Debates of Nov. 24th, 2025

Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Madam Speaker, what I took from my hon. colleague's speech was the focus on investment in our country versus expenses. He used mortgages as an example and how mortgages can be seen as an expense. Certainly, they are one of the largest investments in a Canadian's life.

We hear on a regular basis from across the aisle about things like the CPP, the Canada pension plan, being a tax or a bill. How do we combat that misinformation and disinformation when we think about young people in our country being told that things like the Canada pension plan are a tax, rather than an investment in their own future?

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is an excellent point. The reality is that finance is much more nuanced than that. Conversations about the size of a spend entirely miss the point if we are not talking about what is being spent.

In the case of the CPP, which is the example that was put in front of me, it is not even a government investment; it is an investment made on behalf of all Canadians in their future. It has created one of the largest pools of capital in the western world and has been a great source of strength for this country.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, when Canadians saw the budget that was presented to Canada, I think they could have used two words to describe it: sticker shock. It is sticker shock because of the $78 billion presented as the deficit. This is, of course, $16 billion more than the Prime Minister promised during the campaign. It is double what the last prime minister, Justin Trudeau, spent, and he spent more than all prime ministers combined. It is also the most this country has ever spent outside of the pandemic years.

Let us go through some more numbers. There is over $90 billion of new spending. The Liberals have called these generational investments, but they are in fact generational debt. I will talk a bit about what this budget means for those who will have to pay for it later. What I mean by generational debt is the Liberal government would add more than $320 billion of federal debt over the next five years and the cycle of the budget. Again, that is more than what Justin Trudeau was going to add, because he was at about $154 billion.

The budget would add $10 million of debt every hour. That matters, because like any other debt Canadians incur, they pay interest on that debt. We would pay $55 billion just to service that debt every single year. That is not money that would be going to doctors, hospitals or nurses. In fact, it is more than the government transfers to the provinces for health care. It is also the amount the government collects in the GST. This means that every dollar collected in sales tax by the federal government would not go to doctors, hospitals or nurses, but to bankers to service that debt.

The weak economic performance in this budget should alarm Canadians more than just the sticker shock. It has real GDP growth in 2025 at 1.1%, which is the second-lowest in the G7, and unemployment averages at 6.4% over the coming years. The industrial carbon tax would remain in place and will get higher.

This should all be concerning, but what is most concerning about this budget is that it tells a story of two different Canadas that would be created. There would be those who work for wages and see nothing at all in relief in this budget, and those who invest for income. Those two groups have been targeted very differently. The problem is that the first group, those who go to work every single day and collect a paycheque, would not see anything in this budget, and it is concerning.

This country has an overwhelming amount of potential, but it seems that at every turn over the last 10 years, that potential has been squandered. We have everything the world wants, and we should be the richest country in the world, but we have a government that is spending away our future on a credit card with very little to show for it.

We have a federal bureaucracy that has grown by 99,000 workers over the last 10 years, and now we have a government that cannot say where workforce reductions will come from. By the way, none of our services have ever gotten better. In fact, people wait longer for services. People wait on the phone with the CRA only to maybe get somebody, and if they get somebody, 80% of answers have been found to be incorrect. It takes longer to get a passport. It takes longer to reach anybody on the phone, yet the public service has grown and the services have gotten worse. That is what we would end up paying for in this budget.

Let us talk more about the tale of two Canadas. If a person draws their income from a portfolio, this budget might have a few things for them. It has some of the good ideas that we brought forward in the last election campaign, although it does not go far enough.

We talk about resource development. The government has been beating its chest about a pipeline announcement that will come to the table at some point, whether in six days, six weeks or maybe not at all. In case it does come, because the Premier of Alberta and the news media are talking about it like it is a done deal, this is a government that has invested in more bureaucracy rather than just going ahead and getting out of its own way. In order to build a pipeline in this country, we have to get rid of things like a shipping ban off the west coast.

We would applaud the government if it came out and said what it was going to do. We would have to get rid of an oil and gas cap in order for anything to be filled in that pipeline and to take it somewhere, such as tidewater, eventually, where there is still a shipping ban. We would have to reduce the industrial carbon tax, or at least make sure that this particular project does not have that in the way, just like LNG Canada.

All these things need to happen in order for a pipeline to get built. All these things probably will eventually happen while members of the party opposite drag their feet, kicking and screaming. However, it is the Prime Minister who sabotaged all that during his tenure as an adviser to the Liberal government. When the former prime minister cancelled the 2016 pipeline, or when he got in the way of it being built, frankly, and put in that shipping ban, it was the current Prime Minister who cheered him on from the sidelines. People can read about it in his very own book. When I talk about the budget and squandering its potential, these are the things I mean.

This country has the smartest people in the world. We have enough food to feed ourselves and the rest of the world. Instead, there are two million people lined up at food banks. Four million people are going to use a food bank in Canada, and the government wants to be thanked for introducing a food program. That is always the government's answer: Create more bureaucracy. When it cannot get a project built, it announces a project management office that will shuffle papers and eventually give an approval for something that has already been approved, as in the case of one pipeline. If it causes food inflation to soar with its hidden taxes, like an industrial carbon tax that raises the tax on producers, a packaging tax that raises the tax on the purchasers of food or any of the other hidden food taxes, it comes in with a big government program to ensure Canadians will thank them, while two million people are still in the food bank line and while food costs 40% more here than it does in the U.S. It is always about centralization. It is always about making sure we thank the government for bringing in another program to get rid of the problems the government itself has caused over the last 10 years.

That is the tale of the two Canadas. Those who work for a living are constantly trying to get further with less. An inflationary budget that spends $78 billion is going to ensure that it gets worse, not better. Today, we have nine out of 10 young Canadians not believing they will ever buy a home. The government's answer to that was to create yet another housing bureaucracy, the fourth, to try to get houses built when the first three did not work. The government dumped $13 billion into yet another government project.

Canadians who work every single day for wages are wondering what the heck is in this budget for them and when they are going to see some reprieve. We have a lessening standard of living in this country. The fear we have is that young people will just get used to this idea. They will get used to the idea that they cannot afford a good meal, that they cannot afford to purchase a home and that they cannot afford a good-quality life in what should be the richest country in the world. It was not like this 10 years ago.

This budget does nothing to alleviate the pain of those who go to work every single day and who are looking to the government for answers. It has provided none for those people. That is why the Conservatives cannot and will not support $78 billion of new inflationary spending that will raise taxes and inflation on every single Canadian in every single part of their life.

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

Madam Speaker, suffice it to say that I disagree with virtually everything the member opposite has said. Look at the national budget that we brought forward. It has received a wide spectrum of support in virtually every region. I believe even Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, wanted to see this particular budget passed. We have a prime minister who has been working with provinces, indigenous leaders and so many other stakeholders to build a stronger, healthier Canada with major projects and to invest in Canadians and so forth, yet all we hear from the Conservative Party is negativity. That is it.

My advice to the member opposite and the Conservative caucus as a whole is that Canada is not broken. Canada is still the very best country in the world to call home. That is what we continue to work for on the government benches: to build the strongest, healthiest economy in the G7. That is our goal. We will achieve that goal.

That was more of a comment than an actual question.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, it seems as if there is always a comment from that member.

I said in the House that Canada has the utmost potential. We have the smartest people in the world, the resources everybody wants and enough food to feed the world, but we are squandering that every single day through higher deficits, higher inflation and higher taxes. We have red tape in the way of building homes, mines, factories and pipelines.

We simply want to see an end to the inflationary deficit. We want to see the cutting of taxes for everyone, and a government that rewards hard work and that will restore affordability for every single Canadian. I know that is not too much to ask, and I know the member opposite understands the value of an opposition regarding an unchecked prime minister.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I find it interesting to hear my colleague talk about the consequences this budget will have on taxpayers.

Is it normal for the federal government to invest public money to purchase a pipeline, as it did with Trans Mountain? Elsewhere in the budget, tens of billions of dollars is being paid out in subsidies. The forestry industry is basically being ignored in this budget, yet tens of billions of dollars are being poured into the oil and gas industry once again.

Is it normal to invest public money in the oil sands, in oil and gas?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, we would not have to do that if the government just got out of its own way and reduced impediments to resource development in this country, approved projects in such a way that private sector proponents would want to invest here, lifted the oil and gas cap, stopped the shipping ban and lowered the industrial carbon tax so that it makes sense or, since it is going to do so on this project, stopped it from even being charged on the project when it is announced.

We are going to applaud the government on announcing a pipeline, but we are not sure if everybody on that side agrees.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member is as perplexed as I am right now about the comment the Prime Minister made when asked if he had been in communication with Donald Trump. He said, “Who cares?” He said that there is no “burning issue”, but 75% to 80% of our trade is with the States, mills are closing down and the automobile sector in British Columbia is losing jobs.

I wonder if the member could comment on the Prime Minister's nonchalance.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, for all those who are watching, the Prime Minister ran an election predicated on the biggest impediment to Canada's growing economy: U.S. trade tariffs. We heard him say that he does not care.

I want those who are watching at home to know that Conservatives care. The Conservatives care about the job losses in the auto sector from Windsor to Oshawa and everywhere in between. They care about the tariffs that have now tripled on steel and aluminum. They care about the jobs in the forestry sector. There is one party in the House that cares, and that is the Conservative Party. I want Canadians to know we are never going to write off the relationship with the U.S. in an “I don't care”, nonchalant moment. That is not what a leader does. It is not what a leader should do.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise to highlight a clear message that the new federal budget is sending: Our country is choosing to invest in its culture, in its artists and in the diversity that shapes our collective identity. In a world where globalization and digital platforms profoundly altering our habits, we are making it clear that the Canadian voice must be protected, supported and celebrated.

As a proud francophone member and a proud representative of diversity, I know that culture is not merely an artistic expression. It is a vehicle for inclusion, social cohesion and belonging. Culture brings our stories, our regions, our languages and our generations together. Simply put, culture is a reflection of our diversity and the glue that holds our collective identity together.

This budget is designed to address challenges in an ambitious yet responsible way. It includes a historic investment over four years beginning next year to strengthen our cultural and creative ecosystem. This is one of the most ambitious investments in our recent history. It will help modernize our institutions, stimulate Canadian content creation, ensure our artists receive fairer compensation and support French-language and regional production. In short, we want to continue to showcase Canada at home and abroad.

Allow me to highlight a number of key measures: $150 million for Telefilm Canada to bolster film and documentary production; $127 million for the Canada Media Fund to support television and digital creation; $26 million for the National Film Board of Canada to support documentary production and narrative innovation; and $48 million for the Canada Music Fund to help Canadian artists succeed in a highly competitive global market.

These are not abstract commitments. They will provide employment through timely opportunities for our young creators and result in works that reflect our country's linguistic and cultural diversity. They will also help preserve regional and francophone voices, such as Quebec's voice, which are key to maintaining the richness and diversity of our identity.

This budget also introduces a long-awaited measure: an artist's resale right, which will now provide visual artists with a royalty whenever their work is resold. This is a major step forward in ensuring our creators are recognized and compensated fairly.

As culture is not experienced only in big performance halls or major national institutions, the budget also supports our local festivals, Canada Day and National Acadian Day celebrations, and community cultural projects. In fact, when I was in Fredericton earlier this year for National Acadian Day, I ran into Martin Théberge, who was then chair of the Société nationale de l'Acadie, although his term ended two weeks ago, I think. He told me that he thought the government should invest effectively so that National Acadian Day could be celebrated all across the country. In this budget, our government is answering that call with an increase in funding.

Culture is what gives us our vibrant neighbourhoods, villages, communities and regions. It is what creates those first stirrings of belonging for so many families, including diaspora communities, whom I have the honour of representing here. It is important to keep in mind that culture is also an industry. The cultural and creative sector represents tens of thousands of jobs, contributes to our GDP, attracts talent and spurs innovation. Every dollar invested generates major economic and social benefits. When we support our creators, we also support our industry, our technologies and our global competitiveness. At a time when many countries are cutting back on investing in culture, Canada is doing the opposite. We are choosing to invest more so that we can protect and strengthen our culture and help it to shine on the world stage.

This budget is not just a series of numbers, it is a statement of principles. Culture is not a luxury, but a necessity. It holds our collective identity together and drives our creativity and our economic prosperity. By supporting these measures, our country is choosing a Canada that is proud of its roots, open to the world, but resolutely committed to what makes us unique. Culture is also a heritage to be protected, a driver of prosperity, and the beating heart of our democracy.

This budget once again underscores the fact that we are listening to the arts community and to artists across the country.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to quote for my colleague his own leader. On September 17, in this very House, he said, “We are going to have a declining level of debt.” The budget actually shows the opposite: a growing debt, worse even than what was planned under Trudeau, so who is being forthright and honest?

Is it a declining debt, as the Prime Minister states, or is it a massively increasing debt, as the budget states? Which is it?

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, it always surprises me when my friends across the way associate us with Mr. Trudeau, since he is no longer here. We are a new government and we have presented a new budget, an investment budget to grow this country.

I talked about artists and how our government has increased investments for them. That is what we are doing.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague referred to French-language content and what is in the budget, but there is almost nothing for official languages in the budget. I think there is a measure for National Acadian Day, which is a good thing. However, I am not the only one who has criticized this shortcoming in the budget.

Since 2020, the Liberals have been saying that the federal government has a responsibility to protect French both inside and outside Quebec. However, no new measures have been introduced since the last version of the Official Languages Act.

Does my colleague believe that it would be great if the government could comply with its own law and take action to promote French in Quebec?

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I believe that our government is the only one that has made additional investments to promote French both inside and outside Quebec. I have visited francophone communities outside Quebec on two occasions. Today, we can say that French outside Quebec is growing and that it will soon exceed the 4% target.

We have invested more than $7 billion to promote French both inside and outside Quebec. I think that this budget meets the needs of francophones both inside and outside Quebec.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague on his excellent speech.

I would like to follow up on the previous questions. Through the action plan for official languages 2023-2028, we made the largest investment ever made in official languages in Canada. I am talking about $4.1 billion over five years for education, health care, early childhood education and various other sectors.

In budget 2025, we doubled the funding for National Acadian Day and made it permanent. We also set an ambitious new francophone immigration target, which will help increase the demographic weight of francophones.

My colleague recently attended the general meeting of the Société nationale de l'Acadie. How do francophones outside Quebec feel about these investments in official languages and our ambitious francophone immigration targets?

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I recently spent two days in Fredericton for National Acadian Day. What I found there was a united people, a tight-knit community that is proud to speak French, proud to know that we stand beside them. They knew that we would heed their call.

Today, we have done just that and increased the budget. This morning, we are proud to say that National Acadian Day will continue to be part of Canada's culture and that it will bring together francophones from across the country.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, what my colleague just said in response to my question was completely false. There was no measure to protect French in Quebec. I studied the action plan for official languages 2023-2028, and even Quebec's minister of the French language looked it over and was surprised to see no measures.

I also studied the 2023-24 public accounts, and nowhere was there any new measure for French in Quebec. There were only measures for the English-language education system, English-speaking lobby groups, English-speaking community development, the English-language health care system and access to English-language legal services. There was nothing new for French.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague opposite defends his ideas as though he is the only person in Quebec who speaks French. I am a francophone by birth. In fact, I want to remind the House—

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

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Prince Albert.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is always great to rise in the House to talk about things that are important to Canadians. Of course a budget implementation act is something we would all like to think is very important to Canadians.

This budget really is an omnibus bill full of hypocrisy. The member for Winnipeg North would probably agree with me when I talk about hypocrisy, because I can remember the days when he talked about omnibus bills and how bad, how horrible, they were, yet here he is today defending one.

A classic example is what the bill is supposed to do for people in Saskatchewan. I think of the agriculture sector, which is important to me; there is nothing of substance in the bill to help canola farmers and to help fisheries workers, both of whom are facing tariffs out of China and need market relief and market help to gain market access into not only the Chinese market but also other markets around the world. There is nothing really set aside to assist these guys to work with them.

There is nothing in the budget for the forestry sector, other than more debt and more loans. There is nothing there that would give people in the forestry sector a game plan to solve the problems they have with the U.S., to actually look at expanding their markets into other parts of the world and to look at using wood and wood products in different ways that would take them into the next generation and allow them to export throughout the world.

What is there? There is a piece regarding the Canada Post Corporation. What that has to do with budget implementation, I am not sure, but it is there.

There is a piece respecting Farm Credit Canada that is concerning. It is important to talk about Farm Credit Canada to make sure it is delivering things in the most effective and meaningful way. The minister would have a report, not this year or next year but in five years, when there is no longer a Liberal government, to report to the committee about Farm Credit and how it is operating and functioning.

I remember the days when banks would not touch farming. I remember there was a reason Farm Credit Canada was an organization created to help farmers: There was a time and place where banks looked at farming as too much risk. FCC has been a great partner for the farming community right across Canada. Now, as I see the government wanting to pry into FCC, I am suspicious of what its motive is.

If the Liberals want to do something proper with respect to FCC, they should not put it in a budget implementation act. They should run it through the agriculture committee, which should actually do a study on it and then come back to the House with its own set of motions, but no, the Liberals put it in the budget implementation act.

Respecting the Special Economic Measures Act, it looks to me as if the finance department and Global Affairs cannot get along. Historically, under these measures, if it wanted to put a restriction on a financial institution, Global Affairs could do that. However, now it would not be able to. It would have more red tape, and Global Affairs officials would have to talk to finance officials before they could take action. Again, this just puts more red tape into things that need to be done faster and more efficiently.

I also see things in the budget that the Liberals have stolen from the Conservative Party, and they are good things. The member for Winnipeg North cannot accuse me of saying nothing good. I see the First Nations Goods and Services Tax Act. The budget would empower First Nations to tax themselves, to consider a sales tax for themselves to raise revenues to fulfill their financial requirements to meet the needs of their people.

This is a Conservative value. It is something that was in the Conservative platform and that the Liberal Party gladly stole, and it is something I could get behind, but it should be its own piece of legislation; it should not be part of the budget implementation act. It should be something that goes through the appropriate committees in the appropriate time frame to flesh out all the issues around it so it can be done properly. It deserves more than a two-minute reading in a committee, in with 600 pages of other items. It is a good policy, but it would not see the proper light of day and the proper scrutiny.

Why would things concerning the Broadcasting Act, for example, be in a budget implementation act? Why would they not be their own act that would go through committees on its own? Why do they have to be part of the BIA?

I see the Human Pathogens and Toxins Act. Members should think about that. It has nothing to do with finance. The Liberal government is exposing its hypocrisy, shoving things into one bill to avoid utilizing the House of Commons, Parliament and the committee structure to get a better bill, to get better oversight and to get a better piece of legislation that would benefit all Canadians.

Did folks know that the Aeronautics Act is in the budget? Yes, it is, but no, we would not be funding a space program; we would just be changing some meanings of the act.

We could not get canola in the budget. We could not get forestry workers in there. We could not get fishery workers in there.

We could not get things in the budget that would actually reduce the cost to Canadians. We could not get things that would actually protect Canadians and their financial stability in the future, which is something the Liberal Party ran on. It talked about, in its campaign, how it was going to protect Canadians. It was going to make sure it got the best deal, elbows up, with Donald Trump, and all that. There is nothing in the budget that it talked about in its election campaign to protect Canadians, other than putting them at more risk with higher debt and higher interest payments that they, their grandkids and their great-grandkids are going to have to pay.

That is what the government put on the Canadian population, yet it still found time to include all these things that really are not Canadian priorities but are priorities of the bureaucracy or are pet projects of the Liberal government.

Coming from Saskatchewan, I believe it is important when a budget comes along that the needs of the people of Saskatchewan are at least talked about and represented. It is important that people across Canada feel that the budget is actually going to be something that will benefit them as they move forward, that will make life easier and more affordable. There is nothing in the budget implementation act or in the budget itself that really does that.

The budget is really a shell game. It talks about things that either have already been approved and done or that are high and mighty and really would not accomplish anything. The budget implementation act is more about bureaucrats with pet projects, who are trying to manoeuvre and take advantage of a new government to get their own personal will done, not the will of Canadians. It is rather disappointing and disturbing to see in this type of bill.

I come back to the omnibus style of the bill. The hypocrisy shown by the Liberal government is totally unbelievable, but I guess we should not be surprised; the Liberals have been full of hypocrisy over the last 10 years by creating a problem and then basically saying that they are the only ones who have a solution for it. The Liberals have created a problem in this country with bad policies over the last 10 years.

The Liberals have made our country stagnant. They have created economic policies that have put our kids in a scenario where they will probably never be able to buy a house, instead of using the budget implementation act or the budget to put in proper policies that would make life more affordable for Canadians and to look at things that would help protect seniors in their retirement and things that would grow the economy.

Policies have to be right, and the Liberals have not made the right policies. With anything they get wrong, what they do is throw more money at it, thinking it will go away. If one does not fix the problem, one does not get a proper solution. Money does not always fix the problem.

I am going to leave it at that. I am letting the House know that the budget implementation act is a severe disappointment because it could have done so much. It had the opportunity, and it had the will of Canadians who wanted the government to do things for them that would succeed. The government let us down again.

This is a horrible budget implementation act. It is an ominous bill. It should not see the light of day, and I absolutely will not vote for it.

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

Madam Speaker, there is no shock on this side that the member opposite is not going to vote in favour of the budget. At the end of the day, we need to recognize the contrast between the Conservative Party and the government, the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party believes that we have to invest in Canadians and in the economy. Now is a great time to do it.

Coincidentally, every premier of the provinces and territories is in agreement. They are working with Ottawa. The Prime Minister is out securing additional potential markets for trade beyond the Canada-U.S. border. We have a budget that delivers; from children to seniors, it covers the spectrum.

However, the Conservatives want to stand by, do nothing, spread misinformation wherever they can, and say they want to be in government some day. Where is the plan? Does the Conservative Party of Canada even have a plan to present to Canadians?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg North for hosting the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Grey Cup. He did a great job, and we really appreciate that fact. I know he is a closet Roughriders fan.

There is a big difference between the Liberal and Conservative approaches. The Liberals would rather take taxpayers' money and throw it at a problem instead of sitting back, analyzing the problem and fixing the policy that is creating it. If one fixes the policy, one creates the private investment that will see the economy grow.

What do the Liberals do? They take the other way. If the Liberals have a problem, instead of fixing it, they just throw more money at it. They put a band-aid on it and say that it will be fine for now, because that will get them through to the next election. In the meantime, that compounds the problem. We have seen that compounding effect over the last 10 years, hitting our economy as we speak today. We cannot allow the Liberals to do that anymore.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, we agree that the budget contains massive amounts of money for the deficit and huge amounts for defence. That is a $78‑billion deficit with more than $50 billion invested in defence.

Does my colleague think it is responsible to invest in defence by using deficit spending?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, I wish we had a surplus so we could spend money with that surplus, but reality is reality. The government has mismanaged the economy so badly over the last 10 years that we are in a deficit.

The reality is that this world is not the place it was 15 or 20 years ago. Unfortunately, we will have to borrow money and we will have to spend it on defence. We will have to make sure our men and women in the military have the tools they need to protect our country. There is no way around that. I would love to see it happen under a different financial situation, no question about that, but we are not given that luxury because of bad management by the Liberal government.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Saskatchewan on his Grey Cup win.

The Liberals have spoken out many times against omnibus legislation, but here we are again, and they have done it many times. Another thing the Liberals often do is throw money at things. To note one particular statistic from this budget, after five years of Liberal governance, it would add another $321 billion to our debt.

I am going to ask the member one simple question. Does he think throwing money at the problem is going to solve the issues in Canada?

I am not seeing any infrastructure getting built in northern B.C. We need a bridge across the Peace River, but that has not been done. I do not see it in the budget. Does the member think throwing money at problems solves them? I have not seen that yet.