Mr. Speaker, to start, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Kitchener South—Hespeler.
I am pleased to rise, once again, to speak to the budget. It is nice to actually see the budget finally here after a 19-month delay. That is almost unprecedented, but of course we saw the Liberals refuse to actually table a budget one year during COVID, so I guess they are just keeping to their habits. Has the 19-month wait been worth it? The answer is clearly no.
First of all, I have to note just how crass and cynical the government is to actually name the budget after the Liberal campaign platform “Canada Strong”. I think the government wants to be non-partisan. It should maybe find its own slogan.
In my view, the government always manages to set low expectations, and it always manages to achieve them. On September 17, the Prime Minister, in the House, stated, “We are going to have a declining level of debt.” Those were his exact words.
What did the budget deliver? On the top line is a deficit of $78.3 billion for this year, which is $40 billion more than delivered last year. Public accounts just came out showing a deficit last year of $36.3 billion. What is remarkable is that it is actually lower than what was forecast under the Trudeau government. Under the current government, not so much. The famed banker is delivering worse results than the drama teacher. Let that sink in.
There is $322 billion of new debt on the short time horizon of this budget, out to 2030, with $160 billion more than projected in the fall economic statement under the previous government. This is the same government that the former finance minister quit due to the costly spending and the need, as she said, to keep the powder dry. She quit over a lower deficit and debt numbers to keep the powder dry, but this government came through and steamrolled over that with $168 billion on top.
We have to ask, how much worse does it have to be to end up with deficit numbers that are 200% worse than those of the famed Trudeau government? It was famous, of course, for its profligate spending patterns. That happened despite an increase in tax revenue of over 97% over the time span of the current government.
Tax revenues are doubling, yet somehow the government is still managing to spend every penny of that and almost a third of $1 trillion more. There will be $329 billion of interest on this Liberal debt over the next five years. That is almost a third of $1 trillion gone to interest. That is 10% more that we are going to spend on interest than on health care transfers to the province, despite record lineups and record wait-lists for care at hospitals. People cannot find a doctor, but under the government, we are spending 10% more on interest than we are on health care transfers. That is 100% more than we are actually spending on the child benefit.
The government is placing a higher priority on spending and on paying interest to Bay Street bankers than on providing money to families, 100% more. It is more than we are going to spend on new subs, the over-budget frigate program, which is about $80 billion over budget, and F-35s. We are still going to spend more on interest than all those needed items on defence.
To put it further into perspective, the GST is forecasted in 2029 to be $62.7 billion, which is from what is collected each time someone goes out to buy a bag of chips, as I like to do because I am addicted to chips, or go to a restaurant, buy beer or buy a new car. There will be $62.7 billion to be collected in GST, but the interest in 2029-30, at the end of this budget, is projected to be $76.1 billion. The GST would have to increase by 20% just to pay the interest, not to pay for any health care, border security, RCMP or defence. That is just to cover the interest on the Liberal debt. In 2029-30, that will mean that 13%, or almost $1 out of every $7, of what is collected by the government, as taxpayers will be paying not only the GST but also income tax and corporate tax, will be for just the interest.
I think about how, if we were running a business like that, before we even opened the doors, 13% of the income would just be wiped out before we would provide any services. That is the Liberal record, and that is what this budget is calling for.
What would Canadians get for all this spending? What would they get for $76 billion of interest payments? What would they get with a third of $1 trillion more in spending? They would get an average growth over the next five years of 1.26% GDP growth. It would be a third of $1 trillion in added debt just for 1.26% growth. The OECD predicts Canada will have the lowest per person growth for its economy from 2020 to 2030 and then from 2030 to 2060, so basically out to 2060.
I mention the 2020 to 2030 part as well because 2020 is about the time the current Prime Minister started advising the Liberal government as a financial adviser. It would be billions and billions of added debt sinking the next generation with interest payments and debt for 1.26% growth and the slowest growth of economy per capita in the OECD.
What else has all this spending gotten us? We have the highest consumer debt per person in the G7. It is 80% higher per person than in the U.S. There are two million Canadians every month at a food bank. That is a result of the Liberal government. With all this spending, it has achieved two million people a month at food banks. We have a rise in urban violent crime in 19 out of 20 of our largest cities, the most unaffordable housing-to-income index in the G7 and a bloated bureaucracy that failed to achieve 47% of its goals last year.
Hidden on the same day the budget came out were the departmental results, where the Treasury Board puts out what the government projected for its plans and goals and what it achieved. The government failed on 47% of its goals. There are tens of thousands more employees in the bureaucracy, and over $70 billion spent, and it failed on 47% of its goals.
We have youth unemployment of 14.1%, and I want to quote from the budget. This is from the Liberals' own budget: “The unemployment rate is projected to remain elevated over the forecast horizon”. The forecast horizon in the budget goes out five years. The government is saying that, despite all its rhetoric, unemployment is going to remain elevated for the next five years. We have record spending and record debt, and in return we get little growth, little help for unemployment and little help for housing.
What would help would be to approve a pipeline. It is a 400-page budget, and the word “pipeline” is mentioned once, hidden in a bit about carbon capture. The best way this country can improve revenues, improve wealth and improve our productivity is to approve a pipeline.
The omnibus budget has about 75 legislative items it needs to change. There is nothing in there about repealing Bill C-48, the Canadian tanker ban off the B.C. coast. We allow American tankers, but not Alberta oil. There is no repeal of Bill C-69. There is no repeal of the production cap. There is no growth. Instead, we get another bureaucracy for major projects.
To finish, I just want to quote from Trevor Tombe, the famous economist. He says that this budget has a big gap between rhetoric and reality. He says, “Canada would benefit from a credible and sustainable fiscal strategy. Unfortunately, this platform takes us further from that goal.”
This budget would be bad for Canada, and that is why I will not be supporting it.
