Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and to talk about Budget 2024.
It is interesting that what we often hear from our colleagues across the aisle is, “Who made this mess? Whose fault is all of this? What is the problem here? When we figure out who did all this, there is going to be big trouble.” We know clearly that after nine years of the NDP-Liberal coalition, it is their fault. They did this.
I have three children, who are grown now, and two grandchildren. When my children were growing up, there was a kids' show, and maybe this is where the Liberals get their ideas, called The Big Comfy Couch. The female character would say, “Who made this big mess?” and look around, wondering who did it. Of course we all knew who made the big mess. The show went on to have a “10-second tidy”, and maybe that is what the Liberals are trying to do here: tidy up their mess. However, on the TV show, of course, what they did was stuff things under the couch cushions, etc., but everybody knew the mess was still there, and I think that is where we are on behalf of Canadians. Canadians know who made the mess and that there is still a mess, even though the Liberals have just hidden things here and there.
Canadians know that the debt is now over $1.2 trillion, which is a number that is hard to understand for most of us. What is a trillion dollars? What does it look like? One of my great colleagues, the member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies made a fantastic video, which I would encourage every member of the House to have a look at, to put it in perspective. What is $100,000? What is a million dollars? What is a billion dollars? What does it look like? What is a trillion dollars? What is the difference?
Perhaps it is easier to understand that the debt on a per-Canadian basis is almost $31,000. We have heard this multiple times this morning from many of the eloquent speeches that have been given here, and we know that the cost to service the debt now is $54 billion. On a radio show this morning, I said that, of course, that is more than $1 billion a week. People often think that we are saying it is $54 million, but no; it is $54 billion, which is more than we spend as a federal government on Canada health transfers to the provinces to attempt to pay for health care, which I will talk more about. The budget talks about another $40 billion in new spending in a government that has its foot firmly on the gas pedal of the inflationary fire. Continuing to spend is costing Canadians.
When we look at it, there are problems here that the Liberals refuse to address. The Prime Minister stood in the House and talked about 7,500 new doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners in the sunny ways budgets of days gone by. We now know that almost seven million Canadians do not have access to primary care. We know that wait times are the worst they have ever been in the last 30 years. In 2015, the average wait time from seeing a family doctor to receiving specialist care was 18.3 weeks. 2015 was a milestone year, I might add. In 2017, the wait time went up to 21.2 weeks. In 2019 it was 22.6 weeks, and in 2022, 27.4 weeks. As I said previously, those are the worst wait times Canadians have seen in the last 30 years.
People in Canada have died while on waiting lists. In spite of the fact that my Liberal colleagues do not want to believe facts, by which I am not surprised, last year 17,000 Canadians died while waiting for a procedure or diagnostic test, and not all provinces report these numbers. If we extrapolate from that, one would understand that it could be more than 30,000 Canadians who died waiting for a procedure or diagnostic test in this country.
The numbers do not get any better for gynecological surgery, for which the acceptable wait time is 9.9 weeks. In 2015, it was 16 weeks' waiting, and in 2022 it had doubled to 32.1 weeks. Wait time for neurosurgery in 2015 was 27.6 weeks, and in 2022 it was 58.9 weeks. ER wait time in 2013 was 2.5 hours, and in 2021-22 it was a minimum of four hours.
We also know that many people have suffered while waiting in emergency rooms. Certainly I know that I and my colleagues on this side hear from people who support us. We hear from them almost every day in person, by email and by phone that they are fed up with the system we have, and that it is not working for them. Nonetheless the government continues to spend on other priorities.
The Liberals talk about pharmacare. What they have announced, much to the joy, I am sure, of their NDP masters, is a completed house, when they have yet to even consult an architect. People are presenting themselves to pharmacies and saying, “I am here for my free medications.” Of course, what we know is that the NDP-Liberal government will create a new agency at the cost of $90 million, and over $30 million a year, and do a consultative process. Sometime down the road there could possibly be a plan, which we know is inferior to the plans that exist at the current time.
Our NDP colleagues often are wanting to say, “Tell us about the coverage that this wonderful plan will have.” We know that even with the supposed formulary that has been announced, it would actually cover less than half of the insulin types that a place like B.C. already does cover. As my Bloc colleagues know very well, health care is within the provincial jurisdiction and not that of the federal government.
We can look at another program, the dental care program, which the Liberals have made multiple attempts with their photo ops to announce how great it is. The Ontario Dental Association has made clear to Canadians, with multiple ads now, a warning that this is not another free program as announced by the NDP-Liberal coalition, but that Canadians would be responsible for 40% to 60% of costs out of their own pocket. Certainly we know that there are many newspapers out there that have stated that this program is toothless, shocking from a government that tried to roll out a program in six months that should have taken seven years.
When we look at this, we see that Canadians are being misled by the current government and not understanding that the program would cost them out of their pocket. We are also very well aware, from multiple consultations with provincial dental associations, that dentists are refusing to sign up for the program because of the significant administrative burden that the government has attached to it.
Sadly, we know that two million Canadians are going to food banks every month. We know that the cost of housing has doubled. In spite of the billions of dollars announced, no houses have been built by the federal NDP-Liberal coalition. We know that higher taxes and more inflationary spending are driving up the cost of everything, and we also know that former Liberal governor of the Bank of Canada David Dodge says that this is the worst budget in 40 years. Again, as many of my colleagues have pointed out, it goes without saying who was in power in 1982.
We know very clearly that there are options out there for Canadians, and we know that Canadians need to make their voices heard, which they do to us on this side of the House every single day. We know that Canadians are dissatisfied. We know that they are hurting. We know that they do not have enough money coming in every month to pay their bills. We know that Canadians are ready for a change, and for that we are forever thankful for their support.
It comes as no surprise that for all those reasons I have outlined, there is absolutely no way I could possibly support the budget. I am quite happy to say that I will not support budget 2024.
