Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-15, the budget implementation act. Sadly, this is not the right budget for Canada. It spends too much in the wrong areas, taxes families that are struggling to get by and, ultimately, leaves an enormous debt to our generation and, most likely, the next. Ultimately, that is why I voted against the Liberals' budget. It was not because I opposed every line in a budget that spans hundreds of pages and thousands of programs, but because it prioritized a heavy tax-and-spend agenda today for historic levels of debt tomorrow.
How much debt would it be? There would be $1.28 trillion, with $109 million added every single day. It is hard to even conceptualize. In fact, in the time it takes to complete this 10-minute speech in the House today, the national debt would increase by more than $7 million. That is the average cost of a small to mid-sized private yacht every 10 minutes, but the Liberals have good news for those looking to buy a yacht because this budget has cut the tax on luxury boats. For my constituents, meanwhile, there is little relief offered as they see their grocery bills at Safeway only grow.
Too often, our national debt and budget deficit are framed by the Liberals as purely irrelevant economics to Canada's priorities, but nothing could be further from the truth. There is a reason that one year ago, the previous finance minister under Justin Trudeau resigned when she was asked to run a deficit of more than $43 billion. It is now almost twice that.
Setting aside the global pandemic, this is now the highest deficit on record, but in this budget, we will find an even more concerning number. As deficits run higher and higher, so too do the costs to borrow and the interest payments that the Liberal government is forced to pay on our national debt. Public debt charges for this year amount to $53.4 billion in taxpayer dollars going to debt holders, not health care, not roads, not defence and not support for industries hit by tariffs. There is nothing that benefits Canadians. In fact, the $53.4 billion spent on public debt charges is nearly identical to the amount the federal government spends on health care through Canada health transfers and the amount it collects in GST revenue. However, by the end of the decade, it will surpass all health care and defence costs as a burden on taxpayers, growing to $76.1 billion. Canadians do not want to pay taxes to pay off government debt.
What is this budget doing for residents in my communities? Economists will always say that infrastructure investments are a good way to improve an economy, but this budget fails to make the investments needed in this area. The budget would give the failed infrastructure bank an additional $10 billion, bringing the total to $45 billion of taxpayer dollars. After almost a decade of spending billions in taxpayers' money to attract private investment, the Liberals' infrastructure bank has only completed seven projects, less than one per year, out of the more than 100 it has funded.
Meanwhile, good ideas, like the one the member for Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna and I had, are brought forward to the Liberal government and ignored. Together, we called on the federal government to assist with the cleanup of the landslide on Highway 97, the extremely important and only highway to Kelowna from the South Okanagan. This highway was invested in under the Harper government.
The plan that the member and I had was to allow the provincial government to allocate maintenance funds to upgrade 201 Forest Service Road. This would ensure a reliable year-round alternative when Highway 97 is closed, whether by fire, landslide, flood or accident. It is an extremely important artery. In other words, people in Okanagan-Similkameen could make it safely and in a timely way to the hospital in Kelowna, which they are dependent upon.
A fully functional north-south connection for the Okanagan Valley would boost economic productivity and community safety, but the Liberals choose to continue pouring public funding into the same failed Trudeau infrastructure policies that do not get things built.
This is also true of the Liberals' continued failure on clean drinking water. The Liberals promised to end boil water advisories for indigenous first nations by 2019. Not only has this promise not been kept, with dozens remaining, but even more communities across Canada have brought in boil water advisories since that promise. Look at my riding, for example. Many residents in my communities live under boil water advisories due to aging water infrastructure. It has come to a crisis level.
For example, the communities of Olalla, Osoyoos, Hedley, Vintage Views, Heritage Hills, Warfield, Okanagan Falls and Sage Mesa have been failed by a provincial government that did not exercise its proper oversight role, and by a federal government that has been slow to ensure that all Canadians have access to clean drinking water. It is a right. The Liberals should be looking at how they can mobilize their resources to ensure the reliability of roads, power grids and water sources, but I do not see that prioritized in the budget.
Similarly, the government's efforts to combat the deadly drug crisis in my home province prioritize continued addiction instead of a road to recovery. Not only did the health minister ignore my request to her directly in our committee to end the decriminalization experiment, a pilot project, that is operating only in British Columbia, but in the budget, the Liberal government also continues to push access to dangerous drug paraphernalia.
Recently obtained information from the member for Riding Mountain confirms that the government's own emergency treatment fund is being used to purchase smoking kits. In other words, these are taxpayer-funded crack pipes. The budget does not put forward meaningful measures that we so need to tackle the addiction crisis, which leaves the streets of my communities unsafe; creates dangerous tent cities that were not there just 10 years ago, five years ago or two years ago; and takes many lives and leaves families suffering.
Last, given the importance of the forest industry, especially at mills in Castlegar, Princeton and Grand Forks, I wish to address the government's promised fund for our mills as they come under attack from the unjustified U.S. tariffs. All members of the House want to protect our lumber jobs, but we will only protect them in the long term with a softwood lumber agreement with Washington, D.C., not through the extension of government loans. Many of the mills already carry enormous debt. Adding to that burden puts their long-term viability at risk.
I do not pretend that a softwood agreement will be easy to obtain, but as members of the lumber industry said in October, the Prime Minister cannot be silent on this industry. I know that the Prime Minister is currently in Washington, D.C., and I suggest that he speak more about the mills than about the FIFA World Cup with President Trump.
The Prime Minister promised a $62-billion deficit, yet the deficit is $78 billion. He promised to spend less, yet this budget spends more. He promised to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio, yet it is increasing. He promised to increase investment, yet this budget shows that investment has actually declined. If the Liberal government does not intend to keep the promises it made to Canadians, then Canadians will ultimately hold it to account.