Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.
It is my pleasure to rise to speak to the Liberal government's second budget.
One of the primary lessons we are taught in life starting at a very young age is that we are to learn from our past mistakes. This lesson is clearly lost on the Liberals. It seems that instead of learning from their mistakes, they have decided to double down on them and hedge all bets on their plan that is already clearly failing. As the voice for taxpayers from the great riding of Kitchener—Conestoga, I cannot let the Liberal government continue on with its reckless spending and failed economic plan for Canada without pointing out some of the major pitfalls and dangers ahead.
This budget, like the Liberals' first budget, has completely forgotten middle-class Canadians and those working hard to join them. They will need to work even harder now. With these past two budgets, the Liberal government has made life more expensive for Canadians while simultaneously shrinking their take-home pay. This has to stop.
The good people of Kitchener—Conestoga needed a break, and that is what they were hoping for in this last budget, but they certainly did not get one. Canadians are not looking for bigger, shinier promises that will cost millions but never produce jobs or economic growth. They are looking for common-sense solutions to our most pressing problems.
They want their paycheques to increase, which means lower payroll taxes. They want their children to grow up with good job prospects, and that means growing the economy and lowering taxes on small business. They want Canada to remain a safe country, and that means investing in our military. They want their commutes to work to be shorter so they can spend more time with their families. That means getting shovels in the ground and infrastructure projects built, not just announced over and over again.
Unfortunately, budget 2016 and budget 2017 did none of those things. This budget is proof that the Prime Minister is out of touch with the needs of working people.
Despite the Prime Minister's promise to return the budget to balance, he admitted on budget day that he has no intention whatsoever of returning our books to balance. Not only did the Prime Minister break his campaign promise to spend only $10 billion in deficit financing, but the upcoming deficit for the year ahead is $29 billion. The government, in four years, will add a whopping $100 billion to Canada's federal debt. The interest charges alone just for this year will be $24.3 billion, and that number increases every year for the foreseeable future under the Liberal government. By 2021, our interest costs alone will be $33.3 billion each and every year. Let us think about what good that $33 billion could be doing: increases to health care transfers, investments in palliative care, hospices, and home care, more money invested in infrastructure, or how about simply reducing our tax burden.
As I have already noted, this budget fails in many areas, but I will focus on three of them: Canada's infrastructure, our troops, and our farmers. The Liberal government often pats itself on the back for what it says is historic infrastructure funding. The truth is the only part of this funding that is historic is how far after the next election cycle this money is budgeted for. Very little of the funding that was promised has gone to roads and highways. We need shovels in the ground. We want people working. We want roads, bridges, and water treatment facilities built.
Ninety-four per cent of the announced infrastructure projects have not even started. This means that jobs are not being created and the economy is not being stimulated. Instead of coming up with a new plan that actually builds infrastructure and creates jobs, budget 2017 doubles down on the existing infrastructure plan and contains no new infrastructure spending beyond what was already announced in the 2016 fall economic update.
By allocating public transit funding based on ridership, the Liberal government is disadvantaging Canada's growing communities in favour of already developed large urban centres. I am thinking of the Waterloo region. Too often our medium-sized communities are left to fend for themselves. Of course, a bridge in Wellesley township will never have the traffic volume crossing it that an inner-city bridge does, but that does not mean it is not important to the growth and health of our local economy.
Municipalities need good and safe infrastructure, but they also need programs that are easy to access without miles and miles of red tape, programs that provide predictable funding and do not leave small and rural communities behind. Even if the government is bent on favouring the large urban centres and funding major public transit projects, why in the world would it take measures to decrease ridership on public transit? This makes no sense. We should be increasing the tax credit, not eliminating it.
An adult monthly pass holder in my riding would be losing out on about $150 per year, or the equivalent of almost two months' worth of bus passes. Talk about encouraging people to take transit. Getting 12 months of public transit for the cost of 10 is a fantastic incentive. I have not heard even one of my colleagues on the other side of the House defend this policy decision, but I think I know why. It is totally indefensible.
There is all this while the Liberal government has introduced its plan for a carbon tax. Let me get this straight. The Liberals are raising the price of gasoline and raising the cost of taking the bus. Do the Liberals think that all Canadians can just work from home? This makes absolutely no sense. The Conservatives will continue to hold the Liberals to account and push for open, transparent, and accountable infrastructure funding for our communities, and plans to increase ridership on public transit, not decrease it.
The budget turns its back on our men and women in uniform who stand up to defend our values and our democratic freedoms. For the second year in a row, the budget contained nothing for our men and women in uniform. Instead, the Liberals cut $8.48 billion that had been earmarked for military equipment purchases. Coupled with last year's cuts, the Department of National Defence now faces a $12-billion shortfall. National defence is clearly not a priority for the Liberal government.
In an era of reckless Liberal spending, it is appalling that the largest cuts are consistently at the expense of our Canadian Armed Forces. Recent examples include the Liberals' decision to pull our CF-18s out of the fight against ISIS, their preference for fourth generation fighter jets, their lack of increased support for our Ukrainian allies, and their failure to advance important procurement projects. All of these suggest that the current Prime Minister does not have our national defence as a high priority and expects other countries to do the heavy lifting.
While Canada's allies have committed to modernizing their military capabilities and spending 2% of their GDP on defence, the Prime Minister is being dangerously naive. Despite the clear need for investments in Canada's national defence, the finance minister stated recently that the government believes the military is “appropriately provisioned”. I will continue to stand up and point out that we need to provide the resources that our Canadian Armed Forces deserve. We want them to be able to carry out the tasks that we give them, and more importantly, to return home safe to their families.
I would be remiss if I did not talk about our farmers. As a farmer myself and an MP for a riding that has a strong farming community, these hard-working Canadians are always a priority for me. Unfortunately, they do not seem to be much of a priority for the Liberal government. Budget 2017 does nothing to support this hard-working Canadian farmer class. So much for standing up for the middle class.
In fact, farmers and fishermen may face higher insurance premiums resulting from the Liberals' decision to scrap the income tax exemption for insurers of farming and fishing property. In addition, the Liberals have indicated they plan to eliminate the income tax deferral for grain producers. By failing to provide any details regarding the next agricultural policy framework, the Liberals have left Canadian farmers in the dark. What support programs will they have in the future, if any? New money for science and innovation is focused on climate change and soil and water conservation, but fails to provide support for new business risk management approaches for farmers.
The Liberals are promising to launch a full review of rail service in western Canada, but farmers are getting tired of waiting. They need dependable rail service to get their crops to market.
It is clear the government has turned its back on the middle class in favour of its rich friends. We saw this in the beginning with its so-called middle-class tax cut that benefited people making over $160,000 but did absolutely nothing for Canadians who make the average income in Canada of $50,000. Now we are seeing the middle class left behind again by increasing payroll taxes and eliminating the public transit tax credit. I am afraid to even think about what they have in mind for the middle class next year. Canadians should hold on to their wallets.
For the sake of my constituents in Kitchener—Conestoga and with their best interests in mind, I will be voting against this budget. It is heading in the wrong direction and is pushing our debt on to our children and grandchildren. We owe it to them to do better.