Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-15, the budget implementation act, and to give a voice to Brampton West residents and all Canadians who feel that the government has forgotten them. Families are falling behind, seniors are struggling and young Canadians' dreams of owning a home have been stolen by Liberal mismanagement.
The Liberal government is now in its 10th year of driving our country deeper into debt and deeper into a housing crisis and an affordability crisis not seen in generations. Bill C-15, the first implementation act of the 2025 budget, would do nothing to change course; it is more spending, taxes and bureaucracy, and fewer results. The budget does not put Canadians first; it puts consultants, insiders and Brookfield first, everyone except Canadian families.
In Brampton West and in Peel, I see the impacts every day. Young families in my communities are stretched to the limit, housing costs are crushing and rents keep going up. Many people in Peel who once dreamed of home ownership now tell me the dream feels out of reach or too expensive to risk. Wages are not keeping pace; food bank use is at an all-time high; crime, extortion and shootings are all rising; small businesses are suffocated by taxes and red tape; and young people are losing hope.
Businesses in Brampton, especially small ones, are under pressure. They do not need more regulation or government programs; they need stability and certainty in order to invest, hire and grow. The budget does absolutely nothing to fix it. It is not a growth plan; it is a trap for our future, especially for young Canadians. Brampton residents deserve a government that works for them, not against them.
The budget is built on the same fantasy that has guided the Liberals since 2015: the belief that they can spend endlessly without consequences, but Canadians know the consequences all too well. The Liberals promised to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio; they raised it. They promised to spend less; they added another $90 billion, which will cost every family $5,400. The Prime Minister is running a $78.3-billion deficit, not to build homes, lower costs and help families but to cover up nine years of economic failure. It is not a budget; it is a warning, a flashing red light on the dashboard of the Canadian economy.
Canada's national debt is now over $1.3 trillion. Debt servicing costs are higher than the federal government's total health transfers to the provinces; we pay more to service the debt than we spend on the health care Canadians rely on. Debt servicing in 2025-26 will reach $55.6 billion, which is more than the Canada health transfer. This is fiscal negligence, economic recklessness and generational theft.
Who pays for it? It is not the ministers who make the decisions or the bureaucrats who add the lines. The next generation pays for it: students, young families and workers in Brampton and right across the country. That is the Liberal legacy, and Bill C-15 would cement it.
I represent Brampton West, a young and diverse community full of hard-working families, seniors, new Canadians and small businesses. These residents are not asking for handouts; they are asking for fairness, stability and a chance to get ahead. However, today mortgage renewals are up; grocery prices are up 25% since 2019; car insurance and gas costs are punishing working families; food bank usage is breaking records in Peel region, which has the highest usage in Ontario; families are juggling multiple jobs to keep a roof over their head; and young Canadians are losing hope that home ownership will ever be possible.
Nonetheless, Bill C-15 contains no real plan to lower inflation, taxes or the cost of living; it is just more spending, photo ops and bureaucracy.
Nowhere is the government's failure clearer than in housing. The Liberals promised to make housing affordable again and, instead, they doubled housing costs, reduced housing starts and plunged the country into the worst housing crisis in our history. Now they want Canadians to believe the Prime Minister's so-called plan will fix it when the budget itself proves the opposite.
The Prime Minister promised to build “at a speed and scale not seen in generations”, but what did he deliver? His fourth housing bureaucracy is funded at only half the promised amount. He refused to cut development charges despite promising to cut them in half immediately. His appointed housing officials previously increased development charges by 700% and, according to the Building Industry and Land Development Association, this plan will destroy 100,000 jobs in construction.
Even housing experts were shocked. Mike Moffatt of the Missing Middle Initiative said, “I went into the budget lockup expecting to be disappointed, but I had inadequately prepared myself for how disappointed I would be.” The Large Urban Centre Alliance said, “This budget relies on backward-looking data that provides false reassurances”. When someone's own experts, economists and builders reject one's plan, one does not have a plan.
In Brampton and Peel Region, housing prices have more than doubled since 2015. Young families are living in basements because starter homes are out of reach. Newcomers are waiting years just to find affordable rental units. This is not a housing market; it is a crisis created by Liberal policies with excessive money printing, uncontrolled demand pressures and endless red tape. Bill C-15 continues that same failed approach.
Let me be clear. Immigration is a strength for Canada, but it must be planned, managed and supported with housing, infrastructure and transit investments. Under the government, immigration targets were increased dramatically without matching increases in housing supply, without matching investments in infrastructure and without supporting municipalities like Brampton, one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada. Bill C-15 ignores this reality. It offers no plan for infrastructure, no plan for transit and no plan for municipal support, just more bureaucracy and more promises.
Conservatives have a real plan to bring affordability and home ownership back to Canadians: cut the GST on all new homes under $1.3 million, saving families up to $65,000 and unleashing new building across the country; tie federal infrastructure dollars to homebuilding, with municipalities having to permit at least 15% more homes each year to receive federal funding; cut development charges by 50%, which the Liberals promised in the last election and failed to deliver; end capital gains tax on reinvestments into new housing in Canada, unlocking billions of dollars in private sector investment to accelerate building; and bring home lower taxes, lower inflation and balanced budgets. Then Canadians could afford the essentials again.
Bill C-15 asks Canadians to trust the same government that created the affordability crisis, the housing crisis and the debt crisis. It asks Canadians to trust the same failed policies, the same empty promises and the same out-of-touch leadership that made life unaffordable. However, Canadians are smarter than that. They know this budget will not build homes, not lower prices and not fix the economy. Canadians deserve a government that respects their money, supports their dreams and builds homes, not bureaucracy.
Bill C-15 is not a budget that would help Canadians. It is a budget that would protect Liberal political survival, not Canadian economic survival. Canadians deserve better. Brampton deserves better. Young families deserve better. Seniors deserve better. They deserve a government that will restore hope, home ownership, affordability and common sense to this country.
Conservatives will bring affordability, accountability and more opportunity. We will bring home the Canadian dream.