Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by congratulating you on being selected as the Deputy Speaker for this Parliament. We wish you all the best. It is good grooming for the next session.
I rise today to speak about the Conservative opposition day motion regarding food inflation and the lack of a Liberal budget. As a businessman, I have always seen budgets as opportunities to provide a clear path forward, one that even shows priorities and what matters most to a company or organization. A budget builds consensus or direction and keeps us all on the same path. In fact, I have heard it said that a budget is a blueprint for freedom, and I would concur. A budget is like a map. It helps us prepare for the future so we can assess how much is coming in and how much is going out. However, a budget is more than just numbers. It is about making wise choices. A good budget takes care of the needs and saves a little for the wants. Let us break that down a bit here.
The Prime Minister, who went across the country claiming he was “the man with the plan”, is not providing the blueprint for his plan. Here we are, about to spend a half a trillion dollars with no budget. Look at what happened right after the throne speech. We were told that our new government would cap operating spending at 2% annually. Then, not even two hours later, a bill was introduced that boosted overall spending by 8%. That is 8% more than the Trudeau government spent in the last year of office, yet we were told the current government would spend less.
The Prime Minister is spending more not on investments but, oddly, on consultants. I remember reading about a senior policy adviser with the Treasury Board who said that when hiring consultants, it was hard to tell if the contract was successful or not. He added that he knew of numerous cases where consultants were hired to check the work of other consultants. In other words, we paid money to consultants to check the work of consultants. What an incompetent government. Here we are, with spending on consultants up to a record $26.1 billion. That is more than a 36% increase in one year. To help us better understand how much that means for the average Canadian citizen, it is roughly $1,400 spent on consultants for every single household in Canada.
As the National Post said, the Liberal government is spending more than the previous Justin Trudeau government did, with no plan on ever getting back to a balanced budget.
We need a budget. That is why Parliament voted for the Conservative amendment to the throne speech calling for a budget this spring. That is also why Conservatives are giving the Prime Minister another opportunity to produce a budget. Canadians need to see a plan that outlines how he will pay for all this spending. Members will remember how, throughout the campaign, we heard Mr. Carney promising that he had a plan ready to go, a plan—