Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour and a privilege to rise in this place, and today, in some ways, perhaps more than others, because I will be only one of a handful of members who will have the opportunity to debate this bill at second reading.
We have heard already today, as we debated the time allocation motion, about how this is an 800-page omnibus bill that will now be debated under the guillotine of time allocation. This is not a scenario where debate had become stale or an opposition filibuster was looming that the government had to move time allocation. This is an example of a government that is simply trying to ram through an 800-page bill without proper debate. There really is no other explanation for what is happening right now.
This bill is an omnibus bill. As was mentioned by the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo during the debate on time allocation, it is a bill that contains within it three bills on indigenous policy. We understand it contains two transportation bills and changes to some 20-plus statutes, and that the government has allocated a truncated day today plus last Friday for debate on it. It is a shame.
It is shameful in particular because the Liberal government campaigned heavily on the issue of omnibus legislation. The Liberals promised they would never table omnibus bills. They promised they would change the Standing Orders to prevent any government from tabling omnibus bills, yet amid the debacle in the spring of 2017 over changes to the Standing Orders, the result was a change to the standing order that did give the Speaker some power to split a bill. Indeed, that is what is before us now.
We are debating this bill in the limited time that we have without knowing yet if the bill will be divided. With every minute that passes, we are closer to having to vote on this bill without clarity as to what we will actually be voting on. The NDP has requested to have this bill split and we do not know yet what the Speaker's ruling is going to be. It is difficult enough to digest an 800-page bill and here we are debating it without even knowing how the final vote will be put to the House later today. It is a shame that we are so hopelessly rushed on this bill.
This bill is a culmination of several Liberal broken promises. In my riding it came up fairly often during the campaign. People talked about omnibus legislation, and the Liberals promised never to table an omnibus bill. They promised never to invoke closure. They also promised that they would balance the budget by 2019. They actually went out of their way in their campaign to differentiate themselves from both the Conservatives and the New Democrats, who had in our own ways promised balanced budgets.
A key point of differentiation which the Liberals took to the doors was that they would run a modest $10-billion deficit for a maximum of three years and return to a balanced budget by 2019. They were elected on a promise to run a modest deficit solely for the purpose of funding an infrastructure program. This was not to be a structural deficit. This was not to be a deficit through which to fund ongoing program expenditure. This was a capital deficit that the Liberals were going to run in order to fund infrastructure and infrastructure only. This was what they took to the doors and this is the primary premise upon which the Liberal government was elected.
The Liberals have broken their promise on omnibus bills. They have broken their promise on closure. They are hopelessly and helplessly breaking their promise over and over again on the debt and deficit.
If we look at this bill, at 800 pages, combined with the 400-odd pages each in the spring BIA and in the budget itself, we are up to 1,600 pages of budget bills tabled in this House without mention of any kind of a plan to return to a balanced budget. This was a promise. This was not something that the Conservatives would just fixate on because this is what we promised in the election as to what we think the Liberals should do. They actually took it to their own voters. The people who voted for the Liberal Party voted for a party with an expectation of a balanced budget by 2019, and it has not happened and it is not going to happen.
We see now that the Liberals government has been lucky. The Liberals walked into a stronger than expected world economy. They have been lucky on interest rates. They have been lucky on real estate inflation. They have been lucky to receive another $20 billion in unbudgeted revenue that they have blown through as well without being able to balance the budget. We know that the finance department's own numbers say that the government will not balance the budget until 2045. How can the government and the governing party members possibly take this to the doors in 2019? The Liberals did not promise their talking points on maintaining a low level of debt-to-GDP. That is not what they promised.
As for this budget implementation act, which contains no plan for a balanced budget, the Liberals neglect to address an important issue in the budget itself. On page 290, the budget comments on the $20 price differential on Alberta crude. The budget addressed this as a concern. It said that a price differential of $20 a barrel on Canadian crude was a concern and a threat for revenue projections going forward. The budget claims that the differential would shrink in the year ahead from $20 to $15 and that this would be good. Their forward revenue projections assumed a reduction in the differential because new pipelines would be built and the Trans Mountain expansion would go ahead and would get Alberta crude to Vancouver. Then it could be taken to refineries in California, where the heavier oil would get a much better price than if taken by rail to Oklahoma or if it did not go anywhere for lack of any transportation capacity.
We all know that has not happened. Here we are today with a $50 differential. What is that going to do to the revenue projections? The Liberals are already expecting it to shrink. It has ballooned out to $50 per barrel. There is no plan for a balanced budget. We know that their revenue is threatened by the differential on oil. It is substantial. Billions of dollars in tax revenue are at stake in the differential. We have an 800-page bill on which we have a few hours to debate. I understand it has 300 complicated pages in its pay equity section. There are complicated labour code changes. There is an intellectual property component. There are new CRA components to this as well. All of that has to be dealt with somehow in a short period of time, yet this BIA gives us more spending, more deficits, likely more red tape and more difficulties for small business. There is no plan for a balanced budget. There is no plan to fix the Alberta discount and the threat it represents to Canadian governments, provincial and federal.
Therefore, I cannot support this bill and the current government because of its broken promises and shameful use of time allocation and omnibus legislation.