Bill Morneau

[Carbon Pricing, June 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, maybe where we can go with this is that we can think about what is happening on a riding-by-riding basis. For example, for the member for Carleton, what has happened is that there is about $48 million in Canada child benefits going to that riding. What does that mean? It means 18,000 children are better off. More than 10,000 families get, on average, more than $4,000 after tax. Perhaps the member should talk to people in his riding to understand how they are doing. They are doing better because we have helped Canadian families to raise their families for tomorrow.

[Carbon Pricing, June 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we need to call out the member for Carleton on incorrect facts. He is not doing the analysis that he should do in order to look at what is really going on. The report he is referring to has two fundamental problems. One, it does not look at the Canada child benefit, which is helping nine out of 10 families. Two, it looks at the payments people make into the Canada pension plan and calls them a tax.

Therefore, we can say that we lowered taxes on middle-class Canadians. It is very clear. From our standpoint, we have helped our economy by putting more money in people's pockets. Nine out of 10 families are better off, and that has helped our economy.

[The Economy, June 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, let me be clear that when it comes to jobs, we absolutely stand with Canadians. When we came into office, we found that the previous government had left us with 7.1% unemployment. Where are we now? With about 600,000 new jobs in the last two and a half years, our unemployment rate is among the lowest we have seen in 40 years, at 5.8%.

Therefore, we will not listen to the Harper Conservatives when they talk about jobs. We will listen to Canadians, and what we are hearing is that they have good jobs. They have more optimism, because they see a better economy and a better future.

[Finance, June 11th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we are proud of our approach because it is the right one for Canadian families. We decided to invest in Canadian workers. That is very important to our efforts to grow the economy and reduce our unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 40 years. That is good for our economy and for families. Our economy is resilient for the future.

[Finance, June 11th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, let us think about what was actually done to improve our economy. We started by lowering taxes on middle-class Canadians. We moved forward with child benefits for nine out of 10 families, giving them an average of $2,300 more after tax for their families.

The kinds of things we did led to more disposable income for Canadians so they could put it back into our economy, creating growth and enabling us to be in a position where we can be resilient against challenges. That is where we are today. We are in a very fortunate situation where the right policies put us in a better position from which to deal with the challenges we face.

[Finance, June 11th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we are happy to talk about how we have prepared our economy for the future. What we have done is made investments in Canadians. We started from day one, saying that what we needed to focus on was making sure that we got out from the very difficult employment situation, 7.1% unemployment, left to us by the previous Harper government.

Now, fast forward a couple of years, we have the lowest unemployment rate we have seen in 40 years. The investments we have made in Canadians have worked. Our growth has improved. We are in a resilient situation from which to deal with challenges. Whether they come from the south, whether they come from our ability to get to international resource markets, those are—

[Natural Resources, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we know that having a pipeline to bring our resources to international markets is important. That is our approach.

We believe that the Trans Mountain expansion project is crucial to our economy and will create jobs across the country. Our priority is making sure that the project gets built. It will be good for our economy and for Canadians.

[The Economy, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we decided that it was vital to do something for our economy. We feel it is very important to have an international commercial pipeline. It is essential. We know that this pipeline is going to add about 15,000 jobs.

Furthermore, it will add roughly $15 billion to our economy each year, which is incredibly important. That is why we support the Trans Mountain pipeline.

[The Economy, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we know that it is very important for our economy to have the pipeline and the expansion. That is why we decided to do something that, down the road, will be good for both our economy and jobs across Canada. That is a very important decision for our country. The pipeline will be there. That will be very important for the economy and for the people of Alberta and British Columbia.

[Natural Resources, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the only failure on this file was the failure of the Harper Conservatives to get any way for our resources to get to international markets. What we have moved forward with is dealing with political uncertainty that the private sector cannot deal with. We have purchased these assets so we can actually create the jobs, create the advantage for our economy, so that we can move forward in a better situation. We will eventually move it back to the private sector after we de-risk the project, a way the previous government was not willing to do.