Madam Speaker, once again, we have a government shutting down debate in Parliament to adopt an omnibus bill. I do not know why I have a sense of déjà vu.
I am sorry for starting with a movie reference. I lament the fact that, after about 100 closure motions by the Harper government, the Liberals wrapped themselves in virtue, democracy, and respect for the opposition and swore, with hands over hearts, that they would never use time allocation to ram omnibus bills through.
Guess what? As is almost always the case when the Liberals promise something hands over hearts, their good old habits resurfaced, and it is their way or the highway. I want to take a minute to state, on behalf of every constituent in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, that we are sick and tired of these gag orders that prevent us from doing our jobs. As the member for Sherbrooke just explained a few minutes ago, this bill bundles together measures that have very little to do with one another.
I will talk about some of these measures during the precious few minutes that the Liberal government was gracious enough to grant us to discuss its budget implementation bill. This bill amends the Citizenship Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, it makes changes to judicial appointments, labour laws, food security, and the parliamentary budget officer position, and it creates an infrastructure privatization bank. All of that is thrown together under the grandiose title of “The Budget”. Come on, let us be serious.
It is a budget that is rather lean when it comes to real action that can help people here and now. The government made some big announcements and threw around impressive numbers, but if we dig a little deeper, what we find is fascinating. In reality, the majority of the investments announced by the Liberal government will be made after the 2019 election or, better yet, the 2023 election. I can only assume that the Liberals think they will be in power for a long, long time. Making promises for eight or 10 years down the road is easy. There could be two different governments in that time span.
One of the best examples of that is the Liberals' boasting about affordable and social housing. They announced $11 billion over 11 years. One of my sons is in first grade, learning about addition and subtraction. Next year, he will learn about division. If I were to ask him next year how much $11 billion over 11 years is per year, I think he will tell me that it is $1 billion per year. I am sure he will have the correct answer. Well, that is actually not what is going to happen, because everything is pushed back. During seven fiscal years, only $10 million of the announced $11 billion will be invested, less than 0.1% of what the Liberal government announced. That is not even enough to pay off the interest on that promise.
It is easy to throw around figures like that when you do not intend to keep that promise. I think that people who are in the real estate industry will realize that with $10 million, once four small low-income housing projects have been built, that is pretty much it for the entire country. What concerns me tremendously is that the budget implementation bill includes the creation of the infrastructure investment bank—or the infrastructure privatization bank—in which the federal government will put $15 billion at the start. The hope is that the private sector will bring in four or five times that amount to get to $120, $140, or $150 billion.
Nobody knows how the bank will work. Will private investors put money in the bank as in a common pot, and then the bank decides which projects get the financing? Will they invest in specific projects, like a bridge—but not every bridge—a highway, an arena, or a swimming pool? Why would private investors choose one project over another? Because they would choose the most profitable one, the one that would bring in the most money in the medium or the long term. That is every investor's dream. For 25 or 30 years, the bank will ensure returns of 7%, 8%, 9%, 10%, or 12% per year. Otherwise, why would private investors put money in that bank? It means that users will become paying users. There is no other way to profit from an airport, a seaport, or a highway than making the users pay. Profit does not grow on trees.
I will quote a high-ranking Australian officer who has seen and experienced the problems caused by privatizing infrastructure. This is from a very interesting article published by the British newspaper The Guardian:
The head of the competition regulator and a former advocate of privatisation has called for the privatisation of public monopolies to stop because the government is mishandling them.
Rod Sims, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman, says he has become so exasperated by the way in which governments are privatising public assets that they need an “uppercut”.
He says governments have repeatedly botched the sale of airports, electricity infrastructure and major ports--making things worse for consumers--because, when selling the assets, they have been motivated by maximising profits rather than making efficiency gains.
He says governments have created private monopolies without sufficient regulation to stop those monopolies overcharging users--and the public knows it and has a right to be angry....When he was speaking to the audience in the Melbourne Economic Forum, he said at one stage “let’s just stop the privatisations”.
“It is increasing prices--let’s call it out,” he said.
I think that is exactly what is likely to happen to taxpayers in Quebec and Canada in the coming years if the Liberal Party goes ahead with its crazy plan, which is a gift for its Bay Street friends.
There was nothing about this in the Liberals' campaign platform. The Liberals said it was a good time to invest in infrastructure because interest rates were low. They were right. Governments can borrow money at lower rates than anyone else because their annual revenue is more stable than anyone else's. That is what they told us. What they did not tell us, however, is that they would get their Bay Street friends in on the investment act and guarantee them certain returns, certain profits at the expense of the people who are going to use the infrastructure. That is the part they did not mention. That was the nasty surprise we got when the Liberals took over. As everyone knows, it was not the only one.
The trick to how the infrastructure investment bank works is kind of like how PPPs work. When a government borrows money at low interest rates, that is good for the people, but it shows up on the books and counts as an official debt. However, if the government signs a deal with a private investor to manage a project for 25 or 30 years, it is like we are renting the infrastructure from that private investor. The magic of it is that the debt no longer shows up on the books and the financial statements. The Liberals are waving their magic want to make us believe that they will not increase the deficit.