Lisa Raitt

[Business of Supply, May 31st, 2016]

Mr. Chair, does the minister realize that there is a difference between spending and investing in order to boost growth?

[Business of Supply, May 31st, 2016]

Mr. Chair, what the minister is referring to is the term “economic slack”, and the economic slack in our country is because of the commodity shock, which we are actually experiencing. In fact, that is exactly what the OECD says.

I would like to know from the minister if it is appropriate to build a transit line in Toronto with public funds as a stimulus measure when the issues are really happening in Alberta.

[Business of Supply, May 31st, 2016]

I am sorry, Mr. Chair, I asked the minister whether one normally goes into debt in order to boost economic growth in times of recession. The answer is yes. The answer here as well is that we are not in a recession.

I do have another question. Could the minister let me know whether he has been warned by finance officials that a downside to adding public investment in our country is that it actually crowds out private investment?

[Business of Supply, May 31st, 2016]

Mr. Chair, could the minister agree with me that going into debt to boost economic growth is usually done in times of recession?

[Business of Supply, May 31st, 2016]

Mr. Chair, I wonder if the minister can help me with respect to some documentation in his budget. The outlook for budgetary revenues, page 235 of this year's budget, shows some GST revenues growing from $33.1 billion to $40 billion between the years 2015-16, 2020-21. That is a 21% increase in GST revenue.

Could the minister tell us what he is basing that on?

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Following up on that, Mr. Chair, my last question for the minister would be this. The Prime Minister told the Wall Street Journal, before the budget was deposited, to expect a moderate deficit, nothing like what we had already run during the great recession. In May, most recently, the same Prime Minister indicated to Reuters in a separate interview that he expected to have no caps on the deficit.

Why so many moving targets and moving numbers? Is there anything we can believe from this minister and this Prime Minister ?

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Chair, the minister will have to excuse us if we have a hard time digesting that, because quite frankly, what the Liberals have said in the past and what they have done currently are completely different.

I will give an example, and I would like the minister to comment. Prior to the deposit of the budget in this House of Commons, the Prime Minister went to New York and told the Wall Street Journal that these would be moderate deficits, nothing like the $50 billion deficit that our government ran in a time of great recession.

Is it not the case that it was exactly what the Prime Minister said at that time in New York?

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Chair, with no documents to quote and no reports to speak of, how can the minister be convinced of anything? I will ask him one more time. Does he have any reports that can give this House comfort that we will not be inordinately affected by having this rate increase?

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Chair, ironically again coming from the book called The Real Retirement, the minister himself wrote, “Canada is among the most highly taxed countries in the world, which leaves little room for increased taxation to cover future increases in healthcare costs”.

I am going to ask again whether or not the minister has in his possession any reports that indicate to him that increasing this tax rate would be detrimental to the attraction of young and older talent to smart talent in order to grow our economy in this country.

[Business of Supply, May 30th, 2016]

Mr. Chair, that is an admirable effort by the Minister of Finance to distance himself from his previous good ideas, as he tries to pay lip service to the terrible budget he has presented in this House.

I will move on to a different topic of conversation, if we may.

I am very interested in whether or not the Department of Finance has produced any reports for the minister with respect to the effect of the income tax increase on a higher band of earners and what it would do in terms of being able to attract talent to our country.