Debates of June 5th, 2023

Sitting Resumed

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Again, the hon. member for Calgary Centre seems to be a bit rambunctious right now. I would ask him to hold his thought, and he can stand to ask a question in one minute and six seconds.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I actually would like to make a motion for unanimous consent so that I can take another half-hour to talk about the Harper government. I would be more than pleased to get into the details.

I move that I be accorded an extra half-hour to talk specifically about the Harper government.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am not going to allow unanimous consent at this point. Nobody can move a motion because of the way that we have structured the debate.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is too bad because I would love to spend the evening talking about how terrible, how awful, how mean-spirited the Harper government was and how badly it managed finances and of course the scandals that we lived through. The scandals were unprecedented.

I will close by saying this. People, including those in Conservative ridings, need dental care. They need access to affordable housing. They need to have the grocery rebate. They need the supports that are in this bill.

For goodness sake, Conservatives should get with the program, listen to their constituents and vote for this bill.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, rather than just being an MP, I am going to put my dental hat on here because that is what I was educated in. Although the hon. member has applauded how well the NDP has brought this forward, I am going to remind him that the Canadian Dental Association actually spoke out against this program initially. It was never even consulted at the beginning. Perhaps that is one of the first things. It actually asked for an expansion of the current programs by the provinces, things like Healthy Smiles that actually get to the children. The problem that we also know here is that with the cost of living, many of these cheques are cashed because of the unaffordability of food.

I would like to know if he actually believes that this program could be audited, and whether this money is going to the dental program or helping hard-hit families because of inflation.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for that member and appreciate her work in the House. I would kindly suggest that she has not actually read the bill that the Conservatives have been fighting against over the course of the last few days, because what she actually referred to was the dental payment from last year, not the dental program that takes effect at the end of this year which includes seniors, people with disabilities and youth. It is a completely different program. If she had read the bill, long as it is, she would be informed about that. I have enormous respect for the work she does, but I am going to correct inaccuracies and in this case what she said was in reference to last year, not this year.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby on his speech. I have the pleasure of working with him on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, and we appreciate the collaboration we have. I think we do. I do, at least.

Having said that, I want to talk a little bit about the content of Bill C-47 and the budget in general.

We heard from many witnesses from the arts community and the cultural industry in recent months and years. They were unanimous in saying that the cultural industry needs to be supported during the post-pandemic recovery. We actually discussed this with the minister last week in committee.

I would like to hear my NDP colleague's opinion on the fact that this budget does not include the money that the cultural industry specifically asked for to survive the post-pandemic recovery. What is more, the little bit of money that is being spent is not being used the way the industry wanted.

I would like my colleague to talk about that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague from Drummond. I think that the vast majority of members of the House agree that we definitely need to invest more in the arts and culture sector. That is important for community economic stability.

It is also very important for us to have those stories that we can share among ourselves and that help us learn more about Quebec, British Columbia or Acadia. It is important in a country as big as ours. Canada is the world's greatest democracy, where there are two official languages and a multitude of other languages. There are also people from indigenous communities, and we must share those cultures.

In my opinion, we need to continue to work to increase those investments. The NDP will not stop advocating for the arts and culture sector.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always so enlightening for me to listen to this member speak. He wanted to speak a bit more. He asked for unanimous consent and, of course, that was not possible. However, I wanted the member to talk a bit more. We know that this bill does not go far enough with regard to indigenous housing. It does not go far enough with regard to the support for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls national action plan. It is a start, but it has not gone far enough.

The member spoke about the Harper years. I was in the non-profit sector at the time and I know how horrendous those years were for those of us in the charitable sector. Perhaps the member could talk about the impacts of the Stephen Harper years on indigenous people in this country.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member for Edmonton Strathcona and her seatmate, the member for Edmonton Griesbach, are the two strongest members of Parliament from Alberta in this House; no question. They are incredibly strong.

The Harper government was disastrous for indigenous peoples. I can go into literally hours of description of how bad the Harper regime was. Thankfully, it is no longer there and we do not ever want it back.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise to speak on behalf of the people of northern Saskatchewan. Debates such as this on Bill C-47 are good opportunities for members of Parliament to bring their own unique backgrounds and perspectives to the House. As a former accountant and mayor, members can imagine that I have dealt with a few budgets and many numbers in my day. I want to spend the first few minutes tonight talking about a few of these numbers, some very big numbers.

In 2015, when the Liberals were first elected, Canada's national debt was $612 billion. This budget projects Canada's debt to be $1.22 trillion by next March, which is $81,000 per Canadian household, and it will reach $1.3 trillion by 2028. A simple fact is that the Prime Minister has accumulated more debt in eight years than all of Canada's previous prime ministers combined.

How did we get here? In 2015, the total expenditures of the government were $280 billion. This budget again calls for billions of dollars in new spending. The Prime Minister simply cannot help himself. This past year, total expenditures were $480 billion, and this budget projects to start at $497 billion and rise to $557 billion by 2027-28. That is an average of $526 billion in each of the next five years. That is also $246 billion per year or 88% greater than expenditures were in 2015.

If this is what the finance minister meant when she said, “we will review and reduce government spending, because that is the responsible thing to do”, I would hate to see what the irresponsible thing looks like.

I have a couple more numbers. Canada will have accumulated over $700 billion of new debt under the Prime Minister by 2028. As projected, the cost of interest on that debt will rise to over $50 billion per year. That is more than a 100% increase over 2021 and 2022, and it would then become about 10% of the total expenditures of the government. If I had run my accounting practice for the little City of Meadow Lake the way the Liberal government has run Canada's finances, I would have been out of business and run out of office.

Let us consider some promises made in 2015. First, the Liberal Party said it would run small deficits and return Canada's finances back to balance in 2019. I hate to break it to the members opposite, but not only did the Prime Minister overspend this promise by about $700 billion, but the budget was never balanced and there is no plan to ever balance it. It is no wonder that record numbers of Canadians no longer trust their government institutions.

Second, the finance minister talked a lot about the declining debt-to-GDP ratio. This was her fiscal anchor. She said, “This is a line we shall not cross. It will ensure that our finances remain sustainable.” That sounds like another promise. I hate to once again break it to colleagues opposite, but the debt-to-GDP ratio has risen every year since the government was first elected in 2015 and is projected to rise again in the coming year. When the Prime Minister and finance minister make promises about debt and deficits, forgive me if I do not hold my breath.

Sometimes one must invest in things to be successful, so it is important to measure what one gets in return for choosing debt and increasing spending. Let us consider the state of Canada after eight years of out-of-control Liberal spending and inflationary deficits. Food price inflation is at a 40-year high. Nearly half of Canadians feel they are less than $200 from insolvency. One in five Canadians is skipping meals to reduce the cost of food, and 1.5 million people used food banks in a single month. The average cost of housing, both to rent and purchase, has doubled since 2015. This is the record of the Liberal government and the measures it is proposing in budget 2023 will, in fact, make the situation worse for Canadians by pouring another $67 billion of new deficit spending fuel on the flames of inflation.

I am very proud of coming from northern Saskatchewan. I believe it is an area that is a very good benchmark to measure how Canada's economy is performing. It is a region that has many important sectors of our economy: mining, forestry, agriculture, oil and gas, tourism, etc. It is also home to a unique cross-section of communities and people, communities and people that, frankly, should be thriving. Instead, everywhere I visit when I go home, people speak about how frustrated and desperate they are with the current economic situation.

Municipalities are struggling. The cost of much-needed infrastructure projects has ballooned over the last few years. Whether it be upgrading a sewer line, building a recreation complex or improving a street, community leaders are being tasked to do more with less. The result is that not only do they have to do the heavy lifting for their people, but the conditions under which they are operating keep getting worse due to the economic policies of the NDP-Liberal coalition.

These same policies are negatively impacting small businesses in northern Saskatchewan. This winter, I was talking to a business owner. He supplies people living in remote and rural communities with home heating fuel. He described to me the difficult position he was in due to the rising cost of this home heating fuel. His customers were either being forced to buy very small amounts, or they were pleading with him to extend credit until they could pay. They were having to choose between feeding their families or living without heat in the middle of a northern Saskatchewan winter, and he was having to choose between possibly losing money or seeing these families live without heat. That is the choice that this small business owner was facing because of the NDP-Liberal coalition nightmare.

Small business owners are also continually telling me how the carbon tax disproportionately affects rural and remote areas like northern Saskatchewan. This is becoming a very serious situation for them. Not only are they dealing with a labour shortage crisis, but due to the rising carbon tax they are forced to increase prices. Now the costly coalition is adding a second carbon tax that will ultimately add 61¢ per litre to the cost of fuel.

Everything, everywhere in northern Saskatchewan must be trucked. There is no other option. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, this will cost the average household in Saskatchewan $2,840 per year. Increasing taxes at a time when people are struggling to get by is not a recipe for economic success. Is it any wonder that the people I talk to are fed up?

That anger can also be felt when I talk to farmers back home. The government members seem to forget that agriculture is the economic backbone of Canada. A stabilizing sector and one that provides the food we all rely on deserves better from its government. Let us imagine being the Minister of Agriculture in Canada and voting against Bill C-234, a bill that would give farmers carbon tax exemptions to produce the food we need. If the minister will not stand up at the cabinet table for farmers, who will?

Let us face it. When it comes to agriculture, these Liberals have become the living definition of biting the hand that feeds them. In a country that feeds the world, Canada is now a place where people cannot afford food. For many people in northern Saskatchewan who were already struggling with the increased cost of living, the skyrocketing price of food has become a crisis.

“This isn't working” are the words of a food bank chair from northern Saskatchewan, who adds, “Everything is increasing—gas, rent, food, heat.... I just don’t know how people are supposed to manage.” The food bank's monthly food budget is $5,000, and it now provides half the number of food hampers that it did just three years ago. The Liberals' mismanagement of the economy, assisted by their NDP enablers, has created conditions that directly harm the most vulnerable in our communities the most.

All of this is while the people from northern Saskatchewan and Canada have a Prime Minister who spends $6,000 a night on a hotel in London, but would not admit to it for months and still takes no responsibility; a Prime Minister who vacations in Jamaica at a luxurious estate of Trudeau Foundation donors; a Prime Minister who spends $8,000 a month on groceries; a Prime Minister who is embroiled in a foreign election interference scandal and uses Trudeau Foundation members and friends to investigate; a Prime Minister who named an interim Ethics Commissioner who is the sister-in-law to a cabinet minister, who is also a long-time family friend, to replace the former commissioner who grew so frustrated by the continued Liberal ethical lapses that he finally walked away. This is not leadership by any measure at any time in our history.

Budget 2023 is not an economic document. It is the political document of a government led by a Prime Minister who has chosen power over principle.

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

Madam Speaker, I am curious because we are debating Bill C-47 tonight, which is not the budget but the budget implementation act. In terms of reading that piece of legislation, I can understand that speeches can wander off topic, but I did not hear anything of the topic in that speech. I am wondering what part of his speech the hon. member would refer me to in terms of the budget implementation act we are debating tonight.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Madam Speaker, Conservatives will talk about improving the lives of people. We will talk about the war on work from increasing taxes. We will talk about stopping the rising cost of living, the rising costs of food, fuel and housing. We will talk about making people more accountable to the people who elected them so that we can improve the lives of people all across this country.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I know my hon. colleague does a lot of good work on the indigenous and northern affairs committee, which is something that connects both of us, him as a representative for Saskatchewan and me as a representative for Alberta who formerly represented many indigenous people.

This budget speaks directly to some of the aspects that are needed for our first nations communities to continue to get out of the crises they are in.. For example, the red dress alert is something that is most critical to constituents in my community, who are faced with some of the most tragic results of the inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and two-spirit people.

Why would the member oppose such an important endeavour, which is called for by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and what does he have to say to the thousands of women who need the support?

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Madam Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague. We have done some work on a number of different committees together and much of it around our first nations and other indigenous populations.

I would say this to the member. We sat at committee together the other day when we talked about the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report on the ability of the departments of CIRNAC and ISC to meet the goals and the targets they set for themselves, including the targets for things that he referenced. I would suggest that one of the things we need to do, as a House of Commons, is to find a way to create accountability to ensure that the bureaucrats in the departments, who are out there serving people, set good targets and are able to meet the targets they set for themselves so that we do not see huge investments in departments across government without the required outcomes to improve the lives of people.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member to not refer to indigenous people as “our” first nations. I know indigenous people do not appreciate that, as they do not belong to anybody. I just want to raise that.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Drummond.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, like the Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois will be voting against Bill C-47, but for different reasons.

I hear my Conservative colleagues talk a lot about the carbon tax. They keep coming back to the same points. We in the Bloc Québécois are a bit like that. We keep coming back to the same points, specifically the fact that there is nothing for seniors, nothing for housing, nothing for EI reform.

I would like my colleague to comment on that last point. All stakeholders have been calling for this for years, and it is considered an urgent matter. That is how urgent it is, and yet there is nothing in this budget.

I think this is long overdue, and it actually looked like it was finally going to happen. Could my colleague share his thoughts?

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Madam Speaker, I would respond to my colleague's question by saying there are many things that we find missing in this budget and that are not included, one of them being the ability to control the inflationary spending and the huge deficits. Just six months ago, the finance minister talked about having to end the inflationary deficits because she acknowledged that they were fuelling the flames of inflation.

There are a lot of things missing in this budget. We have made it very clear that there are some requirements that are missing for us to support the budget. They would include a move toward a balanced budget and something to control the inflationary spending and the increasing cost of living. Those are the things that are missing in this budget that we feel are very important.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have listened to a number of speeches on this year's budget and on Bill C-47, the budget implementation act, at all stages of debate.

I have been inspired by some of these speeches. I really enjoyed the one delivered by the hon. member for Abbotsford. He spoke about the lines the Minister of Finance said last year she would not cross. It was about the increase in a ratio called the debt-to-GDP, or gross domestic product.

I agree with him completely. It seems as though the government, from so many of its ministries, tells Canadians what to expect from them and then ignores those seemingly brave words. It spoke of short-term deficits of $10 billion to bring us back to balance by 2019. I remember that one quite well. Then it spoke of a carbon tax that would never rise above $50 per tonne. That was in the 2019 election platform, not so long ago.

I love when the Liberals say, “We have got Canadians' backs.” What does that even mean? They say, “We are laser focused on solving this problem.” Sure. The one I like best is, “We are not worried about inflation. We are worried about deflation.” I think they would like to erase those words from the record at this point.

Talk is cheap in today's politics, until Canadians actually see the consequences of breaking the real pillars that hold up our country's financial well-being. There will be reduced opportunities in an underperforming, non-resilient economy for generations.

Social programs such as health, education and welfare will be compromised because bankers will get paid first and the amount of priority spending is increasing. This means the amount of money we have to spend as Canadians taxpayers paying the interest on our debt is a rising rate and a rising number. It is escalating quickly.

Deficits do not solve themselves. They take planning and resolve. The consequences of not solving them are upon us with rising inflation, rising taxation and rising income inequality. There are rising labour tensions, as we saw with the recent strike at the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Canadians are just trying to have their wages and salaries keep up with the rising cost of living that the government's negligence has caused.

Inflated dollars buy less. They buy less food, less shelter and fewer social services. We are all poorer by degrees. The government just hopes Canadians do not notice it too much. Canadians are noticing, and they are wondering how a modern country is throwing away its future and has forgotten the lessons from the last time this scenario unfolded just four decades ago. Politicians change, but institutional memory, the decision-making, should learn from the lessons of history, especially recent history.

I would say Canada's debt-to-GDP is a somewhat useless ratio, as it only compares how bad our ability to provide balance for tomorrow's taxpayers is with that of other spendy governments in the world. The debt-to-GDP is increasing, and there is no benefit to having a high debt-to-GDP. There is only a cost, and it is a rapidly rising cost.

As so many have indicated, that rising cost has rising consequences. The government presents in its own set of data that its sacred ratio will peak next year, this time at 43.5%. Let me caution colleagues on this opportunistic representation of data and remind everyone how last year, the Minister of Finance said that this ratio had peaked and would not increase further. Those are words and promises without meaning or real intent. I think we know the answer to that choice.

Let us look at what is called a national accounts basis, as the rest of the world looks at these metrics. That is that there is only one gross domestic product and there are a number of government debts in Canada. If we add in each of the provinces, on top of the federal government's debt, we get a ratio that is higher than 95% on the ratio.

We also have to subtract out the funds that do not belong to the government that it likes to include in its calculation. That is the amount it subtracts from workers who have to set aside money for programs, such as the Canada pension plan and the Quebec pension plan. I should point out that that is one of the costs to workers that is increasing substantially this year.

Canadians need to tell the government that these funds do not belong to the government. They belong to the people who have earned those pensions. The government should get them out of the calculations, trying to make its numbers more justifiable. These are not the Government of Canada's assets. They are being held in trust for Canadians at arm's-length organizations. The government has no recourse to these funds, or does it?

Does the government want to explain how it might have recourse to these funds, which Canadians think are sequestered for their retirement? I ask this question because the government went out of its way to freeze Canadians' bank accounts last year, and freezing earned benefits would pale in comparison to freezing a basic bank account, so someone could buy food and pay for their shelter in Canada.

In any event, for the financially literate, let us stop painting a rosier picture of reality. The government does not get to pick and choose which numbers it uses. Sustainable finance theories aside, and these are mock theories, the government does not get to pick and choose the numbers that affect people's lives. It should just be presented factually.

The irony is that the Liberal government presents a scenario in which provincial budget balances have collectively turned positive in 2022, and thus contributed to Canada's overall turnaround. Let us be clear. That is based on the surplus in one province, Alberta, and those revenues are predicated on world resource pricing of, yes, oil and gas, which the government scorns daily in the House.

As is said, comparing badly run jurisdictions in the world, Europe is a collection of poorly managed economies with no resource wealth, whereas Canada is a very poorly managed country with a backstop of significant resource wealth. It is very clear the country needs better management. We are in line for the job, and we are just waiting for the shareholders to fire this underperforming team.

I went through much of the budget presentation, and I noted a number of fictions that the government actually prints on government paper.

How is this? “The federal government’s fiscal anchor—reducing the federal debt-to-GDP ratio over the medium term—remains unchanged and is being met.” That is wrong. There is also this: “Even with higher borrowing costs, public debt charges as a share of the economy are projected to remain at historically low levels“. That is wrong, again.

The $44 billion in interest payments is up from $24 billion just two years ago, and a larger portion of the GDP than it had been in over 15 years. The government says these metrics are going in the right direction and hope that Canadians are not paying attention.

However, they are emulating themselves in the House of Commons by now putting nonsense on paper. Let us just keep spending and everything will balance itself.

How about this one? It says:

Budget 2023 proposes substantial measures as the next steps in the government's plan to “crowd-in” new private investment by leveraging public investment and government policy. The goal of this approach is not to substitute government for the private sector, nor supplant market-based decision making. It is to leverage the tools of government to mobilize the private sector.

No, it is not. That is fantasy. It is a false narrative based on giving taxpayer money to connected friends of the Liberal government.

We are giving foreign companies subsidies amounting to double the amount they are investing in this country to put Canadian taxpayer dollars in the pockets of foreign investors. That is how the Liberal government thinks it makes friends.

Who is laughing all the way to the bank? It is not Canadian taxpayers. It is not the $200 billion in project financing that was in line in Canada before the government created absolute market uncertainty.

What is not in this budget implementation bill? Anything to do with climate financing, just like last year. The budget speech indicated moving forward on climate initiatives, yet these exist nowhere in Bill C-47.

What is in this bill? A whole bunch of items that have nothing to do with the budget, including CEPA changes and jurisdictional oversteps. It is just tax, spend and divide. That is not the way to manage Canada's finances.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague, who was also a member of the Standing Committee on Finance. I remember when we were debating Bill C‑2.

I would like to have a bit of clarity on something. Clause 510 officially recognizes Charles III as King of Canada. One of the Conservative Party's motions calls for this clause to be deleted.

Has the Conservative Party been seized with a sudden fit of good faith and common sense and become anti-monarchist?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry, but I am not sure what clause my colleague is referring to. If my colleague could mention the words that go with the clause during her next question, that might benefit the House of Commons.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, it felt like there was some dishonesty in the member's speech. He started out speaking about the dishonesty of the Liberal government, but then he spoke about how this was almost an omnibus bill at the end, as if the Harper government was not renowned for its omnibus bills. He spoke about how we should have learned from history, but in World War II, one of the things that we saw was the massive investment in our communities and in our infrastructure, so I want to ask him about what he would cut.

However, what actually caught my ear the most was when he was talking about pensions, about Canadian pensions. I am sure he knows where I am going with this. We just finished an election in Alberta, and the United Conservative Party, the UCP, in Alberta, was running on the idea of taking Albertans out of the Canadian pension plan and using that money for its own means.

Since the member does not agree with the Canadian pension plan being used by the government, would he say that what Danielle Smith is proposing in Alberta would be equally wrong?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a completely dishonest question. This is something that has to be very clearly said in the House of Commons.

The member began her question by saying there was some dishonesty in my speech. The only thing that was dishonest in my speech was when I was referring to what is in the budget. I do not think I uttered a dishonest word in that speech.

There was nothing about pension plans in that last election where the United Conservative Party of Alberta won a majority government in Alberta, yet the NDP in both Alberta and the House seem to take that as if it were a part of it. There was a bunch of disinformation coming. The disinformation continues in this House as it did in the provincial election. It seems to be repetitive.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

The misinformation came from the premier.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member that she had an opportunity to ask a question. If she has a subsequent question, she should wait until I call for questions and comments.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has the floor.