Thank you very much, Chair.
To be candid, it's a little disappointing that we don't have the ability to talk to the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, today. We were looking forward to having a robust discussion. I've personally had many interesting discussions with Ms. Freeland about such things as the gap in GDP per capita between Canada and the U.S. and some of the financial struggles.
Just to set the stage, as it were, for the discussion—and unfortunately I suspect it will be a lengthy discussion on where we are right now—I don't want to tell tales out of school, but I did have a discussion with the parliamentary secretary, who was very upfront this morning. I appreciate his candour. However, the challenge is that we started off on the wrong foot. He surprised us with a programming motion. For those in the media or simply watching at home, a programming motion sets up the organization of business. Normally this is done through a collaborative, co-operative process, even when parties are having a very heated exchange over their various different ideas and thoughts as to how the government.... There have to be certain administrative and procedural agreements.
In the last couple of years, while sitting on the finance committee, I've had the privilege of negotiating those with various Liberal members, including Mr. Terry Beech. Yvan and I have also had some chats in the interim. They were not always friendly, but they were always respectful. Mr. Beech, for example, would nearly always give me the opportunity to discuss and have input on a motion prior to it being brought forward. While we didn't always agree, I very much appreciated that from the former parliamentary secretary, whose title is now “minister of fixing government” or something like that, I believe.
As I said, I try as much as possible to be an advocate for the truth. In fairness, there was a subcommittee meeting, but that meeting broke down. I would have expected maybe a courtesy call, as I got this morning, and I appreciated that.
Mr. Turnbull, I would very much have appreciated a call beforehand, and maybe we would have had a discussion. What we have is a programming motion that calls for, really, a very small amount of testimony. I understand that the government and the NDP brought a subamendment to increase it, so that's a positive sign. However, this programming motion is still deficient in a number of different ways, and I want to characterize it correctly. It's not that I'm objecting on behalf of Philip Lawrence or on behalf of the Conservative Party or Pierre Poilievre. I'm objecting on behalf of the people of Northumberland and the people of Peterborough South.
This is a massive document. It's over 600 pages, and I think even just some of the finite tax provisions in it could be the subject of lengthy debate and discussion, because anytime you're amending the Income Tax Act—it's a massive document—there are nearly always knock-on effects from that amendment. We need significantly more. I am pleased that Mr. Davies brought a subamendment to expand that. I think that's a step in the right direction.
The challenge is that Conservatives really want to know what the direction of the government is. In order to know the direction of the government, we need to hear from them. We've certainly heard enough from their current leader, but we need to hear from their future leader to know what the direction is to help us understand it so we can convey that to our constituents.
For example, we have seen Prime Minister Trudeau be absolutely unequivocal that he's going to continue with his carbon tax. He's actually going to quadruple that carbon tax. It is said that there will be no variation from this plan. In fact, his environment minister has said that if there's any deviation from the carbon tax, he will resign. That is absolutely crystal clear. What we don't know is what the Liberal plan is with respect to the carbon tax going forward if there is a change in leadership.
We have the Deputy Prime Minister, who is, of course, one of the likely Liberal candidates, for one hour. It's not really sufficient enough to discuss even her role as Minister of Finance, much less as a future potential leader of the party. We have an hour to discuss a 600-page document that will affect every Canadian through one provision or another. Some of these are quite in-depth; these are not simple provisions.
We can talk about some of the tax changes specifically. One of those changes could easily take up two or three hours. I suspect that many individuals haven't had the briefing they need to fully understand some of the ramifications of tax policy. We really need Ms. Freeland, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, for at least two hours.
There's another challenge that Conservatives have. We would really like to hear from Mark Carney. It's no surprise that to many Liberals that he is the heir apparent as we move forward. I don't know whether we'll see a resignation from the Prime Minister; I don't know if he knows that. Clearly, things are not going well. While it doesn't appear that Liberal members will push the Prime Minister out the door, it does appear as though he's frustrated. Clearly, the economy and other factors are pointing to an early exit. With that being the case, there's a high likelihood that we're going to have Mark Carney as the new Liberal leader.
What we're asking for is to have Mr. Carney, who has in the past been an outspoken advocate for the carbon tax, appear. He's a huge proponent of the consumer-driven carbon tax. However, in recent days, including in recent Senate testimony, he has seemed to equivocate. When asked directly about it, he wouldn't give a yes or no answer. In fact, he quite adeptly equivocated, I guess getting ready for his career in politics. We want to ask him whether a Carney-led Liberal government have a consumer carbon tax.
We've heard the NDP equivocate on this point in recent months with the leader of the NDP stating that maybe the consumer-led carbon tax was not the best direction to go in, while they continue to support and prop up the regime of Prime Minister Trudeau's Liberals, which is on track to quadrupling the carbon tax. Canadians deserve to know whether the future Liberal leadership candidates, whether it's Deputy Leader Freeland or former governor of the Bank of Canada Mark Carney, would indeed support a consumer carbon tax.
The other issue that I would really like to talk to Mr. Carney about is what his thoughts are on the actions of the current Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem. Of course, during the pandemic, Mr. Macklem said that interest rates would be low for long, and many Canadians relied on that. They selected variable mortgages and had shorter renewal terms on their mortgages thinking that interest rates would be, as Mr. Macklem said, unequivocally I might add, low for long.
I would really like to know whether Mr. Carney would criticize Mr. Macklem's actions. I'd also like to know, because inflation doesn't seem like it's going down, as is often the case with inflation.... We saw this in the 1970s and in the 1980s. Getting that first part of inflation down is oftentimes the “easy part”. It's in that last mile that inflation gets really sticky and hard to remove.
We've heard past comments from Tiff Macklem that excessive government spending is unhelpful because it boosts demand, which increases the prices and costs of nearly everything and raises inflation. I'd love to hear from the future Liberal leader on whether he would reduce spending or continue with the $54 billion of interest at which the debt is being paid. That's more than the entire amount in health care transfers. Just imagine if we did not have a national debt in Canada. We would be able to double our health care spending. That's really amazing.
Another issue was pointed out by Thomas Mulcair, former leader of the NDP. What he said, which is interesting, is that the amount of interest is equal to the entire revenue collected by the goods and sales tax, the GST, across the country. If we didn't have that $1.3-trillion national debt, we would be able to cancel the GST, which was a Liberal promise from many years ago that still has yet to come to fruition.
I think that having Mr. Carney here is an absolutely reasonable request. He went before the Senate, so he's clearly not shy, and he has a willingness to go before public officials. It does get to me. I try not to, in politics—or as little as possible—speculate on people's intentions, because I believe that most people's intentions are good. I think you get into a dangerous world when you start speculating on the intentions of our colleagues. It's hard to look into someone's heart, but it does make you wonder where the brakes are here.
What is the Liberal government so afraid of that they will not allow Mr. Carney to testify in front of the finance committee? Maybe they're protecting.... Maybe the Prime Minister prefers his successor to be the Deputy Prime Minister, and he doesn't want Mr. Carney to come here and outshine him. Maybe it's a Paul Martin-Jean Chrétien type of thing, where they're afraid Mr. Carney will make too much of a splash.
I hope it isn't that Mr. Carney is afraid to answer questions. Clearly, as a former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, he's hopefully faced tough questions. In fact, I'm mindful of an exchange that I saw between the current leader of the official opposition, Mr. Poilievre, asking Mr. Carney some difficult questions. I don't think anyone can say that Mr. Carney did a great job of answering those questions, but if I were him, I might want an opportunity to redeem myself and come before the finance committee. If nothing else, for altruistic reasons, I would think Mr. Carney would want to share his experience with us.
Specifically on that, I have talked at length about productivity and the importance of economic growth in bringing prosperity to our country. I'm not the only one, of course; there's a wide symphony of voices across economic experts. I can rattle off the names of Bill Morneau, John Manley, the C.D. Howe Institute and the Fraser Institute. Even the current finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, has talked about it. Of course, most recently, Carolyn Rogers gave her famous “break the glass” speech about productivity. Do you know who else has spoken about productivity? It's Mark Carney. He's criticized this government for their lack of focus on economic growth and their lack of focus on productivity, so I would welcome him into the discussion.
It is a nut that Canada hasn't been able to crack. Out of fairness, it has been a 30-odd-year problem, but it's gotten significantly worse over the last 10 years. You can see that; it comes through in the numbers. If you look at a chart—I tried to show the chart to the Minister of Finance, but the chair said I wasn't allowed to use props—a clear departure between GDP per capita in the United States of America and GDP per capita in Canada started in about 2015 and 2016. The gap is now wider between income per Canadian and income per American. It has never been wider in recent history—in the last 100 years.
Of course, the productivity crisis has led us to the lost decade in Canada. We have had virtually no economic growth in the last 10 years. Our GDP per capita has more or less been flat. That really is an outlier. We are the worst in the G7 in the last five years in growth of GDP per capita, and we continue to be a laggard. Actually, our GDP per capita is, I believe, in its seventh negative quarter. I would have asked the Minister of Finance some questions: Have you looked at these numbers? Could you explain to the committee why our economy is the worst in the G7, looking at a GDP per capita lens? Why do Canadians have to suffer through the seventh quarter of declining GDP per capita?
These were the questions I would have asked Minister Freelandand quite frankly, I'd put them to former governor Mark Carney as well. We really need to have these discussions for the BIA, because I think it's important for Canadians. We need to have these discussions now about the economic changes that Canada needs in order to get back on a strong footing.
As I said, it's not just me talking about this. It is the C.D. Howe Institute. It's Bill Morneau. It's John Manley. It is the Fraser Institute. It's Ian Lee. It is Jack Mintz. They're noted economists, and it doesn't really matter whether they're left, right or centre. There's a near consensus across this country that the numbers are the numbers and that we are struggling mightily when it comes to productivity.
These challenges will continue to plague our country as we go forward. We really need to have a discussion, not just at the boardroom tables on Bay Street but at the coffee shops on Main Street, about how Canada can get out of this economic hole. As my colleague Damien Kurek talked about a bit in his speech last night in the House, when you're at the beginning of piloting a boat or a plane and you have a long journey, even a slight error in navigation early on in that journey can have massive consequences down the line.
We actually saw this under Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Of course, Pierre Elliott Trudeau ran up massive deficits, and that left the Mulroney government in a difficult position. It ran structural surpluses, meaning that if you took out the debt that was accrued under the Trudeau government, every year under the Mulroney government, it took in more than it spent. Part of that was because of tremendous economic growth, no doubt spurred on by the free market policies of the Mulroney government. The challenge was that they carried along with them a Pierre Elliott Trudeau legacy.
We're really, sadly, at the beginning of a debt or deficit crisis if we don't get ourselves back on course. Right now, we're at $54 billion in interest. If the minister were here, I'm sure the first response to some of my economic questions would be that we have a AAA credit rating, and that's true for now. The reality is, though, that if we don't course correct on the debt and deficit, we won't, because sooner or later the interest will get to be such a big force. In fact, Albert Einstein said that the most powerful force in the universe is compounding numbers or compounding interest, meaning that if you are on the wrong side of this—and we are now on the wrong side of it, with $54 billion of interest being paid—it starts consuming more and more. Eventually, it will get to a point where Canada will no longer be able to pay its bills. Already we're at the point where we're spending more on interest than we are on health care, and there's more interest being paid than the entire amount collected by the GST. Alarms should be going off.
The challenge, too, is that there is a bit of a spiral effect. The more resources in general—and I'm sure my NDP colleague might add some caveats here—that businesses have for spending on investment and on their workers.... Quite frankly, I agree with him on that, but in general, the more resources the private sector has, the more effective it can be at investing and innovating, at becoming competitive and at creating prosperity for the country.
As you suck more of the revenue, the wealth, from the private sector and give it to the public sector, not for goods and virtuous services like some of our social safety nets, our health care or our productive resources, but to banks and bondholders in the form of interest payments, you reduce the efficiency and the effectiveness of the economy. Then the economy actually starts to shrink, which means there's less revenue and the government has to increase rates. Then it goes back again: The economy shrinks more and rates go up more, and you get into a negative debt-spiral trap. We've seen this in non-advanced economies, and it has had devastating consequences. We've had many economists talk about this, so we need to get our spending under control.
The leader of the official opposition has put forward a dollar-for-dollar plan, saying that every new dollar we need to spend—and there will certainly be new dollars we have to spend—will be matched with savings from somewhere else. The Liberal government has talked about potential savings, but as the member for Simcoe North has talked about, while the government has planned to generate savings through attrition in the public sector, it has yet to publish any type of plan that will allow that to happen. All we see is a government that continues to spend more and more money.
As Ed Fast, the member for Abbotsford, has talked about many times, we can't let that spending get out of control. The reason is not that Conservatives want, in any shape or form, any type of austerity when it comes to government or otherwise, but that it would prevent the type of austerity we saw during the nineties era, under the Chrétien-Martin Liberal government. They dramatically cut health care transfers because the debt, which was largely accrued under Pierre Elliott Trudeau, got to a point where banks and bondholders basically cut the country off. That led to very dramatic reductions in health care transfers and other spending. Conservatives want to protect health care and other government spending by making sure that we are fiscally responsible now.
If the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister were here, she would no doubt tell me that we are on track to hitting all three of our guardrails. The reality, though, is that that's on very shaky ground, and I'll tell you why: A number of the economic forecasts in the budget are very positive, bullish forecasts, such as increasing GDP.
The other issue is that we haven't yet seen capital gains legislation, and to make that budget work, they need $7 billion in the first year from capital gains. Otherwise, they miss two of the three guardrails. I confirmed that with testimony from the PBO. Those guardrails would be the debt-to-GDP ratio not increasing and the deficit not increasing. They would miss two out of three of those guardrails. Quite frankly, right now that capital gains legislation hasn't appeared.
You might say, “Well, Mr. Lawrence, we have the whole year to gain additional revenue from capital gains, so just relax. We might even get some retroactively.” However, no, that's not the case here because the government has set up an artificial fire sale by saying that the legislation goes into place on June 24 or June 25. I have no doubt that there are Canadians right now preparing to sell their property to take advantage of the current capital gains rate as opposed to what it will be. Until there's certainty and Canadians know that the capital gains rate will go up through the introduction of legislation, I'm sure many will just wait to see whether this legislation comes into place. We're quickly approaching—I think it's June 24, but I can never remember if it's the 24th or the 25th—that timeline. If the government doesn't introduce this capital gains legislation—which, for political purposes, they decided to pull out of the budget—they will not hit two out of three of their guardrails. That means we will have more spending, which is going to put us further down the debt and deficit spiral going forward and will worsen our economic growth.
When last I checked in, Mr. Davies wasn't sure whether he agreed with me. However, I'll say it again, and maybe he'll have a chance to agree or disagree. We'll see. It's my contention that, while Canada's GDP growth has been just high enough to keep us out of a technical recession, if you look at GDP per capita or the economic reality of the average Canadian, it has been negative for much more than two quarters continuously, which is the definition of a technical recession. We're at seven quarters, and that means that while Canada as a country is not in recession, Canadians are. In fact, we are in one of the longest recessions to occur since the Great Depression, and that is a great segue into talking about what Philip Cross said on GDP per capita or the economic circumstances of the average Canadian: We are in the worst economy since the Great Depression.
When we look at the severity and the seriousness of the economic situation we're in, I don't think Conservatives are being unreasonable—I really don't—by asking for three things in total. One of them has already been agreed upon, which is additional hours of study. For 665 pages, I don't think 30 hours is much. In fact, I've thought about a good change in process. For those who don't know, parliamentarians get a technical briefing for maybe a couple of hours, and we are responsible for, within 24 hours, reading 665 pages of extremely technical information. By the by, I say 665 pages, but those 665 pages are amending thousands of other pages. In order to understand those 600 or so pages of amending legislation, you have to understand the other thousands of pages of legislation.
While I have the floor, one of the changes of process I'd love to put forward to the government for the next budget would be to have the bureaucrats, many of whom have great depth of understanding of these changes and the context around them, give a presentation of five or 10 minutes on the substance of the changes. In a budget, there might be 100 different substantive changes, so it might be a couple of days. I would sign on to working from dawn until sundown to fully understand that and to have some of the knowledge held in our bureaucracy transferred to the politicians. That's one of the changes I thought would be a great idea.
I was a little bit surprised, although Mr. Davies did, in fairness, ask for additional time. I appreciate that, and Conservatives agree. He said that some of the testimony got repetitive. I didn't really see that, but to the extent that it did, I think that we could have eliminated that by having the public service put forward a substantive discussion of each of the provisions being changed. I don't think it would be unreasonable, when you look at the provisions in place that would affect literally every Canadian from coast to coast with millions, billions or, in some cases, if you look at it globally, trillions of dollars, to have a discussion on each one of the objects for five or 10 minutes and let them present to parliamentarians the substance of the issue. I think if we did that, we would give parliamentarians a good base for having fruitful, meaningful and constructive discussions about the individual areas.
The way the budgetary process works is that when we have the briefing, it is within 24 hours. By the by, the night before, we were working hard at the finance committee trying to get the fall economic statement through, which left us very little time to study those 600-odd pages and to fully understand that budget. Then, instead of being briefed on some of the technical provisions, we were told to ask any questions we wanted to.
I certainly did my best to try to review and understand it, but it's hard to consume such a massive amount of information in a very short period of time. That's why I believe a great change to the budgetary process would be to have members of the bureaucracy brief us on each one of those changes. Therefore, as I said, if there are 100 changes at five or 10 minutes a pop, it might be 500 or 1,000 minutes. I'm sure each one of those minutes would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in changes that we would effect in each minute. I would throw that out as a constructive suggestion.
I do want to respond to what I expect will be some comments from the parliamentary secretary, among others, that Conservatives are holding up this legislation. I think, quite frankly, our track record, specifically over the beginning of this year, rebuts that quite conclusively. Clause-by-clause consideration is where the rubber meets the road and where we as parliamentarians decide what will be in the legislation and what won't be in the legislation. Conservatives were actually agreeable, candidly, to the NDP's request to start grouping sections so we could move quickly. In fact, my colleague Mr. Singh Hallan actually withdrew some of his amendments so that we could get through the fall economic statement quickly. I would also point to the fact that it was a very constructive process in which my colleague Mr. Chambers said he had not, in his considerable experience, seen a budget amended as thoroughly as the fall economic statement implementation act was, so it was also a thorough process.
Conservatives were willing to do that going forward. We have, I think, a very reasonable—I won't even put it as a demand—request to have Mr. Mark Carney for at least three hours and then to have the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance for two hours.
Quite frankly, I don't like it when people speculate on my intentions. I don't think it's fair, and I try not to do that as well. I would just throw this out as free advice to that side. Minister Freeland is a very intelligent, eloquent speaker, and so if I were one of them, I would try to get Minister Freeland up as much as I could, and Mr. Carney has always acquitted himself fairly well. I'm not exactly sure why they're afraid of having two of their future leaders answer some questions.
As Minister Freeland has said before, certainly our exchanges in the past have been respectful. I don't believe I asked Minister Freeland any inappropriate questions. Maybe I asked tough questions, but that's the job. It's my job to ask those questions to make sure that the people of Canada and the people of Northumberland—Peterborough South, soon to be Northumberland—Clark, are given the answers so they know, so they understand.
In context, of course, during the early part of our calendar every year as parliamentarians, a fair amount of our time is spent in our constituency. Like all other 337 of my colleagues, I spend a lot of time at events talking to people. Soon we'll be on the barbecue circuit again, talking to thousands of people. In all sincerity, it really hit home. I've never had a series of interactions of the kind I have had in the last two or three months, with nearly every individual saying one of two things, or both. One is, “I am really struggling. I've never had these economic conditions before. I've never gone to a food bank. In fact, I have a lifetime of donating to food banks, and now I'm a recipient of the food bank.” These are very serious issues. I'm sure we've all received those calls or emails or have had those direct one-on-one interactions. I don't think I'm in a vacuum at all.
Quite frankly, I think having the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance here for two hours and having the future Liberal leader, Mark Carney, here for three hours to explain their economic plans, their commentary on why Canada is in such a terrible economic shape, is reasonable.
Right now we will agree to the scheduling put forward by the NDP and the Liberals. All we're asking is that we get a little bit of insight for two hours from the current finance—
