Madam Speaker, as always, it is a pleasure and a privilege to rise in the House today to contribute to the debate at second reading on Bill C-47, the budget implementation act, 2023, No. 1.
I said it is a pleasure and a privilege to rise because it is always a pleasure and a privilege to rise to express the concerns of the people of Perth—Wellington. While it is a pleasure and a privilege to rise, I am nonetheless disappointed and frustrated with the budget. Like many in the House, I feel like this is a case of déjà vu. Once again, Canadians are looking to the government for a budget to address their needs, yet all we have seen from the government is another failed budget.
Bill C-47 is the first step in implementing parts of the flawed 2023 budget, which the Minister of Finance presented on March 28. That budget, as presented, would produce a $43-billion deficit. Recently, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that could balloon even higher to $45.1 billion. This is from a government that has already driven the national debt up to nearly $1.5 trillion.
Let us take a walk down deficit memory lane. What we see with the government is continuous overspending by spending more and achieving less. March 31, 2017, one year after the Liberals introduced their first budget, the national debt had already, at that point, climbed to $631 billion. A year later, it jumped up by $40 billion to $671 billion.
By 2019, the year before the COVID pandemic, the national debt spiked to $685 billion. A year ago, the deficit had jumped to $1.13 trillion. Now, in budget 2023, the Minister of Finance has told us that the national debt will reach $1.22 trillion by the end of this fiscal year.
This debt is a direct result of poor decision-making by the Liberal government. Only last November, the Minister of Finance rose in this place and told us the deficit for this year would be $30.6 billion. Five months later it was $40.1 billion.
In this budget, the cost of servicing the national debt is projected to nearly double to $43.9 billion. This $43.9 billion is just going to pay the interest on servicing the national debt. That is $43.9 billion that is not going to the Canada health transfer; not going to build better roads, bridges and wastewater treatment plants in Perth—Wellington, Simcoe—Grey or any riding across the country; not going to help ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces has the equipment it needs to do the important job asked of it; not going to help Canadians afford their rent; not going to prevent poverty; and not going to fully implement the Canada disability benefit. All that $43.9 billion is going toward is the interest owed to wealthy bond holders on the national debt.
We have been told in the past that we just need to look at the debt-to-GDP ratio, that it will continue to go down. For this year and next year, it is once again going to be going in the opposite direction.
In budget 2022, the Minister of Finance promised there would be a fiscal anchor. Well, that anchor has been dropped. For eight years, we were told this would be good. That we would see results from this deficit spending. Once again, we are seeing Canadians struggling to make ends meet.
If there is one topic I hear about time and time again in Perth—Wellington, it is housing. In every community in Perth—Wellington, where just a few years ago housing was affordable, it is now out of reach for those the government likes to call the middle class and those working hard to join it. My generation and younger, those under 40, are not seeing the hope there once was of owning their own home.
The government has created large, expensive programs without success. The national housing strategy has been a failure. The housing accelerator fund has been a failure. The Canada housing benefit has been a failure. When it comes to affordable housing, the Liberal government has been a failure.
Unfortunately, Bill C-47 will not address the growing problem of housing unaffordability. They promised one thing and delivered nothing.
Like many members, I often hear from young families, seniors and folks who are trying to make ends meet. They are telling us that they cannot afford their groceries. They are cutting back. They are making alternatives. They are skipping meals, yet what we see in the Liberal government is a failure to address the root causes of rising prices.
Its ineffective and inefficient carbon tax is forcing Canadian families to pay more for less. Canada’s Food Price Report predicts that a family of four will spend up to $1,065 more this year than last year. This is after last year, in which there was an increase of nearly $1,100. If the Minister of Finance were serious about reducing the costs of food for struggling Canadian families, there is an easy way to fix it, and that is to remove the carbon tax from all elements of food production.
The carbon tax has served to make life more expensive, especially for lower-income and working-class Canadians. While higher-income Canadians, such as the Prime Minister and others, simply pay the tax and absolve themselves of any guilt for their excessive emissions, average Canadians cannot afford it. Every time Conservatives have proposed measures to reduce costs, the Liberals have voted against them.
If we are looking at the roots of our food production system, we are looking at the agriculture and agri-food industry. Unfortunately, the Liberals fail to acknowledge that the high cost of groceries is their fault. There is the rising costs on fertilizer, with $34.1 million collected in tariffs, but none of that is being rebated to the farmers who paid those tariffs. The rising costs of fertilizer is making it more and more expensive for farmers and farm families to grow the crops that quite literally feed our families, our country and the world.
However, Bill C-47 does not address that. It does not address a rebate for those farmers and farm families who paid those $34 million in tariffs, and it does not remove the cost of the carbon tax. Farmers need fuel to heat their barns. They need it to transport their crops. They need it to dry their grains. There are no alternatives for these measures.
Sadly, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food continues to side with the Prime Minister and his finance minister over the farmers and every other person along the food supply chain. From this, I can only conclude that either the agriculture minister is not really listening to farmers or the Prime Minister and finance minister are not listening to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.
As I conclude, I want to reiterate that budget 2023 has failed to address the real concerns of families in Perth—Wellington and across Canada. After eight years in office, the Liberal government and the Prime Minister has made life more unaffordable for Canadians. Now, with this budget, the finance minister expects to be congratulated for the benefits the government promises, despite the fact that those benefits do not even come close to matching the massive increases in prices caused by its inflation crisis.
I will be voting no. I will be saying no more. Canadians cannot afford any more of the Liberal government. I encourage all members to stand up for their constituents and vote against this failed Liberal budget.
