Debates of Sept. 26th, 2024

Opposition Motion—Confidence in the government

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is not true. I invite him to participate in a debate. He is not here now. He could have asked me questions, but he is not here—

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

I would remind the hon. member that we do not mention whether members are present or absent in the House.

Is that agreed?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I apologize.

I would have liked to debate the leader of the Bloc Québécois, but he does not speak in the House when I am here. However, he may have other opportunities to debate me during an election.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member's record is clear. When he was in government, the Conservatives hid the abuses at residential schools, refused to have a national inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women and girls and voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Why? It was because they did not support free, prior and informed consent.

Why should indigenous communities trust the Leader of the Opposition now when he continues to fundraise with organizations that are on record denying residential schools?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

First of all, Madam Speaker, that is false; that is not true.

Second of all, the member and her party have continually acted against first nations people. They have attacked first nations people's rights to have resource projects that they support. When 20 out of 20 first nations communities supported the Teck Frontier mine in Alberta, she and her party took the paternalistic “government knows best” approach and said they could live in poverty. When they supported the Coastal GasLink pipeline, she said they could not have a pipeline and could not have any paycheques. Then she supported banning hunting rifles to take away the constitutional right of first nations people to hunt and harvest the wilderness for a living.

We on this side support first nations people and all indigenous people. We will, in fact, expand their rights and freedoms to harvest a beautiful living for themselves and their families and will put an end to the colonialistic, top-down, paternalistic mentality of the NDP, which wants to keep the government on top forever.

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

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, The Environment; the hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, Carbon Pricing; the hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country, Mental Health and Addictions.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise in this place to address members and the people of Canada, but first I have to say that I am disappointed that the hon. Minister of Finance is not here to listen to my maiden speech. If she had been here—

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

I would remind the hon. member that we do not mention presences or absences in the House.

I would like the hon. member to withdraw that and not mention it again.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to let the hon. Minister of Finance be aware that during my election campaign, when she characterized me in front of a national audience as “cold, cruel and small”, she had it wrong. Throughout this speech, I think she will perhaps learn that I am a warm, generous and kind human being, but mis-characterization is the MO of the Liberal Party. I have only been here two weeks, and I have already seen it.

The day I was sworn in, I walked through the halls of West Block and something colourful caught my eye. It was the red head of a small five- or six-year-old boy who was getting a tour or walking around with his mom or his dad. The young boy was gazing around at these tall columns and the thick walls that hold up this endlessly high ceiling. I too feel not unlike that small red-headed boy when I take my place here in the Parliament of Canada.

Those thick walls represent to me the strong foundation upon which Canada has been built over many years, a foundation that was laid over those years, including before Canada the country came into being. For a nation like this one, we continue to build upon the foundation.

The great Sir Wilfrid Laurier put it well: “I want the marble to remain marble; the granite to remain granite; the oak to remain oak; and out of these elements, I would build a nation great among the nations of the world.”

I want to touch briefly upon those builders, whom we have come to identify as Canadians. The indigenous peoples were the original inhabitants of this land. We must continue our efforts toward reconciliation. First nations, Métis and Inuit, along with the people who came later, principally the French and English in the early days, laid the groundwork for what would become the Dominion of Canada. Given the lamentable state of Canadian history education in our country, I hesitate to call attention to some of the greatest citizens for fear of losing my audience at home, but for posterity's sake, and in recognition of what they did to help build this country, I will take that risk.

Some of the greats, while strictly speaking may not have been Canadians, were builders of this great land of what would become known as Canada: the great generals, Montcalm and Wolfe; Sir Isaac Brock and Sir Arthur Currie; scientists, like Banting and Best; and our early foundational prime ministers, MacDonald and Laurier. Let us not forget Colonel R.S. McLaughlin from Oshawa, my hometown.

Canadian heroes come from many walks of life. I am thinking of examples like Terry Fox; sports heroes like Wayne Gretzky or Tom Longboat; artists like Gord Downie and Ottawa's own, and a personal favourite, Paul Anka.

Of course, we have to make room for the more recent greats. Summer McIntosh impressed us all this summer at the Paris Olympics, not only with her phenomenal athleticism, but also with her grace and poise on the podium and elsewhere. I hear last month she was even old enough to vote.

All Canadians will have their own list of favourite great Canadians. The list to choose from is nearly endless. I encourage all of us to celebrate them in our own ways and not just in this place. We need more celebration of Canadian history. As the great historian Jack Granatstein wrote in his famous 1998 book, Who Killed Canadian History?, “History is memory, inspiration, and commonality—and a nation without memory is every bit adrift as an amnesiac wandering the streets. History matters, and we forget this truth at our peril.”

There is one more group of people I will also include in the list of great Canadians: the members, the veterans and the families of our Canadian Armed Forces: the army, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Canadian Navy and Special Operations Forces. We salute both the regular and reservists, who, in the words of Winston Churchill, are “twice the citizen”.

Our national foundation supports our aspirations for greatness and that is what we are in this place to do. That is what the people of Toronto—St. Paul's have asked me to do: preserve what we have and build something better.

We must focus on what unites us as Canadians and not on what divides us. We must not pick winners, but create an environment where anyone from anywhere can do anything. That is the Canadian promise. We also strive for peace, order and good government. This is the Canadian way. There are foundational Canadian values that we hold dear and must protect. These are the foundational Canadian values that appeared to be at risk in recent months.

I have witnessed, in our Canadian streets and on our Canadian campuses, so-called protests calling for the death of those in our Jewish community. They are sponsored by known terrorist-linked entities. This is not the Canadian way. When foundational Canadian values are under attack, we are all under attack.

However, this government supports the funding of those who would take on this anti-Canadian charge. Employees of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, in part funded by the Canadian government, are known to have held hostages on October 7. Canada is, in part, paying the salaries of combatants who work for the Hamas terrorist regime. It was these same Hamas terrorists who murdered eight of our fellow citizens: good people from Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and elsewhere. Their names were Alexandre Look, Ben Mizrachi, Adi Vital-Kaploun, Shir Georgy, Vivian Silver, Netta Epstein, Tiferet Lapidot and Judih Weinstein Haggai. May their memories be a blessing.

There are still 101 hostages being held in Gaza and not all amongst the living. People held against their will, held in the darkness and dampness of a subterranean warren of war, a tunnel system created for the sole purpose of waging war. Every day, I think about those people held in captivity in those deplorable conditions, and I think, too, of the innocents of Gaza, used as human shields by an uncivilized terrorist organization. I encourage all in this place to do the same and give thought to these victims.

I made my remarks earlier about Canadian history and Canadian heroes because I care deeply about this country and its past, but I care equally about the future of this great nation. I got into political life not because I am crazy, but because I thought about my two daughters, Leah and Charlotte, both in their 20s. I thought about the kids I see in the park and the ones I see clinging to their mothers' legs when I knock on doors. I thought about the fact that they do not appear to have the same opportunities for success as young people did a generation ago. They do not have the same Canada. This is not the same Canada.

We must leave a country in better shape than we found it. Can we say that is true for the NDP-Liberal government members and the Liberal Prime Minister who took over nine years ago? Does anyone even believe they have what it takes? The economics of this country have become stagnant. The feeling of optimism has evaporated. The sense that Canada has a great destiny thrust into the intention of the future, as the philosopher George Grant put it, is absent.

I am here, thanks to the good people of Toronto—St. Paul's, to be a part of something bigger than any single one of us. I am here to help build a better country, one day at a time. I am here to work my hardest for the people of my riding, yes, but also for every last person in this country. Let us remember that as we engage in the great debates of our country. I am new and that is, perhaps, why I am filled with so much optimism. Optimism can take us a long way, and I am delighted to be here.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, one of the greatest Canadian debates is on something we all identify with, and that is our Canadian health care system. This is a government that has invested historic amounts of money into health care for future generations. A part of that debate also says that we need to look at issues like pharmacare, something that I and many of my colleagues are very passionate about.

Many Canadians, including Canadians the member opposite represents, will benefit from it. We have the dental program. Again, thousands of Canadians that the member represents will benefit from it. Those two aspects alone make a difference, and they are part of the Canadian debate.

When we talk about issues that can unite us, does the member agree that these are the types of policies that will enhance Canada's health care system, and that is something that his constituents and my constituents want to see?

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Madam Speaker, I recently came off a by-election campaign and had the opportunity to knock on about 13,000 doors, which I am told is an extraordinarily high number for a candidate. The people at those doors were telling me that they are not happy with the direction the government is taking. They would like to see a change, and that is what Conservatives are going to offer the people of Canada when we have that carbon tax election.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is my first opportunity to address the new member of this place, the member for Toronto—St. Paul's, so congratulations and welcome.

I can see we have a new orator in this place who loves history, as do I. I am particularly pleased that he identified Arthur Currie as one of our great Canadians. The town where I live, Sidney, British Columbia, is where Arthur Currie used to teach school. His ability to go from being a civilian low-ranking, not high-military, officer as he went into the war and to use basic, common-sense skills of building community together to prepare for and to lead the Canadian Armed Forces in some of the key conflicts of World War I goes down in history forever. We do not forget those people who have served this country, and I appreciate the member's drawing our attention to it.

Given we have seen so many recent events in the area he represents of flash flooding and extreme weather events that have cost millions of dollars to Toronto businesses and people, what does he think will have to be done to try to address the climate crisis while we still have time to do so?

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her kind comments.

With the environmental concerns we do have, I would say that we are not living in a bubble inside Canada. We live in a competitive environment. We are starting to impose carbon taxes, for example, on Canadians alone to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. That puts us at a big disadvantage in our economy. The more our economy suffers, the more we are going to put at risk the rest of the social programs we hold dear. That is something we want to avoid.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I would like to acknowledge that we have another settler MP in the House.

What I have heard so far is not a lot of willingness from the Conservatives to talk about experiences of indigenous peoples, including the lack of reference in his intervention regarding indigenous people, indigenous people's rights and the lack of investments that we continue to suffer.

We have great indigenous leaders such as the late Elijah Harper, Meeka Kilabuk and Tagak Curley, who is a great part of Canadian history and who helped make sure that Canada's map was changed forever so that we could have the great territory of Nunavut, which I am so proud to represent in the House.

I wonder if the member can share with us what his party will do to persuade indigenous peoples, because I do not see it yet, that MPs are doing enough to ensure that we are doing better for indigenous peoples in Canada.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Madam Speaker, last Sunday, I was able to spend the day with some indigenous people in my community to welcome the equinox, and it was quite a moving experience and I was glad to be able to do that. As far as what the Conservative Party will carry on, to help the indigenous people of the country, I think our leader said it earlier that it is about giving more autonomy to the indigenous people of Canada and less centralization and motherhood and fatherhood statements from the government.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country.

Let me start by giving two data points. Recently, Bloomberg commissioned a study conducted by Nanos Research. It was a four-week tracking poll ending September 20, and it was on the Canadian consumer confidence index. Canadian consumer confidence has reached a 29-month high. The last time we had this much Canadian consumer confidence was way back in April 2022. The second data point I would like to bring to our notice is the inflation rate. It has now come down to 2%. It is the eighth straight month that inflation is within the target set by the Bank of Canada.

Inflation hit a high way back in June 2022. Obviously, we all felt the pain of that inflation and the resulting interest rates. The inflation basically started during the pandemic and, postpandemic, due to supply chain disruptions, the inflation hit very high. The Bank of Canada had to do its duty to control inflation. It started dramatically raising interest rates. For the first time in the history of Canada, we saw a dramatic, huge rise in interest rates in a very short period of time. It affected all. It affected inflation, interest rates and mortgage payments. It affected all.

We felt the pain. The grocery costs and the grocery bills were high. The fuel costs got high. This created genuine frustration and anger among all Canadians.

It is not surprising that Canadians, now, are maybe opening up and ready to listen to the economic story. The politicians made use of this anger and frustration and amplified it. Not only did politicians amplify it, but also social media and the algorithms amplified it. They amplified this and allowed politicians to seize on the discontent to fuel the anger more. I think some of these people banked their political success on the failure of a Canadian economy. That is not going to be the case. The economy has done well compared to any other G7 country. The economic good news is bad news for a few politicians in Canada.

They advised us. They said that all the spending or the support programs we had launched to help needy Canadians was fuelling inflation further. They advised us to have austerity measures, but we continued to support Canadians in need. We stood firm. We now see inflation back to 2%.

Canada is the best performing economy in the entirety of the G7 countries. IMF recently made a report that said it forecasted that Canada's performance will be the best not only in 2024 but also in 2025, leading among all G7 countries. The world is being reshaped by four major shifts: green transition, artificial intelligence, geopolitics and friendshoring, and changing demographics. We have carefully looked at these four major changes that are reshaping the world, taken measures and made investments that will benefit Canadians today and tomorrow. We are already beginning to see the results.

In the forthcoming months and years, we will see the much more visible positive effects of what we have done so far. Through the mines to mobility strategy, we have seized on the changing transition to the clean economy. We have been investing in everything from the mining of critical minerals to the setting up of mineral processing companies, from battery plants to electrical vehicles manufacturing. We have been doing that. We are already seeing the good effects of that, but they will be much more visible in the coming months and years.

There are certain myths that have been propagated for a long time in Canada. Let me touch upon them.

One myth is that the Canadian federal government is spending high and that the debt is very high. However, we have the smallest deficit-to-GDP ratio amongst all G7 countries. I repeat, it is smallest deficit-to-GDP ratio among all of the G7 countries. Our net debt to GDP is also the lowest among all of the G7 countries. Colleagues need not take our word, or even the IMF's word, but they can take that of the rating companies, which are the final arbitrators in this. Let me quote the statement of Fitch Ratings from just two months back. On July 24, Fitch Ratings said, “Canada's ratings reflect strong governance, high per-capita income and a macroeconomic policy framework that has delivered steady growth and generally low inflation”. Taking a look at every G7 country, at their deficit to GDP, the net debt to GDP, or the ratings, we see that we are the best. That is a fact.

The second myth is that taxes are making Canada uncompetitive. That is very far from the truth. In fact, we have the lowest effective tax rates on new business in, again, all of the G7 countries. If someone goes back and checks the IMF reports or the OECD reports, they will find that the effective tax rate for new business is the lowest in Canada.

The third myth is that the government is driving investments away. Again, this is a myth that has been propagated by politicians. Usually these days, I do not invest in the stock market, but a couple of days back, I just happened to look to see where the stock market is at. Canadian TSX year-to-date gain has reached 14%. In the first nine months, there are 14% returns from the Canadian TSX. I think the budget was on April 16. Since the budget, the stock exchange index has returned more than 10%. I am not saying that that should be the only criteria to measure what Canada is doing for investments.

The second, again, hard cash measurement data I have has to do with foreign direct investment. There is no charity in business. Multinational companies do not invest just for the sake of investing or just to make the Canadian federal government look good. They invest because they see opportunity. Canada has a high rate of foreign direct investment. I think Canada is second or third among all OECD countries. Per capita, the federal direct investment is the best among all G7 countries.

In closing, I quickly want to say that we are not perfect. Are there any economic indicators that we are still lagging behind? Yes, such as productivity, for example. However, the best part of Canada is that we know we have to improve and we are working hard to improve. That is what makes Canada great. I am so proud to be a part of this moment when we are transitioning into a clean economy in a much greater way.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's speech intently, but I noticed that he did not mention some of the things that we need to work on in Canada, such as the two million people who are using food banks, which is the highest number ever. That would be one indication that things are not going as well in this country as they should be. Another would be how high food inflation is in this country, where families are choosing between putting gas in their tank or food in their fridge. The price of gas has gone up. Taxes have gone up. People are taking home less than they have ever made before.

My question to the member is, if things are so good in Canada, why do so many Canadians have it so bad? If his government is doing so well, why are Canadian people not doing so well?

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, things were really tough, and I am the first person to agree. More people are going to a food bank, which is also a fact. As I said, after the pandemic, inflation shot up, interest rates shot up and mortgage payments shot up. Even working families found it hard. However, we did provide support to all those in need, and we continue to do so.

Things are changing. The fact is that inflation has come down to 2%, and the interest rates have fallen to 4.25%. The Bank of Canada is meeting next on October 23. It is not a question of whether the interest rate will reduce further, but a question of whether the Bank of Canada is going to reduce it by 0.25% or 0.5%. The market economists are forecasting that the interest rate will come down to 3% by July 2025.

Yes, we have had this pain. Canadians felt the pain. We all felt the pain, but now things are changing, and they are changing for the good.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is important to talk about the good that we have done. Canada is not all misery, devastation and destruction. Some things are going well.

That being said, there are other things that are not going so well. It is important to talk about those things too. That is one of the opposition's main jobs, but the government also has to acknowledge problem areas. If we ignore what is not going well, then we are ignoring what needs to be improved. There are a lot of things that need to be improved, including border management, whether in terms of immigration or the management of goods crossing the border. I am talking in particular about illegal weapons.

I would like to know what the government actually intends to do on the ground to ensure that illegal weapons can no longer cross the border and so that Canada can restore its good reputation in this regard.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I agree with the hon. member that the government, the ruling party, has to also work with the opposition parties to see Canada become strong again economically.

The member touched on immigration. I agree that there were some issues with immigration. The numbers went up too dramatically in too short a period of time. We have taken action to make sure to rationalize it and bring it down to a manageable level so that the pressure that was created on our system, on our society, is addressed.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, when the Liberals inherited the government from the Conservatives some years ago, the conditions that indigenous peoples were in were quite deplorable, and they have not improved that much since the Liberal government was elected.

I will give a basic example of how corporate greed is being supported by this Liberal government. The Liberals keep the nutrition north program going, which is a program that supports corporate greed by allowing the CEO of the North West Company to earn $3.91 million in salary and benefits in one year while Nunavummiut are suffering in poverty.

I wonder if the member can share with us how the Liberal government will do better for indigenous peoples and how the Liberal government will do better for Nunavummiut so that corporate greed ends with this government.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, for the indigenous people in Canada, I am so proud of the things that our government has done since we came to power in 2015. In the history of Canada, no government has taken the kind of actions that we have taken, the kind of programs that we have launched, to support indigenous people.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House this evening to speak to the motion before the House today. It is a pleasure and a privilege every day to represent the people of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country. I am grateful to be in the House, to work on matters and to do the business of the nation. This is why it is a little unfortunate that, for the second time this week, we are basically debating the same motion. There are many issues we could be discussing today and parts of the business of government that we could be looking into. I think it is unfortunate that we are again debating a motion from the Conservative Party to stop our work as parliamentarians.

Today, I want to comment on the motion before us and the common slogans we hear from the Conservatives. I want to set the record straight about what their slogans really mean. I am going to go through them one by one.

When Conservatives say that we should axe the tax, they are really talking about axing the facts. I want to get into this because we have seen a disproportionate amount of time of the House spent talking about the carbon tax, and the Conservatives consistently misrepresent what this is. It is a measure that is going to contribute 40% of Canada's emissions reductions. It is also an affordability measure because 80% of Canadians get more money back with the rebate than they end up paying into it. This is particularly so for low-to-modest income Canadians, who get a disproportionate amount when we consider the costs and benefits. However, the Conservatives do not like these facts or the fact that 300 economists have confirmed this, because they like to use alternative facts.

What is worse is that Conservatives also plan on proposing to get rid of the industrial carbon pricing system, which would let the biggest polluters off for free. There are, of course, other ways to reduce emissions, which cost more and take many more years to roll out. However, that is actually what they want. What do they say will happen in place? They say that we will have technology, not taxes. However, the only technology they talk about has not been proven to work right now or is not going to be available for many years. We can think of such things as wide-scale applications of carbon capture and small modular reactors for nuclear. We do not hear them talk about renewable energy or anything that is able to reduce emissions in the short term. We can look at what their cousins in Alberta have done, when they did everything they could to cancel a renewable energy industry that was the envy of the country. In the process, they chased away billions of dollars of investment. Their real plan is to distract by talking about the carbon tax, to delay more action and to dismiss the idea that we need to take real action to safeguard our climate and our future.

This should not be surprising; it is the modus operandi of Conservatives. When they were last in power, they did quite a bit of work to axe the facts by doing such things as ending the long-form census and reducing funding for Stats Canada. Without any notice, through an omnibus legislation, they gutted the Fisheries Act and the Environmental Assessment Act. They also muzzled scientists so that they could not speak to the public about any of the science that they were doing, especially on climate change. We also know that they did their best to declare that environmental NGOs were violent criminal groups so that they could use the RCMP to monitor them and weaponize the CRA to go after their charitable status. This was done because they want to be able to base government decisions on slogans and ideology rather than on science and evidence. We know this is real because Conservatives do not believe that climate change is real or that immediate action is required to address it.

They also say that they plan to build homes, but what they are actually proposing is to block homes. When the Conservatives were last in power, housing construction was as low as 150,000 units in a year, a number that we nearly doubled in 2022. When the Leader of the Opposition was in charge of the housing file, a measly six affordable units were built across the country. Throughout this time, 800,000 affordable units were lost because he does not believe in things like cooperative housing, which he refers to as Soviet-style housing. At this time, they completely abdicated all responsibility for getting housing built and downloaded it to the provinces and municipalities. We are still paying the price for that today.

To give some perspective, in my riding alone in the last five years, during which I have had the pleasure of serving as representative, the government has supported over 1,000 below-market units that have been constructed. We have been steadily working with municipalities to support them to speed up the permitting process, and we see provinces like British Columbia that are doing that work as well.

What is the leader of the official opposition's strategy to build the homes? He wants to raise taxes on apartments and cut funding for programs that are getting housing built. Rather than work with municipalities, he and his B.C. Conservative brethren plan to scrap policies that are getting gentle density going in cities and restrict infrastructure funding. I do not understand the magical thinking that if we get rid of gentle density, we will get more housing, but maybe the Conservatives' plan is to do more things like paving over the greenbelt.

Trying to bully municipalities into getting housing built under these restrictions, by saying they would restrict infrastructure funding, does not actually mean that much, considering the amount of funding the Conservatives provided for infrastructure, which, among other things, was 13 times less than the amount of funding for transit we have provided.

The other thing the Conservatives like to talk about is fixing the budget, but their history has really been about gutting the budget. The Conservatives like to think of themselves as good stewards of the public finances, but the reality is that their last two administrations in office completely exploded the budget. The Conservatives racked up more debt than all previous prime ministers combined. The only balanced budget that the Harper government ran was a few months after it won office in 2006, when it inherited surpluses. It desperately and unsuccessfully tried to balance the budget in 2015 by selling off GM stock for a song.

Let us talk about what the Conservatives plan to do with the budget. They cut services before. They cut military spending to a record low, and they provided huge giveaways to some of the most wealthy people in the country. The hope of the Conservative ideology of trickle-down economics, or trumped-up economics, is that by cutting services and cutting taxes, they would massively grow the economy. However, again the facts just do not bear that out. That is probably why they want some alternative facts to the reality that in the last year of when the Conservatives were in office, GDP dropped almost 14%.

What are the Conservatives planning to do now? They are planning to cut child care programs, end the dental care program that is already providing dental insurance for 750,000 Canadians, end programs that are getting housing built right across the country and end programs that are positioning Canada's economy to thrive in a low-carbon future.

The last part of the Conservatives' plan is that they say they are going to stop the crime. However, I would more appropriately refer to the plan as ditching the charter. They want to make us think that we are experiencing some massive crime wave, that crime is at an all-time high, but in fact when we look at the data, we see that the crime rate is actually lower than it was in many years when the Conservatives were in office.

The Conservatives believe that if they fearmonger, people will not pay attention to the facts. What did the Conservatives do in the past? They said that by taking tough-on-crime measures, by passing legislation that involved very long mandatory minimum sentences, they were able to keep people safe. In practice, there was just an overincarceration of people in many minority groups in Canada, and the courts threw the legislation out for being incompatible with the charter.

On top of that, the Conservatives gutted funding for the RCMP, the CBSA and crime prevention programs, and they disbanded the Integrated Proceeds of Crime Section, which was tackling money laundering. These things, all together, put us in a very difficult position, and crimes like money laundering have flourished since then. One thing that all Canadians should be very concerned about is that the leader of the official opposition is openly saying that he plans to sidestep the charter and invoke the notwithstanding clause.

When we look at what the Conservatives actually intend to do compared to what they are saying, we see what their hidden agenda is. Their plan for project 2025 is not one that Canadians want. Canadians want an economy that works for everyone, where the least fortunate people are supported, and that we can build for a prosperous future and tackle the challenges we have today. That is why I will be voting against the motion.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate that my fellow British Columbian came to this place to debate a very serious issue. However, I have to say that, hearing the cartoon talking points coming out of the Liberal Party, it has totally lost all reality.

I am just going to address one small sliver here. The Leader of the Canada's Conservative Party has publicly responded to the Supreme Court's decision that someone who walked into a Quebec mosque and shot innocent men, women and children, who were just there praising their God in their way, is allowed to serve their punishment concurrently instead of consecutively. Conservatives believe that is the wrong message to be sharing, that the lives of those individuals are somehow less. We stand for proper justice in this country and to have consecutive sentences for such barbaric acts as shooting people in a mosque.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

The individual my hon. colleague referred to is in prison for life. He is not walking around on our streets.