Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Louis-Hébert.
I am thankful for the opportunity to speak today about our government's significant enhancements to the betterment of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
It is important when we look at the country we are building to note the difference between the two parties that are sharing this debate with great vigour today. One party simply builds balance sheets, and that is it. We see that they are not even very good balance sheets when we look at that party's historic record. The other party is focused on building the strength of Canadians, their communities, and by extension, the country as a whole.
Our investments over the last three years, since the last election and in our first few budgets, really show where we are making a difference in the lives of Canadians. For example, the Canada child benefit, the improvements to the Canada pension plan, the investments in housing and infrastructure are all about not just building capacity in the lives of ordinary Canadians and Canadians who have real and determined needs, but also about making sure the communities they reside in also get stronger and in turn build a strong economy with new jobs that employ Canadians as we move forward together.
In fact, Canadians have been given the opportunity over the last three years to produce well over 800,000 jobs through investments we have made. That is because the dollars are getting out the door, contrary to some of the criticisms we may hear from the opposite side. They know as well as we do that the government pays the invoices on completed projects. We do not simply mail cheques to municipalities and say “Go build something.” We pay what is expended, as opposed to what is projected. That is one of the ways we apply good fiscal management to the infrastructure dollars.
It also means, however, that it appears that a lot of dollars have not been spent, when in fact those dollars are being spent in communities right across the country, including in my riding, where we have literally billions of dollars being spent in infrastructure being developed in partnership with the previous provincial government and our municipal partners.
We also have financed this by taking steps to make the tax system more equitable. Yes, we can listen to the talking points of the American-funded Fraser Institute and we can do math that has only half the equation, which is a terrible way to do a balance sheet, but the reality is that we have lowered taxes on Canadians and raised them on some who are more affluent as part of building a social contract to deliver greater capacity to the government and also greater fairness to Canadians right across the country. Since 2015, as a result of these very careful investments, we have the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years.
We often hear the Conservatives say the best social policy is a job, and while I do not think a job is a social policy but a function of good economic investment and stewardship, the reality is that when 800,000 more Canadians are working than when they were in charge, that is good news. Only a Conservative could see that as bad, but somehow that is the negativity we encounter from the opposite side.
We have also seen in the past three years that Canada has one of the fastest-growing economies in the G7. Again this is directly due to some of our investments. In fact, the World Bank has looked at the Canada child benefit. We made it tax free so that we do not send money to Canadians and then claw it back. This makes it much more robust and makes sure Canadians get it as a right, as opposed to having to go through a very complicated application process.
We are renewing and enrolling people automatically and using Service Canada to look for those gaps where people are not receiving the proper benefit. In doing so, we have invested substantial dollars into the economy. These are substantial dollars that have supported Canadian families in building good, strong, resilient kids as we move forward.
This has caused enormous economic growth in the country. In fact, because it is delivered in ways that are equal right across the country and in low-income communities, the investment into families has generated economic activities in those communities. When families have more to spend on supporting their families and their children, we see the corner store do better. We see the Canadian Tire down the street do better. We see people starting to invest in the local businesses on the main street. Then those main street businesses have the capacity to hire more people. This is one of the ways we stimulate positive economic growth. We have done that, and it is good policy.
My fear is that the party opposite wants to roll the clock back to Stephen Harper's days, when the only tax credits Canadians could get were boutique tax credits that required them to have the money to spend up front and then perhaps they would get a little back a year later. That kind of policy benefited affluent families, but it left low-income families at the side of the hockey rink, not watching their kids play. It left students who could not afford their books to begin with having to rely on skipping the purchase of all the books required for university and college courses. It was a reactionary approach to economic development. More importantly, it left low-income Canadians outside the conversation about how to better their families.
As I said, the Canada child benefit is one of the reasons why we are most optimistic about our plan and one of the ways that we measure our success, because of the number of kids that have been lifted out of poverty, which is a good thing for everybody but most importantly for those children.
We know that it is expensive to raise children. Healthy food, warm clothing and winter boots are not cheap. We know that when we can deliver those dollars and they are delivered tax free, parents do not have to worry about the taxman coming at the end of the year to claim the money back.
We also know that as we introduced the Canada child benefit the most important thing was that, in modelling that program, we modelled it with the other social programs to make sure that new dollars arriving in the front door of a family that had needs were not being clawed out the back door by other governments. We think this is also important. If we are going to make social investments, they should not displace other levels of government programs from making a difference. They need to be layered into people's lives and make a real difference.
The other thing that is important is the way in which we have done things like rolling back the age of retirement. We know this is going to prevent hundreds of thousands of Canadian seniors from falling into poverty, but then we have also looked at the impact that gender has as people age. We know that men die sooner than most women. We know that men often carry the pension and often carry a lot of wealth because of past inequities in our system. We know that if we do not specifically address single seniors, the predominance of them being women, with special top-ups, we cannot alleviate seniors' poverty either.
The increase to the guaranteed income supplement is one of those investments that targets specific Canadians in specific ways and makes their lives that much better and easier. We are proud of those investments. We will not back away from them as we move forward as a country together.
The other thing I am most proud of is the investment in housing: $5.7 billion has been invested since we took office. We know that the previous government was walking away from housing, literally in places like Alberta, pulling subsidies from seniors' residences or rent geared to income, suggesting that they could pay their own subsidies. Somehow the poor were going to subsidize the poor in some sort of assistance.
We have restored and tripled those subsidies with transfers to the provinces. We have doubled the amount of money being spent on homeless individuals and this investment of $5.7 billion has in broad numbers been invested almost one million times in Canadian households across the country. Close to 15,000 new units are being built and close to 150,000 have been repaired, keeping people in housing that is safe and secure. As well subsidies for close to 700,000, almost 800,000, Canadians have now been delivered on a month-by-month basis, making sure they have the dollars to pay the rent and stay housed.
The cost of not doing things, the cost of only focusing with a very narrow intent on the balance sheet means that we miss the opportunity to support Canadians in very dynamic ways that prevent poverty. We know from every study that has been done that the cost of poverty has a huge impact on educational outcomes and has an impact on Canadians supporting themselves as they grow older.
We also know that as we de-house people or cut housing support, it has a huge impact on the health care system. Housing is one of the most important determinants of health. When we can make these investments, not only do we employ people fixing and building the housing, but we give people a place to call home and that prevents them from falling into harm's way and in particular prevents costs accruing to the health care system, which is one of the most cost-intensive parts of the federal budget.
These programs that we have stepped up with and invested in have created not only the strong economic growth, not only the strong job numbers, but they have also been investments in ways to prevent other costs from accruing to the government. If we were to cut away these supports, it would be penny-wise, but perhaps pound foolish, as the old saying goes. In other words, cutting away these sorts of supports has a negative impact on Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
The Conservatives brag and campaign on a series of pledges that they wish to go back to the days of Stephen Harper, when we had low growth and high unemployment, when there was still $150 billion added to the deficit and there was the failure by that government, despite repeated promises, to balance the budget. They only did it by selling GM shares. That is like selling the furniture to pay the rent. When we hear proud proclamations that they want to go back to those times, I can only say that this government is committed not to doing that.
Canadians will have a choice in the next election. Canadians can decide between a party that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing, or they can choose a party that sits down with Canadians from coast to coast to coast; examines the regional differences in this country, the economic differences in this country, the opportunities that support can provide; and understands that when we grow the economy and the capacity to pay debt and keep the GDP ratio as low as we have, good things happen. Canadians are working and healthy.
