Madam Speaker, today I join my voice to that of my colleagues as we continue our dutiful work of adequately informing Canadians on Bill C-29, which seeks to implement the series of budgetary measures and tax changes announced in budget 2016, tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016. In so doing, we want to present Canadian taxpayers with the real, alarming, and absolutely catastrophic economic situation the Liberal government has willingly and irresponsibly put us Canadians in.
It is unbelievable that after being in power one year, this government has spent the Conservative government's surplus, which was $2.9 billion in March 2016. The Liberals lied to all voters of this beautiful country when it told them that, if they voted for the Liberal Party of Canada, they would be choosing a government that would run a slight deficit of $10 billion in the first year and that in four years it would balance the budget. Today, October 31, 2016, that is a lie. According to its budget for year one, the government expects to end the fiscal year in March with a deficit that is not the same, not double, but triple the deficit forecast in the March 2016 budget. That is huge — about $30 billion. The experts who I trust much more than this government are forecasting a deficit of between $34 billion and $40 billion.
Our Prime Minister said that he has no idea of just how big the deficit is going to be. He is the prime minister of one of the most beautiful countries in the world, Canada, and he does not know when the wasteful spending will stop. I hope members will realize that that is irresponsible.
Tomorrow is All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, and the Minister of Finance is going to unveil his economic update. Will he resurrect valiant Canadians of generations past, the ones that built our beautiful country? Will he tell them that the Liberal government is destroying Canada, this beautiful country that our dearly departed built by the sweat of their brow? Stay tuned.
For several months this government has been boasting of having put in place the largest infrastructure program to help our businesses create jobs. Today, we have a 7% unemployment rate. Let us ask them the question. What was the unemployment rate last year when the Conservatives were in power? It was 7%. What is the supposed benefit of the astronomical cost of the infrastructure program? There is none. It is unacceptable to make people believe that they are creating jobs.
The Liberals doubled the size of the summer jobs program last summer. They poured twice as much money into the program. They have plenty of money; they print the stuff. What happened? The unemployment rate is the same as last year. If they had not doubled the budget for the summer jobs program, what would have happened? Quite simply, unemployment would have gone up. I am not an economist, a tax expert, or a numbers expert, but I am a common sense expert, which is why my constituents voted for me.