TranslatePolitics.ca

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 5:35 p.m.

“I'm filling time with kind words and saying nothing anyone could pin down later.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the opposition motion. At the outset, I must say that I have sat in the House for a fair bit today, listening to the debate. I cannot help but reflect on some of what I have been hearing as a result of some of the news that was received regarding the economy: a sense of almost excitement or gleefulness that comes from the Conservatives as they celebrate the opportunity to try to make a bigger issue out of news and turn this into a partisan issue rather than trying to genuinely help. I am being heckled, but I will read something from Fred DeLorey, a former Conservative campaign manager. About three or four days ago, while he was being interviewed on CBC, he said, “it's dangerous politics to be going out here claiming the sky is falling, when in a month's time or two months' time, when the next numbers come out, it shows that it isn't. It was a week later.... Job numbers are better than they were last quarter. We have the C.D. Howe Institute coming out and arguing, and other economists saying, it's not a recession.” I am not talking about some Conservative operative from the 1980s or 1990s. I am talking about the campaign manager who led the Conservative Party of Canada's national campaign just two elections ago, and that is what he said. He is being extremely critical of the approach that the Leader of the Opposition is taking to this issue, running out and trying to proclaim that the sky is falling. Let us look at the timeline. Mr. DeLorey is looking at the timeline too and reflecting on it in the quote I read out. The timeline is this. On Friday, May 29, the first-quarter growth numbers came out, and the growth for Canada was -.04%. It does show that it is negative growth. Two consecutive negative-growth quarters means that we are in a recession. Why are the Conservatives clapping? This is exactly what I was talking about. They jump on an opportunity. They start clapping at the idea that the economy is not doing as well as it otherwise could have been doing. This is what ended up happening. The Leader of the Opposition, on a Friday morning, ran out one of the main doors of this building, held an emergency press conference and said that there is a massive, full-scale recession and it is all the Liberal Prime Minister's fault. He went on and on. The Leader of the Opposition attacked a reporter for asking a basic question. One of the reporters said that some economists are not saying that what he is saying is true, and the reporter asked if he was jumping the gun a bit. He attacked the reporter and asked what outlet the reporter was with. These are totally Trump-style attacks. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Hon. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what happened. Regardless of the Conservatives' heckling, it happened in front of this building on a Friday morning. The Leader of the Opposition could not wait 30 minutes to digest the numbers. He had to do it immediately. Let us fast-forward to this past Friday, June 5, when we found out the job numbers in the report for May. There were almost 90,000 net new jobs in Canada, which contributed to a decrease in unemployment. Full-time employment skyrocketed. There was significant economic growth in many sectors. What did the Leader of the Opposition do? Did he run outside and hold another press conference? No, he did not. He is literally in hiding. He disappeared. He has not said a word. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Hon. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, by the way, as my colleagues across the way heckle me on this, I have not heard his speech today. When is he going to give a speech on this? He has not said a single word on this issue. He literally does not want to address this. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Hon. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, should I call my own point of order on this? At some point you have to step in. The Leader of the Opposition has not said even a single word about it. It is one thing if he wants to claim one day that the sky is falling, but a week later he cannot even reflect on the fact the job numbers are better and the economy might not be in that full-scale recession he tried to paint a week earlier. My colleagues are having a hard time listening to me, so why do I not go back to Fred DeLorey, the campaign manager from two elections ago. By the way, a number of Conservatives sitting in the House ran for office when he was the Conservative campaign manager. This is what he said just three or four days ago: “It's problematic when you choose to go down that road that [the Leader of the Opposition] has chosen to go down so aggressively, almost like he's rooting for a recession. I understand partisan politics very well. You know, I'm a tribal Conservative. I want to win the next election. Three years before an election, screaming that the sky is falling every week is not how you do it.” These are the words of a former Conservative campaign manager, who ran the 2021 election for the Conservative Party of Canada and who full-on went on CBC news and announced to the world that the Leader of the Opposition is, in his words, “rooting for a recession.” That is what we are dealing with. The Leader of the Opposition cannot think that he is ever going to be the leader of a country, when he runs out there one day and claims that the sky is falling, that everything is coming to an end and that we have the most dramatic economic downfall in Canadian history, then a week later keeps his mouth completely— An hon. member: Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 5:35 p.m.

“Stop complaining. You didn't win the last election. Canadians don't like your party's approach. Think about that this summer.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the member cannot run out there and act as though the sky is falling one day, and then a week later pretend that there is no news, because it is completely contradictory. Conservatives can heckle all they want on this. They can disagree with me. They can challenge me. They can do whatever they want. The reality of the situation is that this is the narrative that is out there. This is what the vast majority of Canadians see when they see the games the Leader of the Opposition plays. Unfortunately, it is my position that what the Conservatives are doing today is just continuing to play into that narrative of “The sky is falling”, without being genuinely reflective of what is really going on and the reality of the situation. They can hem and haw, roll their eyes and say that I have no idea what I am talking about, but I would encourage them to be a little self-reflective and to try to figure out if they can sort out why they did not win the last election and why they continue to be so low in the polls. It is because of the Leader of the Opposition and the way he continues to go on and on, the games he plays, and the things he does. Canadians are just not buying it anymore. The Conservatives do not need to like it, but that is the reality of the situation. They hopefully can take some time this summer to reflect on what their strategy should be moving forward, because as we have seen over the last number of years, the strategy they are currently using, which led to today's opposition motion, is not a successful one. I do not think it ever will be. I hope they can learn from that and figure out that there is something they can contribute to the House and to democracy, but it is not going to be with the approach they have been taking and, in particular, the approach the Leader of the Opposition is taking.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Tamara Jansen

Conservative 5:45 p.m.

“I met some voters. That's a nice way to show I'm in touch. Now I'm going to criticize the other party.”

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 5:45 p.m.

“I want to make the other member look bad. Maybe this rule will help me do that.”

Tamara Jansen

Conservative 5:45 p.m.

“I want to embarrass the government by making it seem like they are ignoring ordinary Canadians. I want it to seem like only myself and my party are really listening to Canadians and understand their problems.”

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 5:45 p.m.

“I want to make the other member look bad by listing popular programs she voted against. I don't want to talk about high costs or a recession.”

Grant Jackson

Conservative 5:45 p.m.

“You can't talk about whether someone is here or not. Follow your own rules.”

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 5:45 p.m.

“I don't want to answer to anyone who questions my position. I'm just going to attack my opponent instead of engaging with the issue.”

Mario Beaulieu

Bloc Québécois 5:45 p.m.

“The Conservatives say things are really bad. The Liberals say everything is fine. But downgrades, low growth, and a big deficit suggest they're both wrong.”

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 5:45 p.m.

“Ignore their downgrades. Ignore the deficit. Look, jobs went up in May! Unemployment is low! Those are the numbers that make us look good.”

Sherry Romanado

Liberal 5:50 p.m.

“That attack was too mean. Let's all just get along and praise Canada together. I bet your voters want that too, right?”

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Liberal 5:50 p.m.

“I think 'celebrating' is a bit much, but you get what I mean. Conservatives pounce on any bad news to attack us. They probably jumped at that 0.04% drop. Well, here's some advice: that won't win elections. It's kind of funny though, because if they actually figured that out, we'd be in trouble.”

Adam Chambers

Conservative 5:50 p.m.

“We need big changes to fix our productivity crisis. The Prime Minister isn't doing enough. He needs to reform competition, taxes, and regulation. But instead he's just piling on more debt and risk. What if interest rates go up? We're not ready for that. He's being reckless with our economy and it could really hurt people later. We need to face facts and make tough choices now to turn this around.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having the opportunity to rise today to speak to this very sobering issue. I will be splitting my time with the wonderful new member from Long Range Mountains, who is a fantastic member in this place and brings a lot of expertise. I am happy to share my time with her. Also, I want to say hi to Susan, who might be watching at home, who typically watches many of these speeches. I thank and appreciate her for all the support and the friends at Cornerstone. We are talking about a recession. We might be down by 0.1% or up by 0.1%, but the truth is that the economy is not doing very well, regardless of whether the government suggests that we are not in a recession or that, as some people like to say, it is just a technical recession. In fact, according to Sean Speer, editor-at-large at The Hub, all of this is a bit of silly semantics: “The real questions are: how much does the economy suck, how long has it sucked, why does it suck, and what are the different ideas to stop it from sucking.” We have a productivity crisis in this country, and everybody knows it. The Prime Minister has even acknowledged it. I think the Prime Minister was elected in part because of his résumé, but it appears, over a year into his term, that his economic agenda and plan are not working. It is even a bit hard to determine what his economic plan and agenda are. If it is to attack productivity, one cannot connect very many of his economic announcements to actually making the big reforms and changes we need to the economy in this country to get it going. Of course, President Trump's tariffs weigh on our economy, but we saw serious economic trouble before anyone had heard of President Trump. The Bank of Canada has called it a productivity emergency. Senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers declared it “an emergency”, a “time to break the glass”. If it is true that we are in this economic crisis of productivity, the Prime Minister's agenda is not addressing it. He is saying we have moved at speeds faster than ever before, but we have not seen fundamental reforms. There has been no serious competition reform, tax reform or regulatory reform. In fact, when it comes to those three items, we could classify the Prime Minister not as a bold actor but as one who supports the status quo. He is the status quo man. He is not willing to take on the banks, the airlines, the telecoms or the other oligopolies that we need to take on to enhance the productivity of our country. He must move faster. On competition, we should radically attack the profit pools of our financial institutions, in particular the banks, by introducing more competition to deliver lower prices to Canadians. If we want to send a message to the United States, let us do it through CANZUK. If British Airways wants to fly a plane between Toronto and Vancouver or Toronto and Halifax, why do we not let them and invite any airline in the CANZUK countries to do so? On taxes, we should immediately move to reduce capital gains on those businesses and individuals who reinvest in Canada and in Canadian companies. We need a tax reform package to lower taxes, business and personal, and significantly reduce complexity. On regulation, we need service standards for permitting. We need to pre-approve projects in areas of the country, which means they can be done faster. We should be working more closely with indigenous leaders across the country to identify and pre-approve projects, to de-risk them, in order to free up and attract private capital. If the Prime Minister was serious about building a pipeline, he would have already started his consultations with indigenous groups. We risk allowing this valuable time to go by without making the difficult decisions. Instead, we get announcements, speeches and bureaucracies, such as the Major Projects Office, which, by the way, in and of itself is an admission that the regulatory process does not work. We have the build Canada office, and then the sovereign wealth fund, which will be funded, of course, with debt. Now I would like to turn, for the reminder of my comments, to a specific risk that I think is growing and that the government should be paying more attention to. The Prime Minister's fiscal plan for this country is putting us at serious risk. By doubling the size of the deficits of PM Trudeau, the Prime Minister is threatening the fiscal stability of our country. If we get into economic challenges around the world, we will be less able to deal with them. We are borrowing record amounts of debt this year and in the next two years. This year we will borrow $510 billion in the market, then we have to borrow $594 billion in the market, and in 2027-28, we have to borrow $563 billion. We borrow mostly on the short end of the curve, so what happens is that this debt has to be rolled over every two or three years. That is like signing up for only a one- or two-year mortgage on a house. One would have to go to the bank, and guess what happens. Their interest rate gets reset every single time. When 40% of the government's debt is purchased by non-bank financial actors, which are hedge funds and financial speculators, we are at serious risk if those hedge funds and purchasers cannot continue to purchase. In the face of all of this, the Prime Minister's fiscal plan is to borrow more money, record amounts of money. If there is an economic event, a sovereign debt crisis or a war, something that happens totally outside of Canada, our debt service costs are going to explode. They are already going to be $80 billion in just a few years, and that is $80 billion that could not go to more productive uses. That $80 billion is a projection based on interest rates staying the same or going down. What if interest rates go up? The Prime Minister, who is a two-time central banker and chair of the Financial Stability Board, should know better than to increase the size of deficits and debt in this country and put us further at risk, and I am not the only one who thinks so. The Bank of Canada is warning that we will have potential problems. It is saying that higher stock market valuations, higher corporate debt and higher amounts of money borrowed by hedge funds to buy sovereign debt are vulnerabilities. “This has made it more likely that a new shock or a combination of shocks could cause several vulnerabilities to crystallize at once,” said the senior deputy governor, Carolyn Rogers. The Bank of Canada is warning the government that there could be economic instability, and we have a risk of who funds our government in purchasing our debt. That will put our AAA credit rating at risk. We can kiss the fiscal anchor goodbye. In fact, already the Parliamentary Budget Officer is saying that the government has a less than 1% chance of even keeping that anchor. The Prime Minister's decisions are completely imprudent when it comes to fiscal responsibility, and it will result, and may result, in more pain later. Now, one of these events might not happen, but no one predicted the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, or very few people did. However, it might happen, and with the fact that it might happen, and that the risks are growing, this Prime Minister's decision to increase the size of the debt and the deficits can be called nothing short of reckless, because it will imperil the government's ability to pay for social programs. The bankers and the bondholders get paid first, and our social programs will come second. As I said, one would think that the Prime Minister would be more attuned to some of these global risks and would be taking a much more fiscally responsible path with the government's spending. As I might not get a chance to welcome everyone to Midland this weekend, it is Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival. Please come. I am super happy to plug that big event in my riding this weekend. I am also more than happy to answer any questions from any member in the House about my remarks.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Grant Jackson

Conservative 6:00 p.m.

“My friend here gets it. People are struggling under this government. But the Liberals just can't admit their reckless spending jacked up prices and screwed everyone over. They spent their way into this mess for 11 years straight. When will they own up and change course? People deserve an honest reckoning for once.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my excellent colleague for his speech, not least for the way that he ended it. I might just have to find myself down there for a couple of butter tarts. His speech accurately portrayed what I am hearing, and what I know most of our colleagues in this place are hearing, from constituents. They are feeling the recession. They are feeling the inflationary policies of the government that have driven down their wages and driven up their cost of living. I would like the member to provide a little more clarity on why he thinks the Liberals cannot admit that their 11 years of inflationary spending have had a devastating impact on our economy, on household incomes and on household debt, and what the implications of that could be going forward.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Adam Chambers

Conservative 6:00 p.m.

“I'm going to praise my friend here because he's on my team. The government is always behind and in denial about how much they've messed up the economy. First inflation, now stagnation. Why can't the Liberals just admit what a disaster they've been for this country for 11 straight years? If they actually owned their mess, maybe they could start to fix it. But nah, they won't.”

Sébastien Lemire

Bloc Québécois 6:00 p.m.

“I'm going to make a little joke about my costume so everyone knows I'm not the other guy. Then I'll bring up a scary risk that someone else in your party mentioned. I want to look smart by repeating it, but I won't explain it myself. I'll just say that GDP growth was bad and hope it makes my opponents look bad.”

Sébastien Lemire

Bloc Québécois 6:00 p.m.

“I want to look smart by saying numbers. I think mentioning stocks might worry people. I don't know if this is normal but asking might make you think something is wrong.”

Adam Chambers

Conservative 6:00 p.m.

“You might be onto something. People with money are doing fine. Everyone else is finding things expensive. Maybe that's because the people in charge only care about their rich friends.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. My friend in the Bloc has great taste in colours of ties and colours of suits, today for sure. The member raises an important distinction. There is something called a K-shaped recovery in the economy. That is, those who have assets and wealth are actually doing quite well, like those who are invested in Brookfield, and those who do not have assets and wealth are struggling. They struggle with higher costs and higher food prices and fuel prices. This is really what is happening in the economy. There are those who are doing well and those who are not doing so well. It just so happens that everyone who seems to be doing well knows the Prime Minister very well.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Tamara Kronis

Conservative 6:05 p.m.

“I'm from a place that really needs trade to do well. People in my riding don't have jobs. The government should stop messing things up for us.”

Adam Chambers

Conservative 6:05 p.m.

“The government shouldn't be so happy about the new job numbers. Those jobs aren't helping everyone. I want the government to see there's a problem in some places and fix it.”

What they said. What they meant.

Recent debates

Business of Supply

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Tamara Jansen

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Tamara Jansen

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Grant Jackson

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Mario Beaulieu

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Sherry Romanado

Hon. Mark Gerretsen

Adam Chambers

Grant Jackson

Adam Chambers

Sébastien Lemire

Sébastien Lemire

Adam Chambers

Tamara Kronis

Adam Chambers