Madam Speaker, tonight, I have a chance to revisit an exchange I had in question period at the end of May. Sadly, it was an exchange about the economy. Things have not gotten any better since May here in Canada, and we find ourselves dealing with a continuing economic crisis brought on by the policies of the Liberal government following, of course, the failed Trudeau economic plan of the seventies and eighties. Now, in successive Liberal governments led by that family, we have run 24 deficits in 25 years and had a constant stream of crises: housing crises, energy crises, unity crises and the like.
My question back then was about how the most incompetent, reckless government in Canadian history was undertaking radical experiments with objectively terrible results. Of course, it has been supported by the NDP and now the Bloc. Back then I referenced an RBC report that talked about “a slow bleed over the last 2 years [that] left per-capita output back at 2016 levels”, and I asked about that falling per-person income in Canada.
The response from the parliamentary secretary at the time was kind of interesting. He did not defend the government, talk about the successes that the government had or refute any of my claims. He took issue with the fact that I would use GDP per capita, or growth per capita, as a measure. He said it was “not a particularly useful one, as most economists will say.” Therefore, I did a bit of digging.
This was not very hard, actually, to find on the Statistics Canada website, so I am not sure whether the Liberal government is anti-Statistics Canada right now. However, this year, Statistics Canada had this to say: “Slower economic growth over the past year and near-record population increases fuelled by temporary and permanent immigration have put the spotlight on recent trends in Canada’s gross domestic product...per capita.” It went on to say, “Recent reports...have all stressed the trend towards weaker per capita growth, highlighting its negative implications for living standards and wage growth.”
This Statistics Canada document quotes information that the parliamentary secretary, on behalf of the government, says is not credible or supported by economists. A little later in the same document, Statistics Canada said, “GDP per capita is widely used to gauge differences in living standards across countries. Higher levels of per capita output are generally found in more developed economies with advanced infrastructure, better health care and education systems, and higher levels of access to technologies and innovation.”
As such, whichever parliamentary secretary is going to answer the question today, I would like them to correct the record if they could or clarify the Liberal position on whether rapidly declining GDP per capita is bad. My assertion is that it is bad for Canada. The parliamentary secretary said it was not necessarily bad. More importantly, I want to hear something about a plan. We have four minutes right now; I hope we will hear something about a plan, moving forward, to reverse the economic devastation being inflicted on our country by the Liberal, NDP and now Bloc coalition.