House of Commons Hansard #123 of the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was budget.

Topics

Alleged Non-compliance with an Order of the HousePrivilegeGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

Bloc

Alain Therrien Bloc La Prairie, QC

Madam Speaker, I would like to come back to the question of privilege raised yesterday by the House Leader of the Official Opposition, who alleged that the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada did not fully comply with the order adopted by the House on June 17.

This question of privilege is quite appropriate. We are of the opinion that the order of the House was not followed in its entirety and that the House must act accordingly. It is time for it to act.

Last week, Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel Philippe Dufresne sent a document to the Standing Committee on Finance regarding the committees' power to send for papers, since the committee was finding it difficult to get documents from KPMG on its study of tax havens. This letter from Mr. Dufresne provides some thoughtful clarifications on the question of privilege we are discussing today. Regarding the refusal to produce the documents, he said, and I quote:

Only the House of Commons has the disciplinary powers to deal with this type of offence. The disciplinary powers of the House include, for example, the power to reprimand a person who is not a Member (House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 3rd ed, p. 983, n. 164). In cases where the author of or the authority responsible for a record refuses to comply with an order issued by a committee to produce documents, the committee essentially has three options. The first is to accept the reasons put forward to justify the refusal (House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 3rd ed, p. 986). The second is to seek an acceptable compromise to obtain the information with certain measures in place. This could entail putting measures in place to ensure that the record is kept confidential while it is being consulted, such as in camera review, limited and numbered copies, and/or putting in place arrangements for disposing of or destroying the copies after the committee meeting (House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 3rd ed, p. 986, notes 180, 181, 182). It could also include having proposed redactions to the documents provided to the Committee or to my Office for review before any information is made public. The third option is to reject the reasons given for denying access to the record and insist on the production of the entire record (House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 3rd ed, p. 987). If a witness does not provide requested documents, the committee’s recourse is to report the matter to the House (House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 3rd ed, p. 983, n. 165; p. 987, n. 183). Once seized with the matter, the House takes the measures that it considers appropriate (House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 3rd ed, p. 983, n. 166; p. 987).

The letter from Mr. Stewart's lawyer was tabled in both official languages in the House this morning. Mr. Stewart has no intention of complying with the order of the House for the time being, which brings us back to the third option I just mentioned.

The House has already considered what action should be taken against the Public Health Agency of Canada as a result of Mr. Stewart's refusal to table the unredacted documents before the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.

The order adopted by the House on June 17 was adopted by a majority vote, and therefore the point of order raised by the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is inappropriate. The Chair must rule on the solution, the remedy to be applied with respect to the documents that were requested but have still not been tabled in the House.

I will not repeat all the rulings and precedents that the House Leader of the Official Opposition referred to yesterday. However, I would like to come back to some of the fundamental issues he raised about the importance of decisions that are made by the House, and I quote:

If the House does not respect its orders, who will respect the laws adopted by the House? Who will respect the regulations adopted by the House? Who will respect the political decisions made after debates, albeit spirited ones, but decisions that were voted on by the individuals who were duly elected by the public?

Therefore, we ask that you take one of the conclusions proposed yesterday by the House Leader of the Official Opposition.

Alleged Non-compliance with an Order of the HousePrivilegeGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

I thank the hon. member for his comments. The Chair will certainly take note of that as a supplement to yesterday's remarks and come back to the House if necessary.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-30, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 19, 2021 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

3:50 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, Government Orders will be extended by 12 minutes.

Resuming debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

3:50 p.m.

Yukon Yukon

Liberal

Larry Bagnell LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages (Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency)

Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak from the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation and the Ta'an Kwach'an Council. As tomorrow is the last day that Parliament will sit before the summer, I want to thank all Yukoners, again, for the great honour they have provided me to represent them. It is a very eclectic riding, which makes it an even bigger honour. With 14 unique first nations, we are dealing with over 50 countries in immigration. It has the largest icefields outside the polar caps; the highest mountains in Canada; the world's greatest gold rush; the greatest poet, Robert Service; and the great painter, Jim Robb. Most important, the people are very caring, which is why it is such a great honour to represent them.

I will not use all my time. The budget is so important and we need to get it done quickly, which I think members realize. I will talk quickly and try to limit what I have to say to some highlights.

First, the $3.8 billion toward 35,000 more affordable units is very important. I made a number of big announcements related to housing, even before the budget. It is very exciting for my riding.

Another big investment is the $3 billion to extend sickness benefits from 15 to 26 weeks. There are also flexible EI provisions to help people through the pandemic, which are being extended until the fall of 2022.

The Nutrition north Canada subsidy program is being expanded. It provides nutritious foods to those in the Arctic and remote communities as they cannot get food for a reasonable price. That is very exciting.

I could spend my whole speech just on climate change. I am sure no one objects to the money, $17 billion we have provided and the support to the resource sector for mining, forestry, etc. to transition to a clean economy. I am sure no one objects to the zero-emission technologies like hydrogen that we are supporting and renewable energies. There is a big tax cut to clean energy technology producers. Hopefully with that $17 billion we can also help get mines that are off the grid in the very remote areas like my area off diesel.

Another area I could spend my whole speech on are the $18 billion for indigenous people. People will remember the Kelowna accord and the historic $5 billion proposed by Paul Martin, one of the greatest prime ministers in history. This is $18 billion. I will just mention two items of the many. One is over $4 billion for indigenous infrastructure. Another area is community policing and safety.

I want to give a big-shout out to Chief Doris Bill of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation as well as Gina Nagano and the Selkirk First Nation. They have provided some great leadership, and innovative and very successful community policing.

I am very happy with the IRAP expansion. It is one of the most successful programs in Canada, and more than in any other government's history, and harnesses industrial research excellence. For NGOs and charities, where there are seldom things in budgets, there is a social financing fund of $200 million; a Canada community revitalization fund; $50 million for getting ready for the social financing fund, and even a social bond. Looking at those and the green bond of maybe $5 billion on the first issue, NGOs and charities will also be eligible for the small business financing fund.

I think everyone in rural Canada too is pretty excited about the recent announcement of the rural transportation fund. I am very happy that the declining debt-to-GDP ratio makes it possible for us to help so many people and businesses that are in need.

I want to move on to to the north. On top of everything else, there are things that are particularly exciting for us in the north. One is the new exciting community revitalization fund for main streets, farmers markets and other gathering spaces that underpin local economies. There are $500 million to help people in these rural communities. If someone is in a little village, a hamlet, a town or a small NGO, this is specifically for them. They should start getting those applications ready for this brand new community revitalization fund.

What is really exciting for the northern half of Canada, is the very large northern travel allowance deduction. Before this, only people whose employers gave them a travel allowance and put it on their T4 slip could access it, but now all northerners will be able to access to it, which is very exciting.

The biggest employer in my riding is tourism as a private sector employer. The historic, first-time ever $1 billion dedicated to tourism is very crucial and exciting. There are $200 million for small festivals, small cultural events, heritage celebrations, local museums and amateur sporting events, which is perfect for my riding. We have a lot of those. For the bigger cities, there is also another $200 million for all the same events but in bigger cities. The $500 million tourism relief fund will help tourism businesses adapt their products and service, and meet public health requirements.

Then specifically in my riding is mining, which is the biggest GDP since the gold rush. Its biggest ask was help for hydroelectricity. The finance minister came through with $40.4 million for hydroelectricity studies and for preparation in the north. Also, the Yukon government has one of the most effective climate change plans, and we are giving $25 million to that.

A lot of people probably do not know that all five species of Pacific salmon: chinook, sockeye, coho, chum and pink, come into the Yukon through the Alsek-Tatshenshini drainage, or the Yukon River, the longest salmon run in the world, 2,000 miles. Therefore, historic amount of $647 million for salmon is very exciting. In fact, I had a first nations organization contact me a couple weeks ago, happy that the consultations had already started with it.

The northern trade corridor fund is essential for infrastructure for the north, $1.9 billion in the budget for that of which the north get 15%. Considering we are less than half of 1% of the population, this is tremendous support for the north as are funds for the polar continental shelf for Arctic research.

The work to lower credit card interchange fees and to have those fees the same for small businesses as large businesses is music to our ears as is the $146 million for women entrepreneurs. We have a higher average in Yukon of women entrepreneurs.

The critical mineral strategy, which I do not have time to go into as much as I would like to right now, is very important, again, mining, which is so important to our economy in the north. Mines like Victoria Gold are a very big support.

There are small business financing changes, with working capital lines of credit now being allowed, and lending against intellectual property, which would be great for our large NorthLight Innovation Centre. The digital adoption program would bring us into the new economy, with many young helpers for businesses, potential zero-interest loans and grants to help transition.

To get into the new economy, we have a plan. I am glad the Conservatives are onside for a long-term prosperity growth budget, which is exactly what this is, with money for food security; indigenous and women entrepreneurs; an artificial intelligence strategy; the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research; a quantum strategy; the Photonics Fabrication Centre; business-led R and D through colleges; Mitacs for 85,000 placements; CanCode; the net-zero accelerator; the clean-growth hub; support for Measurement Canada; strategic innovation funds; Elevated IP; the strategic intellectual property program review; innovation superclusters; data in the digital world; Stats Canada data gaps; and support for the Standards Council of Canada.

I think most people in this place and the other place know how important it is to get this budget through, and that a number of major supports are going to expire in eight days, including the wage subsidy and the rent subsidy. There are 447,000 employers that have accessed the wage subsidy; five million people in Canada need it to put food on the table, and 192,000 organizations for rent subsidy. The Canada recovery benefit will be extended for 12 more weeks, and the Canada recovery hiring benefit would not be able to go ahead without it.

People realize the importance of getting this bill through. Those programs will expire in eight days if we do not get this through today or tomorrow. Even the Conservative member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes said yesterday that a number of our expenditures were great, like the County Road 43, recreation projects like the new arena in Prescott, the Vincent de Paul project in Brockville, with affordable housing for seniors. They will ask for many more government funds for Gananoque, Westport, Rideau Lakes and North Grenville.

For all these reasons and with these important investments, I hope all parties will support this bill that would help so many workers who are still in desperate need and so many businesses that need support to get through the last part of this pandemic, to ensure these programs do not expire and all the initiatives that can get help us into the new, modern digital economy to create even more jobs. Eighty per cent of jobs have already been brought back, but much more needs to be done.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4 p.m.

Conservative

Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Madam Speaker, the budget references rural and remote communities. I have a very large rural riding and so does the member. I am wondering if he wants to comment further about what this budget would do or, in my opinion, would not do for rural and remote communities. Maybe he has something he would like to share with the House that will benefit rural and remote Canadians.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Madam Speaker, I emphasized in my speech things like the new community revitalization fund, $500 million for small villages, hamlets and NGOs. There has not been a fund like this recently to which small organizations will be able to apply. The rural transportation fund is brand new and exciting for rural Canada. There are some agriculture initiatives like food subsistence funding. The increase to the northern food security program is very exciting. There will be hydroelectric generation for far more remote areas. Remote air transport in the north is helpful right across the country to keep small communities connected that depend on it for their supplies. The regional development agencies have helped thousands of businesses in remote Canada.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4 p.m.

Bloc

Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to hear from the parliamentary secretary that there is a fund for rural, remote and northern regions.

The problem with federal funding is that it uses the same approach from coast to coast to coast, as they like to say. Every region has different needs, especially rural, remote and northern regions.

Will this funding take a one-size-fits-all approach, or will it be at least somewhat tailored to the circumstances of each region?

Will the regions be empowered to take charge of their destiny, influence the program content and have access to the types of funding they need from the different types of programs?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Madam Speaker, to my understanding, the answer is yes. This is going to be a very flexible program that will be targeted at those who have less access. There is up to 75% support for it. It will help with the needs of small communities. With the RRRF approvals by the regional development agencies, there are 7,000 projects in Quebec and over a million jobs have been created, and 173,000 business have the CEBA loan grants. The regional development agency in Quebec is a reason for the money being provided to regional development agencies, as it is totally in tune with the local economy and the people. Instead of the direction coming from Ottawa, it is received by local employees.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague especially for talking about the climate crisis. Earlier our colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford talked about indigenous communities in B.C. that were announcing their intention to take back control over resource stewardship of their traditional territories. Many of these territories have ancient old growth rainforests, watersheds, estuaries and headlands that are critical for our planet's biodiversity and are absolutely essential when it comes to fighting climate change.

In this budget, $2.3 billion were budgeted for the nature legacies program over five years, which is clearly not enough. Seven times that was spent to twin the Trans Mountain pipeline. To support indigenous-led initiatives and indigenous protected areas to protect ancient old growth rainforests and the watersheds, the government needs to commit more resources. Instead of quantity in terms of size of lands or protected areas, it needs to look at really important climate mitigation pieces and quality, instead of just quantity.

Does my colleague agree that the government needs to provide more resources and work more closely with indigenous communities, the provinces, local governments and stakeholders to create a conservation economy that protects these critical ecosystems, much more than it committed in this budget?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Madam Speaker, of course we support the very important role indigenous communities play in protecting the environment. As the member mentioned size, we are protecting record amounts of land and water. Also, there are record amounts of funding to support the nature funds he mentioned, which support the increases of protected areas to the record levels they are at now and will continue to be.

In the fall economic statement, I believe, is our mandate to increase indigenous guardians because of the important role they play. I do not know what happens in other ridings, but in my riding of Yukon, almost all the indigenous communities are really showing leadership on climate change and accessing our program to help indigenous communities get off diesel. They have wonderful projects to get off greenhouses gases with wind, solar and biodiesel. They are really showing leadership, and that is why we are happy to support them in any way we can with the funds we are providing.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

Madam Speaker, I know that in the member's riding lots of workers in tourism have not been able to get back to work yet. I would like to know if the member supports the cut in CRB by 40% that is going into place on July 1. What kind of incentive does it provide for those people? They have not been able to get jobs. There are no jobs available, so why cut their benefits?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his very thoughtful work in Parliament which I am well aware of.

I answered that question for a colleague yesterday. What I forgot to say was that in all the tourism supports to get people back to work was the new $700 million fund for small businesses. I also mentioned that 80% of jobs lost in Canada during the pandemic are back now, but as people move back, the various supports for businesses and individuals will start to go down.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:05 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, I know my friend has been a long-time, passionate advocate for the north. Even when I was in opposition, I can recall having discussions with him. The environment is very important to him. He made reference to that.

Could he expand upon why, from his perspective, the environment is so critically important to northern Canada?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Madam Speaker, it is especially important for the north because the north, as I have been saying for two decades now, is experiencing climate change three times more than the rest of the world. Some of the species our indigenous people depend on are moving or dying out.

New pests and diseases are coming in, such as spruce budworm, which hurts the forests. It is very important for the north to have adjustments and innovation related to climate change. There are some specific funds that first nations are involved in. A couple of days ago we announced some great projects where they are adding traditional knowledge to scientific knowledge to come up with a plan for the future, so they can adapt to these critical changes to the environment that are happening in the north.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister thinks he has discovered a cornucopia of cash. In the last fiscal year he ran a deficit of $354 billion. From February 2020 until February 2021, the Bank of Canada increased the money supply by, guess what, $354 billion. The Prime Minister thinks this is great: It is easy money. He is starting to get addicted to this idea of cash flying out of printing machines and new coins being machine-gunned off the top floor of the Bank of Canada building, only a few minutes from where we stand.

I raise this today because there is a very interesting debate that is not happening, for which the deadline is quickly approaching, about the Bank of Canada's inflation target. Starting in 1991, the bank and the government signed a deal that inflation would be targeted between 1% and 3%. They called it the “monetary policy framework”: These are sleepy, boring words that may impact the financial health of Canadians more than anything else that happens here in Parliament. That deal to target inflation renews every five years. It comes up for renewal on October 24 of this year. The Prime Minister has made it clear he is going to call an early election during the summer, meaning that if he were to win he would be able to impose a brand new rule about inflation without Canadians having anything to say about it. I suspect that 99% of Canadians do not even realize this is up for debate, but here is why it matters.

If the Prime Minister were to change the bank's mandate this coming October, he could begin to permanently fund larger shares of government spending with printed Bank of Canada cash even if it leads to above 3% inflation, as we have right now. That would have been impossible prior to the pandemic. Based on agreements with the bank, we as Canadians were protected from undue price increases and unacceptable and unjustifiable money creation, but with the renewal of this agreement, about which there has been absolutely no debate in the House of Commons or at the finance committee, the Prime Minister may be able to carry out the biggest unapproved tax increase in Canadian history: the inflation tax.

What is the inflation tax? It is very simple. When the Bank of Canada creates cash to fund the government, it provides the government with a new revenue source. Last year, cash newly created by the Bank of Canada was the single-greatest source of revenue for the government. It was not income tax, the GST, tariffs or even borrowing from private sector lenders, but new cash creation that constituted a $303 billion source of revenue for the current government. The Prime Minister might like to see this go on into the future. The problem is that, like all taxes, it increases costs for Canadians. This tax would be paid in the form of higher prices. The price of housing went up by 30%. The prices of food, lumber, automobiles and transportation have all broken recent records. That is naturally what we can expect when the government floods the marketplace with cheap money. When money is cheap, everything else suddenly gets expensive.

We might ask if it is viewed as a tax by the experts. Let me quote the experts. I will go through them one at a time.

In a 1978 lecture, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman stated:

There has never been in history an inflation that was not accompanied by an extremely rapid increase in the quantity of money. There has never in history been an extremely rapid increase in the quantity of money without inflation....

This is why Dr. Friedman wrote, in his exhaustive study entitled “A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960”, that “inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon”. He also said that “inflation is taxation without legislation”, thereby violating the basic principle that Parliament should approve every single tax before government is able to apply it.

Some might say that this is just a classical economist view. Let us take a look at John Maynard Keynes, who is obviously not a classical economist. He said:

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.

This has been demonstrably proven. Inflation does benefit the extremely wealthy. That is why, in the last year of inflationary money printing, we saw a large increase in economic disparity between the rich and the poor. In the first six months of the central bank's money-printing bonanza, the 28 richest Canadians got 32% richer. That happened while our economy was tumbling by $120 billion.

Where did they get all the money from? The bank created cash, which inflated the assets of the super-rich while devaluing the wages of the working poor. This is one of the reasons we have the principle of no taxation without representation: It is not simply to approve the quantity of taxes, but the composition of taxes. Quantity refers to the dollar value. Of course, that was gargantuan last year, but composition refers to who pays it.

We know that the poor overwhelmingly pay the inflation tax. In fact, the governor of the Bank of Canada conceded that point to me when he came before the finance committee. He said the poor pay more in inflation because they deal more in cash. They are not able to hold their limited wealth in inflation-proof assets, like gold, land, stocks, bonds, etc. Therefore, the very small amount of money they have gets nibbled away by this silent thief we call inflation.

No one in this chamber would be able to get re-elected if they stood in their place and voted for an increase in taxes on the working poor and used the money disproportionately to inflate the wealth of the super-rich. That is why no such vote was held. The government simply passed that process on to the Bank of Canada to let money creation do the dirty deed on its behalf.

I will return to Dr. Milton Friedman, a Nobel Laureate, who said, “Inflation is the only form of taxation that can be levied without any legislation.” He was, of course, speaking as an economist. I will show the deliberate choice that the inflation tax has made and that has done so without the parliamentary approval of Canadians. I will show it by referring to the undeniable empirical evidence that Dr. Friedman produced.

He showed that, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and Brazil, there was a perfect correlation between the rise in the consumer price index and the increase in the money supply for each unit of economic output. In other words, in all five of those countries on four continents, inflation rose almost perfectly in line with the growth in the money supply. That is empirical evidence proving beyond a doubt that when we create cash, we raise prices to the benefit of the rich and at the expense of the poor.

Modern financial sector experts say the same. HSBC's senior economic adviser, Stephen King, wrote in The Financial Times last year that “inflation and taxes are, in many ways, simply two sides of the same coin”. He further said that this is because “higher-than-anticipated inflation serves to redistribute wealth away from private creditors, pensioners for example, to public debtors. At this point, we come full circle: the distinction between the printing press and taxes begins to break down.”

Warren Buffett, the greatest investor of all time, said:

The arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislature. The inflation tax has a fantastic ability to simply consume capital. It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation, or pays no income taxes during years of 5 percent inflation. Either way, she is “taxed” in a manner that leaves her no real income whatsoever. Any money she spends comes right out of capital. She would find outrageous a 120 percent income tax, but doesn't seem to notice that 5 percent inflation is the economic equivalent.

Let us say that a widow has $100,000 of savings. If she earns 5% on that, and if inflation is 5%, then she gains nothing. All of her savings income is vaporized by inflation. That would be the equivalent of the Parliament of Canada passing a bill effectively taxing her at a rate of 100% on all of her savings income, something we would never do but yet something that ultimately happens because the central bank does it without politicians being held accountable.

Mr. Buffett's business partner, the famous Charlie Munger, said:

I think democracies are prone to inflation because politicians will naturally spend excessively, they have the power to print money and will use money to get votes. If you look at inflation under the Roman Empire, with absolute rulers, they had much greater inflation, so we don't set the record. It happens over the long-term under any form of government.

Onward to John Kenneth Galbraith, a famous Canadian economist on the left, who said, “Nothing so weakens government as persistent inflation.”

Other international economists, Nouriel Roubini and David Backus, wrote, “Note that since the government, by printing money, acquires real goods and services, seigniorage is effectively a tax imposed by the government on private agents. Such a seigniorage tax is also called the inflation tax.” They go on to explain what impact that tax has, particularly on the poorest people.

This is not simply an opinion. This is a mathematical fact backed up by some of the most renowned economists on planet earth, many of them winning the Nobel Prize for their work, many of them having done hundreds of years of empirical research that proves the taxation effect of inflation. These are the insights of some of the world's best-ever investors. They all concur that inflation, when created by central bank money creation, is nothing more than a tax.

This kind of a tax has been mostly done by the worst possible leaders. We think of Henry VIII, for example. They used to call Henry VIII “Old Coppernose”, and that is because, despite the fact that he inherited a monstrous fortune from his father, and I do not know if that reminds members of anybody, he spent the cupboard bare. He kept running out of money, and the British pound, which was literally a pound of silver, was becoming more and more scarce to him.

He needed more coins, but he did not have enough silver to make them all, so what he did was melt down the existing coins and reconstitute them by making them of copper but putting a tiny, thin layer of silver around the outside. He had his face, of course, on the coin because he was an egomaniac, and his face pointed outward from the coin; it was not a profile picture. Because his nose protruded on the coin, it would rub against the inside of pockets and money sacks and the silver would rub away, leaving nothing but a red copper nose. Everybody would know that King Henry had given them a fraudulent, fake silver coin by virtue of the fact that his nose was red. We often say politicians' fibs can be exposed through the length of their nose. In the case of Henry VIII, it was the colour of his nose.

In fact, he did undergo the mass debasement of the currency. Originally, when he took reign, the British pound was 92% silver. It dropped to 75%, then 50%, then 33% and finally to 25% by 1551. His successor brought it down further. The result was, ultimately, that the amount of silver in each coin dropped by about 87%, and guess what happened to the prices. They rose by about 75%. Things got more and more expensive. Life got better for him. Of course, he was known for having the king's disease, gout, which people get from massive self-indulgence, orgies of food and drink. Therefore, life was very good in the king's court because he had created all of this fake cash that enriched him and his friends, but it was terrible for the peasants and the common people who actually did the work of the land. They got poorer and poorer as their money got more and more worthless.

That is the inflation tax, so this Prime Minister of ours teaches us nothing new. This is not a new concept. In fact, if we look throughout history on these matters of economics, we see that leaders make the same mistakes over and over again. As Kipling would say:

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire—

Therefore, we get burned again and again by making the same mistakes of our predecessors.

That brings me back to the Bank of Canada. The bank recently has been talking about all kinds of different things that have nothing to do with its mandate. For example, the former governor Stephen Poloz regularly commented on things that were completely out of his domain, inappropriately commenting on social policy when he proposed government takeover of child care. That is well out of the realm of the Bank of Canada's mandate. We have seen recent comments by governors and deputy governors of the Bank of Canada on everything from fiscal policy to environmental policy to a whole plethora of things that find their place nowhere within the bank's mandate. Even on the bank's website, Paul Beaudry, a deputy governor, talks about, in his words, “the great reset”, whatever that means. He believes this is part of the Bank of Canada's mandate, and of course it is not.

The worry is that the bank will simply become a political instrument for the agenda of a left-wing government, trying to do undemocratically what it could never convince Canadians to support democratically.

Canadians would never support a massive tax increase on the poor in order to fund the ideological fantasies and the enrichment of the super rich and the super elite. That is why we in Parliament have to reclaim our powers, the powers that have been invested in this chamber and in its predecessor chambers in the mother Parliament for 800 years: that governments, including central banks, cannot tax what the commoners have not approved; that the principle of responsible government remains; that Parliament reigns supreme; that citizen goes before state and commoner ahead of Crown.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:30 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, it is almost like déjà vu. I have heard this before from the member because it was not that long ago when he was up on a matter of privilege, arguing why it was a privilege issue. I responded in part by saying that it was not a matter of privilege, but that in fact the member could be talking about it on Bill C-30. Voila, here we are on Bill C-30 and the member is at least relevant to the debate.

Would my friend across the way not acknowledge, at the very least, that his theory is based on the fact that the government had a need to support Canadians during a pandemic by investing billions of dollars into direct support through programs like CERB and the wage subsidy program, along with a number of other programs? Is he advocating on behalf of the Conservative Party that we should not have done that?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, once again, we have an example of a Liberal judging his success by how expensive he can be. If we look at the other countries that responded to COVID, they managed to deliver better results. They managed to deliver better COVID outcomes and lower unemployment with significantly smaller deficits. In fact, we have the largest deficit, as a share of GDP, anywhere in the G20. In fact, we had a bigger deficit last year, as a share of GDP adjusted for inflation, than we did in World War I, in the Great Depression and in the great global recession.

What the government is building us toward is a debt crisis. It has massively inflated the housing market by flooding the mortgage system with printed cash. It is now creating consumer price inflation, and our $8.6 trillion of household, corporate and government debt will “debtonate” if interest rates rise before our debt ratios come down.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his statement. There was a lot packed into it.

After the pandemic and a major global crisis that has affected much of the world, the economy is obviously destabilized. There is therefore a temporary imbalance and adjustments to be made.

I think that we are entering a period of adjustment. There are not that many ways of addressing this imbalance and trying to make adjustments. We can inject new money, hoping to stimulate the creativity of our country, of our Quebec and our Canada. We can invest in innovative economies to find our balance in the national and international economy. We can also apply austerity measures to limit fluctuations as much as possible.

Contrary to what you said, if the government did things wrong, does that mean that you support austerity measures?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:30 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

I would remind the member that she must address her comments to the Chair. I am certain that her question was not intended for the Chair.

The hon. member for Carleton.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question.

The problem is that all of the other parties measure success as a function of how much it costs. Personally, I measure results based on people’s quality of life. For example, Taiwan, Singapore and Australia spent far less than Canada and had far fewer COVID-related deaths. Moreover, their unemployment rates are far lower than Canada's.

It is true that the Liberals’ approach is the most expensive among all the G7 countries, but that does not mean that we received the best product. If someone pays more for a car, that does not mean that it is a better car. Personally, I want value for our taxpayers; I want the best outcome for the lowest price. That is the Conservatives’ approach.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, while 53% of Canadians are $200 away from being unable to pay their bills, Canada's 44 billionaires have accrued close to $80 billion in pandemic profiteering, and 87 families have hoarded more wealth than 12 million Canadians. Since 2015, the CRA's program to combat tax evasion by individuals worth more than $50 million has resulted in zero prosecutions and zero convictions, despite having 6,000 audits, yet this member and his Conservative colleagues joined the Liberals to vote down our NDP wealth tax.

Does the member, having referenced the working poor in relation to tax fairness, not agree that the government needs to finally close the flagrant tax loopholes and finally begin to aggressively prosecute those who hide their wealth offshore in tax havens in order to avoid paying their fair share to Canadians right here today?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, yes, we do support going after people who do not pay what they owe, especially the richest. The member is quite right: The richest are making off like bandits when it comes to tax evasion in this country, despite the rhetoric from the other side.

However, I would point out that it is actually not profits that are most enriching the wealthy; it is capital gains. It is the monstrous increases in capital gains that have resulted from flooding the economy with $350 billion of new Monopoly money. That money has gone into asset price inflation, making the rich vastly richer and creating a kind of aristocratic feudal economy, as opposed to a free market, bottom-up economy.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very informative and well-researched intervention on inflation. From meeting with manufacturers, importers and retailers, I have heard a lot about a number of new regulatory burdens that have either just come into effect or are about to come into effect and concerns about pricing, product availability and Canada's competitiveness.

I am wondering if the member could speak to how regulatory burdens may affect inflation.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, they can affect it very drastically. For example, I think the member has been looking into new appliance regulations that would make the appliances that Canadians buy far more expensive than the same appliances that are available south of the border, even though we live in an integrated market for those same products.

By the way, big corporations do not pay the cost of regulations; they pass it all on to their workers in reduced wages and on to consumers in higher prices. In fact, many of the biggest companies love regulation, because they can use it to shut out their competition by making it more and more difficult and more and more expensive for other entrepreneurs to get into the field.

What does that mean? Less competition always means higher prices for consumers and lower wages and fewer career opportunities for workers.