Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in the House, even if it is after the government has decided not very many members of Parliament should actually get that opportunity. That is what we are facing here again today. We are seeing a government that is very proud of the fact that 60 members of Parliament have spoken to this. Last time I checked, there were 336 members in the House of Commons currently, with two vacancies, so that is fewer than 20% of members of Parliament being afforded an opportunity to speak to the budget implementation act. The government has brought down the hammer. It has shut off debate. It does not want members of Parliament to speak in the House.
It is kind of funny. I just did the Liberals' MyDemocracy.ca survey where they ask things like, “Do you think members of Parliament should better represent their constituents or should they toe the party line?” We have seen their preference here today. Instead of representing their constituents, getting up and defending their own budget, they get up and defend cutting off debate in the House.
It is shameful but it is becoming a part of their routine business. They said, “Trust us. We will do things so much differently.” They talked about real change. The only real change is, after Friday, a single hour of debate on the budget implementation act at this stage, they brought in time allocation. For the people at home, that means they no longer want members of Parliament to be able to debate this.
It is no wonder the Liberals do not want Canadians and members of Parliament debating the bill, because it is about their economic performance. The budget implementation act speaks to their ineptitude, quite frankly, on the economy. That is what we are seeing day after day and time after time. Their economic plan, if we could even call it that, is not working.
Statistics Canada said on Friday that for the second month in a row all job gains were in part-time positions and noticed the jobless rate only fell because fewer people were seeking work. Some 8,700 full-time jobs were lost in November. Gluskin Sheff chief economist David Rosenberg said that the latest numbers were clearly a case of “nice headline, shame about the details”. In fact, full-time employment in Canada has not risen in almost a year and a half. What happened just a little over a year ago? This government took office. Since it has taken office, it has not created a single net full-time new job. It is outrageous.
The Liberals talk about how we need to get this passed so that they can deliver on their economic platform. We need to prevent that from happening as much as possible because it has been an unmitigated disaster. They have misled Canadians time after time, and their budget is the primary example of where they have done that.
I want to continue to quote from David Rosenberg. He said the Liberal economic performance is “in a word, pathetic and attests to a usually high level of uncertainty among the business community, writ large”.
There were 8,700 jobs lost just in November. That was in addition to the 100,000 jobs that have been lost in the energy sector since the government took office. Its plan, if we can call it that, is simply failing Canadians.
The budget, and the budget implementation act, is a litany of broken promises. The Liberals promised in the last campaign that they would have a $10-billion deficit and that it would be gone within the time of their mandate, that within four years there would be no deficit and we would be back to a balanced budget. One year later, it is now a $30-billion deficit, and there is no plan to ever get back to a balanced budget. That is the Liberal record. They no longer even pretend they are going to get back to a balanced budget. That is after our Conservative government left them with $2.9 billion in surplus, and over 1.3 million net new jobs was our record. In one year, they have blown through the entire contingency fund they had set aside in their first budget and they are three times more money in debt.
What does that mean? It means that future generations, our children and grandchildren, will pay higher taxes to pay that money back. Canadians know, when they borrow money, they have to pay it back. The government has said that it was just going to borrow a little bit. It was going to spur the economy on to create all kinds of jobs. It has not happened. It is a record of broken promises.
The Liberals also said that they would be cutting the small business tax rate for communities like mine in Chilliwack—Hope. Small and medium-sized enterprises in Chilliwack—Hope are the backbone of my community. Every major party in this place promised in the last election that we would cut the small business tax rate to 9% from 11%. Every single one of us here in the major recognized parties campaigned on cutting the small business tax rate to 9%.
What did we see? The Liberals got into power, and it said sorry to all the small business owners who create all of the jobs in this country, but they did not have the money for them. They had to spend it on other things. They are running a $30-billion deficit, but they cannot afford to keep their promise to them. Instead, they are going to raise their payroll taxes and make it more expensive for them to hire people. Not only were they not going to give them the break they promised, but they are going to make it more expensive.
It is no surprise, given the comments of the Prime Minister during the campaign when he said that small businesses were simply a way for rich Canadians to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. This is what the Liberal Party believes about small business in Canada, that they are simply avoiding taxes and avoiding their obligations to Canadians.
The Liberals are making life more expensive for the people in my riding by raising their taxes. They talk as well about how they are raising taxes on the wealthiest Canadians and cutting them for lowest-income Canadians, except they are doing nothing of the sort.
In my riding, the average income is $34,787 per year. Guess how much the average income earner in Chilliwack—Hope got from the Liberal tax cuts? It is zero. They do not make enough money to qualify for the Liberal tax cuts, because they kick in at $45,000 a year. Therefore, the person who actually makes the most money from the Liberal income tax cuts is someone making $199,000 a year. That might be who the Liberals represent, but in my riding, that is not who I represent. I represent middle and low-income Canadians who are looking for a break. They were promised a tax break from the current government and they got nothing.
Another group that has gotten nothing from the government is the natural resource sector. I was honoured to be named the natural resources critic, and it is a tough time for our natural resource industries. Right now in committee, we have been studying the mining industry. Mining company after mining company has come before the committee to say that a carbon tax will put more people out of work, and it may prevent projects from even starting. That is how serious this is.
The government has not adjusted its plan at all, given the surprising outcome in the United States where we now have president-elect Trump, who says he is going to cut corporate and business taxes. He has no intention of bringing in a carbon tax. Yet the Liberals continue on as though nothing has changed, as if it is still going to be Barack Obama in the White House in another month or so.
Things have changed. The landscape has dramatically shifted. If we do not adjust, we will continue to see massive outflows of capital from the natural resource sector to other jurisdictions. Businesses are going to leave this country, jobs are going to leave this country, and yet the government has done nothing except make it more expensive for businesses to operate in Canada. It is shameful. The 100,000 lost jobs in the energy sector that have happened since the current government took office will seem like the good old days if it continues down this path where people continue to look for lower-cost jurisdictions in which to operate.
Therefore, this is not a plan to get Canadians back to work. It is not a plan to make life more affordable for Canadians. It is a failed plan. It is a litany of broken promises. We on this side of the House will not support it.