Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I want to start off by saying I agree with the comments of my colleagues, Sophie, Terry and Yvan. I also want to say thanks to Mr. Blaikie for putting forward this motion, because I, too, feel that I largely agree with many of the points he mentioned, but I also think it's important for us to discuss what's happened over the last few weeks in the hopes that we can get to a better place. I, too, found that what happened was unacceptable. It was a waste of time for you. It was a waste of time for me, for us, and it was a waste of money for Canadians.
We have made a mockery of the work that this committee is meant to do. We've made a mockery of what the House of Commons stands for and the work it's supposed to do, and we did not honour what Canadians have elected us to do, which is to work together, to address the issues of the day and to create a better country.
To be honest, I asked my colleagues how many hours the filibuster was. We have no clue. It's anywhere between 40 and 60 hours. In any case, it was a colossal waste of time.
The main crux of the initial part of the filibuster was about having the Minister of Finance come. Even after she had agreed to come, even after she was on record to come and she was scheduled to come, the filibuster still continued.
There was incorrect information that kept on being portrayed that she had not come before no matter how many times we had invited her. She had already come three times before, and her coming that time for this BIA made it a fourth time. There is no minister who comes every single time a committee asks. It doesn't matter whether it's the finance minister or any minister.
Then the filibuster continued in order to have witnesses come, but the filibuster took so long that it literally eliminated all opportunities for witnesses to actually come before us to talk to us about the BIA—what was good, what was bad and what could be improved—so that did not make it possible.
I would also like to suggest that we have to stop with the performance politics, which we see is very prevalent and, I would say, most specifically from our Conservative colleagues. We saw it two minutes ago.
There is a lot of invention that goes on. There is a mortgage time bomb apparently, which is not the case. We heard very clearly today that the delinquency rate for mortgages remains very low. It's below what we saw prepandemic. It's at 0.12%.
We heard that household finances are relatively healthy. We heard that all the tools are in place that protect Canadians, including the mortgage stress test that was put into place in February 2020. We've heard that a big portion of the high level of debt that Canadians have is mortgage debt, so it is a complete invention that there is a mortgage time bomb.
It is also complete invention that we are in the worst economy. There is literally no economist in the world who would agree with that. We consistently are among the top in terms of growth rates. We are consistently in the top in terms of debt-to-GDP ratio, in terms of employment rates, in terms of outlook and in terms of projections moving forward, so it's complete nonsense.
I'm going to end by saying let's do better. Let's find a way to work together to do what it is that Canadians have asked us to do.
With that, Mr. Chair, I move that the debate be now adjourned.