Mr. Speaker, I want to quote the finance minister from his speech a few minutes ago when he said that we will continue “investing in ourselves”. I think the finance minister should choose his words with a little more caution. If he is desperately trying to change the channel from the scandal he is entangled in, if he continues to say stuff like that, people will just remember that maybe he benefits himself from some investment or legislation he personally tabled in the House of Commons.
The document in front of us is called the “Fall Economic Statement”, but I think it should be entitled the failed economic statement. Some journalists are saying that this is an economic update, but to be called an update, they have to bring something new to the table. They have to update it. What we see right now is an exercise in buzz words and the recycling of some decisions that were already put in the last budget or in statements from ministers in the last months. There is nothing new there. Members may remember a play by Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing.
If members are looking for the big news, which was everywhere yesterday, that the Liberals will boost the child benefit, in fact, it is the indexation, which is something the Liberals already said they would do six months ago. They are making a big show about something they have already announced. When we look carefully, this indexation will maybe give, more or less, $80 to $100 per family per kid. This is two days per year in kindergarten. This is the fall economic update. This is what they are talking about: two days. We thank them very much. It is so generous. There is really nothing there.
The Liberals said they would do a real national child care program. This is something the NDP has been asking for for years. However, these measures will not create a single place in public kindergarten.
This is what we are facing right now. Families are struggling. They have difficulty making ends meet, and there is nothing the Liberal government can give them to make their lives a little easier.
We still have 250,000 seniors living in poverty in this country. What is in the update? Nothing. There is nothing new.
For unemployed people, when they are asking for EI benefits, six out of 10 are still refused by the system, a system that was kept in place by the Liberal government. There is nothing here to help all those workers. There is nothing about the minimum wage or creating the conditions for better wages and good jobs in this country. I will be specific. Under the current Liberal government, 2016-17 has seen the lowest average increase in wages in this country in the last decade. The government is creating jobs, yes, but they are a lot of Walmart jobs and cheap labour.
On tax havens and loopholes for CEOs, there is nothing new. It is the same old Liberal business. I think on tax havens, there are three lines. They will continue to study that and maybe one day do something.
On the infrastructure investment bank, there is half a page saying that everything is fine, everything will be all right, and the government will invest and create some infrastructure. What will be the part of the private sector? What are the guarantees the bank will give to private investors? How much will it cost Canadian taxpayers and the users, who will now have to pay fees to use the infrastructure?
Eariler I poked fun at the Liberals with a reference to a title by Shakespeare. I do not do this often, but now I want to quote Blaise Pascal who said: “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.” It seems to me that the Liberal economic update is the eternal silence of infinite spaces. No matter how hard we listen, there is nothing to hear.
Apart from a few buzzwords to convince us that everything is fine, and some recycled announcements on items from the previous budget and things we have heard from other ministers recently, there is absolutely nothing new or concrete to help families and workers. This is a PR exercise meant to draw attention away from the fact that the Minister of Finance is in hot water because he introduced a bill in this House that directly benefits one of his companies, Morneau Shepell, in which he still holds shares, shares that he forgot or did not bother to put in a blind trust, I might add. That is not the only thing the Minister of Finance forgot or overlooked. Remember, he also forgot that he owns a villa in Provence, in France. I doubt that is the kind of thing that ordinary Canadians would tend to forget.
For families, the big announcement in this economic update, which was not much of an update, was that there will be no improvement to the Canada child benefit, as they had been led to believe over the past few days. All they can look forward to is the indexation of the Canada child benefit, which should have been done two years ago.
The Liberals screwed up and were chastised for it in the court of opinion and the media, so their big announcement today consists of saying they are going to do what they should have been doing all along. This is not a national daycare plan, which could genuinely help families, help fathers and mothers in this country who have young children.
Indexation will give families between $80 and $100 a year per child starting in 2018. That is better than nothing, but it is only enough to cover two days of daycare, or possibly one if you live in Toronto. This is not a plan that creates spots in daycare or helps families with young children. It is a smokescreen.
When we look at all of the measures that were announced, we see that they are just a bunch of old, recycled announcements and ideas, or that they are measures that will not be implemented until 2019. The document is interesting if we want to get an idea of what the 2019 Liberal election campaign is going to look like. The working tax credit will be implemented in 2019. It is being announced today, but it will only come into effect on the eve of the next election campaign.
There are many things missing from this economic update. There is nothing for the 250,000 seniors living in poverty. There is nothing for the 60% of unemployed workers who do not have access to employment insurance benefits. We could also talk about the infrastructure privatization bank. The Liberals are moving forward with that and saying that everything will be fine. The private sector is going to make money at the expense of users and Canadian taxpayers. There are also no measures to address the tax loopholes for CEOs or tax havens.
I do not know why this fall economic update is all smoke and mirrors, but people are going to become disillusioned very quickly and realize that the Liberals are continuing down the same path. They continue to work for Bay Street and the elite. I believe that Canadians deserve better.