Debates of June 17th, 2025

Concurrence in Vote 1—Department of Canadian Heritage

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for the comments and for taking the time to respond. Actually, I expected that the Liberals would not have copied so much of the Conservative platform. It is all a question of half measures, but we are the party of building, we are the party of cutting taxes and we will not hold up tax cuts. It is a pleasure that the Liberals are supporting the Conservative platform. We wish they would finally just go all the way and go all in with no half measures.

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand and speak in the people's House. In my riding of Miramichi—Grand Lake, we have great people, folks who do not ask for much from the government except to defend our borders, protect our streets and then kindly get out of the way. Now we have a Liberal government trying to tell us what kind of car we can drive.

The government's plan to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 is not just out of touch; it is out to lunch. This is the kind of thing someone dreams up after a latte in a downtown Toronto espresso bar, not after a hard winter on the Plaster Rock-Renous Highway. This is the plan of an urban elite who are blind to the hard facts of geography, weather, industry and the dignity of hard work borne by everyday Canadians who work hard for a living.

Let me put it plainly: Where I come from, a truck is not a toy. It is not a fashion statement, and it is not a mobility solution, as one Liberal minister so helpfully called it. It is a lifeline. It hauls the lumber, tows the boat and plows the driveway. It gets people's kids to hockey and their parents to the doctor. One cannot strap 10 sheets of drywall to the roof of a hatchback and call it progress. Unless someone has figured out how to get 500 kilometres out of a battery in -30°C with no charger in sight, I suggest the Liberals stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Any path to a cleaner-energy future must proceed at the pace of possibility, not ideology.

The Prime Minister says he is all about progress. Well, let me tell people something about progress. Progress is not forcing a single mom in Blackville to buy a $70,000 electric car she cannot charge and does not want. Progress is not replacing the family mechanic with a government-approved software update technician. Progress is not shutting down the dealerships, the mechanics and the supply chains that keep rural Canada moving. If the government wants to build electric vehicles, that is fine, but it does not have to kill the combustion engine upon which our modern society depends.

Let us remember that freedom is not about the right to vote; it is about the right to choose. Let us be real here: This is not about the environment. If this were about the environment, we would instead be debating a national charging network and a plan to build more reliable charging stations. If this were about the environment, we would be talking about grid resilience, rural access, battery disposal and the cost, both present and future, of electricity.

Does the government have a plan where everyone in New Brunswick plugs their Liberal-mandated vehicles in at 6 p.m. in January? In Miramichi, our power flickers when the next-door neighbour turns the microwave on during the evening news. Our electrical infrastructure can barely stay ahead of current demand. What do the Liberals decide to do? Let us burn out the grid. Let us double electricity bills. Let us crash the system and blame it on the provinces.

We know the Liberal government prefers Canadians to stay at home. We saw it during the pandemic, and we see it today in the federal civil service, still on Zoom, still on mute, still on break. Maybe that is the plan. Maybe the Liberals do not want people to drive at all. Maybe they do not want them to leave their homes or go to work or take their kids to the rink. Maybe they want Canadians to be at home, dependent, plugged in and powerless because the government has slogans, not solutions.

Now, let me be clear about one thing: The government has a strategy. Just one month ago, in the middle of the federal election, the Liberals' promise was that they were going to pretend they were Conservatives and axe the carbon tax. That is what Canadians heard. What Canadians did not hear and what the Liberals did not say was that their real plan was to replace the tax with something even worse. They did not say they wanted to ban the very vehicles Canadians use to work, raise their families and live their lives.

This was not a change of heart; it was a sleight of hand. The Prime Minister did not kill the carbon tax; he replaced it with something even worse, a carbon ban. He figured, why bother taxing the gas in people's trucks when he can just make sure they are never allowed to own one? The Liberals did not ban carbon pricing because they changed their minds. The Liberals abandoned it because they were blaming the very thing they used to tax. How very Liberal of them. They do not need to tax gas when their plan is to outlaw the engine that burns it.

The only thing this plan is guaranteed to reduce is freedom, people's freedom to choose what they drive and to work where they want, live where they want and drive what suits their family and their job. It is typical Liberal government overreach, plain and simple, and here is the kicker: Hard-working New Brunswickers are not going to trade in a sturdy, reliable, rustproof pickup truck for a plastic pop can on wheels because some deputy minister in Ottawa wearing a turtleneck said so.

People in Miramichi—Grand Lake do not take kindly to being told they are backwards just because they know how to run a chainsaw and change their own oil, and they sure do not want to be lectured by a Prime Minister who spent 10 years sipping champagne at the Bank of England. This plan is a slap in the face to rural Canada. This is a slap in the face to every tradesman, farmer, hunter and contractor in this country. This is one more example of the government thinking it knows better than the people it is supposed to serve. Let us not forget that once the government takes away people's ability to choose what they drive, it will not stop there. Today it is gas vehicles; tomorrow it is our furnaces, our wood stoves and maybe even our barbecues.

We cannot call it a choice when there is only one option on the shelf. This is not a plan about lowering emissions; it is about increasing control. It is not about saving the planet; it is about control. This is not about climate; it is about compliance.

The truth is that this ban will not save the environment, but it will make life harder, colder and more expensive for millions of Canadians. The people paying the highest price will not be the downtown elites or the Tesla crowd. It will be the diesel mechanics, the forestry workers, the young family in Doaktown trying to barely make ends meet.

Through you, Madam Speaker, I say this to the government: Back off. Scrap the ban. Let Canadians decide for themselves.

The Conservative Party does not fear the future; we believe in it. We believe in people, and we believe in choice. We know the best decisions do not come from Ottawa; they come from the ordinary Canadians who pay for and live with the consequences. The Conservative Party respects and has faith in the common sense of the people of Canada, because the only thing more dangerous than a government that wants to take away someone's truck is a government that thinks it knows better than the guy who drives it. If the Prime Minister wants to take away our pickup trucks, he had better bring himself a convoy.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by our colleague, who spoke about the opposition motion, which we have now finished debating. I would ask him whether he has anything to say about the main estimates, since that is what we are looking at now.

I realize that, as part of the study of the main estimates and the supplementary estimates, we can talk about various subjects, but I have not heard much about the budget here.

I would like my colleague to talk about spending.

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Madam Speaker, it goes back to the same old failed policies of the former minister who brought these problems to us in the first place. I cannot say much more than that: a failed minister on the other side who is still a minister and will make more mistakes in the next four years.

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

Madam Speaker, one can get fairly depressed listening to the member opposite with the picture he tries to paint. It reminds me of Pierre Poilievre going all over Canada saying that Canada is broken.

We can look at the number of initiatives taken on this debate now before the House, whether it is the tax cut for Canadians, the first-time homebuyer GST elimination or, for the first time, seeing 2% of the GDP go to the Canadian Forces. I would ask the member if he has anything to say about those initiatives. They are the initiatives we are debating this evening.

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Madam Speaker, for the last four weeks, I think, this side of the House has been listening to the member opposite get up, pat himself on the back and puff his chest out about all the good things the government has done. Well, the doom and gloom on this side of the House is coming from the doom and gloom from all the Canadians we spoke to, at every door we knocked on, about the last 10 years of the failed government that seemed to sneak its way in to get another mandate. The doom and gloom is on the other side, from everything the Liberals do and what they have done the last 10 years.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is once again talking to us about the opposition motion. I am looking at the orders of the day. We have reached the debate on the main estimates. It is hard to tell whether my colleague knows where we are on the agenda.

I will ask a very simple questions. Can my colleague tell us what the main estimates and the supplementary estimates are?

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Madam Speaker, the mandate was brought forward by the previous minister. We are talking about the estimates, and I had just started speaking about the $40,000 it is going to cost each person who buys a new vehicle moving forward.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is mind-boggling what the Liberals are doing with this EV mandate and the impact it is going to have on Canadians. I am thinking specifically of British Columbia. I represent a riding in the greater Vancouver area.

Electric vehicles run on electricity, and the fact of the matter is—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Yes, the Liberals can clap, but they are not considering the impact on the grid and the demand they will have for producing electricity. B.C. used to produce and export, but now it is importing. The new Site C dam was completed last year, and we saw an 8% increase in the electrical grid, but we need two more of these dams by 2030 just to meet the increases, and a lot of it has to do with the EV mandate. We are just not ready for this.

The Liberals are charging ahead without thought, because they are saying it is in the name of the environment. In the name of the environment, they are causing a lot of problems. I will also say that there was a lot of push-back from the environmental sector when putting these dams forward. Could the member comment?

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure what happens in B.C., but I know New Brunswick is definitely not ready for EVs at 100%. During the winter, our electrical grid is stressed to the max at all times. If we get two centimetres of snow, we have power outages for days.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to wish you a good evening. It may be a long night for you as well.

Since this may be my last speech before the House adjourns in the next few days, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone in my riding a very happy Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day and national holiday. We are going to celebrate in style. We are going to celebrate our national holiday, our French-speaking nation in Quebec. We will be celebrating from Saint-Placide, Kanesatake and Oka to Saint-Joseph-du-Lac. We will be celebrating in Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac and in all areas of Mirabel, as well as in Saint-Eustache. There is a new part of my riding in Saint-Eustache, and I fully intend to get involved there. I would like to tell all my constituents that I look forward to seeing them. Once the House adjourns in this very troubling democratic context, I cannot wait to spend time on the ground visiting the people who elected me. I am really looking forward to it.

I began my speech this way because we need to find moments of joy in the House. We need to find them because what is happening in the House is sad. The business of supply is sad. The situation is sad, and what is even sadder is that I forgot to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Berthier—Maskinongé. Sharing my time with my adored whip is another moment of joy. We need to find these little moments. This is one of them. The business of supply is very sad.

It is hard to get the truth out of ministers and the government. I will give one example that I referred to when I asked a question earlier. The Minister of Finance is not supposed to be a door-to-door vacuum salesman. He is the Minister of Finance.

We spoke to him on Thursday about how he had run out of funds for subsidies under the incentives for zero-emission vehicles program. We talked to him about how he had made a promise to car dealers in Quebec and about how they had advanced 70% of the money owed by the federal government out of their own pockets. We asked the minister whether he intended to keep his promise and fund the missing subsidies. The minister, who never answers a question, floundered. He did not answer. He was all over the place. In the end, he never did answer the question.

Today, we put the question back to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, whom we love because he puts on a very good show. We asked him whether the government intends to pay back the dealerships the money they are owed, given that they are small businesses. There are some in my constituency, and people have been talking to me about it. The parliamentary secretary congratulated me. He told me to keep lobbying in the corridors and that I would get there eventually.

Twenty minutes later, I read a newspaper article saying that the minister had announced that the program would be reinstated. However, the funding is still not there. With the Liberals, we have to see the money to believe it. However, at least there has been an announcement. It is not easy getting honesty and truth out of the Liberals. Frankly, the conclusion we have come to from studying the appropriations is that the government makes decisions on a whim. The Liberals do not know what they are going to announce from one week to the next. There might be good news on the military spending front. We do not even know if they came up with that the day before, the day before that, or three days prior. We do not know.

The same applies to reimbursing Quebeckers for the rebate on the carbon tax that the eight other provinces did not pay. During the election campaign, the Liberals said that they would abolish the carbon tax while giving an advance rebate to provinces where the tax had not been collected. During the consideration of the business of supply, we told the Minister of Finance that he owed Quebeckers $814 million. We asked him many times to confirm that these cheques had been sent out before the tax was collected. We asked him once, twice, three times, four times, but the minister refused to answer. That is clear proof of the strange relationship he has with the truth, to say the least.

Yesterday, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Mr. Giroux, was in the Senate. According to the Senate committee blues, Mr. Giroux said, “The Canadian carbon rebate, or CCR, is an advance payment to offset what people will pay for the carbon tax. Since the rebate was paid in April, but the carbon tax is no longer being collected, the money will come from the consolidated revenue because there will no longer be a fuel tax rebate or surcharge. The money will come from the consolidated revenue fund.”

It will therefore come out of the consolidated revenue fund, and Quebeckers will pay for it. That is what the Parliamentary Budget Officer said yesterday in the Senate. Senator Forest asked again if everyone would pay, then, including Quebeckers. Mr. Giroux, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, answered that that was exactly right.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer would make a good finance minister, because he knows what he is talking about, he tells us the truth and he says things clearly. The corollary to what was said yesterday at the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance is that Quebeckers paid for the Liberals to buy votes. The Liberals bought votes. They handed out rebate cheques. However, it was not a rebate, because if something was not paid, then it cannot be rebated. Quebeckers were robbed, and they need to be reimbursed. That is how the business of supply works. We moved a motion, and the Conservatives joined forces with the Liberals to steal from Quebeckers.

Earlier, the Conservative member for Bow River said that the Conservatives were going to vote with the Liberals and that they never expected the Liberals to steal so many of their ideas. They are not stealing ideas, but they are stealing from Quebeckers. Where in the Liberal platform did it say that Quebeckers would be robbed? Where in the Conservative platform did it say that they were going to steal $814 million from Quebeckers? I am being told that the Liberals stole this idea from the Conservative platform. It is this murky relationship with the truth that is preventing us from carrying out the business of supply properly.

That is to say nothing of the government's Bill C‑4, which will pass with little or no study. The Liberals say it is urgent because people need the tax cut immediately. The notice of ways and means motion means that people are already entitled to the tax cut. It is now in effect. We have all the time we need to properly study the bill and invite witnesses to appear before the committee, particularly with regard to the housing measures, about which we have technical questions to ask. The tax cut is already in effect. In this case, the Liberals and the Conservatives have an unhealthy relationship with the truth.

The same goes for Bill C‑5, which should have been split in two. In that case, the ministers will not be lying in committee because they will not be appearing before the committee. We know that there is a cult of personality among the Liberals. The Liberals could almost have a Mao-Zedong-style poster of the Prime Minister and everyone would prostrate themselves before him. It is a cult of personality.

The Prime Minister appoints the minister he wants and the minister can select the projects. After that, he can do bogus assessments. When he adds his project in a schedule and to a list, all the legislation that might have been able to protect the public, the environment and the ecosystems are suspended. The Liberals tell us that is what we are going to do to build Canada strong. They need to stop saying that. When the pipeline is built, Donald Trump will no longer have been in power for six or seven years. This gives certain companies incredible lobbying power over the minister. This gives the Prime Minister discretionary power. The Liberals are telling us that no minister will be appearing before the committee. The Liberal ministers are too busy to come testify.

Although they support the bill, and we understand why, the Conservatives are voting to muzzle Parliament. The new trend among Liberals is to tell us that everything was in their election platform and that replaces the work normally done by legislators. Was it written in their election platform? Where in the Liberal election platform did it say that the platform would replace legislators if the Liberals were elected, even as a minority?

The problem in all this is that we have a Prime Minister who fails to grasp that he is the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister thinks he is a CEO. He thinks he can show contempt for the House. He thinks he can show contempt for our work. He thinks he can show contempt for our committees. He thinks he is a CEO, but fortunately, he is only a minority shareholder. His party does not have a majority of seats. Do people realize that this gentleman is behaving like the majority shareholder of Canada, like the CEO of Canada? I want to look the Conservatives in the eye and tell them that they should be ashamed to hand him such power.

No budget was tabled. The Liberals' fiscal framework was flawed and incompetently put together. The government budgeted an expected $20 billion in revenues from retaliatory tariffs. That amount currently stands at $1.6 billion. Obviously, we are not going to get to $20 billion. The tax cuts were supposed to be paid from that amount. This framework was in the Liberals' election platform. Why is no budget being tabled? Why is that no substitute for legislators?

That is the problem. The problem is that we are unable to do our job as parliamentarians because neither the government nor the ministers give us the sort of respect we need to do our job. That is upsetting. It is also upsetting to see the Conservatives supporting this process.

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

Madam Speaker, the member asked where the platform made any reference to Bill C-5. I recommend that the member opposite read page 1. Page 1 captures the essence of what the Liberal Party talked about throughout the election: one Canadian economy. Bill C-5 is about having one Canadian economy. Why did the Prime Minister meet with all the premiers, the first ministers? It was to talk about having one Canadian economy.

We had a election on April 28, and the mandate was followed by meetings and legislation. Only the Bloc and some of the independents are saying no. The Conservatives and the Liberals are respecting the election outcome of April 28. Why will the Bloc not respect it?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Chair, my colleague does not seem to have understood my speech, even though we have excellent interpreters with us. Actually, it seems he did not listen to my speech.

Here is what I asked: Where in the Liberal election platform does it say that a sentence on the front page replaces the will of the legislator and the work done in committee? I did not get an answer to that. Our colleague rises and says that we are the only ones against this bill.

What we want is to study this bill, call witnesses and accomplish our parliamentary work. As I said, I know that the Conservatives support this bill. I know that we think differently on the matter, and I respect that. What I respect less is the fact that they are undermining parliamentary work that might lead us to pass a better version of the bill. That seems to be having trouble getting through the parliamentary secretary's head.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Madam Speaker, as I listened to my colleague's speech, I noted that he began by wishing everyone a happy Saint‑Jean‑Baptiste Day. I want to point out that this holiday is celebrated by French Canadians across the country. I, too, want to wish a happy Saint‑Jean‑Baptiste Day to my Franco-Albertan constituents, since people in Quebec are not the only ones who celebrate this day.

That being said, I have a question for my colleague: Why does he think that the Liberals are so afraid of being transparent and accountable to Parliament?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Fort McMurray—Cold Lake is someone I really enjoyed working with. We are far from agreeing on everything, but she is always very easy to work with. I must remind her that in Quebec, we are obviously celebrating our national holiday, which, coincidentally, falls on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. We wish a happy Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day to all francophones in Canada.

The Liberal government is worn out, and to claim that it is new is untrue. It has been around for around 10 years. I will be very direct and honest with my colleague: The Conservatives' job is to monitor this government. However, only three weeks in, the Conservatives voted in favour of a closure motion. They also voted for closure on the closure. It is like a bad movie: boring and lacking suspense. The Conservatives also voted against a motion about stealing money from Quebeckers.

I am not the one to ask why the Liberals are afraid of transparency. She should ask her own party. She should also ask her party leadership why they are not doing their job as the official opposition and why a party with only 22 seats needs to do it for them.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is a great orator. I enjoy listening to him. I am going to learn French, and I commit to that so that I can listen to him without an interpreter.

The Conservatives say we are not going far enough with oil and gas, and the Bloc is saying we are going too far with oil and gas. We are trying to build up the Canadian economy.

The hon. member just said this is a tired, old government. We have a new Prime Minister, and we have been criticized in the House for going back and changing some of the decisions the previous administration made. Does the member agree with the new decisions and new direction this government is taking? Canadians voted for it.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, you can put a new label on a jar of expired peanut butter, but it is still the same old stuff in the jar. Members need to stop telling me that this is a new government.

We have not talked about oil per se. I talked about environmental regulations because it seems to me that, for the Conservatives and the Liberals today, environmental regulations are only good when they do not do their job and when they let everything go through. We are questioning the processes by which projects are approved and the fact that many laws that are very important to protecting Canadians can be suspended.

We are calling for a committee. My colleague will see in committee whether we oppose everything.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, in the last Parliament, we saw the NDP vote with the Liberals to adopt one closure motion after another. Then we saw what happened in the last general election.

Does my colleague think that the Liberals are playing the same game with the Conservatives as they did with the NDP, by forcing them to vote with them to adopt one closure motion after another?

Are the Conservatives not shooting themselves in the foot by doing that?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, what the Conservatives are doing is incomprehensible. They are telling us that the Liberals are stealing their ideas, so we are proposing that they study the bill in committee. The Conservative position in the debate is that the Liberals are not going far enough. They have an opportunity to improve Bill C‑5 and have even more of their ideas stolen, but they are passing it up.

I think they will pay for it one day.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House.

Like my colleague from Mirabel, I too will take this opportunity to wish all the residents of my magnificent riding of Berthier—Maskinongé a very happy national holiday. I am pleased because my colleague and I are often in ideological symbiosis. I, too, made the decision to prioritize the new sector in my riding. First, I will visit the people of Saint-Sulpice and, of course, everyone else, everyone we can go and meet in the short time we have to cover our vast territory.

That said, today we are debating the main estimates and the supplementary estimates. We are glad to be here to talk about spending, state our case and give our opinion. However, we know that the main estimates and the supplementary estimates contain previously announced spending. This is not a new vision. The government is announcing spending adjustments and changes to budget items. Now that there is a new label on the peanut butter jar, meaning the new Prime Minister, we would have loved to know what the vision is and where we are going. We would have liked to make informed, intelligent and sensible decisions about the government's announced tax cuts. People at home are watching us. Ironically, the people at home make budgets. Normal people make budgets. Before they spend anything, they need to plan and know where the money is coming from. People who do not make a budget hit a wall and often have to declare bankruptcy. We hope that does not happen with the government. I repeat: We are running out of time; there are only a few days left, but it would have been a good idea to produce a budget. In the absence of one, we will talk about the main estimates and the supplementary estimates.

I have to say that I am quite supportive of increasing spending in the military sector, in the defence sector. In the last Parliament, it was rather ironic because we usually ended up being the only political party advocating compliance with NATO's request to allocate 2% of the budget to defence. I say it is ironic because we are often asked what we are doing here, since we want independence for Quebec, and we are told that we are here to cause trouble.

This shows that the Bloc Québécois is usually the adult in the room, or the reasonable one. We are the ones who continue to demand a budget, despite the fact that the Conservatives have let us down in the fight. They decided to cave to the government, which is asking us to shut our eyes and vote without knowing what will happen. We are still here, and we are the ones who were here when it was time to talk about foreign interference. We were the ones who were here when the time came to talk about military spending. For that reason, I am pleasantly almost surprised to see these new intentions, because in the world we live in, they are unfortunately necessary.

It needs to be done intelligently. It needs to be done with an eye to the future. The estimates mention increasing recruitment and providing equipment. There is a bit of a concern that the government seems to want to focus on small, quick expenditures in order to make the budget look good. Perhaps it needs to include some long-term vision, like properly equipping the people who defend us. That doubt crept up when I read the documents. Nevertheless, I will not say that we disagree on the principles.

What we are surprised to see in the main estimates is the increase in spending. It is unfortunate that people are not always there; I did not name anyone, so I can say that broadly speaking. They are not always there to listen to our speeches, but sometimes they say things to us, and we would like to be able to respond. They often tell us that they said it during the election, that it is written in their platform, and that we should go read page 1. However, during the campaign they keep talking about, some people said they were going to keep spending increases to 2%. That is what they told us. Now it is 8%. That is not reassuring. Going from 2% to 8% is a fourfold increase. I hope that every little thing will not quadruple all the time, or else things will not balance out at the end of the month. That is why we are calling for a budget. It is so we can know where we are going.

What is sadder still is that the government is making cuts to certain areas. In fact, spending is increasing almost all the time, except at the Canada Revenue Agency, and I did not quite understand why. What is going on? Are we no longer collecting taxes? It seems to me that there are many places where we could invest, including in research to legislate tax havens. However, I do not think the peanut butter label is very interested in us digging into that area. Perhaps it is because, on the back of the label, there are a few investments in foreign countries to save on taxes. I am not saying that anyone has done anything illegal, but when people like that lecture others and then tell us that it is a pension fund when we ask them whether it is moral, I find it hard not to be shocked. We are told that the fund is more profitable because it has not paid taxes, but when money goes to the old folks, they have to pay taxes. What I hear when they say that is that the people, the masses, will pay taxes, while the people at the top do not have to pay because they are planning a better future for us. I find that incredibly sad. However, that is an answer we got. It raises questions about the rest of the shares.

I just mentioned our seniors, and among the areas that have seen the smallest increase are transfers to individuals. The government has decent control over that. That is one area where the government has been able to tighten its belt. The increases do not come as quickly, and that is because these are ordinary people who do not have much lobbying power or influence. That is how it works. Transfers to the provinces and Quebec are not increasing much either. The government is keeping a tight rein on that, too. It has control over spending. It is a good government. However, when it comes to contracts for subcontractors, contracts signed with cronies, that is where spending is increasing exponentially. I could name a dozen scandals. How can we expect the public not to be disillusioned with numbers like that? The sad thing is that not everyone knows what I am talking about. I am not making this up; it comes from the main estimates. These are the numbers we were given.

First, I would like them to be serious and to prepare a budget, and I would like to see serious investments in the future. I have been the agriculture and agri‑food critic since 2019, and I am extremely passionate about it. I cannot help talking about it in every speech, so now is the time to talk about it today. I would like to see more spending in this area. I have said it a few times already, but I will say it again today: 0.81% of the budget is allocated to agriculture and agri‑food. That is not a lot of money. There was a time when it was much more than that. It was 2.6% in the 1980s and 1990s. If we can allocate 2% of the budget to defence, which is something that I agree with, would it not be a good idea for our military to be fed before defending us? If so, we should be able to spend at least 1% or 1.5% of the budget on agriculture and agri‑food and on the people who feed us. We should be able to take care of them properly. We need to stop having bad programs that merely compensate people. First of all, these programs only compensate half of the people who need it and then it takes two years for those who are eligible to actually get their compensation. Meanwhile, the government has the nerve to call them emergency programs. We had to pressure the minister for who knows how long to get a program like AgriRecovery. It makes no sense.

Rather than doing that, we should be focusing on innovation, technological improvement, and research and development. We need a bold approach. Most of all, we need to encourage our businesses to become more climate‑resilient. These would be forward‑looking policies, but this will require having leaders with a vision. I am not sure that we have that.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague mentioned that he was concerned about our government's lack of clear direction.

However, as a new member, I can say that the direction has been very clear since the election campaign. Our platform is crystal clear. The first subsection of the platform, entitled “One Canadian Economy”, talks about a plan to build the strongest economy in the G7, to create one Canadian economy, not 13, and to remove all barriers to internal trade. The second subsection talks about nation-building projects.

What is surprising about this? The direction we were going to take was written in black and white in our platform.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to welcome the new member of the House of Commons. I wish him a warm welcome to Parliament. He is very kind.

Unfortunately, I can see that he is a true Liberal, because he is able to tell me in two or three short, generic sentences that all of this was included in the Liberal platform. He said that the platform indicates that they are going to build a pipeline, that they are going to build Canada, build highways, mine, and do whatever else they want. In short, the platform says that they are going to build Canada.

Please. Let us be serious. Not everything they do is written on page one of their platform. They should stop repeating this nonsense.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Liberals have continued to spend taxpayers' money without a plan or a budget. They are not following the rules of Parliament. This is unacceptable.

What does the member think about that?