Finance Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[An hon. member]

That's good growth.

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

That's probably what the growth fund is aimed at: getting at more government growth like that. Apparently, they needed a fund to help them grow the fisheries department from 10,000 to 15,000. By the way, over 1,000 of those jobs were, shockingly, in Ottawa, bringing the grand total of HR people in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to over 832, and over 1,000 people in its finance department. With this kind of growth in people, there are a lot of paycheques to manage. You need to have more HR and finance people to process all of those additional people.

Division 33 is “Legislation Related to Financial Institutions”. I know division 34.... Everybody here will agree that I always expect, in a budget bill, to see Criminal Code amendments. Criminal Code amendments are essential for balancing the budget in Canada. That's why, apparently, this omnibus bill thinks that is directly related to the budget on the Criminal Code. There are amendments to the Employment Insurance Act in division 35 and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 in division 36. Division 37 has amendments to another act, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act. Now, you may say, “That's a budget item”, but why isn't that its own...if this government opposed, as it said in 2015, all omnibus bills?

We're not speaking to whether or not previous governments used omnibus bills, because we're now at eight years and there are only so many years one can claim, “The dog ate my homework—it's Stephen Harper's fault I did an omnibus bill”. I don't know why Stephen Harper is responsible for this omnibus bill. Apparently, the Liberals can't think on their own and have to say that Stephen Harper made them do it. It's sort of like—I'm going to show my age again—Flip Wilson in the seventies, when the devil made him do it.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

In this evolution of moving from “finding Freeland” to "freeing Freeland", I sure think it would be interesting to understand why the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation needs to be in this, as opposed to its own act.

Let's talk about the employment insurance board of appeal. This is a new body. I know that members will be shocked to learn that the Liberals have created yet another new body.

I've lost track already of all of the things I've mentioned here, from the CEIC to the Canada growth fund, to.... Well, I'm losing track.

The employment insurance board of appeal is a new board that they've created. Apparently, you can't pass by a budget without at least a half a dozen new bodies and agencies.

Also, of course, I always think—always—when I think of a budget, of amendments to the Canada Elections Act. It's essential that a budget have Canada Elections Act changes in it in order to ensure that it runs 130 billion dollars' worth of debt in the next five years.

There is no pretext of a balanced budget, as MP Morantz said, in the economic statement.

In the three times that the minister has been invited since the economic statement, she has blown this committee off, and that's one of the reasons why, if you'll forgive me, we are skeptical that the commitment that she will appear, as genuine as it is from government members, that the minister herself, who only showed up for six times, will appear—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I have a point of order from MP Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Just on a quick point of order, I want to thank the member for mentioning the EI appeal board. Based on his comments the other day, I thought that maybe he had misread and thought it was an “eel appeal board”, so I'm glad to see that he is reading the legislation properly and that we're talking about things that are actually in the bill.

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

I appreciate that, and I am sure the employment insurance appeal board will go after “eel-legal" things in the act.

Mr. Chair, these are just some of the reasons that this is a huge piece of legislation and that we need to see the minister for two hours. I noticed that the government members have refused to commit to two hours.

I'll just remind members and, for the sake of the interpreters, the minister's mandate letter was signed by the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau on December 16, 2021. It says here on Prime Minister's Office letterhead:

Dear Minister Freeland: Thank you for continuing to serve Canadians as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

If I go to the bottom of page 2 of that letter, if you'll bear with me, I'll just read these very important words that the Prime Minister instructed the Minister of Finance to follow:

The success of this Parliament will require Parliamentarians, both in the House of Commons and the Senate, to work together across all parties to get big things done for Canadians.

As I said last time, it doesn't say big and little things, just big things. The big things and big government are the things that we get done. We don't worry about passports or approving health cards so that we don't have a shortage of pilots. We don't worry about the little things like immigration approvals while we now have 2.2 million and visas and processes. We don't worry about those little things. We just worry about the big things done for Canadians. It's very impressive language.

I've always maintained, by the way, that the first priority of any government is to look after the ante up at the poker game. If you're a municipal government, and you're not providing adequate fire service, don't bother me with bike lanes until you've got adequate fire service. It's the same for the federal government. Unless you're delivering the basic services that Canadians expect, all those other nice-to-do things that are contained in the 42 or so acts that this thing either creates or amends should be done first.

The Prime Minister goes on to say:

I expect you to maintain constructive relationships with your Opposition Critics and coordinate any legislation with the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

I assume she did that with this bill, or we wouldn't have it here today.

This is the really important part of this mandate letter from the Prime Minister to the Minister of Finance. This is a critical part about what we're talking about today, which is ministerial accountability:

As Minister, you are accountable to Parliament both individually, for your style of leadership and the performance of your responsibilities, and collectively, in support of our Ministry and decisions taken by Cabinet.

It then goes onto reference this document from 2015 called “Open and Accountable Government”. The letter continues that this document "sets out the rules and core principles both in standards of conduct expected of you as Minister of Finance and your office."

If you do as the Prime Minister says.... The Prime Minister says here:

I expect you to familiarize yourself with this document, which outlines my expectations for each member of the Ministry.

Just recall from that document that it says that ministers must be available to answer questions in Parliament, and that is the root of the question here, that MP Blaikie's original amendment and the subamendment propose two hours, not one hour, and we can't seem to get a commitment on the two hours. Two hours is a small price to pay. We do know that the minister is busy.

I'll give you an example of the minister's recent schedule this past weekend. The minister this past weekend had two very important appointments, very important appointments. This past weekend, she was at the Shaw Centre not far from here, and I suggested in the previous meeting that perhaps we reconvene this committee at the Shaw Centre in order to give the minister a greater amount of convenience to show up, because she was at the Shaw Centre for the weekend. The minister had on the first day of her meetings there a keynote conversation, a fireside chat, so to speak, with Hillary Rodham Clinton, former senator and first lady. I know that it was a big and important meeting, because I'm told by the media reports that the Minister of Finance was almost moved to tears by this.

I'll tell you what moves me to tears. It's a $490-billion budget, the biggest in Canadian history, other than during COVID. It's a $490-billion budget that never projects a balanced budget and says we're going to spend $130 billion and add more to the debt, so that the two Trudeaus combined, senior and junior, will have added $1.1 trillion in debt. That's what moves me to tears. It's that and thinking about the future generations of Canadians who are going to have to pay for that long beyond any of us are even still here on this earth.

That was an important hour-long conversation. It was probably equivalent to the only amount of time the minister is willing to spend at this committee. Apparently, she's willing to spend an hour here. It was said she spent at least an hour. I think the proper pronunciation in the past is that she spent a maximum of an hour in this committee.

We're simply asking that the time that she gave for two panels at the convention on the weekend be allocated to her $490 billion budget. The second panel, which I'm sure was just riveting, had a big crowd. I don't think it made her cry, but it made me cry just reading the title because of its “wokeness”. It was called “Made-in-Canada: Innovation for middle class jobs and a cleaner economy”.

I'm sure there was great insight in that. Insights like that led party members of the Liberal Party to pass a resolution—I'm sorry. They defeated a resolution. They did not pass a resolution. They defeated a resolution, perhaps bravely put forward by some Liberal Party members, that they should have a plan at some date to balance the budget.

The collective Liberals in the room—including, presumably, all of the caucus members here—said, “Absolutely not. We don't ever want to balance the budget. We think it's perfectly fine to spend forever and ever on the credit card.”

I'd love to see the way each one of those Liberals runs their own personal house finances. I'm sure that when the bank calls and says, “You owe us money on your mortgage or your credit card,” they say, “Don't worry about it. I don't need to worry about that. We can keep doing that. Increase my limit. Just increase my limit.”

The $130 billion...that's a big number. We're now in the position that by the end of this five-year projection in this budget, the debt servicing costs alone are going to be more than what the government transfers to the provinces in health care. It's more important to pay interest to bankers by increasing the debt for those inputs with little outputs.

Is your health care any better?

[An hon. member]

No.

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

Are your roads any better?

[An hon. member]

No.

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

Are your passport abilities any better? Is your employment insurance any better? Are any of these things any better for Canadians?

Better yet, is your cost of living better?

[An hon. member]

No.

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

I don't think your cost of living is better. I think we continue to have record inflation rates. People are struggling. I hear it every day, as every member of Parliament does.

I would remind the minister what the Prime Minister said, which is you need to answer questions. I've heard questions around this issue of two hours. Wow, that's a lot of time, two hours, I have to tell you.

Ministers don't always necessarily come, apparently. I sit on two other committees. I can tell you that Minister Champagne and Minister Murray have come to those committees every time we've asked. They've never missed a meeting. They've never, ever missed a meeting.

In fact, on the two-hour issue, Minister Champagne has agreed to come to the industry committee to talk for two hours, which will not be a problem for him. It won't be a problem for him on the Volkswagen contract. Unfortunately, for those of you watching today, you won't be able to watch it because the government only agreed to it if we could do it in camera. What that means is in secret. They don't want to defend the contract, but he's agreed to come for two hours. He's a very amiable guy.

I agree with MP Morantz. I had hope yesterday, when I saw the sixth appearance of the minister in the House this year, in our “finding Freeland” effort. It was like the black bears had come out of hibernation. I thought, let's see if she's there today. That will be good. Maybe she won't be. That would be seven. That would be a record, because I don't think the minister has actually been there for two days in a row. This would be some sort of new record for the Minister of Finance.

On the issue of ministerial accountability, which this is about, just to help the translators follow, I began the last meeting by helping members of this committee understand the importance of these two hours by outlining a document from the Treasury Board of Canada. That's the government department that is responsible for deciding on the actual spending. Once the budget lays out the spending, Treasury Board does spend the actual money.

The document is entitled “Meeting the Expectations of Canadians: Review of the Responsibilities and Accountabilities of Ministers and Senior Officials”. I began reading from this excellent document, and I will now take up where I left off the other night. I know that members have been anxiously waiting for me to continue this part of my presentation.

In order to ensure that the translators can follow, I will start on page 5, where I left off. I won't go through the first four pages, although they were very enlightening, about accountability and ministers' roles. I will start off at the bottom of page 5 with the section about the goal of an accountable regime. I'm not keen on the word “regime”, but maybe it applies to this government. It's more a regime than it is a government of the people.

This section of the important Treasury Board document begins, “The government must be accountable for both the policies it sets and the means by which it implements them.” That's sort of at the heart of Mr. Blaikie's motion. That's why we want the minister there. “However, the area of particular concern in the current context”—the context of this document—“is the responsibility and accountability of ministers and senior officials for matters of financial administration and management in policy implementation.” I'll read that again, because that is what this budget implementation bill is about. The context is the “responsibility and accountability of ministers and senior officials for matters of financial administration and management in policy implementation.”

A budget is the culmination, the coming together, of both financial administration and policy development and direction. That's why that's important. “This report, therefore, focusses on responsibility and accountability for financial administration. In this regard, the accountability regime under our system of responsible government must do the following [things]”. Those things are in bullet points.

I am tempted, every time “ministerial” or “accountability” comes up, to say that I should spell those words for folks, because I'm not sure they're getting them. We may have to get to that in this discussion, but for now I'll go to the first bullet point under what is set out by the Treasury Board. They are to “provide assurance to Parliament”—to Parliament—“and Canadians of the government’s proper use of lawful authorities and public resources”.

A budget implementation bill is at the heart of providing assurances to Parliament and Canadians of the government's proper use of lawful authorities and public resources. This is what a budget bill is about. You come before Parliament. You get questioned before Parliament on how you're going to spend citizens' money. That's why we need her here for only two hours in “freeing Freeland”. I know the freeing Freeland exercise, because I'm sure in the “finding Freeland” effort, with the minister attending the House yesterday, she wants to be free from these shackles of PMO control in order to defend a budget that makes me cry but that I assume makes her proud. I'm not sure why never balancing the budget would make her proud, but it seems to make this particular minister proud to never balance the budget.

It's pretty easy in a cabinet to be the finance minister if the only word you say to your cabinet colleagues is “yes”. The hardest part of the finance minister's job is actually saying “no”, just like it is to your children: No, you can't do that; just because your friend jumped off the roof, it doesn't mean that you should. These are the things parents say to their kids, right? Apparently, we never say those things in the current Liberal cabinet. We say things like, yes, you can have and create yet another ministry.

I know that ISED, as it's called, the industry department, only has about $16 billion in expenditure this year, but apparently they needed more.

They needed to create two more mediocre agencies that would have the same performance as the Infrastructure Bank.

The second item here says, “In this regard, the accountability...under our...responsible government” includes that you “must do the following” things. You must “reinforce all parties’ compliance with established legal requirements and management policies and practices”.

We know how diligently the Liberal government has followed that because we know how many sole-source contracts to friends this government has given out. It clearly reinforces “compliance with established legal requirements and management” to the point they believe that compliance and meeting legal requirements is such an essential part of the genetics of this cabinet that they continue to apologize in the House for giving sole-source contracts to friends and to campaign managers who they used to work with, and other close friends.

Then there's McKinsey. We've spoken about that before. A $490 billion budget means that, if the minister appears for two hours, it would be a $250 billion hour-long appearance. If she appears for the full two hours, that's $490 billion that her appearance will cost the taxpayers. Like I've said before, and I'll say it again, those rates would even make McKinsey blush. Those are extensive, high billing rates. I'm sure McKinsey would be willing to take the minister on, in her post-ministerial life, into a new role to help coach them on how to get such high billing rates for their work and performance.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor] Mr. Bains.

[Perkins]

I was just reminded of the current Minister of Industry's predecessor, the “minister for lowering cellphone rates”, Mr. Bains, who before the ink was even dry on his two-year cooling off period after leaving Parliament went to work for the highest-cost cellphone provider in the world—Rogers—as the fellow in charge of their government relations. The minister was responsible for reducing cellphone rates. As we know, when he left before the last election, Rogers had the highest rates in the world. I guess the reward for such incredible performance of a minister is a nice, cushy job in the Bloor and Church office of Rogers. I'm sure he has a beautiful view of the Toronto skyline out that window. He gets to oversee the communications.

I'll remind you that he went from being a vice-chair at CIBC, which is one of Canada's largest banks—I'm sure it was not paying a minimum wage—to now at Rogers. I can only imagine what he got paid by Rogers within days of his “conflict of interest ink” drying on his two-year waiting period. I can only imagine what he got paid. Perhaps his pay would even make McKinsey blush, but it certainly wouldn't make the Minister of Finance blush at the amount she charges.

Under the Treasury Board's “Review of the Responsibilities and Accountabilities of Ministers and Senior Officials”, the third item on the top of page six is—and bear with me, this won't take long. I only have about 50 pages more—to “promote a culture and practice of continuous improvement of governance and administration in the Public Service.”

I guess that's why we had a public service strike: the promotion of a culture and practice of continuous improvement of governance and administration. I think the only improvement we've seen is 80,000 new jobs. Having more gets you less—I think that's the slogan now of the Treasury Board minister. Perhaps she should also be called before this committee. Perhaps we might move a subamendment at some time on that to understand why the Treasury Board minister thinks it's so important for the federal government to grow by 80,000 people since this government was elected.

On the top of page 6 it says, “The accountability regime must therefore be marked by at least three core features”. This is critical in ministerial accountability. Number one is “well-defined roles and responsibilities, where those with authority have the capacity to carry out their duties”. I'm presuming that the ministers have the capacity to carry on their duties even though, since January, there have only been six appearances.

You know, it's sort of like Groundhog Day and waiting for the groundhog to come out. In my riding, we actually bring out a lobster in Shelburne County. It's a lobster we bring out that shows its shadow. Unlike the groundhog, no matter what the lobster predicts, we throw the lobster in a pot and eat it. We don't put it back in.

The best lobsters in the world are from the south shore and western shore of Nova Scotia, the winter fishery, which only has a few weeks left, by the way, if you're interested in some of the best lobster in the world. Then it moves on to the summer lobster, which are good but they're not as good.

The second point under accountability is that the regime must therefore be marked by at least three core features. It says a credible process of rendering an account where those with responsibility answer for their performance—let me spell that a-n-s-w-e-r—answer for their performance against the standard of what they were expected to do.

How are we doing on that, and how can we ask the minister, if the minister isn't willing to come for two hours, about why in the fall economic statement 2022, which she signed and tabled in Parliament, the budget projection is for a $4.5 billion surplus in 2027? Actually it projects for this year coming up, 2022-23, a deficit of $30.6 billion, but lo and behold, in this document only six months later, and in this massive omnibus bill, the result of that is that the Minister of Finance is projecting a $43 billion deficit this year, in only six months.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Perkins, could you just mark the point that you're at right now because we're going to be suspending and we'll be back after QP and votes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Members, we are back.

Looking at the list, MP Perkins had the floor. Then I have MP Morantz, MP Lawrence and MP Morantz again.

MP Perkins, go ahead.

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

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. It's great to be back after the question period break. I was pleased to see that, in the House of Commons in question period, the minister who was answering my questions about our subject at hand pronounced “elvers” correctly. That made me happy.

For those who are just joining us, we're having a discussion about a motion by MP Beech, that's been amended by MP Blaikie, to have the Minister of Finance appear for two hours before clause-by-clause. That was subsequently amended again, specifically striking, as I recall, after Mr. Blaikie's paragraph (h), so that it would now read as follows:

h) That the Minister of Finance be invited to appear for two hours....provided that, if the Minister of Finance has not appeared by May 18, 2023 amendments to Bill C-47, notwithstanding subparagraph (b)(i), be submitted to the clerk in both official languages no later than 11:00 a.m. ET the business day following the Minister appearing at Finance committee for a duration of no less than 2 hours.

The budget implementation act, Bill C-47, amends 51—count them—acts of Parliament. It's what otherwise is called, in parliamentary language, an “omnibus” bill. It amends some elements of what is required, or all the financial elements that are required, in a budget, but many, many additional acts, from the Criminal Code to what the symbol of the King's crown will look like in Canada—a very important element for the budget. One of the reasons we need to get the Minister of Finance here....

A colleague who mentioned earlier that the minister has now been in the House six times since January was feeling optimistic that the minister may have turned a new leaf and would be considering appearing more often in Parliament and being held to account. This is really what this is about. With the minister's appearance in question period yesterday, he held out some optimism for today. Alas, he was mistaken.

The question is that the minister spent time here on the weekend, as we know, meeting with friends like Hillary Clinton, but not having the time to commit...although she is committing, apparently. We're told that perhaps, by some sort of communiqué here, she will commit to coming next week, but will not commit to coming for two hours. When you're spending over $490 billion in one year in a budget, and you're spending $3.1 trillion over the five years of the fiscal framework, then we don't think it is a great deal to ask for the minister to spend two hours with a very congenial group of members of Parliament asking questions. Presumably the Deputy Prime Minister is in very fine form in terms of the knowledge of the details of the 51 acts that the minister is proposing to spend.

Just in case the folks who are watching this aren't fully up to speed, let me summarize a few of the financial elements of this piece of legislation.

[An hon. member]

Go for it.

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

As I said, the budget, over the next five years, has set cumulative spending of $3.1 trillion. By the way, that's a record in a five-year fiscal framework plan. These numbers, to be believed, require a few other things to happen. Remember, only six months ago the same minister who predicted that we would have a balanced budget at the end of the fiscal framework is now projecting no balanced budget in sight and is adding $130 billion of debt to the national debt of the country. That's if you assume that in future budgets—in the next year, for example—they don't decide to spend a single dollar more than they pledged to spend in this one.

I think there's very little expectation that this government will not use the opportunity of perhaps a Speech from the Throne or an economic statement in the fall, followed by another budget, to have more spending added to this. But right now what that means is at the end of this fiscal framework we'll have a record national debt of an astounding almost $1.4 trillion. We're hearing in the news today about President Biden holding emergency meetings about the fact the United States is now at their debt ceiling. Many don't think perhaps that we have one, but we do have a debt ceiling. With our debt ceiling the maximum amount we're allowed to have right now is $1.8 trillion. At the spending rate of this government, I expect within this mandate we're going to be facing the same problem of reaching a debt ceiling issue for Canada.

Those are big numbers, but what affects Canadians every day is what's going on in the daily budget. The interest on the debt—like your credit card you have to pay interest on anything you borrow—this government has managed to build up will rise from $44 billion today to $50 billion in five years. That's if you're to believe their interest rate calculations.

The budget document outlines interest rate calculations, and, for example, it suggests that next year interest rates will be 6.2%. The first quarter projection from the Bank of Canada is that by that period of time, in the first quarter of next year, interest rates will actually be 6.6%. We're only a month past the budget and the minister's financial projections on what the interest rate will be are already incorrect according to the Bank of Canada. That will drive up the costs of borrowing and the costs of that debt.

That debt is more than we spend on health care from the federal government. Think about that. All of that money could be going to improve our health care. We know in the province where I live, a province of a million people, we have a waiting list of 142,000 people waiting for a doctor. They can't get a primary doctor to get access. If you don't have a general practitioner doctor, you don't have access to the health care system. Imagine what $44 billion to $50 billion could do, instead of paying interest on debt, to improve that. It might actually help us meet our 2% target for NATO, which we are declining on.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

We're not hitting that?

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

We're not hitting the 2% target on NATO. We're not even close. We're about 1% of the target. We're dropping.

So the issue going forward is, in a more unstable world, with not only what Russia is doing but potential aggression from China, we have to be investing more and more in our defence spending if we're going to be a defender of democracy around the world.

Now $50 billion in interest, in that context, is actually $10 billion more than we spend on our entire defence policy, it's $10 billion more than we spend on national defence. There are a lot of better things we could be doing with that interest rate than giving it to bankers in Canada, taxpayer money, rather than doing this.

This is the legacy of the Trudeau family. Pierre Trudeau, when he was Prime Minister—and left office in 1984—had accumulated $468 billion of national debt. It seems small, but that's on a budget of about $95 billion a year. The deficit that he left was 8.9% of GDP; in other words, that would be like $157 billion today.

Liberals are projecting inflation to be at 3.5% this year. Right now it's at a little over 5%. The Bank of Canada is saying interest rates are likely to be 6.2% by next year. So the Liberal projections on interest rates, obviously, are way off in this budget. In order for the government to meet this 3.5% target by July, which is only a few weeks away, interest rates...or inflation is going to have drop. Sorry, I shouldn't say “interest rates”, inflation will drop to 3.5%. In order for that to happen, inflation has to drop to 2% by July in order to get 3.5% for the year. That's not likely to happen. We're tracking at a little over 5%.

The $3.1 trillion in spending adds gasoline to the fire of inflation that we have. It's likely to be inflationary, as is Joe Biden's oxymoronically named Inflation Reduction Act, where actually the U.S. government is spending a trillion dollars. That's actually inflationary and not inflation reduction, but apparently Democrats need a lesson in basic economics and math as well.

Guess how much federal spending was in the last year of the Harper government?

[An hon. member]

How much?

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

It was $280 billion.

[An hon. member]

That sounds like a lot.