Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to this important motion we are debating. This motion calls on the government to tell Canadians in what year the budget will be balanced and to do so in this week's fall economic statement. This is a question many Canadians would like an answer to, yet the Liberals have refused to provide this information time and time again.
During the campaign for the 2015 election, the Liberals made a lot of promises. One of the major promises was that they would run a deficit of $10 billion per year for three years, assuring Canadians that the budget would be back to balance by 2019. However, this year's budget projection is that the deficit will be $18.1 billion for 2018-19 alone.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has stated that the budget will not be balanced until 2045 the way we are going, and the Liberals still refuse to provide us with their projected date for when a balanced budget might occur.
To be frank, the fiscal mismanagement that has occurred under the government is astounding. Although we are here today to talk about a balanced budget, there are so many other areas of failure we could discuss, but that is for another day.
The Liberals can point a finger at whoever they like, but as my kids say, in doing so, three fingers will be pointing back at them. The fact of the matter is that they inherited a great fortune when they came into power. They came into a balanced budget, a booming U.S. and global economy, outstanding housing markets in Toronto and Vancouver, and record low interest rates. They were set up to succeed, in large part due to the work of the previous government. Instead of taking this great inheritance and building upon it, the Liberals took the $20-billion windfall of extra revenue and squandered every nickel.
I often wonder if perhaps the Prime Minister is so out of touch with the way regular Canadians live that he simply cannot see the issue. The majority of people in this country do not grow up in a wealthy, high-profile family that rarely needs to bat an eye when it comes to spending money. They understand the need to be fiscally responsible, and they work hard to ensure that they can pay their bills. They do not count on anyone else to pay their expenses. lt seems that because the Prime Minister has never had to worry about money, he does not worry much about recklessly spending Canadians' money and about a plan to get back to balanced budgets. I believe it was Margaret Thatcher who said, “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.”
Instead of keeping their money for groceries, gas and other family essentials, Canadians will be paying more to bankers and bondholders to fund the growing interest on the Liberals' spiralling debt, with no light at the end of the tunnel. Interest on the national debt is expected to grow to $37 billion per year, an increase of two-thirds from what it was. This money could fund the building of hospitals, schools and more around the country. It appears that yet again, the Liberals are foisting the cost of their irresponsible financial planning on the backs of all taxpayers. When will they realize that their job is to stand up for the little guy, not saddle him with ever-growing debt?
Interest rates are rising, and consumer debt, including mortgages, is climbing rapidly, reaching $1.864 trillion, yes trillion, creating a growing concern about delinquency rates.
I know that my constituents simply do not buy that these Liberals will balance the budget. I was recently speaking to a friend of mine, Maureen, in my riding. Maureen has been working in the Canadian banking sector for over 30 years. She has seen governments come and go, and she knows the ins and outs of her industry. When speaking to her about the current deficit and the notion of when the budget will come back to balance, she said, “They will never do it in my lifetime.”
The reality is that at this rate, not only will the budget not be balanced in Maureen's lifetime, her children and her grandchildren will still be paying it off long after this government has left office. That is the legacy the Prime Minister will leave: attempting to balance the budget on the backs of hard-working Canadians and spending recklessly while breaking promise after promise at the same time. If and when this budget gets balanced, it will be in spite of this government, not because of it.
As I said, the people in my riding know that nearly all promises made by the government are a farce. They know that a Prime Minister who regularly says one thing and does another cannot be trusted. How can they, or any Canadian, believe that a government that spends taxpayer dollars so recklessly is actually able to balance a budget, especially since it has clearly gone back on the promise made in 2015?
The deficit this year is now closing in on $20 billion, more than three times what was initially promised, yet there is very little to show for it in my constituency. In fact, the Liberals have made life significantly more expensive for the people of Souris—Moose Mountain. They attack farmers and other small business owners with their changes to tax rules that would have serious repercussions for businesses and their ability to succeed.
They failed to champion a pipeline that would have provided much-needed jobs in some of our communities. They are shutting down the coal industry with barely any consideration for the thousands of people, including workers, families and businesses, who will be affected by it.
The Liberals are also hurting my constituents with their job-killing carbon tax that is proving less and less effective by the day. After realizing that Canadians, namely those in Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, rejected the tax, the Liberals went back on their word and ended up giving allowances.
I have said it before and I will say it again: the role of government is to help its citizens, not hurt them. In health care, we say “do no harm”. Since the Liberals took office, the average Canadian middle-class family has paid over $800 more in income tax. That figure does not include the Liberals' new payroll taxes, which affect both employees and employers, or the carbon tax, which will have serious effects in my constituency in particular.
That means that the worst is yet to come, and even more money will be taken out of the pockets of hard-working Canadians and put into government coffers. All of this, combined with the lack of an action plan for the future and uncertainty about getting the budget back to balance, does not foster a positive and trusting relationship between the government and the people who elected it. To make plans for the future, we need to know when exactly the budget will return to balance.
I understand that in some situations, running a deficit is necessary. In 2009, the GDP growth rate was negative 2.9%. There was a global recession, and running a deficit was a necessary tool to help stimulate the economy in a time of need. Due to good planning, that deficit was gone, and we were back to balance by 2015.
Last year, GDP grew by 3%, a huge contrast to the economic climate in 2009. We have growth, so why does the Prime Minister continue to pile on debt, with no action plan for the future? Furthermore, what will happen if there is another downturn in the global economy? With the government's spend, spend, spend mentality, these are important questions that deserve answers.
ln the oil field, there is a saying: When times are good, we only buy toys with cash, not with credit, because when it goes bad, and it will go bad, being too deep in credit will come back to haunt us.
Furthermore, in 2017, Canada's national debt reached an all time high of $670 billion, averaging out to almost $48,000 per Canadian family. Last year the Liberals had to spend $23 billion just to pay interest on that debt, a figure the Parliamentary Budget Officer says will rise to $40 billion by 2021. That is almost a 60% increase. That again means that the Liberals will be spending more on debt interest than we currently spend on health transfers. That is absolutely absurd.
There are so many better and more productive things this money could be used for, but instead, it goes towards servicing an ever-growing national debt. This is just one of the consequences of the Prime Minister's failures. Something needs to be done, and it is the Liberals who have the power to do it. Unfortunately, their track record is clear. They make big promises and fail to deliver, yet they expect Canadians to trust them. They spend recklessly, yet they expect taxpayers to be okay with the fact that at this rate, we will now have 25 more years of deficit.
It seems so simple to say that Canadians have a right to know when their government will stop running a deficit and get to balance. I sincerely hope that there is a plan in place. That is why Conservatives are calling on the government to announce, this week, the year in which the budget will finally be balanced. The government needs to do the right thing, stop spending so recklessly, and acknowledge that no, budgets do not balance themselves.
