House of Commons Hansard #170 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was 2017.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's responses to six petitions.
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 30th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
The committee advises that, pursuant to Standing Order 91.1(2), the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs met to consider the order for the second reading of private members' bills originating in the Senate, and recommends that the items listed herein, which it has determined should not be designated non-votable, be considered by the House.
The committee also advises that, pursuant to Standing Order 91.1(2), the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs met to consider the items on the order of precedence for Monday, April 10, 2017, and recommends that the items listed herein, which it has determined should not be designated non-votable, be considered by the House.
Procedure and House AffairsCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present another petition from Canadian citizens who call to Parliament's attention the British home children. Thousands were brought to Canada over decades. They were taken from their families in Britain, many simply because they were poor, and were brought to Canada where they were, many times, put in inappropriate personal living circumstances and used as cheap labour. The petitioners call on Parliament to offer an unequivocal, sincere, and public apology here to those home children and their descendants.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present two petitions. The first is from members of my riding, as well as a number of residents from Winnipeg. They are calling on the government to adopt a national AIDS strategy, based on the proven principle of treatment as prevention.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from many of my own constituents, as well as some from Kirkland Lake, Ontario. They call on the House to pass legislation to ensure that consumers know what they are purchasing and have ingredient labels that specifically list genetically modified organisms. Consumers have a right to know when they are purchasing GMO products.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.
The House resumed from May 3 consideration of the motion that Bill C-44, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.
Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1Government Orders
The Speaker Geoff Regan
We are resuming debate. We have five minutes for questions and comments, following the speech of the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Multiculturalism.
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Mr. Speaker, there is so much in this budget implementation bill that is bad for Canadians and for the future of the economy of Canada. There is so much that Canadians have to be concerned about. However, what is interesting, and a lot of Canadians are not noticing, are the changes to the power—
Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1Government Orders
The Deputy Speaker Bruce Stanton
Is the audio not working?
The audio is now working, and the translation is working now. The hon. member may continue.
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
We will try that again, Mr. Speaker.
As I was saying, there is so much in this budget implementation bill that is not good for Canadians, especially for the economy, and not good in what it does for jobs. The so-called infrastructure bank is really bad for rural communities that are looking for infrastructure money. However, what I am concerned about at this point is the changes and the power that is being taken away from the parliamentary budget officer.
When we were in government, sometimes the parliamentary budget officer would talk about things with which he or his office disagreed. He would talk about things we were doing. That was what his job was. Now the government is taking away the power of the parliamentary budget officer to do that job. It is very concerning, especially for a government that is supposed to be open, that is supposed to be transparent, and that is supposed to be more available for scrutiny and for accountability.
I wonder if my hon. colleague could comment on where the benefit is to Canadians and to democracy by neutralizing and almost neutering the parliamentary budget officer.
Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1Government Orders
Parkdale—High Park Ontario
Liberal
Arif Virani LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage (Multiculturalism)
Mr. Speaker, at the outset, I will provide two responses. In terms of what the government, through the budget, is doing for jobs and for infrastructure, it is making historic investments that are actually having results for Canadians right around the country.
Canadians elected us on a platform of investment in the economy, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are doing that, and the results are already starting to be shown in terms of the jobless rate, the unemployment rate in this country, which has gone from 7.1% to 6.7% under our watch, and that will continue to decline.
In terms of transparency and accountability, this is a very valid point raised by the member opposite. It is an important point. It is a point that our government believes in. That is why we have made efforts to render more accountability, both in this chamber and at committees, and for parliamentarians across the board.
In terms of the parliamentary budget officer, we believe in a robust role for that office, because that kind of accountability is exactly the kind of accountability that needs to be exercised over any government, whether it is this government or any other government of a different stripe.
Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague. He speaks about jobs and how there will be jobs in the budget. Does the member understand that the 2% excise tax that the government is putting on to wine in Canada will kill Canadian wineries, will kill Canadian wine jobs?
I have more than 18 wineries in my region. They are thriving. They have a complete supply chain, where they go from growing the product to retailing the product. They have tourism, they have restaurants, and they are providing jobs in many regions in our country.
Can the member speak to why his government has chosen to target wineries and Canadian wines, in particular because we have just signed the CETA trade agreement that will hurt them. Why are we costing jobs in our wine regions?
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Essex for her question and for her advocacy in this chamber.
In terms of the winery economy, the vintners of Canada are an important aspect of our economy, as are all of our alcohol producers and alcohol distributers. The actual tax that is proposed in this budget will amount to a tax of what I understand to be 1¢ per bottle. That tax, while it may be significant, is not overall disproportionate to the amount of economic generation that will be created through that revenue generation, through that Excise Tax Act change.
Let us continue with the CTA. The efforts we are making with the Canada trade agreement to reduce interprovincial trade barriers will have an impact across the country, including on alcohol and wine distribution throughout the country.
With respect to the Excise Tax Act, I would actually underscore another change to be made to the Excise Tax Act, which I think benefits the exact same constituents who the member for Essex and I care about; for example, the people who are employed in the taxi industry. By changing the Excise Tax Act and how it considers ride-sharing services, such as Uber, what we are doing is levelling the playing field between Uber services and taxicab services so that all ride-sharing agreements are taxed in the same manner, which will again increase the equity that I think both of us agree should be pursued.
Terry Duguid LiberalParliamentary Secretary for Status of Women
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to participate in this debate on budget 2017. Canadians have now had the opportunity to review much of what is in the budget, and I believe there is a growing recognition that it will do a great deal to support gender equality and the economic advancement of women in this country.
Before looking at the budget itself, it is important to note that, as Canada marks the 150th anniversary of its founding this year, women are positioned for tremendous economic success this year and into the future. Women already represent nearly half of the workforce and continue to advance in many sectors of the Canadian economy. In the public, private, and non-profit sectors, women hold many leadership positions. The areas of the economy where women are under-represented are slowly becoming fewer. Our country has a significant pool of talented women with the skills and abilities needed for a range of economic opportunities, which is a clear competitive advantage. Canada ranks first out of 145 countries in female educational attainment, according to the World Economic Forum. Women now make up the majority of enrolments in college programs, and the proportion of women is even greater among graduates. Since the early 1990s, women have made up the majority of full-time students enrolled in undergraduate university programs.
However, we also know that our work to advance women into the economic opportunities they desire is far from done. One area where action is needed is in closing the gender wage gap. The fact is that women earn 87¢ for every dollar earned by men, largely as a result of wage inequality between women and men within occupations. In 2016, Canada ranked 35th overall in the global gender gap, a drop from 30th in 2015. We are going to change that.
While women are making inroads into all industries and occupations, they are still concentrated in lower-paying sectors, such as retail, health care, and social services. Women are overrepresented in part-time work and are less likely to reach more senior positions. In 2014, women held just 11.9% of construction jobs, 19.2% of forestry, fishing, mining, and oil and gas jobs, and 29.4% of agricultural jobs.
Let us not forget the most recent statistics from the Canadian Board Diversity Council's 2016 report card. It indicates that women hold just 21.5% of the FP 500 board seats, which is a competitive disadvantage for the corporate sector and the economy.
There are also some things we do not know yet about the gender wage gap. Many studies suggest that more than half of the gender wage gap is due to unexplained factors that we either have not yet learned how to measure or are the result of issues such as patriarchy and the systemic bias and discriminatory practices toward women in the workplace.
Given the challenge presented by the gender wage gap in Canada, the federal government is determined to play a leadership role in closing it. This includes a number of commitments made as part of budget 2017, which build on important steps taken in budget 2016 and additional actions by this government over the past year. Allow me to briefly describe some of these.
Budget 2017 includes a major commitment over the next 11 years for new investments of $7 billion in early learning and child care and over $11.2 billion in a national housing strategy. These investments in early learning and child care, in particular, will support access to child care and allow greater participation in work, education, or training, particularly by mothers.
A new employment insurance caregiving benefit will allow more caregivers, the majority of whom are women, to balance their work and family responsibilities. The government will create more flexible work arrangements for federally regulated employees, including flexible start and finish times, the ability to work from home, and new unpaid leaves to help manage family responsibilities. These actions, as part of budget 2017, represent tremendous opportunities to support women and girls reaching their full potential, and help close the gender wage gap in Canada.
We also cannot ignore the tremendous step forward that budget 2017 represents for openness and transparency by including a groundbreaking gender statement, not as an annex but as a full chapter in the budget itself. The gender statement raises the bar in our understanding of how public policies affect women and men differently.
Let me also remind Canadians about some of the measures announced prior to the budget that support economic opportunities for women and help us close the gender wage gap. These include advancing a national poverty reduction strategy; enhancing the use of gender-based analysis to ensure decisions about policies, programs, and legislation advance gender equality; introducing the new Canada child benefit; putting in place a new merit-based, open, and transparent approach in order to select high-quality candidates for some 4,000 Governor in Council and ministerial appointments with gender diversity as a key goal; and finally, introducing legislation to modernize Canada's federal corporate governance framework, which includes using the comply or explain approach to improve gender diversity on corporate boards, which is badly needed.
I am proud of the many actions being taken by the Government of Canada as part of budget 2017, along with the measures we have put in place beyond the budget itself to support women's economic success and help close the gender wage gap in this country. Not only will women and their families benefit greatly from these actions; all Canadians will benefit as we work together to build an inclusive, prosperous country that strengthens the middle class from coast to coast to coast.
Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, one of the things my colleague spoke about was pay equity, but unfortunately women are going to have to wait another year. I am not sure why the Liberals think women in Canada need to wait to have pay equity addressed. Why we cannot have legislation now is beyond me. Why this measure cannot be included now is beyond me.
I appreciate that the budget has a lens applied to it that speaks of women, but let us be clear: the six economic sectors that are priorities in this budget are male-dominated sectors.
While the budget does provide some aspirational language on where we need to go—and gender being addressed in any budget is a positive step, and I am pleased to see it in this budget— the funding for status of women remains dramatically low, the lowest of any other ministerial portfolio, the lowest it has been. It stays at an amount that has been called “budget dust” because it is 0.1%. In a budget with a gender focus, why was there no increase to the status of women ministry?
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Mr. Speaker, reflecting on the last 10 years, funding to Status of Women Canada was cut rather dramatically by the previous government, and we have restored funding to that ministry. We have opened regional offices. Winnipeg is now a centre for Status of Women Canada, admittedly on a part-time basis.
With reference to the member's question on pay equity, we made a solid commitment in our platform, and it has been referenced many times in the House. We will be bringing forward proactive pay equity legislation in 2018.
As my mother would say, “If something is worth doing, it is worth doing right”, and to do right by Canadian women, we will take the time to do it right.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, I have two comments for my hon. colleague, and hopefully I will get a response to the second.
I feel honour bound to say that when the Harper administration brought in the tax credit for the use of buses, the Green Party opposed it because it did not put a single additional bus on the road. It did give a tax credit to people who were taking public transit anyway and who were already in an income bracket that would allow them to benefit from a tax credit. The credit was valuable to many people, but it did not contribute toward reducing greenhouse gases. An analysis of that bus tax credit showed that the cost per tonne in the reduction of greenhouse gases was so inefficient that it cost $1,000 per tonne, so I cannot now attack the present Liberal administration for removing something that I criticized the previous government for bringing in, but the public transit issue does merit more examination in the budget.
My second point is that $20 billion has been promised for public transit, but only somewhat less than $1 billion of that will be available before 2019. I would ask my hon. colleague the parliamentary secretary why we are not taking the climate crisis more seriously and spending the money sooner to help people find it more convenient to take public transit.
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands for her advocacy on climate change. I know that as part of the Canadian delegation, she was an important part of the discussion in bringing the Paris climate agreement about.
I agree with her that the tax credit for transit ridership was ineffective. It did not reduce greenhouse gases and did not improve ridership.
I will also echo something the hon. member said. We are going to be investing, over the next 10 years, $28.7 billion in transit. That is a staggering amount of money after very little funding over the last 10 years. Again, we need the time to plan. In Winnipeg, for instance, the southwest transit corridor is being completed. It is in the planning stages now, and it will be ready for investment in 2018-2019.
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise and participate in debate, and more so in this case. However, if I might be indulged for just a moment, I would like to share a little news with this place.
First of all, about a year ago we had a vote in this place on whether or not the Supreme Court was the best body to hear a case out of New Brunswick, the Comeau case. Many might remember that it was the case of a man who bought both spirits and beer in Quebec and transported these items home to New Brunswick. He was fined for crossing a border with a Canadian-made product, and I and many people in this place have taken issue with these unfair and inequitable trade barriers.
I am happy to say today that the Supreme Court has announced that it will be hearing the Comeau case. I want to show appreciation for all the members who supported that motion and I do hope the Liberal government members will reconsider their opposition to it. I also hope they will argue for a restored section 121 of our charter, our free trade clause, because I believe it is a constitutional right. I believe we are one country, not just as a political unit but as an economic one, and I hope the Minister of Justice and associated ministers will take that position and argue for a liberalized opening of trade in Canada.
I am very happy to join the debate on this particular budget and the related implementation bill. Obviously, over on the opposition side of this place, there is an expectation that there will be some disagreement over measures proposed in a budget implementation bill. However, I also do not believe it is productive to re-fight an election, and likewise it is my view that it is counterproductive to oppose everything simply for the sake of opposing, as we often saw in the previous Parliament.
However, it is my intent today to raise a few issues that I have serious concerns with. For starters, let us all agree that this is, for all intents and purposes, an omnibus budget bill. From my own perspective, having sat on the government side of this place, I recognize that when a government is trying to implement a broad fiscal agenda, as much as it would be ideal to debate every measure on a stand-alone basis, that expectation is just not realistic, so I am willing to give some consideration for the Liberals to use an omnibus budget bill.
However, where I will call out the Liberals is on promising during the election to not use an omnibus bill, and yet here we are, debating an omnibus piece of legislation. This is exactly the type of hypocrisy that drives cynicism among Canadian voters in our political system, which ironically is yet another campaign theme the Prime Minister was all too happy to rally against during the election campaign but on which he now adds fuel to the fire.
Getting back to the budget, there is a very troubling aspect to this budget implementation bill, and that is the fact that this budget mentions items that are not actually budgeted for. Let me give a few examples.
The budget had a line item of “helping working adults upgrade their skills”. This sounds like something that most Canadians would support. However, how much actual money did the Liberals budget for in the 2017 budget? Zero. There is nothing in the 2017 budget to actually fund that item, nothing. There is only a promise to do so in the 2019 election year.
Another curious item in this budget is “investing in skills innovation”. Once again, it sounds like something most Canadians would support. Would anyone here like to take a guess at how much actual money the Liberals have budgeted to pay for this in the 2017 budget? How about zero? That is right: zero, as in nothing. Once again, there is a promise the Liberals might spend something in the 2019 election year, which I would say is no coincidence.
Another line item in this budget is “expanding the youth employment strategy”. Who would not support that, but wait—let us guess how much money the Liberals budgeted in 2017. Once again the answer is zero. There is not a dime. I cannot say, “Not a penny”, because of course there is no longer a penny, but let us guess what year the Liberals promised they might actually spend money on a youth employment strategy.
If members guessed the 2019 election year, they must have a crystal ball because, of course, that is the right answer.
Let just just think about that for a moment. Unemployed youth who need jobs today will have to wait until 2019, when the Liberals need to be re-elected. Let us seriously think about that. At the same time, we can ask why they even bother putting line items in a 2017 budget for measures not even budgeted within the 2017 budget. This is from a Liberal government that promised that better is always possible, just not until 2019, apparently, when it needs to be re-elected.
I recognize that this budget comes from the finance minister and not from the majority of members sitting on the government side of the House. I mention this because I believe that many would agree that fluffing up a budget with items not in the budget is not raising the bar in this place. Yes, we all know that a budget implementation bill will always be heavy on government messaging, but this budget takes it a step further by playing politics with the lives of Canadians.
I can cite many more examples of line items in this budget that are actually not budgeted for 2017. In those cases, surprise, surprise, there is money for those things, but guess when: 2019. Again, that adds to the cynicism.
Here is my other major criticism. As much as there are line items in this budget that we know are not actually budgeted for, guess what is missing from the budget. There is absolutely no time line, if ever, for the Liberal finance minister to return Canada to a balanced budget.
Let us recap. Here is a Liberal government that looked Canadians in the eye and said, “We will return to a balanced budget in 2019.” At some level, even the Liberals must realize why a balanced budget is a good thing to have. Otherwise, why did they bother to promise to deliver this to Canadians by 2019? No one ever forced the Liberals to make such a promise, yet they did. Here we are today, and I seriously challenge any member of this House, the government side included, to get the finance minister to even mention the words “balanced budget”, let alone in what decade he intends to honour the Liberal promise to deliver one to Canadians.
Here is what we do know. Back in October last year, the finance minister's own department projected that not until 2051 would Canada return to balance. What did the finance minister do? He intentionally withheld that information from Canadians until December 23 of last year. What kind of finance minister does that? Why has “balanced budget” become a dirty word to this finance minister? These are all troubling questions.
It is not unlike the fact that this budget proposes to run a deficit in 2017 that is almost three times larger than what the Liberals originally promised to get elected. Though I have sat on the government side of the House, it was never under a government that made so many promises to Canadians it clearly had no intention of keeping.
I can tell members that in my riding, even many who voted Liberal are seriously disappointed. They feel duped, betrayed, and beyond that. I am not going to use any unparliamentary language.
There are a few points I will mention about this budget. It is well known that the Liberal government has eliminated some of the targeted tax incentives enacted by the previous government. Let us call them what they are often called: boutique tax credits. Curiously, the Liberal government eliminated a tax credit that helped families with kids in fitness activities. It killed the tax credit that helped make public transit more affordable, and then it turned around and introduced a tax credit that helps teachers pay for school supplies.
It would be one thing to eliminate all targeted tax credits equally, but essentially, what the Liberal government is doing is sending a message that targeted tax credits are wrong if enacted by a Conservative government but okay if enacted by a Liberal one. That is just partisan politics at its worst.
Before I leave the topic, let me just say this. I have heard from some teachers, particularly those who teach at the elementary level, that this tax credit will help them, and that is a good thing. However, I have also heard from families and from those who are disabled that eliminating the children's fitness credit and the public transit tax credit will hurt them, and these are not good things. Some are actually shocked that the Liberals would cancel a tax credit designed to support public transit solely because of Liberal ideology, because we all know that increasing public transit use helps to decrease our carbon footprint. Of course, when it comes to doing that, we know that the present Liberal government only supports tax increases on carbon to make life less affordable for the same middle-class families it professes to want to help.
Another point I would like to raise is about the so-called infrastructure bank. This one, I will be frank, scares the heck out of me. I will explain why. We are hearing that the mandate for the infrastructure bank would be to fund only projects with a price tag of $100 million or more. There is not a single city in my riding, and I would submit, in the ridings of a large number of members in this place, that has the population base to support any project even close to that magnitude. About the only major cities in Canada that can support these types of projects just happen to be the ones that elected the most Liberals, and how convenient that is. The problem is that the small and smaller rural communities in ridings such as mine would have to help pay for them, and they are strongly opposed to that.
The Canadian Press reported that the finance minister admitted that global investors will only invest in large transformational projects that produce enough revenue from which they can earn a high rate of return on their investments. In other words, the Liberal government would be borrowing money it does not have, at reduced rates, so that Canadian taxpayers could finance and subsidize high rates of return for private international investors.
What is more disappointing about this scheme is that taxpayers in rural, smaller, and even mid-sized communities would be taking on this debt. They would be helping to pay the high interest to pay these private investors, and they would not even be eligible or able to afford the projects in question because of the pricey $100 million minimum price tag. Worse is that the Liberals would borrow roughly $32 billion to use as seed money for the creation of the investment bank. It is money that will not be spent on building infrastructure today in the very same municipalities that will not be able to participate in this expensive program.
The infrastructure bank, in my view, would be detrimental not just to my region but to many regions across this great country, and the person in charge of it is a finance minister who refuses to even say the words “balanced budget”. What could go wrong? Article after article I have read has come out opposed to the scheme. Comments range from it being not needed to being a disaster waiting to happen, but of course, the Liberals' attitude of “we know best” prevails.
I would be very curious to know how many Liberal MPs from smaller rural areas think the infrastructure bank is a great idea, because the citizens they represent would pay for it but would not benefit from it. As one senior citizen in my riding pointed out, the federal government used to sell Canada savings bonds to raise capital for things like building infrastructure and paid the interest to Canadians, so those returns stayed in Canada, but not anymore. Now the lucrative interest financed by Canadian taxpayers would instead be paid to big-league international players. I suppose that is helpful when one is a celebrity Prime Minister throwing taxpayer-financed parties in Davos with global elites. I will leave it to the Liberal members in this place to explain why they think that is a great idea.
There are other areas of concern I have with this budget implementation act. Yesterday morning, the parliamentary budget office issued its latest report. We know that the Liberal government is not happy with the PBO, who caught and exposed the Liberals for trying to hide the fact that they did indeed inherit a balanced budget from the previous government. Let us not forget that it was also a recent PBO report that revealed that the Liberals' promised infrastructure spending to date has largely been smoke and mirrors. What are the Liberals doing? In the words of the PBO, the Liberals are limiting “the PBO's ability to initiate reports and members' ability to request cost estimates of certain proposals”. Basically, the current so-called transparent Liberal government is going to restrict what the PBO can and cannot investigate.
It is no secret that the PBO has been a thorn in the side of government since the Conservatives created this critically important office. The former government had battles with the PBO, but unlike the current government, it never changed the rules to muzzle it.
A government is free to disagree with the PBO as much as the former government did, and it was justifiably scrutinized and held to account for doing so. However, we know that the Liberals realize that the optics of battling the PBO are not sunny enough. They are not sunny ways. The Liberals are, instead, muzzling him and limiting the scope of what can be scrutinized and who can authorize said scrutinizing.
The Liberal government has, increasingly, become known for saying one thing, typically in flowery language, but quietly doing the opposite. It is a sad state of affairs to see the Liberals being so sensitive to criticism and scrutiny that they resort to muzzling and manipulation.
It was quite something to recently see a former leader of the opposition point out that the former prime minister gave answers to questions without using platitudes and non-answers, as the current Prime Minister does. The muzzling of the PBO will only further destroy transparency and credibility, again fuelling the cynicism people have about our political system, something the government had promised to do differently.
It is important to recognize when we are actually becoming part of the problem. I understand that politicians will try to present in the best light, but they should, in presenting in the best light, actually shine on substance and then let the people decide.
The bottom line is that this Liberal budget implementation act is sending Canada in the wrong direction. We have massive amounts of new Liberal-created debt on the way, with no plan whatsoever for how and when it can be paid for. At the end of the day, all this newly created Liberal debt is going to have to be repaid, and it will be our kids and grandkids stuck with those bills, all at a time when we know that our demographics in Canada are changing. This was revealed yesterday. There are more older people than younger people in Canada, and we all know that many people are expecting to be supported by their government as they age. We are adding more debt for the very same people we are going to be asking to help those individuals as they age.
This is not something that just showed up. This is something we cannot put a positive spin on. We have this problem. The Japanese are ahead of us on this. We have to ask ourselves if we can continue to push our economy in a direction where we cannot pay the bills and will be pushing them onto fewer and fewer people.
The fact is that the fastest-growing segment in our society is those aged 65 and over. We know that in Canada, the ratio of those still in the workforce versus those who are retiring is changing and that 20 years from now, the number of those working is going to be much smaller than the number of those who are retired. That is why all expert evidence says that Canada needs to raise the age of eligibility for old age security, precisely as the previous government did, yet this so-called evidence-based decision-making Liberal government overturned that.
Briefly, I am looking for answers. I like accountability, but if the Liberals do not like the ideas of the previous government, they should put forward something, not just platitudes. That is why I support the Supreme Court case going ahead. It may be a chance for us to become not just a political unit but an economic one. It will help us offset these challenges as we age.
This is a great country, and it needs to stay great. It needs to stay great by remembering the founding principles of the Fathers of Confederation. They said that this country is built on hard work and sacrifice. Sacrifice should not be political sacrifice, where a good policy is eliminated just to get elected. Sure, all parties will dance close to that edge, but as a group, we need to start taking responsibility for where our country will be and what country our kids and grandkids will inherit.
I will be part of the solution, but I also need other members of Parliament to work with us to propose those solutions.
I will not simply oppose. There is lots to oppose in here. There are also some good things. However, we are going to have to do it in a way that, at the end of the day, gives us that solid footing to move forward. The government has yet to show it wants to take that step. In many ways it has taken us back.
Steven MacKinnon LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, in British Columbia, for his intervention. He is a friend who used to sit with me on the finance committee. Let us dissect what he said.
He belongs to a party that was in government for nine years, one that inherited a positive financial situation from the previous government, Mr. Martin's government. His party inherited a budget surplus and a situation where we were paying down Canada's debt, and it immediately turned that into a deficit, even before the financial crisis. The Conservatives ran a deficit for years and years.
Let us assume that the member and his party now want to promise Canadians a budget surplus. We on this side of the House believe that we were elected with a mandate to renew our country, to cut taxes for the middle class and, since my colleague talked about sacrifices, to raise taxes for the wealthiest 1% of Canadians.
What the member failed to do was clearly and accurately list all the tax hikes and budget cuts his party would impose in order to eliminate the deficit if it were to return to power.
I wonder if my colleague could clarify that.
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is important to differentiate two things. First, when our government decided to go into deficit, we were very transparent on it. The G20 was involved. There was a commitment in 2011 that we would return back to balance. We did that by initiating a deficit reduction action plan. We looked at the things we were doing and how we could improve upon them in a way that did not harm Canadians. Unlike the Liberals in the 1990s who cut health care and provincial transfers, we maintained those while bringing ourselves back into balance.
When we made the commitment in 2011 that we would return back to balance, we did it. That is something the current government cannot say. It is embarking on large deficit spending without giving any clear certainty to anyone. The member was there for the pre-budget consultations. We heard that the finance minister needed to show that it was a credible budget, and was asked if he could show a return to balance. So far, we cannot even get him to say the words “balanced budget”.