Madam Speaker, Canadians are getting poorer while Liberal insiders are getting richer. That is not my opinion; that is a fact. Per capita GDP is declining. It is lower now than it was nine years ago when the Liberal government was first elected. The total value of all the goods and services produced in Canada, divided by all the people in Canada, is shrinking. It is not shrinking in the United States. It is not shrinking in the rest of the G7 or the G20, but it is shrinking in Canada.
It is a fact that Canadians are getting poorer under the Liberal government. However, well-connected Liberal insiders have been getting richer over the last nine years under the Liberal government. That is also a fact; it is not an opinion. Canadians are getting poorer while well-connected Liberal insiders are getting richer.
I rise again to speak about the government's refusal to comply with an order of the House to deliver unredacted documents to the RCMP related to the $400 million that Liberal insiders misappropriated and, in a staggering number of cases, voted to give money to themselves.
It is true that while we are debating Liberal corruption, we are not moving forward on solutions for Canadians like axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime. If the government continues to insist on acting in contempt of Parliament by ignoring a vote of Parliament, there can be no other business of Parliament. It is a matter of basic democratic accountability.
Therefore, I continue to demand that the government comply with the order of Parliament and release the documents. If it will not do so, it should call an election. That way Canadians can decide whether these documents should be released and whether they should choose a common-sense Conservative government to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. Until then, we continue to debate this motion.
We need not look any further on the government's agenda, or lack thereof, about the business proposed if we suddenly allow them to get away without tabling the documents and shuffle the problem off to a committee to languish there.
One of the things that they had planned in their legislative calendar was to introduce a motion, not a bill but a motion, to further implement their long-announced but not actually legislated capital gains tax increase. We have had expert testimony at the finance committee, witness after witness, who have said all this tax would do is drive away investment, kill jobs, stifle innovation and further reduce productivity. It would not actually result in further revenue for the government because it would suppress Canadian GDP and reduce income taxes collected by the government.
Every day the NDP-Liberal government is unable to implement this tax is a good day. It is a good day for Canadian workers, a good day for Canadian entrepreneurs, a good day for Canadian investors and a good day for Canadians who rely on the services supplied by Canadian governments and who rely on the tax base and an increasingly productive economy rather than the one that is shrinking per capita under the government.
We heard testimony thoroughly debunk the government's claim that this tax would only affect 0.13% of the population. We heard expert testimony that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of small businesses would be adversely affected. We heard expert testimony at the finance committee confirming that the tax the Liberals want to propose would kill 400,000 jobs. We heard expert testimony that the tax would reduce Canadian GDP by $90 billion. How much tax revenue do they lose in suppressing $90 billion of economic activity?
We are not interested in allowing the government to simply move on and not disclose the documents that have been voted on, the production order, which was supported by the House of Commons, move on to the rest of its so-called agenda. We have watched as the middle-class aspiration of home ownership has come to an end under the government. We have watched how rents and mortgage payments have more than doubled. Under the government's watch, we have seen how tent cities have proliferated every major city and town. Therefore, the government has had over nine years to deal with Canada's problems, and it has only made things worse.
We are going to keep debating the motion until the government releases the documents to account for the $400 million that the government's friends squandered and gave to themselves. We know that the government will not fix the budget. We know that Liberal insiders voted to give money to their own companies right under the nose of the minister.
Navdeep Bains went out of his way to appoint a new board of insiders, and then he sent his own senior staff to be present in the room when they voted to give themselves money. What kind of governance is this? The level of mismanagement and lack of proper governance that took place under Navdeep Bains, and also under the current minister, is amazing. We heard testimony at the public accounts committee yesterday, excuse-making by officials who did not know that this was happening right under their noses. It is nonsense. These were concrete choices and decisions made by the government.
I will insist that we continue to raise these points in the House of Commons until we get answers from the government and until it tables the documents. We will continue with this.
I move:
That the amendment be amended by adding the following:
“except that the order for the committee to report back to the House within 30 sitting days, shall be discharged if the Speaker has sooner laid upon the table a notice from the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel confirming that all government institutions have fully complied with the Order adopted on June 10, 2024, by depositing all of their responsive records in an unredacted form”.
