House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2025, with 53% of the vote.
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Madam Chair, I believe that reducing the age to 65 was nothing but buying votes. That is it exactly, because it does not really square with what the minister originally believed in his philosophy about this approach.
Is the finance minister planning major new spending that is not accounted for in this budget or the five-year cost estimates that were recently provided to the PBO?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Madam Chair, I thank the minister for mentioning that. As he is claiming, we are only reading some part of the story and not the whole story. We get used to that actually, coming in the House all the time. I would appreciate if the minister could tell us when he feels he should give us some details so we can understand fiscal responsibilities and fiscal numbers properly, so we can at least have a great conversation.
Apparently the IMF is concerned about other actions taken by the government. It has been calling on governments with aging populations to raise the retirement age. That is a fact. It is happening in Europe, and I am sure the minister knows that. How does the minister square this recommendation with his recent move to lower the eligibility age of old age security? In his book, he told Canadians how good such things would be, which the PBO said would add seven years to the time it takes to pay off Canada's federal debt. I would appreciate the minister's input on this, and some good answers, please.
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Madam Chair, surprisingly, we are finding another side of the story, and that side of the story does not really work with what we have in our hands. We are told that we should not worry about this borrowing because the minister's friends at the IMF think he is doing a great job. The minister does not think we need balanced budget laws either.
I was surprised when the IMF said last month, in its review of the Canadian economic situation, that it is important to know that any stimulus package should be accompanied by a credible, medium-term consolidated plan. The current balanced budget rules should be replaced by a new fiscal rule that is transparent, easy to communicate, and sufficiently flexible to avoid global cyclicality. Apparently relying on indicators of debt to GDP, the government's current preference is not good enough.
Will the minister listen to his friends at the IMF and introduce a credible framework to discipline his spending?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Madam Chair, again I would like to remind you that the minister should be confined to three minutes of questions, answers, and remarks, as per the Standing Orders of this House.
The appointment of this finance minister marks the end of fiscal prudence and a new era of reckless spending and borrowing. When he went to the voters in the election, his party did not promise open-ended spending. Voters did not give him a blank cheque and a mandate to spend as much as he wants, for as long as he wants, on whatever he wants.
The finance minister and his party promised that their spending would be constrained and governed by a clear set of fiscal anchors. They made those promises on the campaign trail. They wrote them into their platform. They were reiterated in the finance minister's mandate letter when he was appointed.
Since he seems to have forgotten his mandate from the voters and the Prime Minister, allow me to remind him of what he was instructed in his mandate letter. It states:
In particular, I will expect you to work with your colleagues and through established legislative, regulatory, and Cabinet processes, including our first Budget, to deliver on your top priorities.
What were those top priorities that he was supposed to deliver on and include in his first budget? The number one priority in his mandate letter was as follows:
Ensure that our fiscal plan is sustainable by meeting our fiscal anchors of balancing the budget in 2019/20 and continuing to reduce the federal debt-to-GDP ratio throughout our mandate.
Apparently, those campaign promises and that mandate letter were not worth the paper they were written on, because the finance minister went straight to work on a plan that will do the exact opposite. He is operating each of these fiscal anchors, and he has completely abandoned any semblance of a sustainable fiscal plan. He started spending right away, booking billions of dollars into the 2015-16 fiscal year. He went to work writing a budget that will raise the debt-to-GDP ratio this year, not lower it. He immediately gave up on his responsibility to balance the budget. He is now planning for multi-billion dollar, open-ended borrowing every year for the next five years, with no end in sight.
The government is repealing Canada's Federal Balanced Budget Act, which would have required it to give a clear rationale for its borrowing and present a plan to bring a balanced budget. It is replacing it with nothing. Even the IMF raised concerns about this in its report on Canada last month. It knows it is dangerous when a country has no fiscal anchor.
The government is wasting Canada's fiscal advantage and saddling the taxpayers of this country and their children with over $100 billion in new debt. This is at a time when we are not in a recession and when the economy is growing. This is a time when provincial debt is skyrocketing and global financial markets remain volatile. Such an approach is completely irresponsible. He is weakening Canada's ability to deal with a major economic crisis or shock, and he continues to justify his spending on a series of arguments that are completely out of line with the facts. Even worse, he does not even seem to care.
I have some questions for the finance minister about his reckless approach to managing the finances of our country.
The minister and his government like to blame the economy for the fact that they are borrowing four times more than they planned over the next four years. How does the minister explain the fact that the PBO's recent budget analysis found that spending increases, not revenue decreases, are responsible for more than two-thirds of the projected deficits over the next two years?
Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1 May 9th, 2016
Madam Speaker, it seems that the government is in the money printing business. The Liberals cannot give all these goodies to everyone. They cannot satisfy everyone. It is too early to be buying votes. We need investment. This is not an investment. This is a buying votes strategy.
Investment, by any business means, is not like this. Investments take money. There is a plan on how to pay it back, and to tell Canadians truthfully how many jobs are to be created out of it.
Money does not grow on trees. It is an irresponsible act. The government must stop trying to take advantage of people or insulting the intelligence of people across Canada.
Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1 May 9th, 2016
Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for a great speech that speaks for small business and speaks to the concerns of Canadians who own businesses, which are the backbone of our economy and will be the backbone for the future economy.
I would like to comment on the statement made by the hon. Minister of Small Business and Tourism about short term versus long term.
Small businesses need short-term and long-term strategies. Long-term strategies will not give them the survival they need. We may see a shutdown of those many businesses due to a policy the government presented in the budget, which takes away the extra percentage of tax cuts at which small businesses were looking.
Has the hon. member found mention anywhere in the budget about the number of jobs the budget will create?
Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1 May 9th, 2016
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on a great speech and a great analysis on the economic and tax fronts. I hope the member would share the same view on the subject of the middle class. Most Canadians are middle class. The Liberals use the term “middle class” as a political term to win votes here and there. We understand that the Liberals played that game.
How will the borrowing habits that are going to become an ongoing thing in the next four years by the Liberal government be such a dangerous thing for the Canadian economy and for Canadian businesses?
Criminal Code May 3rd, 2016
Mr. Speaker, to answer the first part of the question, the bill is not clear. There are a lot of vagaries. I am not going to represent myself as a member of Parliament and say someone told me so, or the Medical Association told us so. This is not the way we legislate. This is not the way we think.
We need more time. We need to absorb. We need to understand because our conscience has to play in making this decision, and we must do that carefully and thoughtfully.
Criminal Code May 3rd, 2016
Mr. Speaker, the member speaks my mind basically, because really, I do care and worry about the professionals out there, the physicians who spend their lives studying and going to school, who will be forced to do something they do not want to do. It is as if someone is giving them a gun and saying “shoot me”. Then they have to commit a crime just because they were told to do so. That is not what we want here. We want legislation next to perfect. Hopefully we can get that if we have more consultation and give it more time.
Criminal Code May 3rd, 2016
Mr. Speaker, basically, what we have seen here is that the previous government did not have enough time. That is why it was left for more time, for more consultation, for getting better opinions, for getting Canadians on board, for getting professionals on board, so we could get the best legislation.
This is something that comes once in a century, and we must be very careful in providing the best law, that if we are going to have a law in place not to have a six-month window. We are confident that, if the government wanted to ask the court for an extension of time, it could get it. Why force it? What is the rush? We should study it well, and we should come up with the best legislation we can.