Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my constituents once again for giving me the opportunity to be here and represent them.
One of the things I heard a lot about this past summer was not so much about the billions of dollars being spent, although people do talk about that, but the level of competence of the government. That is one of the things we should focus on here. The government loves to talk about all the money it is spending everywhere on all kinds of things, usually not getting value for money. My colleagues have mentioned that already. As we see a number of different initiatives, what a lot of my constituents realized this summer was that the government is broken. Conservatives have talked before about getting some of the most basic services, such as a passport, which used to be received in a few days and is now taking literally weeks and months. Some people were waiting six months. It was unbelievable.
We talk about this lofty immigration goal of 500,000 people, but what we are not talking about are the two and a half million people who are waiting to get into this country. We need workers in a big way. The Liberal government likes to talk about things, but not look at what is being delivered. That is one of the things we should be focusing on. What are the deliverables? What has happened? We have all heard stories from people who have called us about visitor visas, immigration issues, work issues and people trying to get workers in this country. We know we have a major labour shortage, yet the government has been incompetent or does not have the ability to deliver the most basic goods and services for Canadians.
This economic statement promises to deliver more money. It is going to deliver another $40 billion. One thing my colleagues have mentioned over and over again is that this has been driving inflation. If we look at what is happening with a number of things, we see that, as we continue to have too few goods being chased by too much money, it is a major issue.
We also know that the Prime Minister has added more debt than all previous prime ministers combined. I want everyone to think about that for one second. I will repeat that. The Liberal Prime Minister has added more debt than all previous prime ministers combined. If we think about that, the money spent in the last 100-plus years has now been spent very quickly. The government will talk about how all these things were so important. The Auditor General and the Parliamentary Budget Officer have said, as a matter of fact, 40% of all this new spending actually had nothing to do with COVID. Once again, the high-level story is that we had to spend all this money on COVID, but then we find out that only 40% of it had anything to do with COVID. That is absolutely a challenge.
We know that our country's debt interest is going to double this year. We are going to see interest payments go up and more money spent on interest payments than the Canada health transfer. That is somewhat troubling. As interest rates continue to climb, people's mortgage payments are going to double, some up to $7,000 a year. The Bank of Canada has basically said that it is going to continue to hike interest rates as it tries to deal with inflation.
There is a major housing crisis in this country. We have seen what has happened in major markets like Vancouver and Toronto, some of the most overpriced markets, not only here in Canada but in the world. We have seen the money spent on the homelessness initiative, and it is pretty timely. We see that in the Auditor General's report that just came out in the last little while. I will read part of the summary, which states:
As the lead for Reaching Home, a program within the National Housing Strategy, Infrastructure Canada spent about $1.36 billion between 2019 and 2021—about 40% of total funding committed to the program—on preventing and reducing homelessness. However, the department did not know whether chronic homelessness and homelessness had increased or decreased since 2019 as a result of this investment.
That is a direct quote from the Auditor General. I will read one more paragraph, as follows:
For its part, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, as the lead for the National Housing Strategy, spent about $4.5 billion and committed about $9 billion but did not know who was benefiting from its initiatives. This was because the corporation did not measure the changes in housing outcomes for priority vulnerable groups, including people experiencing homelessness. We also found that rental housing units approved under the National Housing Co-Investment Fund that the corporation considered affordable were often unaffordable for low-income households, many of which belong to vulnerable groups prioritized by the strategy.
Let us think about this. The government wants to brag about how much money it has spent on homelessness, yet we have no way of knowing if it has gone to the people who need it the most. That is one of the things we need to look at and have a conversation about.
We have talked about the cost of what has gone up. We have many Canadians within $200 of insolvency, not being able to pay their bills because of the high amount of inflation. Thirty-one per cent of Canadians say they do not make enough money to pay their bills and debts. This is certainly worrisome. We know that paycheques do not go as far as they used to. We also have Canadians cutting their diets, and seniors who have to choose between heat and food. Winter is coming. We live in a northern country and have to deal with that very issue.
We can look at food bank usage. We have seen the Canadian record of 1.5 million visits, with an increase of 35%, and we know that 33% of those using food banks are children. That is somewhat troubling given that children normally make up 18% to 19% of the population.
We keep talking about the tripling of the carbon tax because it is causing everything to go up in price. We can look at what is going on with that. Those who in live in cities have the option of public transit. Although I do represent a rural riding, it is not the most rural in Canada. I would say a lot of places in northern B.C., northern Alberta, northern Ontario or northern Quebec are more rural.
We have limited public transportation in my riding, but I can assure members that the moms, dads and families there need to drive everywhere. They need to drive to take their kids to school. They need to drive to take their kids to sports like hockey. They have to drive their car just about everywhere, so when they are told they have to pay more money in a carbon tax, it is not an option for them because of their way of life. We do not have the option of being able to use public transit all the time in every situation.
My friends talked about the availability of day care. I will not hit that again, but as we look at these things, we also have to consider the fact that we live in a northern climate. We do not have the option of whether we heat our homes or not. It is something we have to do. The Liberal-NDP coalition fails to recognize the fact that individuals have to heat their homes. This is not a luxury good.
We could talk about farming next. One of the things about farming that I find troubling is the tariff on fertilizer coming from Russia. What a tariff means is that farmers will have to pay more. However, the tariff was not to punish Russia in any way, shape or form. I have had farmers reach out to me and say they could not believe it. They pre-ordered their fertilizer, the government decided to put a tariff on the fertilizer and it has done nothing but drive the cost of our food up.
Let us think about that for one second. A tariff means that Canadians are going to pay more for something they had no control over. Farmers were not given six months or a year to try to change where to get it from. It is problematic when we look at those kinds of things.
Here is a government telling Canadians how much it cares about them. Here is a government telling them to look at all the money it is spending. Here is a government telling them that the carbon tax is good for them and that they need to pay it because it will make all things better. However, the reality is that it is costing everyone more money and food prices have gone up.
I could talk about restaurants that have reached out to me. Chicken has gone up almost 100%, and the oil they cook in has gone up over 100%. That is not 8%, 9% or 10%. Those are major numbers.
When governments are talking about how much money they are spending, I would ask this: Are people's lives better off? Do people have access to more services? Do they feel like the government is more competent? Do they feel that as a result of the money and taxes they are paying, their life is better?
I guarantee that if asked these questions, Canadians would realize the government is not delivering on what it is talking about. It is not delivering on what it is promising. I will leave it at that.
