Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill.
It is always a pleasure to participate in this place. Before I begin to offer my comments, I would first like to state my belief that people offer themselves up for public service with a sincere belief and desire to build a stronger and more prosperous Canada. At times we may disagree on how best to achieve those goals, but I believe a democratic debate and a healthy democratic environment, like we enjoy in Canada, are all part of this. They are all part of what we collectively celebrate on July 1st of each year.
I mention these things because I believe that those members of the Liberal government who campaigned on a promise to run modest annual deficits and then return to a balanced budget in 2019 all did so with a sincere belief that these promises were true and accurate. I would like to believe that there was no intent to deceive Canadians, but here is the problem.
We know now that the Liberal government, in budget 2016, blew past these budget promises by saying that it would spend roughly $30 billion in debt. How much has been spent in the last year alone? We do not know. Was it 50% above the Liberal election promise? Was it 100%? Was it double or triple or somewhere in-between? I am not talking about over the next three years that the government promised but just in this last fiscal year that is coming to a close. If we are honest, many on that side would support even more in the upcoming fiscal year. Worse, if we dig a little deeper, as the parliamentary budget office did recently, we would find that less than $5 billion of that could be identified in real infrastructure projects. Where has the rest gone? We know from both the current and previous parliamentary budget officers that the balance is going toward increased spending.
To be fair to the Liberals, I would suggest they have a mandate for some of that increased spending on which they campaigned. However, they did not campaign on much of that other increased spending. Worse, if we read the Liberals' own budget documents, we would find that infrastructure spending eventually has to be increased to meet the Liberals' big spending promises. However, no matter how we cut it, we have a very real challenge now, when spending massively dwarfs revenue. That is why the Department of Finance, in a forecast report, warned that if the current Liberal government does not change course, Canada will not return to a balanced budget until at least 2050, and at that time Canada's debt will be well over $1 trillion.
The finance minister first saw this report back in October. He then punted it, pushed it from the public eye, until Friday December 23. When I asked the finance minister in question period about this report, he threw his own department under the bus, trying to discredit its report. When I made mention of studying this report at finance committee, the Liberals on committee blocked it.
If this report is seriously flawed, as the finance minister contends, he would welcome this scrutiny as it would have surely backed up his claims. Every person in the room knows the real reason the report was blocked. This leaves the question: How will the Liberals overcome what is basically a Liberal-created structural deficit and return to a balanced budget? In question period I have asked when the Liberals will return to a balanced budget. The finance critic for the Conservatives has asked numerous times.