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Jean-Denis Garon

Replying to Rhéal Éloi Fortin (Bloc Québécois)
“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech. As I have said before, the member for Mirabel’s speeches are always interesting. He knows a lot more about public finances than I do, so I always learn something when I listen to him. I thank him for his speech. That being said, I heard one thing in his speech that keeps coming up. I get the impression that the government could use the money it is spending on the oil sector to address many of the Bloc Québécois’s budget priorities and many of the Canadian government’s other problems. Did I understand correctly? Could what we spend on the oil sector really be used to support seniors and fund health care and all the other priorities?”

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Mr. Speaker, tens of billions of dollars of public money is going toward that sector. They do not print that money. They take it from taxpayers’ pockets. The subsidies given to oil companies could certainly be put to better use for society. We also raised other issues in our pre-budget requests, such as indigenous housing. We are not asking for a single penny more. We are asking the government to spend the funds it has already budgeted. The government puts on a good show, tables a budget, invests in indigenous housing, and then does not even spend its own money. It is the same story when it comes to homelessness and housing. I am thinking of the Reaching Home program. We are calling for these funds to be made permanent to ensure predictability. We are not trying to run up the deficit. Drawing up a budget is about making choices. In our view, giving tens of billions of dollars to oil companies and mismanaging spending are bad choices.