Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Middlesex—London. We have reached this stage of the debate on the changes in Canada's financial situation. Let us remember that the Liberals have been in office and have been managing the public purse for over 10 years. Let us remember that most of the members on that side of the House who were elected in 2015 promised to run three small deficits and deliver a zero deficit in 2019. Obviously, that was not at all true because, in the past 11 years, the Liberal government has never kept that promise to balance the budget. It has done exactly the opposite. When the new Prime Minister took office a year ago, no one would have thought that we would end up where we are today, seeing as how he has an international reputation in public finance, served as the governor of the national banks of two G7 countries and is widely recognized for his business acumen. With this fresh energy, we might have expected a much more rigorous approach to managing public funds than the one taken by the Right Hon. Justin Trudeau, who failed to deliver on his promise of a zero deficit in his nine years in office. With the new Prime Minister, anything seemed possible. However, after a year under this new Prime Minister, the member for Nepean, it is quite the opposite. He is doing a worse job than the drama teacher, even though he is an internationally renowned banker who promised a bright future in terms of the management of public funds. As for the debt, it has been roughly $1 trillion for the past 10 years. Interest on the debt costs $58.7 billion. That is nearly $60 billion. For those watching at home, and even for me, when we are talking about billions of dollars, it is hard to picture what that actually means. It is important to understand that every penny we pay in GST is not going toward services from the federal government. It is not going toward having more doctors or more services. It is solely going toward paying the interest on the debt. That is right. Ten years of irresponsible Liberal governance has increased the debt by $1 trillion. Every family in Canada is spending an average of $3,400 just on interest payments. It is worth noting that a deficit means that the government is living beyond its means. It means that it is kicking the can down the road and not facing its responsibilities. Above all, it means that the government is acting irresponsibly toward our children, our grandchildren and even our great-grandchildren. Sooner or later, that debt will have to be paid. That is what happens with the interest on debt. When we pay, we are paying for the mistakes and mismanagement of the past. The worst legacy we can leave our children and grandchildren is a massive debt, massive interest and a chronic deficit. Speaking of deficits, it is quite extraordinary. A year and a half ago, under the former prime minister's watch, we were all outraged to learn that the deficit might be as high as $31 billion. Some people said that a $31‑billion deficit was insane. Now, a year later, it is twice as bad. The deficit now stands at $65 billion. As I was saying earlier, who would have thought the new Prime Minister could be worse than the old one? He doubled the deficit. It is also worth noting that direct spending on services has increased by 12.4% and that, over the past 10 years, 100,000 new public servants have been hired. At the same time, there has been a massive increase in outsourcing contracts for consultants. The government cannot do both at the same time. It should either hire more public servants to deliver more services and rely less on consultants, or rely more on consultants and make less use of the public service. If it is doing both at the same time, it is because the system is being mismanaged. That is what we have seen over the past 10 years. The reality and the impact of all this is that when we have to pay interest on the debt, as I mentioned earlier, the money is not going toward improving services. It is going toward paying for expenses were not covered previously. Who benefits most from this? The bankers do, because that is exactly how they make a living: from interest. We do not take issue with that. The issue is when interest levels are far too high and become astronomical. When taxpayers' money from the GST goes directly towards paying interest on the debt, we are propping up the banking system rather than the system we expect to support public services in Canada. What is the reality after 10 years? We have the worst food inflation in the G7. My colleagues should talk about this with people in their ridings, with families, with friends, with people they know well. Everyone is affected by food inflation. Canada has the worst food inflation in the G7. This is happening under the leadership of the world-renowned banker who has failed to keep his promises. We are still waiting for him to deliver on all the promises that were made and the major projects that are supposed to be carried out. Housing prices are skyrocketing across Canada, and families are the ones directly paying the price. It is also important to keep in mind that when there are taxes to pay, people end up with less money in their pockets. That is why our proposal was clear and positive for Canadians, because everyone is affected by the oil price hikes. We proposed temporarily suspending all federal gas taxes until December 31. We agreed on that proposal because it would have left $5 billion more in Canadians' pockets. However, the government accepted only a small portion of our suggestion, which involved removing the 10¢ per litre excise tax to give people a little break. Obviously, we had no objection to that, but it was barely a third of what we had suggested. Our approach as Conservatives is not so much to give people money as to let them keep more money in their pockets. The best way to let them keep more in their pockets is to cut taxes. However, this government has been raising taxes for 10 years. Contrary to what the Liberals are going to say in a few moments when they ask me questions, it is important to point out that we were in agreement on the tax cuts. Small as they were, we supported them. We only wished they had been larger. That was the point of our suggestion. One of our suggestions is to leave more money in people's pockets by cutting taxes, which is what we wanted to do with the federal fuel tax, because it has a direct impact on everything. It affects people who travel, but the federal taxes on transportation and gasoline consumption also directly affect the price of goods and food that are transported. We should also get rid of some of the measures that create too much red tape, because there is no doubt that this directly affects us and stifles economic development. We must streamline bureaucracy and reduce our reliance on outside consultants. I mentioned that over the past 10 years, we have seen an increase of up to $20 billion. We see that the government has listened to us and reduced the amounts allocated for consultants, but it needs to go even further. We must also put an end to the tax loopholes that can arise from certain investments that are so difficult to understand that they ultimately become tax loopholes. We also need to review some of the benefits paid to bogus refugee claimants. Unfortunately, for 10 years, we had a government that took a completely irresponsible approach to immigration. The primary victims of this irresponsible immigration policy are the immigrants themselves, particularly those who have illegally made bogus asylum claims. We need to cut red tape, dial back the use of external consultants and leave more money in people's pockets by eliminating some taxes and lowering income tax. That is how we can deliver an economic recovery for all Canadians.
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