Madam Speaker, I have trouble seeing what goes on without my glasses. That is why I rely on documents for a bit of help and bring them closer so I can read. It is my fault, Madam Speaker. Actually, I am just kidding; we have to be able to laugh a little.
Let us get back to the reality of the facts. The government was elected on a platform to get back to a zero deficit in 2019. There is no plan for a zero deficit, except the civil servants of the finance ministry in a document tabled on October 10, many months before. When did the government publish this document? On December 23, just before Christmas. The government was so proud of the document it tabled, and then published it just before Christmas. What does this document say? That the government will achieve a zero deficit by not 2019, not 2020, not 2030, not 2040, and not 2050, but by 2055. This is the reality of the government.
This is the gift that it will give to millennials, to the young generation: pay, pay, pay; deficit, deficit, deficit; debt, debt, debt. That is all wrong for Canada, that is all wrong for Canadians, and that is all wrong for young Canadians. That is why this is sincerely a bad budget. However, do we find something about that in Bill C-44? Not at all.
Worse than that, the government will create new taxes. We know what we are talking about. We talked about a pension plan a few months ago. Now it has created new taxes. I would call them the Friday and Saturday night taxes. They taxed alcohol, beer, and wine. That is great for hard-working Canadians, who see half of their salary going in taxes to the government. If they want to enjoy some Friday and Saturday evenings with good friends, they will now have to pay more in new taxes.
The current government proposes to abolish the tax credits our government tabled over the nine years we were in office. Thank God we were in office for nine years, because we gave Canadians, especially Canadian families, the help and tools they needed to help themselves.
We offered tax credits to help families and tax credits for help at school, for textbooks. They have been eliminated by the Liberal government. We created tax credits to help families who enrolled their children in sports activities. They have been eliminated by the Liberal government. We created tax credits for children’s arts activities. They have been eliminated by the Liberal government. Now, as hard as it is to believe, the government has eliminated a tax credit for public transit users. I did not see that one coming at all. Of the 250 or so tax credits that Canadian families may be eligible for, the Liberal government, that constantly boasts about its exploits and constantly preens itself for its lovely great ecological principles, has eliminated the tax credit for people who use public transit. Honestly, if someone had told me this two weeks before the budget was tabled, I would have laughed.
The Liberals decided to cancel and to abolish a tax credit for transit. This government is talking about bringing in policies. It is quite important to protect the heart of our world, and the government shall protect it.
I will remember all my life when the Prime Minister said two months ago that he was here for three great reasons, and then he named his children. He was here to protect and to give his children a better heart.
Look at the result. He cancelled the transit tax credit. It is all wrong, but so typical of the Liberals. They say something, then they reverse it.
What eliminating these tax credits and creating new taxes means, in our view, is that the government is not creating winning conditions for taxpayers to keep more money in their pockets, particularly with the money they have.
What I have shown is that, at the end of the day, the Liberals did a terrible job of administering the support system for families by forgetting to index the numbers, but they are very proud of giving $2 billion more than what we gave when we were in government. Need I point out that this money does not exist? We do not have it. If we had it, we would happily hand it out. The big difference between this government and ours, when it comes to helping families, is that during our last year, we did it with a zero deficit, with a balanced budget, and with a plan for tackling the debt. That was our plan. We were living within our means.
This government is borrowing and running up deficits, and it is no big deal. The deficit will be zero in 2055, life is beautiful, and they are handing out money they do not have. No head of household could manage their budget by using a credit card all the time and always asking the bank to lend them money. At some point, reality catches up. Reality is going to catch up with this government in October 2019; of that we can be sure.
Now I would like to talk about the omnibus nature of this bill. I said earlier that this 308-page-long bill includes not only budgetary measures, but also things that have absolutely nothing to do with the speech delivered by the Minister of Finance on March 22. Among other things, the bill sets out the new mandate of the parliamentary budget officer.
When I was at the National Assembly, I wanted Quebec to have a parliamentary budget officer. To my delight, we have one here in the House of Commons, in Ottawa, in the federal government. How wonderful. For 11 years, that person has been diligently keeping watch over the public purse independently from the House of Commons, from the government and parliamentarians. In this omnibus bill, the parliamentary budget officer is being given a new mandate that makes no sense. Henceforth, the Liberal government would have the parliamentary budget officer submit his game plan for the year. To whom? To you, Madam Speaker. Please do not feel singled out, as he will submit his plan to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Speaker of the Senate as well. It is unheard of.
There are 17 countries that have a parliamentary budget officer and only one of them, Korea, works this way. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if 16 countries believe one thing and only one believes another, perhaps the 16 are right. The government is following Korea's example and requiring the parliamentary budget officer to present its game plan to the House of Commons and the Senate. In our opinion, this does not make sense.
We are not the only ones to think so. In an interview with Le Devoir, among others, the parliamentary budget officer said that he fears that his job will be politicized:
I am more concerned about the Speaker of the Senate than the Speaker of the House of Commons, because the Speaker of the Senate is appointed by the Prime Minister's Office whereas the Speaker of the House is elected by his peers. Without wanting to seem too naive, he is technically neutral. One of them is more closely connected to the Prime Minister's Office than the other.
That was Jean-Denis Fréchette, the current parliamentary budget officer, who said that this is not the right move.
Therefore, let us be prudent, because he is not the only one saying so.
Kevin Page, the former parliamentary budget officer, said in an interview with Bill Curry of The Globe and Mail that the bill appears to take away the power of individual MPs to ask the PBO to provide cost estimates of various government initiatives. He said, “I would worry, under this legislation, based on all the interference we saw from various political actors and bureaucrats. This legislation creates the facade of independence...but on the other hand it completely takes it away.”
It is not a Conservative that said that. It is the former parliamentary budget officer. He said that this measure was just a facade and that it could politicize the work of the parliamentary budget officer or, at worst, make it so that the parliamentary budget officer is no longer able to undertake projects on his own initiative to undertake the analyses of his choice. He would have to set out his game plan and it would have to be approved by the Speaker of the House and the Speaker of the Senate. That is inappropriate. People all across the country are speaking out against the new approach proposed by the Liberals, which is completely unacceptable.
I would like to quote Manon Cornellier from Le Devoir, who is not known for being any more Conservative than the next person. She also used the words “facade of independence”. She said that the parliamentary budget officer “will no longer be able to undertake studies on his own initiative” and that “this marks the end of initiatives to address unforeseen circumstances”.
She went on to say, and I quote, that “the Liberals will only allow committees the right to make these requests, which is very convenient since a majority government controls those committees”.
She ended on a rather scathing note by saying:
Unfortunately, adopting these changes, which will diminish parliamentarians' ability to hold the government to account, is more or less a sure thing, since all budget bills are subject to party discipline.
Unless...[and I will look my colleagues opposite in the eye as I read this part] the Liberal members stand up and pressure their government to remove this reform from the bill and hand it over to parliamentarians. It would be in the Liberals' interest to do so. Otherwise, as soon as they return to the opposition benches [in 2019], it will not only be the PBO whose hands are tied, but theirs will be too.
This Liberal government proposal, within an omnibus bill, which aims to change how the parliamentary budget officer operates, is completely unacceptable. That is why we strongly oppose Bill C-44, a bill that is bad for Canada's economy and one that flies in the face of the Liberals' promise not to introduce omnibus bills, especially when some fundamental things are still missing from its 308 pages. That is why I am seeking the consent of the House to move the following motion, seconded by the member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-44, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017, and other measures, since the Bill, in addition to increasing taxes and making it more difficult for struggling families to make ends meet, is an omnibus bill that fails to address the government's promise not to use them.