Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Huron—Bruce.
I am pleased to rise today on our opposition day motion that “the House call on the Liberal government to stop plagiarizing...Trudeau's failed policies and recognize that deficits drive investment and jobs down and the cost of living up.” I will start with a quote from Mr. Milton Friedman, who said, “Keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending, because that’s the true tax…If you’re not paying for it in the form of explicit taxes, you’re paying for it indirectly in the form of inflation or in the form of borrowing.”
That is dead-on for what is happening right now, just as it was during the past 10 years with the same Liberal government. It is not a different Liberal government. It is not a new government; it is the same Liberal government, the same tax-and-spend Liberal government. In 2015, the former prime minister was well known for responding to a question about his cabinet make-up, saying it was “because it's 2015”. However, that is what the government seems to be saying right now about its continual spending and out-of-control deficits, that it is because it is 2025.
I say that because it is the same term and the same Liberal government. There is no new plan. It is the same tired cabinet with the same old finance minister, who will not answer what the deficit will be. Although the minister was asked repeatedly at committee what the deficit would be, we did not get a response, which Canadians deserve to hear. Instead, he told Canadians they “should rejoice” at our fiscal situation, yes, rejoice at rising unemployment, rejoice at the highest youth unemployment in decades, rejoice at the doubling of the deficits.
The Minister of Finance is telling Canadians they should be happy with what is going on. They should rejoice at our fiscal situation, rejoice that the interest on the Liberal debt is going to be $82 billion a year by 2030. Put in perspective, that is about $3,000 out of their pockets for every taxpayer right off the bat, just for interest on the Liberal debt. They should rejoice at the fact that the last two years for GDP per capita, per person economic growth in Canada, shrunk by almost 3%.
“Canadians should rejoice” about being poorer, according to the Minister of Finance, and they should rejoice over the fact that the last five years, which coincide with the five years that the current Prime Minister was advising the Liberal government on economic policy, has been the worst five-year per capita GDP growth since the Great Depression. Think about that. It was worse than the five years covering the 2008-09 economic crash. Yes, we should rejoice, the same as the old finance minister who got demoted and is now off being a special envoy somewhere.
We should be happy. We have never had it so good. Every 30-year-old who is living in their mom's basement because they cannot afford to move out should make sure to rejoice and thank the Liberal government, as it says we should do. There are two million Canadians lining up every single month at food banks. One out of every 20 Canadians in the entire country is lining up at a food bank. They should take time, while they are lining, up to rejoice, as the finance minister said.
Mortgage delinquencies have almost tripled in parts of the country in the last two years. As people are packing up their home because they cannot afford it anymore, moving their things into a moving van to maybe move into their parents' basement or out on the street, I hope they will take the time to do as the finance minister suggested and enjoy the good times, rejoice and be thankful for the great economic times the Liberals are delivering.
There are a lot of things I can agree with the government on, and I know I have voted on some items, but there is a lot I disagree with. That is fine; we can disagree. I just want the government to be truthful to Canadians. Government members should not have sat here in the House for years, defending the carbon tax and telling Conservatives that we are climate deniers or that we only want to see the world burn if we want to take our kids on a summer vacation.
They should not not sit here and tell Canadians that their carbon tax is going to prevent forest fires or flooding. They should be honest with Canadians. We saw what the government did for years: It went after everyone who dared go after its dogma of the carbon tax. What happened the second it became unpopular? Liberals patted themselves on the back for cancelling the carbon tax.
A year ago, if someone was against the carbon tax, the old health minister, Mark Holland, would say that Canadians were going to burn the world down if they took their kids on a summer drive. The Liberals now say to thank them for getting rid of the carbon tax. The Liberals are now pretending they are pro-oil, pro-Alberta or pro-energy. They sit here and say that there are no proponents for new pipelines, but at the same time, they refuse to repeal Bill C-69, the “no new pipelines” bill. They refuse to repeal Bill C-48, which bans tankers from taking Alberta oil up the B.C. coast but of course still allows U.S. tankers there.
They refuse to repeal the emissions and production cap that the Conference Board of Canada says will cost over 100,000 jobs in Canada. The Liberals should be honest; they should not sit here and say, “We love oil and gas. If only we had a proponent to build a pipeline.”
Liberals are all for oil as long as it stays politely in the ground, it seems. Their position regarding oil and gas is very much like saying that I will push a person down the stairs but also make sure someone pats me on the back for calling 911 to help that person afterward. That is what they seem to be doing with oil and gas: saying that we will be an energy superpower and that we will develop oil and gas but keep Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and the production cap, and that it will not be the Liberals' fault that no one steps up from the private sector.
The capital gains tax is another example. I just want the government to be honest. We heard the old finance minister say, basically, that Canadians are going to be living behind gated communities to keep out lower-income people who want to burn down their homes unless we have the capital gains tax. She stated, “[We] could finance [it] by taking on more debt. But that would place an unfair burden on our younger generations”, yet the Liberals are going to add $60 billion of debt this year alone. She then urged Canadians to mark politicians who voted against the capital gains tax increase.
The current finance minister said that the “capital gains tax change [will] help Canadians” and that the Liberals “will fight for Canadians...will fight for the middle class.” He went on to ask whether members could believe that the Conservatives voted against the capital gains tax and tax fairness. The Liberals were going to increase investment in Canada, because their new capital gains tax would ask the wealthiest to pay a bit more to fund investments.
Move ahead a couple of months, and the finance minister, the same one who says we should rejoice at rising unemployment, that auto workers, I guess, should rejoice that we are going to have a permanent export tax on cars, permanent tariffs that are going to cause the industry to collapse, says that by tackling the capital gains tax, we are supporting builders, investment and entrepreneurs.
Is there any reason we doubt the Liberals when they say they are going to build the fastest-growing economy in the G7, while at the same time they bring in massive deficits that are going to drive out private sector investments? Their policies are causing massive, record increases to the use of food banks. Is there any reason no one trusts the Liberals? Everything was all-in on the carbon tax and the capital gains tax. All the borrowing they were going to do was going to drive investment into Canada, yet under the Liberals, half a trillion dollars in net investment has fled the country, with the Prime Minister's promising that another trillion dollars will flee Canada into the U.S. under their watch.
It is clear that we need a change. It is clear that the government has to end its Trudeau-era policies and get real with Canadians. It has to be honest with Canadians, be upfront and change its ways before it is too late.