Debates of Dec. 5th, 2025

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-15, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on November 4, 2025, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the Liberal government's latest budget proposal, a budget that fails Canadians on affordability, jobs, housing and immigration.

I am going to start with the good news first, because there is not much. The Peavey Mart in Spruce Grove has now reopened, and folks are really excited.

Now we are into the bad news. After 10 years of deficits, Canada's finances are in a troubling shape. This budget adds $321.7 billion to the federal debt over the next five years. That is more than twice what the Prime Minister previously projected. That works out to over $10 million in new debt each and every hour. This huge deficit comes on top of a number of very important cuts that the government is also making. The Liberal government likes to talk about all its spending and generosity, but I think it should be pointed out that it is making some significant cuts to areas of importance.

The Liberals are removing statutory protections for free postage for blind people who are accessing literature products that weigh more than regular literature products. These statutory protections are being removed. I wonder why the government would remove accessibility supports for blind people. My grandfather was blind. He utilized those services, and I think it is very concerning.

I received a very concerning letter from a constituent, Nicole Callihoo, who serves as the education director for the Paul First Nation. I just want to read a few excerpts from her letter to me. She said she was writing with a heavy heart and a deep sense of urgency. Despite submitting full Jordan's principle applications and following every step as required, her school has not received the necessary funding to continue services for its students. They are now in the fourth month of the school year, and these delays contradict both the spirit and the purpose of Jordan's principle.

For those who do not know, Jordan's principle is a principle that requires the federal government to provide funding for at-risk indigenous students.

She said that in the true way of their ancestors, they did not wait for approvals before taking care of the children. They honoured their needs and began services immediately so that they would not experience further hardship or delay. These supports have brought powerful changes. Students who were once quiet and unsure have begun to speak for the first time. Those who carried worry and heaviness have started to open their hearts. They look forward to their sessions. Families have shared that they notice a new calmness, confidence and connection in their children. These are not small steps, she says. They are the beginnings of healing.

However, because the funding from the federal government remains outstanding, they now face the painful reality of stopping those services. Ending supports after children have finally begun to trust and feel safe goes against their cultural teachings and against everything that Jordan's principle stands for. Interrupting care will undo progress, break relationships and cause harm that could have been prevented. This type of disruption echoes the very history that Jordan's principle was created to stop.

Jordan's principle exists so that no first nations child is caught in delay, conflict or confusion. It is rooted in a teaching that the child comes first, before government processes, before jurisdictional disagreements and before paperwork, yet the current delays and the refusals to fund are causing harm to their students, harm that carries emotional, educational and cultural consequences.

I just wanted to share that from Nicole Callihoo, the education director of Paul First Nation. We stand up and listen in this House every day as the Liberals talk about reconciliation and talk about their big new programs to support children, yet indigenous children, first nations children, in my region are suffering because of the government's failures to support them. The failures violate treaties and violate court rulings, and it is a shame.

Despite the government's cold-hearted cuts, our national debt now stands at $1.3 trillion and taxpayers are now paying $55 billion just in interest payments every year. That is more than the Canada health transfer, and it is more than all the GST collected. It is over $3,000 per household.

Meanwhile, GDP growth is stuck, and unemployment is expected to average over 6% over the next five years. The recent job numbers we received are painting a troubling picture. We are seeing part-time jobs replacing high-paying, family-supporting, full-time jobs. We cannot run an economy and we cannot support families based on part-time employment. The gig economy is not a strategy for success, yet the Liberals seem to stand up here and celebrate it every day.

The Prime Minister promised to balance the operating budget within three years to ensure that there was a declining deficit-to-GDP ratio and a declining debt-to-GDP ratio. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that there is very little chance of meeting this.

Fitch Ratings is warning that this budget weakens Canada's credit profile. What happens when our credit profile goes down? Our interest rates to borrow go up, which means that more and more of our tax dollars go to servicing our debt instead of going to essential programs, like supporting Jordan's principle, literature for the blind, and all the other programs that people depend on the government for.

It is not just Conservatives who are saying this. Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, called the budget “a missed opportunity to provide meaningful tax relief to Canada’s employers.” Conservatives are proposing amendments to scrap hidden taxes on food, work, homebuilding, investment and energy, and to cap the deficits. The government rejected these ideas and instead has added new spending. This is not responsible budgeting; it is reckless, and it would hurt vulnerable people in Canada the most.

The results of the Liberals' poor economic management are higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher costs for Canadians. We just read a report that this coming year Canadians can expect that a family of four will pay $1,000 more just for groceries. Statistics Canada confirms that the prices for food, gas and rent continue to rise. Some might call this a global phenomenon, but it is rising far faster than for our closest neighbour and trading partner, the United States. Food inflation is nearly double the Bank of Canada's target rate and rising 48% faster than in the United States. Between March and September alone, the price of strawberries rose by 25%, beef by 20%, ground coffee by 20%, and chicken drumsticks by 17%.

A decade ago, when Conservatives were in government, individuals with full-time jobs were not relying on food banks to feed themselves and their families. Now, the high cost of groceries is exacerbating the issue of food insecurity, and we have many families who are working full-time who still have to go to the food bank. Poverty has risen by over 40% in the last two years alone. Food Banks Canada has given the government an F for poverty and food insecurity, noting that hunger is becoming normalized in Canada. More working people, seniors and young families are relying on food banks than ever before.

With respect to housing, the Prime Minister has promised 500,000 new homes, yet that number has been significantly downgraded. BILD, which is an advocacy group for home builders, projects that the Liberal government's homebuilding program could actually cost the sector over 100,000 jobs. We have seen pre-construction sales collapse; in the GTA alone, they are down 82%. Developmental charges, which make up 25% of the cost of homes these days, have risen by 700% in 20 years. It is pricing many families out of the market.

We have seen population growth under the current Liberal government outpace housing supply, health care services and education services because of the government's failed immigration policies. Instead of aligning our immigration system with housing and service capacity, the Liberals would make these high levels permanent, keeping over two million temporary residents by 2027. That is a 300% increase since 2015. They have no plan for 500,000 undocumented individuals or three million temporary workers whose visas are now expiring. This inaction is directly straining wages, it is hurting health care, hurting housing availability and hurting child care. Canadians deserve an immigration system that takes into account the needs of Canadians first. That means a system aligned to the realities of our infrastructure capabilities, health care, education and job market.

Despite the Prime Minister's comments, young Canadians have already sacrificed enough. He said they needed to sacrifice more. Well, they have already sacrificed enough. Youth unemployment has climbed to over 13%, the highest since 2010. Students who are trying to balance school and work face unemployment rates of over 17%. It follows a difficult summer, where many returning students faced the worst job market since the great recession. Recent graduates are facing an extremely difficult job market and are unable to find jobs in their field. Now, the Prime Minister said to them that they have to sacrifice more. Well, we are seeing too many young people who should be buying their first home, starting a family and being at the peak of their career, pursuing something that they love, yet many are still having to live in their parents' basements because they cannot afford to get a home. Many people have sacrificed the dream of home ownership. They have paid the price as food costs have exploded. They have paid exorbitant taxes, delaying their ability to start a family. They have sacrificed enough.

The Liberal government's spending-driven deficit takes money out of the pockets of every Canadian. It is making everything more expensive. Young Canadians should not have to suffer. Conservatives have a vision for a future Canada where all Canadians could thrive, a country where hard work is rewarded and where people can start a business, build a home, develop a—

[The Acting Speaker, Pat Kelly]

I am afraid the member has run out of time.

Questions and comments, the member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize that going out of the election, we made a commitment to Canadians on a number of different fronts. I want to highlight some very good news that came out today. We have now had three months in a row where we have had substantial job growth. In September, 60,000 jobs were created; 28,000 of those were in the manufacturing industry. We had 67,000 jobs in October. The vast majority of those were actually in the province of Ontario. There were also 60,000 this month, or I should say in November. That is significant growth.

Does the member not agree that jobs matter and are a great indicator in terms of how—

[The Acting Speaker, Pat Kelly]

The member for Parkland.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, jobs are important. I want to remind the member of a few names he might not know about: In Crofton, 1,000 jobs were lost; in Brampton, 3,000; at Algoma Steel, over 400. In sawmill towns across western Canada, particularly in British Columbia, there have been thousands of jobs lost. These communities have been gutted, and the government has absolutely failed.

What I would remind the member is that when we look at the job numbers, we are talking about part-time jobs. The government is creating a gig economy. A gig economy is not a strategy for families to buy homes, to support a growing family, or to support—

[The Acting Speaker, Pat Kelly]

Questions and comments, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government over the last 10 years has arguably the worst economic record since 1945. Here is just one set of data points: Overall labour productivity has declined in each and every one of the last four years. I cannot think of any four-year period since 1945 where this has happened. It is in CANSIM table 383-0033. Productivity was $65 per hour in 2021, $64.60 in 2022, $63.50 in 2023 and $63.20 in 2024, last year. It has dropped in each and every one of the last four years since 2020. That is why the Bank of Canada has called it an emergency.

The budget does little to address this productivity emergency. Would the member comment?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for providing this great data for the House of Commons to review. I think, for many Canadians, these numbers might seem abstract, but let me talk about how important it is to understand what it means that Canada has had the worst productivity growth in the last four years. It means we are not creating jobs in this country. It means we are not raising wages in this country. It means we are not creating the economic growth in this country that can sustain our health care system and our social safety net.

Under the last four years of this failed Liberal government, our productivity has been in the gutter. The Bank of Canada is sounding the alarm, and this Liberal budget does very little to address our productivity crisis.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is critical that we plug economic leakages right now.

In 2010, the Conservatives scrapped the 25% tariff on foreign-built ferries, claiming Canadian shipyards could not compete. The Liberals made that mistake permanent in 2016. Since then, ferry contracts and good jobs have gone overseas while communities like Port Alberni on Vancouver Island lack the dry dock capacity for shipbuilding, maintenance, repair and recycling. Reinstating this tariff would level the playing field and generate revenue to build that capacity here at home.

Does my colleague agree that the government should reverse this mistake and reinstate the tariff to support Canadian workers and Canadian shipyards?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting when I hear a member like my hon. colleague from the NDP calling for a return to tariffs. I can say that, in my personal opinion, I do not want to see tariffs. I want to see a country where businesses want to come here and thrive because we have good regulations, a responsible tax rate that drives investment into our country, and a strong, educated and skilled workforce that is able to provide the productivity gains needed to bring that investment and those jobs into our country.

I think that when we are talking about bringing things like tariffs in, we are providing a crutch for the economy, which makes it more difficult to get those needed investments and reforms to ensure that we can have the strong jobs that we need for the future economy.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour and privilege to rise in the House.

Today, we are discussing the budget implementation act. I want to talk, just in generalities, about the importance of the private sector and of the individual workers, entrepreneurs and job creators across this great country. Ultimately, they will drive our productivity and our economy forward. Unfortunately, the Liberal government has been working at cross-purposes to empowering them and getting them to do the work that they do great, which is to create jobs and wealth.

In our country, as nearly any metric by nearly any international or domestic organization will show, we have extremely high rates of taxation and regulation. This regulation has the undeniable impact of limiting our potential and our ability to fully exploit our economy as we go forward. This is across different sectors, including manufacturing in my great province of Ontario, where we have some of the best manufacturers in the entire world.

When I meet with them, and I have met with many of them in my own riding in towns like Cobourg and Port Hope, they all talk about their inability to fully exploit their potential because of the amount of red tape and regulation surrounding them, particularly at the federal level. The ones who ultimately benefit from a corporation or a company being successful are the workers, because when a company is successful, it is the workers that will receive much of the compensation that comes from that. However, when we look at this, we see this regulation, and we see things slowing down.

If Canadians do not believe politicians, it may be because there have been politicians, even in this very House, who have been disingenuous and who have not been entirely believable. I would like to direct attention to a scholarly book written on business by one of the bright lights in terms of academic discussion of businesses and how businesses succeed. Jim Collins wrote Good to Great. For those with no knowledge of this, I highly recommend it. His books have been highly influential, not just in the business sector but in the non-governmental, non-profit and charitable sectors as well. He had a number of different rules based on an incredibly large study that he did of many companies over a long period of time. The empirical data in there is really undeniable.

One of his conclusions talked about the level of control, bureaucracy and rules in a corporation. He said that, ultimately, governments, or actually in this case, companies, often put copious numbers of rules in place in order to fence in, or box in, a couple of bad actors. What happened with all these rules was that those folks who were entrepreneurs, who were inventive and who were driving the productivity of those companies forward were snuffed out.

Once again, the book is called Good to Great. I highly recommend that everyone check it out. In his research, he compiled the empirical data. Those companies with too much regulation almost always failed. They were unable to compete with those businesses that, instead of hemming individuals in with these oppressive regulations, established a culture of responsibility. In other words, they trusted individuals to do what was in their best interests and also in the company's best interests, going forward.

By putting in place that culture of personal responsibility, not only did it have the effect of making people more entrepreneurial and more innovative, but it brought people into the organization and, quite frankly, brought people together. No longer did they look at other people as the enemy or as their competitors in the corporation, they saw their colleagues as people who could potentially help them up the ladder. The empirical evidence is clear.

The next subject I would like to talk about is what I have deemed to be the fiscal or financial imbalance in our country. In any modern society, there is a calculus that has to be made: How many resources are dedicated to the public sector, and how many resources are dedicated to the private sector?

I want to start by saying that the public sector has many great purposes: our police, fire and armed forces. Even the equity ability of the government should not be understated, but the challenge is, if too many of the resources are put on the public side of the ledger, the private sector of the economy ends up being starved. This creates what has been seen in many countries, from the Soviet Union to Venezuela, Cuba and many others, which is a socialist death spiral of the economy.

What happens is that as the private sector gets starved of oxygen or resources or capital, this starts to have a compounding impact. As businesses do not have the ability to go forward, to move, to grow and to invest, it multiplies throughout the economy. If one business fails, what happens is that those companies that supply the company may also fail, which cascades across the entire economy. What then happens is that more individuals require the assistance of the state going forward, which requires the government to pay more money. This cycle just continues.

As more money is taken out of the private sector, the private sector shrinks even more, which shrinks the tax base and puts greater needs on the state. This creates a socialist death spiral, where the private sector just gets smaller and smaller and the state gets bigger and bigger. The reality is that the innovators, the job creators, are snuffed out one by one. We have seen the impact of the socialist death spiral. Most notable in the not-too-distant past was the Soviet Union, which centralized everything and snuffed out the private sector and innovation from going forward. We have seen this in Venezuela, Cuba and in other states around the world as well. That is all well and good, but what do we do for a solution?

I will tell the House where we are in Canada before getting into solving this issue. Canada is headed toward that path. There is just no denying that with a $1.35-trillion debt, a $78-billion deficit and $55 billion being paid in interest. Unfortunately, we will hear individuals on the other side, if not purposely then unintentionally, misleading Canadians by stating that Canada's debt is not that high. As our leader has said, if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.

The reality is that you must take a picture of the total debt calculation, which includes provincial and federal debt as well as the debt required for the CPP. We cannot use CPP money to apply to debt, which is what the Liberals do when they try to say they do not have a debt issue. That money is already spent, or at least I hope it is. Otherwise, they are going to rob CPP. The reality is that when we take that calculation, we are the second-worst, with a total debt ratio of well over 100% of our GDP. We are second only to Japan, which had its own lost decade. We have experienced ours and, quite frankly, we continue to experience that.

What do we need to get back on track as a country? We need to move away from seeing government as the answer. The government is, in most cases, not the answer. In fact, it is the culprit. It is responsible for driving down our economy. It is the reason we have had the worst economic growth since the Great Depression.

We need to, once again, not trust in the Canadian government but trust in the Canadian people. We need to correct the fiscal financial imbalance that has given way too much money to the federal government and not enough money to Canadian citizens, entrepreneurs and job creators.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to amplify the fact that the Canadian economy is doing relatively well, with a new Prime Minister and a government focused on building Canada strong through bringing down barriers so there is more trade within Canada. We have seen significant commitments going into the billions of dollars toward major projects. We have seen expanded trading opportunities.

Today we heard the jobs announcement. In the last three months alone, over 150,000 jobs have been created. However, through this entire process, we see the Conservative Party doing what it can to prevent legislation from passing. Whether it is the budget, good legislative reform or changes in bail, the Conservative Party seems to be in the way of Canadians being able to realize even greater benefits.

Would the member not agree that it is time for the Conservative Party to get out of the way?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is so much I disagree with in that, but I will focus on my shadow cabinet area, which is interprovincial trade. The member should consult with his own bureaucrats, whom I wrote to and asked exactly how much the reduction in interprovincial trade barriers, the federal interprovincial trade barriers, and the progress they have made on that has contributed to the economy. They said that it was zero, which is how much sense this member makes.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to see the Liberals get up time and time again to try to trick Canadians with fake good news. They talk about an increase in jobs, but they fail to mention we are talking about part-time jobs versus full-time jobs, and to add on to that, people who are working in full-time jobs right now are still lining up at food banks. This unaffordable budget is going to make things so much worse. I welcome the member to comment on that.

I am so thankful for his speech. He lives and represents a similar region to mine, down in the Durham region. I would love to hear his comments.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, one of the greatest challenges to democracy, certainly in the 20th century and likely before then, is demagogues. That is what we hear from that side. We call it modern-day gaslighting.

The reality is that Canada's economy is not as strong as it should be. Our oil and gas sector, which drove productivity historically for Canada, has been kneecapped by the government. We had the worst GDP per capita growth since the Great Depression over the last 10 years. The government will seize on the smallest bit of good information and try to exploit it to make it look like something that is not true.

If members want to see the issues in the Canadian economy, they can come down to Cobourg's Fare Share Food Bank and they will see the reality.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to our colleague's speech. I would like to know his position on the fact that, thanks to the plans we have put in place, 60,000 jobs were created in October and November. Does my colleague intend to support the budget implementation bill?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that we actually lost full-time jobs, and most of the jobs created were part-time, which shows that Canadians are struggling. We need the great full-time jobs that should have been at Stellantis, Algoma Steel and Weetabix in my riding. It is the government driving out the economic wealth creators, the job creators, that is causing our Canadian economy to lose great, union jobs.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech by my colleague. I am fortunate enough to sit with him on the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, and that is actually what I would like to ask him a few questions about.

Essentially, his speech was a plea for deregulation. I understand his logic: Too much regulation ends up smothering businesses and hurting productivity. On the other hand, too little regulation or insufficient enforcement can also pose a problem, as shown by the Driver Inc. file that the committee is currently studying.

The Liberal government seems to have let things slide for 15 years before being jarred awake by our committee's work. I would like to know whether my colleague thinks a case like this calls for less regulation or, alternatively, stricter enforcement.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals want lots of regulations that they do not enforce. Conservatives want less regulation that we do enforce. That, I think, would go a long way to solving the Driver Inc. problem.

[Helena Konanz, Conservative, Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

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.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is from a beautiful part of the country that I had the pleasure to visit recently.

We agree on the need for infrastructure, and the budget includes the build communities strong fund. It has $51 billion over 10 years, and it actually says that it will provide funding to provincial and territorial governments for a diverse array of projects. Investments will prioritize housing-enabling infrastructure to fight housing costs, including water and waste water systems and roads.

I am curious to know if the member will work with provincial counterparts to put up a request, potentially, for some funding. Would the member accept the funding, or would she vote against the budget? I am really perplexed. In addition, there are major projects all over this country that are infrastructure projects. The member mentioned the east-west energy grid. Interties were announced in the MOU last week—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to give the hon. member for Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay a chance to respond.

[Helena Konanz, Conservative, Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a really good question. If she has visited my riding and the area where I live, that is wonderful. I wonder how she got there. If she flew into Kelowna, she would have had trouble getting down to the South Okanagan, to Similkameen, because of the roads and the landslides, fires and floods.

Infrastructure has not been kept up by the government. We have had an infrastructure bank for the last 10 years. It is a system that has not worked. How are Canadians supposed to believe that throwing more money at it will somehow work after 10 years?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciated my colleague's speech. The two of us had the opportunity to sit together on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I know that a shooting range in her riding, in the city of Penticton, is threatening to close because the government may be making a decision that clashes with this community's needs.

Perhaps my colleague would have liked to see some encouragement in the budget for keeping that shooting range open. Could she tell us about that?