Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time.
Three weeks ago today, the government's Minister of Finance delivered Canada's budget for this fiscal year. Today we are debating the budget implementation bill. In the current Parliament, it has been titled Bill C-69. That is a vile title. The last Parliament that lasted long enough to get to 69 government bills was the 42nd Parliament, the Liberal government's first Parliament.
It has been downhill ever since. The Liberal government thrives on divide-and-conquer misinformation narratives in order to keep Canadians unfocused on how much worse this country's prospects have become after nine years of aimless management. I say “aimless” benevolently, as if the Prime Minister and his flock do not actually know the harm they are causing the economy and the country.
However, I worry that it is much worse. I worry that Canada being the first post-nation state means we dismantle all that Canada has stood for, all that Canadians value in their institutions and all that new Canadians strive to be part of as they seek to build a new life in this once great nation.
After nine years, we are far less than we have been. Our economy is the sick child of the G7. Our international standing in the world has suffered greatly. Our friends no longer see us as a dependable ally. Our military is limping along, and we continue to underfund our capabilities in what is clearly becoming a more dangerous, less secure world. The world is now seeing more conflict than it has seen since the end of the Second World War, almost 80 years ago.
The Liberal government remains oblivious to what is on the horizon, because it is content to navel gaze and mislead Canadians about where we actually stand in the world.
Bill C-69 still has a clang to it that has crystallized what has been misguided about the government from its outset. The last Bill C-69, from six years ago, was successfully challenged all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. There, finally, the constitutionally offensive parts of the legislation were overruled. However, that was a legal journey that took years.
It was as if it could not be foreseen and avoided. We had years of divisiveness in this country, of project delays and of holding back taxpaying sectors of Canada's economy while shovelling money out the door to well-connected insiders. We had years of economic destruction and of watching our closest competitors move forward in a rapidly changing world while Canada's opportunities were held back. We had years of the Liberal government feeding propagandists billions of taxpayer dollars to trumpet its recycled narrative, to no benefit for the country but much benefit to the pockets of connected insiders.
The previous Bill C-69 was a vile affront like no other, and this one can only pale in comparison.
Budget 2024, as delivered, was a 416-page document, with lots of back-patting and nonsensical narratives, plus a 74-page supplement. It was entitled, “Fairness for Every Generation.” What a great marketing slogan that is. Was the title because excessive overspending would affect every Canadian equally badly? I would caution that it is particularly bad for young Canadians, those who are being saddled with paying for the cost of $1.3 trillion of Canadian debt, which is growing with no end in sight.
How do we tell new Canadians or those entering the workforce, “Congratulations, you are now inheriting your share of debt for money thrown away by a spendy government that knew nothing about fiscal management”? It is $30,000 per head, in addition to the provincial debt that, in many cases, doubles that number; their mortgage debt, if they are lucky enough to own a home; and their student debt, consumer debt and auto debt payments. Is it any wonder that Canadians are considered some of the most indebted people in the world?
Many times, I have clearly stated in the House that the metric the government tries to use, the debt-to-GDP ratio, is neither comparatively useful nor, in fact, honest. It tries to re-collect the amounts that Canadians have had deducted from their paycheques specifically for their retirement, both in the Canada pension plan and the Quebec pension plan. The government pretends that those amounts, over $800 billion, should be used as collateral for the government.
It does not work that way elsewhere, but the Liberal government is content to mislead Canadians so they can use this in their justification of showing financial prudence. It is dishonest.
If the government's backup plan for maintaining fiscal stability in the future is to take back, and I should say “steal back”, the funds Canadians believe belong to them, independently managed for their retirement, then tell that to them directly. The Minister of Finance should directly say, “Canadian workers, all pension earnings are our collateral, used to capitalize our overspending.”
This budget implementation act that we are debating takes what was in that nearly 490 pages of budget information and puts it into legislative format, 660 pages of legislative changes to be addressed, debated and voted upon, an omnibus bill. It would be interesting if it had much to do with the budget, but as always, it is a mishmash of legislative changes, much of which have absolutely nothing to do with the 490 pages presented in the House of Commons three weeks ago.
I was really looking for the parts of it that were relevant to young Canadians who are trying to buy a home or who are trying to rent a home in a rising housing market with stagnant salaries, while inflation is making their purchasing power for food, rent, clothing, heat, light, education and the basics more challenging.
The budget was presented with much fanfare. It is called “Fairness for Every Generation”. The government seized on the problem being felt most acutely by Canadians, particularly young Canadians, and presented an array of programming to address the real issue of housing, the inability to house Canadians.
The cost of buying a house has doubled under the government's watch. The cost of renting a home has doubled under the government's watch. Has take-home pay doubled? Absolutely not. As a result, the ratio of housing prices and rent to income has doubled in these past nine years. Housing is not just twice as expensive. The ability to fund one's home now takes twice the percentage of one's take-home pay.
Canada's economy has withered in relation to our peers. Nothing gets done in this country unless the government writes someone a cheque to do it: “Please, set up business here with taxpayer money.” It will pay $4 million to $5 million per job provided, as long as it is in the right area or what it thinks is the right industry, flavour-of-the-day stuff, chasing what everyone else is chasing, risky business, taxpayer-funded corporate welfare and funds that will never be recouped in the economy.
I counted the number of initiatives the government would take to alleviate housing concerns, the most resonant concern to the public. There were 53 measures to address housing: building, financing, mortgaging, targeting, bribing, pontificating. I then went through the 660-page bill, and I found two points that were relevant to housing.
The first is the increase to the homebuyers withdrawal plan limit from $35,000 to $60,000. I would like to see the size of that target market, a Canadian who has over $60,000 in their RSP and does not have a home. That is definitely not the financial makeup of the great majority of Canadians who have found themselves squeezed out of Canada's housing market.
The second measure allows the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to increase its mortgage default insurance limit from $750 billion to $800 billion. Remember, that $750 billion was temporarily increased from $600 billion in 2020 to deal with the effects of the pandemic, long passed. I suppose some temporary effects last longer than others.
This is $800 billion of risk that the government bears for mortgages in Canada. That is in addition to the almost $1.3 trillion in debt the Government of Canada owes money managers around the world or the $350 billion of liabilities at the Bank of Canada.
Canada's federal government debt payments now total $54 billion a year. That is more than the government spends on health care. That is more than Canadians pay through the GST.
The issue with housing is a cautionary tale. Housing should be a sound investment, one that holds its value over time, especially if the homeowner provides the proper upkeep, a store of value for years when incomes will be lower. It is a savings plan and it is a contrast to paying rent, where one's payments will always rise with inflation and the value accumulated is paid to someone else. Sometimes that makes sense, but most Canadians benefit from owning a home.
For the sake of young Canadians who hope to one day raise their families in homes like their parents did or like they anticipated when they moved to Canada, let me advise the government to listen to all of the voices that are telling it this, including the Bank of Canada governor: Get the budget balance back. Stop causing inflation. Let the economy grow, and stop punishing sectors that are not its chosen sectors.
