Debates of June 8th, 2026

Opposition Motion—The Government's Fiscal Policies

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

There is a point of order from the chief government whip.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member cannot reference anybody who was or was not in the gallery. Perhaps you would like to remind her of the rules.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

The chief government whip is indeed right. The member cannot make a reference to the presence, currently or in the past, of members of the public in the gallery. I was going to interrupt the member after her comments.

I will let her finish if she can keep it short.

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

Mr. Speaker, the grandparents listened to the Liberal members dismiss concerns about the recession, rising debt and the cost of living. They told me they wished they could call and tell the government what they were seeing in their own lives, as seniors struggling to make ends meet. They talked about grocery bills that keep climbing, adult children who are struggling to get ahead, and their grandchildren facing a future that looks less affordable than the one they inherited.

Can my colleague explain to me why so many ordinary Canadians can see we are in a recession, while the Liberal government continues to downplay the very real economic struggles that families are facing every day?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, did the member tell her constituents how she voted against every single bill we brought forward that would improve the lives of Canadians? We lowered taxes in the lowest tax bracket. We brought in a national school food program. We brought in dental care. We brought in pharmacare. We have done so many things over the years that the member has been in and out of the House to experience and to vote on, but she has voted against all of it.

My only question to the member—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I will just interrupt the chief government whip, as there is a point of order from the member for Brandon—Souris.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the chief government whip knows well that he cannot reflect on a member's presence or past presence in, or absence from, the chamber. I would remind him to read his own rule book, for which he is responsible for the government—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I thank the member for Brandon—Souris. I thought that the chief government whip elegantly moved around that particular part when he was answering.

I will let the chief government whip finish up in just a few seconds so we can continue with questions and comments.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the member for Brandon—Souris is referring to. I am responding to the member for Cloverdale—Langley City's question. She is in the House right now. We all know that.

The point is that the member who asked me a question a moment ago, who was in the House when she did it, is now suddenly trying to ask me to explain things to her constituents, but she voted against every single measure that was brought in to help the lives of those very constituents.

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

Mr. Speaker, on the one side, we have the Conservative doomsayers, who exaggerate the problems. On the other, we have the Liberal optimists, who say that everything is fine.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about the fact that Scotiabank and the Bank of Montreal both downgraded their growth projections, which are at less than 1%.

The most recent report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer also noted a slowdown in growth and a deterioration in the fiscal outlook, with a larger-than-expected deficit and a mere 1% chance that the government will meet its budget forecast.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, those same organizations projected that there would not be the job numbers growth that there was in May. Those same organizations projected that unemployment would not drop as much as it did. Those same organizations projected that full-time employment would not surge the way it did.

Yes, there are projections, but then there is reality. The reality is that on Friday of last week, there were incredible job numbers for our country. The Leader of the Opposition has yet to make even a drive-by comment on them. Meanwhile, a week ago, when there was a -0.04% growth rate, he ran outside, acted like the sky was falling and declared a full-scale recession. It is just theatrics to him.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my colleague has been hearing the same thing I have been hearing in my riding. I hear people saying they understand that Canada is facing a lot of challenges with respect to geopolitics, with respect to trade and so forth. They want Canadians to stick together and to work together for the benefit of all Canadians.

The member alluded to how this debate today has been about almost celebrating Canada's difficulties in terms of the economy. Can the member let us know if he is hearing the same thing from constituents that I am with respect to working together for the benefit of Canadians?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think using the word “celebrating” would be going a little too far, but I know where the member is going with this.

What I was trying to say is that what Conservatives do is get excited. I can almost guarantee members that a week ago, on May 31, when those numbers came out and Canada had a negative 0.04% growth rate, they got excited because they saw an opportunity, and this is what they have been doing. All I was trying to say when I got up in the House and gave this speech was that doing that is not going to put them in a position to form government. The sooner they learn that, the better for them, but the worse for us, I guess.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having the opportunity to rise today to speak to this very sobering issue.

I will be splitting my time with the wonderful new member from Long Range Mountains, who is a fantastic member in this place and brings a lot of expertise. I am happy to share my time with her.

Also, I want to say hi to Susan, who might be watching at home, who typically watches many of these speeches. I thank and appreciate her for all the support and the friends at Cornerstone.

We are talking about a recession. We might be down by 0.1% or up by 0.1%, but the truth is that the economy is not doing very well, regardless of whether the government suggests that we are not in a recession or that, as some people like to say, it is just a technical recession. In fact, according to Sean Speer, editor-at-large at The Hub, all of this is a bit of silly semantics: “The real questions are: how much does the economy suck, how long has it sucked, why does it suck, and what are the different ideas to stop it from sucking.”

We have a productivity crisis in this country, and everybody knows it. The Prime Minister has even acknowledged it. I think the Prime Minister was elected in part because of his résumé, but it appears, over a year into his term, that his economic agenda and plan are not working. It is even a bit hard to determine what his economic plan and agenda are. If it is to attack productivity, one cannot connect very many of his economic announcements to actually making the big reforms and changes we need to the economy in this country to get it going. Of course, President Trump's tariffs weigh on our economy, but we saw serious economic trouble before anyone had heard of President Trump. The Bank of Canada has called it a productivity emergency. Senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers declared it “an emergency”, a “time to break the glass”.

If it is true that we are in this economic crisis of productivity, the Prime Minister's agenda is not addressing it. He is saying we have moved at speeds faster than ever before, but we have not seen fundamental reforms. There has been no serious competition reform, tax reform or regulatory reform. In fact, when it comes to those three items, we could classify the Prime Minister not as a bold actor but as one who supports the status quo. He is the status quo man. He is not willing to take on the banks, the airlines, the telecoms or the other oligopolies that we need to take on to enhance the productivity of our country. He must move faster.

On competition, we should radically attack the profit pools of our financial institutions, in particular the banks, by introducing more competition to deliver lower prices to Canadians. If we want to send a message to the United States, let us do it through CANZUK. If British Airways wants to fly a plane between Toronto and Vancouver or Toronto and Halifax, why do we not let them and invite any airline in the CANZUK countries to do so?

On taxes, we should immediately move to reduce capital gains on those businesses and individuals who reinvest in Canada and in Canadian companies. We need a tax reform package to lower taxes, business and personal, and significantly reduce complexity.

On regulation, we need service standards for permitting. We need to pre-approve projects in areas of the country, which means they can be done faster. We should be working more closely with indigenous leaders across the country to identify and pre-approve projects, to de-risk them, in order to free up and attract private capital. If the Prime Minister was serious about building a pipeline, he would have already started his consultations with indigenous groups. We risk allowing this valuable time to go by without making the difficult decisions. Instead, we get announcements, speeches and bureaucracies, such as the Major Projects Office, which, by the way, in and of itself is an admission that the regulatory process does not work. We have the build Canada office, and then the sovereign wealth fund, which will be funded, of course, with debt.

Now I would like to turn, for the reminder of my comments, to a specific risk that I think is growing and that the government should be paying more attention to. The Prime Minister's fiscal plan for this country is putting us at serious risk. By doubling the size of the deficits of PM Trudeau, the Prime Minister is threatening the fiscal stability of our country. If we get into economic challenges around the world, we will be less able to deal with them. We are borrowing record amounts of debt this year and in the next two years. This year we will borrow $510 billion in the market, then we have to borrow $594 billion in the market, and in 2027-28, we have to borrow $563 billion.

We borrow mostly on the short end of the curve, so what happens is that this debt has to be rolled over every two or three years. That is like signing up for only a one- or two-year mortgage on a house. One would have to go to the bank, and guess what happens. Their interest rate gets reset every single time. When 40% of the government's debt is purchased by non-bank financial actors, which are hedge funds and financial speculators, we are at serious risk if those hedge funds and purchasers cannot continue to purchase. In the face of all of this, the Prime Minister's fiscal plan is to borrow more money, record amounts of money.

If there is an economic event, a sovereign debt crisis or a war, something that happens totally outside of Canada, our debt service costs are going to explode. They are already going to be $80 billion in just a few years, and that is $80 billion that could not go to more productive uses. That $80 billion is a projection based on interest rates staying the same or going down. What if interest rates go up? The Prime Minister, who is a two-time central banker and chair of the Financial Stability Board, should know better than to increase the size of deficits and debt in this country and put us further at risk, and I am not the only one who thinks so.

The Bank of Canada is warning that we will have potential problems. It is saying that higher stock market valuations, higher corporate debt and higher amounts of money borrowed by hedge funds to buy sovereign debt are vulnerabilities. “This has made it more likely that a new shock or a combination of shocks could cause several vulnerabilities to crystallize at once,” said the senior deputy governor, Carolyn Rogers.

The Bank of Canada is warning the government that there could be economic instability, and we have a risk of who funds our government in purchasing our debt. That will put our AAA credit rating at risk. We can kiss the fiscal anchor goodbye. In fact, already the Parliamentary Budget Officer is saying that the government has a less than 1% chance of even keeping that anchor. The Prime Minister's decisions are completely imprudent when it comes to fiscal responsibility, and it will result, and may result, in more pain later.

Now, one of these events might not happen, but no one predicted the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, or very few people did. However, it might happen, and with the fact that it might happen, and that the risks are growing, this Prime Minister's decision to increase the size of the debt and the deficits can be called nothing short of reckless, because it will imperil the government's ability to pay for social programs. The bankers and the bondholders get paid first, and our social programs will come second. As I said, one would think that the Prime Minister would be more attuned to some of these global risks and would be taking a much more fiscally responsible path with the government's spending.

As I might not get a chance to welcome everyone to Midland this weekend, it is Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival. Please come. I am super happy to plug that big event in my riding this weekend.

I am also more than happy to answer any questions from any member in the House about my remarks.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my excellent colleague for his speech, not least for the way that he ended it. I might just have to find myself down there for a couple of butter tarts.

His speech accurately portrayed what I am hearing, and what I know most of our colleagues in this place are hearing, from constituents. They are feeling the recession. They are feeling the inflationary policies of the government that have driven down their wages and driven up their cost of living.

I would like the member to provide a little more clarity on why he thinks the Liberals cannot admit that their 11 years of inflationary spending have had a devastating impact on our economy, on household incomes and on household debt, and what the implications of that could be going forward.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that was a wonderful question from a great colleague and contributor in this chamber.

This is a movie we have seen before. The government was slow and late to acknowledge that inflation was a problem. It is slow and late to the party on the economic decline and stagnation of this country. Why? It is because if the Liberals acknowledge there is a problem, because they have been in power for 11 years, well, gosh, maybe they could have done something about it.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I feel like it is Halloween and I dressed up as the member for Simcoe North, but it is purely coincidental. No need to worry, we did not call each other to confer before starting the day.

I would like to ask him a question. In his speech, he talked a lot about risk. One of the major risks that I see at the moment was raised by one of his colleagues on his Facebook page. I have to credit him. He posted that GDP growth under Mark Carney dropped by zero—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I must interrupt the hon. member. Members are not to use the Prime Minister's name in the House. He may be referred to by his title.

I will let the hon. member continue.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was quoting a post.

As I was saying, according to Statistics Canada, the GDP contracted by 0.6% in 365 days. According to Yahoo! Finance Canada, Brookfield's stock value climbed by 19.56% in 365 days. The GDP contracted by 0.6%, while Brookfield stock gained close to 20% in value.

Is that normal? I would like to hear what my colleague has to say.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

My friend in the Bloc has great taste in colours of ties and colours of suits, today for sure.

The member raises an important distinction. There is something called a K-shaped recovery in the economy. That is, those who have assets and wealth are actually doing quite well, like those who are invested in Brookfield, and those who do not have assets and wealth are struggling. They struggle with higher costs and higher food prices and fuel prices. This is really what is happening in the economy. There are those who are doing well and those who are not doing so well. It just so happens that everyone who seems to be doing well knows the Prime Minister very well.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has a lot of expertise in the area of trade. I, of course, come from a riding and a place in this country that is heavily dependent on resources, on trade, on forestry and on north-south exports and imports. Unemployment in my riding is now at 8.5%.

I wonder if the member could talk about how the economy is not being felt the same in different parts of the country and, perhaps, explain to the members opposite why their economic policies are hurting ridings like mine in particular.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her excellent question and for pointing out that the economy is not uniform across the country.

The government applauds job numbers that we saw on Friday, and by the way, those monthly numbers happen to get revised quite substantially. Unemployment is different across the entire country. Those jobs that we see added are not necessarily going to those 80,000 people who lost jobs in the previous number of months. This is a challenge. We are trying to show the government that there is economic pain in different parts of this country, and the government ought to start paying attention.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today on behalf of the people of Long Range Mountains in Newfoundland and Labrador, some of the most industrious and self-reliant individuals, who are asking for fairness and economic stability, not just for themselves and this generation, but also for their children and grandchildren so they can thrive at home.

I rise today to speak in support of our Conservative opposition day motion, which addresses the cold, hard reality facing our nation. The Liberals have officially driven Canada into a recession, and the latest data shows that for everyday Canadians, it is only going to get worse.

The Liberal Prime Minister is the only leader in the G7 and the wider G20 to plunge his country into a recession, after driving the Canadian economy into decline in three of the last four quarters. The Liberals want to label this a technical recession, but there is nothing technical about an empty stomach or someone coming home from work and telling their kids they no longer have a job. Hard-working, everyday Canadians are being forced to pay the price. This means that, in communities across my province, families are making choices they never imagined they would have to make. They are putting groceries on credit cards. They are postponing starting a family, delaying retirement and wondering whether they can afford to keep the house they worked so hard to buy.

The Liberals love to blame global factors for Canada's economic misery. They point to international tariffs and to geopolitical conflict, but every single country in the G7 faces those exact same global headwinds, international tariffs and global challenges, yet none of them, not one, is in a recession, only Canada. Under this Prime Minister's watch, his inflationary spending, his layers of red tape and his antidevelopment laws, our economy has stalled and Canadian productivity has been choked out. Canada now officially holds the highest household debt in the G7, the worst housing costs in the G7 and the second-highest unemployment rate in the G7. This is not a sign of success, and Canadians are not doing well as a result.

Affordability has deteriorated so badly that working families are falling behind. What frustrates people back home is hearing Liberal ministers stand in the House and tell them that this is affordability, not loose slogans. They hear them say that government programs are working, that announcements are resonating and that Canadians are better off because of Liberal policies, but families back home are asking me a very simple question: If things are going so well, why are so many people struggling?

The Parliamentary Budget Officer reports that the likelihood of this costly Liberal government meeting its own fiscal anchor to reduce the deficit-to-GDP ratio is less than 1%. Worse yet, the Liberals are already borrowing way over their own budget. In their spring economic update, they claimed the deficit would be $65.3 billion this year, but the PBO predicts a deficit of $71.8 billion. Where does that leave the taxpayers? It leaves them buried under mountains of Liberal debt. Federal debt charges are projected to skyrocket by 46%. By 2030-31, 13.1¢ of every single dollar of federal revenue will go directly to pay the interest charges on this costly credit card Liberal government.

While everyday Canadians are being forced to tighten their belt and make sacrifices, the devastating impacts are evident. Consumer insolvencies across Canada have reached their highest levels since 2009. Newfoundland and Labrador continues to see rising insolvencies, and behind every insolvency is a family that has reached its breaking point. These are Canadians who worked hard, paid their bills and tried to get ahead, but they are falling behind because groceries cost more, fuel costs more, home heating oil costs more, housing costs more, rent costs more, and this has increased the pressure on household budgets in a way many families simply cannot absorb.

While everyday Canadians are struggling, the Prime Minister's luxury inflight catering costs reached nearly $195,000 for just three trips, including premium meals and expensive hospitality at taxpayers' expense. The Liberal environment minister took a recent trip to Brazil and burned through $467,000 on luxury accommodations and another $650,000 just to rent, design and operate a single promotional pavilion. That is over $1 million spent on a single overseas trip for Liberal elites. This is all occurring under a Prime Minister who recently stated in New York that “a country that cannot feed, fuel, or defend itself is not truly sovereign”, yet he has created a reality where millions of hard-working, everyday Canadians are relying on food banks while he dines on luxury catering in the clouds and his minister stays in luxury accommodations. We cannot run an economy on expensive Liberal bureaucrats and elite menus; we need real private sector growth.

Under the Liberal Prime Minister, we are in an entrepreneurial drought, with more small businesses closing than starting up. Business investment has dropped for five consecutive quarters. Capital investment fell by another 0.7% in the first quarter of this year alone, and over $20 billion in net investment has fled our economy since the Liberal Prime Minister took office.

When capital flees, productivity dies. Labour productivity has fallen in three of the four quarters, and this directly impacts our labour market. The PBO noted, “The labour market has softened in line with the broader slowdown.” In Newfoundland and Labrador, we have the highest provincial rate of unemployment in the entire country. In the first three months of this year, 1.5 million Canadians missed a debt payment, while mortgage delinquency rates climbed 32% year over year.

These numbers represent real human suffering. Consistently, I hear from people right across Long Range Mountains who are telling us heartbreaking stories. Clayton from Corner Brook reached out to our office. He is a senior and requires home care but is considering cancelling because, with the rising cost of heating, rent and food, he just cannot afford it anymore.

I consistently hear about young people leaving. For generations, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have watched sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and friends leave home for opportunity elsewhere in Canada. We know the pain of saying goodbye at the airport. We know what it means to miss birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas dinners and family milestones because opportunity exists somewhere else. A recent study examining migration patterns across Canada found that Newfoundland and Labrador experienced the highest rate of net out-migration in the country, losing the equivalent of more than 10% of our population to other provinces. No province in Canada lost more people proportionally than Newfoundland and Labrador. We are the only province in Canada to experience a net migration loss to every other province in the country.

Among young adults aged 18 to 24, Newfoundland and Labrador experienced net losses equivalent to nearly our entire current population in that age group over the last three decades. When our young people believe they can build a better life somewhere else, they move. When the Liberals fail to create the conditions for growth, investment and opportunity, families make difficult choices, and this has been the heartbreaking reality in Newfoundland and Labrador, a province rich in natural resources and untapped potential and opportunity.

Squashed opportunity is not the only pressure. Grocery costs are up year over year, and 53% of employed Canadians report that food affordability has drastically worsened over the past year. More than one in three employed Canadians are now forced to use debt just to buy groceries. Some families are spending an unbelievable 120% of their total income on food and rent alone. Food bank demand nationwide has doubled since 2019, reaching a heartbreaking record of 2.2 million monthly visits. More than 137,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians live in food-insecure households. More than one-third of children in our province live in households struggling to consistently put food on the table. That is not a statistic that should exist in a country as prosperous as Canada.

We cannot borrow our way out of a Liberal debt crisis. We cannot tax our way into economic prosperity, and we certainly cannot spend our way out of a recession that was manufactured by out-of-touch Liberal spending in the first place.

For months, Conservatives have warned that this inflationary agenda would weaken growth, drive out business investment and leave working families to hold the bag and pay the bill. Today, the data has proven us right. The people of Long Range Mountains and all Canadians deserve an immediate turnaround. They deserve a Prime Minister who will tell them the truth and present a real plan to reverse these failed Liberal policies.

It is time to end the Liberal recession. It is time to cap costly Liberal spending, scrap the inflationary Liberal carbon tax, cut the red tape and unleash the potential of our natural resources and our workforce.

Conservatives understand the immense pressure that everyday Canadians are under, and we will continue to stand with them to rebuild hope, reward hard work, restore the dream of home ownership and empower the private sector to grow and thrive so Canadians can once again believe in the future of this great country.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I had a chance to visit the hon. member's riding a couple of years ago. It is a beautiful riding with phenomenal people. I was listening to her speech quite intently. She mentioned something that I think we can all agree with. No one wants young people to have to leave their home to find work. I think that all of us want to make sure that young people who want to stay in their home province, find a good job and be able to settle and have a family have that opportunity.

With that, I know that we recently brought forward the team Canada strong plan in the spring economic statement, which will allow for apprenticeship training and some opportunities to allow young people to get the skill set they need to help build the homes that the member is referring to. Would she agree that this could be a good initiative in terms of helping young people stay in their home province?

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for visiting my beautiful province.

My response is that if we do not have an economy that has opportunity for our tradespeople, we can train them all we want, but they are not going to stay in the province if they do not have those good-paying jobs. We have an offshore oil and gas sector that has watched investment completely flee the province, with a 40% reduction in investment over the last decade. This is an example of how we are failing the young people in Newfoundland and Labrador.