Debates of Nov. 25th, 2025

Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1

[Zoe Royer, Liberal, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague. We are coming into a very exciting time, when conversations and diplomacy, through our Prime Minister and our ministers, are happening across the globe. That gives me a lot of hope. Those relationships are precious and fragile.

I look forward to further conversations with Senator Gignac on how we can move the needle forward in those sensitive conversations.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is an amazing place that builds incredible things. This is something that I have learned over the last six months I have been the shadow minister for industry and technology in Canada.

I have seen, first-hand, Winnipeggers building part of the F-35 fighter jet, the world's best, most powerful fighter jet, right here in Winnipeg. It is incredible what Winnipeggers are building. Then here in Ottawa, I have seen Mission Control, a company that is building a lunar rover. We have people in Ottawa who are building something that is going to traverse the lunar landscape and send information back to Canada.

It is incredible what Canadians are building today, what they have built in history and what they will surely build into the future. I feel very hopeful about the future, especially when we consider how many natural resources this country has, and how hard-working and how educated our people are. There is so much to be hopeful for.

Unfortunately, we are in very turbulent waters, without land in sight. Every single month we have over two million people, in a country as prosperous as Canada, going to food banks because they cannot afford to feed themselves. I have done work locally in Winnipeg, reaching out to the food banks there, and it is shocking what they are seeing. For the first time in their long histories, they are seeing full-time dual-income households having to go to food banks because they cannot afford to feed their families. These are two-parent, two-income households. That has never happened to two-income households to this degree in Canada.

We are seeing that half of my generation, the millennials, will never be able to afford a home, despite Canada being the second-largest landmass on earth, with really everything we could possibly need to build houses. We are working harder than ever, yet we will not be able to afford homes. It is quite shocking that this is happening in Canada despite all that we have, all that we are creating and everything at our disposal.

Why is this happening? Why does it feel like working people are spinning their tires? Well, there are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them is the economist-friendly word “productivity”. We are having a productivity crisis in this country. When I engage with people in my community, often their eyes will glaze over about productivity. I totally get it. We have heard, and I have heard, from business leaders, economists and the Bank of Canada that productivity is one of the number one issues when it comes to the standard of living in Canada, and it is in a crisis.

In fact, Tiff Macklem, the governor of the Bank of Canada, said last month what is most concerning is that, “unless we change some other things, our standard of living as a country, Canadians, is going to be lower than it otherwise would have been”. When he was talking at the press conference, giving this update about the Canadian economy, he said the standard of living was going to be up, but now it is going to be lower.

We are going to be poorer, and this is out of the mouth of the Bank of Canada governor. He is telling Canadians and parliamentarians that we should all be very concerned about this, and that we are going to be poorer as a country if we keep going down this trajectory.

Of course, there are world factors in that, such as the trade war, but many of these issues existed long before Trump 2.0 ever came along. We saw this a year and a half ago, in March 2024, when the senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, Carolyn Rogers, said about productivity that it is an emergency, and “it's time to break the glass.” It is time to sound the fire alarm. It is time to evacuate because the productivity is so bad.

How does this relate to everyday people? What most people think when we say that we have a productivity problem is, “What, do I have to work harder?” That is not what it means.

Nicolas Vincent, external deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, said, “Canada’s affordability problem is really a productivity problem. [If we want] to make things more affordable, we need to raise our income. And the way to grow our income is by increasing productivity.”

It is mission critical that we fix this productivity problem, and the results are very stark. In fact, after 10 years of Liberal government and the way that they have approached the economy, we have had very poor results when it comes to productivity. In fact, it has barely grown at all since the Liberals have been in power. We often compete with the U.S. Obviously, they are our biggest buyer for our trade, but they are also our biggest competitor when it comes to businesses selecting where they are going to build factories, hire more workers and where they are going to innovate.

The U.S. is our biggest competitor. Our productivity is 30% lower than that of the U.S., and in real U.S. manufacturing, the construction investment has been up over 300% since 2008. Canada's has been flat since that time. We are competing against a country that is investing 300% more in real manufacturing than we are. U.S. firms invest triple what Canadian firms do. A Canadian firm is investing about $4,100 per worker annually in our workforce, and the U.S. is investing over $12,800 per worker annually.

For people to understand, let us say someone works in an office and everyone works on their computers. It is as if the person beside them is working on modern computer technology, with AI, virtual calling and a smartphone. They have all of those things. This person can be just as smart as them and work just as hard as they do, but they are trying to do the same job with dial-up Internet on a 1990s computer. That is the reality when we talk about investing in our workforce and what we are up against with the behemoth that is the U.S.

We used to be more on par with investments per worker. Our productivity used to be a lot closer, but now the U.S. is leaps and bounds ahead of us, especially after the last 10 years. It is so bad that, if we were to just catch up to where the Americans are in productivity, our individual per capita GDP, or per capita output into the economy, would be $20,000 higher per worker in Canada. That is how much it would generate economic growth and productivity. As we have heard from the Bank of Canada, when we increase our productivity, we increase our incomes and the standard of living for Canadians.

Why is our productivity suffering so much? It is not from a lack of effort, innovation, enterprise or education. One of the main causes is the regulatory burden. Companies spend at least $51 billion a year meeting regulatory requirements, according to the CEO of Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada. He said that at industry committee, where we are currently studying productivity.

The Business Council of Canada said, “Businesses across every sector, from natural resources to housing to finance, rank regulation as the single biggest barrier to new investment in Canada.” Regulation is a big factor of why we are not producing as efficiently as other countries, predominantly the United States, which is our largest competitor.

Again, why is this? We have seen the results over the last 10 years. As I have said, under Liberal governance, the country's productivity has been relatively flat. If we think of Canada as one worker, we would think that, over time, we work hard and hope our wages would go up. That is mostly the career trajectory of the average working Canadian. It is as if Canada, as a worker, has somehow not had a raise, improved their productivity, gained more experience or created more value since 2014. This country has not, in essence, had a raise since 2014, despite all of the inflation. That is one way to understand the magnitude of what we are facing under 10 years of really poor economic performance led by government policies at the federal level.

We see things like, infamously, the Liberals' Bill C-69, which I think really shows what the government is about. The Liberals have made it incredibly hard to build large projects. They have denied this for a long time. We have been banging this Bill C-69 drum, but it was really proven in large measure by the new Liberal leader, the new Prime Minister of Canada, governing the same bunch of Liberals who have been voting on these policies for over a decade. He made a new level of bureaucracy to go on top of the disaster of a mountain of bureaucracy they have created, which has made it very difficult to be successful in this country as a large creator of manufacturing or resource development, and the Liberals are going to pick what special companies get to go ahead and skip all the regulatory burdens they have created, which all the other companies are going to have to go over. That is just one example.

The Liberals also have the industrial carbon tax, which increases the price of energy on Canada's largest manufacturers. It is more expensive to make steel here because of things like the industrial carbon tax.

Again, our taxes need to be competitive. Our regulatory environment needs to be such that, when a business, such as an auto sector business, is saying that it could expand in Canada or in the U.S., it is going to go where the best bottom line for it is. Therefore, it is going to look at where to get the fastest permits, there are the fewest regulatory hurdles and it can make the most profit so it can hire more people and invest in more technology to be more efficient and have more output.

Time and time again, long before Trump 2.0 came along, businesses were upping and leaving for the U.S., or rather than expanding here, they were expanding down there. Now that Trump 2.0 has come along, it has exacerbated all of the mess the Liberals created over the last decade, which is impacting the cost of living.

Looking at this, we saw in the last election that the Prime Minister, the Liberal leader, said that he was going to be the one to change this and that he was going to bring forward a transformational budget. We have seen that that is not really the case.

The Liberals have made a few tweaks around the margins. Finally, after a decade, they said that productivity is a problem and they want to work on the economy. Thank God, but they have only made a few tweaks around the margins.

The only party that is going to make the transformation to the regulatory and taxation burden we have in this country so Canada can have a better standard of living is the one that has been saying the same thing about this for 10 years, and that is a Conservative majority government. That is what we need to transform the economy and increase the standard of living and the opportunities for Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, if we were to compare the two previous administrations, Justin Trudeau to Stephen Harper, based on what the member was saying, Justin Trudeau created double the number of jobs Stephen Harper did, and in a shorter period of time of governance. We are talking about 1 million jobs versus 2 million jobs.

Since we have had the new government, we have had a Prime Minister who has negotiated with the provinces and indigenous leaders to build a one Canada economy. At the same time, he is ensuring that we get the best deal for Canada and Canadians with respect to the Americans' deal. We also have a Prime Minister who is travelling the world, increasing exports, getting hundreds of millions of dollars in commitments coming into Canada, whether they are from Korea, Philippines, India, the United Arab Emirates or England. We have legislation on England.

I am wondering if she—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I have to give time for the member to respond.

The hon. member for Kildonan—St. Paul.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that the member for Winnipeg North got up to engage me in debate because no one in the House has stood up to say more words defending the Liberal record than that member has over the last decade.

No one has defended the Liberals' productivity decline in this country, as well as the policies that have impoverished Canadians and that have sent businesses south, more than that member. I will certainly not take any lessons from him about economics since he, more than anybody else, has stood here for a decade defending their record, which we have had to listen to. Their record is two million people going to food banks and thousands of manufacturing jobs going south.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I definitely appreciate what my colleague has brought to the floor today.

Yesterday, we were fighting in this place for Canadians' jobs. The member is talking about productivity, and members on the other side of the floor say, “We are investing in them in the meantime.” In other words, the Liberals are giving people handouts. We heard over and over again that Canadians do not want handouts. They want their jobs. They do not want the government feeding their children. They want to be able to feed their children themselves. How does that fit into this situation?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is hitting on something really important about how the Conservatives would be approaching this situation versus the Liberals.

The Liberals look at the economy like it is a big switchboard that they get to control, and if they just turn this knob, pick this industry and dump billions of taxpayer dollars here, or maybe here, but not over there, they will create a prosperous environment. As I outlined, and as many economists have outlined, the Liberals' approach to the economy does not work. We have just seen more of the same in the Liberal lip service toward productivity and a few tweaks around the margins for the business sector.

What we would be doing as Conservatives would be to look at how we would create the most business-friendly environment in the world, have companies choose Canada to create all their goods and services and make it so that companies can expand their manufacturing businesses here so that it is more competitive and more efficient to do so than in the U.S. That would be our number one focus during this trade war. Unfortunately, we are not seeing that.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech and I would like to know where she stands. Budget 2025 allocates $660 million to provide housing and shelters for women and to help combat gender-based violence.

I would like to know where my colleague stands on this issue, which we must address at all levels.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that, after 10 years of Liberals and their soft-on-crime policies, we have seen incredible rates of increase with respect to sexual assault and sexual assaults on children in this country. For a lot of that, again, we have to look at the Criminal Code and how the government views the Criminal Code. The Liberals repeatedly, time and time again, go soft on the people who are violating and abusing women.

When a woman is abused, she has to somehow get the courage and the safety to go to a judge to ask for a peace bond. I put forward a bill so that peace bonds would last at least two years, so woman would not have to go through it 12 months later. A woman often has kids, has a life and is fighting for her safety. The Liberals voted that down at the status of women committee, so I need no lecture from the government on fighting for women and the safety of women. We are the only party that would lock up the perpetrators. Time and time again, we have put that forward, but the legislation has been voted down by the Liberals.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-15 at second reading. I want to talk about it in language that is easy to understand, because this bill has a direct impact on the lives of families, workers, seniors and businesses back home in Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. I want everyone to be able to understand what this bill means for our community, without needing a financial or policy expert to explain it to them.

Over the past few months, I have been meeting with people in my riding. They talk to me about their plans, their needs and their desire to see things continue to move in the right direction. Of course, some of them talk to me about their challenges, such as the cost of living or the difficulty they are having finding housing, but they do so with an open mind and a genuine desire for improvement. The main takeaway from these discussions is that people in my riding, from Boisbriand, Saint‑Eustache, Deux‑Montagnes and Rosemère, want useful, practical measures that give them direct support in their daily lives, and that is exactly what Bill C‑15 seeks to do.

Bill C‑15 has concrete answers to these concerns. It is not a theoretical bill. It contains measures that will help people on a day-to-day basis. For example, one of the measures will make the Canada disability benefit tax free. This represents a more stable income and financial relief for persons living with disabilities and their families, and most importantly, a form of respect. We are telling these people that we care about them and we are going to help them.

The bill also provides a tax credit for support workers, the individuals who take care of our parents, our loved ones, and our seniors every day. They are often the first people to clock in in the morning and the last to clock out in the evening. They stay by the side of the people they take care of, provide them with comfort, listen to them, and encourage them. Their work demands immense patience, deep compassion and exceptional inner strength. Too often, these essential workers operate in silence, and they do not always receive the recognition they deserve. With this tax credit, we want to tell them clearly that we know that their work is indispensable, that we know that they have a lot of weight on their shoulders, and that we want to be there to support them. This measure does not erase all the challenges in this sector, but it is a concrete gesture of respect, gratitude, and support for the people that take care of our seniors with compassion and dignity.

Another important measure will give people faster access to their money when they deposit cheques in a banking institution. This might seem like a simple matter, but when someone works hard and is waiting for every dollar to pay rent or buy groceries, having access to money without unnecessary delay can make a big difference. This is a gesture of respect for Canadians. The bill also protects people from fraud, particularly seniors who are often a target. Banks will be required to implement new protection measures. This means that our seniors will be less likely to lose their savings to fraudsters. For many families in our communities, this takes one more concern off their shoulders.

Bill C‑15 also helps our local businesses, big or small. In Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, we have businesses that are innovating, manufacturing, and creating jobs. The bill will make it easier to invest in new machinery and modern technology. When a business is able to modernize its tools, it becomes more productive and faster and can employ more people. This is good for workers, the local economy, and the future of our Lower Laurentians region. The bill will also enhance the research support program. This means that businesses that innovate, create, and develop new ideas will receive additional support. This support is critical to ensuring our businesses remain competitive in today's fast-paced and ever-changing environment.

Housing is another key focus of the bill. Many young people in Rivière‑des‑Mille‑Îles would like to buy or rent a home, but they cannot afford to. This bill offers a number of solutions. It seeks to accelerate rental housing construction. It simplifies certain measures that were causing problems for property owners. It enables the government to invest more in affordable housing. This is all to help more people access decent housing faster.

There are also projects for the future, like the high-speed rail line between Quebec City and Toronto. With this bill, the high-speed rail project can make some real progress. One day, our young people, our workers and our families will be able to travel much more quickly and easily, using a clean, modern, lower-emitting mode of transportation.

This will make travel simpler, reduce time spent in transit, and open up new opportunities for work, study and tourism. This project is significant for the entire country, including Quebec. It is rumoured that there could be a stop in Laval, right next door to Rivière‑des‑Mille‑Îles. This is very exciting. There will also be benefits here at home. This project will create more economic opportunities and it will close the distance between our communities and the larger centres.

The bill also helps workers get training and find better careers. It supports vulnerable people, protects consumers, helps indigenous communities, and strengthens investments in clean energy. These are concrete measures that all support the same objective: building Canada strong. On this side of the House, we believe in a strong Canada where people have more opportunities and more security.

I firmly believe that this bill will improve the lives of the people of Rivière‑des‑Mille‑Îles. It brings hope, it responds to real needs, it supports families, it protects our seniors, it helps our businesses, it encourages homebuilding, and it lays the foundation for the future of our young people. For all these reasons, I am proud to support Bill C-15 and I invite all my colleagues to do the same.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked a little bit about how to incentivize things like business and research. I wonder if she could elaborate more on how the government is going to keep Canada's leadership position in science and create a competitive climate for investors.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of serving as a member of the Standing Committee on International Trade. Our country has free trade agreements with Europe, Asia, the United States and Mexico. We are working hard to ensure that we create as much opportunity as possible for our businesses as we try to diversify our markets as much as possible and make Canada as successful as possible.

We all know that Canada has a AAA credit rating, the highest in the world. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is the lowest in the G7. We have an opportunity to invest in our communities, to grow our businesses, and to believe in Canada.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is all well and good for the Liberals to brag about Canada's credit rating, but they also need to listen to what the experts are saying. Last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer indicated that too many of the expenditures in the budget are being labelled or categorized as investments. My colleague from Mirabel has repeatedly spoken out about this creative accounting on the part of the government.

Is my colleague not concerned about this? The Liberals are trying to pull the wool over people's eyes with this budget.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is talking to me about Mirabel, a city north of my riding. We are going to be making serious investments in defence. We have no choice; we have to take care of our defence.

Mirabel is home to L3Harris Mas, which maintains the F‑35s. It is also home to Airbus, Safran and Textron, which manufactures helicopters. My riding is home to Novabus, and Paccar is next door. All of these businesses will benefit from the investments that we are making, and if the businesses benefit, then so will the workers in the Lower Laurentians.

I do not understand why the Bloc Québécois did not support this budget. I encourage them to change their position.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague represents a riding that is home to many farmers. This budget includes a number of very important measures for farmers, such as an additional $75-million investment in the AgriMarketing program. We are also making changes to the risk management programs that support our farmers and emphasizing the importance of exporting our products around the world.

The Conservative election platform did not include any measures for farmers. Can my colleague talk about the importance of our agricultural sector? Can she talk about the measures in the budget and compare them to what the Conservatives have done in the past?

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague spoke about agriculture.

I used to be a grocer; my father and I owned supermarkets. We bought our products locally, in my corner of the country, from places like Mirabel, Saint-Joseph-du-Lac and Saint-Eustache.

Yes, we need to support agriculture. We are going to build infrastructure and encourage farmers.

The process of transferring agricultural businesses is also very important, and we need to talk about it to ensure that things will continue to improve on that front.

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, there is something happening in this country that the government does not want Canadians to know, but my constituents can feel it in their paycheque. They sure notice it at the grocery store, and it really hits home when they open their heating bill and swallow hard before they look at the number. For the first time in our history, thanks to the Liberal government, Canada is getting bigger and Canadians are getting poorer. That is not my opinion; it is the national scoreboard. It is what the numbers tell us.

The government is supposed to be all about evidence-based decision-making. Well, I invite it to look at the evidence. This is what happens when the government that worships control forgets that freedom is the engine of prosperity. When the urban elite tries to run a country it does not understand, ordinary people pay the price. Bill C-15, the so-called budget implementation act, would not fix it; it would make it worse, hide it and excuse it.

Common sense used to guide this country. Now it is lefty Liberal woke ideology, reckless, expensive, downtown Ottawa ideology, steering every direction and decision.

The people who pay for this ideology do not live anywhere near the gated communities where it is dreamed up. The people who pay for this failed ideology work all day, every day, drink double-doubles and eat their grandmother's brown bread, while the folks who dreamed up the ideology work five and a half hours a day and drink goat's milk lattes while nibbling on their avocado toast. While my constituents get poorer, the Prime Minister takes another trip at the taxpayers' expense and avoids accountability here in the House.

My grandfather used to joke, “Don't stay in one place too long; someone will put you to work.” It seems the Prime Minister has taken that advice very seriously. Since becoming Prime Minister just eight months ago, he has visited at least 18 countries, some of them twice: France, Italy, Vatican City, Belgium, Netherlands, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Latvia, Mexico, Egypt, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. He has visited the United Kingdom twice. Despite three visits to the United States and his promises of elbows up, the only deal Canada has been able to close with the United States since March is that former prime minister Justin Trudeau closed on Katy Perry.

The Prime Minister travels the world talking about growth and does what bankers always do: turn our hard-earned equity into debt. He waves his hands. He quotes big numbers. He smiles on red carpets. He talks about growth, but it is the kind of growth we get when we fill a hot-air balloon with cheap air; it looks big on the outside, while the people inside can barely breathe.

Real GDP per person, the number that matters to working people, has fallen two years in a row. Let us think about that. In one of the richest countries on Earth, after 10 years of Liberal leadership, the average Canadian is going backwards. Canada is a country running in reverse, and instead of taking responsibility, the government hands us Bill C-15, a bill built on the idea that if it spends enough more money, nobody will notice there is less in their pockets. Canadians notice. My constituents notice.

While all this is happening, the government spends its time on buying back hunting rifles from hunters and farmers. A government of socialists who confuse Elmer Fudd with Al Capone cannot be trusted. They crack down on the wrong people while at the same time they reward the wrong people, every single time. They are lecturing working folks about what kind of car they are allowed to drive, pushing $70,000 and $80,000 electric vehicles nobody asked for, when what most families really need is to fix the muffler on their 2010 Impala that gets them to work every morning.

The communities of Miramichi—Grand Lake seem like a long way from downtown Ottawa, but my constituents have sent me here to this town to stand in the House and tell it that this town, the government, has lost their confidence. The government has lost respect for the dignity of the hard work that ordinary Canadians, my constituents, take very seriously. The government regulates, mandates, restricts and lectures because it thinks Canadians cannot be trusted with their own lives. That is not governing; it is Liberal overreach.

Unemployment is climbing. Participation is flat. Young people cannot find work. Families are cutting back on everything except fear. Instead of embracing their values, the drive, the ambition and the grit of hard-working Canadians, the government clings to ideology that punishes every effort and rewards bureaucracy, yet the budget and the implementation bill tell Canadians, “Don't worry; Ottawa will take care of it.”

From what I have seen so far in this town, Ottawa cannot even take care of itself. Canada's tax burden sits at 34.8% of our entire economy, above the OECD average. People are paying more, working harder and getting less. Where I come from, we learn at a very young age not to take any wooden nickels, but that is exactly what the government is leaving in Canadians' pockets. Then there is the debt. The government can play games with the net debt and the gross debt all it wants, but Canadians get one bill at the end of the day, not two. Our debt sits at around 111% of GDP. One does not put out a fire by throwing more gasoline on it, but the budget does just that.

Behind all that spending and behind every photo op and ribbon cutting is the cold truth the Liberals refuse to face: Canada has a productivity crisis. We are not running out of workers; we are running out of growth.

Despite the fact the Prime Minister has bamboozled Ottawa and London bureaucrats for a living, Canadians know we cannot run a modern economy from a boardroom in Toronto or a cocktail reception in Paris. We build it in a machine shop, in a mill-yard, in a welding bay, by hanging drywall or by early mornings on a fishing boat on the small craft harbours in my riding that the government is allowing to fall into the water that surrounds them. Wherever real Canadians earn real paycheques is where the real economy is in this nation, and it is here where the government is failing every Canadian working man and woman.

Other countries are pulling ahead while we are falling behind. Instead of a plan to build a stronger engine, this budget gives us more government, more bureaucracy, more slogans and more of nothing.

For years, the government opened the immigration floodgates to asylum seekers while ignoring those who followed the rules, all of this with no matching plan for housing, health care or infrastructure. Last year, we added nearly three quarters of a million people to a country that cannot build homes fast enough. Then when the pressure became unbearable, the government slammed on the brakes. This is not leadership; this is panic, and the government is right to panic. It all stems from the mindset of a government that thinks it can shape a nation from the top down instead of trusting the bottom-up strength it has in its people.

Now the Liberals show up with Bill C-15 pretending nothing happened, that our systems are not failing, that the country is not straining under the weight of the government's many mistakes. Meanwhile, ordinary Canadians are paying the price.

In our justice system, the government has nearly lost control of our streets. In our education system, more and more private schools are replacing the public model. These foundations, which were built by earlier generations, foundations the government inherited, are eroding brick by brick.

I want to be very clear. Canada is not a failing nation; Canada has a failing government. This country is not broken, but the people running it are breaking it. Bill C-15 is the government's attempt to pretend decline is normal, that falling living standards are normal, that a future smaller than our past is normal. Canadians know better.

Decline is not destiny; decline is a choice. The Liberals have made that choice. They made it with 10 years of straight deficits. They made it with taxes that rise while paycheques shrink. They made it with an immigration system pushed past its capacity. They made it with productivity that falls while government grows. They made it with the debt piled onto the backs of children not yet born. This is what decline looks like before people wake up, and Canadians are waking up.

Canadians know that Conservatives will build a country where hard work pays off again, where taxes are low and paycheques are strong, where the budget is balanced and the government lives within its means like every family has to, where new Canadians join a system ready to support them, not one buckling under policy made here in Ottawa by the kids in short pants, and where productivity rises not because Ottawa orders it but because free people, free markets and free enterprise are allowed to breathe again. It is a country strong enough to carry its past, ambitious enough to build its future and confident enough to say it chooses growth, chooses freedom and chooses Canada.

The Liberals have made their choice with Bill C-15 and we will make ours. We voted against the budget and we will vote against this bill. We will stand for the working people who cannot afford another year of decline. We will offer this country something the government cannot: hope, direction, a plan and a future worthy of the nation we inherited.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to assure the member opposite that I eat my grandmother's brown bread, that I am the son of a truck driver and that my mother is an administrative assistant. There are members on this side of the House who certainly know the value of putting programs in place that matter for Canadians. That is exactly why 22 million Canadians are going to benefit from the tax cut the member voted against, why we are putting generational investments into housing and why we have a superdeduction tax cut available to help stimulate the economy. There are a number of things in the budget.

The member mentioned policy made in Ottawa by kids wearing short pants, or something of that nature. It sounds like the member had his entire speech written for him by some kid from the Conservative side in short pants.

My question is this. If there are Conservatives across this country, Progressive Conservatives, who support this budget, why is the member against the type of measures we are putting forward, which are centrist, progressive and able to move this country forward?

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I can guarantee the member that I wrote the speech myself, but if a Conservative member had written the speech, they would have gotten it right. That is one thing we can guarantee on this side of the floor.

Over the last 10 years of the Liberal government, it has not gotten anything right for the real working Canadians we represent every day.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke at length about the importance of numbers and the importance of controlling a budget that includes spending and investments. However, numbers can be made to say whatever one wants.

The 2025 budget introduces a new method of calculating investments. The Bloc Québécois applied this calculation method to previous fiscal years. This revised calculation significantly changes the results of past years, because it changes the way certain expenditures and investments are recorded. For example, by applying the new calculation method introduced by the Minister of Finance, we see that in 2015-16, there would have been a surplus of $11.2 billion.

This new method therefore appears to be rather questionable. What does my Conservative colleague think?

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it seems the government has spent as much as it could since 2015, and the Liberals have kept deficit after deficit. Now with the new Prime Minister, they want to say they are a new government, but they are not a new government; it is the same circus, different clown.

What we have going on here is that the Liberals are saying it is all about investments instead of spending. They are just manipulating words to make it look like they are not spending money but investing money. That is what they are trying to say.

They are still spending money. We are still going to have deficits. My great-grandkids are going to pay for the deficits from the government's spending.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member. Despite the Liberal criticism, it was a great speech.

The member mentioned future generations. After five years and on of successive Liberal budgets, the Prime Minister said that he was going to spend less and invest more. However, over $321 billion will be added to our national debt.

Does the member think it is responsible to saddle future generations with this kind of credit card bill?

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, there is a problem when the Prime Minister says he is putting in investments. If I invest in my house, I am spending money on it. At the end of the day, investments mean spending money.

I was in a classroom yesterday with grade 12 students in Rogersville. There were 20 kids in the class, and 15 of them told me they did not know what they were going to do when they were done university, if they get to go to university and can afford to go to university, and what they were going to do when they get out of high school. They know they are not going to have a fair shot of owning a home in the future. They are worried about whether they are going to get a job when they get out of high school. They are worried about the shape the country is in right now. Those 20 kids said the Conservatives were going in the right direction.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is a generational investment budget that recognizes the value of investing in Canada and investing in Canadians. The Conservatives have made the decision not to see the merit in doing that.

Why does the Conservative Party not believe in investing in Canadians?

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives always believe in investing in Canadians. What we do not believe in is saddling future generations with debt they will never be able to afford and with higher taxes, over and over. When someone says “investment”, they are spending. It does not matter which way they put it or how they shape it, it always means spending money. That is what the Liberal government is good at: spending money.