Melissa Lantsman

Mr. Speaker, Anecdote · 34 wordsthere is an old joke about a man who racks up an enormous credit card debt, takes a second mortgage, opens a savings account and tells his wife it did not cost them anything.Anecdote Positioning · 18 wordsThat joke is a pretty accurate description of the government’s economic policy, and we are all the wife.Positioning Claims · 11 wordsThe Prime Minister has announced a $25-billion so-called sovereign wealth fund, ¹Reasoning · 16 wordsand Canadians deserve a serious accounting of what has actually been put in front of them. Procedure · 15 wordsLet us begin with the most fundamental question: What precisely is a sovereign wealth fund?Procedure Claims · 51 wordsA real one would be built on genuine surpluses. We heard in the House today about Norway. Norway’s government pension fund, the model the Prime Minister so eagerly name-drops, was capitalized by petroleum revenues.² It has $1 trillion of assets because Norway saved when times were good.³ Canada is not Norway. Positioning · 14 wordsNorway has oil money and Canada has vibes and a $25-billion credit card statement.Positioning Claims · 79 wordsWe are running an almost $70-billion deficit in the current fiscal year alone, double the last guy’s, ⁴so we do not have surpluses to invest. We have deficits to finance, and $25-billion seed money in this fund is not savings. It is actually borrowed money any way we look at it. It is debt finance, like every other federal expenditure that exceeds our revenues. The Prime Minister is not building a wealth fund. He is building a debt fund, Positioning · 9 wordsand he should be honest with Canadians about it.Positioning Procedure · 12 wordsLet us be clear about what it means for every Canadian household.Procedure Claims · 37 wordsThe government is borrowing at roughly 3.5% or 4% on 10-year bonds and betting that a bureaucratic Crown corporation run by political appointees will outperform the cost of that capital.⁵ It is leveraged speculation with taxpayer collateral, Positioning · 13 wordsand not the nation building that the Prime Minister is suggesting it is.Positioning Claims · 24 wordsI have heard Liberal government members say that this fund will be different, that it will be more transparent, more accountable and better governed. The ask · 48 wordsI would feel more confident about that claim if they could tell us who is going to govern it, how the projects would be selected, when it would be operational and what relationship any of this would have to the Canada Infrastructure Bank or the Canada Growth Fund. Claims · 24 wordsThey cannot answer any of those questions today, and we will see that throughout the day. I am certainly not alone in asking them. Positioning · 7 wordsThis announcement landed with a giant thud.Positioning Claims · 84 wordsThe sovereign wealth fund proposal was met with near-universal skepticism, disbelief and, frankly, pure ridicule. The Globe and Mail, not exactly a Conservative voice in Canada, observed this week that the pension funds that presumably partner with this vehicle, including the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, were not even consulted before this announcement was made.⁶ The CPP Investment Board, to its credit, said that the key to long-term success for any public investment institution is “a clear commercial mandate, strong governance, ⁷and operational independence.” Reasoning · 27 wordsThat is a politely worded way of saying that it has concerns. We should have concerns, because the question cuts to the heart of this whole exercise. Claims · 22 wordsThe fund’s mandate is politically directed toward domestic infrastructure such as ports, mines and trade corridors, with diversification explicitly not a priority.⁸ Reasoning · 10 wordsIt is then not truly an investment fund at all. Claims · 13 wordsIn the Globe’s words, it is an “off-balance sheet vehicle for fiscal policy.”⁹ Positioning · 9 wordsThat is a government wealth fund in a costume.Positioning Claims · 7 wordsIt is actually just another government program. Procedure · 12 wordsWe have seen this movie before and we know how it ends.Procedure Claims · 74 wordsSustainable Development Technology Canada, which members might remember now as the green slush fund, sent $400 million out to Liberal-backed pet projects with 186 identified conflicts of interest, zero accountability and zero measurable results.¹⁰ The Canada Infrastructure Bank was also endowed with $45 billion in infrastructure.¹¹ It spent a fraction of that on actual construction while handing out $8 million in bonuses since 2024.¹² The Prime Minister himself made these comparisons earlier this week.¹³ Positioning · 14 wordsWith respect, I do not think it is the endorsement he thinks it is.Positioning Procedure · 5 wordsHere is a deeper problem.Procedure Claims · 18 wordsThe reason that major projects are not getting built in Canada is not a lack of government capital, Procedure · 6 wordsand that is the point here.Procedure Claims · 9 wordsThere is not a lack of capital in Canada. Procedure · 4 wordsThey can ask anybody.Procedure Claims · 37 wordsIf an infrastructure project is not moving forward, it is almost certainly because the private sector stakeholders have determined that it is not economically viable or because of the absurd regulatory environment. They have told us this. Reasoning · 34 wordsOne does not solve an onerous regulatory environment by creating a new Crown corporation to fund projects the private sector stakeholders already said no to. One solves it by fixing the actual regulatory environment. Claims · 55 wordsEven industry leaders are telling the Financial Times, not a Conservative blog but the Financial Times of London, saying that the government’s red-tape cutting efforts are already floundering, costing more in lost trade than Trump’s tariffs ever did.¹⁴ Forestry executives are frustrated. People in the oil and gas sector are frustrated. Auto executives are frustrated. Procedure · 4 wordsWhat do we do?Procedure Claims · 61 wordsWe create another bypass around the dysfunction, instead of fixing the dysfunction itself. The Liberals have created an $18-billion-a-year regulatory burden.¹⁵ They have interprovincial trade barriers in place that knock $200 billion off our GDP.¹⁶ They are married to Bill C-69, the tanker ban, the policy uncertainty that has chased a trillion dollars out of this economy over the 10 years.¹⁷ Reasoning · 25 wordsCapital did not flee Canada because there was no government bank to subsidize it. It fled because it was simply unprofitable to do business here. Positioning · 27 wordsA $25-billion Band-Aid applied over a gaping wound does not close the wound. It just becomes a really expensive Band-Aid that Canadians will end up paying for.Positioning Claims · 6 wordsThere are real alternatives to this. Promise · 57 wordsWe could genuinely cut taxes so that families have more in their pockets every single month and business owners have a reason to stay here or to open up their business here in the first place. We can eliminate red tape and trade barriers that cost hundreds of billions of dollars in lost economic activity every year. Positioning · 15 wordsI just do not understand how that is never the solution that they go to.Positioning Promise · 41 wordsWe could fast-track approvals and start building things rather than funding another Ottawa office to study the feasibility of someday perhaps getting something built. We could scrap the bad laws, including Bill C-69, the tanker ban and the industrial carbon tax. Claims · 52 wordsThey are actively preventing pipelines, mines and LNG terminals from being constructed. That is not this side of the House saying that. That is the industry representatives themselves. None of this would require borrowing $25 billion of new money. All of it would create much more wealth than the government ever could. Reasoning · 36 wordsThat is how to build a country, not on borrowed money funnelled through a Crown corporation whose governance, mandate and accountability mechanisms have yet to be designed but were announced first and with details to follow. Claims · 6 wordsCanadians get to pay the bill. The ask · 50 wordsThis House is owed answers that the government has not provided. Who runs the fund? How much in terms of management fees did they get? On what criteria are projects approved? What prevents them from being another vehicle for the same Liberal patronage networks that have embarrassed the government repeatedly? Promise · 6 wordsWe will keep asking those questions. Positioning · 17 wordsWe will keep being the voice of every single Canadian who can see clearly what this is.PositioningVague promise Claims · 132 wordsWhen this was announced, I could not find a whole lot of people who were excited about it, except for the members on the other side of the House. They keep telling Canadians that Canadians do not understand the potential of this and this is based on hope, but everything this would do is the opposite of what the government says it is going to do. It is going to spend borrowed money, pick winners and losers, mostly losers, in our own economy and distort the market. Canada’s federal deficit sits at 2.1% of GDP.¹⁸ It is higher than it was last year.¹⁹ That is not lower. That is going in the wrong direction. Interest on the debt is heading past $80 billion annually, double what it was just four years ago.²⁰ Procedure · 10 wordsI will close with a sincere request for the government.Procedure The ask · 53 wordsPut down the $25-billion chequebook, step away from the podium at the Canada Science and Technology Museum and try something truly novel the government could not do in over a decade. Get out of the way, so that private capital and private business could be put to work here once and for all.