Committees of the House  moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented on Monday, March 21, 2022, be concurred in. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to members this afternoon. I would like to mention that I am splitting my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, last week, the former parliamentary budget officer indicated that this is not the environment in which we want to do deficit spending. The economy is in recovery, and unemployment is low, while the Bank of Canada is struggling to deal with inflation we have not seen in 30 years.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, I guess if everything is so good, why do we need to keep spending? The government's only answer to every problem is to spend more money, but now the chorus of warnings is growing. Just last week, Scotiabank said that spending commitments undermine the government's ability to tackle inflation.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, do members know who benefits from inflation? It is the government. Next week the federal government is going to announce record revenues from higher taxes, higher oil prices and inflation. Canadians want to know how the Liberal-NDP government is going to use this windfall.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, it is estimated that this new NDP–Liberal agreement will cost taxpayers upward of $40 billion by the end of the term. Last week, Scotiabank said, “The finance minister risks further undermining Ottawa's credibility in...tackling [runaway] inflation.” That is because when inflation is more than double the 2% target, and with where we are in the business cycle, additional spending will only make inflation worse.

Questions on the Order Paper  With regard to the Shared Equity Mortgage Providers Fund that launched on July 31, 2019: (a) how many applications have been (i) received, (ii) approved to date; (b) what is the total value of funds distributed to date through the program; and (c) how many units have been built under the program?

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, to clarify, while I find some portions of the NDP motion acceptable, I do not think we can support the motion in its entirety as it is currently written. I do not believe that growing the size of government is going to address the cost-of-living crisis. My submission would be that we need to let consumers take these excess profits from companies in the form of lower prices.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to answer this question again. We look at the federal budget from 2017 and it talks about how much revenue was gained from the tax increase on the wealthiest Canadians. It was one-third of what the government projected, so it received far less revenue than it thought it would because people left.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question, which allows me to point back to his own government's data. In 2016, we raised the top marginal rate on the highest income earners in Canada. What happened? The government told us that we were going to get about $3 billion in extra taxes.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this motion put forward by my colleagues and the member for Burnaby South. Before I begin, I would like to mention I am splitting my time with the hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup. I was very encouraged when I heard about this motion today and that we were going to talk about a public beneficial ownership registry, which is badly needed in this country.

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021  Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. It is wonderful working on the finance committee, and I am learning a lot from him. With respect to the interest charges on debt, we absolutely need to worry about this. One of the justifications for the government's spending using deficit financing early on in its mandate was that interest charges were so low.

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021  Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for that very good question, and I agree with her. I think that the government is underfunding health care transfers to provinces. In 2015, the incoming Liberal government ran on a platform to increase provincial transfers, but it has not.

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021  Mr. Speaker, I understand that the hon. member makes a number of interventions and I find many of them helpful, because it allows me to answer some of these questions quite clearly. We would not know where all of the money is that is collected, because the government does not really, in a transparent way, show us this.

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021  Mr. Speaker, it is very nice to see you in the chair. I hope we will see more of you there. It is a pleasure working with you at committee, but it is nice to see you in the chair today. It is nice to intervene with my colleagues on Bill C-8, the economic and fiscal update implementation bill, but before I get to that, it seems rather appropriate to acknowledge the devastation that we see in Ukraine.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, according to Angus Reid, 53% of Canadians cannot keep up with the cost of living, and things are going to get worse. The next budget will introduce significant amounts of new spending and make inflation worse for Canadian families, and on April 1, the government is increasing the carbon tax on gasoline by almost nine cents a litre.