Mr. Speaker, as a member of Parliament for a rural Alberta riding, and as someone who spent 26 years as a chartered professional accountant before coming to this place, I feel obligated to rise today to speak to Bill C-15 and to the government's latest disaster of a federal budget.
I am going to dive into some of the fiscal details of the budget, but I want to be clear from the start: After 10 years of the Liberals, Canadians cannot afford the cost of the Prime Minister. They cannot afford the cost of his deficits; they cannot afford the cost of his broken promises, and they cannot afford the growing cost to simply feed their families. This budget does not build a stronger Canada. It mortgages our future and leaves rural communities, such as the ones I represent, behind.
I spent more than two decades reviewing financial statements, and I have seen business families thrive, but I have also seen them struggle. When I look at the budget, one thing is obvious: In the business world, the government would never secure financing on this record.
Let us remember what the Prime Minister promised Canadians six months ago. He promised a deficit at $62 billion, but it is at $73.8 billion. He promised to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio; instead, it is rising. That is another miss. He promised to spend less, but he is spending $90 billion more, which amounts to $5,400 in new inflationary spending per household. He promised more investment, yet investments in Canada are collapsing.
These are not minor errors. These are fundamental failures in fiscal stewardship, and they are costing Canadians every day. That is the cost of the Liberal government.
Tourism is the heartbeat of many rural Alberta communities, especially in my riding of Yellowhead. With the natural beauty of Banff National Park and Jasper National Park, to the welcoming communities of Canmore and Grande Cache, our local festivals, rodeos, campgrounds, trails and small businesses employ over 8,700 workers in my riding, Moreover, 2,259 businesses in Yellowhead are tourism-related.
Tourism has proven to be one of the best returns on investment that a country can make, with research showing an up to 12-fold return for every dollar invested in tourism. I was appalled to see that the budget absolutely ignored our tourism sector. Rural operators are struggling with higher costs, labour shortages and shrinking margins. They are fighting just to stay open. The federal government had a chance to support them, and it chose not to. That decision puts real jobs, families and communities at risk.
Another area I was hoping to see addressed in the budget is regarding indigenous policing. I have been privileged to sit on the indigenous and northern affairs committee. We have heard again and again, week after week, that the government needs to step up and adequately fund indigenous policing in Canada. The lack of consistent, reliable funding is continuing to have an impact on public safety in these communities.
I believe the government really missed the mark when it comes to not including dedicated funding where it is sorely needed. This is a profound failure. Rural Albertans know this well. My communities rely on underfunded RCMP detachments that are already stretched thin. Indigenous communities deserve equitable public safety and should be supporting first nations policing, not ignoring it.
As a rural Albertan, a legal firearm owner and a hunter who has been a responsible gun owner my entire life, I need to address the impacts the bill would have on law-abiding firearms owners. What Ottawa is calling a buyback is not a safety measure. It feels as though the government does not understand our way of life, and it is reaching into our homes and taking property when we have already followed all the rules. Gun owners are licensed and trained, and we follow storage and transport requirements because we believe in safety.
However, the budget continues to pour millions of dollars into confiscating legally purchase firearms instead of putting resources where they actually make a difference, such as border enforcement, rural policing and indigenous policing, as I have already mentioned, and the government needs to address the root causes of crime. Bill C-15 punishes people who did nothing wrong while real problems go untouched.
For those of us who hunt to fill our freezers, who pass down traditions to our children and who treat firearms with respect, this is not just a policy disagreement. It is a sign that our voices and realities are being ignored. We deserve laws that target criminals, not citizens who follow the law.
I want to address another issue that, as a CPA for 26 years, is especially troubling to me: the government moving forward on automatic tax filing. Let me be clear. Conservatives support making life easier for Canadians. We support simplicity, efficiency and fairness, but automatic tax filing is not about making life easier. It is about giving the CRA the power to assess people's taxes for them without ensuring they get the benefits, deductions and credits they are entitled to.
The Auditor General reported that when people are able to get through on the phone, the CRA gives wrong information more often than not. Many Canadians already face reassessments and incorrect notices. It is naive to believe that adding another automatic system would improve in any way the service Canadians receive from the CRA. My expectation is that this change will only cause more confusion, more frustration and more phone calls to an already drowning phone line. Under automatic filing, the CRA would become both the tax preparer and the auditor. This is not service and it is not simplification; this is a conflict of interest. Seniors, low-income families and rural citizens would be the ones most likely to lose the benefits they should receive.
When the CRA makes a mistake, who do Canadians appeal to? We already have a system where someone is guilty until they can prove otherwise with the CRA. With this change, Canadians would need to appeal to the same agency that made the mistake, and likely months after the fact. As someone who has spent a career helping people navigate the tax system, I cannot support a policy that would put vulnerable Canadians at risk of overpayment and missed benefits. This is a system that would put government convenience ahead of citizens' rights.
I spent my career studying numbers behind government decisions and the impacts those decisions have on Canadians and their businesses. I can tell members this: Too often, Liberals have lacked the vision to see what happens with the changes they make. For example, the changes to bare trust reporting that were supposed to be implemented for March 2024 were meant to go after so-called rich people, but they cast a wide net affecting millions of ordinary Canadians. At the eleventh hour, after thousands of accounting hours, the Liberals cancelled the implementation because it would have had unintended consequences.
In the last few days, several Liberals have admitted to the cancellation of the UHT, or underused housing tax, which also had unintended consequences. They eliminated that fiasco. The UHT was supposed to target foreign speculation, yet it swept up millions of Canadians into unreasonable reporting requirements for no good. Once again, red tape for poorly thought-out legislation added layers of half-formed regulations and burdens. I can only say that thank goodness someone saw the light on this Liberal failure.
My fear is that this disastrous budget would not create prosperity, just financial strain on our constituents and future generations. The Liberals discourage growth, punish taxpayers and add complexity to a system already strained to the breaking point. What Canadians need is a tax framework that rewards work and supports Canadians.
After I listened to Canadians in my riding, my conclusion was simple: This budget fails the people it is supposed to support. Rural communities asked for affordability, for safety, for opportunity and for respect. Instead, they would be handed higher costs, more bureaucracy and a government that continues to ignore the realities outside major cities.
The Conservatives continue fighting for a government that lives within its means and respects taxpayers. We will push for a tax system that is fair, a regulatory system that makes sense and a budget that puts families, farmers, workers and small businesses first. Canadians deserve better, and the Liberal budget does nothing but disappoint.
