Finance Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[An hon. member]

Two hours for 15 years...

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

Yes, two hours for 15 years...

As I said earlier, her five days of attendance have resulted in a budget that, in five years from now, will cost over half a trillion dollars. That's $100 billion a day for her work. I still am worried that, if she shows up more, that number will go up.

She makes McKinsey look like an austerity organization. What I'd like to say in this effort to find Freeland is that, going forward, the minister needs to be accountable. Moreover, the minister of industry said that there are two or three others that maybe he's willing to do. He's not only spending the money in the fiscal framework, but he's spending it well beyond the fiscal framework.

I can't imagine that even the sanest Liberal in this government thinks they will be in government seven to 15 years from now. They are committing future governments and future taxpayers to subsidize the world's, I believe, largest car manufacturer by revenue, at $413 billion.

Now, getting back to Mr. Blaikie's question—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

It was a good question.

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

It was a good question.

The current Prime Minister's father, as we know, was prime minister off and on for 18 years—

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

That's far too long.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

It was far too much for Canada.

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

I just hope the son thinks he can do that and keeps his name on the ballot the next time. I don't think there's any chance he will, but I think he is our greatest asset.

Going forward, I would think that it would be important for people to understand how we got here financially with this budget and the national debt that's associated with it.

In 1968.... Now, in 1968 I was very young.

[An hon member]

No. Were you born?

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

Yes, I was. I was born. I was born not too many years before that.

In 1968 we had that Trudeaumania thing that happened, apparently. I was more concerned with watching and seeing if the Leafs could win their second Stanley Cup in a row.

[An hon. member]

Yes, you're still waiting.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

How's that working for you?

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

It didn't work out so well for me.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Yes, you're still waiting.

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

In the 1968 election, when asked about whether he would raise taxes or run a deficit, Pierre Trudeau said, the government was no Santa Claus. He said he would not run a deficit and would not increase taxes. He actually said it long before George W. Bush did, with that famous “read my lips” statement of in the 1992, I believe, presidential election against Bill Clinton. Mr. Trudeau said that Santa Claus was not what the Government of Canada is.

What happened after 1968? We had those brief nine months with the Right Honourable Joe Clark as Prime Minister. Then Pierre Trudeau came back in from 1980 to 1984. In that period the father lost the finance minister. His name was John Turner, later to be Prime Minister of Canada for a couple of months. John Turner had incredible passion and belief in the rules of order of the House of Commons.

Let me ask you a question, any representative of the riding of Vancouver Quadra, which coincidentally is currently represented by the Minister of Fisheries. She can see the ocean but no fishermen can afford to live there. It's true. Sorry, it's true.

I say this because John Turner was quite a parliamentarian and respected ministerial accountability to no end, so much so that he resigned from the Trudeau cabinet over philosophical differences. One of them was the desire to deficit spend during the era of 21% interest rates and double-digit inflation in the 1970s, which was called “stagflation”.

[An hon. member]

Define stagflation.

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

I've been asked about stagflation. For those who don't know stagflation, we are discussing the budget. It's possible we could enter into a stagflation era with this. We should really ask the Minister of Finance, in our “finding Freeland exercise”— if we could have a chance to ask her a question—if she believes that $3.1 trillion in spending in the next five years will result in stagflation. Stagflation is when both interest rates and inflation are going up and unemployment is going up, all at the same time.

Pierre Trudeau, in 1974, ran against Robert Stanfield, one of the greatest Nova Scotians in public office we've ever had. The airport in Halifax is named after him. In 1974 Trudeau ran on a solution, which I personally don't agree with, called “wage and price controls”. The government would impose a limit on the increase in prices and wages as a way to control out-of-control spending, and the spending by the government that caused this.

Pierre Trudeau ran around the election—like a "gunslinger", they used to call him—saying, zap! You're frozen. Zap! You're frozen. He was making fun of Robert L. Stanfield, saying he would absolutely never impose wage and price controls, because they were ridiculous.

Mr. Trudeau won a majority government in 1974, from his minority. Guess what the first thing he did in his budget was? I can hear you, but I want you to guess. He brought in wage and price controls. He actually did the opposite—surprisingly, for a Liberal Prime Minister—of what he promised in the campaign. He froze everyone's wages. He froze everyone's prices.

When he finally took those off, it led to some of the problems with the Right Honourable John Turner. When he finally took those off, of course, you know what happens with pent-up demand and pent-up wage demands. We're seeing that now as a result of COVID. We've just seen that with the public service strike. There is pent-up demand and increased demands on wages, as the increased cost of living increases the demand on wages. The giving of increased wages puts more money into the market. More money into the market chasing fewer goods creates more inflation. That's a part of stagflation that I believe we're going to get into.

It would be great to be able to talk to the Minister of Finance about that era and the history of her boss's father and party in creating that in the 1970s—and potentially doing it again—but to go back to Mr. Blaikie's question, that resulted in $468 billion of national debt in 1984.

In 1984, the deficit of Pierre Trudeau, his last deficit—imagine this—was 8.9% of GDP. I don't like communicating with alphabet numbers and percentages, so based on today's gross domestic product—the value of everything we produce in Canada— if we ran a deficit of 8.9% of GDP, do you know what that deficit would be today? Just for one year, it would be $157 billion, and that puts into perspective the legacy of Pierre Trudeau when Brian Mulroney took power. Imagine that.

I guess some were probably saying, “Well, $157 billion, we're rather conservative as a Liberal government, then, in only producing a $44-billion deficit this year.” They would be wrong, because it's those build-ups of deficits that created the situation we were in then and that to get out of took us 20 years.

MP Blaikie, that was the mess in 1984 when Brian Mulroney won that historic election. There were 282 seats in the House of Commons. Do you know how many seats Brian Mulroney won? The Canadian public loved Pierre Trudeau and the Liberal legacy of 18 years so much that Brian Mulroney won 211 of 282 seats. Imagine managing that caucus in government. Boy oh boy, it's tough enough for the Liberals to manage a minority caucus with the NDP in the room. To manage a caucus of 211 people in 282 seats in the House of Commons, both sides of the opposition side, one end and the other, were filled with Conservatives, with the 30- and 40-seat Liberals and NDP in the middle. I don't know if MP Blaikie's father was first elected then, but I'm pretty sure he was elected in that election.

That's the mess they inherited.

MP Blaikie asked about the Mulroney deficits. Well, the key thing in breaking the back of a deficit is to first of all break the structural deficit. We soon will have a growing structural deficit issue in this country once again. We had a massive structural deficit. Do you want to know how bad that structural deficit was? The budget for the government in 1984 was $95 billion. Thirty-eight cents of every dollar the government collected and spent, guess what it went to...? It went to paying interest on Pierre Trudeau's debt.

Can you imagine that now? Thirty-eight per cent of every tax dollar going to pay interest: That was more than health care and defence combined. We know that defence spending was cut. The only thing that was cut under Pierre Trudeau's government was defence spending. It was cut by 50% while hundreds of new programs, initiatives and Crown corporations were created. That's the colossal mess left by the father.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Perkins, we're going to have to suspend at this time for about 15 minutes and take a bio break, a stretch break.

Everybody go and get some air.

MP Perkins, you'll be back in about 15 minutes or so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Let's get it started again.

I think, MP Perkins, you were at mile four.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm curious as to the multiple screens in the offices of our Liberal colleagues if it's the Leafs game or the Prime Minister's speech at the convention that's on the other screen.... Anyway, I'll keep going on this screen.

I was addressing MP Blaikie's question about the financial record of the Mulroney government, which, as I said, was an financial disaster inherited from Pierre Trudeau: a $468-billion national debt, an 8.9%-of-GDP annual deficit and a massive growth in the size of government, not unlike what we've now seen with 80,000 more civil servants being hired.

As I said the other day—being from a fishing riding, it's an example that's close to my heart—there is the growth in the last three years of the fisheries department by 5,000 people. That may not seem like a lot, but the department had only 10,000 to start with and now has15,000. The HR department has doubled and now has 832 people. That's a lot of HR people. I'm being asked about how the service is, and those jobs, lest you think they actually went out to enforcement, which has been like “finding Freeland”—invisible in Atlantic Canada—have gone mostly to head office. They've hired over 1,000 people in corporate strategy and finance, because, of course, finance there apparently has much more money to spend in producing fewer results.

That aside, by the second year of the Mulroney government, his incredible finance minister, one of the nicest and most honourable people you could ever meet, who was also a groundbreaker in Canada in advocating on mental health, the Honourable Michael Wilson, in two short years turned a structural deficit into an operating surplus.

I know that people sometimes get confused about that now, because they'll say, “But he ran a deficit.” Yes, he did, because 38¢ of every dollar was going to pay interest on Pierre Trudeau's debt. The operating surplus was going to try to deal with that issue and, of course, that was made more difficult with the recession that happened in 1991. An important part of that time—I referenced it earlier—has to do with the amendment of MP Blaikie on this issue of ministerial accountability that I've been speaking of for the last little while.

I've got to tell you that one of the people with the most integrity that I've ever seen in the Liberal Party of Canada—and that's not a big search that you can do—was the Right Honourable John Turner. I met John Turner.

Let me tell you about the Right Honourable John Turner. As finance minister, he resigned from Pierre Trudeau's cabinet over the spending and other issues. More importantly, he briefly was Prime Minister of Canada. I think he was the shortest-serving one; I know that some people think it's the Right Honourable Kim Campbell, but I think it's actually John Turner.

[An hon. member]

Joe Clark.

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

No, Joe Clark was Prime Minister for nine months.

John Turner was elected Liberal leader here in Ottawa at the Ottawa Civic Centre at a good old-fashioned delegate convention in June of 1984. I love those delegated conventions. That's what got me interested in politics.

The first convention I ever saw on TV as a young guy—I think I was in junior high—was the 1976 PC Conservative Party delegate convention in Ottawa, where there were 14 candidates running, including a young Joe Clark; a young Brian Mulroney; the former owner of the Edmonton Oilers, Peter Pocklington; a well-known and very respected Quebec politician, Claude Wagner; Jack Horner; Flora MacDonald; and Paul Hellyer. There is a term out of that called the “Flora Syndrome”, which, if you're interested, I can talk about at some point. That's what got me interested in politics: the excitement of watching that on TV as a young guy. Joe Clark soon became the youngest Prime Minister ever. He was 39 in 1979 when he was elected Prime Minister—imagine that...39. He was 36 when he was elected leader of the Conservative party.

In that 1984 convention, John Turner inherited a colossal mess...the poor bugger. It was a mess that Pierre Trudeau had left him. Pierre Trudeau famously made him sign, as part of the transition, a document appointing, surprisingly, a bunch of former ministers, bagmen and campaign workers to somewhere over 58 patronage positions—Senate seats.... Pierre Trudeau didn't have the guts to make them himself, but as part of the transition.... I don't know if it was his refusal to move out of 24 Sussex or what its was that made John Turner say, “I want to live there”. He signed this document, and John Turner signed a document appointing people like Bryce Mackasey, a minister under Trudeau, to the ambassador in Ireland, and all of those things. It was a horrible raft of patronage.

That was the beginning of the downfall. John Turner operated his Prime Minister's Office out of the Château Laurier. He never called Parliament back even though he was probably one of the people who respected Parliament the most. All the great campaign gurus, the “rainmaker” Keith Davey—some of the Liberal party members will actually know that, and if you don't, you should read his books—then senator Keith Davey, those folks all told him he didn't need to bring Parliament back. As an elected leader of the Liberal party, and now as de facto sworn in Prime Minister of Canada, he didn't need to be accountable to Parliament as Prime Minister. He just needed to go on the barbeque circuit. Everybody would love him like they loved Pierre Trudeau in 1968 but not since then.

Pierre Trudeau was smart enough to know that he couldn't defeat the newly elected leader Brian Mulroney in 1984, but John Turner lost that election. As I mentioned earlier, it was the largest victory ever winning 211 of 282 seats. People speculated back then that the Liberal Party and the NDP would become one party. Little did they know that today that has actually happened.

Going forward, what happened to John Turner? I mentioned the Gulf War in 1991 when I talked about my boss at the time. I've had requests to mention her name. She's still alive and still kicking: the Honourable Barbara McDougall, Canada's second woman to be a foreign minister. The Gulf War was launched back then. The Internet was just coming up. We learned it on CNN..

John Turner, by this time, was still in the House of Commons representing Vancouver Quadra, but Jean Chrétien was the leader of the Liberal party. I know I'm educating the Liberals. Some of the Liberals may not know the history of their own party.

When the Gulf War happened, Jean Chrétien, as leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, famously said he had no problem with our troops being in the Middle East even though Iraq invaded the sovereign nation of Kuwait. He had no problem with our troops being over there. However, when the firing started, we would take them back and keep them out of harm's way, because you sure wouldn't want a military to actually fight.

On the night the Gulf War was launched, CNN was covering it. There was a new reporter for CNN. His name was Kent. He is a relation to our former minister Peter Kent. In fact, I think it was his brother. Arthur Kent became known as the “scud stud” as he stood in Baghdad with scud missiles flying over his head while he reported on the launch of the shock and awe campaign in the Gulf War.

John Turner, in terms of ministerial and parliamentary accountability, was an old-fashioned guy who believed that whatever our views were of our troops going to war, and whether or not we should be in it, once we were in it, we supported our troops.

There was an emergency debate in the House that night when the Gulf War broke out. Jean Chrétien was to lead it off for Her Majesty's loyal opposition and went on at great length about how the then prime minister had to remove our troops from harm in the Middle East.

Brian Mulroney, of course, gave an impassioned speech about supporting our allies in the coalition of the willing and about defeating totalitarianism and a leader who had killed his own people, the Kurds, with mustard gas. He said that this was just the right thing to do.

You know what? Sometimes, as a civilized and wealthy nation, that's what we have to do. It's part of our responsibility in the world.

Jean Chrétien would not allow the former prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party, John Turner, to speak in the House of Commons in that emergency debate. He wouldn't let him because he knew that John Turner, as the former leader, would get up and contradict him about what the Liberal Party should do, because John Turner would stand up and say that we have to be with our troops.

John Turner did make a speech that night in the House. For those of you who are interested in parliamentary rules and how you go about that, the deputy prime minister of the government of the day was one of the greatest Albertans ever, the Honourable—actually, later to become “Right Honourable”—Donald Mazankowski. John Turner had a chat with the former deputy prime minister for Canada, Don Mazankowski, and told him of his situation and his desire to speak.

The former deputy prime minister of Canada got up to speak in this emergency debate on the launch of the Gulf War, and about a minute into his speech said that, by the way, Mr. Speaker, I'm sharing my time with the member for Vancouver-Quadra. Jean Chrétien was sitting in the seat of the leader of the opposition. It's 11 seats down from the Speaker and is the seat that our leader and the next prime minister currently holds, only temporarily, because he'll be 11 seats down on the right side of the Speaker in the not-too-distant future.

Jean Chrétien did one of these—and I know that if you're watching you can see this—and whipped his head around, like “Holy”.... I can't say. It probably would be unparliamentary. Maybe he said, “Holy fuddle duddle.” Turner got up and did the honourable thing in Parliament as a member of Parliament, as a person with independence, a person who believed you had to be accountable to Parliament, and said that he was supporting our troops.

That was the integrity of the man. It's the integrity of the place that a former leader and former Liberal prime minister placed on the role of Parliament and the role of prime ministers, the role of MPs and the role of ministers in respecting that institution, and on when you made decisions, how you had debates and the importance of those debates.

[An hon. member]

And your own portfolio....

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

Yes, your own portfolio as well.

I'm shocked, quite frankly, that the Minister of Finance of today doesn't seem to have the same attitude as the former minister of finance for Pierre Trudeau in terms of the role and the accountability of the ministers to Parliament and to parliamentary committees, and I'll tell you why.

I've held up this document a couple of times. This is called “Open and Accountable Government, 2015” and was published with much fanfare by the Prime Minister—by the Privy Council Office—when this was a new, fresh-faced government. You remember those days: the “sunny ways” days.

In the sunny ways days, this document read, “Open and Accountable Government”, and for the translators, I will first go to the first page as a summary explanation of what the document says. That was the title in 2015. We all know that this is a bit of a fantasy document now given the performance—perhaps more non-fiction or fiction. It depends on your perspective. I think it's found in the science fiction/fantasy section of a bookstore now.

Here's what the first paragraph explains about the importance of this document:

Open and Accountable Government sets out core principles regarding the roles and responsibilities of Ministers in Canada's system of responsible parliamentary government. This includes the central tenet of ministerial responsibility, both individual and collective, as well as Ministers' relations with the Prime Minister and Cabinet, their portfolios and Parliament.

It outlines standards. As it says here:

It outlines the standards of conduct expected of Ministers—including accountability and ethical guidelines—and addresses a range of administrative, procedural, and institutional matters.

It also provides guidance to ministerial exempt staff and useful information. It goes on. There are letters from the Prime Minister. There are introductions. It's quite robust. It has all kinds of buzz words which we like. It talks about ethics, open access, and the importance of Parliament and ministerial accountability. There's fundraising and dealing with lobbyists. I don't think members read that section that much, or Pomp & Circumstance may not have got the untendered contracts which they got. This document set out lofty goals. It's the type of document which was referred to in my earlier remarks. I would encourage all of our people looking at this to read it.

Before I go to reading the mandate letter of the Minister of Finance, and I know everyone is riveted and probably curious as to what it said, Mr. Chair, I would like to move to adjourn.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Is there any further discussion, as I still have a list here?

[An hon. member]

No.