Madam Speaker, it is the evening when we vote on the estimates, and they are estimates, in fact, because we really never know how much the government is going to spend, so we really can only estimate. Today proves to be no different.
This is the result of two things. First, there is the complete out-of-control spending by the Liberal government. We have seen it since 2015, but it has increased rapidly since 2020, and now it is just completely out of control. The second thing, as a result of this out-of-control spending, is that the government makes Canadians pay for its incompetence and for its moral disregard, time and time again. This has three negative effects on the nation. It taxes generational wealth. It taxes the middle class. It destroys productivity.
Let us take a quick look at the numbers to justify what I am saying. We have a current deficit of $39.8 billion. In the beginning, I used to have to double-check myself to see if I was supposed to be saying “million”. Now, I feel very confident in saying billion because it is, in fact, $39.8 billion. There is new spending of $52.9 billion, which is a huge number. There are debt servicing costs of $54.1 billion and additional debt servicing costs of $1.9 billion. That was a surprise I raised at the government operations committee to the President of the Treasury Board, which I think I would notice an anomaly like that on my credit card, were that the case.
The government claims to have refocused $15.4 billion of spending. That was the government's initiative, but that initiative is 3.5 times less than the actual amount of new spending. There is quite a differentiation between the two. We see here a government that just has an absolute spending problem.
In fact, it was reported in The Globe and Mail, in an article I have. It states, “the government does not have a revenue problem. Annual federal revenue is increasing and has grown (nominally) more than $185-billion (or 66.2 per cent) from 2014-15 to 2023-24.
“Before tabling the budget in April, the government was already anticipating annual revenue to increase by more than $27-billion this year. But the government has chosen to spend every dime it takes in (and then some) instead of being disciplined.
“Years of unrestrained spending and borrowing have led to a precarious fiscal situation in Ottawa.”
The government “largely chose” to continue spending, and “clearly raising taxes to generate revenue was unnecessary and could have been avoided with more disciplined spending.” It was unnecessary.
Next, I would like to provide some examples of that wasteful spending. There was the $169.5 million sole-sourced contract for ventilators purchased at $220,000 each, that have now been sold for $6 apiece for scrap. That is the first example. The second example is Parks Canada spending $12 million on culling deer in British Columbia, a job my caucus colleagues say that Canadian hunters would have done for free. The Auditor General identified at least $32 billion in overpayments and suspicious payments by ESDC, which is not a surprise at all with the current government.
In March, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, someone the government likes to gag, released a report, warning that the Prime Minister's government spending plans remained out of control. The amount that taxpayers spend just to service the national debt is expected to go up 33.4% in 2024 and 11.6% in 2025. That means the amount we pay just to cover the interest on the national debt will rise from $35 billion to $46.7 billion in 2024 and to $52.1 billion in 2025.
It is important to put those figures in perspective because those debt payments offer no services and rob precious dollars from services that the government likes to brag about. The debt payments will be double the amount we will spend on the military. When I make reference to these amounts, they are not small amounts that I am referring to.
I will now turn to the second part, which is the pain that the government inflicts upon its citizens in an effort to compensate for its spending problem. This is out of incompetence and a lack of moral guidance.
The first example I will give is from an article in The Globe and Mail. It states, “50 per cent of taxpayers who claim more than $250,000 [worth] of capital gains in a year earned less than $117,592 in normal annual income from 2011 to 2021.... Contrary to the government's claims, the capital gains tax...will [actually] affect 4.74 million investors in [different] Canadian companies.”
This also means, as I said, regarding the productivity, as it says in the article, “that potential entrepreneurs or investors are more likely to take their ideas and money elsewhere, and Canadians will continue to suffer the consequences of a stagnating economy.”
On the carbon tax, just this week Canadians discovered that, for years, the Prime Minister has been hiding the fact that the carbon tax will cost Canadians $30.5 billion by 2030 and that this works out to $1,824 per family in extra annual costs.
As well, I will be splitting my time with the wonderful member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, an individual I like and enjoy very much.
I will continue with my examples. CTV News wrote that Joseph Steinberg, an associate professor with the University of Toronto's economic department, said, “I don't think that this...policy is likely to be successful”. He also said, “Given what my research into policies on raising taxes on the wealthy has found...since we don't enforce any rules against tax avoidance and tax evasion, these kinds of policies are really unlikely to raise much, if any, in the way of tax revenues.” This is not surprising given the ESDC fraud I mentioned moments ago.
The CTV news article went on to say, “The Canada Revenue Agency estimates Canada loses nearly $3 billion a year in offshore investing, which is close to how much the government projects to bring in each year with the changes.”
In addition, economist Jack Mintz estimated that “1.25 million individuals—not just 44,000—will make a capital gain greater than $250,000 at some time in their taxpaying life”, not just this year alone. He states, “Many of these people will have relatively modest incomes and only earn extraordinary capital gains at retirement or death.”
The official opposition shares these stories every day, during question period and in our interventions, in the House of Commons.
Jack Mintz says, “How many Canadian investors would be affected by higher capital gains taxes at both the personal and corporate level? In 2021, 4.74 million tax filers (15.7 per cent).... Of those, 69 per cent—3.29 million—had incomes below $100,000.”
They are the middle class. He goes on to say, “The increase in corporate capital gains tax is going to hurt many Canadians investors with middle or modest incomes.”
The Globe and Mail states, “the Liberal plan to raise the taxable portion of capital gains over $250,000 for individuals, and of all capital gains for corporations in most trusts, is not the end result of a careful examination of tax policy, but of the Liberals' need to raise billions of dollars to plug a hole in their latest budget.” The government is always reactive.
The article goes on to say, “The increase to the capital-gains inclusion rate will take place [right] when Canada's lagging productivity needs a boost. Higher taxes on investment will be a drag on the economy and could harm our diminishing prosperity.”
The government has had years in office to address the issues dominating Canadian politics today, such as housing costs, affordability and, yes, the income gap, which has grown steadily since 2015, yet it has failed to address these.
The Financial Post has a headline I love, which reads, “Liberals playing with inclusion rates is divisive policy at its worst”. The article states, “the government ignored almost every single recommendation made about the proposals by very qualified people and great organizations. The Joint Committee on Taxation of the Canadian Bar Association and CPA Canada made some excellent technical recommendations [that were ignored].”
Thomas Sowell is quoted in the article as saying, “The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever-rising tax rates to cover [increasing] spending.”
As I come to the last 30 seconds of my speech, I would just like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. The current government has a significant spending problem, which is evident by the numbers I have put here today. It does not responsibly address it through lowering its spending and through not having unethical overspending like we see with the arrive scam and the green slush fund; rather, the government enforces this on Canadians. It makes them pay for its incompetence and for its moral disregard through tools like the carbon tax and the capital gains tax. This has to stop. Tonight in the estimates, though, we are not going to—