Debates of March 19th, 2018

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was in full flight, responding to some of the heckles from my friends in the Liberal Party on my comparison of this budget to the Liberal double-double. I said that it is the Liberal double-double, deficit and debt, and there is no roll up the rim to win for Canadian families. Studies have shown that 80% to 90% of middle-class families, the families they claim to be helping, are paying more under the Liberal government.

High deficits and high debt are connected with taxes. Taxes are already going up, and in many ways large deficits are deferring taxes to the future. The Liberal government seems to forget that it is going to continue to make our economy less and less competitive. The budget contained five mentions of NAFTA, with no funding attached to any of the industries that could be at risk. That includes those industries that the Prime Minister did his speedy little steel town tour to because they almost blew the market access for steel and aluminum for Canadian workers.

I am going to spend my final few minutes on the Canada summer jobs, which dovetails nicely to the thousands of Canadians who have written condemning the Liberal government's approach to politicizing a summer jobs programs. It is in the budget at page 56, and states, “A summer job helps students pay for their education, and gives them the work experience they need to find and keep a full-time job after they graduate.”

All members of Parliament know how impactful these programs are. They do great service-related events for communities and help students defer costs of their university or college education at the same time. It is a win. Service clubs are involved, as are seniors homes and faith organizations. All sides of this House have seen the great work that is done with this program. Never in the decades of operation of this program has there been a thought-police approach, where they are putting in a values screen. The Liberals did that because they wanted to exclude faith organizations from playing roles in their communities, even though the Prime Minister's sunshine photo ops with the Syrian refugees who first came to Canada were all coming through private sponsorship roots from faith organizations.

Excluding people in this way violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and violates the spirit of what the Canada summer jobs program is supposed to be about. We have heard from thousands of people who have written petitions. We have a vote tonight. For the Liberals who are listening, I would like them to use their conscience. Do they have freedom of thought in the Liberal government? It is time for them to stand up for all charter rights, and that includes freedom of conscience and religion, and recognizing that faith communities play important roles across Canada.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, for years I sat in the opposition benches, and former prime minister Stephen Harper ignored the importance of the Canada summer jobs programs. In fact, one of the first things this government did in recognizing how important our young people are to our country was to virtually double the amount of money going into the summer student program. I would hope that members opposite would not be discouraging individuals from participating and applying for these important student jobs. I would suggest that if they read the supplementary information, much of the information that the member is getting across is wrong.

My question is a little off that particular topic. Why does my friend and colleague believe that the Liberal government should take advice from the Conservatives when they ran nothing but deficits and accumulated well over $150 billion? Why does he not see the irony in terms of the Conservatives giving advice on deficits?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, I saw my friend, Joe Oliver, over the break from Parliament, and he commented that as Conservative finance minister, he would be the only G7 minister to have a balanced budget in this decade. That is unbelievable. That party's own projections suggest that with the way the Liberals are spending, there will not be a balanced budget in Canada again until the 2030s.

Weathering the largest financial global crisis since the recession better than all our G7 allies and competitors, having a balanced budget, and running a deficit when there was a global recession with a plan to get out of it, is far different from running massive deficits with no plan at a time when the global economy is rocking. This is a failure of the highest order.

With his attacks on job creators and deficit financing, my friends in the Toronto business community wonder if the finance minister is the same person who used to work in the private sector. He seems to have forgotten how to read a balance sheet.

On the summer jobs, the member knows that church organizations and immigration support groups in his riding have involved people from faith communities. That was consistent, from the Trudeau government through Chrétien, Harper, and Mulroney. Why is there a values test now? It is to exclude Canadians of faith.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Durham. He is a great representative of his community, and he has really taken this issue of Canada's summer jobs to heart. He knows that the Prime Minister has made statements such as that he admires the basic dictatorship of China and he admires Cuba.

In his speech he spoke about this precedent of requiring an attestation. I was wondering if he could respond to this as being a precedent. There are people in my community who are worried that if the Liberal government will go this far, it will now require Canadians to sign more attestations that agree with the government of the day's policies to receive CPP benefits or EI benefits or to apply for a government job. Could he please comment on how important it is as a precedent?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend and neighbour, the MP for Oshawa, whom I have learned a lot from as a member of Parliament, for his strong defence of families, the role of faith communities, and balanced budgets.

There is a precedent for this type of thought police and this type of values screening. The precedent is found in the book 1984, by George Orwell, in which one does not just oppose one's opponents, one tries to exclude them or defeat them entirely.

Gerald Butts and the Prime Minister's Office do not like people to hold faith convictions. They moved away from private sponsors of the Syrian refugee program to “government knows best”, even though it is condemning a lot of those families to poorer outcomes, which their own department has realized.

Faith organizations, of all faiths, including Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, have a tremendous track record. There are those people who might have faith organizations but do their work as Rotarians or as members of the Lions club. These organizations are the foundation of communities. We should be encouraging that, not excluding them.

The precedent being set here not only contravenes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but runs contrary to what parliamentarians should be doing, which is supporting Canadians to help grow their communities and support the less fortunate before “Ottawa knows best” gets into the act.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased today to share my time with the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

This is an opportunity I am very pleased to have to share my perspective on behalf of the good people of Lac-Saint-Louis on what I consider to be a pivotal budget, not in dollar amounts spent but in terms of some of the long-term structural changes the budget will gradually engender, changes that will benefit both economic growth and social justice. Liberals approach governing with these two dual objectives in mind. Growth without justice is something that would be incomplete, and to have social justice, we need growth.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this is not a budget that is focused on describing large investments. Previous budgets and the economic update talked about our investment of $180 billion to renew Canada's infrastructure over the next 12 years. If I may take a moment to refer to that economic statement and those budgets, that is spending that is laying the foundation for productivity growth and economic growth, spending to encourage the creation of networks and clusters that are at the very core of innovation.

I am thinking more specifically in terms of my region of the country. I am thinking in terms of the investments the federal government will be making to make a new train system in Montreal a reality. The Réseau express métropolitain will link the south shore of Montreal with the West Island through the airport and the Saint-Laurent Technoparc Montréal. These are the kinds of investments that create opportunities for growth in the long term and the medium term.

Budget 2018 targets important objectives. As I mentioned, I believe it would create structural change, but I am pleased to say that it would do so against the backdrop of declining deficit and debt ratios. For example, if one looks at the projections for the budget deficit in terms of percentage of GDP, we see that it will be going down from 0.9% to 0.6% and then to 0.5%. The federal debt as a percentage of GDP will be going down from 31% to 28.4%. That is important, because many of my constituents have told me that it is very important that deficits remain under control and that we pay back some of the debt that has been accumulated over the years, including by the previous government.

There is a very important investment being made in the budget that I would like to mention, and that is the decision to invest over $900 million over five years in fundamental science. In other words, the budget is responding to the recommendations of the Naylor report and to the scientific community, which recognize the importance of investing in fundamental science, the kind of science that does not tell us what will drop out of the process down the road, because we just do not know. We could find out that the research has led to a completely unexpected result, an unexpected result that creates jobs and economic growth and new companies that hire new employees, many of them young, in the sciences, the cutting-edge sciences, who will now, as a result, have good-paying jobs.

Speaking of the investments we are going to make in fundamental science, I would like to thank one of my constituents, Mr. Terry Hébert, a researcher at McGill University. He is a professor in the department of pharmacology and therapeutics at McGill and an advisor of sorts. For the past few years, he has been telling me about the importance of fundamental science, and I would like to quote an article that he and two of his associates wrote, which was published in Le Devoir on August 2, 2017, entitled “Tomorrow's innovation requires funding today”.

The title could have been, “Tomorrow's innovation and economic growth require funding today”.

The article says, and I quote:

Thanks to basic research on membrane protein biology, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), we have implemented new strategies that have led to treatments for cystic fibrosis...

At the time this research was being carried out, nobody could predict that it would lead to the discovery of therapeutic molecules and promising therapeutic approaches, and to the creation of local biotechnology enterprises or to collaborations with pharmaceutical companies internationally.

By investing in fundamental science, this budget is laying the groundwork for economic growth and scientific discoveries that will help in the treatment of diseases, for example.

This budget does something else that is structural and is very important for the future of the economy. It is working to increase the supply of labour. I would like to quote the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who was giving a speech at Queen's University, I believe about a week or two ago. He talked about the labour market. The theme of his speech was the labour market and how we need to increase the supply of labour.

I will quote from Mr. Poloz's speech. He said, “economic growth can[not] happen unless there are people available to fill the newly created jobs. Accordingly, a healthy, well-functioning labour market is critical”. He goes on to say, “After looking at a much wider range of labour market indicators, the Bank has concluded that there remains a degree of untapped supply potential in the economy.”

This budget is aimed at unlocking some of that untapped potential. It does so by focusing on some groups whose labour force participation rate is, unfortunately, too low for us to maximize economic growth. One group is young people. Young people are one source of untapped potential.

Governor Poloz said:

The key point is that youth represent an important untapped source of potential economic growth. If the youth participation rate were to return close to its level before the [financial] crisis, more than 100,000 additional young Canadians would have jobs.

How is the budget helping with youth employment? It is investing an additional $448.5 million over five years, starting in 2018-19, to continue increases in the number of summer jobs. The member opposite mentioned the Canada summer jobs program. The government is investing in the Canada summer jobs program, which will be good for increasing the supply of labour from that particular demographic group.

The budget also aims to facilitate greater labour force participation on the part of women. To quote Governor Poloz, again from the same speech at Queen's University:

An even more significant source of economic potential is higher labour force participation by women. While about 91 per cent of prime-age men participate in the labour force, the rate for women is only about 83 per cent.

He goes on to say:

History suggests that this gap can narrow. Consider Quebec, where, 20 years ago, the prime-age female participation rate was about 74 per cent. The provincial government identified barriers keeping women out of the workforce and acted to reduce them, particularly by lowering the cost of child care and extending parental leave provisions. Within a few years, proportionately more prime-age Quebec women had jobs than women in the rest of Canada. Today, Quebec’s prime-age female participation rate is about 87 per cent.

Members will recall the Minister of Finance saying in his speech that if men and women in this country had equal labour participation rates, the GDP would be boosted by 4% and we could compensate for the drag on the economy caused by the aging of the population, which, of course, takes people out of the workforce. Therefore, this budget, to facilitate the participation of women, has introduced shared parental leave, which will provide an incentive for members of a couple to share the leave so that they can manage their careers while they are growing their families.

All in all, I conclude that this is a good structural budget that will lead to positive results in the long term.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very glad to have heard from my hon. colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis, a man I really respect. Working with him on sensitive issues has been a pleasant, positive, and constructive experience. I am sure he can see me coming a mile away, but I have a very straightforward question for him.

The member was elected because he promised a balanced budget by 2019. The government has now tabled three budgets that offer no prospect of balancing the budget. Worse yet, the parliamentary budget officer says that if nothing changes, we will not see a balanced budget until 2045.

With all due respect for my hon. colleague, who is about to vote for a budget that offers no hope of a balanced budget in the foreseeable future, can he give us a frank and honest explanation for why he told his constituents that his government would balance the budget in 2019?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, it has been some time since we have worked together, but we had the pleasure of travelling across the country to talk about electoral reform.

Of course we need to work toward balancing the budget in the long term and we need to manage our finances in such a way as to keep spending on track. There is good news though. For example, never before have so many Canadians been employed. The unemployment rate is at its lowest level in 40 years.

We need to work toward balancing the budget in the long term, but we must not forget that the economy is working because of the government's infrastructure investments, among other things. If the price of oil goes up, we should be able to balance the budget sooner than if things stay as they are now.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I always enjoy the speeches given by my colleague from Quebec. He spoke at length about gender equality and pay equity, but this budget does not allocate one red cent to pay equity. The members know as well as I do that, in Quebec, investments are what led to the elimination of the wage gap between men and women in the public service, although at the federal level, a significant gap still exists.

The question is very simple. How can the government raise the issue of pay equity without investing any money to achieve it at the federal level?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, indeed, only 16% of business owners in Canada are women. In that regard, the budget includes a $105-million investment over five years. Those funds will be allocated to the regional development agencies to support women-owned businesses.

The budget also allocates $1.4 billion over three years to the Business Development Bank of Canada for women entrepreneurs as well as $250 million over three years to Export Development Canada. This will encourage women-owned businesses and create wealth for women and for the Canadian economy.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague for Lac-Saint-Louis gave an excellent speech and I thank him for sharing his time with me. It is very generous of him.

This is actually a very good budget. I realize that may not be a universally held position and possibly is really bad for the opposition parties and for the Conservative Party's propaganda machine, but it is a very good budget. It is a very good budget in terms of economic fundamentals.

I would encourage members to go to page 26 of the budget where it talks about our debt-to-GDP ratio and the progress we have made literally over a great period of time. I am looking down at the end of the chamber and I see the hon. member for Kenora who arrived here in the bad old days when our debt to GDP was at its highest, which is 69% of debt to GDP. It climbed steadily from around 30% back in the 1980s through the Mulroney years until the election of 1993 and the Chrétien-Martin period. The New York Times had described Canada as an honorary member of the third world because our debt was out of control. While our Conservative colleagues might wish us to believe that at this point, unfortunately this chart and these facts do not support that contention. It is unfortunate for them but very fortunate for us and our nation.

Since 1993 when both Chrétien and Martin worked on reducing the debt and actually paid down something in the order of about $100 billion of debt, we, meaning the nation, had worked this down around 2006 when it actually dipped under 30% of GDP. After that, we kind of limped along a little above. Certainly, in the 2008 financial crisis, there was a bit of a bump. The Conservatives at that point ran a deficit of $56 billion claiming it was entirely due to financial turmoil. In fact, in part, it was also due to mismanagement with respect to fiscal instability and reduction of revenues coming into the government. Thereafter, economic conditions settled down and when the Conservatives left office, it was in and around 30% of GDP.

If members think this is simply luck or that we are just a blessed nation, which we are, I would invite members to think again. If we compare, again in the same chart, our fiscal performance to any other G7 nation, members will notice that, for instance, Italy and Japan run debt to GDP well over 120%. Even the United States, which loves to lecture everyone about debt and fiscal responsibility, is running its debt to GDP around 90%. We are around 30%. There is a broad consensus among Canadians of all political stripes that we do need to maintain fiscal discipline in order to be able to provide the services and programs that Canadians rightly are concerned about.

I have heard previous speakers say that we are out of control with respect to the deficit. It is true that there was a promise, a commitment made in the election to run a modest deficit. At the time, that was quite radical because the opposition parties, the Conservatives and the NDP, were promising a balanced budget. At this point the leader of the day decided that Canada's economy needed a stimulus. The stimulus, as it turned out to be, went from $10 billion, as was set out in the election, to an estimate of $30 billion. However, if we look at the charts, it actually comes in at less than $20 billion. The interesting part is that we ended up with a growth in the Canadian economy.

What my Conservative colleagues fail to mention when they talk in those numbers, namely, 10 becomes 30 which actually ends up as 20 and is projected to decline over the next two or three years, is that at the same time, our unemployment rate went from a high of 7.1% in 2015 to a historic low of 5.9% in 2017. It poses the interesting and nice question as to what it is that we want. Do we want to have a balanced budget at all costs and run the unemployment rate at 7.9% or do we want to provide a stimulus, possibly a larger stimulus than was originally promised but still a stimulus, and run the unemployment rate down to 5.9%?

I know that all governments say the same thing, that it is because of their fiscal management and brilliance that the economy is just humming. The problem for the opposition is that the economy is humming. My hon. colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis referenced the speech of the Governor of the Bank of Canada at Queen's University. The governor said there is still some space in the economy to improve without inflation, which is the dream of every central bank governor. Right now, the Canadian central bank governor has the most envious job in the world. He is running an economy without inflation, with low unemployment, with a debt to GDP that is well within a manageable range.

Again, looking at the charts on page 22, the average real GDP growth since 2016 Q2 is 3.2% in Canada, 2.4% in Germany, 2.4% in the United States. Apparently making America great again has not quite worked. In fact, if one wants to live the American dream, one should move to Canada.

All of these numbers probably in some respects make some people's eyes glaze over, and probably my wife is one of them, but they have to be for some purpose. One of the purposes has been the redistribution of income, or of wealth, if you will, across the income spectrum.

Probably the most significant income redistribution that has happened under this government has been the re-profiling of the Canada child benefit. In the budget at page 38, there is a commitment to raise the amount that is available for an income of $35,000 from $7,500 or $7,600 to almost $11,000. That is enormous. For a family income of $70,000, it is raised from $4,000 up to $6,700.

In a riding like mine, Scarborough—Guildwood, where there are a lot of children and a low level of income among a lot of people, that is a significant and huge impact. In Scarborough—Guildwood, that means something in the order of $100 million comes into the riding each and every year.

We can talk about tax cuts. For those of us who have a good income, tax cuts are very attractive, but the beauty of putting $100 million into a riding like Scarborough—Guildwood is that the money gets spent. It gets spent on transportation. It gets spent on food. It gets spent on clothing. It gets spent on education. It is money that goes into the bank accounts of the constituents of Scarborough—Guildwood and immediately, because the incomes are low, gets turned around and ends up in the economy.

The government has initiated, literally, a fiscal revolution under the Canada child benefit. Unfortunately, I am not going to get a chance to talk about the other revolution, which is the ability to redistribute, under the working benefit.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sure the member will have a chance to speak about that during his questions and answers.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I always enjoy following the hon. member's wanderings through historical revisionism. I would agree that the Canadian economy is humming, but it is not humming because of what the Liberal government is doing. It is humming because the world economy is humming, and the U.S. economy is humming.

The most remarkable thing about this budget, as many economists have pointed out, is that it is notable for its lack of economic analysis, something that the Parliamentary Budget Officer fully agrees with, when he talks about the lack of detail on direct program expenses, the lack of detail on infrastructure spending, and here he pauses to remind the government that roughly a quarter of the planned infrastructure spending will lapse because the government has not figured out how to get those billions of dollars out the door, and the lack of detail in national defence, with no explanation of how Canada's new defence policy is going to be funded over the coming years.

My friend likes to talk about the GDP. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has noted, and this is where I will come to my question, that budget 2018 bases its estimates on U.S. potential real GDP, in other words, the potential for the American economy to continue to grow sustainably. The budget officer suggests and requests—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We have to allow for other questions. I have allowed the member almost two minutes to ask the question. I am going to allow the member for Scarborough—Guildwood to give an answer, so that we can get at least one more question in.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, I love the way the hon. member seems to be able to extract bad news out of good.

After his wanderings all over the fiscal map, I will say that growth in the United States is an issue. There has not been a government in Canada since the time of Confederation that did not base its projections upon growth relative to our main trading partner. After all, 70% of our trade is with the United States. We wish it was less.

I do not think we can underestimate the risk that the White House is to NAFTA. If the hon. member reads the back annexes of the budget, he will realize that there is an itemization of risk to GDP. The first risk is the NAFTA negotiations. I hope they go well, but if they do not go well, we will all suffer.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, if the economy is doing so well, why did the government delay action on affordable housing and significant infrastructure until well after the next election? It is kind of like a prize way out there that maybe someday we will see in our own backyards.

Why is there no action on tax havens, pension protection, pay equity, real child care, or pharmacare?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, one of the things that I learned from former finance minister Paul Martin, and subsequently Prime Minister Martin, is to get the economic fundamentals right.

For the first two years, the government has been readdressing the economic fundamentals of the previous government. The previous government was “a balanced-budget at all costs”. The mere fact that it only achieved this once in its mandate seems to be lost in the mists of time.

Until the economics are right, we cannot address the issues that the hon. member raised, all of which are quite legitimate. The issue of pharmacare, for instance, is a live issue, and all of us on this side are hoping that it moves forward.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am going to start off where my Liberal colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood left off, where he talked about economic fundamentals.

What are the economic fundamentals right now of Canada? The economic fundamentals are that we are living through the period of greatest inequality in our nation's history. That is an economic fundamental that both this budget and previous Conservative budgets completely ignored. We now have two Canadian billionaires who have the same wealth as 30% of the Canadian population, or 11 million Canadians.

Another fundamental that this budget does not touch in any way, shape, or form is the fact that Canadian families are now struggling with the worst debt burden, not only in our nation's history but in any industrialized nation's history. The average family debt now is a crushing burden. That, of course, was created by Conservative policies and has been enhanced by Liberal policies. However, these are economic fundamentals that this budget does not take into account in any way, shape, or form.

This budget is a cruel hoax for all those Canadians who actually believed that this government was going to do what it said it wanted to do in the 2015 election. We have seen a whole host of broken promises. My colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley certainly could speak to the broken promise around democratic reform, but we have seen a whole host of broken promises. This budget just enhances what has been a drive toward more inequality and an unjust tax system.

Madam Speaker, I would like to start with the inequalities and the Liberals' broken promises. Several weeks ago, our leader, Jagmeet Singh, and I held a press conference. We wrote to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Finance to talk about the ever-increasing inequality across the country and to talk about the major changes needed to help all Canadian families.

We said that the government must go after tax havens. The government must close tax loopholes, including tax havens, instead of continuing to allow major corporations and wealthy Canadians to avoid paying taxes. Instead, the government signed even more treaties with notorious tax havens. I am talking about the Cook Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and Grenada. Even the Conservatives did not want to sign agreements with those countries. Now these agreements exist and they allow companies to not pay taxes.

We also talked about web giants that do not pay taxes like Netflix and Facebook. These companies are effectively stealing from Canadian businesses, and communities are struggling as a result. These web giants were not addressed at all in this budget. This is yet another failure.

When we talk about all of these tax havens, when we talk about these special fiscal arrangements that allow some of the world's biggest businesses to not pay one cent of tax in Canada, when we talk about what that actually means, there is a cost to Canadians, a huge cost to Canadians. My colleague, the Liberal member, was talking about fiscal discipline. This government has shown absolutely no fiscal discipline whatsoever, in the same way that the Conservatives did not. With the Conservatives it was a free-for-all. Every month they would sign another special treaty with an overseas tax haven. Now the Liberals are in the process of doing the same thing.

What is the cost to Canadians? The Parliamentary Budget Officer and a whole host of think tanks in Canada, whether we are talking about the CCPA or the Conference Board of Canada, have evaluated what it costs Canadians to have this free-for-all, this most egregious signing of taxation-free agreements, which allow money that is made in Canada to go overseas and not be taxed one cent.

The cost for the web giants alone is over $1 billion, which could be money that serves collectively for all of us to fight the inequalities that I mentioned earlier, to provide the programs that Canadians desperately need, and yet the government is not willing to touch that.

When we talk about tax havens, depending on the estimates, we are talking about a minimum of $10 billion a year. We are talking about up to $40 billion a year. These should be those common resources that all Canadians in solidarity use to make sure that their families are taken care of when there are health care problems, when they need medication, and so that they can actually provide child care for their children. Canadians have said very clearly, certainly in the last election, that they believe in a society where we collectively provide those resources and those supports for families. However, Conservatives and now Liberals have been frittering away tens of billions of dollars each and every year by refusing to close all of these tax loopholes.

There was a brave paragraph in the budget, and I am going to praise the government for this very brave paragraph. On page 69 in the English text, the finance minister and the Liberal government actually say that they are going combat tax evasion and tax avoidance, and that the government will invest money to address the issues of tax evasion and tax avoidance, which, as I mentioned earlier, are in the realm of tens of billions of dollars each and every year.

This is what the budget says. This is what all Liberal MPs stand behind. “As the CRA has a proven track record of meeting expectations from targeted compliance interventions,” which is the combat of tax evasion and tax avoidance, “Budget 2018 accounts for the expected revenue impact of $354 million over five years.”

About $70 million a year with that enhanced compliance is what the Liberals are expecting to get. Now, each and every question period when we raise the egregious issue of the massive amounts of money going offshore for tax havens, the Liberals have responded by saying that they are going to spend over $1 billion over 10 years to get some of that money back. Now we know what they are targeting. They are spending $1 billion, or half a billion over five years, and are expecting to get back $354 million, and remember, Liberals very rarely meet their targets. They would spend half a billion to get back $354 million. It is almost laughable. It would be a comedy if it did not have such a profound impact on Canadians.

Here are some of the other things the Liberals refuse to close.

There is the stock option loophole, which was evaluated a few years ago as benefiting, to the tune of half a billion dollars, 75 of Canada's wealthiest corporate CEOs. Those are figures under the Conservatives, but the figures today would be similar. Seventy-five wealthy Canadians, because of the stock option loophole, got an average of $6 million each. That is half a billion dollars in taxpayers' handouts to some of Canada's wealthiest people on Bay Street, yet the same Liberals who are defending this budget will stand up and say that we cannot afford child care, housing, or pharmacare. They are saying that because they have a complete absence of the fiscal discipline to say to the wealthiest in our country that they have to pay their fair share of taxes, the fiscal discipline that means standing up to the corporate sector, which now has a real effective tax rate of less than 10%. It is 9.8% as evaluated by the CCPA.

Ask a tradesperson, a nurse, or someone who works in a mill if they can get by with a 9.8% effective tax rate. They cannot, of course, but Canada's wealthiest enterprises, courtesy of Conservative and Liberal policies, can get by with that small a rate of taxation.

We have said that we need a fair tax system, and I can tell members that in this corner of the House we are not going to stop until there is a fair tax system in this country that allows us to invest and provide for families when they are in need. Canadians, because of the record level of family debt and because of the record level of inequality, have never been more in need than they are now.

It is not just what the Liberals refuse to do, which is establishing any sort of fiscal framework. It is what the results have been. That is why we tabled the subamendment to the budget decrying how undisciplined this fiscal framework has been in giving most of the nation's resources and wealth to a very few Canadians, and virtually nothing to Canadians who are struggling.

I will start with housing. On page 78 of the budget, we see that $31 million has been allocated to build more rental housing for Canadian families.

As we know, this means that only a few dozen apartments across the country would be affordable for Canadians.

All amounts combined, including those elsewhere in the budget, represent less than 10% of what is needed this year to deal with the housing crisis that exists across Canada. Even I am affected by this crisis, and my fellow citizens, who are my bosses, feel it every day in New Westminster—Burnaby. In fact, the cost of housing is increasing and more and more people are finding it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to access affordable housing. Take Hélène, for example, a deaf woman who could not afford an apartment even when she was working. She had to turn to a local organization that provides services to deaf people.

In Canada, half of the people who are currently homeless, and we are talking about tens of thousands of people, are people with disabilities. As we can see, this crisis is profoundly affecting people with disabilities and other poor people.

It is not just disabled Canadians who are impacted. I am talking about John Young, a pensioner who worked all his life. He paid into a pension and has a modest pension. However, because of the increase in rent in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, in my riding, he struggled to keep his apartment but could not, because he was going further into debt. He then tried to room with a friend, which did not work out, so he ended up in a parkade in downtown New Westminster.

These are the victims of the lack of fiscal discipline of the government, which allows people to be homeless and not have the services they need while it feeds tens of billions of dollars to offshore tax havens. These are extraordinarily poor choices. These are the kinds of choices that should force the government out of office in 2019.

It is not just about housing. Let us talk about first nations. We have a government that committed to ending boil water advisories within a couple of years, yet the funding in this budget is only pennies of what is needed to end boil water advisories in this country. It does not even come close to the $320 million that is needed this year. It is pennies on the dollar. It is a cruel hoax for all those first nations communities across the north and across this country that expected that the government would care enough to actually make those investments.

As well, the government falls lamentably short of the nearly $1 billion that is needed this year alone for housing for first nations communities, to address what has been a chronic absence of funding by the federal government. Since the former Liberal government eliminated the national housing program, Canadians, in so many cases, have been forced to make incredibly difficult choices. In first nations communities, only a fraction of the money that is needed this year is actually being provided in this budget.

Let us talk about universal child care. It is not here.

Any sort of investment to deal with the industries that are facing what is an intense push from the new Trump administration against Canadian industries is not there.

My colleague from Hamilton Mountain has done an extraordinary job of protecting pensions. As he has said many times, there is nothing in this budget, and there will be nothing in the budget implementation act, that actually addresses the theft of pensions that is hurting so many Canadians.

The reply of the government was to introduce Bill C-27, which would of course help the finance minister with Morneau Shepell, but it would not help Canadians who are struggling to keep their pensions. Sears pensioners losing their pensions are only the latest who have seen the money they have invested over a lifetime evaporate because there is no pension protection in this country.

As well, I can mention Phoenix, where the government has to make a phenomenal investment, a significant investment, to address the Phoenix pay system, and it chose not to in this budget. The Parliamentary Budget Officer and even the Australians, who would have warned the Liberals not to implement Phoenix, say that it costs $1 billion to $5 billion to fix it. The Liberals have only pennies on the dollar in this budget, not enough to fix it, and not enough to make sure our public servants receive the paycheques they so richly deserve in working so hard for our country.

With regard to pay equity, I mentioned earlier that there is not a cent.

The most cruel hoax is the issue of pharmacare. In the days prior to the budget, the Liberals leaked out that they would be taking real action on pharmacare. We have repeatedly brought to this House motions directing the government to enact pharmacare, and the Liberals have refused to vote for them. However, in the buildup to the budget, they said that this time they really meant it.

It made a lot of sense that they would enact pharmacare. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said very clearly that all Canadians would save money if we have a universal pharmacare system. The cost of drugs, over $30 billion a year, can be reduced remarkably if there is a single-payer system. We saw that in New Zealand, with costs being reduced by 90%. Provincial and territorial governments can save billions of dollars, and so can businesses and individuals. Canadians who cannot afford to pay for their medication now and take the medication they so desperately need would actually have that medication provided.

In the past, I have quoted Jim, who is right outside Parliament Hill begging every day for the $580 he needs for the medication that will keep him alive. After all that buildup, what the Liberals gave was a cruel hoax to Canadians who are desperate to have a pharmacare system in place. The cruel hoax is that they just decided to study it for another couple of years. They will make another promise in 2019, if they get re-elected.

My point is that the budget is a cruel hoax. The Liberal government has repeatedly broken promises it made back in 2015. On the basis of this budget, the government not only does not deserve the support of the House of Commons for this budget, but it does not deserve the support of Canadians in 2019. The Liberals have kept the same cruel fiscal framework that allows the gross inequalities we see in our country, the tens of billions of dollars that go to offshore tax havens and stock options, the whole range of loopholes. None of those are shut down.

What the government is saying is that for those Canadians who want to see pharmacare, instead of struggling and having to choose between putting food on the table or paying their rent and paying for the medication their doctor has prescribed, there is no hope. The Liberals are just offering a study. For the tens of thousands of Canadians who are out on the streets and parks of our nation tonight, there is not going to be any housing coming. There is a little bit, but not nearly enough to actually address the size and scope of the crisis that has befallen Canadians.

If people are looking for pay equity, for their pensions to be protected, or for support for their industry being attacked by Donald Trump, they should not look in this Liberal budget.

This budget is a cruel hoax. Canadians deserve better. Canadians expected better. In 2019, they will be able to get better.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite keeps holding this book up, and he really ought to read it.

Something else the member might want to think about reading is the NDP platform from the last election. I am going to read what the NDP promised in year three of its mandate, if elected, for introduction of incentives for affordable rental housing construction. It was zero dollars. In fact, the New Democrats did it for three straight years, zero, zero, zero, for what they just described as the greatest crisis confronting this country.

On homelessness, we have invested an extra $100 million on top of the $100-million base that our government created back in the late 1990s and the Tories never changed. We added $100 million to that. What did the NDP promise to add, in the third year of its mandate? What was the most pressing response it could come up with? It was $10 million. That is not even half of what the City of Toronto spends, and that is what the NDP put on the table.

When it comes to aboriginal housing, it was zero dollars. In fact, all the NDP put down was $25 million for critical indigenous infrastructure in the third year of its mandate.

All I can say is that if Canadians had selected an NDP government, it would have made about as big a difference as selecting a Conservative government. In other words, the NDP promises were next to nothing, which was exactly what the Tories promised. That is why both parties are on the opposite side of the House. Zero, zero, zero.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, it would almost be comical, except that these are very serious issues. I wish the Liberals actually took them seriously.

First, I think the member has just confirmed the point I made, that the funding is far from adequate. As members know, there are a whole range of budgets, including the alternative federal budget, which actually said that the government gave proper direction, as we did, prior to the tabling of the budget, and actually talked about what it would take to address the crisis of housing that we are seeing.

However, we have this hon. member inventing an NDP budget. He invented it out of thin air. Then he says, “Oh, the NDP would not do as much.” To that I reply that the B.C. NDP government gave $1.6 billion to housing in its budget just a few weeks ago, which is many times more than the Liberals are giving right across the country. The NDP understands the housing problem. We understand homelessness. There is $1.6 billion coming from the B.C. government.

If the Liberal government matched even a quarter of that, that would get more people off the streets and into homes—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. The microphone is closed.

I would just say to the member that he needs to take a breath and allow for other people to ask questions. I do want to remind the parliamentary secretary that he had his opportunity to speak, and he should respect others when they are speaking.

I also want to mention that no props are to be used in the House, and that includes the budget book.

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I know the member for Spadina—Fort York is very excited about this issue. He had to put aside The Fountainhead for a couple of weeks so that he could actually get this budget read. I have to say the prose here is almost as well put together as in that other book.

In terms of the budget, it is interesting to hear the member for Spadina—Fort York talk about what was promised in the platforms. There is dramatic dissonance between what the Liberals said in their election platform and what they are doing today. In fairness to the NDP, there might have been that much difference had it formed government as well. Who knows?

However, we have this contest between our two far-left parties about who would tax more, and who would spend more. Thank goodness Canadians can rely on Conservatives to cut their taxes. Does the member agree with me that after 2019, we would be well served by a Conservative government that is going to get rid of the carbon tax, cut taxes for Canadians, and actually allow the private sector to grow and create the conditions that will allow people at all levels to prosper?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was in the House when the Conservatives were in power. I saw the massive deficits and the most egregious misallocation of spending possible.

When we talk about this foundation of offshore tax havens, it was established by the Harper government. The Harper government did not see a tax haven it did not love. It wanted to sign as many tax treaties as it could. Unfortunately the Liberals are continuing that practice. That is my point. When Canadians are losing anywhere from $10 billion to $40 billion every year because of the Harper tax havens, supported by the Liberal government now, that is where it falls short for Canadians.

When we talk about a balanced fiscal framework, we have to take into consideration revenues, and we have not had that. We have not had a balanced approach on a fiscal framework now for decades. That is why we need to have a new look.

In my opinion, it is a pox on both Houses. The Conservatives and the Liberals really do not make a difference in the lives of regular Canadian families. That is why we have a record debt load and that is why we have such crushing inequality.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Madam Speaker, I want to remind the party opposite of this. On affordable rental housing construction incentives, in the third year of its mandate there were zero dollars. That is what those members promised for the crisis they described as the largest crisis confronting the riding of the member opposite.

With respect to homelessness initiatives, those members offered to add an extra $10 billion. We have added $100 billion, yet they call our approach timid. Their approach was one-tenth of what we have offered.

On the restoration of funding and reinvesting in affordable housing, which is essentially guaranteeing the operating agreements, those members put forward $640 million, which we are achieving, but we have also added in this budget an extra $1.25 billion over the next three years for housing.

In light of the fact that our expenditure on housing is by a factor of 10 in some situations, three in others, but quadruple the size of what they promised, would the members not agree they should support the housing budget put forth by our government of $40 billion over the next 10 years?