Madam Speaker, I think that for the rest of my speech, there will be a little less applause from one side of the House.
This Liberal Prime Minister is going to be remembered as the leader of the most expensive government in Canadian history. Every dollar he spends and every dollar he says he is going to spend in his budget, which forecasts a $78-billion deficit, has to come from somewhere. It comes out of the pocket of a mother who works at a grocery store and pays her taxes. It comes out of the pocket of a welder in Thetford Mines who looks at his paycheque and wonders why he has so little money left over. It comes out of the pocket of a student who goes out to eat once in a while and, when he sees the taxes on his restaurant bill, thinks to himself that next time, he will just stay home and eat noodles.
All the money the government spends comes out of the pockets of hard-working Canadians. It is not imaginary money. It is not money that does not exist. It is money that someone is one day going to have to pay. After the latest Liberal budget, Canada is at a point where the money currently being spent comes not only from the mother or the welder or the student. It is money that will have to be paid by their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, and even their great-great-grandchildren. This is worrying for the future.
It is no wonder that, when young people look at how their money is being spent here in Ottawa, they really wonder where they stand. Young people have lost hope of one day having their own home and their own land. Housing is being built in Thetford Mines. A lot of housing is being built, but hardly any houses are being built. That is not normal. Back in my day, when I was the mayor of Thetford Mines—I can say that, now—we wanted to have a lot of residential construction. It meant that a lot of young families could settle down, buy a home and stay there for a long time. Now, young people can only hope to have housing they will be able to afford. That is a big difference.
We presented the government with a simple solution. We promised to support the budget on the condition that it be an affordable budget that makes life affordable for everyone, from mothers to welders to young students, in short for all Canadians. Unfortunately, that is not the budget we got. The Prime Minister, who claims to be different but is following in the footsteps of the previous prime minister, promised to spend less, but will run a deficit of $80 billion. One has to wonder what kind of world the Prime Minister lives in or what planet he lives on. One has to wonder who his friends are and who he shares his meals with every week, failing to realize that every dollar he spends is a dollar that was earned by a hard-working taxpayer. It is money earned by workers who sell fruits and vegetables or weld parts that we manufacture and are currently trying to sell to Americans, without being able to sell them.
Adding fuel to the inflationary fire, as he is doing with this spending, will make life even more difficult for all Canadians. The cost of this Liberal budget will further drive up the price of food, housing and everything Canadians need. In his speeches, the Prime Minister would have us believe that Canada is in a strong fiscal position.
That is not the impression I have. I spent a week in my riding. I went to Thetford Mines, Plessisville and Lotbinière. I covered a large area, over many regions. When I went to the St. Vincent de Paul Society thrift shop in Black Lake, I was told that there has been a 20% increase in customers in recent months because people can no longer afford to buy clothes and can no longer afford to buy winter clothes at department stores. I definitely do not get the impression that Canadians and the people in my community are in a solid financial situation.
Families are struggling to make ends meet. As I mentioned earlier, it has become virtually impossible for young people to become homeowners. We hear that 2.2 million Canadians line up at food banks every month, and in Quebec, that number is 600,000. That is not a solid financial situation. I would call it a precarious financial situation for Canadians. Why did the Prime Minister break his promise to spend less? Unfortunately, that means that all Canadians will pay more.
There is something the Prime Minister does not seem to understand. I think that the cost of this budget to all Canadians will mean that, unfortunately, once again, more and more young people will lose interest in politics and their future and will disengage instead of wanting to bring about change. Fortunately, there are still people in the House who believe that the money that passes through our hands and that we must decide how to use does not belong to us, but to Canadians. We must make decisions so that people have more money in their pockets, not less.
In just a few months, the cost of strawberries has gone up by 25%. Beef is up 25%. Coffee is up 20%. Chicken is up 17%. When people go grocery shopping, they realize that it is unaffordable and that there are fewer nutritious items in their baskets. They turn to cheaper, less nutritious foods that they can afford to ensure that they can put at least one meal on the table every day.
This is the new Prime Minister's Canada. This is Canada after 10 years under the Liberals. I am not the only one saying this. Several commentators and analysts in Quebec have criticized this budget. I will quote a few.
A La Presse article entitled “This is not a ‘generational budget’” said, “At $78 billion this year, the deficit is already staggering. Yet, over five years, the Carney government will basically double the accumulated deficit, which will go from $154 billion to $321 billion. All of the fiscal anchors established under the Trudeau government have vanished. The government said that it would keep the deficit under 1% of the GDP, but it has failed to do so, and today, the deficit is at 2.5% of the GDP. The government also said that it wanted to keep the debt-to-GDP ratio on a downward track, but it has also failed in that regard. In four years, the debt-to-GDP ratio will be at 43%, when the hope was to reduce it to 39.5%.”
In an article about how the budget does not change much for people's finances, Le Soleil quoted Restaurants Canada when it said, “We are disappointed that the budget doesn't include sufficient measures to improve everyday affordability for Canadians, including Restaurants Canada's ask to exempt all food from GST.”
According to an article in Le Journal de Québec, “[The Liberal Prime Minister] has achieved the impossible: spending more than Trudeau.” Honestly, I did not think that was possible, but that is exactly what we saw when the budget was presented. To quote journalist Michel Girard, “Mark Carney's new Liberal government is spending even more than Justin Trudeau's did.... It works out to $168 billion more than the five deficits the previous Trudeau government had planned for the same five fiscal years.”
When people look at these numbers, I think they realize that the government has simply missed the mark when it comes to presenting an affordable budget that will ensure an affordable life. I see that I am out of time. I could have talked about this a lot more, but I will stop there. I will now take questions from my colleagues.