Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this afternoon to speak to Bill C-15, the budget implementation act.
During the election campaign the Prime Minister went all across Canada talking about change. Over the last seven months, as evidenced by budget 2016, Canadians have received change but unfortunately it is not the change that was promised and it certainly is not change for the better.
During the election the Liberals made a commitment to run a $10-billion deficit, which they characterized as modest. They promised that by 2019-20, the budget would be returned to balance. Barely after the ballots were counted, the finance minister was trotted out and he admitted that they would not be able to bring in just a $10-billion deficit, that it would be many billions of dollars more. Boy did it ever turn out to be billions and billions of dollars more, $30 billion, more than three times what the Liberals committed to.
What about that commitment to balance the budget by 2019-20? Much like the Liberal promise to run a $10-billion deficit in 2016-17, that promise was another Liberal promise made and another Liberal promise broken. Now the government admits that in 2019 instead of a balanced budget, it is going to deliver a $17.9-billion deficit. No wonder, because over the next four years the Liberal government plans to borrow an unprecedented $113 billion, that is $113 billion that Canadians do not have.
Taking a step back one might ask why it is that the Liberals, during the election campaign, promised to take the $1-billion surplus that they inherited from our Conservative government and turn that into a $10-billion deficit. The answer is that the Liberals said there needed to be some short-term spending in some critical areas such as infrastructure.
What do the Liberals have to show for not a $10-billion deficit but a $30-billion deficit in infrastructure? Budget 2016 would provide no new funds for roads, bridges, railways, ports, and highways. Aside from some new funding for public transit, all of the new infrastructure spending in budget 2016 is dedicated to ill-defined green and social infrastructure.
More significantly, much of the $30-billion deficit is not attributable to increased spending on public transit or even spending in green and social infrastructure. Rather, much of this $30-billion deficit is attributable to a 7.6% increase in discretionary spending that would do absolutely nothing to create jobs and growth but would do plenty to saddle Canadians with more debt.
Much of the spending in budget 2016-17 is permanent and ongoing rather than temporary and cyclical. As a result, budget 2016 would set Canada on a path to long-term structural deficits.
While there was no plan in the budget to create jobs, growth, and prosperity, there is a plan in the budget to tax job creators, particularly small businesses that constitute the backbone of the Canadian economy. The government wants to eliminate and is going to eliminate a hiring tax credit and the student tax credit. What about the reduction of the small business tax rate to 9% that the previous Conservative government introduced and that the Liberals during the election campaign said that they would implement? Another Liberal promise made and another Liberal promise broken, because now the government has announced that it is reversing the small business tax cut.
Then what about that middle-class tax cut that the Liberals touted with such enthusiasm during the election campaign, the revenue-neutral middle-class tax cut? Well it turns out the revenue neutral part of it is just another Liberal promise made and another Liberal promise broken. It turns out it is not revenue neutral at all. That is just the beginning because what we begin to find out is that the Liberal middle-class tax cut is actually a Liberal middle-class tax cut fraud. Why is that? Because average middle-class Canadians, if they are lucky, would receive $1 a day under the Liberal middle-class tax cut. What do they lose as a result? The talk about eliminating the textbook tax credit, the sports tax credit, the arts tax credit, income-splitting for families, and on and on, is part of the Liberal middle-class tax cut shell game that is making more Canadians worse off than better off.
The Prime Minister talked about change, the government has brought about change, unfortunately, it is not change for the better. Regretfully, it is change for the worse and it is why budget 2016 and Bill C-15 must be defeated.