Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House again tonight. I will be splitting my time with the member for Sarnia—Lambton.
I appreciated the speech I just heard, and before I get into my remarks, my colleague the vice-chair from public accounts committee expressed very good comments and much confidence in the Senate. We will wait to see what the government does with the budget bill that the Senate will send back with all the amendments. We will see if she is bragging about the members of the Senate then. However, it is good to follow the member from the Liberal Party.
I am pleased to speak during the debate on the main estimates and this government's mismanagement of the Canadian economy. The main estimates are a publication from the federal Government of Canada. They detail the Liberal economic plan, how it has failed, and how Canadians are the ones ending up paying for it. Most disappointing is that we can see item by item, line by line, that the main estimates are telling us that the Liberal government's only solution to the problems it is facing is to try to manage on behalf of Canadians by borrowing more money, spending more money, and putting our children and grandchildren into bigger debt.
The biggest problem with this borrowed money is that in the long term it affects Canadian workers, families, and jobs. Economic forecasts suggest it could be 2055 before the government again has a balanced budget, unless, of course, Canadian voters decide to elect a Conservative government as soon as possible to stop the skyrocketing debt the Government of Canada is piling up.
On May 30 of this year, a few days ago, the parliamentary budget officer released a report entitled “Following the Dollar: Tracking Budget 2016 Spending and Tax Measures”. This document is important because it provides Canadians with an independent analysis of the Liberal government's finances.
In the annual federal budget, the government outlines its fiscal plan, including additional spending for ongoing programs, new spending initiatives, and changes to taxation. I want to highlight some of the findings in the parliamentary budget officer's document. For example, the parliamentary budget officer says, “...many spending measures had more funding or less funding in fiscal year 2016-17 than indicated in the budget (31 per cent)”.
The people of Battle River—Crowfoot, the investors on Bay Street and around the world, the middle class and, as they would say, those trying to join the middle class are disappointed that the Liberals were 30% wrong in their budgetary calculations. Imagine: 31% of the Liberal budget was wrong in its projections. In the private sector, accountants, number crunchers, forecasters, chief financial officers, and other executives would be in serious trouble if one-third of their facts and figures were wrong. They might be fired from their jobs for such a 30% error.
Small businesses around my constituency and across our country cannot survive and stay in business if they are one-third wrong on their budgetary estimates. Obviously they would be poor managers, and those businesses would undoubtedly lose business. However, the Liberals are confident that if things go off the rails, even by 30%, they can simply borrow more money off the backs of taxpayers in the next federal budget.
The parliamentary budget officer also found that 8% of the Liberals' spending measures “were not provided funding through the supplementary estimates.” This is important because it means that 8% of the budget was never funded. These budgetary announcements—“announcement” being the key word—were never paid for. They do not exist. The middle class and those trying to join it have been shortchanged by the Liberals by almost 10%.
Is this another tax, to simply withhold 8% to 10% of what they promised? Is this another way of promising something, then not delivering on it, and hoping no one notices?
The parliamentary budget officer noticed and we noticed. The parliamentary budget officer's report said, “That is, they were not implemented as stated in Budget 2016.” The Liberals promise, and then they break the promise. The current government should get an A for announcement and a D for delivery. It should get an A for making those wonderful promises to municipalities, and wonderful promises to Canadians, but when it comes right down to delivering, the budget officer said it is failing.
I hope the Canadian electorate tires of this talking the talk, but not walking the walk. I hope the voters do something in the very next election. The parliamentary budget officer is so very diplomatic in the way he makes these comments, much like our Auditor General. As chair of the public accounts committee, I have learned that Canada's auditors general, including our current Auditor General, are for the most part very matter of fact when they comment on the government's performances. The parliamentary budget officer, another officer of Parliament, carefully said, “...which suggests that the Government may need to improve its funding processes or its estimation methodology for spending measures included in the budget.”
Therefore, what makes this credibility gap that the Liberals are the architects of even more tough is, and I will again quote the parliamentary budget officer report. He said:
Moreover, there is no clear line of sight from budget announcements to their implementation. The different presentation, wording and accounting methodology makes it challenging to align budget spending measures with items included in the estimates. And it is not possible to track spending on most budget measures beyond the first year or what was actually spent on specific measures. It is thus very difficult for parliamentarians to follow the dollar and hold the government to account for implementing its fiscal plan, as outlined in the budget.
This would be brilliant if it were not so scary or so nefarious. It almost makes one wonder if this is some type of devious plan concocted by our finance minister and President of the Treasury Board, who is here tonight, so we can throw him in there too, both of whom should know better. An alternative explanation would be simple incompetence. Canadians do not want to believe that those in charge of Canadians' fiscal situation are so incompetent, but the facts and the figures they present cannot even be traced or linked to reality. That is according to the parliamentary budget officer, and yet Canadians do not want to believe that the books are cooked.
Even an accountant has a difficult time following the money trail left by the current government. Worst of all, we parliamentarians are supposed to be able to examine what has been done by the Liberal government, and debate these things during main estimates debate, for example, like we are doing here tonight. Canadians rely on us to spend the time going over these books: the budget, the estimates, the supplementary estimates, and even the public accounts of Canada. Canadians should be able to depend on and believe that these expenditures by the Liberal government are what it says they are.
Therefore, what do the Liberals do? They present this House with a budget that reads almost like a plate of spaghetti, and then they challenge the members of Parliament to follow each noodle of their expenditures of taxpayers' dollars, and make political and policy decisions on the success or failure of these expenditures. The Liberals make it as hard as possible to follow the expenditures. The average member of Parliament has very great difficulty following the promised expenditure to the actual expense. Liberal backbenchers do not have to read or study this; they just accept what the finance minister says. They are basically told, “Do not bother about that, we will give you your talking points; you're new, over the years you'll learn how to do this.” However, even the parliamentary budget officer says the methodology of working through this is difficult.
I have concentrated my comments on the work of the parliamentary budget officer. The Liberal government is scrambling the facts and figures we are debating tonight in the budgetary main estimates, and I believe dishonestly.
The budget officer tries to withhold the frustration of that office, and the PBO gently calls for more streamlined reporting in the budget process, a little more transparency and methodology.
I am thankful for the opportunity, on behalf of Battle River—Crowfoot, to bring forward some of the concerns we have with the government, the main estimates, and with its spending.