Debates of Feb. 14th, 2023

Opposition Motion—Rising Inflation and Cost of Living

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, taxes are high right now. I think we are an overtaxed society. After eight years under the Liberal government, Canada is ranked 58th out of 63 countries when it comes to climate change. That is a total failure.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see you acknowledge the member for Prince Albert to get up to speak in front of members today about the state of the Canadian economy and just how broken things are here in Canada.

Before I get started, I have to do one special thing. It is my anniversary today. My wife and I have been married for 36 years. I would not be here without her. I would not be here fighting for the constituents of Prince Albert without her sacrifices. She is making a sacrifice today by letting me be here to talk about something that is very important to the constituents in my riding, and I thank her dearly for that, as I am sure the people of Canada do.

In 2015, the government inherited an amazing situation for Canada. If we think back to what it looked like in 2015, it was the good old days. People could buy a house and afford it. They could get a mortgage and actually pay it off. People could go to a restaurant and buy a meal. They could go to the grocery store and fill their shopping cart. They could do a variety of things with their family, because their family was a strong mechanism. People could go on holidays. Both parents had a job. Let us look at what we have today and what we had back then.

We had a balanced budget. We went through a global recession in 2008 to 2011. We spent money on infrastructure. We took on deficits, but we paid them back. We got to a balanced budget in 2015, so we have proven that we can go through all sorts of different crises, global crises, like the ones the Conservatives faced, and actually pay it back and progress.

We had a united country from coast to coast. East and west were celebrating each other's victories. I used to take pride, and I still take pride, in a vehicle that is made in Ontario being sold in Saskatchewan, or somebody in Newfoundland buying bread made from wheat out of Saskatchewan. We worked together as a country. We functioned together. We were not divided. There was no city-rural division like the one we see today. Canadians were united.

Back in 2015, Canadians did not look at the government and worry about how the coming budget was going to impact them, as they do with this budget that is coming forward, because they know that the Liberal budget is going to impact them one way or another. That means the government has become too involved in the day-to-day activities of the Canadian lifestyle.

We had infrastructure being built. The port of Vancouver was functioning. It was one of the higher-ranked ports in the world, which it is not today. We had a health care system that was being rebuilt from years of cutting by the federal Liberals previous to the Harper Conservative government. We had a prime minister who had global respect. When he went around the globe, people respected him. They respected the country of Canada. We punched above our weight. We were principled in how we conducted ourselves with the global countries, in the global environment and on the global stage.

What do we have today? We cannot help but say that it is broken.

In 2015, if people wanted to get a passport and needed it today, they could pay an extra fee and actually get their passport today. What do we have today? If people want a passport and they are not travelling within six weeks, they are not even going to get looked at. If they need a fast passport, they can forget about that. Getting a passport is broken. People cannot get a passport.

If they have a problem with the CRA and want to talk about an issue because they want to make sure they are doing things right, they call in and sit on hold for three hours. They take a number, relay their question and are told that someone will get back to them in three weeks. That is customer service brought to us by the current Liberal government.

When we look at the things the government used to provide on an ordinary basis, it is now extraordinary. It is so disgusting and sad to see, because we know that in 2015, when these civil servants were working under a Harper government, they did their job. They knew what they were doing. They were happy in their job and functioned very well. They were not covering up expenses on hotel bills or spending time trying to hide ministers' expenses.

We had a government of honour. We had a minister resign because of a $16 orange juice. We had another minister who resigned because of an ethics breach and who came back into cabinet. They knew what the right thing to do at the time was and they did the right thing. The biggest scandal we had in the Harper government was the chief of staff paying back taxpayers for another member's unwillingness to pay. That was the biggest scandal.

When we look at the government today, what do we see? Things are broken, broken, broken. I was sitting in a board meeting with my constituents about three months ago and that is how one person put it to me, that things are broken. It does not matter what department one deals with, it is broken.

If we talk to Health Canada, it is broken. If we talk to passports, it is broken. If we talk to CRA, it is broken. If we look at our military and defence, it is broken.

If we look at our transportation system and airports, they are broken. The Port of Vancouver is now ranked second-last in the world for ports. It is broken. This is eight years of the Liberals' accomplishments, and they are broken.

Can one afford a house now? One sure needs to have the income to do it. We heard our Bloc friends talk about the shortage of houses. Well, in eight years, why is there, all of a sudden, a shortage of houses? What has been in the Liberal policy book to encourage housing to be built or continue to be built? It, in fact, did the opposite. It encouraged people not to build houses.

We can look at our business sector and competitiveness. We hear Canadian manufacturers and exporters talk over and over again about how we are losing businesses to the States and other jurisdictions because we are not competitive.

What is the reason for that? It is bad Liberal policy.

When we look at the policies under the Liberal government, they just have been added on, and they are the thousand cuts that have impacted our economy and our businesses.

What does that mean? When we do not have a strong business sector, like we had in 2015, what happens? The Liberal solution is to spend more. The government will fill the void. Instead of an employer in the private sector, or a small and medium enterprise growing its enterprise, what happens? They get choked and smothered out by taxes, regulations and overburdening federal government policies. They go out of business. They cannot get employees.

What do the Liberals do? They shrug and say, “Well, we can just write another cheque. We will just borrow some more money.”

We have seen that. We have got $15 billion in extra payments that went out that CRA says is not worth collecting. It is not worth collecting $15 billion. How can that be? How can it be that broken that it does not know where that money went, who it belongs to, who should have had it and who should not have gotten it?

How can it not go back and say, sorry, someone did not deserve this payment, so they need to pay it back or we are going to claw it back? How can they say that it is not worth it? That is a political answer. That is not an answer that has the value of Canadian taxpayers in mind.

We look at this federal government and how it goes about conducting businesses and the military. For example, the F-35s should have been bought in 2015-16. They probably should have been bought before that. I will admit that. As a member of the Conservatives, I thought we should have bought them sooner.

What did the government do? It bought some used piece of junk out of Australia to fill the gap, a gap that is now a serious concern because of what is happening in the globe.

Has it prepared this country for the future? Let us think about that. Have we hit any of our environmental targets? No. Are we prepared to have an efficient, functioning manufacturing base? No. Have we encouraged our SMEs to take on the free trade agreements that Conservative governments, and some Liberal governments, put in place? No.

We are seeing no activity in this economy that will grow. All we see is increasing government spending, deficit after deficit and out-of-control inflation.

Let us go back to the grocery store. When we go to the grocery store and look at people's carts, are they full? No. They are half empty. Why is that? It is because of inflation, which was created by this government.

When we go to go buy a house or take out a mortgage, can we afford it? That is the question that my daughter is facing right now. Kids in their 30s are looking at this and asking if they will ever be able to afford a house now. Well, what has happened in this government?

Houses have gone out of control because of the inflation it created, and they cannot say that it is a global thing when houses go up in price. House are made in Canada and sold in Canada. It is not a global recession item. When people cannot afford a house in Canada, it is because it has spent too much money, or printed too much money, and created inflation.

Also, the interest rates have gone up and, all of a sudden, their take-home pay is less, as they are paying higher mortgages. I should not say take-home pay, but their mortgage is consuming more and more of their actual income.

What have we got? We have a government that is tired and broken. When we ask it about the future, it is a continuation of being tired and broken. There is no imagination.

There is a better way. There is a way, and we proved it in 2015, where we had a strong economy, a balanced budget, and we could deal with climate change. They can deal with it and do it all at once. If they cannot do it all at once, then I would encourage the Liberal government to get out of the way, and we will do it for them.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to first congratulate my hon. colleague from Prince Albert on his anniversary today.

I will pick up on a few things he talked about in his speech when he spoke of how things were under the Harper government, particularly on the environmental front. When we came into office, emissions were set to rise 15% by 2030. Now we are on a track to reduce emissions by 40% or more. In the last inventory, emissions went down nine per cent.

Under the Harper government, on the international stage, Canada was lambasted as the fossil of the year and received the lifetime unachievement award for how we impeded not only reducing emissions nationally but also progress globally. In Canada, under the Harper government, there was a muzzling of the scientists who were bringing forward information that was not politically palatable to the government, so the few scientists who were kept were not able to share that information.

I was hoping the member opposite could comment on that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see another member of the Liberal Party stand up to ask a question because this Parliament is broken, and only two members of the Liberal Party usually ask questions. The rest sit there. I give him credit for doing that, and I thank him for his comment on my marriage. It is very important to me.

The member talked about things that needed to be worked on in the Harper years, such as the environmental program. A good environmental program needs to balance the economy and the environment. We need to have results in both.

The government has maybe achieved a bit of results on the environment, but I would not even give it that, because if we look at its targets, it has not hit any of them. What has it done? It has doubled down on the carbon tax. What has the carbon tax done? It has actually pushed people out of the economy. It has made it unaffordable to heat their houses. It made it unaffordable to grow crops, and it has created a worse situation for people here in Canada.

That is the problem with the Liberal plan. It is a cult that the Liberals have. They have not looked at the big picture. They just looked at the little picture, and that is all they tried to solve, but they could not even get that right.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to wish you a happy Valentine's Day. I really appreciate you.

I am feeling a bit torn. On the one hand, we have a government drifting on a sea of appalling departmental dysfunction and, on the other hand, we have an opposition party playing games and giving fake, facile solutions to a very real problem that is far more complex than it cares to admit.

After all, inflation did fall from 8.1% in June to 6.3% in December, although it fell almost everywhere in the world.

I would like to ask my Conservative friend the following question. Since inflation is a global, heavily interconnected problem, what solution does he propose to keep Canada, which is part of this world, from being affected by this inflation?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, he is asking me to fix mistakes from the past. I cannot not spend the money the Liberals have already spent, but what I can do is do the right policy things that make our economy function in a fashion that will allow businesses to grow and prosper and families to be employed, and work its way out of the system and get back to a 2% or 3% point. If the Governor of the Bank of Canada was doing his job, it would not have become out of control as bad as it did, so let us call a spade a spade.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I extend my congratulations to the member and his wife for their anniversary.

What I think is broken is oil and gas companies seeing a 1,011% change in their net annual incomes since 2019. That is a $38-billion change, according to Statistics Canada.

I would like to ask this member what he tells his constituents as Conservatives continue to protect these profits from taxation, which could go toward helping families who are struggling to pay for groceries.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, one needs to look through the whole equation. Yes, they have had huge profits, but they are also paying out huge dividends that go to pension funds, and to communities in the surrounding areas and right across Canada. They pay for health care, roads and bridges. That revenue is coming into Canada and being distributed among Canadians, so that is good for Canada.

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

Madam Speaker, I agree with the member for Prince Albert about all the things that are broken with Service Canada, calling for passports and waiting on hold. Unfortunately, and I do not want this to sound partisan, but I have a very good memory.

I remember when, in the Harper years, Service Canada and Shared Services Canada were created, and all the individual departments within individual branches of the Government of Canada were consolidated into one big 1-800 number that nobody answers. We ought to, in a non-partisan way, step back.

I know they are looking at this now. Did this work? We got the Phoenix pay system out of this, by consolidating services and shutting down individual departments. It looked like efficiency, but I would suggest we now know it did not work.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we always have to review what works and what does not work. We should actually build on the mistakes and make things better. That is what a Conservative government would do. We learn from previous mistakes and build upon them.

That is one thing the Liberal government has not learned. It has made a pile of mistakes with the carbon tax. One would think it would back away from it and do something different, but it does not. The Liberals never learn from their mistakes.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to be speaking to this important motion.

As members know, affordability is not just a question here in Canada. It is also a question that is extremely important right across the world. It is important that we have those discussions. That is what it is all about. It is not about politics. It is about bringing new ideas and suggestions to the table.

Throughout my speech, I will to try to underline some of the key initiatives that we were able to bring forward in the fall and what we will continue to work on as we move forward.

The global pandemic was very challenging. I know as a member of Parliament—

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

We have a point of order from the member for Elmwood—Transcona. I do hear a bell ringing, maybe a cell phone ring.

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

Mr. Speaker, there does seem to be a bell ringing. I had heard that the member might be interested in sharing his time. I wonder if perhaps the ringing bell distracted him from that fact.

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

While I wait for the bell to leave, I would remind all members to have their phones on vibrate or turned off.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his suggestion. It is all about timing. I had this planned for halfway through my speech, but I will make sure that he has his opportunity. I will be sharing my time with the member for Elmwood—Transcona on this very important motion, which we as Canadians need to be discussing.

There is no question that grocery prices are very high. The price of gas is higher than normal too. Many of our costs are very high, but the same thing is happening in other countries. In the United States, as people are telling me, the prices are even worse than in Canada. We have to find ways of supporting Canadians.

What started all this? I think we have to contextualize the situation. By that I mean that the pandemic was a two-and-a-half-year challenge for the world. I tell my kids all the time that the reason they pay taxes is to ensure they have services when they need them. If they are paying a certain per cent in taxes, some of it goes toward paying for hospitals, some of it goes toward paying for roads and some of it goes toward paying for schools. That is how we are contributing to the success of the country.

However, when we are in a global challenge with over three million people losing their jobs in a short period of time and with people going home to face their family and say they do not have a job, then we are in a major crisis, and people expect their government to be there for them because they have been there contributing. That is exactly what happened during the pandemic.

I have never been prouder of being a member of Parliament than I have been during the last two and a half years. For 67 nights in a row, we worked together as members of Parliament when the Liberals were looking at different policies and programs we could bring to support Canadians. It was challenging, because when we bring in a program, it might work for 90% of people but not for all. That is why we had to do lots of tweaking in our supports.

There were many programs. We helped individuals with the CERB, with the wage subsidy for businesses, with the bank account for businesses and with rental assistance. Then there were all the organizations. We were able to give $20 million to the legions so they could do great work to support our veterans as we moved forward. That was one challenge.

The second challenge, of course, is the invasion of Ukraine. There is no question that it is playing a very big role in the challenges relating to the cost of living and inflation right across the world. That is adding to costs in the supply chain too.

Those two challenges are facing every country, including Canada, and Canada has done extremely well with them, if I can say so. We were one of the most successful in the G7 coming out of the pandemic, which was extremely important. We have over 117% of the jobs we had prior to the pandemic, and now we are seeing inflation come down, from 8.1% in June to 6.2% as we speak. I know that is still way too high, but we are going to work to improve on it. The central bank is increasing interest rates to drop inflation, and I know that is putting more stress on Canadians. We have to be there, and we have to do more.

That is why, in the fall, we brought forward some major initiatives that are helping Canadians with affordability.

First of all, there was the doubling of the GST rebate. Members have to understand that 11 million people benefited from this initiative. Half of our seniors benefited from it, which is extremely important. They received a doubling of their GST rebate for two payments.

There was an enhancing of the Canada workers benefit, which is very important as well. This is for low-income Canadians working very hard each and every day. This will help them. They will receive up to $2,400 per year, helping another 4.2 million Canadians.

There is the 10% increase to the OAS for those aged 75 and older. That is extremely important. That is helping about three million seniors, which is a large number of seniors. Some people ask why 75 years old. Well, people are more vulnerable at 75. There is a more of a chance that they will lose their partner or spouse. The cost of living challenges are higher, as they only have one salary. We have to be there for those seniors, and we have been.

In addition, rent for low-income Canadians was topped up by $500. That is another very important initiative for those who are struggling. About 1.8 million Canadians benefited from that initiative as well.

Members know as well as I do that child care fees being dropped this year to 50% is a major help to Canadians with young families. It is helping with affordability. Do not forget that parents who were paying $1,800 a month for three kids are today paying $900 a month. That is a savings of $900 a month. That extra $900 a month can help with affordability, which is crucial. It can help with mortgages, which are much higher because of increasing interest rates. That was a very important initiative that we were able to bring forward as well.

There is also dental care for families making $90,000 or less. Children 12 years of age and under can benefit from that now. That is supporting families. When families brought their kids to a dentist, they used to pay more. Now they will have more money for food.

People forget about the indexing of inflation, but that is extremely important. Let us take the CCB. By increasing the CCB to meet inflation, people basically still have the same income. The GST credit increases with inflation too. For seniors who are retired, the CPP will be increasing with inflation to help them, and so will the OAS and the GIS. Those are major initiatives that we were able to pass, some of which were not supported or voted for by the Conservatives. However, that is not what is important. What is important is they were passed and Canadians are benefiting from them.

I want to talk about the Canada workers benefit for a second. I mentioned it, but it is important to note that we now have advance payments. Because of the high cost of living and affordability, instead of people having to wait 12 months to do their income taxes and receive their money, we are now going to give it through four payments based on their salaries from the previous year. That is allowing people, every three months, to have more money to pay for the challenges they may be facing.

With the child care benefit, along with economic gains there are social gains in supporting Canadians. More women are now able to join the workforce. As we know, there are about 1.5 million vacant jobs and we need to find workers to fill them, so more women will join the workforce. Today, 82% of working-age women are working. That is the highest rate ever recorded in Canada.

I will conclude with student loans. Students do not have to pay interest on the federal portion of their loans, which is a big help for students, because we know the cost of education at the post-secondary level, such as at universities, is very high.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked a lot about the workers benefit. In the update, the Liberals changed the rules. Yes, it is prepaid, but what if it turns out someone was not eligible after the fact? Normally the money would be clawed back, but they changed the rules so that the government will not be clawing back that money even if people were not eligible for it. The Parliamentary Budget Officer states that over $4 billion of taxpayers' money will be written off in advance by the government.

Let us consider the fact that this is a politically motivated decision and that the CRA said not to go after the $15 billion in overpayments for the wage subsidy. Along with the other $4 billion, does the member support this waste of taxpayers' money that the government paid out to ineligible people whom it will not go after?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, eligibility is very important. That is why we should be talking about it.

We are now saying that people have to meet all the criteria. That puts the onus on the individuals applying, but also on the public service to make sure the criteria are being respected. We are going to work closely to support Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is awfully pleased. He is very satisfied with his government's actions and spent 10 minutes talking about how everything is fine, move along, nothing to see here.

One subject he did not talk about was seniors. We know seniors were among those hardest hit by the pandemic and that it was very hard for them. The health transfer negotiation was kind of a slap in the face for them. The provinces asked for $6 billion but got less than $1 billion. We know that problems with the health care system affect seniors more than anyone else.

The government indexed old age security benefits for seniors over 75, as though groceries did not cost them the same as they do seniors between 65 and 74. Those in Longueuil pay the same prices. At Provigo, a pound of ground beef costs the same whether the consumer is 68 or 78. Does my colleague think seniors between 65 and 74 should get an OAS raise too?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. He always has very good questions.

In my speech, I explained why we prioritized seniors 75 and older. However, my colleague did not mention that doubling the GST credit gave 50% of seniors more money.

We have also indexed old age security, the Canada pension plan and the guaranteed income supplement to ensure that people can continue to enjoy the money they have today. We have been there for seniors and we will be there for seniors in the future as well.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns I have with this motion is that it ignores the role of greedflation in inflation. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Canadians for Tax Fairness have shown that corporate greed accounts for up to 25% of inflation here in Canada. This is at a time when we are seeing Canadians struggling.

I spoke to a taxi driver the other day. We were talking about how many people are using food banks, and he said something that broke my heart. He said he is hungry but cannot go to the food bank because he is someone who gives to the food bank. It is unacceptable that in a country as wealthy as ours, people are going hungry. It should not be everyday Canadians who are paying the price. It should be the corporations that are profiting off these crises. We want a windfall profits tax on insurance, oil and gas, and big box stores.

Will the member push his government to ensure that we make big, greedy corporations pay for the support Canadians need so that it is not struggling Canadians paying the price?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, what she is sharing is really important. We have seen, during the pandemic, some large corporations making humongous profits, and that conversation needs to be had. We need to find ways to ensure that these corporations are sharing their wealth with Canadians.

Our government has focused on the most vulnerable, and we will continue to focus on the most vulnerable. However, to be honest, I agree we need to do more work in this area.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise, with thanks to the member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook for sharing some of his time.

I think it was another colleague who said earlier that he had some rather mixed feelings about today's motion because there is a lot that is true in it, particularly the first parts that name and provide some useful facts and figures about the very difficult situation Canadians are facing. We know that many Canadians right now are concerned about losing places to live, whether because the interest rate on their mortgages has gone up and they are not sure their family incomes can absorb the additional costs, because rents continue to climb, or for various other reasons.

Certainly one important reason is the continuing corporate presence in the Canadian housing market. In Winnipeg, for instance, we just saw Lions Place be offered up to a private developer who has a history of taking over buildings where there used to be affordable rents, doing some superficial renovations and then jacking up the rents. That activity is going on. It is happening and it is a real challenge, putting pressure on the cost of rent.

We know that Canadians are struggling with the 11% increase in the cost of groceries and that that puts pressures on household budgets. It is not an optional extra that people can choose to do without. It is a cost that they either have to absorb or, as the member for Victoria was just pointing out, go hungry because they do not have any good alternatives. We are facing a really difficult moment.

Where I take issue with the motion before us is that it would lay all of that problem at the feet of government and suggest that it is sufficient just to cap government spending, cut waste, fire high-priced consultants and eliminate inflationary deficit and taxes that have caused a cost-of-living crisis for Canadians. There is, again, some truth in that. I am in favour of cutting waste, for instance, but I think my Conservative colleagues and I might have some differences of opinion as to what constitutes a proper cutting of waste, that is, what is truly wasteful and what is not.

As an example, I have been doing a lot of advocacy alongside folks outside of Parliament, like campaign 2000 for a CERB low-income repayment amnesty. I think it is wasteful to chase the poor for money they do not have because they took the government at its word, during a global crisis of unprecedented proportion, that if they needed help they should apply for it. When it turned out that they were not quite eligible because they were not poor in the right way, the government then said that they owe all of that money back. It will pay people to hound them even though it knows they do not have the money, and it will never get that money back. It is going to throw good money after bad. That is waste.

If that is what the Conservatives mean by cutting waste, I will show up any day of the week for that. I suspect it is not what they mean, because I have heard them talk about other things that I value and that I think are good investments. For instance, when we talk about pharmacare on this side of the House, that is a cost. Capping spending is not going to allow us to have a federal pharmacare plan, but do members know what a federal pharmacare plan would do? Ultimately it would save money for Canadians and reduce the cost of accessing prescription drugs in Canada, not just in individual budgets but in government budgets too.

The latest reports, prepandemic, on pharmacare in Canada said that Canadians were paying about $24 billion a year on prescription drugs. That was a combination of government expenditure, private insurance plan and out-of-pocket expenditure. The findings of many different studies over time, including in this particular example, was that a national pharmacare plan would cost about $20 billion a year. Depending on who pays and what ledger it is on, Canadians stand to save at least $4 billion a year on the prescription drugs they are already buying.

To me, it is not the right approach to say the federal government should just arbitrarily cap its spending when there are investment opportunities that could reduce costs to Canadians overall. I think we should be more discerning in our judgment around this place, in a way that this motion simply is not. We have seen a lot of change and we are going to see more change in the economy over the years to come, particularly in regard to energy. We are seeing that happen already.

Many of our allies are trying to lower their dependency on fossil fuel. That is happening, whether Canada wants it and gets on board or not. It is happening for the sake of both the climate and energy security. I do not think anybody in this place needs a lecture on that after the last 12 months, not only with Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and what has happened to global energy supplies but also the real pinch from Russia's supply of oil to Europe and other parts of the world, as well as the power that that has given it.

There are many reasons the world is trying to lower its dependency on fossil fuel for basic things that we cannot do without, such as heating our homes. Canada's choice is whether it shows up to that or not. Back in the 1970s, Peter Lougheed made real investments, as did the federal government, to create the oil and gas industry that exists in Alberta today. That was not at all a spontaneous creation of the free market. There was a lot of very deliberate policy work and financial investment by governments in order to create the oil and gas economy of the late 20th century. Those who say otherwise would be kidding themselves and anyone who listens.

Before us is another moment of policy and financial investment to create a new energy economy for at least the next 50 years. Canada has to decide whether it wants to get on that train. We are not going to do so for free. Arbitrarily capping spending right now just takes Canada out of the game at a time when our biggest continental partner, the United States, is finally getting into the climate change game in a meaningful way. It is doing this with the Inflation Reduction Act. A lot of companies that are in the new energy economy and are also making incredible amounts of profit are sizing up the places where they want to invest.

We should value that investment as much as we value investment in the oil and gas sector, but Canada does not. It has not shown up for other industries, particularly new energy industries, in the way that it did for oil and gas in the 1970s and continues to do today. Mr. Speaker, just think of the over $20 billion that the federal government found overnight to get into the pipeline business, something it has no business being in in the first place.

Do not tell me money is lacking for other important things. Of course there is money. The Liberals have proven that by going out and spending on things like pipelines, which they should not have done.

We are in this moment where we are trying to address critical challenges for individual Canadian households, and at the same time, many businesses that are still reeling from the effects of the pandemic. The world is preparing and laying the foundations for the next-generation economy. It is important to my children and to the children of people in this place and across the country that Canada get that right. This will make good-paying union jobs available to the next generation of Canadian children in the same way that those jobs were available for oil and gas workers in Alberta.

We want to make sure that those jobs continue to be available. Some of them will be in oil and gas, but there are going to be fewer of those in the future. This is not because the Canadian government of any stripe decided that was going to be the case. It is because many governments the world over are deciding that must be the case, if we are going to have a planet to have an economy on in the first place. They are not wrong about that. Canada needs to get with the program, and we are only going to be able to do that through serious investment.

I will close because I know my time is running short. I thank the Speaker for his diligence. I will just mention health care. I do not know that we need to do much more than that, but the idea that we are going to solve the very real problems in the health system without investment is false. In this time when people are struggling to get access to care, government will need to make investments. Provincial governments have been willing to pay through the nose for private agency nurses, overtime work and sending people to the United States to get treatment.

That is not a health system. We need to build it, or rebuild it, here. That will require investment. It is worth paying for. This is why it is not the time to endorse a simple spending cap.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

Before I begin my question, I want to recognize the life of Cliff Branchflower, the former mayor of Kamloops, who passed away earlier this week. I wish his family the best at this difficult time.

My colleague mentioned that we are going to have decreased oil and gas jobs in the future, not because the current government wants it but because all governments really want that. Here is the thing. As it stands right now, it seems as though the current government wants fewer oil and gas jobs and wants fewer of them in Alberta. His point is that we are all going to get off oil and gas. However, when we are considering how much oil and gas is required today while we are weaning off it, does my colleague not agree that those good-paying jobs that could be located in Canada should stay in Canada as opposed to countries that do not have respect for wages and human rights? That is where those jobs are going right now. Why are they not staying in Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would say this is an example of the one-two punch the oil and gas industry gets in this House between the Liberals and Conservatives. The Liberals spent over $20 billion on a pipeline, and the Conservatives get up and say that the Liberals are not supporting the oil and gas industry. They can debate whether they want to or should support the oil and gas industry with massive government expenditures, but I would say the Liberals have been trying really hard to do so. I do not think they are failing to try.

In fact, I would criticize the Liberals for the extent to which they are doing that. I think of the opportunity cost of that $20-billion investment. We are told that we cannot have a western power grid that would help share hydroelectric energy from British Columbia and Manitoba across the provinces. This is because we do not have the money to build it. Then they turn around and build a $20-billion pipeline. We cannot afford to be sinking that much money into new oil and gas infrastructure when we could be spending it on different types of infrastructure that would also create really good-quality jobs here in Canada. The point is to create those jobs in a way that is going to be sustainable over time. I would say that the Liberals have placed their bet on the oil and gas industry, and we think that is the wrong place for that bet when it comes to the next generation of Canadian workers.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciated my hon. colleague's speech.

I agree with him. The Liberals are putting more money into the oil and gas industry than the Conservatives did before them. I believe that is unheard of in Canadian history. The oil industry has never had so many subsidies.

Unfortunately, I have a question and I am not sure my colleague will be happy that I am asking it. At this moment in time, when we are fighting climate change and the government has never put so much money into subsidies for the oil and gas industry, how can his party support the government when it is time to vote on a budget like that?