It is, in fact, the Liberals who are politicizing the Bank of Canada by using the bank as an ATM to fund government spending.
I would note that the Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Bank of Canada went out on the same day to say mutually supporting things on the actions of the bank. On the one hand, the minister said she wants to borrow for the long run by selling long-term bonds. Within hours, the central bank governor went out and said that he wants to lend by purchasing long-term bonds, effectively fulfilling the borrowing demands of the government. The central bank is now on track to owning half of the government's debt with almost no scrutiny.
The bank admits that its actions are inflating asset prices and has admitted that the people who are at the top of the economic ladder, the very rich, are going to benefit from that. The bank has also admitted that, if this action, which is to print money, leads to inflation, as has been the case in the past, it would be especially painful for the poorest among us. The poorest people in the country will pay the most for inflation, because their wages will be devalued, and the cash that they use as a larger share of their source of transactions will be devalued with it.
There is a very serious chance of a major wealth transfer from the working poor to the wealthiest 1%, something that runs opposite to the government's purported claim that it wants to redistribute money back down to the poor and middle class. Remember the middle class and those working hard to join it? How quickly they forgot about those folks. They're bragging in this fall economic update that they're going to bring in a $50 million tax on stock options, supposedly to redistribute wealth. Fifty million dollars is not even a rounding error for the massive sum of money they are pumping into financial markets through this quantitative easing program.
According to Bloomberg News, in Canada the wealthiest 15 billionaires have seen their net worth raise 32% since the pandemic began. That is even the case for those who are in sectors that have not done well in the pandemic. Why is that? It is because their assets are being inflated by the central bank's actions, actions that it proposes to continue indefinitely without limit.
We're told that we're not even allowed to ask questions about this. When I asked the minister, “To whom is the central bank accountable?”, she said, “The people.” Well, we are the people's representatives, so why is it that we, the people, cannot see the data on this massive movement of currency? This is our money. It doesn't belong to the governor of the central bank. It doesn't belong to any one person. It belongs to every single Canadian.
The idea that it's somehow an intrusion into the independence of the bank to ask it to publish information about its transactions in public markets is insane. That would be like saying that it's an intrusion for government to publish details of how it spends tax dollars. Of course it's not. The money belongs to the people, and the people deserve to know the facts.
What I'm asking for is the same kind of detail that corporations would publish in their quarterly reports. These transactions have all happened in public markets, but they're very difficult to track, because they're so large in scale and it's very difficult to match up what bonds the central bank sold with the ones it purchased. The bank has the expertise to perform these calculations and transactions, and if it chooses not to, then the Parliamentary Budget Officer could do so instead.
There are reasonable people who support the central bank interventions. I happen to have my criticisms, but I respect those who have told me that they believe the bank is doing the right thing. You're entitled to your opinion, and a reasonable, thoughtful person could arrive at that perspective.
I am not proposing a motion to condemn the central bank or to disagree with the decisions it has made. I will do that in another forum. I'm also not asking committee members to render a judgment for or against what the bank has done. I'm simply asking for the information about what its done to be public so that Canadians can judge for themselves.
You can support a program while simultaneously believing that the details and numbers of that program should be transparent to all. I supported the Harper government's decision to increase funding for the armed forces, but I also supported publishing all of the details of where that money went, how it was used and what we got for it. I supported infrastructure investments when we were in government, and I believe that all of those investments should be published and that Canadian taxpayers should be able to decide whether the money was well spent.
As the Prime Minister said, sunlight is the best disinfectant, so let's shine the light on this and let Canadians judge for themselves. Maybe we will get the information back and it will show that everything was above board and perfectly executed and that the bankers deserve a pat on the back. Maybe not, though. There's only way to find out, and that's to get the data.
If the government has nothing to hide, then its committee members here will do as the minister suggested and vote to ask the Bank of Canada for this information.