Debates of Nov. 1st, 2016

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think all Canadians know we have a very sluggish economy right now. The Bank of Canada recently revised our growth downward from 1.3% to 1.1%. We have a jobless environment, and trade has been really sluggish for the last several years now.

The Liberals came into power telling Canadians during the campaign that they would run three modest $10 billion deficits and balance the budget in the fourth year. The reality is that they ran a $30 billion deficit in their very first budget, and they plan on running another five of them.

They promised Canadians that their recipe for dealing with this was to build public infrastructure, not sell it. Therefore, my question is about asset recycling. They make it sound as if privatization is an environmentally advantageous step. What does my hon. colleague think about the government's plan to sell public assets like airports that make money for Canadians, instead of building public assets, as they promised Canadians during the election?

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's question and his comments with regard to the real profound impact of what is being suggested here with asset recycling. The privatization of public assets is also going to open the door to these investor state challenges that we are seeing coming up, not just under NAFTA but now under CETA and potentially under the TPP.

This is counterintuitive to what the platform has been for the Liberal government. How a government stimulates an economy and brings public assets to fruition is not through privatization. As a matter of fact, that erodes and leaves Canadians worse off than they were before.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-29. I have been listening to all the debate that has been taking place, and I note that we as members of Parliament seem to be debating lots of different things all at once, and not necessarily always Bill C-29, especially on a day such as today when we are eagerly awaiting the Minister of Finance's update.

Obviously today we are anticipating the fall update on the economy and the state of public finances. I look forward to that. Although I have the opportunity to deliver a speech now, I plan to take part in the lockup on the economic update.

We know that any minute now we will be getting additional financial information from the Minister of Finance, and some of the media reports that foreshadowed what we may see in that report have become part of this debate as if they were in Bill C-29. They are not, so we do not know much about what will be proposed. There are concerns, as many colleagues have raised, about what might be proposed around infrastructure, what might be proposed around specifics of an infrastructure bank. It is not in Bill C-29. We are also talking today about the budget document itself, and much of what is in the budget document is not in Bill C-29.

Let me just clarify for parliamentarians and those who may be watching us today across the country what Bill C-29 is.

I try to be as fair as possible in all circumstances, and I railed against the omnibus budget bills of the previous government such as the spring omnibus budget bill of 2012, Bill C-38, which changed more than 70 different laws and regulations and abolished important institutions of public policy such as the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. It did many things that were never referenced in the budget. It extended itself well beyond what a budget should usually do. This was the spring omnibus bill of 2012. The fall omnibus bill was Bill C-45, and it completely gutted the Navigable Waters Protection Act, while the spring omnibus bill gutted the Fisheries Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

I reflect on that just to say that there are different kinds of omnibus bills. There are illegitimate omnibus bills and there are bills that take into account many different measures but all flow from the budget. This is in the category of legitimate omnibus bills. There is nothing in here that is not required by what was in the budget document that we received last spring. Last spring's budget set out changes, particularly to the Canada child benefit. It set out changes to various aspects of the Income Tax Act. If Canadians were to pick up Bill C-29 and read it, I do not think I am making too much of a stretch to say that they would find nothing that would be alarming.

There are provisions to begin to understand how we measure carbon emissions in terms of emissions allowances, how taxpayers would account for that, and how Revenue Canada and the Department of Finance would account for that. There are certainly new rules for charities and extensions for what kinds of donations could be considered charitable donations. There are provisions that are purely to do with the tax code, as one would hope when one is looking at a budget bill.

It is not an illegitimate budget bill, but it does of course allow us to turn our attention to the budget and to reflect on what was there and what was not there in relation to the promises made in last year's campaign.

We are just about at the one-year mark for this new administration and it is fair to reflect at the one-year mark on policies related to budget matters today, so I will stay within the frame of budgetary matters in my presentation. However, I have to say, in providing commentary on Bill C-29, and I want to be honest with Canadians, there is nothing here that gets me worried or upset except for what is missing. I want to be clear about that.

What is missing is that the Liberal platform last year committed to getting rid of subsidies to fossil fuels. There were really only three bullet points under the Liberal platform commitment to climate action.

One bullet point was that they would attend at Paris and negotiate. The Liberals did that and they did it superbly. The second was that they would put in place a national carbon price, and that is a work in progress. I bemoan the fact that the starting price is $10 a tonne but the architecture of it is fair and will only top up those provinces that have failed to define how they want to price their emissions.

This missing piece really deserves much more attention.

The commitment was clear that subsidies for fossil fuels would come to an end. The 2016 budget on page 221 commits until the end of the period in which the previous government had already committed subsidies for a new class of subsidies for liquefied natural gas in 2015. Some may say that LNG, liquefied natural gas, is a fairly clean burning fossil fuel but when it comes from fracked gas, which the LNG industry in British Columbia is projected to come from, it has the same carbon footprint as coal. Seeing a provision in the legislation that would continue this well into the future is a concern. That should come to an end much sooner.

We also were promised a lot of spending on infrastructure but when we look at the actual budget figures, only one-tenth of what is promised on infrastructure will occur before the next election. I really am keen to hear what our finance minister is about to announce later today. If we are trying to stimulate the economy through investments in infrastructure, then we really have to make those investments in infrastructure and we have to do it sooner rather than later. We have only one chance of the money flowing to things like public transit, which we urgently need.

There is reference in the budget to a small amount of money over a two-year period for examining what we need to improve Canada's east-west electricity grid. We need that urgently. Canada is a big country and we tend to have far too many interprovincial barriers. We are familiar with talking about interprovincial barriers to trade but we do not think so much about the interprovincial barriers to electricity. Why is it that provinces struggling to go off coal are having trouble buying renewable energy from the province next door? We really do need to invest in what is a real nation building project. It would create jobs and the fastest root to de-carbonizing our electricity grid is to improve access across provincial boundaries.

We can look at the absurdity right now of what is going on in Newfoundland with respect to Muskrat Falls. Nalcor is building Muskrat Falls, and CEO Stan Marshall has already referred to Muskrat Falls as a boondoggle that should never have been built. Newfoundland will be coming cap in hand to the federal treasury to look for money to bail out that project but it will find that it is throwing good money after bad. Nova Scotia says it cannot shut down coal until it gets an underwater cable all the way from Muskrat Falls.

Hydro-Québec sits right next to the Atlantic provinces. Hydro-Québec's electricity could get exactly as far as Moncton, turn a switch, open up the electricity grid, and work out the financing. Part of the problem may be that Manitoba Hydro and Hydro-Québec prefer to sell south to the United States because sales to the U.S. do not affect their equalization payments. If we start thinking like a country, we might figure out how to maximize the benefit from electricity generated in one province and ease access in another.

Going off fossil fuels as quickly as possible should be a national goal, while at the same time ensuring that the fossil fuels we use in Canada are the ones manufactured and refined in Canada. We have the beginning of a made-in-Canada solution for our energy, for our workers, for the Alberta economy, if we are willing to invest in refineries instead of pipelines and take away the subsidies to fossil fuels as was promised.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do share my colleague's concern about the slow pace of infrastructure spending. That $3 billion that the government has spent so far was spent on projects that were approved in the Conservative Party pipeline. Nothing else has come forward. I wonder if the member is aware of that.

The motion that was passed asking for a greenhouse gas emissions analysis on every infrastructure project, which the government supported, means that all of the infrastructure projects my colleague is talking about for public transportation and roads will not happen because they will not meet the criteria because the criteria has not even been set. I wonder if she could comment.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have seen it in the past and many parliamentarians have forgotten that there was a greenhouse gas screen on infrastructure projects during the previous administration under former prime minister Paul Martin. It did not slow down infrastructure projects, not to my recollection. I have only been a member of Parliament for five years and I am plagued with a good memory. I have to say I remember when these things worked, so knowing that they worked in practice, I think they will work again.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I much enjoyed my hon. colleague's speech. She mentioned two things that made my ears perk up. First was the nation building projects, where I think back to the railway and things like that and specifically now the energy east pipeline would be a nation building project, taking product from Albert and bringing it to a refinery in New Brunswick, displacing foreign oil.

I wonder if the member is supportive of that project. Also equalization is new to me, as is this issue of selling electricity to the United States in order to maintain equalization payments. Would she agree that the equalization payments are sometimes a false incentive?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, those are two big topics. On the first one about electricity and selling to the United States, this was raised with the head of our local chamber of commerce in Saanich—Gulf Islands who said that when Quebec sells to another province it counts in the equalization payments, but revenues achieved out of the province do not.

The energy east as a pipeline project is often promoted as though it was taking Alberta product to refineries in eastern Canada. At the moment, there are no refineries in New Brunswick that can process raw bitumen. Therefore, part of the energy east product line will be Bakken shale and that portion can be refined in New Brunswick. However, the bulk, 70% of what energy east is proposed to carry, is the solid material bitumen mixed with diluent so it will flow and it would flow past the refineries and onto tankers. It would not displace foreign oil. We are getting about 0.7 million barrels a day of foreign oil into eastern Canada, while we are shipping out about two million barrels a day from Alberta to other countries.

As I mentioned earlier, we used to have 40 refineries in Canada in the 1970s. We were not closer to markets in the 1970s. We were not an oil-producing country in the 1970s. What has happened is that the people who make decisions about building refineries in the private sector have no interest in creating Canadian jobs or Albertan jobs. We, as elected officials, should care about creating the jobs that Peter Lougheed had in his original plans for how the oil sands should be developed.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I do not want to ask a question about the environment. However, I will use a term invented by the Liberal government that reminds us of the environment, and that is asset recycling. We approve of recycling. However, asset recycling means privatization. The Liberals never campaigned on the privatization of our infrastructure.

What does my hon. colleague think of the idea of selling our assets and making consumers pay twice as much for using federal infrastructure?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I completely agree with him. We did not hear the term “infrastructure asset recycling” during the election campaign. It is not until the end of Bill C-29, on page 228, that there is mention of what the Minister of Finance may do for the sound management of the consolidated revenue fund on terms and conditions he considers appropriate. Perhaps this would allow the creation of an asset recycling system. I believe it is essential, for everyone's well-being, that infrastructure remain in the hands of the public. Management of our public sector should not be privatized.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be addressing some of the points my colleagues have made.

I will start off with the fact that TD Economics recently announced that the deficit would be $34 billion this year. I will put that into some sort of perspective.

Although 30 does not sound like a large number, when we say 30 billion, we often do not even put all of the zeros behind it. Rather, we write “30” and the word “billion” behind it. To some degree it sometimes falls into the abstract. We know it is a large number, but we do not really have a definite reference point as to how much money it actually is.

This morning, I Googled the new Chrysler Pacifica minivan that came out six or eight months ago. It ranges in price from $42,000 to $55,000. I used a rough middle-of-the-road $50,000 for a new Chrysler minivan to make for easy math. Thirty billion dollars would buy us 600,000 new Chrysler minivans. I took the measurement of the new minivan and if we were to line them up bumper to bumper, we would have a line-up of brand new Chrysler minivans from Edmonton all the way to Toronto. That kind of puts into perspective what $30 billion would look like in hard, fall on our toes, ouch that hurt, kind of stuff.

Thirty billion dollars is a huge amount of money that the government is borrowing today to pay for projects that our children will have to pay for in the future. If these projects were happening and we could all see this burst in infrastructure spending around us, then we could say we were making a good investment. However, history has taught us that when we deal with the Liberals, they spend a lot of money, and typically it goes to pay their friends and donors.

They have said that they will spend all of this money to create jobs. That was their main point. They have pointed to the many years of stagnant growth in the economy, and have said that they need to invest all of this money now, in times of low interest rates, to ensure growth in the economy, and to create some jobs.

What has this done for the number of jobs? We have been here for a year and have seen this historic investment, as the Liberals like to call it. What are the job numbers? They have remained stagnant. We are still at 7% unemployment. If we were to narrow it down from across the entire country and look at places like Alberta, it has seen a spike in the jobless numbers and the unemployment rate since these historic investments have come into play. Clearly, if the Liberals have a plan, it is not working.

The Liberals claim to have created many jobs through this amazing summer jobs program. Frankly, if we think the summer jobs program is creating jobs, we fail to understand basic economics, and what value and production are. If these summer jobs are being paid for through the public purse, there is no incentive for production or to understand the concept of value. People are hired at an hourly wage to do whatever is required. This is great in that it gives young people a chance to get some job experience doing different things, but it does not necessarily instill in these young people the concepts of value and production that typically come with the free market interactions between labour and production.

I am an automotive mechanic by trade. We typically were paid about one-third of whatever the door rate was at the mechanic at which shop I worked. If the door rate was $100 an hour, the mechanic was paid about $33 an hour. This was based on the fact that we were busy. If people needed their vehicles fixed, they would come to our dealership. There was a sign on the door that said that we charged $100 an hour to fix vehicles. Although people realized that it might cost them several thousand dollars to have their vehicle fixed, they would make the calculation and pay me that $33 an hour to fix it because they needed it to go to work.

There is a series of calculations that goes into that in the private sector where people get paid, and that is set up by rational people making decisions for their own lives essentially.

However, for the summer jobs program, none of those calculations come into the equation. One applies for a position, sends in an application to the government to hire someone to do something for X amount of hours, and asks the government to fund it. The whole concept of value and production are thrown out the window in that case. Although it creates experiences, it is not necessarily typical of what a job should be and is.

Another thing I would like address on the new Liberal budget is that the Liberals seem to be starting in bumps and stops. They fail to realize that our entire economy is a delicately balanced system to some degree. When we push one spot in, another spot comes out essentially. However, it seems that the unintended consequences are not taken into account, and I will give an example of this from my riding.

There is significant oil and gas activity in my riding. One of the things that happens, especially in oil production, is that when we take the oil out of the ground, a lot of times we get natural gas or sour gas that comes along with it. Typically, there is a pipeline for the oil, but there is no pipeline to put the natural gas in. Therefore, they light a fire and burn the natural gas off right there. It turns from natural gas into water and CO₂ and everybody goes on their way.

However, starting about 10 years ago, the Alberta government worked very hard to get a system in place where people could use the natural gas they were burning off in a flare stack to produce electricity. They set up the market so rather than sticking the natural gas in a flare stack, they could buy a gas generator, run the natural gas in the generator, and create electricity. They could either sell the electricity to the grid or use it on site.

That whole system was set up to be revenue neutral. The oil company operating there was doing all of this for the environment. There was no cost benefit for the company. It cost it a bunch of money, but it was recouped over time. The company did not make money on it, but it did not lose money either. Therefore, for the sake of the environment, we would do this.

However, in comes the carbon tax from the provincial government, which now makes that cost benefit analysis so the cost is more than the benefits. It was at the break-even point, but now it costs more than the benefit. Suddenly, rather than buying the generator, putting it on site, hooking it all up, connecting it to the grid or a battery, or whatever the company was doing, it now costs too much and so it will have to just flare it once again.

This is one example where, if we do not take into consideration all the aspects of the economy, if we push in one spot, something else will pop out. This is a clear example of where the carbon tax, with its intended good to protect the environment, does the exact opposite.

I would like to think the government is unaware of these kinds of scenarios, but something tells me it is quite familiar with what is going on. The Liberals are betting against the Canadian economy when it comes to mortgage rules. They are saying that we are going to have a lack of growth going forward, market instability, and all of these kinds of things happening. Therefore, they have to ensure we do not have massive mortgage defaults. Therefore, the Liberals are saying that they are going to change the rules so we do not have massive mortgage defaults. They seem to be signalling that they know their plan is not going to work.

I know I am completely out of time. I probably have 10 more things to go over, but I will cede the floor and hopefully will get to some of them in questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, my questions are related to the agreements that have been achieved by the provinces and Ottawa.

The member and other members have made reference to the CPP. Provincial governments from all regions of the country, working with the strong leadership of this government, have come up with an agreement that will see future retirees receive a better pension. The Conservatives have really taken a philosophical approach to this, saying that it a tax and a bad thing.

Would the member not agree that when it comes to issues around pensions for workers, even if it is for the next generation, that it takes a strong government to demonstrate leadership and ensures that we have adequate pensions for people who retire in the future? In good part, this budget is all that.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, CPP is one of the things I wanted to get to. I recently received a letter from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. It mentioned that bringing in the new CPP would restrict companies from hiring new employees. It said that companies would expect employees to work longer hours and do more work, rather than hire a new person, because that cost benefit analysis was going to come up.

Companies will say that hiring a new young person is not going to be as advantageous as keeping more senior staff members and paying them a little for to do more. Because there is a CPP cutoff, if companies can pay the senior staff members, those who already are past that cut off on the CPP maximum limit, a little more, the companies will get a better benefit.

On government leadership, it is important that the government show leadership on a wide range of issues. One particular issue I would like to see the government champion is the energy east projects.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

From what he said, he is strongly opposed to deficits and adding to the national debt. He spent much of his speech criticizing deficits.

However, I am having a hard time reconciling his statements with the record of the Conservatives, who ran deficit after deficit. They too added to the public debt non-stop during their time in office and then, at the very end, after juggling the numbers a bit, they were barely able to announce that they had balanced the federal budget. However, during all that time, they continued to add to the national debt. I am trying to reconcile all of that.

I would therefore like to ask my colleague the following question: when exactly is it good to run deficits? His party ran deficits and the party that is currently in office is doing the same, saying that it will stimulate the economy. When is it good to run deficits? Does the member believe that his party was right in running deficits and adding to the national debt when it was in power?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as to whether we did the right thing by deficit spending during the greatest recession this world has seen, the jury is still out on that. I do not think we are overly proud of what we did. However, I do know we are very proud of our record in bringing our country through the recession better than other G7 nations. We did not have a significant meltdown in our housing market. In fact, our housing market is as strong as it has ever been.

On the deficit we took on, we did that with some chagrin. The deficit would have been much larger had that member's party been in power. We would be in a place right now where we would be unable to take on more deficit. Because of our good fiscal policy, we had a great credit rating. Those kinds of things have allowed the current government to now take on its deficit spending.

If the government is going to spend the deficit as it says it is, I would like to see the job numbers it is promising.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise to speak to Bill C-29, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016, and other measures.

I had spoken about this budget, initially, when it was tabled. At that time, I was very concerned with the numbers and the spending that I saw, but today I am even more concerned, especially when we have seen a lack of growth and a lack of support, with a number of groups jumping off the bandwagon, saying the Liberals are not doing what they said they would do.

When the bill was initially tabled, there was $113 billion that was being borrowed. TD economic services has now estimated that there is going to be an additional $16.5 billion in new expenditures.

Let us go back to what the government promised during the 2015 election. The 2015 election was just a year ago. We have seen so many changes in terms of what the government is delivering compared with what it provided in its platform.

I would like to go back to a debate that I had in the city of St. Thomas. It was one of our final debates. There were six candidates. I recall the Liberal candidate, at that time, saying that they would have shovels in the ground by December of 2015. Obviously, I am here and I am very grateful for that. However, she obviously heard that as part of the platform. She was being told by her leader and by the leaders of her party that they were going to have shovels in the ground doing great work for Canadians and building infrastructure. I think they actually believed it. I believe many of the members who are now sitting across on the government side believed when they came here that they were going to be doing some good work.

As I said, December 2015 was when they promised to have shovels in the ground. I can tell members I have not seen too many shovels in the ground. I have not seen these projects they were talking about and that they were going to be working on.

The infrastructure minister will come out and talk about the projects that have been proposed, the projects that the provincial governments have submitted, saying that, yes, they are going to support these projects, but that is only stage one of this process. That means there is only a finite number of people who are working on this infrastructure build. They may be the architects, the engineers, or the administrative people who are putting in these applications, but it is not the people with the hard hats and the workboots who are out there doing that work. We do not see that happening yet.

Of all of these communities and provinces that were promised more roads and better infrastructure in the 2015 campaign, where is it and where is the spending? We have seen spending from the government, but we have not seen any results.

I go back to when we go to the bank and we talk about good debt versus bad debt. It is simple. It is something I say to my children. A good debt is when you go and buy a washing machine because it's something that you need and that washing machine is going to stay with you, not just one day or two days, it's going to stay with you, hopefully, for 20 years, which is the way I like to buy my washing machines, at least. That is a good debt. That is when we are investing in our homes and in the things in our homes. Going out and buying a gourmet dinner that might cost $200 or $300, however, is good for one day, if that, or it might be good for three hours. There is a difference between good debt and bad debt. I am very concerned that the government does not know the difference between the two and that we are spending a lot of money for things that are hot topics, but we are not spending on long-time prosperity.

The Bank of Canada has actually lowered the forecast for the GDP down to 1.1%. That has not even been within a year. It was 1.4% that was forecast in January, prior to this budget, and unfortunately the Bank of Canada is seeing the light as well and seeing that it is going to be 1.1%.

When this budget was tabled, it was not just organizations like the C.D. Howe Institute or the Fraser Institute but also the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, along with the members of the Conservative Party, that were very concerned with what was in the budget.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, we are seeing more groups, more organizations, and more individuals jumping on board, saying that this budget is not delivering the stimulus that they thought it was going to, this is not what the Liberals promised, and this government is not doing what it promised. I think that is one thing people are saying. Yes, they cast their vote in 2015, and like I say, we talked about seven million compared with six million, some of those people, 39%, cast their vote for the Liberal Party and many of those people are sitting there with voter's remorse, saying that they are not getting what they thought they had voted for.

We now see the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Council of Canada all being much more skeptical of the spending being done by the government.

However, there are also other groups. This is one thing I was really quite surprised about. We have a Prime Minister who talks about building relationships and one of the key relationships he is going to have is with first nations and aboriginal peoples.

Last week the Standing Committee on the Status of Women had the opportunity to listen to a lady by the name of Tracy O'Hearn. Tracy was representing the Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada. She talked about the work they had done regarding violence against women and a program that was done through phase one under the Conservative government.

Phase one of their program had some fantastic results, but they are ready to initiate phase two. In the last year, the current government, which is trying to build relationships with first nations people, has not been part of these negotiations and has not been at the table to communicate with them. We are not seeing a progression. We have seen some great things started, but they are now halted because the Liberal government has not acted.

This building of relationships with first nations is something Conservatives see as another broken promise. The NDP opposition has also had to put forward some of these concerns, because we have a government that is not listening. It is promising but not listening.

There was also confirmation by the parliamentary budget officer that the Conservative government left a $2.9-billion surplus in the 2015-16 fiscal year. The government proposed to spend its way to prosperity. If we just take the numbers out and do not look at what the Liberals were spending, we see that the Conservatives did very well as a government.

When this budget was proposed, a lot of economists said deficits can be good and in the previous session an NDP member asked my colleague if it was right to have a deficit. In 2008, 2009, and 2010 when Canada went through the worst economic downturn, Conservatives actually spent wisely. We had shovels in the ground and created retraining programs. We did everything we possibly could to get people back to work. That is why we were one of the first countries to recover from the economic downturn.

The current government is saying that it will spend its way to prosperity, something that seems to be okay because economists have said, yes, it could go into deficit as long as it spends money well, but we have not seen the money being spent well. The government is going into deficit and we are not seeing anything for it. Instead, people in Canada are floundering. The government is looking at employment insurance reform and things of that sort, rather than creating jobs.

One thing I am very proud of is being the critic for families, children, and social development, so in the last two minutes, I am going to touch on the changes to the Canada child benefit.

Once again, in the election campaign, it was all about nine out of 10 kids doing better under the Liberals' program. I have done the numbers and there is a lot more money being spent. I am not going to say there is not, but once again, the Liberal Party was selling something on which it had never put a pen to paper to see what the actual numbers were. There were not true estimates done.

As we debate Bill C-29, the CCB is being indexed. Back in July when these payments started, the first thing the media noticed was that the money was not being indexed and the programs by the Conservative government were actually better than the ones by the Liberal government today. With the indexing now, there is going to be double the spending on the Canada child benefit. A program that is already very large and questionably sustainable is going to be doubled in the next five years. That is absolutely poor fiscal management.

Yes, there are going to be hiccups and difficult things in the first year of taking over as government, Conservatives understand that, but there seems to be no focus. It is about spending and spending, but not creating prosperity or opportunities for Canadians. The government thinks if families have problems, it will give them more money, not opportunities to be educated or build new roads. The government is not going to do those things. It will just throw money at the problem, and that is not what is supposed to be done.

This government is in charge of the country and in charge of its finances, and I am very concerned that the promises the Liberals made in 2015 are extremely irresponsible. I am very concerned about where we will see our government and our country by the end of October of 2019.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I would to ask her a question about something that has been said a few times in the House about infrastructure.

Does the member have the same concerns as us about the $120 billion that was promised for infrastructure? In her speech, she mentioned that infrastructure was discussed in her riding during the election campaign.

Since the state of the public purse is not what it should be, is the member concerned about the fact that the government has taken an approach that will allow it to announce that it spent $120 billion, when much of that is private funding through an infrastructure bank?

Is she worried that this might be a smokescreen to lead us to believe that this promise has finally been kept when, in fact, it was accomplished in part with help from the private sector?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in some sorts of infrastructure there needs to be partnership. When it comes to private businesses, if we are helping out there, there needs to sometimes be partnerships.

However, in the situation the hon. member is referring to, the public infrastructure, which is the roads, the hospitals, the things that we see in Canada where we have the provincial and territorial governments as well as the municipal governments, I am very concerned that the government will back out of some of those.

As I said, I compare it to a washing machine. There is good and bad debt. If a road is built, we have that road for decades and decades with a few repairs. I do not think that we are spending ahead of ourselves because we see that the Liberals have put themselves into a new position where we are expecting lower growth and not the revenues the government thought it would have.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue on the topic of infrastructure.

In the province of Alberta there have been a number of difficult times. The government has moved in many different ways to try to help Albertans as they go through these difficult times. We are very optimistic, as Albertans have a very strong spirit, that they will not only get out of it but will do well in the future.

One of the ways they will be able to capitalize on doing well is due to the government's commitment on infrastructure. In fact, there are 72 projects, working with municipalities and the province, that have already been approved to date. I am wondering if the member would recognize that through this infrastructure spending and working in co-operation with the province and municipalities all Albertans will directly benefit from this.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member said he was listening to my speech, but I think he missed a part of that speech where I said that there is phase one, the administrative part, the people who are building the plans and all of those things. It is not the men and women who are going back to work with the hard hats and the workboots, so phase one does not incorporate.

We may see these projects, but do we actually see shovels in the ground? Maybe the member will have this conversation with me outside, but how many of these projects are actually shovelling, taking the dirt, and creating new opportunities, or are they still architectural things where the provincial government has said it would allow this and the building will start in three or four months?

I think we have to question that, because we really do not know how far they have progressed.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government cut taxes over 160 times to reach the lowest level in 50 years and allowed the average family to save $3,400 per year, and we still balanced the budget.

What damage has the current government done to our families regarding taxes?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will just compare what we had with what we do not have any longer.

I am a mother of five, which I have probably said many times. My children had memberships all the time up to the age of 18 at the YMCA. Those were things I was able to use as fitness tax credits. My children play sports. One takes acting lessons. They all do different things. With the previous government, there was the incentive for parents to give opportunities to their children.

On one hand, the present government provides money through the child benefit, and as the Liberals like to say, those middle-class tax cuts. On the other hand, it gives us the bill for our CPP, it gives us the bill for our carbon tax, and it gives us the bill for our $130-billion deficit. It is short-term prosperity with long-term debt.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-29, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures. Since that time, we can say that sunny ways have come and gone. Over the past 12 months, we have seen countless promises broken, a ballooning deficit, and a stagnant economy.

We are also watching as the federal government picks too many needless fights with the provinces. The separation of powers that is a fundamental part of Canada's Constitution appears to be an afterthought for the Prime Minister and his government.

The cornerstone for the government is to tax and spend and get more and more involved in the day-to-day lives of Canadians. There is no decision too small for the government to make, no area in which it should not intervene. A day does not go by in the Chamber that I do not hear the Liberals take pride in repeating some platitude like “what we promised to Canadians is to help them throughout their lives”. We know that for the Liberals, government knows best.

Unfortunately, big government costs a lot, and the money to pay for it all comes from Canadians paying taxes on their income and on most goods and services, and from mandatory fees. To these Liberals, government is not the last resort, it is the first call. The idea that government should serve as a safety net has outlived its usefulness. Instead, the government should be omnipresent and helping Canadians each and every day.

Right now, the resource sector in western Canada is struggling because of low commodity prices, but rather than focus on the underlying long-term issue, which is the discount Canadian energy products are sold at due to a lack of access to markets, the Liberal solution is to provide a temporary bump in employment insurance to folks who are out of work. This bears repeating. Rather than put in place the conditions needed to create real jobs and opportunities, the government's preferred course of action is to increase employment insurance. This exemplifies quite well what the Liberal vision is.

I also find the ideological elastic demonstrated by the government on the child care benefit astounding. It was not long ago that the Liberal Party's official position on allowing families to make their own decisions when it came to child care was that parents could not be trusted, that they would spend more on beer and popcorn than on their own children. Now we learn that the new Liberal program for child care is fraught with problems. Bill C-29 would index the Canada child benefit to inflation beginning in 2020. The parliamentary budget officer has estimated that this would cost $42.5 billion over the next five years. That is double what the Liberals budgeted when they originally introduced the program.

I have spoken to many young families who wonder where the money for this is going to come from, how much debt will be incurred, and how much their taxes are going to have to go up in the medium and long term to pay for it. They do not want to trade short-term gain, if there is any, for long-term pain. Then there are those families that are receiving much less than they did in 2015.

Furthermore, the budget has cut the child fitness tax credit, the children's art tax credit, and tax credits for post-secondary education and textbooks. To the Liberal member for Newmarket—Aurora, who stated on Friday that “tax credits do not work”, can he honestly tell the House that the post-secondary students in his riding did not utilize the tuition tax credit?

“Big government knows best” is a broken model. European countries that have tried to spend their way to long-term prosperity have more often than not failed. This debate is about whether we believe, as a country, that the individual financial choices Canadians make are better or worse than those made by government.

Last week I noted that according to the 2016 Index of Economic Freedom, government expenditures presently represent 40.7% of GDP here in Canada. Australia, by comparison, sits at 35.7% and the United States at 38.9%. Are we better off in Canada than in Australia, for example, because more of our economy flows through Ottawa? I do not think so.

Is Canada a better place to live because this bill will compel banks to publish a description of the consultations undertaken with the public on their existing products and the development of new products and services? That is right. One particular measure in the bill will require financial institutions to provide a description of the consultations they have done to identify trends and emerging issues that may have an impact on their customers or the public. This should not surprise us, given how much the Liberals love consultation. In other words, the government is asking banks to make publicly available consumer and societal trends that would normally be considered commercial proprietary data.

Furthermore, major banks will also have to provide to the regulator a description of their consultations on matters on which the bank has received complaints. Why the federal government needs a description of the consultations banks hold on each and every complaint they receive is beyond me. While these legislative requirements will apply only to Canada's largest banks for now, is the next step asking smaller institutions, like credit unions, which are owned by their members, to do the same thing? The compliance costs for smaller institutions could drive them out of business. This would have a devastating effect in small communities all across the Prairies.

Let us look at the ways the Liberals have increased the overall tax burden on Canadians. They have given Canadians a carbon tax that will cost approximately $1,200 per person, and they have not even bothered to figure out how interprovincial emissions will be regulated or priced. They have raised contributions to the CPP from 9.9% to 12%. As a consequence, Canadians will get 2% less on each of their paycheques. This CPP contribution increase will cost families more than if the government had raised the sales tax from 5% to 7%.

It goes on. The Liberals are freezing a planned tax cut for Canada's small businesses, a planned tax cut they campaigned on and that they supported while in opposition.

They are also imposing a myriad of new regulations that just drive up the cost of doing anything for Canadians. For example, the Minister of Transport just introduced new regulations on railways that will order them to provide detailed information on the emissions produced by every single one of their locomotives.

Rail is the most environmentally friendly means of moving goods. A gallon of diesel can move a tonne of goods over 800 kilometres. What is worse, the minister based these new regulations on data collected before 2010, which is now completely out of date.

As railways are working to move western Canada's harvest to market, they are being faced with added red tape and tougher emissions standards, on top of the new carbon tax on diesel. Ultimately it is the farmers trying to get their grain to market who will see their bottom line affected. These regulations will inevitably lead to increased costs that will be passed on to consumers. It is just another hidden tax.

At the end of the day, all Canadians, including the families the government likes to talk about, are being asked to pay up to finance the big Liberal society.

In conclusion, more and more Canadians are expressing not only their frustration but their deep concern about the direction the government is taking Canada. Governments should always act with great humility and modesty, as its actions impact all Canadians and cannot be reversed quickly and without disruption. In the eight years I have had the privilege of serving as a member of Parliament, my belief that Canadians, not government, know best how to manage their finances has only been strengthened. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister and his government's belief in big government permeates this budget, and that is why I will not be supporting the bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, a number of Conservatives have talked a great deal about small businesses. This government has listened to the needs of small businesses, and what most small businesses want to see is customers. One of the things we talk about is that the best way to create more customers is to put more disposable income in the pockets of Canadians. In this budget, literally nine million-plus more Canadians are going to have more money in their pockets as a direct result of a tax break, a tax break the Conservative Party unfortunately voted against.

Would the member agree, as basic economics tell us, that if we put more disposable income in the pockets of Canadians, those Canadians will spend that money, thereby creating more customers for small businesses? The first priority of small businesses is to see more customers coming through the door. Would the member agree with that?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, and I have to say that there is probably very little the member opposite and I agree on.

I can say this. Only the Liberals would consider the $40-billion carbon tax, the 2% decrease in each pay cheque, the tax hike on small-business owners, countless new fees, and cutting the children's arts tax credit, the children's fitness tax credit, and the post-secondary tuition and textbook tax credit a tax cut. Only the Liberals would consider that all of these things they have done are good for middle-class Canadians.

When it comes to paying back the massive Liberal borrowing, every single Canadian's taxes are going to increase for many years, and Canadians know that.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech.

I would like to know what she thinks about what the Prime Minister said about small and medium-sized businesses. During the election campaign, he said that small and medium-sized businesses are just a way to avoid paying income tax.

Does my colleague share the Prime Minister’s view? He himself owns this type of numbered company, probably in an attempt to avoid paying income tax. Does she share the view that small and medium-sized businesses are just a way to avoid paying what is owed to society? Furthermore, would she be in favour of a tax reduction on small and medium-sized businesses, which create 80% of the jobs in Canada?