Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise in this House. I suspect members opposite knew I had the first late show this evening, and that is why so many of them are still here, which we are not used to seeing in Adjournment Proceedings. I am very grateful for that.
I note that the question I am asking of the government comes on the heels of this House's passage of what I will say is a very dangerous budget for Canada and for Canadians. It is a budget that cements a $78-billion deficit, a budget that signs Canada up to $321 billion more in new debt over the coming years and a budget that will allow $55 billion to be spent this year on debt interest alone. That is more than the government spends on health transfers going to provinces. That is more than the government spends on child tax incentives. That is more than Canada collects in GST.
When I bring that up, it is to say that these numbers have meaning. Canada's fiscal situation is dire after 10 years of mismanagement by the Liberal government. This is something we have heard warnings of. We have the fastest-shrinking economy in the G7. The deficit of $78 billion is one that the Liberal government and the Prime Minister said would not exist, because he promised a deficit of no more than $62 billion.
The reason this is so important is that Canadians could not afford to run their own household budgets the way the government is running Canada's budget. In fact, I do not think the Prime Minister would have had the deal he did at Brookfield if he had run Brookfield the way he is now running Canada and Canada's books. Where is the master banker we were promised? Where is the master financier, the guy who can move at the speed of crisis? Where is that Prime Minister?
The question I asked in this House a few weeks ago and on which I rise again today has to do with the auto sector specifically. My riding of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South has a great many employees who have been affected by a number of plant closures over recent weeks. Some are from the CAMI plant in the neighbouring riding of Oxford, and some are vendors and suppliers to CAMI around the region, including in my riding, where hundreds of workers, well over 1,200, have been put directly at economic risk, their livelihoods terminated because of the government's failure to fulfill a promise that it made, the key promise by the Prime Minister to stand up for the auto sector.
There has been, from the Liberal government, a fair bit in the way of revisionism. When we called out what the Prime Minister said, which is that he would get a deal with the United States, a deal with Donald Trump, by July, the Liberals said that he did not really mean that. He meant that he would work toward it. It was not really a deadline; it was a guideline. Well, for Canadians who put their trust in the Prime Minister to secure an economic future for this country, that is a broken promise.
In this budget, we do not have anything resembling a plan that will protect auto workers and will protect manufacturing jobs in my region and across the country. This budget will only put Canadians at risk of having to spend more in debt interest and having to deal with more inflation because of runaway debt and deficit spending, with no plan to secure our jobs and secure an economic future for our country.
Will the Prime Minister say once and for all that the Liberals have a plan to protect the auto sector and reveal what it is?