Madam Speaker, I am just being heckled left, right and centre. I do not know what is with the Liberals today, but I will maybe leave it at that on the process and talk about things that Conservatives agree with in this BIA. This BIA contains policy reversals from the government that we support, like repealing the digital services tax, something that we fought tooth and nail in the last Parliament. We foretold all of the consequences of that bill, and now here we are in the next Parliament, with the Liberals admitting through their legislation that Conservatives were right all along, and repealing the digital services tax. They are also repealing the luxury tax on corporate aircraft and some watercraft.
We said at the time that these taxes would simply harm industry, would raise insignificant amounts of revenue and, in fact, would likely result in lost economic activity. They have come around to us on that. They have come around on the underutilized housing tax, which we raised concerns about when they brought it in, and they are repealing this. These are all positive steps with which we agree. There are many things we do not agree with in the BIA. I am going to talk about a few of them as time will allow.
The BIA creates a Crown corporation to at least explore the construction of a high-speed rail network. We are not opposed to infrastructure, if we want to call this train such, but what they are actually doing here is proposing and beginning to spend significant amounts of money on a train that has dubious projections for its ridership and absolutely terrifying possibilities for total cost. We oppose this. The CEO of this new corp testified at committee. He was candid, and he certainly gave nothing to assure Canadians that this would not ultimately become an extraordinary boondoggle. He would not even acknowledge and seemed to act surprised when we talked about the existing subsidy to keep the existing rail network going, which relies on a subsidy of $2 for every dollar that it takes in fares.
I am going to run out of time with all the things that are wrong with this budget, but we move on to Veterans Affairs. The BIA contains an absolutely disgraceful provision for the Government of Canada to correct what it calls an ongoing mistake. Really, it is that the Department of Veterans Affairs, over a series of governments, has systematically denied proper levels of compensation to veterans on the basis of a 1998 law.
The government is being sued successfully, and it appears that it would be ordered to repay $870 million to veterans, many of whom are in long-term care. These are elderly veterans who have, in some cases, given blood and limbs for their country. To deal with the prospect of being ordered to pay nearly $1 billion in compensation, the government is trying to retroactively change a 1998 law to avoid it and give itself legal cover to refuse compensation to veterans. It is shameful.
We have heard a lot about the ministerial powers, including in the last interventions in the previous speech. I am going to go past that one because, fortunately, these were amended. This is what happened at committee. We agreed to a 605-clause bill that we went through clause by clause in only six hours. Amendments were proposed. Some amendments were accepted by the government, which is appreciated. Partially dialing back the draconian powers that the government has given itself would be one point, but we had ministerial appearances, and I have to take some time and unpack what happened when we had the Minister of Finance at committee.
The budget implementation act would implement a budget with a $78.3-billion deficit. The members of the governing party campaigned in an election, promising not to exceed their deficit. The last deficit that was tabled in the previous budget was $42 billion. There was a promise not to exceed that deficit. The Liberals formed a new government, a continuation of the old government. They added $20 billion in new deficit spending in a projection. They then promised that they would not exceed that deficit projection, but they tabled a budget with a $78-billion deficit.
I do not understand how all of these members, especially the ones who have been here since 2015, campaigned in election after election, promising that it was going to get better and that they were going to rein in spending. They promised, in 2015, to balance the budget by 2017. The Liberals have broken every promise, blown through every fiscal guardrail, cut loose every fiscal anchor, and now want to be taken at their word that $78 billion is the new number they will not exceed. The debt-to-GDP ratio is not even declining. It is going up. That used to be the sacred line that they would not cross, in the words of one of the previous finance ministers.
When the current finance minister came to committee and was asked repeatedly about balanced budgets, he actually said to me that it was irresponsible for members of the opposition to ask the finance minister when the government would balance the budget. He refused to answer a basic financial question for five solid minutes. He could have said to the committee that the government currently does not have a projection that goes out far enough to find a balanced budget, that what we see in the budget is as good as it gets or that the officials have nothing further to say on the future of deficits, but he did not. He actually challenged the legitimacy of the question. How arrogant does someone have to be, when they are in government, to suggest to an opposition member that they should not ask basic questions about the health and future of the finances of this country?
The Liberals have talked in their speeches today about the construction of major projects. They promised to build these at speeds unimaginable. We are a year in now. There are no approvals and not even any real talk about these projects. They will not even say the word “pipeline” out loud. Again, when confronted with questions about on which date construction might begin or on which date we can expect an approval, there was no answer.
The accountability has been disappointing, and that is why we oppose this budget implementation act.