and bringing down the barriers that keep them from being built, with the goal of doubling the number of new builds over the next decade. We are ensuring that houses are being used as homes for Canadian families rather than a speculative financial asset class. We are investing in the rental housing that so many count on right now.
I go to the doors quite a lot in my riding of Davenport and housing is a big topic. In response to when people ask me if I think they will ever be able to afford a home in their lifetime, I tell them that I have full confidence they will.
Right now, if all levels of government are working, if we continue to invest the dollars that we have allocated, if we continue to get the red tape and road blocks out of the way, I have full confidence that we will have excellent rental supply, new affordable housing and housing for our most vulnerable come on stream, and the ability for people to live affordably in our cities and towns right across our country.
Let us get into some of the programs we have introduced.
Our federal government is making the down payment on a first home more attainable with the first home savings account, also known as an FHSA. The new tax-free first home savings account is a registered plan to give first-time homebuyers the ability to save up to $40,000 on a tax-free basis. Like a registered retirement savings plan, contributions are tax deductible and withdrawals to purchase a first home, including from investment income, are non-taxable, like a tax-free savings account. This means that savings for a down payment are tax free in and tax free out.
The first home savings account can be combined with the homebuyers plan, which allows Canadians to withdraw from an RRSP to buy or build a qualifying home. This means that individuals who can take full advantage of both the FHSA and the homebuyers plan can accumulate up to $75,000 or up to $150,000 per couple, plus the interest they have earned tax free within their FHSA, toward a down payment on a first home. They can also benefit from the first-time home buyers' tax credit, which our government has doubled to provide up to $1,500 to eligible homebuyers to offset closing costs involved in buying a first home.
The FHSA has been available from financial service providers since April of this year, and as of the beginning of October, over 150,000 Canadians have already opened an account. This is an amazing uptake and proves how effective the program is in supporting a first home purchase.
I also want to talk about the housing accelerator fund. We are requesting that local governments put an end to exclusionary zoning and encourage building apartments and rental housing near public transit in order to have their housing accelerator fund applications approved. This was launched in March 2023. The housing accelerator fund is a $4-billion initiative designed to help cities, towns and indigenous governments unlock new housing supply, about 100,000 units in total, by speeding up development and approvals, like fixing out-of-date permitting systems, introducing zoning reforms to build more density and incentivizing development close to public transit.
Every community across Canada needs to build more homes faster so we can reduce the cost of housing for everyone. I believe the City of Toronto has also applied for the housing accelerator fund, and I really look forward to that getting approved, because we need far more homes in the city of Toronto.
I could talk about a lot of other initiatives, but I know that I am running out of time. However, there is the rapid housing initiative, which has created a lot of homes in less than a year for our most vulnerable. It has been a game changer in my riding of Davenport, and in the city of Toronto, in providing spaces for those who are homeless or near homeless. There are two spots in my riding of Davenport, and I know hundreds of thousands are being built across the country.
Our global economy has had a huge shock with advent of the pandemic. Recovery from this, the global wars under way and other global events are impacting the global economy in its recovery. This is also having a huge impact on inflation and the cost of living.
Our federal government is taking action. We are doing all we can to support Canadians, while striking the right balance to ensure that our efforts do not amplify inflation. We know this will make it harder for Canadians to keep up with the cost of living, and this extends to making Canada's housing market—
:
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for .
It is a pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to today's opposition day motion, because after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government and the , Canadians are hurting. The Canadian dream that my parents came to this country for is starting to slip away. Life is unaffordable.
Rent has doubled. Housing costs have doubled. The amount needed for a down payment has doubled. Mortgage payments have doubled. They have risen over 150%. Why? It is all because of the Liberal-NDP government's inflationary spending and fiscal mismanagement, which have been continuously fuelling the inflationary fire.
Inflation is nearly double where it should be, and Canadians are now paying more for heating, eating and housing. Canada's federal debt for this fiscal year is projected to reach $1.22 trillion. If we do the math, we are looking at nearly $81,000 per household in Canada. The is simply not worth the cost.
The Prime Minister said, as I am sure many members remember, that deficits were supposed to be temporary, tiny deficits of not more than $10 billion. He said he would only run modest deficits, but he broke that promise. He then promised to return to a balanced budget in 2019, but he broke that promise as well. Now the Prime Minister has broken the banks of Canadians.
To be perfectly clear, the and his Liberal-NDP government have added more national debt than all previous prime ministers combined. The current acknowledged that one of her goals was not to pour fuel on this inflationary fire, but she continues to spend, spend and spend. All this inflationary spending is causing a domino effect.
Mismanaged federal budgets, like budget 2023, which is adding an additional $60 billion in new spending, are driving up our deficit. Deficits are fuelling inflation, and inflation is causing interest rates to rise. This cannot be argued because we have seen the Bank of Canada in action. The Bank of Canada has raised interest rates 10 times in the last 19 months. Even former Liberal finance minister John Manley said, per the National Post, “Trudeau's deficits press on the inflationary gas pedal, which forces the Bank of Canada to press harder on the brakes”—
:
Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to participate in this official opposition day debate on the cost of living, which is having a major impact on all Canadians.
[English]
First of all, let me pay my respects to my new colleague from , who delivered a very great and powerful speech, as everybody does here on this side of the House.
[Translation]
When we talk about inflation, that is a topic that, unfortunately, Canadians are concerned about the most today. Inflation is affecting everyone, but has the biggest impact on the least fortunate among us and on people who earn the least. That is the problem: Inflation affects everyone, but hits the least fortunate the worst. We have also seen that inflation is greedy and it infiltrates everything from housing to food to transportation.
The government has a major role to play in controlling inflation. Yes, inflation is affecting everyone, but it would not be so bad if we were fortunate enough to have a government that acted responsibly and controlled spending, which it has never done in eight years of governing. After eight years of Liberal governance, what do we see in this country? Inflation is too high and the cost of living is very high. Everything is more expensive and unfortunately the government is to blame for that.
We should remember that these fine people were elected in 2015 on a promise to run three small deficits and balance the budget in 2019. Many people thought it was bold to do that, ambitious even. Many people also knew that it would not work. Unfortunately, we were the ones who said that, and we were right because, in eight years, this government has never been able to balance the budget, control spending or keep its promise of zero deficit. This has a direct impact on inflation.
We should also remember that every time she is asked a question about this these days, the keeps repeating to wait, that the economic update is coming and that we are going to see measures to control inflation.
I would remind the House that a year ago, almost to the day, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance tabled the economic update. What did she say at that time? Quite a lot, when you quote her. She said, “What all Canadians want right now is for inflation to keep coming down, and interest rates to fall....that is one of our primary goals in this year's budget: not to pour fuel on the fire of inflation”.
What the minister said was ludicrous, to put it politely. A year ago, she said that we would have a balanced budget by 2028, and that anything less would amount to pouring fuel on the fire of inflation. Six months later, unfortunately, we got $60 billion in new spending, $60 billion worth of fuel that she poured on the fire of inflation. Today, we are struggling with that.
A year ago, the Minister of Finance said that the budget would be balanced by 2028. She did not meet that goal. Six months ago, she tabled a budget that not only ran a deficit, but, more importantly, did not include a plan for achieving a balanced budget. Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer observed that the deficit was set to exceed $46 billion, 16% more than forecast six months ago.
These people have no management skills. After eight years of a government whose spending is out of control, Canadians are suffering the direct effects of inflation across the board.
Earlier, my colleague from was talking about food banks. My riding has the great privilege of having extraordinary volunteers, people whose hearts are in the right place and who work hard to help the less fortunate. However, they tell me over and over again, every time I see them, that food is a basic necessity and demand for their services is going up. Two years ago, people were bringing food to our most vulnerable to help them. Today, those same people are going to the food bank for help. It is outrageous that middle-class people in a G7 country have to line up at food banks. That is the reality of Canada after eight years of this government.
Inflation is affecting young people who want to buy a home. Mortgages, down payments and rents have doubled in the eight years this government has been in power. When people cannot afford proper food and a decent home, that means there are some deeply rooted problems. They are very significant problems that are hitting Canadians and Quebeckers who are struggling with inflation.
That is why this government needs to seize the opportunity. Continued overspending will lead to broken dreams for the next generation.
This morning, the Journal de Québec and the Journal de Montréal, issued by the QMI Press Agency, published a survey conducted by Centraide of Greater Montreal, an agency that has been helping people everywhere for decades. This survey is quite worrisome because it reveals that people are experiencing increasingly high levels of financial anxiety. Some 85% of people say they feel anxious when they talk about their personal finances.
The survey reports on the financial anxiety index of Centraide of Greater Montreal and was conducted in collaboration with Leger. Claude Pinard, director of the Centraide of Greater Montreal, said the following:
People in poverty don’t have a cushion, they’re people who live day to day and try to get through the month. However, when you are this tight, your budget items are entirely occupied by housing and food. If you have credit card or other debts, and if they increase, you no longer have the capacity to pay the essentials.
This is increasingly the reality for many Canadians who are currently struggling with inflation and who see, as we do, as everyone does, that the government is doing nothing to curb inflation. As we know, the best thing a government can do to control inflation is to stop its uncontrolled spending.
I was talking about young people. It is unworthy of a G7 country like Canada to let its young people lose their ambitions and dreams. The survey shows that 85% of Quebeckers are experiencing varying degrees of financial stress. One of the fears reported is that young people aged 18 to 34 will never be able to own their own home. Nearly two-thirds of them think that way. Fully 61% of young Quebeckers have given up on the possibility of becoming homeowners one day. What a sad reality. We need to get a handle on this situation.
To quote Mr. Pinard again, “When we know that it takes an annual income of more than $100,000 to buy in Montreal, many young people say to themselves: we will never be able to buy. Many also do not see the suburbs as an option. They must therefore give up their dream”.
This is heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. At the ripe age of 59, I think I can say that we were all young once. We all had ambitions. We all dreamed of owning a home, as beautifully expressed in the song Dégénérations, which was quoted by our leader in his speech at the Conservative Party convention in Quebec City. If young people lose this dream and see that home ownership in Canada has become impossible after eight years of this Liberal government, it means that we, as a country, as a nation, and despite all our pride, have really gone off the rails. We have to get back on track.
That is why today's motion aims to get the government back on track. The government needs to get its head out of the sand. The government needs to realize that after eight years of uncontrolled spending, we are now paying the cost. It is never too late to do the right thing. That is why we are asking the government to do what any manager should do when a crisis hits: Have a game plan for balancing the budget. We are not asking for a miracle. We are simply asking the government to do what it promised in 2015 but then promptly forgot, and that is to balance the budget. It is the very foundation of the economy. It is at the very basis of respecting the promise made in 2015. It is at the very basis of restoring the confidence and hope of young people who one day want to own their own home, but who today are seeing that dream being shattered by the inflationary crisis that has hit the country and by the irresponsibility of this government, which continues to spend, spend, spend.
In good faith and with the best of intentions, I invite the government to pull itself together, get back on track, and introduce a plan to return to a balanced budget, for the good of all Canadians.
:
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's opposition motion debate. I first want to congratulate the Conservatives on bringing forward a motion that is not directly associated with the issue they have been bringing forward time after time in the House. Now, we get to talk about something a bit different, although I do have great concern with the premise of the motion they have brought forward. The “whereas” clauses and the assertions they have made are, I think, wholly inaccurate, and I look forward to explaining that in the next 10 minutes or so.
This country certainly took on a lot of debt in order to support Canadians from coast to coast during the pandemic, and we have certainly had to take on our fair share to do that, much of which was unanimously approved by the House, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic. However, it is always important to look at things in terms of context. Obviously, debt is significantly affected by GDP, the amount a country is able to produce in terms of economic activity, because that is exactly what will end up supporting that debt. When we talk about the debt in this country and when we look at the debt-to-GDP ratio, Canada is actually doing quite well.
As a matter of fact, if we look at our debt-to-GDP ratio, we are at 14%. Some people might ask whether that is good or bad. That is fair, because I do not think everybody is an economist and knows the default answer to that, but let us compare that 14% in Canada to the percentage for our G7 partners. France is at 99%. Germany is at 47%. Italy is at 129%. Japan is at 161%. Probably the two most comparable to us, the U.K. and the United States, are at 95% and 96%. When we talk about our debt levels, it is extremely important to compare where we stand on them to the position of our G7 counterparts, our most comparable economies in the world. In that regard, we are in an extremely good position.
I would add that I will be sharing my time with the member for today.
That is very important for context. I know that Conservatives, including this lot here, like to come into the House and routinely tell us about how theirs is the only party that knows how to introduce a balanced budget. They may want to go ahead and cheer and clap now, because usually they do that when I try to pay them a compliment, before I add the “but”.
It is really important to consider this: Conservatives will tell us that they know how to balance budgets, but if we look back to—
An hon. member: We do.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, they said “we do”. They will then have to explain the following facts to me and why they did the following. Since 1990, there have been only two prime ministers who have significantly added a surplus or balanced a budget. They were Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. This is interesting, because Conservatives will always say that Stephen Harper balanced budgets, but no, he did not, and Brian Mulroney never had a single balanced budget. Stephen Harper did not really either, and I will explain why. The first two budgets Stephen Harper brought into Parliament were on the heels of Paul Martin's surpluses that he had been running for years. The Conservatives certainly squandered those surpluses and went into a deficit position very quickly.
Of course, Conservatives also like to tell us, and I have heard it already this morning, that they left the fiscal state of this country in great shape in 2015 with the last budget they presented in a last-ditch effort to get Canadians to vote them into office one more time. They brought forward a “balanced budget”, and for the purposes of Hansard, I should say I am putting “balanced budget” in quotes, but they did it on the backs of veterans by closing Veterans Affairs offices. They sold off our shares of GM at the time at bargain prices in order to get that off their balance sheet. They did a whole host of things in order to portray the illusion that they had balanced the budget, when they really had not. They did it at the expense of Canadians and the investments the government had on behalf of Canadians.
I know that many will say this was so long ago, 10 years ago for Harper and even longer for Mulroney. Fine, let us just get back to this lot of Conservatives right here. All of them who are here today ran on Erin O'Toole's plan in the last election, and that plan was to run deficits for a minimum of 10 years. Here we have a group of Conservatives who are now coming into the House with a motion that says to develop a plan for a balanced budget by October 25 of this year, a week and a half from now. Meanwhile, they had no intention of doing so when they were running in the last election. They did not care when they were knocking on doors and presenting their plan to Canadians. The plan from Erin O'Toole and the Conservatives was to run deficits for at least 10 years. That is the reality of it.
This should be concerning to Canadians, because this is not the first time that we are seeing hypocrisy come out of the Conservatives. It is actually the second time. They also ran on a plan to introduce a price on pollution and to modify the existing price on pollution that this side of the House had. They ran on that, too.
This morning, somebody challenged them and asked a Conservative member why they ran on that. That Conservative member stood up and said, “I did not believe in it.” That is funny, because that is the second or third Conservative I have heard say they were not running on a price on pollution or a carbon tax. However, they had no problem going along with the plan during the election. They did not say a single word in opposition to it at the time. Now, suddenly, they come in here and think that the buzz phrase of the day is going to be “axe the tax”, and this would bring them into power. That is not the position that somebody who is aspiring to be the leader of this country should be taking, asking what buzzwords happen to work today that would get him into power.
I also find it very interesting when we talk about inflation specifically. Today we have seen that Statistics Canada has reported that the inflation in Canada has dropped to 3.8%. I should add that all the economists who were predicting this in advance of today said it would be anywhere between 3.8% and 4.2%. It ended up being on the lower end of that. Conservatives are laughing.
Maybe it is time to compare that. I did it earlier, and I can compare it again. Let us compare it to the G7 countries. Again, Canada and the United States are tied for second place in terms of the lowest inflation. I think it is extremely important when we talk about our comparative countries.
Canada is heading in the right direction when it comes to inflation, but interestingly enough, when we look at inflation and the different sectors of the economy, transportation is one of the only sectors of the economy contributing to inflation, and it is the biggest contributor. It is interesting because the member for was up earlier, and I asked her what proposals she would have to reduce the inflationary impact around transportation. Of course, the exact answer that I think everybody in this room would have expected, and I certainly did when I asked the question, was to get rid of the carbon tax, because the carbon tax is contributing to inflation.
The reality of the situation is that the carbon tax is not contributing to inflation. Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, recently said that the overall impact of the carbon tax to inflation is 0.15%. I believe he was in Alberta at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. We could chalk that up to a rounding error. Now I know the default for my Conservative friends would be to jump up and say that they do not trust Tiff Macklem; they have already made their position on that very clear.
I have a whole list, and I will not bother reading it right now, of Conservative MPs who have stood up in this House and invoked the name of Tiff Macklem as the expert when he has all the right things that they want to say at the moment. They cannot pick and choose when they want to use somebody as an expert in the field.
It goes without saying for the rest of us in the House, other than Conservatives, that Tiff Macklem is an expert in this field. When he says that the carbon tax contributes 0.15%, I am sorry to the member for , but getting rid of the carbon tax is not going to be helpful. It is not going to be the solution as it relates to inflation specifically.
Once again, we are confronted with a motion by Conservatives. All they are interested in is political games and cheap shots at the .
:
Madam Speaker, as always, it is a privilege to rise in this place and talk to opposition day motions. As I said before, and will say again, it provides an opportunity for the opposition parties to put forward some level of policy intent and ideals. For Canadians watching at home, opposition day motions are not binding on the government in any way whatsoever, but they allow us to debate the topics that opposition members want to raise.
Today, of course, the motion is broadly around fiscal prudence and the idea that the Government of Canada needs to continue to focus on maintaining fiscal balance. I could spend a lot of time going through the text of the motion, but folks at home will know that it is there. However, I want to talk a little bit about some of the concerns I have.
I will build upon what the member for said, which is that I feel as though, with these opposition day motions, there is always a poison pill. There are always lines in there that, in my personal view, become disingenuous and are then used as a political tactic.
Canadians do not watch this place every single minute of the day; they are busy, and they are working. However, they get highlights, such as clips on social media, to see what we are up to.
For example, last week, the Conservative Party put forward an opposition day motion on carbon pricing. There are a number of reasons I voted against it, but, in part, it was because the carbon price motion in question had a lot of elements that I felt were not factually true. The motion talked about such things as removing all elements of carbon pricing and not just adjusting the federal backstop, which I am on record for saying. However, of course, the Conservative Party takes that, without context, and puts together a little montage of images and puts it out, in my mind, to gin up a lot of animosity and misinformation around what does and what does not happen in this place. I suspect today will be the same, as has been said by the member for . I have not been part of the debate all day, but the member had said that the government, the NDP and probably the Bloc will vote against this, and the Conservatives will go out with some fake outrage on social media to drive concern about it.
I will start by saying that, of course, the concept of fiscal responsibility is an extremely important one. I was pleased to see this government actually announce on October 3 that the was asking all ministers and all departments to look at ways that they can find cost efficiencies so that there can be an ability to reduce departmental spending without impacting the programs that really matter to Canadians. That is a responsible approach.
The will have a fall economic statement forthcoming in this House, presumably in the next couple of weeks, or certainly before Christmas. It seems to me that the fall economic statement will highlight the finances of the country and how we are striking a very difficult balance between making sure that we have programs that matter for Canadians and at the same time making sure that we manage the debt burdens that the country and the government have.
Again, I have chastised some of my Conservative colleagues over the years for being very quick to point to certain elements that they would like to see changed, but they do not highlight a whole lot of the programs that they would cut. In the middle of the pandemic, we would hear one Conservative member stand up in this House and say that the government is not doing enough to support businesses that are being impacted by the pandemic. The next member would stand up, literally on the same question, and say that this government is spending too much money on programs in the middle of the pandemic. In fact, the is on record saying that the pandemic-related programs that mattered to small businesses and individuals at a time of great uncertainty were “big fat government” spending. He can tell that to the small businesses in my riding, to the restaurant owners and the people who were supported through a very difficult time, which helped give them a bridge to where we are today.
The Conservatives will offer this opposition day motion without any detail on what they would cut in terms of spending. Of course, they will cherry-pick certain elements for political gain, but the question is this: Would they walk back child care if they were to form government? I do not know, but I would love to hear from them on that, and I am sure Canadians would too. Would they walk back environmental progress? Well, we know that is indeed the case, and they have been very clear on that. What about such programs as the dental program, which we have worked as a Parliament to help introduce and which this government has put forward? That program is really going to matter for seniors in Kings—Hants. In fact, I know that my seniors are eagerly awaiting the announcement before Christmas about what those programs could look like.
That is not to say that I do not believe in making sure that the government is balanced in terms of its spending. In fact, in this House, any time I get the chance to do so, I am up on my feet talking about it. What is not recognized in the text of this opposition day motion is that Canada has one of the best debt-to-GDP ratios in the G7. Our deficit size in relation to G7 countries is also one of the best. That is never mentioned from the opposition benches.
I know there are challenges right now on affordability. In the House, the member for said we cannot eat a AAA credit rating. I guess he was saying people cannot eat AAA. We could eat a AAA steak, but we are trying to balance a credible pathway on finances versus delivering for Canadians.
There are a couple things I think are important. The text of the motion says that in order to try to avoid future interest rate increases, the government needs to introduce a balanced budget essentially by October 25. The government is going to introduce its fall economic statement, and it will talk about those things in the days ahead.
Let us make no mistake about the interest rate increases we are seeing. The Conservative Party would like to suggest they have to do with government spending, and yes, that may play a marginal part. However, there is a war in Ukraine. There is a war in Israel and the Palestinian territories. There are factors like climate change-related events and demographics.
A lot has happened around the world that is actually driving interest rates. I think, when having an intellectually informed policy debate about interest rates and how they correlate to bringing down consumer spending when there are broader events, there is a lot to be said.