Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise, as it always is, in this chamber to talk with my colleagues. We are talking about the budget today, so it is helpful to first ask the question and set where we are: Does the budget meet the expectations that Canadians had?
Gas prices have almost never been higher. Our food prices are going up and up. Retail prices are continuing to increase. Construction material prices and housing prices are going up too, and that includes rent, so both home ownership and rental accommodations are becoming incredibly more difficult to obtain for Canadians.
On the day after the budget, Canadians woke up. There was no immediate relief, no tax holidays and no tax rebates. In fact, on April 1, the government increased the carbon tax, which we know causes inflation. The Bank of Canada has been so kind to tell us that it has provided at least 0.5 of a percentage point to the inflationary measure that StatsCan puts out every year. The real question is, why is the government not doing everything in its power to reduce inflation?
I will give it to the government that all the inflationary pressures are not domestic. We have supply chain issues. We now have a war in Ukraine. However, the government has an easy lever to pull with respect to the inflationary pressures that it creates. It is the spending and carbon tax.
Let us talk about spending. Let us go through a few numbers and facts that are irrefutable. These are from the government's own documents. In 2015, the government spent about $300 billion. In 2019, the government spent $426 billion. In 2022, it is projected to spend about $452 billion. That is a 25% annual growth rate for this year compared with 2019. It is 53% growth in annual spending from 2015 to today. All the economists have been telling the government to take its foot off the pedal of spending because it is increasing inflationary pressure, so any assertion that this budget is prudent is comical.
Furthermore, we are led to believe that, while the government has been increasing spending by 7% to 8% every year since 2015, now all of a sudden, from this year going forward, it will hold the rate of spending growth to 2% to 3%. The only problem is that nobody believes the government. Absolutely no one thinks that it is possible for the current government to hold spending growth to 2% to 3%. In fact, in this budget, we do not even have projections for spending on the promise of pharmacare. We do not have projections for the spending on new health care transfers. We are just coming out of a pandemic and the government is saying that it is not going to increase health care transfers.
However, we have a fiscal anchor, we are told. The debt-to-GDP ratio is going to continue going down. The only reason the debt-to-GDP ratio is going to go down is inflation. The entire government's fiscal plan is based on inflation. It is the only way it is going to work. In fact, in just one year, from last year to this year, the government is projecting $170 billion in new revenue that it did not project last year. That money is coming from Canadians in the form of higher prices. That is money people are having to pay. Their dollar is not going far enough. It is a silent tax and it hurts the most vulnerable in our society.
In fact, in the tightest labour market in a generation, the government has spent money on hiring 10,000 civil servants a year every year since 2015. What do we have? In the tightest labour market, the government still wants to spend money and hire new civil servants. Where are these people going to come from? All of our small business owners across the country are crying for more people, so the government's decision is to hire some more people. Those are individuals who now cannot work in the private sector, cannot help a business grow and cannot help a business get back on its feet.
They pay taxes and salaries. That is going to lead to private sector growth, but let us talk about some specific measures. I am a balanced person. There are some good things in the budget, no doubt.
Employee trusts set up an opportunity for individuals to pass their business on to employees, and I think that is a welcome measure. What the government proposes to do with the ready, willing and able initiative, which is a policy, by the way, that was started under former finance minister Jim Flaherty, is to give organizations some additional funds to encourage those people with intellectual disabilities to enter the workforce. It should be applauded.
The Great Lakes fishery investments are well needed, and there is some money for freshwater cleanup. On the freshwater cleanup, it was nice to see Lake Simcoe referenced. However, it is a much smaller number than what had been previously promised.
Everyone talks about how Conservatives just like to talk about all the spending and not about what they are going to cut. Here we go. Here are some ideas for the government to consider.
On the infrastructure investment bank, breaking up is really hard to do, it seems. Instead of walking away from something that is not working very well, the government expands the mandate and gives it more money. Not only that, but it is taking the same failed model and saying it is going to create a new $15-billion innovation fund. Again, superclusters are reintroduced, with some expanded money. It would be unparliamentary to say the word I am thinking of right now.
The government is planning on spending money on a buyback program for guns, instead of taking that money and putting it into reducing crime. We need to do much more of a comprehensive spending review. It is nice to see that there was one mentioned, but it is not nearly going to be enough.
Let us talk about young people for a minute. The new, shiny, tax-free home savings account sounds amazing, except when one finds out that it is going to take a full year before it comes into effect, and then it is going to take another five years for an individual to max out on the contributions. Also, the home tax-free savings account cannot be used with the homebuyers plan, so people must make a choice. It is one or the other. Really, one program is going to be gutted and replaced with another, for a shiny new object. It is mostly a marketing ploy, in my opinion.
Instead, what the government could have done was to tell individuals who use the homebuyers plan that they do not have to pay the $35,000 back. That would have been a far more effective way to accomplish what it is trying to accomplish and have an immediate effect.
We asked young people to stay at home for two years. We asked this of all Canadians, but young people in particular put their lives on pause for two years for a virus that represented very little risk to them. Yes, Canada had a very low death rate, and I think that is a positive outcome of the pandemic and some of the responses. However, young people have now come forward and are re-emerging back into the economy. What have they found? The thanks they have found is that they now have a national debt that has doubled and that they are now responsible for, and a housing market that is completely unattainable. The Bank of Montreal released a report and singled out Orillia, which is in my riding, for having a 300% increase in house prices in six years. It is incredible to think of how young people are looking at this housing market and believing it is attainable.
I have talked about the bank tax before in this chamber. If the government thinks there are excess profits in that industry, we should really be revamping competition law. My prediction right now is that we will see an increasing number of bank branch closures across this country, particularly in rural Canada. It is no surprise that just last week, after the budget, banks made closure announcements in small communities across this country, including one in Brechin, which is in my riding, along with others in Pefferlaw, Cannington and Stayner.
I will close on another matter that is very close to my riding: the boat tax. There are 25 marinas and 15 boat dealers in my region. The government thinks that if a person can afford a boat, they deserve to be taxed. With the price of cottages and housing, these individuals are looking for other options for recreation, and boating is one of them.
However, this tax is only going to push jobs and investment elsewhere. These individuals are going to buy their boats south of the border and bring them here. That is going to hurt the people in my community, and that is going to bring in far less revenue than the government believes.
