Debates of Nov. 26th, 2025

Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, farmers in Saskatchewan and across western Canada are suffering under these unfair and unjust Chinese tariffs on our canola. The Prime Minister went on a trade mission to China, and there was no resolution. He went to India, and the only thing he came back with was more tariffs.

Can the hon. member name one thing in the budget that would actually help Saskatchewan farmers?

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member opposite's party has not been in government for a long time, so I think the members might need to refresh their memories on how diplomatic conversations are conducted around trade and the agreements that we can bring to our country. Those are not things that happen overnight. There is a lot of work that goes into it.

While the Conservatives continue to talk down Canada, we will continue to build. We will continue to secure deals that are meaningful for Canadians. The specific question the member asked is something that many colleagues on this side of the House have continued to engage on. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister was involved in those discussions, and they are ongoing. In the meantime, the member can maybe tell his electors why he continues to vote against Canadians.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have witnessed a number of budgets over my 20-year parliamentary career. Some of them were good, such as the first 10, and some of them have been pretty bad, which are the ones since then.

What makes a bad budget? Generally, it is a Liberal. To the average Canadian, a bad budget may be one that fails to balance what one wants with what one needs and leads to a shortfall. A bad budget leaves one open to unpredictability and makes it difficult to adapt to changing circumstances. In contrast, a good budget allows one to address current needs but still have some money left over to plan for the future. It allows people to invest in the things their families need the most. We can classify these kinds of budgets as either a responsible budget or an irresponsible budget.

These same budgetary patterns can be observed in Parliament, usually following along party lines. My time in the Harper government showed me what a responsible budget actually looked like, while my time in opposition has taught me what an irresponsible budget looks like. Those irresponsible budgets were usually presented by the Liberal Party, the Liberal government, and mostly Justin Trudeau. They all had varying degrees of severity. One could argue that, under the last prime minister, this level of carelessness reached new heights. These were, for all intents and purposes, tax-and-spend, NDP-style budgets that turned our national debt into a national albatross burden around our neck. That burden has become an ever-increasing liability.

Our federal debt has reached over $1.28 trillion. That is $1,280 billion, which is an incomprehensibly large sum to the average person. For context, when the St. Lawrence Seaway was constructed in 1959, which is one of the most important infrastructure projects in our history, it cost $470 million, or nearly $5 billion in today's currency. I do not believe we have received the same economic benefits as the seaway for much of this new debt over the last 10 years. In fact, the Liberals have doubled the national debt in this country in the last 10 years, and I cannot think of a single significant nation-building infrastructure project that we received for that money.

The debt is so large, it is now impacting our finances. In 2025, Canada's federal government is projected to spend approximately $54 billion on servicing just our debt. That is nearly as much as the $54.5 billion spent on the federal health transfers to our provinces. Our debt is so large now that servicing the debt is equivalent to one of the core functions of our government, yet the government keeps wasting money on vanity projects such as its current gun grab, which will not do anything at all to address public safety. We know this to be true because the minister said so when he thought no one was listening. He basically said it was all to get votes in certain parts of the country.

If members do not believe me, if the Liberals do not want to believe me, they can just ask the Toronto Police Association, which just today put out a tweet saying that the confiscation program is “ineffective” and asking the government to instead use that money toward funding frontline policing.

Over the past 10 years, we have witnessed budget after budget of ballooning deficits. The prime minister who presented those atrocious budgets then resigned, a good riddance. The man who replaced that prime minister, the member for Nepean, told Canadians that he was the so-called reasonable guy. He said that he and only he could address Canada's challenges. He said he would be more fiscally responsible than his predecessor. He promised economic prosperity. He said that he was best qualified to deal with President Donald Trump, yet with his first budget, which was delivered late, of course, and I am very much looking forward to the fall economic statement in April, we see he is not the man he said he was.

The budget is nothing short of reckless, and it is proof that he misrepresented himself to the Canadian electorate in the spring. With a projected deficit of $78.3 billion, this budget gets us nowhere closer to reaching fiscal balance. To add insult to injury, no trade deal with the United States has materialized.

For those listening at home, I want to give a snapshot of what is happening here in Ottawa. The Liberals have created generational debt over the last decade under the banner of generational investments, yet these investments have not paid off. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has indicated that GDP growth is stagnant and will remain below 2% for the remainder of the decade. This will make it difficult to manage rising debt levels.

The previous fiscal dogma espoused by the previous finance minister was that our debt-to-GDP ratio was a marker of fiscal sustainability. We disagreed. We thought they were spending too much money. Remarkably, the new finance minister has presented a budget that will grow our debt-to-GDP ratio rather than shrink it.

How can we grow our way out of a crisis if our debt is growing proportionally faster than our economic growth? We are robbing a future generation of Canadians of their wealth to shore up our present economic frustrations and considerations. This is the same generation that is already struggling to pay for food, pay off their student loans or even buy a house and start a family. We should be ashamed of the debt we are leaving to future generations. More worrisome still is the fact that the the Parliamentary Budget Officer has stated that the Prime Minister has “limited room to cut taxes” as the debt-to-GDP ratio continues to grow.

When I spoke of households and budgets, I said that a good budget allows for some manoeuverability. This idea of being able to pivot in a crisis is paramount for governments of all political stripes, yet by stripping our cupboards bare of essentials over the past ten years, we have left ourselves as a nation very vulnerable. In plain language, we are lacking the fiscal discipline to pivot in a crisis. Furthermore, our economic woes have created a culture of dependency in which the economy is now reliant on the government and not the other way around.

Business needs certainty and a reliable fiscal environment to thrive, yet under the Liberal government, Canada has anything but. To get anything built in this country, one must navigate an intricate web of bureaucracy. This has created a situation in which businesses are fearful of taking the risks they should not be afraid of taking. As a result, they are not investing in Canada.

A recent OECD report indicates that the Canadian business landscape is currently facing a significant challenge due to lack of investment. For example, Canada invests less in machinery and equipment than other OECD countries. Furthermore, the investment gap between Canada and the U.S. has widened at a time when our neighbour down south is waging a trade war against us.

I would like to conclude by asking members and all Canadians this very simple question. Passing a budget is an act of stewardship. It is about being disciplined today so that we have a brighter tomorrow. A Greek proverb reads, “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” To think of the future is to be altruistic. If we are to be honest with ourselves, do we want our children and our grandchildren to inherit the economic future that we have right now, or do we want to gift them with a flourishing economy in which they can prosper, buy a home and invest in their families?

I know the residents of Ponoka—Didsbury very well, and I see the frustration on their faces. I see the frustration in the faces of the young people in their twenties and thirties who are still living at home, who wish they could buy a home in central Alberta. I see the frustration in my friends and colleagues of my generation who started very successful and prosperous businesses in the oil and gas sector, just to watch those businesses disappear and go bankrupt and watch all of their assets disappear over the last ten years because of a government that simply does not understand the consequences of the actions it has taken.

I would submit that had the government not cancelled the northern gateway pipeline, the energy east pipeline and all but one of the various LNG export terminals on both the east and west coasts of this country, that Canada would be in a better position today. For one pipeline and one LNG export terminal, it would take approximately 10 years to build each of them.

Could members imagine the fiscal power that this country would have right now if we unleashed the potential of our natural resources? As an Albertan, I know very well what our contribution is, as 10% of the population contributes 15% to 16% of the GDP to this country, because we have a different attitude. One where the government does not control everything we do and we unleash the potential of our entrepreneurs, investors and workers to do the things that build our country and make it great.

Until the government retracts and repeals the legislation that has stymied this development, we are going to be in the same place where just Liberals, and Liberals alone, get to decide what happens in Canada. It is like living with the mafia.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, Public Safety; the hon. member for York—Durham, Border Security; the hon. member for Calgary Crowfoot, Housing.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is disappointing that the Conservatives do not have a vision for Canada other than just being negative all the time. At the end of the day, what we have is a Prime Minister and a government that have been very proactive in looking at the benefits of expanding trade opportunities. That is why it is good to see the Prime Minister doing the travelling he has been doing. All sorts of potential investments will be coming to Canada as a direct result.

If we take a look at the budget, we will find numerous supports, whether for our lumber industry or for Canadians as individuals, yet the Conservatives continue to vote against these types of initiatives. Can the member provide his thoughts in regard to why the Conservatives do not have a vision for Canada beyond just clicking their heels and hoping something good might happen?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we have a completely different philosophical view on this side of the House. We believe in and trust Canadians to look after themselves.

I remember a time in this country when my parents and grandparents could afford to put food on the table for their families. They did not need a school lunch program and did not need food banks in order to provide food for their families. If I was the member, I would be embarrassed to announce a program for the 400,000 kids in Canada who now need a school lunch because their families cannot afford to pay for it.

This is the whole idea of the Liberals. The Liberals want to create a culture of dependency. They want to be in absolute control and insert themselves in every way into our lives. They want to control absolutely everything that happens from an economic perspective. They want to control the social fabric. We just have to look at the legislation they put in to curb speech and control basically everything Canadians do every single day.

Canadians can no longer afford the government. We need a Conservative government that unleashes opportunities and that unleashes the talents Canadians have.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague covered a lot of great topics, but one I want to ask him about is how the Liberals continue to talk about imaginary taxes and the impact they are having on Canadians, whether that is at the grocery store shelf or in their ability to grow their businesses. If this tax is so imaginary, why does their own budget have comments about increasing and strengthening the industrial carbon tax?

As he is from a rural riding that has energy, agriculture and a number of small businesses, I would like to ask my colleague what impact the industrial carbon tax is having on the businesses in his riding.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my esteemed colleague for Foothills, Alberta, knows very well what we are capable of in this country and what we are capable of as Albertans. As I said in my speech, we are 10% of the population and 15% to 16% of the GDP, because we have a culture in Alberta of getting things done. We have had years and years, decades even, of Conservative-minded provincial governments that have kept taxes low and created investment, wealth and prosperity for the people of Alberta, which we have shared happily, for the most part, with the rest of Canada. That is unless we have a Liberal government, of course, which puts its boot on our neck, taxes us into oblivion and makes it so we cannot even afford to buy homes, buy groceries and pay for a roof over our heads.

The policies of the current government, including the industrial carbon tax, are not a path forward to prosperity for this country. The carbon tax is going to drive away investment, and it is going to create more problems for our nation.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am curious to know what the member opposite thinks about what his colleague called the food program, which is going to be made permanent through budget 2025. One, it feeds children in schools and is requested in a lot of schools, and two, it is creating job opportunities. His colleague called it “garbage”. Does the member opposite agree?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Mr. Speaker, she just has to look to her right to her colleague who just asked me a question, who called natural health products garbage in the last Parliament.

Garbage is garbage: garbage in, garbage out. We can have these conversations all we want. As I said in my speech, 400,000 kids in Canada are the target for the school lunch program. I would be embarrassed to stand up and say that we as a government for the last 10 years have created such an economic mess in this country that we now need to borrow more money we do not have to feed kids whose parents used to be able to feed them on their own.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Secretary of State (Sport)]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to stand in the House to talk about the budget implementation act, but before I do, I would like to briefly remember a good person, a great Canadian, a champion and a fine friend. Yesterday, athletes at the 2025 Canadian Olympic curling trials in Halifax took a moment away from their competition to honour Colleen Jones and reflect on her legacy. The world champion curler and trail-blazing journalist from Halifax passed away at the age of 65 on Tuesday following her battle with cancer.

Brad Gushue, Canada's 2006 Olympic gold medallist in curling, said, “I remember being a young curler and watching her and looking up to her and she was always so helpful to me.” In 2014 and 2018, I had the opportunity to work with the great Colleen Jones a bit as a broadcaster with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Sochi and at the Pyeongchang Olympics. She was so kind. She was so nice. She was so welcoming and encouraging. I was an athlete who wanted to spread my wings a bit and do something different from my sport, and she said she was doing the same thing. She was still a curling competitor and an athlete, and such a kind person.

Canada will miss Colleen Jones. She was a world champion, a Scotties champion and a hall-of-famer. Everybody in Nova Scotia will miss Colleen Jones being on television across Canada. I would like to send a special note of condolences to everybody who works at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as her colleagues, her friends and her teammates remember the great Colleen Jones.

Now I would like to talk about budget 2025. Budget 2025 truly has something for every single Canadian. It is the largest-ever investment in non-market housing. This is close to my heart.

As a proud co-op kid, I have stood in this House to talk about my experiences growing up in non-market housing and my mother's contributions to the sector as a builder in the sector for over 35 years. She used to work at Homestarts, ran Briarview co-op and provided so many Canadian families with a safe and affordable place to live. I went to her retirement party last year, and I am proud to say that a number of young families came to me to say they currently reside at Briarview co-op and that my mom made it possible for them to thrive in the economy.

For hard-working families who may be new to Canada or not, non-market housing fills a much-needed gap in the housing sector. It does not take an economist to recognize that when we provide families with affordable rents, it also provides them with the opportunity to engage in the economy. When the federal government steps up to build non-market housing, it should be recognized by every member of this House as a great investment in the prosperity of our nation.

I grew up at Chautauqua co-op, and I can say that I had access to guitar lessons, the canoe club, after-school activities and even a Nintendo growing up because we had affordable rents. Families still do. However, back in the mid-nineties, governments gave up on building non-market housing.

Just recently, I was at the groundbreaking for a new co-op in Toronto, the first of its kind in 20 years. I want to thank Options for Homes and CMHC for this really big step forward in non-market housing and co-op housing in our country. I am thrilled that the federal government is back in the business of building co-operative and non-market housing across our country.

Build Canada Homes is going to change the game. I want to thank the Prime Minister for his leadership and the Minister of Housing for his leadership in championing non-market housing. This is a solution for the affordability crisis. This is a solution for affordable housing. It is a solution for young families and students. The vast majority of people who move into co-op housing will only move out when they are ready to purchase a home. While they are staying in and living in community housing like Chautauqua co-op, they are more capable of engaging in the economy and providing the basics for their families. I am thrilled with the largest-ever investment in non-market housing. It is truly a good reason for everybody to vote for budget 2025.

Something that has been spoken about in the last couple of minutes here in this House, but also over the last few weeks, is the national school food program. I was a huge advocate for it. That is because as a kid, I had access to healthy snacks in school because I went to a school with a school food program. Not every school has one, and not every province is providing that, but the federal government has stepped up and provided transfer payments to the provinces to ensure that every province can implement healthy snacks in schools for kids.

Every single study that has been done on school food programs indicates that these programs, when well managed, provide young people with opportunity. Grades go up. Young people are more likely to attend class. It is just a win-win-win for society. There is also the edible education course, and when food is on the curriculum, grades go up.

It is a really great investment in the quality of education across this country. I am very proud of it. I want to give all the teachers who came to the House of Commons to advocate for it a big high-five, and I thank the Coalition for Healthy School Food for its advocacy. It is astonishing that some members of this House are so staunchly against healthy snacks in schools for kids. They need to pick their battles. It is really strange that people are so against healthy snacks in schools for kids.

We have also seen, in budget 2025, the most generational investment ever in sport and community infrastructure facilities, something that members of the Conservative Party are in my inbox asking me about right now. It is an interesting thing to watch a Conservative member criticize budget 2025 and then reach out to ministers to identify where they can receive funding for their own communities. It is great that they are champions for their communities. It is great that they are looking to have community sports facilities built in their ridings. However, it is astonishing to see the Conservatives criticize the budget, vote against the budget and then ask for some of the money in the budget.

Thankfully, our government is going to invest across the country in facilities, in infrastructure and in community sport. This is the largest investment ever in community sport infrastructure, with a $51-billion contribution over the next 10 years, with different streams for provinces and territories and community sport organizations.

I often say that sport, physical activity, recreation and play are preventative medicine. They are a great way to knit our communities together and to bring folks together who might not meet at school, work, church or a mosque. It is a really great way to ensure that our communities are well connected. Studies also show that when there is good, high-quality, low-cost and no-cost sport programs in communities, we see safer communities. It is a solution for public safety.

As I was somebody who was probably getting into a bit of trouble after school in grades 7 and 8, my mom found the canoe club. She sent me down to the canoe club because I was too young to take care of myself and too old for a babysitter, and the canoe club was the perfect place for me. It kept me out of trouble in my teenage years. It got me to the Olympics in my twenties. I could not be more grateful for the awesome community sport programs right across the country, but certainly in Oakville at the Burloak Canoe Club. It served me well.

I know that building more community sport facilities is a solution for affordability, for ending anti-social behaviour, for public safety, for health and for mental health. Every pediatrician I talk to says that sport is a great solution for a lot of those things. Once again, the Conservatives can keep emailing me to ask about sport infrastructure in their communities, even though they voted against the budget and are vocal opponents of these investments when they are in the House of Commons. Certainly, when they are in their communities, they welcome the investments.

The last issue that I will highlight in budget 2025 is the transformational investment in the Canadian military. It is well deserved and a long time coming. There is a well-deserved salary increase for the Canadian Armed Forces, and I am proud of that. As every MP from every party did in this House, I recently attended Remembrance Day ceremonies in my riding and laid a wreath at the base of a cenotaph that commemorates the profound sacrifices that brave men and women made and continue to make for this country.

It goes without saying that these days, the world is more uncertain and potentially even more dangerous than in previous generations. Having a strong military is a necessity. Making our NATO commitments is an obligation. It is also important for our economy, to ensure that we are self-sufficient and reliant. We are moving away from reliance on the United States and other partners for these types of investments. We are also fortifying our own economy and our own reliance. Moving away from reliance and more to resilience is a priority for budget 2025.

Budget 2025 will build Canada strong. Whether we are talking about important programs like the national school food program; the generational investments in non-market housing; the investments in sport, community, physical activity infrastructure and facilities; or the well-deserved increase in salary for the Canadian Armed Forces, I am proud of budget 2025. I am proud of the Prime Minister and all the ministers engaged on these files, and I am proud to take some questions too.

[Roman Baber, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the member with respect to housing and the housing plan the Liberals put forward, so I have a few very specific questions for him.

First, why did the Prime Minister have to create a whole new office, the Build Canada Homes agency, instead of running this program from the Ministry of Housing?

Second, the total budget for this program is apparently $13 billion, and the estimate is roughly 4,000 homes. Why does it take three quarters of a million dollars to build a 600-foot shoebox when we factor in the cost of the bureaucracy?

Finally, there is some relationship, from what I understand, between the company doing the modular homes and Brookfield. What is that relationship and how much will Brookfield benefit from this arrangement?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Burlington North—Milton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there was so much misinformation and conspiracy theory jargon in that little question that I do not even know where to start.

Let us start with the obvious. A $13-billion investment in non-market housing over the next five years is precisely what this country needs. Currently, our co-op and non-market housing stock is too low a percentage when compared to other OECD nations. This should be welcome news to the Conservatives.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Burlington North—Milton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, even as I am being heckled by the member who asked a question in good faith, I will continue to answer.

Four thousand homes is just the beginning. The member has multiplied an ongoing denominator, or divided it, by the total amount we will invest over the five years by the current allocation. That is not just bad math, it is disingenuous. He knows that is not the case. He can do math, I presume, but that is just not how this works.

The first tranche is 4,000 homes, which is a good start, but the member knows that those 4,000 homes will not cost $13 billion. It is farcical and unnecessarily trivial for the member to be pretending so.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will give a specific example, and it is a continuation with regard to the Conservatives, which is the national school food program that the Conservatives have labelled as garbage.

I was first elected back in 1988 when Sharon Carstairs was the leader. At that time, in the Manitoba legislature, we talked about the too many children in school who were learning on empty stomachs and said that we needed to support children in schools. For the first time ever, we now have a Prime Minister and a government that says it should be a permanent program.

Can the member explain to the Conservatives why they should change their attitude toward that program?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Burlington North—Milton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will make a recommendation.

I think it is abhorrent that the Conservatives continue to double down on the notion that healthy snacks for kids in schools is garbage. This supports local agriculture, supports farmers and communities, supports education and edible education, and puts food on the curriculum. It also makes sure that regardless of who forgets their lunch or who does not have a lunch, whether it is for economic or time-based reasons, the healthy school food program that this government has championed is a solution for all those things. There are a million reasons why a kid might not have lunch at school.

Every single kid in class is going to learn better knowing that there are snacks. All the Conservatives need to do is go to a school, talk to a teacher, visit a parent and recognize that a healthy school food program is a solution for affordability. I know they might not believe in public education, as many of them have recently said they do not believe in public health care anymore. The program will save an average family $800 a year.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is one measure in the budget that did not get much attention. This measure allows the federal government to exempt itself from the law in the name of innovation or economic growth. Power is quietly being given to the minister, who can temporarily exempt anyone from any federal law based on promises of innovation or economic growth.

It seems to me that this opens the door to a number of possible abuses. Would the member not agree?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Burlington North—Milton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to remember that Canada is at economic war with the United States and that we need to take action now. We need to consider the tools available to our government to protect all sectors, workers and families in Canada and to give them confidence.

In my view, the people of Canada, Canadian workers and families, can trust our leadership.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Mr. Speaker, “Spend less, [earn] more”, they said. “Build Canada strong”, they said; “generational investment”, they said.

Objectively, the Liberals would spend more on operating expenses, not less. Objectively, they would build more bureaucracies, not actual projects. Objectively, they would build generational debt that would deny an entire generation of Canadians, all of our young people, the future they were promised.

Imagine never paying one's credit card bill. Imagine opening up a statement and seeing charges piled up, with no plan to ever pay them down. Imagine being told that the decisions we take, the sacrifices we make and the future we hope for no longer matter because somebody else is running up our tab. That is exactly what the budget does. It would create a nearly $80-billion deficit with no credible plan to balance. Every Canadian family is on the hook. Every dollar borrowed today will have to be repaid tomorrow with interest.

When the government members say our younger generation must sacrifice more, they are not speaking in abstract terms. They are speaking about real Canadians who now face real consequences. They are speaking about my neighbours, the students starting their career, the couple hoping to buy their first home and the young family saving a few dollars each month to make ends meet. It is a government asking people to make sacrifices today, all while it continues to spend as though there is no tomorrow.

Let us be clear: This is not a minor miscalculation. It is a deliberate decision to spend beyond the means of Canadian families and pass the bill on to the next generation. Every additional dollar borrowed today adds to inflation. Every additional dollar borrowed today adds to the costs of housing, groceries, heating and sending a child to school. Every dollar borrowed today will be paid back in greater amounts tomorrow by the very people the government claims to protect.

The message of the budget is clear: Canadians are being asked to sacrifice so that the government can spend more on itself. Canadians are asked to tighten their belts so that the Liberals can waste their future. This is the harsh reality of a budget that puts numbers before people, ideology before families and spending before responsibility.

Two million Canadians now rely on food banks every month. The Calgary Food Bank is seeing record increases in the number of individuals who are relying on it. In 2019, the food bank was distributing food hampers to 250 families every day. Now, it is up to 800 households every single day. We can let that sink in. In one of the richest countries in the world, in 2025, working Canadians with full-time jobs are lining up at food banks because they can no longer afford to feed their kids on what they earn. It is not a recession; it is a national disgrace. One in five Canadians is skipping meals to make their food last longer.

Canadians are choosing the pay-later option on Amazon or Afterpay for essentials. This is a single mom in Bridlewood, unsure if she can keep her home. It is a senior in Shawnessy whose pension is being eaten away by inflation. It is the newcomer or young couple in Millrise whose dream of home ownership is slipping further out of reach.

What does the government say to these Canadians? When asked about President Trump's tariffs, the Prime Minister shrugged and said, “Who cares?” This is not leadership; it is indifference. The Liberals are only saddling people who are currently struggling and future generations with insurmountable debt.

Bob Cochlan, down the street from me back home, wrote this morning with a way to think about what a billion actually is. He said, “If I give you $1 billion and you stand on a street corner handing out $1 per second, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you would still not have handed out $1 billion after 31 years.... The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.”

Bob is 100% right. The government promised a deficit of $62 billion. The reality would be $78.3 billion. That is $16 billion more than promised.

Spending is out of control. The Liberals would be adding $990 billion in new commitments, costing the average Canadian family $5,400 more a year. How many families have $5,400 kicking around to spend on the Prime Minister's best friends and pet projects?

The interest on our debt would be more than the amount transferred for health care to all the provinces combined. Here is another way to think about it. The next time people buy something, they can look at the GST on their receipt. The GST on every single payment they make all year, and the GST of every Canadian for the whole year, would still not cover the Prime Minister's deficit.

Every GST dollar now goes directly to Bay Street bankers and foreign bondholders rather than hospital beds, nurses' overtime or family doctors. Families are paying for spending, not services. The government calls these numbers manageable or necessary. What they are is simply a tax on hard work, with nothing being provided in return. Canadians are being asked to bear the cost of spending they did not vote for and cannot afford.

Private sector business investment is collapsing. High taxes, red tape and corporate welfare have driven $500 billion, half a trillion dollars, south of the border. In Washington, before President Trump, the Prime Minister shamelessly announced this as a Canadian investment. It is capital flight from an over-regulated market that he presides over. Businesses are leaving because the country is no longer stable, predictable or competitive.

It is not just businesses hurting. It is the listener at home who is paying the price for the government's failure to manage the economy. Opportunities are shrinking. Jobs are disappearing. People are leaving the country because the environment for business is hostile and expensive. Along with our dollar, our talent drains south. It is one thing to have a deficit. It is another to destroy the very foundation of a productive and growth economy that creates jobs and opportunity. Every Canadian who works, saves, invests or dreams of starting a family is paying a price.

Conservatives have offered a clear, practical path forward. We have said that we will work with anyone from any party to make life affordable and to restore Canada's promise. We would end the industrial carbon tax in all its forms. We would cut wasteful spending to lower inflation, debt and taxes. We would restore investment and make Canada competitive again. We would put money back into Canadians' paycheques and pensions. Above all, we would use what is in the ground beneath us to unleash our natural resources through national corridors and major infrastructure that would change the game for every single Canadian.

This is how to make life affordable again, not with expensive slogans, such as “generational investment”, but with an affordable budget and a bold plan that rewards work and restores opportunity.

I just want to take a step back and place the budget in the context of the last decade. This was supposed to be a historic budget. The country needed a historic budget with big, bold decisions that would unlock our potential, decisions that would break the mindset of middling and declining thinking and replace it with the ambition of a major and rising power, a nation pitched to meet the test of this age.

Canadians are managing the emotional weight of having lost the only period in recent memory when they felt financially secure and felt a sense of security. This was a decade ago, after Stephen Harper rebuilt the economy, built corridors for trade to every part of the planet and restored a self-confident country at peace with itself. The pandemic gave people a temporary, albeit false, sense of stability. The return now to a more expensive and unpredictable world has only intensified a mindset that was already growing well before COVID.

With the Liberals, costs will not retreat to those levels. Work will not return to that simplicity. The sense of control Canadians once felt is fleeting. Unless something fundamental changes, the forces driving their insecurity will remain.

The budget was supposed to give Canadians back control over their lives. Liberals spent the entire campaign harvesting Conservative ideas as their own and are now failing to deliver on any of them, despite having the support of Conservatives. The budget was a wasted opportunity. At a moment when the country needed seriousness, ambition and leadership, Canadians were handed more spending, more debt, more excuses and more government.

Conservatives will deliver the fundamental change that restores control for Canadians. We will reward hard work and create the conditions for higher wages, stronger paycheques, affordable homes and renewed confidence.

The promise of Canada is not gone. It lives in the single mother keeping her family afloat. It lives in the seniors who built the country. It lives in the newcomers and young people who still believe in what Canada could be. They deserve a future they can count on, a country that works harder for them and a government that respects the sacrifices they make every single day. Conservatives will deliver that.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we get it. We do not agree on the issue of spending, but does the member not agree that the reality is that President Trump is going to be here for a while? The tariffs exist, much as we are trying to fight them. They are going to affect our economy. There is going to be a downturn in the economy. There are going to be more people on EI and more people relying on social assistance, which costs us money. Is this really a good time to start cutting spending, which would otherwise create those jobs that will stimulate our economy?

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Mr. Speaker, not only is controlling spending, and doing it responsibly, critical for every taxpayer; growing the economy is a critical part of our own sovereignty, our self-reliance and our independence, irrespective of whatever government is in Washington. Canadians need a government ready to make transformational decisions, from pipelines to ports and energy corridors. They need investment facilities to invest in that are tax-free, in order to build this country.

Canadians need the big ideas that the Conservatives ran on and the Liberals tried to replicate, so irrespective of the Liberals' using Washington as a drama and a smokescreen to hide and shield their ideology and indecision, Conservatives would deliver a government that would actually unlock the potential of this country.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a fundamentally different opinion from my colleague on several points, particularly the idea of forcing and imposing energy projects without public support.

However, I do agree with him on one point, namely that visits to Washington are a smokescreen, ultimately yielding no concrete results and leading nowhere. For example, during the much-touted televised meeting, the Prime Minister was simply congratulated for not being humiliated live on air. That is pretty much it.

What more could my colleague tell us about the fact that this party was elected on the promise of resolving this issue? No one here can fault him for not being the saviour we needed. After all, he is dealing with Donald Trump, who is a tough negotiator. The problem is that it was he, the Prime Minister, who presented himself as a saviour and even set a deadline for resolving the tariff crisis.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that my friend, my hon. colleague, and I have our disagreements about how we can make our country prosperous by unleashing our natural resources. I want to unleash natural resources to help Quebeckers and to help the province of Quebec succeed in this country and this world. Their ports, their energy, their infrastructure and their industriousness are incredible and should play a bigger part in our country's self-reliance and sovereignty.

However, I also agree with our colleague about the smokescreen in Washington. It is interesting that the Prime Minister put up a strong front during the campaign about how he was going to challenge Donald Trump and achieve a trade deal, but within minutes he took a different position altogether. In fact he has conceded to the President and to the United States on tariffs, on investment in America and on everything the President really wants, but he is not driving toward concluding a deal. In fact he is weakening the Canadian position by not definitively delivering the resources this country needs to be independent of American leverage.

Canada wants a good partnership with the United States ultimately, and we will always focus on negotiating a good deal, but we can do so only from a position of strength.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about something that is a real concern in Canada right now, which is capital flight. Over $1 trillion has left Canada and gone to the United States because of the overregulating and overburdening government in Ottawa right now. Recently we heard of a potash company that is building an export terminal in the United States, which puts at risk economic sovereignty and food security in Canada.

I am just wondering if my hon. colleague could expand a little further on the risks Canada is now facing because of the Liberal government.