Madam Speaker, I would like to repeat a word I used yesterday that surprised a few people. It is important to consider what words really mean. In my view, the budget is a sham because it makes claims that are not based on facts, accounting rules or even the content of the budget speech itself. There are some gaps, without any explanations. Some things are added on one page, only to be subtracted on another, bringing the initial figure back to zero. In short, it is a mess worthy of "the place that sends you mad", where even Asterix nearly lost his mind.
I would also like to underscore the extreme arrogance that is reflected not only in the way the budget exercise was conducted, but also in the way a number of people in this Parliament are behaving. The Liberals have been in power for 10 years now. Unfortunately, as history has shown, the Liberals seem to believe that power belongs to them and them alone. They are now fantasizing about convincing stray sheep to come over to their side and create a majority, which would not reflect the will of the people.
What are the issues? What was all over the news during the election campaign in early 2025? No one can tell me it was not tariffs. The all-powerful Prime Minister told us that he was quickly going to make these tariffs disappear. That would have been only natural, since tariffs meant to intimidate have no place between allies, partners and friends like the United States and Canada are supposed to be, and that includes Quebec, whether we like it or not. However, because of some somewhat clumsy flip-flopping, our relationship with the United States is not improving. The tariffs that the Prime Minister was going to sweep away with a wave of his hand, those on cars, trucks, the forestry industry, steel, aluminum, and so on, have actually increased.
The other issue was trade. The Liberals promised that trade talks would resume quickly, culminating in a new free trade agreement in 2026, similar the last one, according to the Prime Minister. To say that the effort was not a success is putting it mildly.
The third issue that inevitably comes with a budget is governance. We are being served up a disgraceful accounting exercise. Thankfully, people and pundits understand that the government cannot insert a column of investments in the federal budget and hope to treat them as assets when they are simply expenses. The Prime Minister must know this. Anyone with a basic understanding of accounting and public finance has to know this. It is clearly a sham.
The government is dropping its elbows, and tariffs are going up. There are no trade negotiations under way, no matter what the ministers may say. This is an austerity budget with a dramatic increase in spending. That takes some doing. There is a dramatic increase in spending, but only a minuscule portion of that will be used to adapt to the tariff and trade crisis. It is in no way proportional to the deficit, which is nearly $80 billion. Moreover, Liberal governments have gotten us used to year-end deficits that are larger than those announced at the beginning of the year.
When we look at the budget, it seems to us that the Prime Minister and the government are acting like compulsive gamblers. Not only have they over-committed themselves to a series of failures that are dangerous for the economy, but they are also playing double or nothing. They are investing more public money in every way imaginable—the classic Liberal approach to running up a deficit—to see whether they will be able to get out of the situation, if not economically, then at least politically. Time will tell.
Is there anything in this budget for the Quebec nation, which the government is ignorant of and perpetually ignores? The government is ignorant of the Quebec nation in that it does not know anything about it. There is no evidence that this government cares at all about the Quebec nation. The government ignores the Quebec nation in the sense that it does not take Quebec into account in its political decisions. As has been the case for the past six months, we are again seeing that the decisions that are being made to adapt to the crisis with the United States favour Ontario, western Canada, and Canada's big banks and oil companies, not Quebec, and Quebeckers, especially young Quebeckers, do identify with any of this.
Let us review the list. We have already talked about this, because it was one of our demands. We asked for an annual increase in health transfers of 6%, rather than 5%. This would have allowed the inevitable and unavoidable increase in spending in Quebec's health care system to keep pace with the increase in available resources.
Now, we know that, year after year, with a return to 3% in 2028, Quebec taxpayers will have to spend an increasing percentage of the Quebec government's budget on health care or pay higher taxes. This is a gift from the federal government, which is keeping the money for the oil companies.
As for pensions, we have been talking about them for years. There comes a point where pensions are a matter of principle, morality, ethics or responsibility. It is about taking care of our people. It is about doing right by people who worked all their lives, who live on limited incomes and have the misfortune of being between the ages of 65 and 74, meaning they receive 10% less in OAS benefits than people 75 and over. The organizations that represent these people, people under 75 and over 75 alike, all agree with us that such discrimination is unacceptable. To top it off, the government is literally letting these people's purchasing power dwindle, ignoring the fact that maintaining the purchasing power of people who spend what money they have right away is a practical way to adapt to a crisis, especially if a recession were to occur.
Let us talk about home ownership. The government came up with a program that was called Build Canada Homes. Former Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation programs were put under that agency. From that point, things become murky. It is no longer clear who does what, and we see no real distinction in the budget in terms of how Quebec is treated, so there is a hint of interference, that good old Liberal habit. It is as though they were saying: we have the money, Quebec does not. Our fridge is full while Quebec starves. If Quebec wants money for its projects, legitimate projects supported by its citizens who, incidentally, pay their taxes to Ottawa, then it will literally have to give up some of its powers.
I want all those fine people across the way to know that building a house does not mean that young families can afford to buy it. There is nothing in all this that will give young people the ability to save the exorbitant amount needed to make a down payment on their first home. We proposed favourable terms under which young households could access government-backed credit or government loans.
I encourage members to talk to young families, to leave the comfort of their bubble and go see ordinary people. These are real young people with jobs, some of whom are in a couple where both people work, and they tell us that they will never be able to buy a home. We had an opportunity to finally provide resources to these people, who would have used them, thus helping to grow the economy. However, the answer was no. We were simply told no. I think young people will remember that.
There is nothing in the budget for forestry except credit support. Forestry companies cannot add interest costs to their expenses in such a crippling economic situation. In fact, solutions do exist, including those proposed by both the sector and the Bloc Québécois, that would address the core problem of the forestry sector's competitiveness at no cost to the government. I want to say that it is still not too late to do the right thing. We would have appreciated a sign. I imagine that the forestry sector would also have appreciated one.
Then there is the $800-million reimbursement of a tax that was never collected. There are a lot of dimensions to this issue. Since the government is a mix of red and blue, we will call it purple. Every time this purple government talks about carbon pricing in its budget, it is referring to the controversial carbon tax. Carbon pricing, which is an essential tool for fighting climate change, is officially becoming controversial. Carbon pricing has become the scourge of public finances. However, carbon pricing recognizes that carbon emissions have an environmental impact and generate astronomical costs, which will ultimately be borne by the same young people denied the opportunity to buy a house.
Of the $4-billion carbon tax reimbursement that the government paid to Canadians a week before the election, Quebec received not one penny. Quebeckers paid the tax, but received no reimbursement from the government at all, because the money was not spent by families. It was a flagrant election giveaway that was taken out of the pockets of Quebeckers and put into those of Canadians. This bears repeating because it is still as unacceptable as ever.
There is no hiding the fact that there is no money in the budget for fighting climate change. There is no denying that it is being ignored. Not so long ago, under the previous boss, this government talked about climate change and did nothing about it. I guess now that they have already backed down, they have decided to take one more step back and not mention it at all and just pretend that climate change no longer exists. There must be some people on the other side of the House whose conscience is telling them to hide under their desk, because what is happening with respect to the climate is shameful. This is going to catch up with the government when it snaps out of its denial phase.
We can talk about the end of EV initiatives, the end of the planned extension of funds that were going to total $83 billion before 2025 and were extended to exceed $100 billion in 2030, the end of the carbon tax and the $800 million that goes along with it, and the end of the emissions cap. I have a whole list. The member for Repentigny has generously provided us with many examples of what this budget contains in terms of the climate.
It seems to me that the government has abandoned a principle that I have not heard about in a long time. I believe this will resonate with people. If the government were to talk to the people of Quebec and ask them whether polluters should pay, I think the vast majority of people would say yes, that it is basic logic, common sense. The polluter pays principle is an expression that has not been used for a long time, and I want to bring it back.
The polluter pays principle means understanding that Ottawa cannot take money from Quebeckers and send it to oil companies. If that happens, the polluter no longer pays: the polluter gets paid, the polluter gets encouraged, the polluter gets rewarded, the polluter gets a boost, the polluter goes unpunished. Quebec, which has clean and renewable energy, is literally subsidizing polluting energy from western Canada. I do not have time to go into it now, but I will come back to the claims the western provinces make about equalization. Quebec gives more money to western Canada in oil subsidies than it gets in return.
Let us talk about asylum seekers. Quebec requested $700 million because it takes in and is currently hosting twice as many asylum seekers as the Canadian average. Yes, twice as many. By refusing to provide this money to Quebec, which delivers services to these people, the Government of Canada is telling the Government of Quebec to pay twice its share to welcome people arriving in distress from other countries and asking Quebec and Canada for help as they settle in. The Government of Canada is telling the Government of Quebec not to expect to get anything back.
The deficit is a popular topic of conversation. The deficit is not $33 billion plus investments; it is $70 billion. The accounting process they used is an embarrassment. This has been discussed before. It is no different than if I walked into my bank and told the bank manager that I wanted to take out a mortgage and then offered up my debts as collateral. It makes no sense, yet that is how the people of Quebec are being treated. As I said before, this is a sham.
For infrastructure, the Liberals are investing $115 billion over five years. This may sound like good news, but only a small portion of that amount will be used to help companies adapt to the tariff crisis. There is almost nothing for the Liberals' major projects. There is money for defence, tax cuts and the good old Liberal deficit, but at an all-time high.
We are talking about the need to adapt in the negotiations with the Americans, who are not being very nice to us. Let us not forget that the Canadian government wants to revive Keystone XL, which will take western oil and send it to the United States. They call that market diversification? Also, the government just gave Ontario $2 billion to buy modular nuclear reactors made in the United States that can process only American uranium. So much for diversification.
Incidentally, I invite everyone to have a look at the beautiful ship on the cover of budget document. The ship is named Arvik I and was built in Japan. That is rather interesting. It illustrates this government's judgment.
Now I am going to talk about austerity. Tens of thousands of jobs are at risk through attrition. That means fewer people doing the same work. The most experienced people leave, and the least experienced people stay on and have to do more work. In the meantime, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration is incapable of doing its job, and the Canada Revenue Agency is not doing its job either. If the government at least tried to cut out overlap or encroachment on Quebec's jurisdictions, it could save a lot of money, but no, the Liberal government is far too committed to its interfering ways.
Cuts to the public service are popular. It is trendy. However, making cuts the wrong way can sometimes be irresponsible. I have already mentioned that the austerity in this budget is being used to fund support for the oil industry. Oil does not serve Quebec and is damaging the planet. We are going to pay while the Prime Minister watches water levels rise because of climate change. He will have retired and will be sitting on his boat, not even realizing what is happening. As the water rises due to climate change, he will rise too. This image is a simple illustration of the total indifference these people feel toward the reality of all the people around the world who are suffering because of climate change.
There are positives, and I will mention them, because people are always saying that we do not talk about the good things. I want to mention some related regional projects where there is a collaborative effort. We have asked for support for these projects. There is the Exploramer museum's shark pavilion. There is the Espace Hubert-Reeves in Charlevoix. There is the Îles-de-la-Madeleine airport runway extension, which will enable the people of the Magdalen Islands to export as far as Ontario, which is a large market for them. There is the Forillon shipyard.
There is the ongoing interest in the Port of Saguenay. There are also the measures we suggested to tackle the Driver Inc. issue. That comes directly from the Bloc Québécois. There is the removal of the luxury tax on business aircraft and the removal of the GST on first homes, and there is money for culture. There are some good things, but overall, it remains an extremely risky and dangerous budget.
I will go straight to the conclusion to say—
