Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise for the first time in this new chamber. It is a privilege to rise to speak to this Conservative opposition day motion. By bringing forward this motion, we are fulfilling our duty as the official opposition to hold the government to account.
What we have before the House today is a relatively straightforward motion, a motion that, quite frankly, I would hope the government would support, because, after all, all we are asking the government to do is fulfill the promise it made to Canadians to balance the budget.
When the Prime Minister was elected in 2015, he inherited a Conservative balanced budget. Indeed, it was a surplus budget, and very quickly, the Prime Minister turned the Conservative surplus into a Liberal deficit. One could say that was not entirely surprising, given that the Prime Minister, during the 2015 election campaign, campaigned on what he called short-term small deficits. To be fair to the Prime Minister, by turning a Conservative surplus into a Liberal deficit, one could say that it was consistent with the promise he made to Canadians.
Aside from turning a Conservative surplus into a deficit, when it comes to keeping promises made to Canadians with respect to the fiscal management of this country, it has been all downhill from there.
It is important to remind members of the government what the Prime Minister said in 2015 when he was talking about what he again characterized as short-term small deficits. What he meant by that was that in the first year of the Liberal government, the deficit would be no more than $10 billion. What happened to that promise? It turns out that it was a Liberal promise made and a Liberal promise broken. Instead of running a $10-billion deficit in the first year, the government managed to run a deficit of $19 billion, 92% higher than what the Prime Minister promised Canadians.
When the Prime Minister talked about short-term small deficits, he said that in the second year of the Liberal government, the deficit would again be no more than $10 billion. What happened to that commitment? What happened to that promise? Once again, it was another Liberal promise made and another Liberal promise broken. Then the Prime Minister said that in the third year, the deficit would be no more than $5.7 billion. What happened to that promise? It was another Liberal promise made and another Liberal promise broken. We are beginning to see a pattern of Liberal promises made and Liberal promises broken.
The Prime Minister, quite famously, in the 2015 campaign, made the commitment that in fiscal year 2019-20, Canada would be back in the black. The budget would be balanced. What happened to that promise? Again, it was another Liberal promise made and another Liberal promise broken. Instead of balancing the budget, the government is projected to run yet another massive deficit in 2019-20, another massive deficit in fiscal year 2020-21 and another massive deficit in fiscal year 2021-22, and on and on.
It is quite interesting, given how specific the current government was about balancing the budget in 2019, that when the member for Carleton rose in the House and asked the finance minister a very straightforward question, namely, in what year the budget would be balanced, he refused to say. He would not answer the very simple, straightforward question of what year the budget would be balanced.
It is no wonder the finance minister refuses to answer that question, because the true answer is that the budget will never be balanced with these Liberals. Indeed, according to the Department of Finance, at the current rate of spending, the budget will be balanced in 31 years. I am 34. In 31 years, the Liberals will maybe get around to balancing the budget. Therefore, instead of three years of what the Prime Minister characterized as small, short-term deficits, what the government instead is delivering is more than three decades of red ink.
What is quite remarkable about all of this is that the government has managed to run rather large deficits, which are two and three times larger than what it promised Canadians, in times of modest economic growth. It begs the question of what the fiscal situation would look like in the not so unlikely event of an economic downturn.
According to the Fraser Institute, if the economic conditions were the same as 2008 and 2009, the last time this country saw a major economic downturn, instead of running a $20-billion deficit, the deficit would balloon to $120 billion. If the member for Kingston does not like the Fraser Institute, I think he and any reasonable person would agree that the deficit will increase substantially in an economic downturn because two things happen immediately, without any change in policy, when we have an economic downturn: revenues decrease and government program spending increases.
The fact is that the current government has set Canada on a very slippery course, which is unsustainable and comes with a price. It comes with a price in the form of higher taxes. We have seen that from the government. This is a government that rolled back tax credits for public transit users and cancelled tax credits for students and families. This is a government that has shaken down diabetics and the most vulnerable in our society by trying to take away disability tax credits. This is a government that tried to get away with taxing employee discounts and health and dental benefits. This is a government that has increased taxes on the average Canadian family by nearly $1,000. This is a government that is now prepared to impose the mother of all taxes, the tax on everything, a massive and unfair carbon tax.
Quite frankly, it is time the current government did what it said and said what it did, kept its commitment to Canadians and tabled a plan in this House to do what the Prime Minister said he would do all along, which is to balance the budget.