Mr. Speaker, this budget is a complete sham. Thanks to some very creative accounting, it hides a $78-billion deficit by claiming that $45 billion in spending is actually an investment, when that is not the case at all.
Normally, an investment is backed by assets. For example, a person who invests in a house keeps the house. However, in the budget, tax credits for oil companies are presented as investments. That makes no sense. My colleague from Mirabel did the math and found that if we applied the same criteria to Justin Trudeau's budgets, then they all would have been more or less balanced.
The budget's key measures are the previously announced tax cut, unlikely investments in defence, and the elimination of tens of thousands of public service jobs. This budget is probably most disappointing for the health care sector.
Members will recall, as my colleague just mentioned, that federal health transfers used to cover 50% of Quebec's health care costs back in the 1970s. That was a real commitment. Today, the transfers barely cover 22% of Quebec's health care costs, depriving Quebec of billions of dollars. That is what is known as the fiscal imbalance. Half of our taxes go to Ottawa, but the services are in Quebec, and the federal government does as it pleases with its money.
In 2020, the premiers of Quebec and the provinces joined forces and demanded a substantial increase in health transfers from the Liberals. They asked that the transfer be increased to 35%, or $28 billion a year. Four years later, the Liberals did what they do so often: They managed to break the consensus by signing individual agreements adding up to $46.2 billion over 10 years. That represents about one-sixth of the amount that Quebec and the provinces calculated they would need.
This budget does not include any increase in health transfers. What is more, as of 2027-28, the escalator will drop to 3%. As was said earlier, this will not even cover the natural 5% to 6% increase in costs, mainly due to population aging.
The Liberals say that the budget includes $5 billion over three years for health infrastructure. That is peanuts. For Quebec, this comes out to roughly $300 million a year for three years. The Liberals are clearly telling us that we cannot count on them to carry out major projects such as the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital renovation, which alone is costing $5 billion, not to mention all the other projects in Quebec.
Seniors are being left behind in this budget. We know that they have been losing purchasing power since 1975. That year, the old age security pension was 20% of the average industrial wage. In 2020, pensions represented only 13% of the average wage. After years of pressure from the Bloc Québécois, the Liberals raised pensions by 10%, but only for seniors aged 75 and over. They ended up creating two classes of seniors. Seniors aged 65 to 74 need money. They are often close to the poverty line. We proposed increasing their OAS by 10% too, but there is nothing for seniors. The budget simply renews the New Horizons for Seniors program, which we are all familiar with and which can provide a seniors' organization with up to $25,000 per year, although very few projects are approved.
The Bloc Québécois was calling for a refund for the $3.7 billion in pre-election goodies that were distributed by the Liberals and disguised as a carbon tax rebate. Funnily enough, the carbon tax was no longer being collected, but the Liberals saw an opportunity to hand out goodies and decided to send out a rebate for the carbon tax, even though it had not been collected, without giving anything to Quebec or British Columbia because they do not have a carbon tax. That money was taken from Quebeckers' pockets, from their federal taxes. It amounts to $814 million stolen from Quebeckers. We will say it again. We will continue to say it. We keep harping on this, but it is completely unacceptable.
The Bloc Québécois also asked that Quebec be compensated $733 million for costs associated with taking in asylum seekers. Everyone knows that Quebec takes in much more than its share of asylum seekers. This budget does not address that at all. Instead, it offers $120.4 million over four years, starting in 2026‑27, for a single initiative to recognize eligible protected persons as permanent residents.
We all see cases of people waiting to get their permanent resident status or citizenship. It takes four or five years for these migrants and asylum seekers to get a response. This results in truly inhumane situations.
Most significant of all will be this budget's impact on the environment. Climate action is virtually absent from this budget. In contrast, fossil fuel industries will get bigger tax credits for longer. Oil and gas companies will keep pocketing even more public money, especially for carbon capture, a process that will never pan out. It is basically an expense used to justify extracting even more oil. Those companies will get other tax credits until 2040.
This is what the government is offering after getting rid of carbon pricing and reducing EV purchase incentives and quotas. It also abandoned the strategy to plant billions of trees. That was a ridiculous measure, but it was supposed to happen. The government has also dropped the 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets that are needed to meet the Paris targets and much more.
Mark Carney promised climate competitiveness—