Evidence of meeting #45 for Finance in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was subamendment.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
We had 17 finance officials here yesterday, and eight of them are here today for the better part of the day. I would like to know, what is the cost per hour of running this committee that Conservatives are wasting parliamentary resources on, when they're not serious about passing legislation?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.
I'm sorry. Who had the floor? Mr. Jackson....
Mr. Lake, go ahead.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB
On that point of order, can the chair rule on whether that is actually a point of order?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Mr. Lake, I'm not going back to Mr. Turnbull. I allowed him to speak, but I've turned the floor back to Mr. Jackson.
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
I'm just curious about whether that was a point of order or whether the member opposite is asking you to answer that question, Madam Chair. I'm not clear.
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Okay. Well, I guess we'll leave that as it is.
Nonetheless, I think I have certainly made my case to support this amendment. It makes perfect sense to me. I think it's a good provision to support Canadians in their understanding of their Canada pension plan. I look forward to the government members supporting it during a vote in short order.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB
I found that point of order interesting in the context. Mr. Turnbull's been part of a government that, over the last decade, has taken the debt from $616 billion to, I think, $1.4 trillion right now. I believe we're running....
Pardon me?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Mr. Lake, we're on the subamendment. Could you get to the subamendment?
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB
It's just...it was hard for me to concentrate with Mr. Turnbull chirping at me.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
On a point of order, Madam Chair, I know Mr. Lake is very experienced in Parliament. He even carries the honorific title there, so he knows how this works.
I notice that he's making an argument, but it doesn't really relate to the actual subamendment that has been proposed by his colleagues. I wonder, could you bump him back into his lane? I call it a “lane assist”.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.
One moment. I'll address you in a second, Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Lake, we've actually.... This has been a consistent theme for the past two days, and so I'd just like to remind all members to focus on the fact that we're doing clause-by-clause, and we are currently on subamendment seven of CPC-13. I would encourage you to focus your comments on that for relevance.
However, before I turn to Mr. Lake, I know Mr. Kelly has a point of order.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Crowfoot, AB
Yes. There was some lack of clarity on whether you had ruled on what Mr. Turnbull had intervened about, and I think that's what Mr. Lake was referring to.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you, Mr. Kelly. That's not a point of order.
Mr. Lake, you have the floor on CPC subamendment seven to CPC-13.
Conservative
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB
Oh. Okay. I'm sorry. We're looking at different information.
The conversation is around reporting, of course. I think that, right now, in this era, Canadians have less and less information from the government. Let's face it: Our Parliament is sitting less than it used to sit under previous governments. We've seen, over the last few years, more....
I'm sorry, Mr. Turnbull. Do you want to weigh in?
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB
We're seeing less transparency than we've ever seen, and I think that Canadians are rightly concerned about what the impact is going to be of the record levels of spending. I do think it's on topic when we talk about reporting and about the impacts of inflation on Canadians' pensions. It's important to talk about the things that are leading to that in making the argument for this subamendment.
We're dealing with a situation in which we had—and we can just look back in history at the impact—a Trudeau government of the 1970s and early 1980s that ran deficits in 14 out of 15 years. We just had another Trudeau government that ran deficits in 10 out of 10 years. Now we have a new government, led by a new Prime Minister, but it's very similar to the old government. It's actually outspending the previous government, with bigger deficits than were projected under the previous government. I think that's going to have an impact. Canadians are rightly concerned about the impact it's going to have on their pensions.
If you go back in time to see the impact of the record level of Trudeau spending from the 1970s and 1980s and our coming out of those deficits, it wasn't until a generation later that we saw the real impact in—
