Mr. Speaker, in this place, we spend Canadians' money. It does not come from us; it comes from them. When we make decisions around program expenditures, we are spending Canadians' money. What we discuss in this place is how we do that, why we do that, at what level we should do that, and how it benefits the economy. At the end of day, we are spending people's money. This is money that they earned. Therefore, it really behooves us to be accountable to them on how we are doing that.
There was a question that came up in debate about why this motion is important. It is important to the people who give us their money, who entrust us here to make decisions on how we spend their money, because it sets the stage for the government's narrative on how much money it is actually spending. The reality is that this year's “Fiscal Monitor” stated that their research and analysis shows that the current government was left in a surplus position. These are department officials in the public service, people who members across the aisle cited over and over again in the previous Parliament. That should be important to the people who give us their money and entrust us on how to spend it. Why? It is because what we are hearing from across the aisle is that there is no end in sight for government spending. That should concern all Canadians, because we do not have the money to pay for what it is spending.
Every day across this country, people make decisions on how they spend their money. They try to make ends meet. They make decisions on whether they are able to put their kids in a sporting program or how they are going to pay their rent. These are decisions that everybody has to make, and they make decisions on whether they can afford to do that. That choice is what is important. Therefore, for the government to continually say in the House that it is already in a deficit position so it should spend to high heaven is a problem for Canadians. They should be paying attention to that.
What Conservatives are asking government members to do today is something that they should take to heart. They should look at the fact that the statistics and the research of government officials show that we are in a surplus position; ergo, the big deficit position they put us in is their choice. It is their choice and they need to be accountable to Canadians on that. This is about accountability. They should have to tell their constituents that they put them in a $50-billion deficit position this year, they mortgaged their children's futures, and they should be able to explain to their constituents why they are doing that.
During the campaign, we did not hear a lot about “why” from the government. We did not hear a lot from the Liberals about why they want to go into deficit. To quote my colleague opposite in the last round of questions, he said deficits can be a good thing. What he should have said, and this belies the underlying philosophy of the Liberals, is why they want to make this program expenditure and how they predict it is going to affect the economy, x, y, and z. No, they are focusing on spending, spending, spending, and that spending comes out of the wallets of the people we represent. We have to be accountable for that. There is a huge fallacy the Liberals put in place when they talk over and over again about spending our way out of a bad situation.
I want to direct my colleague's attention to the annual fiscal tables, table 3, and look at the revenues. This is straight-up revenues in millions of dollars. If we look at that over the last 10 years, we will notice that last year the Conservative government, if I am reading this table correctly, had one of the highest levels of revenue coming into the government coffers for expenditures. However, the Conservatives did that while the federal tax burden was at its lowest level in 50 years. Therefore, there was a high level of government revenue coming in and yet Canadians, the people who give us their money, were paying less taxes. Why is that? It is because when people have more of their own money in their pockets, the economy grows. They are better off.
At the heart of this motion, the Liberals need to admit that they were left in a surplus situation. Now they need to go to Canadians and tell them why they are going into a massive deficit situation of their own choosing with, and here is the rub, no plan to get out of it. They should be able to tell Canadians, in two or three years, here is how these program expenditures will bring us back on track.
What do we have instead? The rhetoric we get instead out of the government is, let us make a checklist of absolutely everything we can do to hamper the Canadian economy right now. Point in case: Last night, the Prime Minister of this country was in Calgary. He was asked a very simple question. He was asked if the National Energy Board, our regulator in charge of conducting arm's-length scientific review processes for major infrastructure projects, green-lights the energy east pipeline, will his cabinet approve it.
Reader's Digest notes on his comments were long and obfuscating: “we will see”. He told a job-creating company to forget investing billions of dollars into the review process or going to their investors or their workers and saying that they would take a risk and build some job-creating infrastructure, forget the sanctity of the scientific review process. “I do not know, maybe we will approve it; maybe we will not. It is up to me.” That puts the chill on investment. That is what drives down government revenues over time.
Why is it important to support the motion? We left the Liberals in a surplus position. They should have to go to Canadians. They should have to go and tell them why we are in a deficit position of inordinate magnitude.
During the campaign, the Liberals said that their platform was fully costed. We are already at the point where they are well over that, just on the one area of responsibility. I am responsible for talking in the House about the Syrian refugee initiative. That platform was not fully costed, not even close. The Liberals have an accountability to Canadians.
I am happy to stand up and argue in this place on how we spend Canadians' money, but the Liberals should not lie to them. They should not tell them that we are in a deficit situation when we are not. They should not tell them that government officials the Liberals use to produce their budgets and their projections are wrong all the time. How else are we supposed to be accountable to Canadians?
For every Liberal who will stand up in this House and vote against the motion, I hope that all of their constituents write to them and ask why they would lie about the position we are in. Why would they do that? At least they should be honest with Canadians about how they are taking their money and spending it.
In a time of economic downturn, the government proposes to increase premiums for the CPP. That is not what people need right now. They do not need more money coming off their paycheque. It is the same thing with increases in EI premiums. That says to job-creating companies that maybe they will not be able to hire another person because their operating expenditures are going up. When we raise taxes on job-creating companies, they have to make a choice on whether they can invest in a new project or hire more people.
Again, table 3 in that report shows government revenue increased while the federal tax burden was at its lowest level in 50 years. The Liberals' logic is flawed. They owe it to Canadians to be honest. Every single one of them who gets up and votes against the motion in this place has a lot of explaining to do.