Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Langley Township—Fraser Heights. I appreciate that he is sharing his time with me. His French is excellent. I had the opportunity to visit him in his riding, where I received an award from the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique. It was a proud moment for me, and my colleague was there.
Today, I rise to speak to Bill C‑15, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on November 4, 2025 .
The first thing I would like to say is that the current Liberal government, which claims to be new but has actually been in power for 10 years with essentially the same team, revealed a deficit of nearly $80 billion—$78 billion to be precise. In addition to this year's $78-billion deficit, the budget makes no provision for returning to a balanced budget. I get that it is not the same as a Canadian family's budget.
The Liberals came to power in 2015, the year I was elected to represent the beautiful riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, which I will not claim is the most beautiful riding, even though I think it is. The prime minister at that time, Justin Trudeau, said that the government would run a small deficit and then return to a balanced budget. We have accumulated decifits of nearly $1.4 trillion over the past 10 years. It bears repeating that the total accumulated deficit since the Liberal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau was first elected has nearly doubled. However, the government likes to claim that this is a wonderful budget.
Here is an example of this Liberal hypocrisy. The Canada summer jobs program supports approximately 100,000 summer jobs. What have we learned about next year's program? To make themselves look good, they are going to increase the number of jobs but reduce the number of weeks. That is the Liberal government. It is not a new Liberal government; it is the Liberal government that has been in power for 10 years.
The Liberals' way of doing things reminds me of what they are doing right now at the Standing Committee on Official Languages. I am privileged to serve the Conservative Party of Canada, the official opposition, as the official languages critic. Over here, we have someone responsible for official languages. Over there, they have a Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture who is responsible for official languages and a number of other things. I will say more about that later. It is not quite the same. During question period today, when the Speaker gave the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture the floor, she did not include the part about him being the minister responsible for official languages. That may be a minor detail, but it is not insignificant.
When it comes to official languages, I would like to remind the House that it was the Liberals who appointed the current Governor General, who does not speak French. I have nothing against the Governor General or her character, but Canada is a bilingual country, English and French. She was appointed by a Liberal government. The Liberals then appointed the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick, Canada's only bilingual province, and they chose a unilingual anglophone.
Bill C‑13, which sought to modernize the Official Languages Act, received royal assent on June 20, 2023. Today is November 20, 2025. When there is a new act or the modernization of an act, there are regulations to implement that act. Unfortunately, we have been waiting since June 20, 2023, for the regulations to be tabled.
That is textbook Liberal hypocrisy. Liberals boast that they are the protectors of the French language and of both official languages but they do not walk the talk. Let us stop with the razzle-dazzle. That is what they are doing with the budget.
I will continue. As I mentioned earlier, this new Liberal Prime Minister replaced a Liberal prime minister. There was no power disruption. The Liberal Party of Canada is still in power. When the Prime Minister named his first cabinet after being appointed Prime Minister without being elected, he appointed all the ministers in his cabinet, but he forgot to appoint a minister of official languages. The term “minister of official languages” does not seem to be in the current Prime Minister's vocabulary. To correct his mistake, as I mentioned earlier, he appointed a Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, who is also responsible for official languages, among other things. Should all ministers' titles include a definition of their responsibilities? This shows that the Prime Minister is not serious about official languages.
Following a Radio-Canada article, we spoke up at the Standing Committee on Official Languages to point out that the Prime Minister spoke French only 17% of the time. We requested documents. We asked for his schedule and his training plan. He said he would improve and that, at the end of his term, he would score a 9 out of 10, as someone who has learned and speaks French.
We recently received the schedule in question from the Prime Minister's Office. We saw that 10 hours of classes were scheduled over a three-month period. Let us just say that this does not show much of an interest in mastering French. I will concede that learning a language is not easy. Still, according to the letter from the Prime Minister's chief of staff, as of September 2, sadly the Prime Minister no longer has a French teacher. I would remind members that today is November 20.
I will come back to the budget because time is short and I wanted to bring up an article that appeared this morning in Le Journal de Québec. The headline states that more than one in four Canadians are going into debt to eat.
It is not nasty Conservatives saying it; it is Sylvain Charlebois, who is an expert. We are told to rely on experts and not just our opinions. That is what we are doing. The members opposite are fixated on one idea: that everyone is against them, everyone is wrong and they are right. However, more than a quarter of Canadians are going into debt to eat.
Last week, we were in our ridings. I visited 17 organizations in my riding, including the Mouvement d'entraide des Cantons-Unis in Stoneham‑et‑Tewkesbury, S.O.S Accueil in Saint‑Raymond and several St. Vincent de Paul locations.
They all told me that demand has gone up. This budget does not actually do anything for Canadians. People are now struggling to put food on the table. We need to act responsibly. We moved an amendment to stop Liberal waste and to give Canadians some breathing room to live. When I am asked questions later, I will have more information to share.
