Debates of April 18th, 2023

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, do I have the same amount of time to answer my colleague's question as she took to ask it?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

You have one minute to respond.

[Pierre Paul‑Hus]

Madam Speaker, a government has to make choices. It must create a list of priorities and decide what to do. Since 2015, the Liberal government has chosen to constantly increase spending without having any controls. That is the problem.

Is everything a priority? Of course. If my children want ice cream every day, do I give it to them every day? No. Everyone has to learn about control sometime. The $21 billion handed over to consulting firms is one example of something that needs to be controlled. This is an example of potential savings, because the public service has grown by 30% at the same time. How can we have 30% more public servants, whom we obviously pay, while at the same time paying $21 billion to contractors? That does not work.

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

Madam Speaker, we know the Conservatives' position in terms of the budget, the cuts they would make if they were in power, major budgetary restrictions and balancing the budget. This evening, 150,000 federal public servants will quite likely go on strike.

I would like to ask my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles the following. If he were the minister in such a situation, would he accept the federal public servants' salary conditions to avoid a strike?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is the government's responsibility to manage its public service properly. There is a strike mandate right now because this government did not do its job of managing the public service properly. It hired 30% more public servants, it awards external contracts, and in the meantime, working conditions are being mismanaged.

I cannot necessarily respond directly to my colleague's question because I do not have all the information on the demands. The fact remains that good public management means knowing how to work with the resources on hand, hiring the necessary number of people to complete tasks on budget, and ensuring that employees are paid properly.

However, if the government hires people, spends money elsewhere and cannot afford to pay them more, then there is a problem.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I just want to ask my hon. colleague what his thoughts are on the fact that the Liberal government is continuing to deficit-spend, even though it promised, way back in 2015, that it would run only four modest deficits of $10 billion, which it has never even come close to. Budget 2023 is $43 billion.

I am wondering what my colleague has to say about that.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question. We remember very clearly that the Prime Minister did some marketing during the 2015 election campaign. He said that the Liberals would generate small $10-billion deficits in order to heavily invest in Canadian infrastructure.

However, during that government's first four years, it ran $100 billion in additional deficits. A few billion dollars were invested in infrastructure, because nothing was forthcoming. It was all smoke and mirrors. They said there would be small deficits to allow investments in infrastructure. No one can object to that. However, ultimately, $100 billion went up in smoke. That was the result after the first four years. Now, we are way past that point.

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

Madam Speaker, I am sure that all of my colleagues will be delighted with the words I have chosen for my speech. I am sure they all want to hear it, as do the majority of Canadians. It is important to be able to repeat things that have been said here and to be able to listen to them carefully, because sometimes they come back to haunt us.

I am going to start with a quote from someone who said, “let me be very clear. We are absolutely determined that our debt-to-GDP ratio must continue to decline and our deficits must continue to be reduced. The pandemic debt we incurred to keep Canadians safe and solvent must [and will] be paid down. This is our fiscal anchor. This is a line we will not cross. It will ensure that our finances remain sustainable.”

That sounds good. That is great. It seems serious. Who said that? It was not an analyst on television or an economist. It was the Minister of Finance. She did not say that a long, long time ago; she said it when presenting the 2022‑23 budget just a year ago. Let us look at this quote and analyze it a little to see what it means.

The first statement is, “let me be very clear. We are absolutely determined that our debt‑to‑GDP ratio must continue to decline”.

She was talking about the 2023 budget. One year later, has the minister demonstrated resolve? It seems not. According to the 2023‑24 budget, the debt‑to‑GDP ratio will increase from 42.4% to 43.5% in 2023‑24. It will also be greater than 42.4% in 2024‑25. In the two years since this statement was made, the Minister of Finance was unable to maintain her resolve not once, but twice, with regard to her fiscal anchor, which was to ensure that the debt‑to‑GDP ratio would continue to decline.

The facts presented in the budget are simple. Canada's federal debt for 2023‑24 is expected to reach $1.22 trillion. These are not numbers we are used to saying. One trillion is a thousand billion. When we talk about $1.22 trillion, that means 1,022 billion dollars. That is nearly $81,000 per Canadian household.

Canada's budgetary projections show no path to balance. The deficit for 2022‑23 is $43 billion. In 2023‑24, the deficit will reach $40.1 billion. The fall economic statement projected a surplus of $4.5 billion in 2027‑28. The 2023 budget projects nothing but deficits. The current projection is a $14‑billion deficit in 2027‑28. That was the year we were supposed to have a balanced budget, according to the Minister of Finance. As I was saying, she lacked resolve.

Let us continue with another sentence from this statement by the Minister of Finance. She said that the pandemic debt we incurred to keep Canadians safe and solvent must and will be paid down.

That is firm, clear and precise. I may have a quick lesson for the Minister of Finance. To pay down a debt, people have to start by paying it down. To pay it down, they have to stop borrowing money. To stop borrowing money, they have to stop adding new spending.

The reality of budget 2023‑24 is that public spending has again increased by more than $120 billion over pre-pandemic spending. In 2019, federal program spending was $323 billion. In 2023-24, expenditures will reach $447 billion. That is a far cry from paying back pandemic debt. We are spending even more money than we spent before the pandemic.

The budget makes no mention of paying down the pandemic debt. Things have certainly changed after just a year. The words “pay down” seem to have disappeared from the Minister of Finance's vocabulary, even though he had given us a bit of hope last year. Unfortunately, it seems that nature has resumed its course. It probably came galloping back following a meeting between the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, the biggest spender in the history of Canada. Indeed, it is good to remember that the Prime Minister has accumulated more debt than all the other previous prime ministers of this country combined.

He has no plan for balancing the budget and bringing his inflationary deficits under control. Inflationary deficits are the reason behind the rising day-to-day costs of the goods we buy and the interest rates we pay.

I am going to read out another statement related to what I was talking about earlier, and this one really important. In the 2022 budget, when speaking about the debt-to-GDP ratio that I mentioned earlier, the Minister of Finance said that this was the fiscal anchor, the line that should not be crossed in order to ensure that our finances remain sustainable. We are in trouble.

As I said earlier, the Minister of Finance herself has crossed this uncrossable line twice, for both the coming year and the next year. She made it clear that exceeding the current debt-to-GDP ratio would make Canada's finances unsustainable. According to our own finance minister, the Prime Minister's debt and inflationary deficits keep rising.

In 2021-22, debt servicing costs were $24.5 billion. The Prime Minister's inflationary spending caused interest rates to climb, which increased the cost of debt servicing in Canada. Who is going to pay for all that? Not I, but rather our children and our children's children, in short, everyone will to some extent. Even today, the cost of repaying the debt is so high that we will no longer be able to pay for all the promises and all the spending that the government keeps adding.

In my opinion, the finance minister has lost all credibility because she probably abdicated her responsibility to ensure Canada's finances were viable, healthy and above all realistic for future generations. This is evident and has been demonstrated.

It is not too surprising because the Minister of Finance was probably following her Prime Minister's example. We have had the chance to talk about this several times since the beginning of the budget debate. In 2015, the Prime Minister was elected after making his grand promise to run small deficits, very small deficits. He promised to run a deficit of $10 billion the first year, $10 billion the second year, $6 billion or $7 billion the following year and then go back to a balanced budget. The Prime Minister made that promise in order to get elected, obviously. He said it because interest rates were low. He said that interest rates would never go up, that we were in a good period, that everything was going well and that we could afford to borrow money. That is not what happened in the least.

Let us not forget that the Prime Minister said that budgets balance themselves. The Minister of Finance probably thought that a return to a balanced budget would happen on its own. Unfortunately, the reality of the economic situation we are experiencing around the world caught up with her.

Here is the Prime Minister's latest and probably worst statement. In front of a group of young people, the Prime Minister tried to justify his propensity for borrowing by urging young people to use their credit cards at 19% interest to pay their rent and invest in their education. That was the Prime Minister's wise counsel to a group of young people who came to hear him speak. It is not surprising today that the finance minister has put us in a situation where our federal finances are no longer viable. The only way to fix the situation is to elect a responsible Conservative government in the next election.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance]

Madam Speaker, I will try for the fourth time to get an answer to my question. We see the Conservatives pivoting. All the Conservatives agree not to touch the $2 billion we will invest in health care. We also put very clear and specific measures in the budget to cut government spending by $15 billion. This includes vendor contracts. It includes cuts to the public service.

Since those are the facts, here is my question for my colleague. What would the Conservatives cut? What cuts would they make to achieve their austerity goals?

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

Madam Speaker, it is rather ironic to hear such a question.

The member just told us that the budget contains $15 billion in cuts. However, there is no indication anywhere of where these $15 billion in cuts will be made. At this time, the Minister of Finance is leading the country.

Now I am being asked to do her job. I would be only too happy to do her job. Our Conservative team will be only too happy to do a good job by managing this country's finances in a fiscally responsible manner when we are elected and have the opportunity to be on that side of the House.

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

Madam Speaker, I really enjoyed my hon. colleague's speech. What is interesting is that the Conservatives are saying that they will be a responsible government and that they will form the next government.

Now, my colleague did not specify exactly what the Conservatives would do to balance the budget. I heard one proposal from the Conservative leader. Earlier, my colleague quoted the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, but I am going to quote his leader. During the Conservative Party leadership campaign, he said that he would cut $1 billion from CBC/Radio-Canada's budget, which is currently $1.2 billion. Not one Conservative member from Quebec has wanted to answer the question we have been asking for two days now. I would really like someone to answer me.

Does my hon. colleague agree with his leader's proposal? If the Conservative Party takes office here in Ottawa, will the member support his leader's proposal to cut CBC/Radio-Canada's $1.2‑billion budget by $1 billion?

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

The answer is yes, Madam Speaker.

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

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech. I would like to hear him speak about the Liberal-NDP coalition given that the NDP got 17% of the vote in the last election and that the Liberals are implementing the NDP platform.

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

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question.

I think that if I were a Liberal right now, I would be asking myself some serious questions about who is really leading the Minister of Finance when the time comes to write a budget. What we see in the budget is $67 billion in new spending on new programs.

I am not the only one saying this. People have seen the budget and read it. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it. It contains $67 billion in spending. That means even more borrowing, even more problems, even more inflationary spending that will ultimately increase costs for all Canadians, workers, mothers, everyone. That is the current reality.

That is what happens when a Liberal government forms a coalition with the NDP. In the end, everyone pays the price. Unfortunately, we do not trust anyone to deliver these programs, because we know that when it comes to program delivery, the current government's performance over the past few years has been feeble. Take passports, for example, or employment insurance. I could keep listing examples until I sit down.

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

Madam Speaker, what I will try to do in a very short period of time is amplify the contrast between the Conservative opposition and what we have been doing here in government.

When we think of the budget, we need to recognize that the budget in its entirety is a reflection, based on what I mentioned the other day, of a great deal of consultation and a great deal of effort that has been put together in order to ensure that this is a budget that serves every Canadian from coast to coast to coast. It is very clear in terms of the manner in which it does that.

No matter how many times the Conservatives will say that there is no plan, there is a detailed plan. It is there in front of all of us. All one has to do is be prepared to do a bit of reading. There are many aspects of this budget that will continue to support Canadians, build our economy and build our society in a direction that I believe a vast majority of Canadians would approve of.

The Conservatives seem to be of the opinion that when the government spends money, it is not a good idea. I wanted to amplify the issue of child care. People will recall in the last election the Conservative Party said it did not support the national child care program the Liberals were talking about. We now have all provinces and territories onside. We are investing in child care and the Conservatives opposed that.

When we think of child care, it does mean that the government is spending money. A February report that came out said the participation rate for women between 25 and 54 is at an all-time high of 85.7%. I suggest that is the highest in North America. At the end of the day, a child care program that provides $10-a-day child care, what the Conservative Party opposes, will ultimately provide more opportunities and enhance the lifestyles of all Canadians as a direct result. That is investing in Canadians.

We can talk about the $198 billion over the next 10 years, which is a genuine commitment to financing our health care system, not only for today, but for future generations. It shows the federal government does have a role to play in long-term care, mental health and other issues that Canadians are concerned about. They are reflected in this budget. People understand and appreciate that health care is at the core of what our Canadian identity is all about. The budget reflects that desire.

We can talk about the inflation rate. The Conservative Party always seems to want to forget that this is a worldwide inflation situation. In Canada, we are doing so much better than virtually all of our peer countries, including the United States. We know we can do more. That is why we have the grocery rebate. It is a one-time grocery rebate because we understand the difficulty that Canadians are going through.

I see my time has already expired. I would suggest to members opposite that all they need to do is understand the budget, and then I am sure they will rethink their position and vote in favour of it.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I know the hon. member was looking forward to his full 20 minutes.

However, it being 5:15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the amendment now before the House.

The question is on the amendment.

Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

[Chair read text of amendment to House]

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the amendment be carried or carried on division, or wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, we request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #295

The Budget

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the amendment defeated.

It being 6:02 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from February 1 consideration of the motion that Bill C-239, An Act to amend An Act to authorize the making of certain fiscal payments to provinces, and to authorize the entry into tax collection agreements with provinces, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act

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

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise and speak on a very important issue. The Canada Revenue Agency has demonstrated, particularly over the last few years, just how valuable it is to all Canadians from coast to coast to coast. I can understand why the Bloc would move this piece of legislation, but it is legislation I personally cannot support. This is primarily because the Bloc has underestimated what the CRA actually does for all of us, no matter where we live in the nation.

All one really needs to do is look at their annual tax forms and other things that I will get into shortly. However, I would like to emphasize the pandemic. When the worldwide pandemic came upon us, the CRA and professional civil servants stepped up to the plate in a significant way. Through the CRA, we were able to support Canadians when they needed to be supported. During a pandemic, something that was virtually unheard of for generations, people needed to get the funds that were necessary in order to pay for the food on their tables, utility bills, mortgage bills and so forth. I would suggest that the role the CRA played in providing direct support to the people of Canada was second to no other, whether a non-profit or government agency. Even today, we are looking to the CRA to wind up what has taken place through the many different programs that it was ultimately responsible for.

If it were up to members of the Bloc party, and unfortunately even some Conservative members whom I have heard debate this issue, the CRA would not be necessary. They would rather have a system where if a province wants to be independent with its own revenue collection, it would be allowed to do so. I do not think that Canada needs that.

I think of the people in Shawinigan and the surrounding area, with the thousands of good, middle-class jobs in that region. I wonder to what degree members of the Bloc have even considered those individuals and the impact this legislation would have on them, from an individual point of view. From a national perspective, we know that the Bloc does not really care about the whole idea of Canada as one nation when looking at the CRA, even today after the pandemic.

In debating legislation, I talked a great deal about budget 2023. One of the initiatives in that budget is the grocery rebate, which is actually being administered by the CRA. When we put it in perspective, we are coming out of a pandemic, during which we were very dependent on the CRA. We are virtually out of the pandemic now but dealing with inflation. Once again, we are turning to the CRA in order to provide direct support for Canadians in every region of the country. It is enabling us to alleviate some of the concerns that people have with respect to inflation.

That is not to mention the Canada child benefit. Somewhere between $9 million and possibly $10 million is going to Winnipeg North every month from the Canada child benefit. That is an incredible amount of money that is going to support children, and the CRA plays an important role in that.

However, surely for only political reasons, the Bloc wants to get rid of the CRA footprint in the province of Quebec. Those jobs in the Chicoutimi and Shawinigan area do not matter to the Bloc. The programs and services at the CRA that have been there during, after and even prior to the pandemic do not concern members of the Bloc.

At the end of the day, whether their votes are related to international tax evasion, providing services to Canadians or providing good-quality jobs, I would encourage all members to vote against this piece of legislation.