Mr. Speaker, whatever it says on the front cover, this budget does not build a stronger Canada. It weakens it, piling up record debt, driving up costs and leaving working Canadians to carry the weight of the Prime Minister's spending and years of Liberal failures.
Canadians were told to expect something “generational”. They were promised a serious plan to restore discipline after a decade of Liberal overspending and inflationary deficits. Instead, they got a banker’s budget, one that borrows more, taxes more and delivers less than ever before.
This plan is obsessed with the appearance of stability, but not the reality of affordability. Liberal ministers are celebrating empty promises and vague fiscal targets that exist only on paper. Meanwhile, Canadians are left holding a different kind of paper: real grocery receipts with fewer items and higher prices, and real bank statements that show savings shrinking month after month. I often say we cannot put a AAA credit rating on a hot dog, and we cannot buy dinner with a deficit projection either.
Behind all the rhetoric, the numbers tell the truth. This is the largest regular deficit in Canadian history, at $78 billion, far above the $62 billion the Prime Minister promised just months ago. The debt-to-GDP ratio is rising, not falling. Government spending is up $90 billion over last year. That is $5,400 in new spending for every household in the country.
For all that spending, Canadians are not better off. They are falling further behind. Growth has slowed to 1.1%, the second-weakest in the G7. Unemployment will average 6.4% over the next five years. The gap between rich and poor has widened. Food bank lines are out of control, and 700,000 children have visited food banks. Investment is collapsing, housing starts are stalling and productivity is at its lowest point in decades.
This is not building Canada strong. It is building a weaker economy and a heavier burden for the next generation.
Clearly, this so-called new Liberal government and the banker Prime Minister have learned nothing from the past decade under Justin Trudeau. Higher spending is not progress. It is not strength. It is the reason families face higher prices, higher taxes and harder lives every day.
Case in point is the carbon tax. For years, the Conservatives warned that the consumer carbon tax punished families and drove up the cost of living. For years, the Liberals stood in this House and denied this, insisting it somehow made life more affordable. Now, in this very budget, the government brags about cancelling that tax. The Liberals call it divisive and boast that because they did so, gas prices are down and inflation has eased.
However, in the same plan, they double down on the industrial carbon tax. That tax drives up costs for farmers and home builders and pushes prices higher for everyone else. How much will it cost Canadians? How much misery will it inflict before they admit they were wrong again?
We cannot tax the things farmers need for growing food and not expect food prices to rise. We cannot tax the things home builders need for building homes and not expect home prices to climb. We have seen this pattern before: The Liberals finally admit there is a problem, but they turn around and repeat the same mistakes.
Here is another example. In the budget, they promised to provide more certainty to the marketplace, yet what they are doing for the Canadian auto sector is the very opposite. After years of threatening manufacturers with an electric vehicle sales mandate, they have now paused it. Let us kick the can down the road. Let us delay it. Let us review it. They still cannot say what comes next.
How can automakers plan for the future when Liberal policy changes every few months? The 2028 models are being finalized as we speak, decisions that shape jobs and investment for years to come. What are the workers at Honda Canada in Alliston supposed to think when the government keeps flirting with a policy that threatens their very livelihood, especially when the Liberals have failed to defend their industry against the Americans?
That is why the slogans in the budget ring hollow. The Liberal failures have driven jobs, investment and confidence straight out of the country. They shift opportunity abroad instead of creating it right here at home. If they truly wanted to build Canada strong, they would protect Canadian jobs and investment and give consumers a choice by scrapping the EV mandate for good, today.
The Prime Minister has spent months insisting that the budget is not spending; it is investing. We heard the same line from Justin Trudeau for 10 years. Canadians know better. If this were true of the so-called investment, why stop at $280 billion? Why not double it? Why not triple it? If the investment is so great, if every dollar returned more than it cost, there would be no reason to ever stop spending.
We have already seen the results of these so-called investments. Take Northvolt, the Quebec battery plant. The Liberals poured billions into it. The company went bankrupt, no batteries were built and taxpayers were left with nothing to show for it. Then there is Novavax and the $130 million for a vaccine facility that never made a single vaccine. What about the Canada Infrastructure Bank? Since 2017, it has approved up to $13.2 billion for 76 projects, yet only two have been completed. How much of the $280 billion that the Liberal government is calling capital investments will yield similar results?
After 10 years, it has become apparent that what the Liberals call investment is what Canadians call waste. The evidence of that waste is not just failed projects; it is the results for ordinary people and the impact the waste has on their communities. After a decade of this so-called investment, our economy is weaker, productivity is falling and wages are stagnant.
Look at page 53 in the budget. The Liberals' own budget admits it. On page 53, they concede that if Canada’s productivity growth had simply matched that of the U.S. since 2017, the median income of a family with one child would be nearly $11,000 higher. That is the real return on Liberal investing: less growth, lower incomes and fewer opportunities for Canadians.
It is the same story that Canadians have seen for 10 years: a government that mistakes announcements for achievement and spending for progress. Canadians are working harder, paying more and getting less in return. They do not need a banker’s budget that builds up the debt while they fall further behind. After all, Canada’s strength has never come from government expenditures. It comes from the determination of Canadians: the family in Tottenham saving for their first home, the small business in East Gwillimbury growing and succeeding, and the farmer in the soup and salad bowl of Canada working 16 hours a days harvesting carrots to feed this nation.