Debates of April 20th, 2021

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her question. I hope she does not mind if I reply in English.

I disagree that this budget is paternalistic toward our provincial partners. In fact, when it comes to child care, full credit goes to the Province of Quebec for leading the way on this, years prior, to show that we could make these kinds of investments that would pay for themselves.

On the establishment of national standards, the reality is that I am not okay with the quality of life that seniors who live in these facilities enjoy. With all of the investments that we are putting forward that impact areas of provincial jurisdiction, we are saying we will work with the provinces and territories to establish these standards. I am not okay with simply transferring money with absolutely no oversight of the outcome of how that money is spent.

I am looking forward to continuing the conversations with our provincial counterparts so we can work on shared objectives and enhance the quality of life for our constituents.

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

Mr. Speaker, I work with my colleague on the finance committee.

In my riding, people are very concerned about the absence of universal pharmacare. I am thinking of Cole and his family. They pay $1,000 a month for heart medication and they struggle, like 10 million other Canadians, because they have no coverage for pharmacare.

As we know, in 2019, the Liberals promised to bring in public, universal pharmacare, yet the budget has abandoned that promise. It is quite simple. I know the member's constituents are in the same situation as mine. Why did the government abandon its commitments around public, universal pharmacare in budget 2021?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there is no such abandonment of the commitment to national pharmacare in budget 2021. Although it may not be fully implemented in the document, the commitment made in the previous throne speech remains. The reality is that the budget actually flags specifically our intent to work with provinces and territories to advance national pharmacare.

However, the allegation that there has been no action on this file rings hollow in the face of $500 million toward a rare disease strategy; in the face of changes to the regulations for patent medicines, which has reduced the cost of medications across Canada; and in the face of the commitment made in a previous budget, with funding allocated for the establishment of a Canada drug agency that would oversee a national formulary.

I remain personally committed to a national pharmacare system that will take advantage of the systemic savings, of ensuring the federal government has a role in the procurement of these expensive medications, so families do not have to choose between paying their rent and paying for their medicine. It is time that we move forward with it, and I will continue to advocate for national pharmacare as long as I have the opportunity to serve in this capacity.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking today from the traditional territories of the Wyandot, Haudenosaunee and the Anishinabe peoples and treaty land of the Williams Treaties First Nations.

When I first entered the House of Commons to take my seat in the 43rd Parliament, I did so with enthusiasm, optimism and a strong desire to make a positive difference for the constituents of Newmarket—Aurora and for all the citizens of our great country.

Today, after this historic and ambitious budget and despite the challenges we have faced during this pandemic, I am even more optimistic. I am energized by the opportunities ahead and mindful of the trust Canadians have given us.

I want to congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance on this significant moment in Canadian history.

COVID-19 has been one the great crises of our times; no nation has been immune. In my constituency of Newmarket—Aurora, we have shared in the suffering, the loss of life, the business closures, the uncertain future for our restaurants and the fears of going back to school.

I want to acknowledge the remarkable courage, innovation and compassion of the people of Newmarket—Aurora and their willingness to unite for the common good. This is the foundation that we can build back on, and it is what the citizens of Canada expect.

We all want an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the journey is not yet over. If we want to weather this storm and defeat this pandemic, our first priority must be to continue supporting Canadians and Canadian businesses in the short term while providing programs to aid our recovery.

I am encouraged budget 2021, “A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience”, deals first with our current situation by extending the COVID-19 support programs that have provided a lifeline to Canadians during this difficult time. This provides flexible access to EI benefits until the fall of 2022, by allowing the Canada recovery benefit, a program for Canadians not covered by EI, to remain in place through to September 25. At the same time, the rent subsidy and the wage subsidy have been extended, with plans to wind them down as the recovery takes place.

As I speak here today, over 12.7 million vaccine doses have been delivered to the provinces and territories and over 10.25 million Canadians have been vaccinated at least with one dose. We need to continue to vaccinate as quickly as possible, keeping Canadians safe while providing the financial and the human resources needed in areas highly impacted by COVID-19.

Recover we will, and throughout this pandemic, Canadians have indicated a strong desire for the kind of change that will ensure a more prosperous future for all. We cannot betray ourselves and achieve anything less than a more inclusive future and a quality of life for all that is the envy of the world. Even more, we need to be a country of equality and equity built on respect and compassion, not only for our people but also for our environment.

In the lead up to this budget, I have been connecting with residents and business owners on their ideas and suggestions for budget 2021. We have engaged through tele town halls and through Zoom calls with the Aurora and Newmarket chambers of commerce. Although there have been as many questions as there have been suggestions, I really appreciate the input and time from my constituents, ensuring their voices are heard, and they were heard, with remarkable clarity and inspiration.

Let there be no question, jobs, good jobs for Canadians, have been at the forefront of this economic recovery. The news from Statistics Canada that 303,000 jobs were added in March is encouraging. What is more encouraging is the commitment in this budget to a promise made to create more than a million jobs by the end of this year, jobs that keep the hopes alive of a bright future, a sense of pride in contributing to the community, a feeling of independence and a belief that my country provides opportunity for all.

Constituents of Newmarket—Aurora were clear in stating that job recovery was the most important indication of a recovery from this pandemic, along with the reopening of businesses, and the budget makes it clear our government agrees.

As we invest in our youngest citizens, we recognize that our future starts with ensuring a quality of life, care and an opportunity for everyone. Our government's commitment to child care and its promise to provide $10-per-day universal child care, complete with national standards within five years, will be the defining moment in Canadian history. This is an investment in our future, an investment in gender equality and an opportunity to unleash the potential of so many.

Compassion is also key to our recovery, compassion for our elders in long-term care that ensures they can feel safe and cared for, and we owe them nothing less. Certainly, I have heard many times of the need for long-term care health standards, and I am heartened by the provision of $3 billion over five years to ensure that standards are applied.

The commitment of old age security increases for those 75 years of age and older, the funding proposal for seniors who do not live in long-term care facilities and pledging $90 million over three years, starting in the next year, to Employment and Social Development Canada through the age well at home initiative will certainly provide assurances that elders in our society are both valued and cared for.

Speaking of value and caring for our society, there is no doubt that climate change is the most pressing challenge for this generation and an opportunity to renew, invest and create a more promising future. Certainly, the provision of $17.6 billion to a green recovery and ensuring that our agreed upon 2030 climate targets are exceeded will accelerate innovation, opportunity and prospects for a brighter future.

Our country, with its vast array of natural resources, has a remarkable opportunity for green leadership on this front, and I encourage us to seek a leadership position in this regard.

I am proud to say that within my riding, I am fortunate to have a highly engaged and active youth council. At the beginning of the budget consultation process, these young leaders provided us with their thoughts on how this budget might reflect the goals of youth across Canada.

In reviewing their pre-budget submission, I am struck by how this budget reflects so many of their recommendations, including investments in mental health; reducing student debt, both through grants and lowering interest rates on student loans; investments in renewable resources; and support for those most impacted by this pandemic. A highly engaged youth is paramount for building a prosperous Canada in the future, and I continue to be inspired by the young leaders of Newmarket—Aurora.

I wish I could speak to all the investments in the budget, because there is so much to be proud of and so much work ahead of us to be done. This is a budget that would require federal and provincial governments to work together to build a Canada better prepared for any future pandemics, to seize opportunities for prosperity and to create a country capable of harnessing the strengths of its people and the resources for today and for the future. I promised my children and my grandchildren I would work for that, and I hope we all seize that opportunity.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a budget must do two things. It must be a short-term response as well as position a nation for the long term.

The constituents from Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill have consistently told me over the last six years that they are concerned about our taxes being universally unfair, our declining competitiveness, the drastic flight of foreign capital and regulatory frameworks that are affecting our ability to position ourselves at home and abroad. We are losing jobs to the U.S. and we cannot seem to get anything built. My constituents are worried that tomorrow will not be better than today.

Could the hon. member comment on the key foundational changes in the budget to address those elements?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while I indicated that there was a need for all levels of government to work together, to collaborate, that includes members opposite and all members of Parliament to focus on working together, as opposed to seeding doubt and unhappiness and challenging the opportunities that are presented in the budget. I look forward to having further conversations and being engaged in the discussions of the budget, which offers a ton of opportunities and good reasons to be optimistic, as opposed to always finding fault in what is not possible. What is possible is more important.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the pandemic has given rise to an initiative to help homeless people, including in my riding. This initiative has a high degree of acceptability, since it accepts everyone, without discrimination.

Unfortunately, those responsible for the initiative have been really worried about the budget, because they were wondering whether their initiative would survive the pandemic. They received some money to get it off the ground, but they are wondering whether they will be able to continue.

The budget included roughly $560 million for the reaching home program. Quebec is asking for $100 million a year to continue its efforts related to COVID-19.

What do I tell the folks at La Halte du coin in Longueuil? Can they expect to get enough funding for their initiative to survive the pandemic?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, much of the speed in which the revenues will flow to the provinces will depend on how expeditious we are with the budget.

If the member is asking what he should tell his constituents, I would tell him what our Prime Minister has been saying, which is that we have their backs for as long as it takes and for as much as it takes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I just got a phone call from the 1997 Liberal election platform, and it is still wondering when its pharmacare promise will come to be. I had to go all the way to page 238 to see only a half-page reference to a universal national pharmacare system.

How much longer will Canadians have to wait? The Liberals had an opportunity with their vote on Bill C-213 to set up a framework modelled on the Canada Health Act, but cynically voted against that opportunity. I am wondering how many more years Canadians will have to vote for this critical part of our health care system for it to be finally established.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity to vote on the bill that was referenced. While the principle is still there and held by this government, and there are activities under way to support pharmacare, there were provisions within the bill that were untenable, as they did not allow for collaboration with the provinces. The need to work with the provinces is a fundamental caveat. Had the opposition modified that bill, it might have been supported.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very tempted to pick up on the points made by the hon. member for Newmarket—Aurora on climate and point out how disappointed I am.

However, I had a desperate email earlier today from one of the leading tourism attractions in this region, and indeed all of Canada, The Butchart Gardens. The owner is worried it is going to go under and is so disappointed. Where is the help for the tourism sector?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there has been some provision for the tourism sector, and there is a further provision as well. I really do not want to quote numbers because I do not have them directly in front of me, but there are some sections that are dedicated to the tourism sector.

If I can help the member direct her constituents, I would be more than happy to do so.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to virtually rise on behalf of the great people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, who I am very proud to represent in this chamber. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Edmonton Centre, who will, without a doubt, have an even better intervention than my own.

When I first heard the finance minister's speech yesterday and had a chance to go through this budget, I thought I was having a déjà vu moment. The finance minister told us we must build, “a more resilient Canada: better, more fair, more prosperous and more innovative”. I thought to myself, well, wait a minute. Who has been governing this country for the past five years to have made Canada so unresilient, so unfair, so unprosperous and so lacking in innovation? That would be the Liberal government.

After all, this is the Liberal government that announced nearly $1 billion in budget 2017 for superclusters. Do members remember when that was the in buzzword of the 2017 budget? It mentioned jobs, jobs and jobs, and innovation of course, which is what the Liberals promised us all at the time.

The Liberals told us that spending, or pardon me, I meant investing, was supposed to create 50,000 jobs and boost the country's gross domestic product by $50 billion over a decade. In the end, we now know that the PBO found that the Liberal government could only account for roughly 14 jobs for every $1 million of combined federal and private funding. The minister responsible is now gone, and superclusters is a buzzword that is no longer in the current budget. In other words, it was a failure.

Do members remember the promises for the Infrastructure Bank? The Liberal government told us that if we just kick in $35 billion, by the way drawn from money supposed to go to municipalities, we will attract private sector dollars at a ratio of $4 to $5 in private funding for every $1 in federal money. How did that go? It was a massive failure, like so many other Liberal-created budget buzzword programs.

In 2016, the former finance minister Bill Morneau stood before this place and delivered a budget where he promised, “Our plan is reasonable and affordable. By the end of our first mandate, Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio will be lower than it is today.” That term ended long before this pandemic came along, and the Liberal government was not even close to honouring that commitment that it made to Canadians.

Flash forward to the budget today and there is no longer any real fiscal anchor. Instead, we were told that because of today's environment of low interest rates, we can afford this spending. I am going to pause here for a moment to reflect a bit.

Canada has long struggled in dealing with our housing markets. Jim Flaherty as finance minister wrestled with it. We had tightening mortgage rules, which is something the current government specifically did in its first mandate, and increasing the stress test on mortgages. Of course, we all witnessed what occurred in the United States. When people lost their jobs, when their local housing market crashed or when interest rates rose, many homeowners could no longer afford their mortgage payments and went into default, deepening the challenges.

Here, in Canada, we say that someone needs to qualify for their mortgage at a higher rate of interest to ensure they can still make their mortgage payments when interest rates inevitably rise. The current and previous governments said at the time it was because of a larger, bigger interest. Many opposed it. Most said they would agree that it is prudent for a government to hedge against large or systemic risks. However, in the Liberal budget, we see no evidence of a prudent fiscal approach, hedge or otherwise.

The Parliamentary Budget Office has warned us repeatedly that this ongoing level of spending is just not sustainable. The PBO has warned us that we are eliminating our capacity to respond to a future crisis. Does any member of this place doubt what the PBO is saying? Sure, interest rates are low right now, but where is the plan to deal with the rise in interest rates? There is not one. Is it a realistic expectation to build an economy on borrowed government spending? The PBO has warned us, yet the Liberal government ignores that advice.

The reason I have raised programs from the previous iterations of the government, such as superclusters and the Infrastructure Bank, is not just to point out its record of failure, very expensive failures I might add, but to point out that when these programs fail, government does not take the time to audit these programs and determine why they failed. Instead of learning from failure, the government would rather quietly move onto the next buzzwords and announce a program.

The latest is $10-a-day day care, which is a program, I will point out, that the Liberals criticized heavily during the 2015 election campaign of Mr. Mulcair. The problem I see is that to make this happen, we need a serious and credible plan. One of the biggest challenges in child care right now, aside from the cost, is a critical shortage of early childhood educators, or ECEs. Without a serious plan to increase the number of ECEs, it is hard to see this day care announcement achieving what it is purportedly set out to achieve.

Likewise, there is the challenge we face in seniors' care homes. Once again, we have a critical shortage of care aids. It is easy to throw money at the problem, as this budget proposes to do, but we need a serious plan for more long-term care aids. In my home community of Summerland, we have many issues with our local seniors' care home. Fortunately none are related to COVID, but many of the challenges come back to the inability to hire staff. This, of course, brings up another critically important subject, and that is health care.

Health care is the most cherished, but also currently the most stressed, Canadian program. We only need to look at the challenges created by the new burdens because of the pandemic. I do not believe that anyone doubts the cost pressures on health care before COVID or especially now.

Strangely, the Liberal government is ignoring the serious need to increase health care transfer payments. Why? While I believe we all understand the need for affordable child care, how can this budget be totally silent on health care? It is completely irresponsible.

When I first got into political life, a person wiser than me told me that politicians should always remember this in this order: needs first, wants second. She would say, “Whatever you do, Dan, do not put all your eggs in one basket.” This relates to my next point.

When we consider the very first thing this Prime Minister did in response to COVID, for reasons none of us will likely ever understand, was to start making a deal with China-based CanSino for vaccines. When that deal failed, the PM hid the fact from Canadians for two months. Guess what? We are now two months behind many other countries. We have spent the most money, and this budget confirms that.

Obviously, because of the vaccine delays, we have been forced into this situation in many areas, but make no mistake, those delays are costing Canadians dearly. What happened to better being always possible? How did that become waiting for one shot, hopefully by September? We need better, and it is possible.

On a different note, I could not help but notice in this budget that the Liberal government announced billions for a home retrofit program with many more details to come. That sounds familiar. They did the same with a similar program last fall, and told people that it would available for homeowners by December 2020. Well, last night I checked the website, and that program is still not available. Canadians are being told to check back in the coming weeks. That message has been up there for months.

It is a bit rich to announce a new home retrofit program when we have not been able to successfully launch the last one. Maybe this will become an annual tradition, and every year the minister will announce a new home retrofit program, but never actually implement one. I would suggest that the minister make sure that the program that was supposed to open last year is available before launching a new one. This is not unlike the Liberals promise to plant two billion trees. How did that go? We all know where that one went.

Before I close, I would like to leave members in the House with a thought, courtesy of the former finance minister in his first-ever budget speech in 2016. In that speech, former finance minister Bill Morneau stated, “It is no surprise that many Canadians feel they are worse off than their parents were at the same age, and that they feel the next generation will do even worse than their own.”

I will ask members this simple question: When the next generation is left to pay for the bills that this Liberal government has left behind for them, how do members think they are going to feel? For their sake, let us all hope that interest rates stay low. This budget is not a plan for their future, it is a budget to help the political future of this Prime Minister.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the remarks from my colleague, particularly toward the end when he quoted the previous finance minister. I am not sure if he has been living in the same reality the rest of us have been for the last year, but we have been facing a global pandemic, and we are still in the middle of it right now. This has cost billions of dollars, which I might add, he supported through unanimous consent motions when those measures were introduced.

We are in this difficult time now because of something we were not able to foresee when Bill Morneau made those comments. My question is this: Would the member not at least acknowledge that some things may have changed since then that have contributed to the situation we are in?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his ongoing questioning of opposition members who have questions about whether or not his government is actually getting the big picture. Just by his very statement, we are in a situation we did not anticipate. However, recessions happen and pandemics happen. In fact, there was a 2006 report, authored in part by Dr. Tam, that actually laid out blow by blow exactly what kind of situation could happen in the future, which looked very similar to COVID-19. Yet, this member seems to give his own government a complete get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to thinking of the systemic or large-scale risks we have of higher interest rates.

I would like that member to actually start telling Canadians what the backup plan is, besides their back pockets.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the economy, to me the economy is always the family economy, and we have seen year in, year out where over 60% of the workforce is unable to access EI, even though they may need it. One of the things the New Democrats pushed for was the recognition of the gig economy. They are self-employed and could not access EI. We are now going back to the idea that we will just have EI, and the government is going to cut the supports from $500 a week to $300 a week for contract workers and self-employed gig workers.

The reality is that this third wave is still hitting us and, in many of the regions we represent, the economy has not bounced back. We need a plan to get people through until we have a more solid footing so people can go back to work. Just $300 a week is not going to keep temporary workers, contract workers and gig workers able to pay their rent or pay their bills. They are not going to get through this.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, the country may be governed by the government itself, but the government is for the people. Certainly this member raises a lot of criticisms. We have raised concerns about the impacts on labour throughout this process, and we actually pushed the government to make changes to what eventually became the Canada recovery benefit, which offered more flexibility, so someone could count on those supports, and if they made more income, they would not fall off a cliff.

Certainly, we are there to make sure people are supported. I do share the concerns of the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. I am from Victoria originally; I was born in Victoria. I heard that Butchart Gardens, one of the treasures of the island, is facing financial ruin, and for the people who work for it, that is a big problem.

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

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the member's speech, and not just his, but the discourse coming from the Conservative Party, I find that things zigzag a bit. We hear, for example, that we should not be running deficits, then they will say it is okay to run a deficit for a while, but they do not tell us for how long and what the ideal deficit should be. Then, when we talk about the benefits that have saved families, individuals and businesses, the Conservatives support them. It gets a bit confusing. We have heard about the fact that we are not manufacturing vaccines at home, yet this budget includes some funding to build up the biopharmaceuticals sector. Of course, that is going to cost money. It is not going to reduce the deficit, so what I am wondering is whether the member is in favour of that kind of spending.

Does he think the budget is good from that perspective, or does he think that we need to cut back somewhere else in order to make these expenditures on biomanufacturing capacity possible?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his work on the environment committee as chair. Like the carbon tax cover-up, the government has no penchant to share information that may end up exposing the fact that there are risks to its plans. We have not seen a budget in two years. Every other province and territory and every municipality I know of has been able to bring forward a budget through COVID, so that the opposition could ask questions on a fiscal framework. I have asked multiple times of the Minister of Employment to tell us what the status of the EI fund is. Is there a modest deficit? We know that there probably is not now. How can we, as parliamentarians, do our job, if the government will not give us basic figures?

It is Conservatives who have been criticizing the government for not looking here first. His government went right to CanSino to sign a deal and put all our eggs in that basket, and that left us behind, rather than working with industry, much as the British did, to do that, or to even focus on a more diversified portfolio earlier. Instead, we see the United States and other countries, such as Israel, are all clearly ahead of us.

I appreciate this member's work, but I have to tell him that he has to tell his government to start giving us the tools, so that we can make good suggestions for the good of this country.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Finance introduced her first budget to Canadians in over two years, two years of uncertainty for small businesses trying to plan for an ever more uncertain future, two years of careful spending by new Canadians not aware of the promises they were made entering this country for the first time and two years of economic room for our country's once strong industries that millions of Canadians have relied upon.

Yesterday, instead of delivering a clear, measured and outcome-driven budget, the Minister of Finance gave Canadians a glimpse of the political opportunity this pandemic has provided for her government. The idea of this budget is not to build back better, but to build back bigger, with a large reach of control of government into the individual lives of Canadians. It is full of big promises and expensive programs and, based upon past performance, it will likely lead to disappointing results.

There will be $101.4 billion in new spending, including $30 billion toward a national child care plan. That is an important initiative that Conservatives support, but it should not be one size that fills all and the devil is in the details. The Liberals' big headline, which they are good at, is that $10 a day will be the average cost for child care. This does not mean all Canadians will have access to $10-a-day child care. The government has had five years to develop this plan with the co-operation of provinces and it still has to be negotiated.

Extending pandemic business and health supports until this economy gets back on its feet will of course be required and there is an increase in the federal minimum wage. There are promises for $17.6 billion in green investments. While all of these promises sound wonderful, I am afraid we will again be reminded of the government's failure to deliver on fiscal promises. Six years ago, the Prime Minister's election platform vowed to run modest budget deficits prior to balancing the budget at the end of his first term. The government has since abandoned this goal. It set four annual deficit targets and each of them was missed. The Liberals are masters at the big gesture and bold headlines, but they consistently do not deliver, so why should we believe them about this budget?

In late 2020, the Prime Minister announced that his temporary spending measures would not become a fixture for the federal government. He committed to balancing the budget in the future without any indication of a timeline and while Liberals assert that their accumulated debt is manageable, long-term projections indicate that massive federal stimulus spending during the pandemic will result in deficits for multiple decades.

Remember when Liberals told us they had the best vaccine portfolio in the G7. That was in December and look at where we are now. Canada is getting slammed by the third wave of variants. Canadians are seeing an extension of time between the first and second doses and less than 3% of the population is fully vaccinated. It says it is an open and transparent government. It prorogued Parliament and shut down the ethics, defence and finance committees while shining the light on important scandals, particularly around sexual harassment. In 2015, the federal government vowed to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio to 27% and that was not done. It failed to deliver on a pledge to end boil water advisories by March 2021 in indigenous communities and that was not done. The Prime Minister told Liberal Party members at a closed event for the Minister of Public Services and Procurement that all Canadians are likely to be vaccinated by June. That is not going to happen.

These failed promises are just the tip of the iceberg. We cannot depend on the government to execute any of its promises and programs. The government must recognize that there can be no implementation of programs, supports or initiatives aimed toward economic recovery without a solution to this health crisis. As the rest of the world continues to receive vaccines and return to a sense of normalcy, Canada has fallen behind, not only in the past few weeks but since the inception of COVID-19.

In the midst of the third wave, Canadians are struggling to cope with the rise of COVID-19 cases with increased lockdowns and the effects of the struggling economy. We are in the middle of the biggest health crisis in Canadian history. The provincial premiers have called for a long-term funding plan that ensures they will have the resources to make sure we are prepared for when, not if, this happens again. There is nothing in this budget that addresses the long-term resiliency of our health care system, which is what the premiers have been asking for.

Canadians are having a hard time coping with the current spike, hospitalizations are up, ICU admissions are soaring, businesses are closed and workers are losing their jobs or having their hours cut. This demonstrates what poor planning and the failure to procure health provisions looks like. It has consequences for Canadians.

The mental health crisis that our communities have been struggling with across Canada deepens. Canadians are worried about their future. In the United States, cases and hospitalizations are dropping. Businesses are opening. They are going out to sports games. That is because the U.S. population is getting vaccinated. Our current situation in Canada was avoidable.

Monday's federal budget outlines how the federal Liberals propose to rebuild the Canadian economy in a way that brings all Canadians along. Apparently the minister does not consider those Canadians who rely on this country's agricultural, energy, forestry, fisheries or other natural resources to be Canadian. Just as the government has continued to do since 2015, Canada's natural resources were ignored in the equation for economic recovery. There is no mention of the energy sector, which is Canada's number one export.

Snubbing the strength of Canada's resource forestry sectors among others, the government has failed to recognize the impact these sectors would have on our battered economy. The world wants and needs more of our natural resources and we should be thinking about expanding market share rather than hastening its decline. The least we could do is lessen our dependency on foreign supply because we have it all here.

The budget continues to go down a path we have seen before with Liberal governments, funding programs that they believe will increase productivity and innovation, but past results tell a different story. Canada fell out of the top 10 ranking of the world's most competitive economies and we have fallen near the bottom of our peer group on innovation, ranking 17th, with those existing programs that the Liberals are adding money to. How is this federal spending going to position our country for post-pandemic success? In never-before-seen stimulus spending, where is our strategic economic vision for the future? How will this affect generations for years to come? On the debt the government is holding now, we are paying about $20 billion in interest, soon to be $40 billion. How are we going to pay for our debt burden if interest rates continue to rise?

Debt-to-GDP ratio is going to rise and it is getting close to that near default number in 1996. Titled “A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience”, the federal Liberal government's budget contains $497.6 billion in total spending. However, from what I was able to distinguish from the speech, there is no actual plan for job growth that they are referring to. Instead there are vague references to growing green jobs and retraining the workforce toward new jobs. We have heard lots of noise about retraining for jobs that do not exist yet. The need for tradespeople only happens if we can approve something and get it built in this country. Growth has to be led by the private sector. The high cost of doing business in Canada, with red tape and over-regulation, creates an impossible environment for small business. There is nothing here that reduces import costs and increases competitiveness.

There is nothing in the budget that deals with the attraction of investment into Canada, nothing that demonstrates Canada is open for business and if we want something or need something built, Canada is the place to do it. There is nothing here that would encourage Canadians themselves to invest in Canadian businesses and little mention of advancing projects that are under review and accelerating that review.

My fear for the future is that this budget will do more than invest massive sums of money into under-tested, under-productive schemes that serve the government's political agenda. Canadians need more than a plan to keep them home and promises to retrain them for jobs that do not exist. They need a plan that will get them outside and back to work. At the end of the day, Canadians will be left with more joblessness, higher taxes and an unimaginable tax burden for Canada's youth.

The most important investment our country can make is getting Canadians employed in our country. The Conservative Party of Canada would implement the Canada recovery plan, a plan that would recover the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in the hardest-hit sectors. It is time we start building, producing and growing in Canada again. Clearly the rest of the world is interested in buying value-added products, commodities and Canadian expertise, but there is little in the budget that demonstrates our future will include an economic recovery that plays to our strengths.

All in all, there appear to be a few positive measures in this budget put forward, specifically those that will continue to support Canadians in their time of need as they struggle to get through this pandemic. Nonetheless, our party will be sure to scrutinize and review the budget in great detail. Canadians deserve a robust plan for recovery and one that will instill confidence in our ability to grow and build back stronger than ever before.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have heard a parade of Conservative MPs today talk about the need to create choice in the child care system, and “choice” is an interesting word to use.

Farmers in the Prairies can choose to take a bushel of wheat and walk it down to a road, then walk that road to Vancouver and then swim across the ocean to China to sell it or they can choose to use the system of roads the public has built, the rail system the public has built and the port system the public has built and utilize that system, choose that system, to get better results for the bushel of wheat they want to sell.

Child care is no different. We all support parents having the right to choose where to place their kids while they work or go to school, but if we do not have a system to choose between and we limit our choices to individual options, we get the same result as trying to swim wheat to China. We do not get any results.

Will the member opposite agree that if those members are going to support choice and support the market of opportunities for parents, they have to build the child care system for choices to be present for parents to make those choices they seem to think they support?

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of preamble in that question. Fundamentally, this has to be a negotiated agreement between the provinces. It strikes me that there have been five years to get that done, five years to create something, and we still have nothing.

We have a promise for $10-child care, but a promise to negotiate with the provinces has not happened yet. Yes, I agree there is an opportunity to use choice and there is an opportunity to design a program that works for all provinces, but it has to be with their input.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's speech and I know in St. John's, as I am sure in Edmonton, there are many seniors. We heard from a lot today. They have heard about the $500 being given sometime in August to seniors who are 75. They are concerned and not very happy. They are over 65, not yet 75, and are getting no help from the government in this budget.

Would the hon. member agree it would be much fairer for the government to ensure all seniors get some additional assistance? They all need it. They are hurting and they feel they deserve it.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there are two ways to approach this. One is to provide additional funds to seniors and the other way is to stop burdening them with additional costs.

The government has been on the path of continuing to increase the cost of everything. That is as important to seniors as is trying to give them more capital. They are being given more capital to pay for the additional costs they are incurring, because the government is hell-bent on increasing costs for everything. It is time to stop. It is time to make life more affordable for Canadians.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned that there was nothing in the budget in regard to oil and gas. However, I have a comment from Amanda Lang on Power Play last night, on which I wold like his response. She said, “I will say this Evan, and this is kind of like one of those more boring line items, but it's important especially for resource industry companies, and that is there is a form of a corporate tax increase in this budget that the Liberals have talked about for a while. It's a reduction on dividend interest deductions allowable. Super boring sounding, but I'll tell you this. It could hurt oil and gas companies disproportionately and at a time when they can least afford it.”