Debates of Sept. 17th, 2024

Carbon Pricing

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. However, the announcement indicated that the question would be about ways to help families. I will therefore focus on the topic that was announced.

Supporting families and improving their quality of life is one of the government's key priorities. We have made significant investments to make life more affordable, because we believe every Canadian deserves a real and fair chance to succeed.

The Canada child benefit helps low- and middle-income families with the cost of raising their children. This benefit, which is indexed to inflation, supports over 3.5 million families and over six million children, putting close to $25 billion tax-free in the hands of families each year.

In 2021, the Government of Canada made a transformative investment to create a Canada-wide early learning and child care system, because we knew it would give children the best start in life. Tens of thousands of families are already benefiting from reduced fees. This allows mothers to re-enter the workforce, which in turn increases family incomes.

From 2022 until June 30, 2024, families with children under the age of 12 were eligible for the Canada dental benefit. With the new Canadian dental care plan, the Government of Canada continues to help families access the dental care that parents and children need and deserve.

There is no question that food insecurity affects many Canadians. No child should go to school on an empty stomach, but the rising price of groceries makes it difficult for many families to afford nutritious food. That is why, as part of budget 2024, we announced a $1-billion investment over five years to create the national school food program. This program will increase access to school meals for up to an additional 400,000 schoolchildren a year and help more Canadian children get a better start each day. It will ensure they can focus on learning, not on being hungry, and it will take some of the pressure off family budgets, helping to make life more affordable.

We are also helping to deliver relief at the grocery checkout counter in three ways: first, amending the Competition Act to enhance competition in the grocery sector, to help bring down costs and ensure that Canadians have more choice in where they buy groceries; second, securing commitments from Canada's five largest grocery chains to help stabilize prices; and third, establishing a grocery task force to supervise the big grocers' work and investigate unacceptable grocery sector practices such as shrinkflation. These are great examples of government working for Canadians.

Since 2015, we have also enhanced the Canada workers benefit, increased the old age security pension and improved the guaranteed income supplement. Also, the new Canada disability benefit will help working-age Canadians with disabilities. We have made this significant investment because we are committed to investing in people, and our efforts are working. There are close to 1.3 million fewer people in poverty, including approximately 380,000 fewer children, compared to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I will quickly read a quote from the Canadian Trucking Alliance:

Due to razor thin margins in the trucking industry, these added costs cannot be absorbed and must be passed on to customers. As virtually every good purchased by Canadian families and businesses involves truck transportation, this means those families and businesses are paying increasingly higher prices for those goods to pay for this ineffective tax.

The member is from Quebec, and we hear from the Bloc as well as from some Liberal MPs that Quebeckers are immune to the carbon tax. Well, this statement would suggest otherwise. When a trucking company hauls goods into Quebec, it is going to pass on the cost of the carbon tax to the constituents in the member's riding. I am wondering what they would say about the fact they are going to have to pay the carbon tax that the government is forcing on them anyway.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to hear my colleague say that the carbon tax does not apply in Quebec. Quebec has its own system.

I think that we can help families with programs like the ones I listed, while fighting climate change and protecting the environment. It is the eleventh hour, and I think that, with a Liberal government in Canada, we are much better equipped to give Canadians the best of both worlds by helping them deal with the challenges that we are currently facing while protecting the environment.

Public Services and Procurement

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Liberals have had many chances to do the right thing for Canadians: remove corruption from their spending. It is shocking that they actually put it in their budgets, and we have called on them to cut the corruption and save Canadians some money.

One in four Canadians is going to be using a food bank this fall. That is a heartbreaking number for me to hear, knowing that in my communities, like Brockville, Gananoque, Prescott and South Grenville, food bank use has doubled. While there are still many generous people in the community who are giving food and funds, it is also just not going as far as it used to. Even the food banks are struggling with life after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government.

We heard from the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands today, who talked about the devastating effects of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister's carbon tax. The Canadian Trucking Alliance in the last week spoke out about the costs that they are incurring, the billions in increased costs for them that will have to be passed on to consumers because if we tax the farmer who grows the food and the trucker who ships the food, it is of course a tax on the person who sells it, and the person who buys it is paying that tax.

Canadians are having a hard time getting by, and we do not think it will get any better with Mark “carbon tax” Carney now advising the Prime Minister, knowing his affinity for making others pay. He follows a different set of rules, jet-setting around just like the high-carbon hypocrite at 24 Sussex, the Prime Minister.

Canadians are struggling, and we hear often the Liberals' caution about Conservative cuts. Conservatives are going to cut the corruption. We are going to cut the scandals and we are going to cut the waste.

Just look at the billion-dollar green slush fund. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were misappropriated that we knew about just when we started out, and now the chair of the fund has been found to have been in a conflict of interest. Another government-appointed board member as well is being investigated.

The $60-million arrive scam, two guys in a basement, is how we found out that there is grift, a 30% markup on everything the government outsources. It is spending more than $21 billion in a year outsourcing, and we find out that oftentimes 30% of that is just going to Liberal insiders who line their pockets.

Common-sense Conservatives have made a commitment to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, and Canadians deserve that. They deserve a carbon tax election, and we are ready to put that motion before the House at the first available opportunity. In the meantime, the Liberals need to do one thing: The parliamentary secretary can stand and say that they will cut the corruption from their budgets and stop the madness.

Canadians deserve better.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and Special Advisor for Water]

Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that the government shares the member's concerns and his desire to hold those responsible to account. This is an issue that the government is not taking lightly.

The members of this House and all Canadians are justifiably concerned by what they have been hearing in the media and at committee. We are using many tools and following many avenues of inquiry to understand what went wrong in the case of ArriveCAN. These avenues include the rare and extraordinary measure of a public rebuke in the House, for which the government did vote in favour. This speaks to how seriously we take this issue. It is why we voted for Mr. Firth to present himself here in the House and why we will continue to support the various investigations and inquiries into this matter.

While we await the responses that Canadians need and deserve, I can tell everyone about the swift and decisive actions this government is taking to strengthen and protect the integrity of government procurement so that something like this can never ever happen again. When something goes awry, the government takes decisive action to restore trust in the system. That is exactly what our government is doing.

Budget 2024 clearly outlines the actions we are taking to enforce and uphold the highest standards of procurement to ensure sound stewardship of public funds. They include new steps to strengthen the government's procurement and conflict of interest regimes and updated procurement guidance for managers to reinforce the prudent use of public funds. This means examining human resources and staffing strategies before procuring professional services, strict evaluation criteria when a supplier is selected, clear due diligence protocols to ensure no conflict of interest and ensuring all contractual obligations are upheld by third party vendors. It also includes government-wide audits to ensure governance, decision-making and controls associated with professional service contracts uphold the highest ethical standards.

The results of these audits are expected by the end of this year. Changes are also under way to modernize the new master-level user agreements for a professional services supply arrangement to improve transparency regarding costing and subcontractors. We will launch a new risk and compliance process to ensure government-wide trends, risks and departmental performance meet the highest standards and take corrective actions whenever necessary as soon as possible. We are also bringing forward stronger accountability guidelines for managers when procuring professional services, which include robust validation that a potential contractor is the best fit for the requirements.

In closing, our government is committed to ensuring that Canadian tax dollars are used wisely and responsibly. We recognize the seriousness of the ArriveCAN issue, and I want to assure Canadians that we will be acting swiftly and decisively to ensure that it cannot happen again.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary claims that the Liberals are good stewards who ensure the responsible and wise use of tax dollars. He talked about taking this seriously and wanting to get to the bottom of it.

My question is very simple. In this $60-million arrive scam scandal that lies at the feet of the Liberal Prime Minister, himself twice found guilty of breaking ethics laws, the member, the cabinet, the Prime Minister and all members over there voted against having the Auditor General investigate. If they wanted to get to the bottom of it, were not trying to protect their friends and Liberal insiders and wanted to do the right thing for Canadians, even if it made them look bad, why would they not allow Canada's Auditor General to investigate?

The motion passed in the House without the Liberals' and the member's support. Why did the parliamentary secretary and his government vote against the Auditor General investigation?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Madam Speaker, perhaps the hon. member did not hear me. Just to repeat what I said, the Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that Canadian tax dollars are used wisely and responsibly. The issues that have emerged around the procurement of professional IT services and the management of the ArriveCAN application are indeed deeply troubling. We know from the reports of various investigations into the matter that Canada's procurement system can be strengthened and improved, and that is exactly what we are doing. Budget 2024 outlines the important steps we are taking to enforce and uphold the highest standards of procurement to ensure sound stewardship of public funds.

We will continue to actively explore all possible ways to further bolster our processes. We are working relentlessly to make sure that what happened in the case of ArriveCAN does not happen again.

Finance

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank you very much for allowing me to speak here tonight. I appreciate my colleagues who are here.

Let me address this escalating problem we have with government debt in Canada.

I asked a question a long time ago in which I really tried to nail down the government on its debt-to-GDP ratio calculation, which is a fabrication. Canadians understand what debt costs them and the mounting cost of debt that has been happening across the economy. They are particularly looking at their own accounts, but they are also looking at the government accounts. The projected amount the government is going to have to spend servicing the debt this year is $47 billion. Within four years, that is going to grow by about 50%, to over $67 billion, because of the mounting and escalating debt the government is adding on to the backs of Canadians at the federal government level alone.

There is one thing I want to make sure people are clear about here. There is more than one debt in Canada. There is more than one government debt. There is $1.4 trillion of federal government debt outstanding. We add in an extra $700 billion of provincial government debt, and that is about $2.1 trillion of debt held by governments across Canada, for a country whose GDP is about $2.25 trillion.

Those numbers are not updated. When we look at the IMF, it states that our debt-to-GDP ratio in Canada is north of 100%; its number is 107%. However, the government, in its pretense, said that it is 40%. How does it arrive at 40% at the federal government level alone? What it does is it takes the money that is in the Canada and Quebec pension plans and it says that is an asset of the Government of Canada. That is the money it takes off people's paycheques that goes into a separately managed account for the retirement of Canadians; the government uses that as collateral to jump into, to piggyback off and to make sure it does not have to pay the debt that is due in the future. This is a problem.

I am going to talk, first of all, about the IMF. I know my colleague across the way tried to say that Canada has the best debt-to-GDP ratio in the group of seven countries. That is completely false. He needs to look at the chart, and I can point him to the website if he would like. There is an additional problem here, of course, because debt is not just government debt in Canada but also personal debt and corporate debt. We call it nonfinancial debt. The personal debt alone in Canada is about $3 trillion, on top of the government debt, which is $2.1 trillion. If we add the private debt on top of that, which is about another $3.75 trillion, we have a massively debt-financed economy here in Canada. The amount of interest spent by Canadians is exorbitant, and it is going to continue to rise because of the government's profligate spending.

We have to get this under control. The problem with debt is that, once it is a problem, it is an escalating problem. There is a reason the International Monetary Fund was going to interfere in Canada's public budget processes back in the 1990s. The Chrétien government, at that point in time, had to intervene and cut the actual amount it spent on health care by half and put it on to the backs of the provinces. This was because the country was loaded up on debt, and it had to be dealt with very quickly. The way it dealt with that was by loading it on to the backs of the provinces. We are going to see the same thing again because the government is going to face a problem in the very near future. Will it please address this debt-to-GDP ratio, which we have to get under control?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite is a graduate of the Ivey Business School. He knows numbers very well. Clearly, he is a fan of numbers, and I am too, so I will follow along his line of argument around the number 40, a debt-to-GDP ratio at 40%.

As a woman in her forties, I feel like I know this number well. The member opposite mentioned 40% debt-to-GDP ratio, and I understand why most people feel like that is a large number. After all, 40% is close to half. Forty per cent is usually enough to be elected in a riding in Canada, so 40% can seem impressive to my Conservative colleagues.

However, when it comes to government debt, it is a different story. The last time the U.S. had a debt-to-GDP ratio of 40% was in the early 1980s, before Ronald Reagan blew a hole in the American financial system with his irresponsible tax cuts for the very wealthy. What is the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio today? In the U.S., it is around 120%. Yes, members heard that right. It is actually over 100%. Is the U.S. an isolated case? I do not think so. Let us look at our G7 peers. In France, it is over 90%. In the U.K., it is over 100%. Italy is at over 140%. In Japan, it is over 200%.

What do these numbers tell us? First, Canada has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, and our comparative advantage is growing. Why does that matter? It is because when comparative advantage grows, that is when foreign investment flows into the country. That is what creates more jobs, more good-paying jobs.

Second, Conservatives are desperate to gaslight Canadians and scare folks with scary-sounding numbers without context.

Third, Conservatives argue that we should not make the tax system fairer, that we should not help Canadians feel like the playing field is actually level.

My time is short, so I would like to touch on another 40 that my colleague raised in a previous conversation in this House, which is a $40-billion deficit. That also sounds like a big number, but I like another even bigger number, which is $2.2 trillion. That is our gross domestic product in Canada, the size of the entire great, amazing and beautiful Canadian economy. That is $2,200 billion. That is what the deficit is measured against, and that means our deficit is actually below 2% of GDP. That is to be compared with about 6% in the United States and about 5% in France. Yes, numbers do matter. Context matters.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the numbers, but the numbers have to be correct at the end of the day. I was hoping she would listen to my speech, because the 40% she is stating is actually a fabrication. She is using Canadians' assets as collateral, which proposes also to go into their private pension plans in order to get the balance she is looking for here, the 40%.

On the numbers she states, as far as where the U.S. and France are, the comparable number for Canada is 107%. I challenge her to look at that very website she took those numbers from for the other countries. The number 40% is a fabrication. It raids the piggy bank of the pension funds of Canadians, and that is not the federal government's money. We have talked about that several times in the House. She is also not counting the provincial debts, which are also on top of it and are included in the other numbers of the countries she has referenced along the way. Her numbers need to be more forthcoming. She needs to be more forthcoming with Canadians.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

No, Madam Speaker, I do not include provincial debt in the federal debt. Since I only have one minute and my colleague raises several points, I thought I would take the opportunity, given the news of today, to remind Canadians that inflation has fallen from its high, at over 8%, to just 2% in Canada. That is a reduction of over three-quarters, beating all forecasts, and is now perfectly in line with our target rate set by the Bank of Canada.

Canada was actually the first among all of our peers to cut interest rates, and then cut them again and then cut them again, bringing relief to homeowners today and tomorrow. That will help not only homeowners right now in our country but prospective homeowners.

I have many more numbers on my sheet, but I see that my time is coming to a close. I would be happy to respond to additional finance questions from my Conservative colleague in the future.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7:48 p.m.)