Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respond to the 2026 spring economic update on behalf of Canada's New Democrats and our new leader, Avi Lewis.
At the outset, I want to acknowledge that this update includes some positive measures that New Democrats agree with and some, indeed, that we have long advocated for, including supporting apprenticeships in the skilled trades, delivering the Canada groceries and essentials benefit, standing up the financial crimes agency to better go after white-collar criminals and funding youth athletic programs.
New Democrats will always work constructively with other parties and support measures that bring real benefits to working people in this country. However, taken as a whole, this update represents a missed opportunity to meet the moment, just as the budget in the fall did. In fact, there is almost nothing new in this update that has not already been announced.
In classic neo-liberal fashion, it naively assumes the private sector can be relied upon to solve all the challenges we face. It doubles down on trickle-down economics by using taxpayer dollars to fund corporate welfare, an approach that has consistently failed to deliver benefits to working people wherever and whenever it has been applied. It falls far short of responding to the reality that Canadians are living through, the everyday emergency of just trying to get by in a rigged economy.
I want to underscore this: Across this country, people are being stretched to the breaking point. Young Canadians are being locked out of opportunity, unable to find stable work in the communities where they live. Half of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque, one missed payment away from crisis. The cost of essentials, from groceries to rent, continues to soar and is pushing families deeper into anxiety and uncertainty.
At the same time, our public services are under persistent and growing strain, and our economy remains fundamentally tilted in favour of those at the very top. Beyond our borders, the world grows more unstable by the day. Donald Trump's trade war is a direct attack on Canadian workers and our industries. His illegal war on Iran has destabilized the global economy. Critically, the Prime Minister and the Liberal government chose to support that war despite its foreseeable economic consequences for Canadians.
New Democrats recognize these are not small challenges. They demand bold, decisive action. They demand a government willing to stand up for people instead of deferring to the powerful, yet what we have before us is an economic update that tinkers at the margins when what Canadians need is transformative change.
Modest relief is not enough when people are facing an affordability emergency, and make no mistake, this is an emergency. At kitchen tables across this country, Canadians are doing everything right. They are working hard. Some are juggling multiple jobs. Others are caring for children or aging parents. Many are sacrificing just to keep up. Despite all that effort, they continue to fall behind. Why is this? It is not because Canadians are not working hard enough. It is because the system is not working for them.
To understand why so many Canadians feel like they are falling behind, we have to confront a deeper truth. This is not just an affordability crisis; it is also an inequality crisis. In Canada today, the richest one per cent hold as much wealth as the bottom 80% combined. That is the worst degree of inequality in generations in this country. Even more striking is that Canada's richest 86 families hold as much wealth as the poorest 6.2 million Canadians. While wealth at the top explodes, everyone else is being squeezed. That is why working harder is no longer enough. That is why people feel that the system is rigged; in many ways, it is.
Corporate profits are soaring. Billionaire wealth is growing by the tens of billions. There are almost double the number of billionaires in Canada today than there were 20 years ago, but wages are not keeping up, costs are rising and public services are being cut. This level of extreme inequality undermines social cohesion, weakens democracy and makes it harder to solve every other challenge we face, from housing to health care and climate change, as public priorities are displaced by private interests.
However, in this economic update by the Liberal government, there is really no serious plan to address these issues. There is no effort to rebalance the system, and no willingness to ask those who have benefited the most to contribute more. It is no surprise that, for the economic projections the government relied on for this economic update, it consulted a group of some 12 economists, and every single one of them works for a bank or the corporate sector. Not a single labour economist was consulted on the path ahead for the government.
Working Canadians are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for an economy where hard work is rewarded, where opportunity is real and where prosperity is shared. Until we confront the growing concentration of wealth and power in this country, we will not solve the affordability crisis, because at its core, that crisis is not just about high prices. It is about who our economy is built for and who it is leaving behind.
Let us talk about one of the clearest examples of that imbalance, one that came up just last week, which is predatory pricing. Canadians know that prices are too high. We just have to walk down a grocery aisle to know that. They see it every time they go to the grocery store, pay rent or fill up their gas tank. What they may not know is that companies are increasingly using invasive data practices, such as tracking personal information to charge different prices to different people, often exploiting the most vulnerable, those who do not have the mobility to actually chase lower prices. This is called “surveillance pricing”. It means two Canadians can pay different prices for the exact same product simply because an algorithm decides that one of them can be charged more, and they can get away with it. That is not fair or transparent, and it should not be legal.
The New Democratic Party called on the government last week to ban surveillance pricing and to protect consumers from this kind of digital price gouging. However, in this economic update, there is nothing. There is no action, no protection. There is not even any acknowledgement of the problem. There is just full-throated support and cheerleading for more AI. Canadians deserve a marketplace that is fair, that is competitive and that is not one that exploits them in increasingly sophisticated ways.
Let us turn to energy. Canadians are being crushed by the cost of living, and now gas prices are skyrocketing, but not everyone is suffering. Oil and gas companies are set to rake in an extra $90 billion in profits this year alone from Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran, which is an illegal war that the government supported. What was the government's response? It was a tax cut, which oil companies can simply pocket, and no doubt will pocket to some degree, by raising prices.
That is not relief. That is a gift to the oil and gas sector. It is also a band-aid, because that reduction in the excise tax will last only until Labour Day. We will come back to this point in September and find out if gas prices are lower in September, because every reputable economist that I have looked at tells us that we are looking at persistent high oil prices for the foreseeable future beyond Labour Day. Instead of more corporate welfare, we should put a windfall tax on oil and gas giants and invest that money in projects that benefit working Canadians.
Through this update, the Liberal government announced plans to launch a sovereign wealth fund and the Canada Strong fund, and it cited Norway as an example. New Democrats have been calling for this approach for many years. Norway has a public oil company and invests the revenues in its sovereign wealth fund, which is now worth over $2 trillion. Norway put that money to work for the public benefit, including building a renewable economy and investing in high-quality public services.
However, what this update is proposing is the mirror image of what Norway has done. Norway built a public oil company, something the Conservatives dismantled under Brian Mulroney, and it took a fair share of the oil profits for the public. However, instead of using private profits for the public benefit like Norway did, the Liberals are proposing to use public money for the private profit of wealthy investors. The public takes on the risks, but the private sector reaps the rewards.
New Democrats favour the concept of a sovereign wealth fund. We believe we have an opportunity to fund it properly for public benefit like the Norwegians did. It should start with an excess profits tax on the oil and gas sector. Now is a great time to do it, as Canadian oil companies stand to reap some $100 billion in excess profits this year alone. If we cannot start now, when can we start? However, there is nothing in this update to ask the most profitable corporations to contribute their fair share towards Canada's economic transformation.
I would like to turn now to housing, because no discussion of affordability is complete without addressing the housing crisis. This is one of the clearest and most painful expressions of inequality that exist across our economy. Secure, decent, affordable housing is a foundational need for every Canadian. It anchors us in community, making participation in society and access to work, friends and family possible.
However, young people are giving up on ever owning a home. Renters are facing relentless increases in housing and security. Seniors are struggling to remain in their community. Students are being priced out of the community they grew up in, are being forced into unsafe conditions or are having to live with roommates well into their thirties. This is a national crisis, and it demands a response on the scale of a crisis.
In the last election, the Liberals made a clear promise. They said they would double Canada's rate of residential construction to reach 500,000 homes per year over the next decade, but a recent report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer found that the government has not even laid out a plan to achieve that goal. Maybe that was why the government was so quick to remove him.
According to the same report, the government's flagship initiative, Build Canada Homes, will produce only about 26,000 homes by 2030. That is nowhere near what is required. That is not a legitimate response to a housing crisis. At the very moment when Canadians need a surge in housing construction, federal housing spending is projected to fall over the coming years. That is the opposite, I would suggest, of what this moment needs.
For decades, successive governments, Liberal and Conservative alike, have stepped back from building non-market housing, the only way we are going to deliver truly affordable housing. The result is clear. Canada now lags far behind peer countries in the supply of housing that is built for people, not for profit. New Democrats know that the market alone cannot fix this crisis. I think the Liberals and Conservatives refuse to acknowledge that.
New Democrats say that we need sustained federal leadership and long-term investment to dramatically scale up non-market housing: co-ops, student housing, seniors' housing, supportive housing for people living with disabilities and housing for low-income Canadians. Housing is not just a commodity to be addressed by the market. It is a human right and a foundational need.
Housing is the foundation of stable lives, strong communities, a fair economy and a healthy country. Investing in housing is also smart economic policy. It creates good jobs, supports local industries and builds the infrastructure our communities need in order to grow. Once again, this economic update fails to rise to that challenge.
Health care is another area where the government is failing to meet the moment. Canadians are deeply proud of our public health care system. In fact, as we face threats from south of the border, from Mr. Trump, public health care is one of those strong national Canadian institutions that has helped bind us together and create Canadian pride in the face of that threat to our sovereignty. However, our health care system, as we all know, is under strain. It has been facing staff shortages, long wait times and growing privatization. Now instead of strengthening it, the Liberal government is stepping back.
During the last election, the Prime Minister and, I would bet, every single person elected on the Liberal side of the House promised Canadians that they would protect and expand pharmacare. The Prime Minister committed to signing agreements for free contraception and diabetes medications with all outstanding provinces and territories, in his words, “quickly and equitably”. Liberals insisted on calling it “national pharmacare” when New Democrats, of course, meant public pharmacare.
After being in power a year, the Liberals have not signed one agreement with a single province or territory, leaving only B.C., Manitoba, P.E.I. and the Yukon territory with deals in place. That is not national. In fact, Newfoundland and Labrador's health minister just revealed that the federal government has now closed the door on negotiating a pharmacare program with their province. We hear the same thing from the Government of Nova Scotia. Even more troubling, we have also recently learned from P.E.I.'s health minister that the Liberal government will allow existing agreements to expire in 2029, dismantling pharmacare before it is even fully realized.
This economic update does not even include pharmacare in its list of affordability measures alongside dental care and other programs like child care. This economic update claims that the government is protecting essential social programs, but that simply is not true. The Liberals committed to national pharmacare, which the NDP forced to be delivered publicly. Betraying that pledge is politically immoral. It is a democratic offence, and the Liberals ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Speaking of what is politically immoral, this update provides no increase whatsoever to the Canadian dental care plan. As we all know, costs go up every year, and the CDCP is no different. Any government truly committed to the long-term viability of dental care would ensure that both the income threshold to qualify and the fee guide to properly compensate oral health professionals went up by at least the rate of inflation. The fact that the Liberals have ignored that completely, not adding a penny to the fee guide or to the income threshold, speaks volumes to their lack of commitment to this important public health initiative spearheaded by the NDP.
We all hear Liberals stand up in this place and in public claiming to take credit for dental care, when we all know the NDP forced them to bring it in. As Joe Biden said, “don't tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I will tell you what you value.” Nothing speaks louder about this Liberal government's lack of commitment to dental care than the fact that they are allowing it to wither on the line, not properly funding it, as soon as the New Democrats are not there to make them do it.
If I might, there is also an issue of accuracy in budgeting and budget integrity raised by this update. This government is projecting a deficit difference of $11 billion from projections it made just five months ago. Despite a 2026 that is shaping up to be just as volatile, just as uncertain, just as affected by tariffs and Trump and increasingly affected by global disorder as 2025, this update claims Canada will face four smooth quarters of 2% growth. To compare that to last year, we experienced two quarters of growth and two of recession.
If I did not know any better, I would say that the government is pulling the old Paul Martin trick: overestimate, pad numbers and claim victory when they come in better. In fact, that would be amusing, if the real pain of an economy that is not serving working people was not so devastating.
This brings me to the broader question of nation building. At key moments in our history, Canada has chosen to build, to invest in public services and infrastructure that connects us, strengthens us and prepares us for the future. New Democrats say that today should be one of those moments. We face economic uncertainty, yes. We face external threats, yes. We face internal inequality and declining affordability. That is precisely when governments must step up, yet there is not nearly enough in this update for indigenous people, for real action on the climate crisis, to support our public servants, who deliver critical services for Canadians, or to invest in peace building and peacekeeping. Instead, the Liberal government has chosen to put its blind faith in the market to solve our current challenges.
New Democrats see a different path. We understand that our country faces deep structural problems that cannot be solved through the profit motive and the private sector alone. Ensuring that everyone has a roof over their head, a world-class education and high-quality health care can only be done by the government using collective power and exercising public enterprise. We need investments in non-market housing, clean energy, transportation and public services that create jobs and build resilience. We need to strengthen the east-west connections and reduce our dependence on an increasingly unreliable U.S. We need a vision for Canada that is bold, inclusive and forward-looking.
That is not what the economic update delivers. The pattern is clear. On affordability, the government falls short. On inequality, the government falls short. On housing, the government falls short. On jobs and public services, the government falls short. On health care, the government falls short. On the broader vision that Canadians need, it falls short.
Canadians deserve better than slogans and self-congratulations. We heard the Conservatives practise nursery rhyme politics. Now we are hearing endless sloganeering from the finance minister. Slogans do not put food on the table, and slogans are not a substitute for strong public programs.
Canadians deserve a government that understands the scale of the challenges they face and responds with the urgency those challenges demand. Canadians deserve fairness. They deserve security. They deserve hope.
The New Democratic Party put forward clear priorities for this economic update: ban surveillance pricing; implement a windfall profits tax on oil and gas giants; enforce the Canada Health Act against privatization; strengthen public health care, including pharmacare and dental care; and take real action on affordability. These are practical measures that would make a real difference in people's lives.
The government chose not to act in those ways. Instead, it has delivered an update that is out of step with the reality most Canadians are living. That is the central issue. While we debate in this chamber, Canadians are making impossible choices. They are skipping meals. They are delaying care. They are taking on debt just to survive.
Canadians are not asking for miracles. They are asking for fairness. They are asking for leadership. They are asking for a government that is on their side.
This moment calls for courage. It calls for a willingness to challenge the status quo and to build an economy that finally works for everyone. This economic update, unfortunately, does not meet this moment. However, it is not too late to choose a different path, a path that puts people first, a path that builds a fairer, stronger and more resilient Canada. That is the path New Democrats will continue to fight for. It is the path we will work on collaboratively with the government, should it choose to pursue it, because Canadians deserve nothing less.
