Finance Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

On that point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Baker, just on these points of order, all the members know—

MP Morantz, allow me to just—

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I have not—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

—for the entire committee here and the minister and all those watching, ask you to go back and look at all our meetings to see that I have actually been very flexible on time, and I do allow more time—

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I appreciate that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

—for questions.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

And with that, do I have—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Morantz, on that, what you could take from that comment that I just made was I am very flexible on time.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Just take from that—

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

—and get on to your question and we'll hear from the minister. We have this opportunity right now. Let's seize it.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

And in that spirit, I would like to cede the rest of my time to my colleague, Mr. Perkins.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Perkins.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Minister.

From the last answer, I take it that the blame is on the bank economists, not you for spending too much money. But I'll go on to my question.

I think you said earlier in response to a question on the $12 billion in unallocated spending in this budget that it's to cover things like the Volkswagen $13-billion production subsidy. Could I ask how a production subsidy gets paid in this fiscal year when the plant is not built?

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

Let me respond by asking what the position of the Conservative Party is on our investments—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chair, but that wasn't my question. Since she won't answer the question about the $13 billion....

Your colleague, the Minister of Industry, and you were very bullish on this contract. The minister has said that there is an ROI report that says that within five years there will be a return on investment on the $14 billion. Will you table that report with this committee since the minister at the industry committee basically said he didn't know where the report was?

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

The Minister of Industry is a fantastic colleague and I am very glad to be working with him on bringing investment to Canada, and what Canadians deserve to know is what is the view of the Conservative Party on bringing these essential investments to Canada? Canadians support what we are doing.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

We'll answer that when—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Perkins, we're past time. As I said, I'm flexible on time, so I'm going to allow the minister to answer and then we are moving on to the next questioner.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

We'll answer—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, so allow the minister to answer and then we're moving onto MP Dzerowicz.

Minister.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

I think I have answered. We believe in attracting investment to Canada and Canadians support that. I think Canadians would like to know what the position of the Conservative Party is on that essential issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Morantz and MP Perkins.

Now we go to MP Dzerowicz for five minutes please.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, for joining us today.

Before I get to my first question, I just want to address two things. One is the very thoughtful comments by Mr. Blaikie about your visiting this committee. I put it on record that you have visited us at least four times during this Parliament and you've always shown up for every single BIA. I think it's important for Canadians to be reminded of that.

The other thing I want to address is a comment by Mr. Hallan about out-of-control spending. I think sometimes because so much happens in our lives, we have short memories, but we have come out of an unprecedented global pandemic. When we came out of it, we had an extraordinarily changed geopolitical situation, and I will tell you and remind Canadians that our government absolutely spent a large amount of money. We did that because we had to help Canadians get through COVID. The spending has saved lives, the spending has saved livelihoods, the spending has saved businesses and it's provided a foundation from which our economy has pivoted. We have pivoted and this is why, at this moment, we do have the best debt-to-GDP ratio of the G7 countries, and we've had more than a full recovery of jobs and continue to maintain a AAA credit rating among other things.

I just wanted to put that on the record.

I'll go to my first question. In my riding of Davenport, as is the case in many of our ridings, there are a number of advocacy groups, so I have a huge contingent—and I'm one of them by the way—of climate activists and people who really want our government to move as quickly as possible to achieving our Paris Agreement targets and net zero by 2050.

I also have an equally important and active group who are very passionate about making sure that we continue to have good jobs and a strong economy, because they care not only about themselves, but also about their kids and that those kids in turn will have a strong future.

Can you explain to the residents of Davenport why it's important for us to invest in the clean economy with such substantial investments via the tax credits announced in federal budget 2023, what it means for the Canadian economy moving forward and how that will help us achieve our net zero by 2050 target?