Debates of Oct. 27th, 2026

Opposition Motion—Appearance of the Prime Minister before the Standing Committee on Finance

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Madam Speaker, the question gives me the opportunity to point out that, under Conservative leadership, we were under 1% of our commitment to NATO. Under our government, we reached the 2% target way ahead of schedule, and way ahead of previous governments' commitments, which is a good thing. My constituents in my riding want Canada to be safe and secure for the future. We know that, in today's environment, in today's world, which is more dangerous and divided, we need to make those investments in defence.

It is unfortunate to some degree that the world is in that state, but those are investments that Canadians expect us to make. It is a shame that the Conservatives would not step up to make those investments at this time. They would claim some ideological stance on fiscal responsibility that makes no sense in today's environment in order to cut back even further from defence investment.

Our government has stood up, under our Prime Minister's leadership, to invest over $80 billion in defence in the last budget, budget 2025. Those are important strategic investments in our national security.

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

Madam Speaker, I send my regards to my colleague from Whitby, whom I have not seen in a while, and to you as well. You know how much I enjoy speaking when you are in the chair, especially since you are often the only person who listens to me, along with my Bloc Québécois colleagues. I doubly appreciate it. I did not want to start a debate on that, though, so I will start my speech over again and give back the 30 seconds I lost saying those things. We need to take this seriously. It is an opposition day.

As I said recently in the House, there are 343 members of Parliament—though there are a few vacant seats—and I do not think there is anyone in the House who is not concerned about the cost of living. I think that is important. When we visit our ridings, we see that people are concerned about the rising cost of groceries and transportation. There is also the anxiety and fear of what may lie ahead.

The Bank of Canada is talking about raising interest rates. That means higher mortgage rates. There is talk of increasing bond rates, which will also have an impact on fixed rates. People are not just worried about the cost of living and the price of gas at the pump today. People who are budget conscious and are stretched increasingly thin are worried about the impact in the medium term. This is a big problem, because a situation that we thought was temporary, with the Strait of Hormuz and the war in Ukraine, seems to be becoming permanent.

I have said this to a number of colleagues here, and I have also discussed it with the Minister of Finance and National Revenue: The least wealthy 20% of Quebeckers and Canadians must be foremost in our minds. We know that 80% of people have seen a significant increase in their purchasing power in recent years. We tend to forget that. People generally feel that they deserve pay raises, but do not deserve higher costs. The fact remains that some people have experienced a real increase in their purchasing power. Meanwhile, 20% of people have not seen their purchasing power grow. For those people, the slightest increase in the cost of meat, gas and utility bills hits hard. That is why I think we should vote in favour of this motion.

Why do I think that? It is because the Prime Minister who took over the reins of government told us that Canadians could judge him by the prices at the grocery store. I am not the one saying that. Quite frankly, I would never have said something like that during an election campaign. I would never have made such a statement, but the Prime Minister did. Perhaps he has some kind of superpower the rest of us do not have over food prices, which are set on the Chicago Board of Trade. I do not know what superpowers the Prime Minister may have, but he said it.

Now, the preamble to the motion does take a simplified view of the situation. We acknowledge that. It is a Conservative motion. If we are ever going to vote for a Conservative motion, we will have to accept some oversimplification, which I will discuss later on. However, I think that politely asking the Prime Minister to spend a little time here in Parliament and in committee, to pay a little attention to the parliamentary process and to come and speak about the cost of living, might not be such a bad thing.

As I said, ever since the Prime Minister took office, we do not really know what is going on at the Department of Finance anymore. We do not know who is truly making the decisions or where the initiative is coming from. In committee, the Minister of Finance does not answer our questions. He shows up with infographics, pages covered in little coloured bubbles, and says, for example, that ordinary people can do the math on the excise tax cuts using a paper and pen. The Prime Minister has expertise in economics. He knows the impact of taxes. He knows how these things are calculated. He has a background in economics. Perhaps that could compensate for those economic areas where the Minister of Finance is lacking. That might help increase the quality of debate at the Standing Committee on Finance.

We would be remiss in not having the Prime Minister appear before the committee. It is a sound idea. I think the Prime Minister would like that. He is a great communicator. He is someone who has learned over time to communicate, sometimes directly with the public. However, he needs to learn to communicate with parliamentarians, especially since there are legitimate concerns. For instance, the motion refers to debt and government spending.

When the Prime Minister arrived, when he first decided to take that position, the first step was to convince people that this was a new government, but it depends on how one defines a new government. A few seats changed hands, and there are a few new ministers. The truth is that the Trudeau government had been in office for nearly a decade, a decade during which we can all agree that fiscal restraint was not a priority. The Prime Minister therefore decided that there was not much he could do about that. He was in a tough situation. His hands were tied. On top of that, he arrived in the midst of a crisis.

The Prime Minister decided he would cover up the problem by inventing an investment concept that the Parliamentary Budget Officer does not understand and that CPA Canada was unable to explain to us in committee. Despite what the government says, this is not at all in line with what is being done in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has a unitary government, whereas here we have health transfers. When Quebec uses a transfer from Ottawa to build a hospital, who does the infrastructure belong to? Does it fall under Quebec's infrastructure plan or is it an investment expenditure by Ottawa? Is it counted twice?

Brushing problems aside or redefining them to sweep them under the rug does not get rid of the dust that is under there. I think that the Prime Minister needs to explain that decision.

Why is the government classifying tax credits as investments, as tax expenditures? That is not done anywhere else in the world.

To my mind, investments normally refer to assets that appear on a balance sheet: concrete, buildings, hospitals. Ottawa owns 2% of all capital, of all public infrastructure in Canada. That 2% comes from the investment advisory council set up by then finance minister Bill Morneau. It was tabled in committee. That means there are no federal investments. The few federal investments that do exist are already accounted for in private sector accounting. Some of our colleagues come from the business world. Airports, which the government is seeking to privatize, along with ports and many Crown corporations, are already accounted for elsewhere. That means they cannot simply be folded into the government's figures through creative accounting.

When a government's response to a problem is to obscure it, redefine it and deny its existence rather than resolve it, I think that raises a number of questions.

As I said, CPA Canada representatives appeared before the committee. This is the organization that people look to for expertise on tax rules and definitions of what constitutes an investment in Canada. When I asked the CPA Canada representatives if they considered this to be an investment, things got pretty awkward. Sometimes, the people who appear before the committee do not want to upset the government, but they did not have an answer. The Minister of Finance does not have an answer. All they can say is that a written response will be provided to the committee.

Now, the motion oversimplifies a few things. Is it true that federal government spending caused inflation? I think the House should know that this is not an entirely accurate interpretation of reality.

Our GDP is below its potential. In other words, we could produce more without creating inflation or inflationary pressure.

Our unemployment rate is above what is known as the “natural” rate. In other words, we could have economic growth and reduce unemployment without creating inflation.

We know very well that, in a situation like this, government spending does not systematically cause inflation. That is taught in school. Decades and decades of empirical research prove it. However, that does not mean that borrowed money does not carry interest. That does not mean that the government should spend money willy-nilly. That does not mean that it should not have fiscal anchors. That does not mean that it has to spend years saying it is keeping an eye on the debt-to-GDP ratio.

Now, all of a sudden, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance are blowing through the targets.

When targets are not met, they cannot be redefined. They cannot.

Obviously, the Conservative motion oversimplifies a few things, but the concerns about the stewardship of public funds are not unreasonable. What the Conservatives are essentially asking is why we do not put questions directly to the Prime Minister, who seems to be making all the decisions himself.

It is a bit hard to object to that, especially since the government has decided to forgo certain revenues. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says that we will have to wait and see what the budget says, because certain things could still change. Decisions are going to be made. We will find out next week. Based on the current trajectory, however, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that the deficit expectations will not be met, that the deficit is going to be bigger and that the resulting additional deficit will add up to roughly the same amount as the tax holiday recently granted by the government. The parliamentary debate on that issue just ended, but the government is giving itself two or three weeks to draft a budget, which we know will very likely pass, barring a major upset. Considering all the toing and froing between the two sides of the House, anything could happen in a week, but nothing is expected to happen.

Anyway, there was the excise tax, and there were also the tax cuts for the rich over the past few years. The government tells us that it cut income tax rates for the middle class. However, while it lowered them for the first and second tax brackets, the wealthiest people, earning $200,000 to $300,000 a year, pay taxes at the marginal tax rate.

I see some puzzled faces.

As members know, we have a marginal tax rate. A wealthy person gets the basic exemption and pays a lower rate in the next tax bracket. In the next tax bracket up, they pay a higher rate. The wealthiest fall into every tax bracket. When the government says it is lowering the second bracket, the people who benefit the most are those who make a great deal of money. There are other mechanisms for redistributing wealth. The government is forgoing revenue without achieving the intended redistributive effect on households. Since we have a budget management problem, it is important to redistribute the money to people who have less. Spending is high, but it is not achieving the goal. We could be doing more with the same amount of money, so it is worth asking the Prime Minister some questions, and even asking the Minister of Finance some questions too, if he is willing to answer. Now that is a challenge. The Minister of Finance is very talented when it comes to sidestepping questions, but I think we deserve some answers on this.

We also deserve answers on oil subsidies. The last time I checked, oil is not subject to tariffs. It is the sector that has received the best treatment from Donald Trump. It seems that Donald Trump is just as passionate about oil as the Prime Minister is. Why has this industry been getting 90% of the government's attention for some time now? I was listening to the member for Whitby speak earlier. Before becoming a parliamentary secretary, the member for Whitby was one of the Liberal caucus' most ardent advocates for combatting global warming. He moved motions about it. He held press conferences with the people who are now suing the government for its inaction on climate change. Someone is paying for these subsidies. The Liberals are counting them as investments. There are people paying for these subsidies. They have an alternative use. If these are indeed investments, there are other types of investments that would be more beneficial for future generations. We deserve some answers about that.

The government tells us that it is going to make 15% cuts to all departments, downsize the public service and speed up attrition. At the same time, it is creating Crown corporations. First, there was an agency for defence contracts. That was under Bill C‑31. The government is now introducing Bill C‑40, saying that it will undo everything that Bill C‑31 did. We do not even know what the right system is anymore. Bill C‑40 is going to undo what Bill C‑31 did and create a Crown corporation whose CEO will earn twice as much as the Minister of Finance. We are wondering why the government is doing this. Are there issues of transparency or issues of conflict of interest? Did the Ethics Commissioner ask about it? We do not know. Why not ask him these questions? The Prime Minister is a smart guy. He is known for his intellect. He is capable of answering our questions.

I would like to get an answer to that, especially since he keeps cutting public service positions while telling us that AI is going to solve the problem at the Canada Revenue Agency, never mind that AI is making 80% of the errors. Then he goes and creates agencies like this one. Are the staff at these agencies counted as part of the public service? These agencies will of course have staff. Do they count? When he says he has been very successful in reducing the number of public servants, will those be real numbers or not? I asked that question in committee, but we did not get an answer, so I think that still warrants hearing from the Prime Minister.

Then there are the provinces' finances. There are public services. We were talking about the cost of living. People want to be able to afford their groceries. They want to be able to go to work. They want to be able to afford daily essentials, but people also get sick and they want to receive health care too. They want decent hospitals. They want infrastructure. Last year, the Minister of Finance met 50% of the provincial premiers' requests for infrastructure funding, and he attached all kinds of conditions to it. Receiving health care is important. People continue to get sick even though the federal government does not run the hospital, and those folks need to be taken care of. The conditions need to be scaled back as well. Transfers come with a bunch of conditions attached.

The Liberals are saying that there are interprovincial barriers and that they should be doing something other than dealing with regulations, red tape, bureaucracy and so on. They are now saying that they are going to make transfers and that there are going to be two million conditional federal-provincial agreements, each of which will take a whole floor of public servants to manage. Is that not the opposite of the approach preferred by the Prime Minister, who has the heart of a Conservative, and by the Conservatives, who, in many ways, have the hearts of new Liberals? Should we not ask questions about that? We should, because the provinces, Quebec and the federal government are interconnected. That is part of the cost of living.

As for seniors, they are now divided into two classes: those aged 65 to 74, and those aged 75 and over who are entitled to more than the others. The long-standing understanding has been that, when people plan for retirement, everyone begins receiving OAS at age 65. By the way, OAS benefits are taxable and subject to the progressive income tax system, as I was explaining to my colleague opposite a few minutes ago. There is therefore an element of fairness and targeting at play. How is it that the government has money for the excise tax but it suddenly does not have the same amount of money to give to Quebec seniors? These are questions that must be answered.

The same can be said of fiscal anchors. When a government is first elected, it promises fiscal discipline, but when its fiscal anchor no longer suits its purposes, it simply changes the anchor. Why? I looked up the definition of “anchor” in the dictionary. It is something that is supposed to be solid, otherwise the ship would run aground. A fiscal anchor is not meant to be changed with every budget.

That is what the Parliamentary Budget Officer lambasted the government for. She says that we need to pay attention to the debt situation overall, not just to the deficit as defined by the Prime Minister. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, over the next five years, cumulative deficits are projected to total $333.3 billion, while the debt will increase by $732.9 billion. That is more than double. We need to ask questions about that.

We need to challenge the investment expenditures. Are they really investments? Incidentally, Ottawa does not have an infrastructure plan, unlike the provinces, which follow proper accounting rules. Ottawa tells us that these are investments, but there are no assets backing the liabilities. There is no annual depreciation of those assets. It is all a fiction.

Quebec actually records the money it deposits into the generations fund as an expense. In other words, Quebec sets aside cash in a fund for the benefit of future generations and accounts for it as an expense. Ottawa, on the other hand, records spending as an investment when there is in fact no investment. That raises questions.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer tells us that, in five years' time, by 2031, the debt-to-GDP ratio is going to rise from 40.8% to 42.6%. That is just the federal debt. Canada's public debt includes provincial and municipal debts as well. When the Liberals compare themselves to the G7, they compare Canada's federal debt to the debt levels of unitary states and announce that things are just fine.

On that note, I want to say that the government has had an obsession with the G7 for the past year and a half. The G7 is all it thinks about. G7 countries have high-speed trains, so it wants them too. G7 countries have this, G7 countries have that. It seems to be stuck on the G7, or maybe its G7 key is stuck—I will work on that and ask for a correction to the blues later.

Who is this government comparing itself to? Perhaps it is comparing itself to France. How are things going in France when it comes to the cost of living? How are things in France? Perhaps it is comparing itself to the United States, which is part of the G7. The debt situation in the United States is great. Perhaps it is comparing itself to the United Kingdom. Are things going well in the U.K.? Is that an example to follow? Let us keep looking. It is comparing itself to Japan, where the savings behaviour and public debt ownership are primarily Japanese, and there have been significant problems with public debt and demographics for years. It is comparing itself to Japan.

The Liberals point to the G7 to argue that things are going well in Canada and in Germany.

The questions being asked about the trajectory of public debt in Canada and the questions that the Conservatives want to ask are legitimate. Those questions deserve answers. If the Prime Minister disagrees, he can say so.

In the last minute of speaking time I have left, I would like to return to what our priority should be. A budget is coming, and our priority should be the people who are at risk of losing their jobs today. The government has announced a $9-billion fund for Ontario's steel industry, yet not a single penny has been set aside for Quebec. Where is the fairness in that? There are steel mills in Quebec, but they are not getting a single penny. We need to protect those jobs, too.

The 20% of households that will be hit hardest may find themselves unable to buy school supplies for their children when food prices rise by even half a percentage point. We need to look after these people. We need to increase the Canada groceries and essentials benefit. We need to look after them.

The Liberals know that their suspension of the excise tax is set to expire early next year. They need to prepare for it. They must keep in mind the people I have just spoken about.

If the Prime Minister keeps these people in mind, rather than business leaders, then I am confident he will agree to appear before the committee and work constructively with us and the rest of the opposition.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, there was so much in that speech that I agreed with and quite a bit in that speech that I did not agree with. I think the main thing I do not agree with is that the Prime Minister has the heart of a Conservative. A Conservative would never run up such ridiculous amounts of debt. There has been more debt added to our national debt load during the terms of former prime minister Trudeau and the current Prime Minister than there was under all of the other prime ministers combined.

In fact, we see now that in a lot of the COVID spending, all the bonds that were sold during that time were short-term bonds, and $600 billion or 29% of our national debt is going to be turned over this year. When the member was mentioning hospitals and the infrastructure needs in Canada, I could not agree more with him. We are now spending more on debt repayment than we do on health care transfers.

Could the hon. member explain a little further how the debt that is crippling us now is actually halting the investment in infrastructure?

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

Madam Speaker, I did not want to get into a psychoanalysis of who has what kind of heart. What I am saying is that, for a number of years now, the Government of Canada has been maintaining certain fiscal anchors. It said it would increase spending, and by a large amount, considering the billions of dollars involved, but it believed that the debt-to-GDP ratio would decrease or stabilize over time. That means that it is important for the government to control the debt-to-GDP ratio.

Now, in her report, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is telling us that the government is abandoning that fiscal anchor and that the debt-to-GDP ratio is going to increase. Since the government is not following its own rules, it is now saying that it is going to change the rules and the definitions.

Basically, the motion says that we have questions for the Prime Minister. Perhaps he is the right person to answer those questions. Sometimes we cannot ask him those question in the House, for reasons that I am not allowed to mention, so perhaps we need a more relaxed setting, a little more time and a different format to ask the Prime Minister questions. I think that the Standing Committee on Finance would be a very appropriate forum.

That is why we support the motion.

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

Madam Speaker, our government has introduced a number of affordability measures. At the same time, we have a plan to build projects of national interest to create jobs.

Given the ongoing global crisis, does the Bloc Québécois not think that this is justified?

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague very much. We have worked together in the past and are likely to continue to do so. However, why does the Prime Minister not come and discuss this with us in committee?

The Liberal member seems proud of these measures, proud of the plan and proud of what the Prime Minister is doing. She makes it sound like the government is not making any mistakes. There have been housing problems, there was the Roxham crisis, and Quebec is demanding to be paid back the hundreds of millions of dollars it spent on asylum seekers. That is part of the problem. The member is proud. I do not fully share her point of view. The government is not doing everything wrong, but there are things that need to change.

Why does the Prime Minister not appear before the Standing Committee on Finance?

It could be constructive, and the Prime Minister might enjoy appearing before the committee. I think the member should send him an email or go see him in the lobby to tell him to appear before the Standing Committee on Finance, because he will enjoy it as much as she enjoys being in the House.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a great pleasure to listen to my colleague from Mirabel. As we know, in addition to being a member of Parliament, he is a university professor. He has a Ph.D. in economics, so when he speaks, it always makes an impression. I feel like I am getting an economics 101 lesson when I listen to his speeches. I wanted to thank him for that.

There is one thing he may not have had time to mention. The government is currently implementing budget cuts. It is cutting budgets in the public service and is also making cuts to direct services. Take, for example, what is happening in federal prisons, whose budgets have been slashed by $132 million and which have had to reduce the number of correctional officers on the front lines. As a result, inmates have managed to get items such as food and alcohol delivered to them by drone. There are significant budget cuts happening, and I think the government should rethink its priorities. It gives everything to the oil companies and nothing to seniors and prisons.

What does my colleague think?

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

Madam Speaker, this is what can happen when budget cuts are made quickly across the board, using a blanket approach. The government decided that, aside from defence and two or three other organizations, every department will face 15% budget cuts.

With regard to penitentiaries, the Archambault facility was located in my riding before the electoral boundaries were revised. There were significant security issues there, including people smuggling in 3-D printed parts for firearms. Thankfully, no one ever smuggled in enough parts to build a whole firearm. The people who work there provide a direct service, one that is essential both to the safety of Quebeckers and Canadians and to that of inmates, as well as to maintaining public confidence in our correctional system and in the rule of law.

There is this notion that budget cuts can be made everywhere and AI can be brought in, as though we were at McKinsey, and that it will deliver the same results because the federal government does not really provide services. In fact, the government provides few enough as it is, so I think it should give special consideration to those areas where services are actually being delivered and where public confidence in our most fundamental institutions could be undermined. The situation in our penitentiaries illustrates what can happen when the intentions are good, but the desire is to move too fast and go too far.

[Ned Kuruc, Conservative, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague this: In his expertise, as he has a background in economics, does he believe that the Prime Minister could actually get this budget under control? What are some of his points about that?

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

Madam Speaker, I did not write the budget, thank God. Perhaps that answers my colleague's question. This is not an easy situation. The reality is that the economic situation is really not easy. No one here decided to impose tariffs on us; they were imposed on us from outside. We are experiencing major structural challenges, and in a situation like this, the choices we make become all the more important.

When there is growth, as there was in the 1990s, when money flows freely and the economy is doing well, we can afford to be less discriminating in the choices we make without it having an immediate impact.

The motion does not call for a return to a balanced budget, far from it. What the motion says is that if we want the debt-to-GDP ratio to stabilize, we will have to make choices. These are not easy choices, but I think it is up to the Prime Minister to answer for them. Like many Quebeckers and Canadians, I think that a lot of things get decided in the Prime Minister's Office.

One cannot take all the credit, hold press conferences, travel the world trumpeting the decision, and then turn around and say that the minister will handle it. The Prime Minister wants to make the decisions, and he must answer for those decisions in the appropriate parliamentary forum, namely before a committee.

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

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister is working very hard at building a stronger, healthier economy by dealing with the many different stakeholders throughout the nation, along with the premiers and indigenous leaders, in developing export opportunities for Canada, small businesses, creating jobs and so forth. He has a cabinet. There are parliamentary secretaries. There are ample opportunities. The Prime Minister does not have to answer every question that is posed in the House of Commons or the standing committees. That is why we have a cabinet. The vast majority, more than 98%, could very easily be answered through ministers and parliamentary secretaries.

It seems to me that what the member wants is for the Prime Minister to do even more work at committee stage, when in fact there is ample opportunity for the opposition to ask questions and hold the government accountable.

Does the member not believe in the parliamentary system of cabinet in government, the parliamentary secretaries, and so forth?

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

Madam Speaker, I have sat in the House for five and a half years, and this is the first time I am going to vote on a motion that calls on the Prime Minister to appear in committee. My colleague is talking to us as though we spend our weeks asking the Prime Minister to waste his time in committee. This is a specific situation. There is a budget coming up. The Prime Minister has given himself special responsibilities and must be able to answer for that.

What are we to make of the fact that the Prime Minister is capable of cutting government spending by 15% in a G7 country, but is unable to cut back on something else to free up an hour to appear before a committee? We know the Prime Minister is capable of making cuts. Surely he can cut 15% of the time devoted to something on his schedule, such as a meeting. He could come to Parliament Hill a little earlier. He is a hard-working man. He has long workdays. He is capable of appearing before a committee, given the special circumstances.

Seriously, I think my colleague might be proud of his Prime Minister when he hears him testify. He might be pleased with what comes out of it. He might discover that this is what it means to believe in the parliamentary system. I urge him to show a little open-mindedness.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Cloverdale—Langley City.

Today we are speaking about a motion before the House that is quite timely, because the Prime Minister's government is projected to borrow $733 billion in five years. That is more than the total debt accumulated by every prime minister in Canadian history before Justin Trudeau. It is also more than the debt added during Prime Minister Trudeau's ten years in government, years that included a once-in-a-century global pandemic. What took generations of prime ministers to accumulate, the current Prime Minister plans to borrow in just five years.

This is an extraordinary pace of borrowing, and it is mortgaging our children's future, but what do Canadians have to show for all this borrowing and all this spending? Our economic growth forecast has been downgraded to just 0.9% this year. We have a record 2.4 million visits at food banks in a single month, and one in three is for a child. Millions of Canadians are struggling to afford the most basic necessities. Meanwhile, the fastest-growing expense for the federal government is not defence, not infrastructure and not health care. It is interest on the national debt.

How sad is that? There are billions of dollars that cannot be spent on health care, infrastructure or lowering taxes for hard-working Canadians. By 2030, the government is projected to spend approximately $83 billion a year just to service the national debt. What is the government's plan to bring this under control? There is no plan.

In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects that the federal debt-to-GDP ratio will rise over the next five years. That means that our debt burden is growing rather than shrinking, and it is in fact growing faster than our economy is growing. That is why we are calling on the Prime Minister to appear before the finance committee to answer a very simple question: What is his plan to reduce the deficit spending, bring debt interest under control, deliver tax relief for Canadians and bring the debt under control?

Let me ask a question. What would we do if our household debt were spiralling out of control? Would we change the way we measure our debt? Would we start calling our everyday expenses investments? Would we move some of our borrowing onto another credit card and tell our family that our finances were improving? No, of course we would not, but that is precisely the kind of fiscal manipulation we are seeing from the Prime Minister.

He built his reputation on his financial credentials. Canadians were told they could trust him to manage our country's finances responsibly, but look at what has happened. The debt-to-GDP ratio is no longer the government's primary fiscal anchor. Every other serious country around the world uses this fiscal anchor, but the Prime Minister has shredded it and made up one of his own. He redefined operating expenses under a broader capital investment framework, allowing spending traditionally treated as operating expenses to be treated as capital investments.

There is the borrowing, hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, Crown corporation financing and other financial transactions, that adds to federal borrowing requirements without increasing the reported deficit by the same amount. In other words, the Prime Minister can borrow as much as he would like, and the fiscal anchor he has chosen will never be tripped. Then, the government turns around and tells Canadians that it is on the path to balancing the operating budget. Is that not convenient?

Here is what Canadians need to understand. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, over five years, the government is projected to run $333 billion in deficits, but borrow $733 billion. That is a difference of $400 billion. Much of that difference relates to loans, Crown corporation financing and other financial assets. Loans are recorded as assets because there is an expectation that those loans will, of course, be repaid.

Let us take the example of Canada Post, a Crown corporation that has loans given by the federal government. It has not reported an annual profit since 2017, and it has accumulated billions of dollars in losses. That raises a very obvious question: How confident can taxpayers be that all government loans will be fully repaid? With the government expanding its use of Crown corporations and other financing vehicles for defence, housing and investment initiatives, Canadians deserve full transparency about the borrowing, liabilities and financial risk involved. Moving borrowing into a different part of the government's accounts does not make the financial obligations disappear.

Here is what makes this even more concerning. The International Monetary Fund has called for greater clarity and independent verification of the government's fiscal framework. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has warned that the government's new fiscal anchors provide very little discipline on borrowing. The PBO has made one thing absolutely clear: Balancing the operating budget does not mean that the government's finances are balanced.

Here we have a Prime Minister who built his reputation on financial expertise, asking Canadians to trust him while adopting fiscal measures that provide an incomplete picture of our growing borrowing requirements. Fiscal responsibility is not about how we cleverly present the numbers. It is about whether we can actually control the debt and spending. Changing the accounting does not change the bill that Canadians will ultimately have to pay.

On that note, $83 billion in interest means $6,000 per Canadian household just to service the debt. That is $6,000 in taxes just to service the debt. That does not include the repayment of the debt. That is why the Prime Minister must come before committee, answer these questions, explain how he intends to restore fiscal discipline, and present a credible plan for the repayment of the debt so we can bring this amount of debt under control.

What concerns me even more than the debt is what all the government spending has actually delivered for Canadians. I judge the success of a government by a very simple measure. Can Canadians build a good life for themselves and their families? Can a young couple afford their first home? Can parents afford to raise their children? Can seniors retire with dignity? Can an honest day's work still provide a decent standard of living? That is how we should measure success. Today, millions of Canadians are struggling to do precisely those things. We have a record of 2.4 million food bank visits in a single month, and one-third involve children.

Let us think about what that says about the state of our country's finances. This is Canada, one of the wealthiest, most resource-rich nations on earth, yet we have parents working hard, sometimes at multiple jobs, who still cannot afford to put food on the table for their children. We have a moral obligation to help those in need, of course. When someone falls on hard times, when a family faces hardships or when a senior cannot make ends meet, we should stand with them.

However, we also have a moral obligation to ask why so many Canadians need that assistance in the first place. Why are millions struggling to afford basic groceries? This is not normal, and we must never accept it as normal. What troubles me is that the Liberals seem to celebrate the number of people receiving government benefits as evidence of their success. I believe they are measuring the wrong thing. I do not want to celebrate how many Canadians depend on government assistance. I want to celebrate how many Canadians no longer need it.

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

Madam Speaker, I brought up the issue of Standard & Poor's and Moody's, which have given Canada a AAA credit rating, and it is important to note that. Out of the G7 countries, which include France, England, Germany and the United States, all industrialized countries, Canada has a AAA rating. The only other country that has it is Germany.

By using Canada's fiscal position to invest in building Canada, we are going to build a stronger and healthier economy. The Conservatives do not seem to understand that. Using Canada's fiscal capabilities will make Canada a stronger and healthier country in the long run. Does the Conservative Party not understand the benefits of doing that?

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would encourage the member to understand how those credit ratings are issued. If the member remembers, in the last budget, there was a warning from Fitch Ratings to the federal government about the amount of debt it was incurring, because it dropped the fiscal anchor that measures debt, which is the debt-to-GDP ratio. For a rating to be maintained, the debt-to-GDP ratio must be maintained. What are we seeing? It will be getting worse over the next five years.

Members from the Liberal government continuously stand up in the House and say that they will take no lessons from the Conservatives. Well, perhaps they can take a lesson from the cold, hard math, and the math is not looking good. I would encourage the member to take a sobering stand, recognize that there is a problem with the amount of borrowing the government is taking on and provide a credible plan to repay it.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, the government forwent revenue by scrapping the digital services tax on the U.S. tech giants that are threatening our culture, our media and our identity. The government did this to please Mr. Trump as part of the tariff negotiations, but it got nothing in return.

What does my colleague think of that?

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is, of course, important to look at the full equation when we are looking at the country's finances. Revenues are important. We need to continue to generate revenues, but what we are seeing right now is that expenses are out of control. More importantly, the interest expense is the fastest-growing expense on the books, at $83 billion in interest. This interest has to be serviced. Ultimately, it has to be paid, and it is paid by dollars taken from hard-working Canadians. We cannot continue down this trajectory of ignoring the spending and ignoring the debt and how the debt is going to be repaid.

[Amarjeet Gill, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will take this opportunity to ask the member what it means to have more debt, deficits and interest payments. We all know that taxpayers are on the hook to pay the debt, which is amortizing their future and their kids' future. We have seen that everyone is struggling with affordability. Youth are struggling, and seniors are looking for relief.

What are the impacts of the debt and deficits on future generations and everyday life for Canadians at the present time?

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was a commercial lender for 15 years. I worked with debt and loans, and there is a certain level of sustainability that has to be considered.

Debt can be very risky. Right now, we have a government that is, in fact, hiding the true amount of debt. The Liberals are hiding it in Crown corporations. When we cannot see the full picture, how can good decisions be made? A business owner will tell us that they need reliable financial statements to make decisions, and we do not have that in our country's finances.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Speaker, what if I told Canadians that every single week, the federal government spends $1 billion on something that will totally shock them? That $1 billion does not put a nurse at a bedside, does not build a home for a struggling family and does not make life one bit more affordable for Canadians. That $1 billion is 1,000 times $1 million, every seven days. What are Canadians getting for all that money? It is the bill for interest alone on the national debt. The worst part is that the $1 billion a week does not pay off a single penny of the debt itself.

I think most of us know what it is like to sit down at the kitchen table with a pile of bills and wonder how we are going to make everything work. Imagine a family that has been relying a little too much on their credit card just to get through the month. They are doing their best, but the balance keeps growing, and every time they make a payment, so much of it goes toward interest that they barely make a dent in what they owe.

One would think the sensible thing would be to sit down together, take a good look at where the money is going and figure out what they can cut back on. Instead, someone comes up with what they think is a brilliant idea: Why not get a second credit card and divide all their spending into two categories? On the first card, they can put everyday necessities, things like groceries, prescriptions, gas for the car and monthly bills. On the second card, they can put everything that they decide is an investment in the family's future, like replacing a roof, buying new clothes for the kids and even taking the family to the movies, because, after all, spending time together is an investment too.

Here is the clever part. From now on, they will only judge how well they are managing their money by looking at the first credit card. As long as they can get that balance under control, they will tell themselves that they are finally living within their means, even while the spending on the second card keeps growing. When the bills arrive, the bank does not care what they have decided to call their purchases. It does not matter whether the money went toward groceries, a new roof or a night at the movies. They still owe every dollar that they borrowed, and they are still paying interest on it. They have not solved their debt problem. They have simply found a new way of keeping score that makes one part of their finances look better without improving the overall picture.

That little story might sound ridiculous, but it is a good way to describe how the Prime Minister is presenting the federal government's finances. He is completely ignoring accounting practices accepted worldwide and has now decided to divide government spending into two categories. On the one side are the everyday operating expenses, and on the other are things his government calls investments in Canada's future. Just like our family with the two credit cards, the Prime Minister wants Canadians to focus on getting that first account balanced while borrowing buckets of money to pay for what is going on the second.

One does not have to take my word for whether this approach is actually keeping government spending under control. Just last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released her latest report, and the numbers tell quite a story. Since June, the government has announced $52.6 billion in new spending and tax measures over the next five years. Of that amount, $43.8 billion, more than 80%, has been classified as capital investment, which means it does not count against the Prime Minister's promise to balance his operating budget. Think about that for a moment. For every five dollars in new measures that the government has announced, more than four dollars has been put into the second bucket, where they do not count against the Prime Minister's promise to balance the day-to-day budget.

Let us go back to that family sitting around the kitchen table, looking at their two credit card bills and trying to figure out how they are ever going to get ahead. They have been making their payments every month, but the balances never seem to come down because so much of what they are paying is being eaten up by interest. The longer they carry that debt, the more money they lose to interest, instead of being able to spend it on things the family needs.

Most Canadians understand that problem because they have either experienced it themselves or watched somebody they love struggle with it. What many Canadians may not realize is that the federal government has run up such an enormous debt that the interest alone now works out to nearly $6,000 a year for every family of four in Canada. The Parliamentary Budget Officer tells us that the interest on our national debt is now the fastest-growing expense in the federal budget. We are not talking about health care, where Canadians are already waiting months for treatment, or national defence, where our military desperately needs new equipment, or even the benefits that seniors rely on to get by. We are talking about interest payments to corporate bankers and bondholders.

This year alone, the federal government is expected to spend approximately $59 billion on interest. According to the PBO projections, that annual bill is going to climb to $83 billion by 2030. We can just imagine what that means for the next generation of Canadians, who will inherit not only the debt but the cost of servicing it.

Here is where I find this especially troubling. When the Prime Minister took office, he promised Canadians that he would spend less, that he would bring some discipline back to Ottawa's finances and that Canadians could expect a different approach to managing their money. Instead, we are looking at a deficit roughly twice the size of the one left behind by Justin Trudeau, with the government continuing to borrow billions more every year. Anyone who has ever tried to get out of credit card debt knows that they cannot keep increasing the balance and expect the interest payments to somehow take care of themselves. Eventually, those payments begin to crowd out everything else in the budget, and they find themselves working harder and harder just to keep up with what they already owe.

That is exactly the concern we should have about our federal finances because every dollar Ottawa spends paying interest on the debt is a dollar that is not available to hire another nurse, provide another hospital bed, improve the services Canadians depend on or leave a little more money in the pockets of hard-working Canadians. The really frustrating part is that those Canadians are already making difficult choices every single day. They are putting things back on the grocery store shelf because they cannot afford them. They are postponing repairs to their homes. They are telling their children there simply is not enough money for some of the things they used to enjoy. They understand that when money is tight, they have to make choices.

Canadians are entitled to expect their government to show that same kind of discipline, which it promised. At the end of the day, it does not matter whether someone has one credit card, two credit cards or a hundred different ways of dividing up the spending. If they keep borrowing more than they can afford to repay, the interest will keep growing. Eventually, someone has to pay the bill, and in this case, that someone is the Canadian taxpayer.

The Prime Minister came into office promising to spend less, but Canadians are still waiting to hear how he intends to bring down the deficit, reduce the enormous interest bill we are leaving to our children and grandchildren and give hard-working families some relief from the taxes they are paying. That is why Conservatives are calling on the Prime Minister to come before the House of Commons finance committee and explain his plan. We want to know how he intends to get government spending under control, how he plans to reduce the interest we are paying on the national debt and when Canadians can expect to see some of their hard-earned money stay in their own pockets.

This week, every Liberal member of Parliament will have an opportunity to support this request. Surely, asking the Prime Minister to explain how he intends to keep his own promises should not be controversial. Canadians have been doing their part. They have been working hard, paying their taxes and making difficult decisions around their own kitchen tables. I believe they have earned the right to expect their government to be just as careful with their money as they have to be.

The Prime Minister has told Canadians he knows how to manage the economy. We are simply asking him to come to the finance committee, show us the numbers and explain his plan. Canadians do not need another credit card. They need a government that knows how to pay the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are at a critical moment in our country's history. We see the unjustified tariffs from the U.S., and the price of oil and gas going up, and we know that action is needed. If we look back at the last world economic recession, in 2008, it was the current Prime Minister who worked with then prime minister Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty to invest in infrastructure and projects here at home in order to keep the economy going, and it worked. The Prime Minister is applying that experience now, and I think it is the right approach.

Would the member not agree that building projects in the national interest to create jobs, protecting ourselves by diversifying our trade and bolstering our defence are all good things?

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, nobody disputes that tariffs and global uncertainty are hurting our economy. In fact, Prime Minister Harper balanced the budget during those difficult times.

The PBO acknowledges that these are tough times, but it also tells us that since June, stronger revenues created $37 billion in additional fiscal room while the government announced $52.6 billion in new measures. That is a choice about how to use the available money, and it is entirely reasonable to ask the Prime Minister to explain it.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the important statistics to consider in relation to why this motion is before the House is, of course, that the Prime Minister's attendance at question period is roughly 26% of the time, and not all questions are answered. We have very important questions for the Prime Minister around the country's finances, questions that are not answered with the made-up definitions or the fiscal anchor that he has chosen to control spending and debt in this country.

Can the member comment as to why it is important for the Prime Minister to answer these questions in the finance committee?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Before we go to the answer, I will remind the member for Newmarket—Aurora that we cannot refer to the attendance or non-attendance of any member of the House in this place, even if it is done in an indirect way.

The hon. member for Cloverdale—Langley City has the floor.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is very simple. The PBO has just told us that the government's own fiscal rules have imposed limited fiscal discipline. In plain English, the government's spending rules are doing diddly-squat to stop the wild spending spree it is on. We are looking at a $63-billion deficit this year, climbing to $70 billion next year, while interest payments continue to grow.

These are not numbers coming from the opposition. They are coming from Parliament's independent budget watchdog. Surely, that deserves an explanation from the Prime Minister.