Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House to talk about SDTC and the green slush fund, because this gives us an opportunity to look at what is happening here in Canada. My friend from York—Simcoe talked about the way the government is working, or not working, I should say, or is working in a bad direction. My speech focuses on where the loss of trust is, how we have this loss of trust and why we have this loss of trust.
Over the last nine years, we see there have been so many things that have made Canadians, who voted for Liberals in 2015, say that they cannot trust the government anymore. The green slush fund is just another example of why Canadians have lost trust and hope.
What is the green slush fund and why was it created in the first place? When we look at Sustainable Development Technology Canada, we have to look at its mandate. Its mandate was to help Canadian companies develop and deploy sustainable technologies by delivering critical funding support at every stage of the journey. This sounds great. It is something we need, and for decades we did have it.
In the last six years, there was $836 million spent on green start-ups. I am not against any of that, but the issue I have here is there were also 186 projects that had conflicts of interest. When I talk about loss of trust in the government, that is where I really want to focus. We, as a party and as opposition, have been asking for these documents for months.
Last December, in 2023, when the whistle-blowers came forward and talked about what was happening and how this money was being distributed, things started happening. We saw a freezing of the slush fund. The money is not available, which, in turn, is causing a lot of problems for people who are actually running legitimate businesses, who are not able to get the payments they expected and are not able to get the assistance from the government that would help them. However, because the government was allowing people to be eligible for truly ineligible reasons, those payments did not move forward.
We can talk about the conflicts of interest. We can talk about whether it was the CEO or board chair, but we can look at the conflicts of interest that were occurring in SDTC as well. This all goes back to looking at accountability and transparency, which is something we have seen very little of over the last nine years. For a Prime Minister who was going to have sunshine and said that everything was going to be fine and that they were going to be clear, accountable and transparent, which is what he was running on in 2015, that is exactly the opposite of what we see here in 2024.
The loss of hope is one of the biggest challenges we are having here in Canada. When I had this opportunity to speak on this motion, I spoke to my friend from Oshawa. He was talking about what we can talk about, because he was looking at the censorship issues here in Canada. There are Bill C-63 and some of the other things the government has come out with, like with Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, which are just a whole bunch of bills that come together that continue to impact Canadians negatively.
My friend from Oshawa was talking about censorship. I thought I would talk about trust and hope and how this is just another example of how Canadians have lost trust in the government and have lost hope for the future. When we look at the data, it is very clear. We see the data between 2014 and 2024. People ask where the hope is and what can they see for their futures. As a mom of five, and I am very proud of being a mom of five, I am now watching my children, who are between the ages of 21 and 30, asking what the world is going to look like for them. How are they going to get ahead? I will add more to that.
I think it comes down to something very simple. If we look as of 11 a.m. today, we had $1.356 trillion in debt here in Canada. This number makes me very queasy, knowing that just 10 years ago, under the Harper government in 2014, our debt was $648 million. That is $648 million compared to $1.3 billion in nine years, which is just absolutely ludicrous. We know that is just wasteful spending and unaccountable spending as well.
Things like the current number of people working in Canada and the GDP are all data points we need to look at when we are talking about the economy and why we are talking about things not working. If we do not have a strong economy, everything starts falling apart. We have to look at the economy as a piece of this puzzle that has created so many drastic problems for people. On employment specifically, we have seen a decrease in employment. In Canada, as of October 2024, we currently have 33,977,000 people working, which is 60.6% of the population.
Just 10 years ago, we had 61.6% of the population working, which was over 28,930,000. This matters because at the end of the day, it is those people who are employed and paying taxes on their employment or pensions or whatever it may be, who are putting back into the system. It is really important that we have people out there working because it also adds to our GDP.
I had a great conversation about this with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. We were talking about what the GDP looks like and why it is important to understand the GDP-to-population ratio. When I talk about the number of people working being down to 60.6% from 61.6% just a decade ago, we then have to look at where our GDP is, and that is where these numbers become astounding. I compared the numbers for Canada, looking at 2014 to 2024, but also looked at GDP in the United States. I am not looking at total GDP, but looking at the increase because that is giving us the hope for prosperity. When people see an increase in our GDP that looks healthy, they know that there is hope for their businesses, for their future, for their employment and for their children's future as well.
In 2014, we saw a 2.87% GDP growth rate. In the United States, it was very similar at 2.52%. Today, when we are looking at the data, it is not a full year, but in 2024, our GDP growth rate right now is 1.34%, compared to the U.S. at 2.77%.
If we want to look at entire years, in 2023, we can look at Canada at 1.25% compared to the U.S. at 2.89% in 2023. When GDP growth rate is down, that is when people start losing great hope. What are they going to do when it comes to employment? How are their businesses going to survive? In the last few weeks, we have had many discussions with the people in my riding talking about how they are going to survive if we cannot have good public policy and legislation and the United States is talking about putting a 25% tariff on items coming from Canada. For people within my constituency, the moment that was announced, the phone started ringing. In my riding and in many areas of Canada, we are exporting 80% of our goods.
I spoke earlier to a gentleman who builds scoreboards, so we can watch some of those great NCAA scoreboards and know that they were built in London, Ontario. Eighty per cent of his markets are U.S. high schools and universities. If there is a 25% tariff, his business will close, so we have to make sure that the government is doing the right thing. That is what we have seen over the last week and a half.
Down in the United States, they talked about our leader, but, honestly, looking at the current government on its last leg, or actually on its last toe, it is really hard to know that it is doing the negotiating for the future of Canada when we do not feel confident in our own economy and our own strength. Therefore, when we are sending team Canada down to the United States, we need to make sure team Canada has some very strong representatives from the Conservative Party. When we become the government, we need to make sure that we have a very strong relationship so people like Jeff in my riding do not lose their entire business because of bad policies and relationships with the United States. It really comes down to the importance of making sure we have those trade relationships, making sure we have good policy, and making sure that our economy will continue to have drive.
Going from those GDP numbers, we have to look at other issues. Here in Canada, we are currently at a birth rate of 1%, which does not replace our Canadian population. We need 2.1% for replacement. For me, I step back and say that I have done my job; I have five kids and I am doing really well. I step back and think, why are other people not having children? For me, it is pretty darn simple. I can sit there and look at my own children. My son, who is 28 years old, is running his own business and I absolutely love what he is doing, but it is difficult starting. As a starter-business owner, he can do a great job, but then he also has to pay for his rent and his food and everything else. For him, it would probably be better right now to get a part-time job and have his actual career on the side so that he can pay for the groceries and pay for rent.
The way that this economy is right now, when people are paying almost $2,000 a month for rent and utilities, it is darn hard to get ahead. I feel bad when I say to my kids that I paid $220 a month in 1991 when I was in university to live in the worst place ever in a London residence when I was at Western University.
I have friends whose children are paying $1,600 a month just to live in a four-bedroom house or apartment. Mine was $220 a month. We have to look at the debt load being applied to our children.
We are seeing a rate of 1% increase. We know that the cost of student debt has increased. In 2014, when people were graduating, it was about $12,800 for student debt. Now in 2024, it is way over $30,000. We are not using the data on the rent increases that we have seen on many of our students who are using the food banks.
Why are we having these issues? It is because we have a government that does not spend wisely and continues to increase our debt for future generations to try to dig out of.
When I am looking at the cost to our students, 10 years ago student debt was a little over $12,000. Now I look at students in 2024 with a $30,000 debt load trying to rent an apartment starting at $2,000. Can members imagine trying to pay off student debt, get food in the cupboards and actually pay the rent. If they wanted a car and insurance, well, holy cow, they would need to be lucky.
I look at the people who live in my riding, which is very rural. People need a car to drive from home to work. There is no public transportation, nor is there really a business plan for that at this time because of the population and how few people would be using that.
We have to look at our children today, who have these exorbitant costs, whether they are paying taxes, and we have this great debt of $1.3 trillion, or whether they are paying for food, and the cost of inflation. It is very difficult for our children to move forward.
I am going to talk about my son who is hopefully going to be a plumber soon. He had taken a few years off school and then decided to go into plumbing. The opportunities for him in plumbing are endless. People say, “Hey, you're an apprentice? Great, we'd love to take you on.” We are looking, all the time, for people to have these opportunities.
I think of my son and the fact is that he will probably have a job in about six months. Fantastic, but I bet it will take a long time for him to actually get out of my basement. After becoming a plumber, how would he pay to get into a house or to rent something, when he still has to buy his food and all of those things? He will be very fortunate because he is not going to have student debt.
That is very unlikely for the majority of the population in this country. He will still have the extraordinary costs of buying tools and supplies. Plumbing is not a cheap job to start off with, so starting his own business will be very difficult.
Once again, the idea of being able to say, “I have got a job. I have graduated from school. I am going to go forward. I am going to get married. I am going to have children. I am going to have that white picket fence,” those dreams that we talked about in the 1980s, they are so gone for this group of people that are part of Generation Z.
It is going to be difficult because when we look at productivity, it is one of our greatest challenges. We are going through a mental health crisis. I urge everybody to read this book that I have read called, The Anxious Generation. It is talking about Gen Z and what they are going through. I love to read it and ask myself, what am I doing, and how am I screwing up my kids?
I was listening to one colleague last night who talked about Dallas and Dynasty. He was talking about the government being very much like that, and having amnesia. Those were good years.
I think of the stress that my own children and all of their friends are looking at in 2024. When I graduated from university, my debt load was probably about $6,000 or $7,000, very minimal compared to what people are going out with now. I was also able to buy a house when I was 25 years old for $122,000. I was also able to get a job and, this is the best part, that paid $12 an hour, but that was okay because it actually paid the bills. That $12 an hour, back in 1993, after graduating, paid the bills. It paid for my house.
Now we have lost hope. We have lost hope for this future. I look at my five kids and I love them to pieces. I do not know how many of them will be moving home when it comes to trying to find affordable living.
That is very difficult for me as a parent, thinking about what I did or did not do to set them up properly. It is not that I do not think I have set them up properly. They have been in great school systems. They have had amazing teachers over the years and amazing opportunities, but when it comes to them actually stepping outside the house, going and buying their own things, trying to create their own credit limit and trying to rent a place, mom and dad are very necessary. That is what we are seeing with this generation: Those in generation Z are really having to depend on their families, their parents. We have a generation of people, my generation, who are not only paying for their own bills but also helping their children out. The children cannot afford to pay for bills right now, with the cost of living and with their own student debts. This is something that we did not see 20 and 30 years ago. We now see that hope lost.
Those are the things that I think of when we are looking at the green slush fund and we are looking at where the government is and asking about what has gone wrong. We can say that it is poor direction, poor administration and poor ideas. There are ideas where we are throwing out money, but we should ask what we are actually sometimes getting in return. We have talked about very many social programs. Some have had a positive impact, and some have had a negative impact. I would really love to see what the cost rationale is for some of these things. For every dollar spent, are we actually leveraging a better Canada, or are we just throwing our money away? Those are the concerns I have.
We look at the birth rate of 1%; we are trying to get a new workforce in this country and not being able to do that. We look at our extravagant student debt load. We look at the rate of people being employed in Canada, which is less than 60% right now; many of those are people paying bills so that other people can have benefits. We are looking at our GDP being at less than 1.25% right now. These things do not give us a lot of hope. They do not give the businesses that are trying to get into business more hope either.
That is why I wanted to talk at the last minute on the green slush fund and what it has done to start-ups. We have seen start-ups that have had to drop 30% of their labour force because what they were doing with the government stopped working. Because of the failure of the government on this technology program, which had been existing for over 20 years, we are now seeing technology companies having to decrease. It has actually taken away the competitive nature that was in place for so many years when it comes to technology in Canada. We have taken that away.
Those are some of the greatest concerns that I have moving forward. In the last 20 minutes, I have spoken about how we have seen nine years of the government creating greater debt and less hope for the next generation. We have seen a lot of stress. I do not see it getting better under the government.
We have talked about there needing to be an election. As everybody knows, I plan on retiring. If there is an election tomorrow, I am praying that we win with a Conservative majority. At the end of the day, we need to ensure that we have good programs and fiscal responsibility to get on track. These are things that I have great concerns about. I do not know whether that will be the case if we continue under the government for the next year that we are scheduled for. I can see that our GDP will only continue to decline, our debt will only increase and our hope will only decrease as well.
