Mr. Speaker, today I rise in the House to speak to Bill C-15, the implementation bill for the budget the Minister of Finance tabled on March 22.
I will be very clear from the outset that I am very worried. This government does not know what it is talking about and does not know what it is doing. It spends without thinking, it throws money around the country from coast to coast, it has no structure, and no guidelines. I must say that it is a bad manager.
Let us go back to October 19. Let us look at the many promises that were made and broken by our friends across the way who are now in government. First, they said that they would balance the budget at the end of their term in four years, which they criticized us for doing. I will talk about that broken promise later.
Their second broken promise was having a modest $10 billion deficit. They told us that they now project an astronomical deficit of $30 billion for the first year. They promised to lower business taxes from 11% to 9%. They did not do that. Again, they did not keep their promise. They asked Canadian voters to trust them to put postal workers back on their routes. Again, that is not true.
With regard to refugees, the Liberals created an emergency. The election took a turn and, unfortunately, the party that was in the lead got bumped to third place. The Liberals took the lead by promising to bring 25,000 refugees to Canada before December 31, 2015. Once again, they did not keep their promise.
They said that the middle-class tax cut would be revenue-neutral. They probably do not know how to count. It is going to cost a minimum of $1.2 billion. They also said that they were going to paint the Quebec Bridge and that they were going to solve that problem in my region. They have two weeks left to do so, or 23 days to be exact, but I can already tell the House that they will not keep that promise either.
They said that they were going to do politics differently. It is funny but there have never been as many gag orders as there have been under this government. They are not capable of governing responsibly. Canadian families must not follow their example. I am a father and, if I managed my family's budget the way that the government is managing our economy, we would go bankrupt. Managers, parents, and adults need to do things carefully.
Yes, every so often, circumstances arise in which we need to borrow money to improve our country, but we need to do so in a careful and controlled manner. Every Canadian family knows that, sooner or later, they will have to pay back what they borrowed. The day of reckoning will come. It is the law. It is a fact of life. When we borrow money, we have to pay it back. Money does not grow on trees. We have to fulfill our obligations.
What the government announced in the most recent budget is a structural deficit created by the Liberals. We need a drastic remedy. With a little luck, in four years, Canadians will be able to elect a Conservative government. Our children and grandchildren are the ones who will pay the price.
There are members here who have children at home. If they do not set any limits, if they do not get organized, and if they always say yes, their family unit will crumble and they will go bankrupt. If you give a child a credit card with no limit, you will be in a mess in no time. That is what the Liberal Party is doing to our beautiful country.
This government must govern. It must make hard decisions, decisions that are not very popular, but that are nevertheless extremely important and responsible. For example, its decision to reduce the pension age to 65 years was easy and popular, but was it responsible? That is the question. I can only answer that it was not.
It is simple, really. Fewer people are contributing, and costs are higher. More people are taking money out of the fund, and fewer people are putting money in. Nobody needs to take a university course to understand that.
Are the Liberals aware that life expectancy is going up? People are in better health and have a wealth of experience. Why take them out of circulation?
Even an expert with a high-profile financial firm, when he was in private practice, commended the Conservative government for having the courage to make what was a difficult but necessary and responsible decision. What is that so-called expert doing now? He is the Government of Canada's Minister of Finance. Things are not going well. How are we supposed to trust this minister when he does an about-face now that he is responsible for the budget?
Imagine if I said that I was going to give back my universal child care benefits because my income is above average and, on becoming prime minister, I hired two nannies and kept my benefits. What is going on?
They cannot even admit to some of the facts that have been confirmed repeatedly by the parliamentary budget officer. We, the Conservatives, left a budget surplus, and that was after going through one of the biggest global financial crises. Our former leader, who was not a drama teacher, but rather an economist, successfully led Canada out of that situation and made it an economic leader and the first G7 country to get out of the red. As Canadians, we can be proud of that.
The Prime Minister said he was going to govern differently. He is not governing. He is surfing the waves and taking selfies. Rather, it is most likely his inner circle who are taking selfies. Instead of making decision, he is using words like “we are going to consult”, “we are going to analyze”, and “we are going to re-examine departmental reports”. Those are the kinds of things we hear all the time in question period. The Liberals do not even trust Canadian federal public servants. For instance, at Canada Economic Development, a survey was done to determine what to do with the subsidy programs and what sector to support. Let us be serious.
Where is the amazing plan they had announced during the election campaign?
I visited companies that told me they were discouraged by the red tape. On the tax side, business owners must have access to measures that will let them keep these companies in Canada and sell them to family members without losing their shirts. The current federal tax system makes this difficult. Why not look to Quebec for inspiration? It will help companies remain in Canada and let owners, such as a mother or father, to transfer their business to their family. Why not? Why do we not put in place measures to help make this happen? It is not complicated.
Let us move on to another matter and talk about Bombardier. The Liberals have not yet said whether they will support the company or how they would do it. They said that they would provide that information 10 days before the budget, and then in the budget. It is now June 7 and Bombardier's management does not even know what to expect.
It would have been easy and very simple to extend the runway at Billy Bishop airport. That is not complicated. It does not cost anything. However, the Liberals never choose the solutions that do not cost anything.
There is nothing in the budget for our regions. We have to invigorate our regions. The only measure is providing broadband Internet. Our regions deserve more than that. They have tremendous potential that must be developed with our local partners.
I will move on quickly and get to my conclusion. Do members know that the worst debt-to-GDP ratio in Canada's history, 72%, was recorded in 1996 when the Liberals were in power? Do members know that the best debt-to-GDP ratio was recorded in 2009, when the Conservative government and economist Stephen Harper were in power? How can we trust a drama teacher and his troupe? The current government has no vision. It consults, considers, looks at, studies, examines, observes, thinks about taking into consideration—