I'm overwhelmed by two votes of confidence in my presentation in the space of a few minutes. Thank you, colleagues. It's overwhelming and I'm almost brought to tears by it, as the Minister of Finance was almost brought to tears by the presentation by former senator Hillary Clinton on the weekend. It doesn't quite bring me to tears, but the budget brings me to tears when I think of what it's going to cause the generations to come to have to pay.
As I went over before a couple of these respites here, my view is that the Liberal government's inflation tax—which I outlined all the reasons for—is eating into the paycheques of the middle class at an alarming, alarming rate that is causing people severe problems. There are real-world consequences of the reckless decisions, including personal ones. I would like to understand whether the Minister of Finance in her budget allocations for the Privy Council Office did budget $6,000 a night for hotel rooms in London. We don't know about the latest one. That was for the Queen's funeral. I'm sure the Prime Minister, while he was there for King Charles' coronation, stayed in the Holiday Inn, and Katy Perry may have been there. The $9,000 a night for a holiday in Jamaica wouldn't have been in the budget because it was a free gift to the Prime Minister.
I'm sorry. That would probably be an inappropriate question for the Minister of Finance. She would not have budgeted for that because that would mean that the Prime Minister either had taxpayers pay for it or perhaps he paid for it himself, neither of which happened. Instead, the Prime Minister chose a family friend to room with at $9,000 a night.
Instead of creating more cash, the cash that people need, and more of what cash buys, we have the situation in which paycheques are stretched and have less buying power. When we are empowered, however, that of course will change and we'll remove government gatekeepers and we'll get more homes built and we'll cut the carbon tax and reduce the cost of living.
You'd think those were just buzzwords. As I said, let me just take a moment, if I may, to quote from the report, for the first quarter of 2023, called “Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations”, from the Bank of Canada—the independent monetary adviser and manager for our country, which has no oar in the water and no stick in the game of this decision on public policy, on fiscal policy in a political, partisan way.
Let me just read some of this to you. These are the results of the first-quarter survey, volume 4.1, April 3, 2023. This survey on consumer confidence took place between January 27 and February 16, 2023, and there were some follow-up interviews to round this report out, which were done in March, so not that long ago.
These are quotes from this report, from the overview, first of all: “Most consumers think the Bank's ability to get inflation back to target is hampered by high government spending.” The public is smart. They see what's going on. The Bank of Canada's report goes on to say, “High inflation and rising interest rates are putting pressures on consumers—and particularly on mortgage holders.” This is not me. This is not our leader. This is the Bank of Canada, and this budget is key to this in terms of pouring $3.1 trillion on the gasoline fire of the Liberal Party inflation.
The report goes on to say, “Most Canadians see a recession as the most likely scenario for the economy.” So the record increases, the 35% increase in food bank usage, is not a record they aspire to. They have generated such confidence in Canadian consumers that Canadian consumers actually think that in the next 12 months we're going to be in a recession, and who am I to disagree with that? I think they're absolutely right. The people are always right and they have a sense of what's going on first, even if the government does not.
Moreover, “Respondents expect inflation to slow for goods, such as gasoline and vehicles.” We haven't seen that yet.
It continues:
But while their inflation expectations for goods have fallen, consumers continue to be frustrated by high food prices at grocery stores. One respondent said, “Food prices create a lot of stress“ and “this bothers me the most.” Another said, “Even the prices for specials are too high.”
And isn't that right?
It goes on to say:
Many also think that high government spending, including spending following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic
—following the outbreak of COVID, not during COVID—
may affect the Bank’s ability to get inflation to target for three years or more.
That's a pretty pessimistic view that people have, that the government spending...and remember, at the time that this survey of consumers was done by the Bank of Canada, they hadn't seen this budget. They're still thinking that they should believe what the Minister of Finance said in the economic statement, that within five years we would have a balanced budget, and they were still feeling pessimistic about what would happen on government spending.
But let me repeat that again. Imagine, though, what that would be if they had done the survey now and found out that not only does the Minister of Finance not ever project a balanced budget, but the Liberal Party passed a policy ordering them to never have a balanced budget. It blows my mind. So that's why, as this says,
Many also think that high government spending, including spending following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, may affect the Bank’s ability to get inflation to target for three years or more.
That's a pretty sorry state of things. The report then goes on, and I am sparing you a lot of other things that are very good reading in this and I would encourage everyone, especially the government members of Parliament, to read it. It goes on to say, under the title “The impact of monetary policy on spending is broadening to services”, the following:
High inflation is negatively impacting household finances, and rising interest rates are adding pressure. Compared with how consumers viewed their financial positions during the 2017–18 cycle of policy rate tightening, more than twice as many now say they are financially worse off. Consumers also feel that they are less able to access credit and that the chance they will default on their borrowing has increased. Some Canadians—particularly Indigenous people and holders of variable-rate mortgages—are more likely than others to say they are negatively affected.
So this is the Bank of Canada's survey of consumers who are saying they are worse off today than they were in 2017 or 2018. Now I know members of Parliament always care about re-election. That's something that should stick in the craw of Liberal MPs. If they want to get re-elected, they're going to have to face an electorate that actually thinks they're worse off than they were before the 2019 election, let alone the balanced budget halcyon days of 2015 with the Harper government.
The Bank of Canada goes on to say this in their consumer report that just came out in April:
Consumers are noticing the impacts of high inflation and rising interest rates on their spending plans. And these impacts are broadening to include spending on services. About one-third of consumers expect to travel less often, eat out less often and enjoy fewer paid entertainment or social activities in the next 12 months than they did in the previous 12 months.
And we know from other reports that on the lower end of the income scale people are actually putting water in milk for their children and they're choosing which bill to pay each period because they can't pay all their bills every month like they used to only a few years ago. The report goes on to say:
This is largely because of the high prices of these services and other essential purchases. “Due to higher interest rates and higher inflation, we are not eating out as much,” one consumer said. Another reported, “I am now more willing to say yes to travelling, but I have less opportunities due to higher interest rates.”
Some people in my riding report to me that they can't afford the gas to travel 20 kilometres to visit their parents anymore. They report that they're on a fixed income, they're on Canada disability, and they can't even see their own parents or that the parents can't even go see their children and grandchildren because it's been too expensive to drive the few kilometres to their children's house.
The Bank of Canada report on the state of consumer confidence in Canada, which was released in April, talks about, on page 11 of 19, high interest rates and high inflation. There we go again with the magic combo. It's more than just inflation. It's also just higher interest rates. The report says that high interest rates and high inflation “are not impacting households evenly”. This is critical.
The report states:
Consumers with variable-rate mortgages and those in equity-deserving groups (such as Indigenous people, people with disabilities and racialized people) are more likely to cite being negatively affected than other consumers, including renters and homeowners without mortgages.
So here you go—the Liberal government policies. They stand up and claim that they've helped people out of poverty. This survey says that people on the lower-income side and the middle class and those who aspire to get into the middle class, as the Prime Minister says, are no longer aspiring to get into the middle class. They're aspiring just to pay their bills on the lower-income side. This government's policies are impacting lower-income people more dramatically.
The report goes on to say the following:
Respondents who have become worse off are showing more distress than other Canadians across several dimensions. These consumers are more likely to report:
spending and saving less in response to interest rate increases and higher inflation;
facing a financial position that is worse than 12 months ago and that will be even worse 12 months from now;
finding that credit is harder to access now than it was 12 months ago and that it will be even harder 12 months from now.
Compared with other individuals, respondents who have been negatively affected also expect:
a greater chance of defaulting on their debt payments in the next three months;
a greater chance of losing their job in the next three months;
more of a decline in what they earn when compared with inflation;
more of a decline in their real spending.
These are real problems that real people face who haven't lived on a trust fund all their lives and who have to worry about paying their mortgages every day. It's why we need to be able to question the minister for two hours. Personally, I think we should spend a day questioning her in this committee. I think the opposition is being generous in limiting it to two hours for this minister, given all that she has to account for.
This is probably the end of the quotes I'll use from the report for this part of my presentation:
Most respondents expect a recession in the next 12 months.
The next part is in quotes:
“We are feeling more stress with the interest rates perhaps still going up. It's hard to see where things are going, so we are [trying to save] more because we don't know if we are going to be able to afford things. [It's in] our minds [a lot].”
If you've ever had to worry and had sleepless nights about paying your mortgage and how you're going to put food on the table for your kids, these are very, very difficult times. The proof is in the pudding. Canada's largest financial institution is the Royal Bank of Canada, as we all know. They're in almost every community across Canada. The Royal Bank on May 3—this is hot off the press—issued a document they call Proof Point. It's probably a pretty good title. This one is called “Proof Point: More Canadians to fall behind on debt payments—but [some] will manage”.
The first bullet point talks about “a looming recession”. So here you have the confidence index from the Bank of Canada saying there's a looming recession in the minds of Canadians and here you have the Royal Bank of Canada saying, “A looming recession and an unemployment rate projected to climb to 6.6% by early 2024”—I'll remind you that the budget says 6.2%, so it only took the government a month to be wrong—“are set to tip more Canadians into loan delinquencies and insolvencies.”
The bank goes on to say, “With massive pandemic-related support measures largely over and living costs now soaring, mortgage delinquencies could rise by more than a third of current levels over the coming year.” Imagine that—it's more than a third of the current levels. Delinquency rates are people falling behind, on the verge of losing their house, because of this budget. The minister needs to answer for that in committee.
The Royal Bank goes on to say on May 3, hot off the press, that, “Consumer insolvencies could increase almost 30% over the next three years”—that's 30%—“returning to pre-pandemic levels and likely remaining on an upward trajectory after that.”
Moreover, consumer insolvencies are going to increase 30% and go on an upward trajectory. That's not a statistic any government should be proud of.