Debates of March 31st, 2022

Opposition Motion—Federal Budget

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on April 7, the NDP-Liberal government will table its first budget. This is happening at a time when Canadians are facing the highest rate of inflation in the past 30 years and when groceries are going to cost Canadian families an average of $1,000 more a year. As my colleague from Abbotsford mentioned in his excellent speech, the cost of gas is at $2.09 a litre in the Victoria area. The cost of living is hitting record highs and families are having trouble making ends meet.

Today, the Conservatives are going to ask the NDP-Liberal government to present a fiscally responsible budget, a concept that the Liberals may have forgotten about. The Conservatives are asking the government not to impose new taxes and to propose meaningful fiscal anchors to return to a balanced budget.

That is what Canadians need right now. They need solutions, a serious plan from the NDP-Liberal government, in order to fight against the inflation that is affecting families, young people, seniors and workers. Everyone knows that Canadians are tired of paying and that 60% of them are worried about not having enough money to feed their families. Seven out of 10 Canadians say that their finances are a source of stress and frustration, but this government has not yet presented any real solutions to address the inflation crisis.

In fact, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is only making the crisis worse. I remember the 2015 election campaign very well. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government likes to bring up the Conservatives' election promises. Well, I would like to remind him of the election promise that the current Prime Minister made in 2015 in order to get elected.

He said that his government would run only small deficits of merely $10 billion and then return to a balanced budget when the 2019 election rolled around. That was the first big promise that was broken. Who would have believed that Canada's deficit in 2015 would surpass the trillion-dollar mark? One trillion dollars, that is 1,000 billion dollars.

As my colleague from Abbotsford so aptly said in his speech, not even a year ago, the mandate letter for the Minister of Finance indicated that no new permanent spending would be introduced in the budgets. Perhaps it became clear to the Prime Minister that spending was going through the roof.

The Prime Minister changed that requirement in the minister's most recent mandate letter. There is nothing about introducing new permanent spending.

Since the last election, this government has held meetings behind closed doors to reach an agreement with the NDP. The meetings must have started very early on, most likely before the ministerial mandate letters were written, so we are worried that next week's budget will include many new spending categories and a record number of encroachments on areas under provincial jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, the Minister of Health announced as much during a press conference last week, when he talked about the five strings the federal government is attaching to higher provincial health transfers.

That confirmed the fears of Quebec's premier, François Legault. In response to the NDP-Liberal coalition announcement, he said: “The federal government has no jurisdiction over how much money we should be spending on long-term care, how much we should spend on mental health, how much we should spend on hiring more nurses.... They have no jurisdiction over health care management.... We have two very centralist parties—the Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP—that want to impose their vision on all the provinces. I think they will run into a wall”.

The provinces said where they stood beforehand, and the government was aware of their position. Even so, on Friday, the government set out five conditions for talks with the provinces about provincial health transfers.

That is not surprising from an NDP-Liberal government. That is why we have concerns about the upcoming budget. Canadians need real solutions.

The Prime Minister is only making the crisis worse. He has racked up debt and increased the tax burden on Canadians. He is going ahead with a new tax on alcohol. On top of that, the government is coming at us again with a 25% increase in the carbon tax, effective tomorrow. This means that gas will cost more. If gas costs more, then everything that is transported by gas-powered trucks will cost more. If everything costs more, then the government will collect even more taxes. Yes, if things cost more, Canadians will pay more taxes.

The government has created an inflationary spiral in order to have additional revenues to supposedly cope with the looming crisis. What is it going to do with the additional revenues? It is not going to relieve any of the pressure on Canadians' wallets. The government's alliance with the NDP means that it will further increase spending. It will spend even more using money belonging to Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet. Putting any money back in the pockets of Canadians will therefore be impossible. This is unbelievable.

How many young professionals have given up their dreams of owning a home, as their parents and grandparents did? The cost of inflation has driven housing prices up by more than 32%. This makes owning a home almost impossible. The dream of young families to become homeowners has turned into a nightmare. Rather than addressing Canadians' concerns, the agreement between the Prime Minister and his NDP deputy prime minister has had the opposite effect.

While businesses and consumers expect inflation to continue to rise, some experts have said that the new coalition could further undermine Ottawa's credibility in its commitment to fight inflation. That is a fact.

The Liberals are tied to the NDP. What is more, if I may say so, the days of financially responsible prime ministers, the days of Jean Chrétien or Paul Martin, are over. Today's Liberals are not the same. For years, Liberals made it their duty to do everything they could to return to a balanced budget and responsible management—we can give them that—but that is no longer the case now.

How many Liberals were consulted on drafting the next budget or on the agreement with the NDP? Not a lot of them were. I am sure that there are a lot more financially responsible Liberal MPs than we might think, than the Prime Minister might think. It is not for nothing that he had to find some new backers through his government coalition with the NDP. He needed support. Indeed, given the budgets he wants to table, he would have surely lost the support of many of his backbenchers.

Ultimately, Canadians are the ones who will foot the bill for this alliance. After years of deficits and fiscal imbalances, the Prime Minister will have to resort to taxes to fund his excessive spending. The perfect example is that he is refusing to remove the carbon tax, which will go into effect tomorrow.

The motion moved today is calling on the government to present a federal budget with a meaningful fiscal anchor and to limit government spending. Instead of spending money on partisan projects, it is time for the Prime Minister to invest in important sectors such as broadband connectivity in the regions. This will make it possible to accelerate the arrival of foreign workers and help our economy.

I am asking all my colleagues to vote for the motion moved by my colleague from Abbotsford.

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

Mr. Speaker, consistently over the last number of years in its budget presentations, the government has been there to support Canadians in very real and tangible ways. Just the other day, we had an announcement here in Ontario that the Province of Ontario was going to join the child care plan. The day care plan is now a truly national program that will enable more people to get into the work force. We have seen very progressive programs implemented.

The concern I have with the Conservatives today is that they say we should reduce the deficit and give tax breaks. In order to accomplish what they suggest, there have to be serious, severe cuts. Will the member opposite be sincere with Canadians and tell us exactly what it is that the Conservative Party of Canada is proposing to cut? We cannot have it all ways.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would say this in the House, but I miss the Liberals of old. I miss them a lot, it is true.

I have two quotes that will directly address what the parliamentary secretary just said.

I will first quote Paul Martin when he presented his budget in 1995:

For years governments have been promising more than they can deliver and delivering more than they can afford.

That is exactly what they are doing.

My second quote is from a former Liberal prime minister:

He said, “Good intentions are not an excuse for maladministration”.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is mind-boggling. We do agree that the inflation issue is an important and fundamental problem and that we need to do something about it. However, the Conservatives have proposed a simplistic, I would even say populist, solution to reduce all taxes.

Do our colleagues in the Conservative Party know that in June 2021, the G7 countries agreed to start imposing a 15% minimum tax on tax evasion? This could bring in billions of dollars for us. In 2020, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that a special tax on the massive profits that corporations, like the infamous oil companies that the other side is always defending, bring in, could add $7.9 billion to the federal treasury.

Those are the kinds of things we need to do. We agree on the substance of the issue, namely that we need to help people. However, the Conservatives' messages are frankly twisted and full of misinformation, and they want to stop taxing major corporations that are earning a profit. That does not make sense, and they are trying to serve their own political interests here.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this. Does he realize that if we adopt the Conservative Party's motion we are giving up on taxing the corporations earning massive profits, which could help our people?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are the party that wants to lower taxes for all Canadians. I am proud of that. I am proud to say that I stood up in the House to vote in favour of a motion calling for the GST to be temporarily suspended to provide immediate relief to all Canadians. Now is when the crisis is happening, and now is when families are having a hard time making ends meet.

The hon. member can claim that there is disinformation out there, but the only fact I can give right now is that the Bloc Québécois voted against reducing the GST. That is the truth.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there have been some cockamamie economics coming from the recent Conservative-PPC coalition. They are clearly summarized in this motion, which erroneously seeks to establish government spending as the sole cause of inflation. It would like to pretend that the only other cost pressures faced by Canadians are taxes and not stagnant wages.

I want to zero in on one particular problematic element of this motion. The text of this motion mis-characterizes CPP as a tax, when in fact it is a deferred wage and a meaningful way for Canadians to plan for retirement. Could the hon. member, whom I have known to be previously a very reasonable man, please clarify whether he believes that pensions and planning for retirement are indeed a tax?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am still a reasonable man, and I thank my colleague for his comments.

Why am I reasonable? What we are asking the government to do is to give Canadian taxpayers some relief today, because now is when they are having to make tough choices in the grocery aisles, wondering whether to buy a piece of meat this week or do without and feed their children baloney. That is what we are asking for.

All of the price hikes happening right now due to inflation are taking a toll on Canadian families and our economy. The government can act now to help families a little. I am therefore asking it to do that, and I think that is very reasonable.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to take part in today's debate. It is also great see you in the chair. I appreciated our time together on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

I also want to thank the member for Abbotsford for presenting today's opposition motion, which gives us this opportunity to further exchange ideas on important issues such as making life more affordable for Canadians, combatting climate change, prudent fiscal management and strong fiscal anchors.

I have always believed the quality of any decision is directly proportional to the quality of the debate. It is my hope that through the robust exchange of ideas we perhaps can find common ground and pursue policies that will benefit Canadians today as well as in future generations.

I understand that much of the time the role of the opposition is to oppose the government of the day. However, there is also the opportunity for the opposition to propose workable solutions or even work collaboratively with government to move our country forward.

In that spirit, I will start my speech today by addressing some key points on this motion I think we can agree on. I would like to start with our government's commitment to strong fiscal anchors.

In 2015, we inherited a significant deficit. This was not just financial; this was a social deficit as well as an environmental deficit. There was also a deficit in hard infrastructure. We promised to invest in the future of Canada by incurring further small deficits while targeting investments in economic growth.

In our first four years, we made significant investments in housing, transportation and indigenous reconciliation. We grew the economy while reducing poverty and unemployment to all-time historic lows. We lifted 1.3 million Canadians out of poverty and began to tackle climate change in a serious and meaningful way. We grew the size of the economy while reducing our debt-to-GDP ratio every single year.

This was an enviable financial position that was built on fiscal prudence. This position would allow us to invest further in the growth of our nation or prepare us for any economic shocks that might come in the future. While we could not foresee a global pandemic or a war in Europe, when it comes to the finances of our country, if members will allow me to lean on my previous experience in Boy Scouts, it is always prudent to be prepared.

The fact is that not only did we enter the pandemic with the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, but we also increased our relative financial advantage throughout the crisis. Our focus on keeping Canadians healthy has translated to better economic outcomes. Even though our economy lost three million jobs at the depth of the crisis, we have successfully recovered 112% of these jobs, while the United States has only recovered 90%.

The truth is that we remain committed to the fiscal anchors we outlined in our 2021 budget. This means reducing our debt-to-GDP ratio and unwinding the COVID-19-related deficits.

I remind all members of the House that despite the federal government taking on more than 80% of pandemic-related costs, we were able to maintain our debt servicing cost to less than 1% of the size of our economy, which is a number six times lower than where we stood as recently as the mid-1990s.

Our prudent fiscal management was noted when Moody's and S&P reaffirmed Canada's AAA credit rating. Perhaps on the issue of strong fiscal anchors, there is an opportunity for us to find some agreement.

It would also be prudent to address inflation and our government's commitment to affordability. Make no mistake: Our government cares about tackling global inflation and we care about making life more affordable. In fact, in two speeches I gave just last week, I outlined many of the very real solutions our government has put forward to make life more affordable.

With regard to the recent Conservative motion to temporarily cut the GST on gasoline and diesel, I argued that this was an elegant, simple but wrong solution. Gas taxes represent a small portion of the price consumers pay at the pump, so cutting them would be ineffective in protecting Canadians from these strong global market forces. In fact, daily changes in gas prices can be greater than the 5% tax cut previously proposed. In some regions, we have already seen that level of decline without having to sacrifice the revenue that funds programs like child care, OAS benefits and the national housing strategy.

Instead of continuing to find new ways to ignore climate change and subsidize the oil and gas sector, I would recommend that all members of the House focus on building a fair tax system that makes life more affordable for all Canadians.

The opposition motion charges our government of excessive spending during the pandemic. While it is true that the cost of the pandemic was significant, it was more than reasonable for the federal government to use our strong fiscal position to take on this burden. We did this so small businesses, Canadian workers and family household budgets did not have to.

While Conservatives may see these investments as frivolous or unnecessary, I would expect the nine million Canadians who were able to feed their families and the 450,000 employers who were able to keep 5.3 million employees on the payroll would disagree with their position.

The motion alleges that taxes on Canadians continue to rise, but this ignores the fact that we lowered taxes for the middle class multiple times. It ignores the fact that we reduced small business taxes from 11% to 9%. It ignores the fact that we increased support for families and low-income workers through programs such as the Canada child benefit and the Canada workers benefit, which have helped lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. It ignores our increased GIS and OAS supports for seniors and it certainly ignores the fact that our most important benefits increase with inflation.

To further offset the impact of inflation and make life more affordable for Canadians, we have increased the basic personal amount that Canadians can earn before paying federal income tax. When this measure is fully implemented next year, single individuals will pay $300 less in tax and families will pay $600 less every single year.

With respect to the price on carbon pollution, which is falsely characterized in today's motion and often in the House, the reality is that we will continue to return the direct proceeds from the federal carbon pollution pricing system to their province or territory of origin. Our climate action incentive gives payments directly to households, and these payments actually represent more than the increased costs households face from the federal price on pollution. Going forward, the federal carbon price will continue to be revenue-neutral for the Government of Canada. The Conservative plan would allow energy companies to line their pockets while offering no real guarantee of savings for Canadians at the pump.

Climate change is real, and so are the costs. We are only starting to realize the staggering costs of doing nothing, not only with regard to floods and forest fires in B.C. but also right across Canada. The Conservatives choose to ignore these costs and they choose to ignore the benefits of being an environmental leader. Our climate plan is not just good for the planet; it is good for the economy. It will help Canadians create good-quality, high-paying jobs while producing clean technologies that we can export all over the world.

The demand for climate solutions is only going to increase, and our plan leverages this opportunity for all Canadians. A price on pollution is the most effective and fair way to protect Canadians from the very real costs associated with climate change while incentivizing Canadians and businesses to make sound ecological decisions.

This is in staggering contrast to the plan the Conservatives presented in the last election, when they suggested incentivizing Canadians to use more gas. That was the bank account program the member was talking about in his previous reply.

I would be very interested in having a more thorough discussion on contemporary Conservative climate policy, if one exists. At their last convention, they could not agree on a resolution that simply stated that climate change is real. Their last platform admitted that they would not pursue meeting targets of the IPCC, and their position has only regressed further since the last election.

Just this week, I heard Conservatives in the House doubt that carbon pricing is even effective. In B.C., one of the first jurisdictions in the world to implement carbon pricing, we know that in the first five years, carbon usage per capita decreased significantly in British Columbia, while it increased by more than 3% in the rest of Canada. British Columbians should be proud of their leadership on this issue.

British Columbians should also be suspicious of any federal Conservative promise to eliminate the tax. This is because the carbon price of British Columbia is administered by the province, so removing the federal backstop would not change anything. In fact, it would mean British Columbians would continue to put a price on pollution, while other, primarily Conservative, jurisdictions would not. A more thoughtful approach, in my humble opinion, would be to encourage the provincial government in B.C. to return the carbon price to revenue neutrality. This is a position that I would hope the member for Abbotsford and I could agree on.

The opposition motion suggests that there should be no new taxes in the upcoming budget. However, the opposition also knows that a main tenet of the federal backstop is to gradually and consistently raise the carbon price. To adopt this motion would mean abandoning a core piece of Canada's climate change strategy. This on its own should be reason enough to oppose this motion.

We also know that some businesses have done extremely well during the pandemic and that our government has committed to increasing taxes on profits of over a billion dollars by 3% for banks and insurance companies. This measure, which speaks directly to building a fair tax system, also runs counter to the motion that is being proposed today.

The motion also highlights the escalator tax and the Canada pension plan premiums. I want to assure Canadians that the escalator tax is reasonable, predictable and fair. We are talking about one-fifth of one penny on a can of beer. That means that if one purchases a can of beer today, one would have to wait almost five years before seeing a single penny of increased taxes.

With regard to the Canada pension plan, our government worked diligently with premiers to secure the financial security of our next generation of retirees. This agreement ensures that future pensioners will have access to more generous benefits. However, I think is important for us to agree that the Canadian pension plan is not a tax, and it is unfortunate that the Conservatives have repeatedly chosen to characterize it in this way, a point that was raised by my NDP colleague in an earlier intervention.

The Canada pension plan is an essential part of Canada's social security framework, and it is critical to providing Canadians with a dignified retirement after a lifetime of work. Certainly the Conservatives cannot be suggesting that we should reduce the retirement security of future generations. Perhaps they are; after all, this is the same party that increased the retirement age of 65 to 67, robbing seniors of thousands of dollars right when they needed it most.

Of course, it is not just seniors who are more secure. Families now benefit from our $10-a-day community-based early learning and child care system, which will make life more affordable for families, create new jobs, get parents back into the workforce and grow the middle class while giving every child a real and fair chance at success. Of course, the federal Conservatives oppose this plan as well.

While I have covered a lot of ground on fiscal policy today, I think the importance of a strong monetary framework would be worth mentioning as well.

A strong monetary policy framework is crucial for keeping prices stable and keeping inflationary pressures in check. This is why, last December, our government and the Bank of Canada announced the renewal of the policy targeting inflation at 2% for another five-year period. This renewed framework will keep the bank focused on delivering low, stable and predictable inflation in Canada.

Canadians and Conservatives are right to be concerned about inflation, but we have to make sure that we address it in a way that recognizes the underlying causes. While inflation in Canada is 5.7%, I would remind members that inflation is a global phenomenon and that Canada's rate of inflation continues to be lower than the United States, the OECD, the G20 and the G7.

Supply chain challenges, climate change, energy prices and the war in Ukraine are all contributing to inflationary pressures, aside from the challenges of reopening the global economy in the ongoing global pandemic. These are indeed significant challenges, but I am truly optimistic that Canadians will endure to overcome them.

We know that there are more businesses open today than there were before the pandemic. We know that the GDP has fully recovered, and so has employment. We know that our trade surplus has hit 13-year highs. We also know that Canadians' health outcomes are among the best in the world. Of course this is good news for families that avoided unnecessary deaths, but it is also good news for our economy, which has performed remarkably well, given that we have recently faced the greatest economic shock since the Second World War.

I hope that I have thoroughly responded to today's opposition motion. We will continue to maintain strong fiscal anchors and exercise prudent fiscal management. We will maintain a strong, independent and stable monetary framework. We will continue to cut taxes for hard-working Canadians while ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share, and we will continue investing in Canadians' highest priorities while growing our economy and making sure that all Canadians have a real and fair shot at success.

While we may not agree on everything in the motion before us, there are many things we do agree on. It is my hope that by working in good faith with our government's official opposition and with all members of this House, we will be able to continue to put forward legislation that will help Canadians today as well as help future generations. That is what I am expecting to see in the upcoming budget, and it is exactly what I expect from all members in this House.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his comments, although I do find that they are exceedingly distressing.

Out in the lobby, I was just speaking to Joanne. Joanne is a Canadian who lives off $881 a month. Joanne has to live in a room with her mother and her stepfather. Joanne does not have any dignity. She has no privacy; she has no way to get a job; she cannot afford gas; she cannot afford to live by herself; and she cannot afford food for herself.

I cannot believe the audacity of the member opposite in standing there and espousing these unbelievable promises and ineptitudes that do not ring true with any Canadian. I want him to answer for Joanne and I want to understand how he thinks that Joanne is going to live off $881 a month.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to inform Joanne and this member that in fact our government has introduced a strong anti-poverty strategy. That strategy actually reduced poverty rates before the pandemic to all-time historic lows. In fact, it lifted 1.3 million Canadians out of poverty through programs such as the Canada child benefit and through more generous investments in the OAS and the GIS, for example. These are all measures that are helping to make life more affordable for Canadians. They are also measures that Conservatives always voted against.

At the end of the day, Conservatives are poor fiscal managers. It took only two Conservative governments to rack up more than 70% of all of the debt that had accrued in the first 150 years of Canada. The fact is that when Conservatives are in power, they cut taxes for the wealthiest and they cut services for everyone else, with disastrous consequences for the economy.

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

Mr. Speaker, when we are talking about inflation, it is difficult to ignore the housing crisis.

A recent study by Scotiabank, which is not exactly an organization fighting for more social housing in Quebec, found that Canada would need 1.8 million housing units just to reach the G7 average.

A recent report by the National Housing Council, which oversees the big national housing strategy that was launched by the federal government five years ago, said that only 35,000 housing units had been built. We need 1.8 million housing units, but only 35,000 have been built.

In Quebec, 50,000 people are on a waiting list for low-income housing.

My colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques is fighting for housing in his riding. The vacancy rate is 0.2%. There is no housing to be had even in Rimouski. My colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot is also very involved in the housing issue. The housing market in Saint-Hyacinthe is extremely tight. In the budget that is coming on April 7, will the government actually be making major investments in housing?

The crisis is serious. It is affecting all of Quebec, but it is particularly hard on the most disadvantaged, women fleeing domestic violence, seniors, and people with mental health issues. This is one of the major crises of our time. On April 7, will the government take the crisis into account and make the necessary investments?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the question from the member opposite. I think the more time we can spend working together on solutions for solving the housing crisis, the better off Canadians will be.

We believe that all Canadians deserve a place to call home. That is why after 30 years of the federal government being essentially absent from the housing file, we created an unprecedented $72-billion national housing strategy. In the last election, we actually promised to do more, and while there were dozens of promises, they fell under three major tiers. The first was to create more supply. The second was to treat housing more like a place to live than as an investment vehicle. The third was to find new pathways for Canadians, especially first-time homebuyers, to find a way to secure affordable housing.

I expect that the budget will reflect some of those promises, and I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities for us to work together on this important issue.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, today, on National Indigenous Languages Day, I will call you Uqaqtittiji, which is the Inuit word for “Speaker”, as I understand.

I would like to thank my colleague for his intervention today. Yesterday, I had the honour of meeting with Dr. Nils Schmid, who is a member of the German Bundestag. We talked about the need for tax reform. We talked about how tax reform across the G7 needs to be undertaken because what we are seeing right now are massive loopholes where the wealthy can hide their wealth around the world and can avoid paying their fair share, in effect. The government has said that it will act on this but we have not seen the actions we need to see.

When will the government be taking the steps necessary to close those tax loopholes and seriously look at tax reform so that the middle class and low-income Canadians are not the ones bearing the burden of taxation?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for raising the issue of tax fairness. Certainly, we want to make sure that we have a system of tax fairness where individuals can, of course, be entrepreneurial, succeed, grow companies, create value, hire employees and create jobs, but at the same provide a fair distribution of the tax base so we can provide the supports that other Canadians might need.

I think one of the biggest steps that our government has taken, other than investing in the CRA to go after the exact loopholes the member opposite is referring to, is signing on to support, alongside 137 other countries with the OECD, a minimum corporate tax. This prevents the race to the bottom that we have seen in many countries where countries compete against each other to have the lowest tax rate and to attract head offices and the employment that comes with that. This will generate billions of dollars of revenue for Canada and will ensure that we will continue to be economically competitive and that we are building a more fair tax system.

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

Mr. Speaker, my question for the parliamentary secretary relates to the budget overall. I largely agree with his comments on carbon pricing. I agree with him that the British Columbia government was wrong to make the carbon price in British Columbia less than revenue-neutral.

I meant to begin by saying that on Indigenous Languages Day, I wish to address the House in SENĆOŦEN, which is the language of the indigenous people of the territory I represent, the W̱SÁNEĆ people.

[Member spoke in SENĆOŦEN]

[English]

To the parliamentary secretary, how do the Liberals credibly claim that we are to forget their renunciation of the F-35 fighter jets? Why are we supposed to be spending $19 billion on a plane that former Liberal leader Bob Rae, now doing us such honour as our ambassador to the United Nations, pointed out was completely operationally the wrong plane for Canada?

The former auditor general, the late Michael Ferguson, pointed out it was going to cost at least $25 billion in 2012. It is now 2022. It is not credible that we are going to spend $19 billion on a fighter jet that is wrong for Canada. How does the parliamentary secretary justify this betrayal?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying hi to my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands. I appreciate her indigenous acknowledgement. I also appreciate her agreement on revenue neutrality for carbon pricing.

With regard to military procurements, that is not necessarily the topic of debate that I prepared for this morning. When the budget is launched on Thursday next week, we will have four days of budget debate followed by a very diligent process of going line by line through the budget implementation act. I would be more than happy to engage in this topic and go into great detail at that time.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

We have time for a quick question and answer.

The hon. member for King—Vaughan.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke today with a family that has two children with disabilities. The father is now working two jobs to make ends meet. The mother has to stay home to take care of her children. The cost of gas, the cost of groceries and the cost of heating their home has gotten out of control.

What is the government going to do to help individuals who have escalating costs and help their children live out a good life?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have similar circumstances in my riding, and all members deal with issues like this every single day.

Because the Speaker acknowledged that there would be a relatively short period for a question and answer, I will not list all the things we are doing for affordability. However, I will say that one of the biggest helps that will come to that particular family, depending on the age of the children of course, is access to affordable child care. In B.C., child care costs will decrease by 50% by the end of the year and will be $10 a day by 2025. This represents thousands of dollars in savings for families, creates new jobs and allows parents to get back into the workforce and grow the economy. That is one of many ways.

I have a report on affordability at terrybeechmp.ca. If the member's constituent would like to come to my website, read it and then offer feedback, I would be happy to reply.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today's motion is so incoherent that I do not know where to start. I will begin, however, by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

I must admit that I had to check my calendar when I read the motion. The motion contained so many contradictions that I was sure it was April 1.

Let us start with point 1, concerning excessive government spending during the pandemic. Here is what I remember about the past two years. When the pandemic started and we needed to help our businesses, implement rent assistance policies for our SMEs, and create the CERB, there were discussions among the parties. Everyone around the table thought it was a good idea to take action. Everyone saw that there was a crisis and that it was urgent. It seems that the Conservatives forget things as often as they change leaders. Now, all of a sudden, they are talking about excessive spending. All of a sudden, there is absolutely no call for it.

The motion mentions inflation and the carbon tax. Last week, I went to gas up in Mirabel, in my riding. I paid about $2 a litre, even though Canada is a net exporter and almost all of the oil refined in Quebec is from North America. Moreover, the “Alberta rebate” was not even displayed. Alberta benefits from increases in the price of a barrel of oil. I invite my colleagues to look at Alberta's budget, which went from a deficit to a surplus. Let us see who is benefitting. The motion contains nothing about supply chains, either. It only mentions excessive spending.

It also talks about premium hikes and tax increases. The Conservative amnesia is now affecting memories from 24 hours ago. I was in the House at 6 p.m. yesterday when the hon. member for Lévis—Lotbinière proposed extending EI benefits to 52 weeks for people with a serious illness, which the Bloc Québécois supports. The Conservatives are saying they will do that, but at the same time, they are saying that we should not increase payroll taxes or employee and employer premiums. That is okay, they can be right wing. However, it bothers me as an economist when the numbers do not add up. This is absolutely incoherent.

The Conservatives say one thing in English and another in French. In question period yesterday, they said in English that the carbon tax should be axed. In French, they talked about scaling back the carbon tax increase in western Canadian provinces. That is crazy. It is almost enough to make me want to be a translator. They are totally inconsistent.

When I got to the motion's third point, I thought things might be looking up. The Conservatives were talking about giving Canadians breathing room, and I was glad about that because for once they were not talking about CO₂. However, there was nothing in there about the energy transition, nothing about reducing our dependence on oil even as they complain about rising prices. I personally like consistency, but the Conservatives are just as likely to say black as they are to say white.

Actually, I would like to make an announcement. Liberals, New Democratic Liberals and Conservatives are all about Paul Martin and his fiscal responsibility. They talked about Paul Martin during question period yesterday and again today in my colleague's speech.

Do members know what Paul Martin did? He merged the Canada health transfer with the Canada social transfer and then made cuts. He forced the provinces to deal with their deficits on their own.

Do members know what that cost Quebec? It cost us ambulatory care and home care, and we are still suffering as a result. That is what Paul Martin did.

It is all well and good for the Conservatives to say that they respect provincial jurisdictions, but they do not respect the underlying principle. To them, respecting provincial jurisdictions means that the money stays in Ottawa while the provinces shoulder all the responsibilities; it means starving the beast. The provinces can have their jurisdictions and starve, because they are not going to be given any transfers.

I congratulate the Conservatives. I congratulate them for liking Paul Martin. Personally, I find this disturbing. We are familiar with Paul Martin's approach. We are familiar with the approach to fiscal responsibility. It is the typical federal approach. We know that the important responsibilities fall to the provinces and that when citizens like me need services, they never turn to the federal government, unless they need a passport. They seek help from the health care system, the education system or the child care system. All of those areas fall under provincial jurisdiction. Like the Liberals, the Conservatives tell themselves that, in order to be popular and win elections, they need to get involved in a certain issue because it is important, even though they have no jurisdiction in that area.

Once in power, the Liberals got involved in mental health. They appointed a Minister of Mental Health. They have never run a hospital, but they appointed a minister.

In Quebec, we are in favour of the child care system; we have had one for more than 20 years. However, if the Bloc had not been there and there had not been an election, the federal government would have imposed its conditions on us and told us what to do in an area in which we have more than 20 years of expertise. That would be like taking driving lessons from someone who does not have a driver's licence. What could go wrong?

We are in favour of dental insurance, of course, but it is not in their jurisdiction.

As far as the property tax is concerned, the Liberals say it will generate $700 million. In reality, it will generate just $600 million, but that amount does not include the cost of implementing the new tax.

Universal medicare is an intrusion by the NDP into provincial jurisdictions. It does not bother the NDP one bit to meddle in our territory. There are all kinds of offices and commissioners for this and that, but in the end, there are always conditions that are imposed. The Liberals are so unfamiliar with provincial affairs that they need to create offices to fine out how to impose conditions.

Let us talk about microtransfers and programs for small conditional transfers. Quebec has come to realize that being accountable to a federal government that knows nothing about the issue is so costly that it is almost better to turn down the money. The federal government is interfering more and more in provincial jurisdictions.

Now our Conservative friends are talking about fiscal responsibility and the need to reduce taxes because there are too many.

I cannot wait to see a Conservative finance minister. The Conservatives can balance a budget without decreasing spending or increasing revenues. I do not know if any of them have ever taken any accounting courses, but I would be curious to see their résumés.

Let me get back to the cuts. What are they doing? They are taking the path of least resistance and cutting transfers, like Mr. Harper did. The Liberal government is more subtle. It is not indexing the transfers; it is letting the population age and the system costs increase by 4%, 5%, 6% or 7%, with no indexation. They are letting the water get up to our chins, and they think we will not notice. That is exactly what they are doing.

This is not fiscal responsibility, it is poor federalism. It is populism, and it shows a lack of respect for the provinces. We are still waiting for the Conservatives to support our request to increase health transfers to 35% of system costs.

What we are saying is that we need to offer solutions to the crisis and to inflation. Let us start with seniors' purchasing power. We need to help our seniors, who are waiting for a cheque. What did we do this week? We debated a motion to undertake a study on seniors' finances, among other things.

When I am at my riding office, I never get calls from seniors telling me that prices are going up, that they cannot afford groceries and that we should conduct a study. No one has ever said that to me, but the House decided to conduct a study anyway. What the government is doing is putting seniors' concerns on the back burner. It never puts forward any suggestions.

Farmers and truckers are facing increases in the price of gas. Alberta is not going to do them any favours. We need a program to help them, but there is nothing there. People buying groceries need direct financial support. It could come in the form of better indexation of the GST credit or more frequent cheques. That would cost the government peanuts, but there is absolutely nothing about that. We need to strengthen the weak links in the supply chain, but there is nothing about that, either. There is absolutely nothing about the housing crisis. As my colleague said earlier, there is a problem with the supply of housing, but there is nothing about that.

Now the Conservatives are talking about fiscal responsibility. They are saying that the spending is not their fault, because they were not in power during the pandemic, they were not at the table and they had nothing to do with it. I have news for them: We are in the sixth wave of the pandemic, and we are not out of the woods yet. What they call fiscal responsibility, I call magical thinking. Personally, I will listen to what the Conservatives have to say once the budget is balanced.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to highlight what the member posed in the form of a question to the Conservative Party. It took many years, but with the change of government in 2015 we were finally able to build a consensus to have CPP contributions increased. As a result of doing that and getting agreement with the provinces, led by the leadership here in Ottawa, when the people who are paying into the CPP retire, they will have more money in their pockets.

The Conservatives consistently call that a tax. Could my friend provide his thoughts on how bizarre it is to call contributions toward a pension for future retirement benefits a tax? It is not fair or just.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention.

Yes, certainly, there has been a failure in that regard. The reality is that CPP premiums are a payroll tax shared between employers and employees. However, they also represent a kind of forced savings plan, which people need. For instance, the plan makes seniors less reliant on the guaranteed income supplement and other assistance measures once they retire.

I want to take this opportunity to highlight the excellence of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and the Quebec pension plan, as well as my great pride in the fact that we do not have to depend on the federal fund.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. I enjoyed his analysis of the incoherence of the Conservatives' motion today.

How can we talk about balance without talking about revenues? We know that tax havens exist and that billions of dollars are being diverted from the public coffers thanks to these tools of the wealthy. We also know that rich people in Canada are accumulating more and more of the wealth generated by Canadians and by Canadian workers.

Does my colleague have anything to say about that?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief.

First, we also proposed getting revenues from the excess profits earned by the big banks during the pandemic. I addressed that several times here in the House, and we think it is a good idea.

Then there are expenditures, of course, revenues, but also growth. In addition, we need to start the energy transition. There is a new industrial revolution going on, and we are missing the boat because our Conservative friends keep talking about oil.

They should be talking about growth and innovation instead. The Conservatives only talk about innovation when they are talking about carbon capture, and then they tell us that oil is green.

We will need to talk more about the growth of the future, because we are totally missing the boat.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that the Conservatives' motion is incoherent, but I do not agree that the federal government has no need to intervene in a crisis like the one we are experiencing with mental health.

In every province, including Quebec, the conditions in the mental health sector are unacceptable. Does the hon. member think that Canadians should not have the right to expect national standards, regardless of where in Canada they live?