Kevin Lamoureux

“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to be here today. I will be splitting my time, to acknowledge that at the front end. We have been asked to speak today on an opposition day motion, but it is so much more than that. This is about where Canada is right now in the world. We have a government that continues to spend recklessly, which is driving up the cost of living for all Canadians. We have a Parliamentary Budget Officer who has been using certain terms for over a year: stupefying, not hitting financial targets, mesmerizing, and additional costs that are driving up costs for Canadians. We now know that the Liberal government is set to spend more on interest than it is on health care transfers. We know that the share of interest for a family is about $6,000. That is money going to bondholders and bankers across this country. We also know that the Prime Minister, in an election that occurred a year and a half ago or so, promised that he would have a declining deficit-to-GDP ratio. We will talk more about the deficit-to-GDP ratio too, because that in itself is a way to avoid accountability. Let us talk about the impact this is having on Canadians. We can see that inflation is starting to creep up. It is now up to 2.8%, and it continues to grow. In fact, all of the experts are now ringing warning bells and telling everyone. From markets to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, they are all predicting that the rate of inflation will increase and interest rates will also increase. Even Tiff Macklem is indicating that he will increase interest rates. That means that if someone is renewing a mortgage in the next three to six months, a $250,000 mortgage at standard rates for a five-year term, they could see an annual increase somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3,000 to $5,000. I would ask all members in this House which families have an extra $3,000 to $5,000 to spend. Just to do some simple arithmetic, if it were not for the Liberal government, we would not have an interest cost for the federal government of $6,000. We would not have an increase in the cost of mortgages, which is now up to $3,000 to $5,000. That is thousands of dollars. Here is a simple thought exercise. Let us think about what could be done with that money if it were not going to interest. It is money that could go to health care. It is money that could go directly to Canadians to be used for their children to play hockey. It could be used for Canadian kids to do the extracurricular activities they desire. It could be used for families to feed themselves at the end of the month, so they would not have to scrimp, save and put their grocery bill on their credit card. Let us talk a bit about the fiscal anchor. The promise the Prime Minister made is not something the Conservatives or the leader of the official opposition made up. It was from the Prime Minister. Most of the world, nearly all of it in fact, judges debt by something called the debt-to-GDP ratio. Our debt is a big, scary monster. In fact, it is $1.4 trillion. Instead of linking his promise to that, because he must have already known, this Goldman Sachs wonder kid, that he would not be able to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, he chose a different number. It sounds a bit like debt to GDP but is entirely different. He chose deficit to GDP. Instead of the cumulative debt, it is the amount the government is spending over what it is earning each year, which is eminently more in the control of the government of the day. He said that we were going to have a declining deficit-to-GDP number, but he cannot achieve that. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that the government is going to miss it for the next two years. When it comes to promises from governments beyond two years, I do not put a lot of stock in them, because two years is a long way out for the Liberal government. For the foreseeable future, the government will not hit that mark. Some on the progressive left will say the problem is that we need more taxes and revenue, but the government is raking in record revenue. Is it because our economy is growing and doing great? No, not at all. It is because the government’s inflation is driving up the cost of everything, suffocating our ability to live. It also drives up government revenue. That, combined with high oil prices, means the government is taking in more money than ever, yet somehow this banker has been able to outspend our record revenue. Let us talk about a few more stats. As I said, Canadians are going to the grocery store and are realizing that a dollar does not go very far. It is $50 to fill up one bag of groceries. The $100 that used to pay for groceries for a week now lasts but a day or two. It is because of two issues. One we have talked about: inflation and higher interest. The other side of the ledger is income. Generally, when a government has an expansive fiscal policy, we get higher income. It makes sense. If we are lowering taxes and spending more, according to Keynesian economics we should get economic growth. However, the government has managed to spend more and not get economic growth. It almost defies reason that it was able to do this. Only the Liberal government could spend billions and still have our GDP per capita, which is analogous in many ways to our income per capita, stay flat over the last 11 years. If we do a comparison, our gross debt is about 110% and the U.S.’s is, to be frank, about 125%, which sounds a bit better. The U.S. has the reserve currency, which puts it in a stronger position compared to our country, as the Canadian dollar is not the reserve currency. The other thing that the U.S. and some other countries have going for them is economic growth. At the same time, we have had practically zero economic growth, GDP per capita, over the last decade. America’s economic growth has averaged well in excess of 2% to 3%, in some years even touching 4%. We can imagine our personal finances. If someone has a large mortgage, even if they have some credit card debt, and has a high income that is consistently increasing, that problem is fixable. The challenge for the Canadian economy, because of the Liberal government’s poor economic and fiscal management, is that we have high debt and low, flat incomes. Our GDP per capita would put us at the very bottom of any U.S. state’s. These are significant economic challenges that have real economic consequences. When we talk about bond yields, interest rates, inflation and other metrics, the reality for the people of Northumberland—Clarke is that they are suffering. Over the summer, I spent numerous days going to various food banks across my riding. Every single one of them has had a massive increase since 2015. I really hope the Liberals do some soul-searching. They can pick data points and numbers and we can argue about them, but what they cannot argue about is the people in Northumberland—Clarke who are suffering right now. Just one of those food banks, if I can share a number, has seen a 3,000% increase since 2015. There is a wide cross-section. It has seen a dramatic increase in children, for example, who have to use the food bank. It has seen seniors having to use the food bank. It has seen people who are employed having to use the food bank because of the Liberals’ reckless spending, which has driven the cost of living out of control. The government really needs to do some soul-searching and think about the ways it can reduce costs. I hope it does that in the next budget. I do not think it will, but Canadians desperately need the government to get spending under control so that Canadians can afford to live.”