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Jasraj Hallan

Conservative 11:55 a.m.

“I want the government to reverse inflationary spending because it's failing at growth and only has a 1% chance of meeting its own fiscal target.”

Jasraj Hallan

Conservative 11:55 a.m.

“Everything is bad because of the Liberals. The economy is bad. People are suffering. Liberals have failed. Just listen to me.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, before I get started, I want to notify you that I will be splitting my time with my good friend, fellow Calgarian and sometime airline seatmate, the member for Calgary Crowfoot. There is nothing technical about the 2.2 million Canadians waiting in a food bank line hungry because of rising grocery prices due to the Liberal government's failed policies. There is nothing technical about the dad in Windsor who has just lost his job telling his kids around the dinner table that times are going to get tough because of the failed policies of the Liberal government. There is nothing technical about the single mom who is at the grocery store wondering what she can and cannot buy this week and how much she will actually be able to eat because of failed Liberal policies. The Prime Minister is the guy who said he could get Canada back on track. He sold himself as the guy who would have the fastest-growing economy in the G7. He sold himself as that during the election. What he ended up doing was plunging Canada into a full-blown Liberal recession, and in fact the only country in the entire G20 to do so. The Prime Minister is the only leader in the entire G7 to plunge their economy into economic decline in three out of the last four quarters. He has been Prime Minister only for a year, and he is already delivering these failed results. Canadians are the ones who are having to pay for it: through food bank lines that are growing, through the insolvencies that are growing, and just through the pain and suffering we are seeing all across this country because of failed policies. Last week, the independent PBO came out with a very scathing report on the government and its so-called fiscal anchors, which seem like they do not even exist anymore. First, members will remember, back in the day, when Chrystia Freeland was here and claimed that the debt-to-GDP ratio would go down. The Liberals were so confident in that, they completely removed it as a fiscal anchor altogether. Poof, they got rid of it, but now they quietly, sneakily, brought it back. However, the PBO slammed them, just last week, saying that the debt-to-GDP ratio would go up, debunking their claim that it would go down. In their last budget, the Liberals brought in another fiscal anchor. They said they would do deficit-to-GDP ratio. However, the PBO slammed them last week, saying that they will have a less than 1% chance of meeting that fiscal anchor, but that percentage is still better than actually having a Liberal answer a question in this place. Then they said they would balance their operating budget, but we just found out last week that they are actually going to spend $7 billion more than what they sold Canadians. It is always these fake promises, these fake handshakes and fake MOUs. Everything about this government is fake. The Liberals sell themselves as economic kings or someone who can handle the economy, but at the end of the day, it is always failure. It is more costs, more debt, more taxes, and it is always on the national credit card. At the end of the day, Canadians have to pay for all these Liberal failures. The PBO said, “Business investment continues to lag”, which is something the Bank of Canada has been warning about for years now. In fact, the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, Carolyn Rogers, many years ago, said that Canada is in a “break glass” emergency. They said it is about our productivity, which has not gone up. Productivity and the cost of living or the way people live, their standard of living, are the exact same thing, according to them, and that is why we are seeing so much pain and suffering across the country. The PBO said that “firms postpone expansion plans amid heightened uncertainty.” The PBO also said, “Persistent uncertainty is...weighing on business investment and household spending”. Businesses are not investing, expanding or hiring because they do not have confidence in the direction of the economy. That is clear to see in the numbers. In the last year alone, $1 trillion of net Canadian investment has flown out of Canada to the U.S., and since this Prime Minister took office, $20 billion of net investment has also left Canada. We hear the Liberals brag about how good the economy is and how good Canadians have it. Then why do we not see it? They will cherry-pick or come up with random things that they think Canadians will fall for, but every time a Canadian goes to the grocery store or fills up a tank of gas, whenever they pay for something or get their taxes done, they see clearly and fully experience this full-blown Liberal recession, because when costs go up for them, that is what they experience. When their wages are not going up and their incomes are not sufficient, that is something they actually experience. The Liberal government continues to tell those 2.2 million Canadians in a food bank line that they are just technically hungry, technically out of food, technically out of money, and the people missing their mortgage payments are just technically experiencing that, but this is what they are actually experiencing. Canadians are suffering. The Liberals refuse to even listen to Canadians. In fact, the Prime Minister is so out of touch, he said that affordability is the best it has been in an entire decade, which is completely false. Canadians have increasing grocery prices because of things like high taxes and the burden that the Liberal government has put on businesses. On top of that, it is slamming Canadians, farmers, truckers and other industries with its industrial carbon tax, which does not make just the cost of food go up. It makes the cost of everything in the supply chain go up. With Liberal thinking and Liberal math, Liberals think they are just charging the highest emitters or the corporations. Those corporations and businesses will pass on the cost, and that cost, ultimately, has to be paid by the average Canadian. That is why Canadians cannot keep up. In fact, today, under the Liberals, an average Canadian is spending 120% of their paycheque on necessities like food and shelter. Liberals have doubled the cost of housing and made the cost of food go up. In fact, the Prime Minister gave Canadians the worst food inflation in the entire G7. That is why Canadians are now using up their entire paycheque mostly on housing, and everything else goes on a credit card or they borrow money. We are seeing debt loads. That is why Canadians are now also the most indebted households in the entire G7. They are picking up more and more on credit just for necessities. It is not like the government does not have solutions in front of it. In fact, for the last 10 years, Conservatives have been putting forward solutions, but for every solution, it seems the Liberal government puts up two or three more problems for Canadians. For instance, what Conservatives would do and what we are proposing is to scrap all the antidevelopment laws the Liberal government passed. Let us get rid of Bill C-69, the “no new pipelines” bill. Let us get pipelines built in this country, along with LNG plants, mines, dams, all the infrastructure that Canada needs to get its resources to market and spread them out to the world. Let us get those antidevelopment laws out of the way. Let us get rid of the tanker ban. My colleague from Calgary Signal Hill has put forward a bill in this place to get rid of the tanker ban. Let us get pipelines built. Let us get a pipeline built to the west coast, but it needs to be able to get from the west coast to Asian markets. We have to get rid of the tanker ban. Let us get rid of and scrap the industrial carbon tax, which will make Canada more competitive on the world stage. The world needs what Canada has. We have it all under our feet. We just need the Liberal government to get out of the way so we can produce more and spread it to the world. We need to lower taxes, whether it is personal, business or corporate tax, so we can create a better investing environment so that investment comes back to Canada and does not flow out. Let us get the capital gains tax deferred, as in the plan the Conservatives have put forward. Any company reinvesting its earned capital gains will be able to defer its capital gains tax so we can get more people investing in more jobs and more equipment and have more investment back into Canada, not let it flow out as the Liberals have done over the last 10 years. The government waste seems endless, whether it is the $20 billion in Liberal-connected insiders or the $90-billion train boondoggle. Let us get rid of those. Let us get Canada back on track and make Canada the most profitable country in the world.

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Jasraj Hallan

Conservative 12:05 p.m.

“You missed my real point. Bragging about individual job numbers won't hide the bigger picture. The economy is struggling under your government. Many jobs have been lost this year. Your announcements and handshakes are fake solutions. The best thing your government can do is stop interfering so much.”

Jasraj Hallan

Conservative 12:05 p.m.

“The government failed. The Liberal government is incompetent. Liberals are anti-development. Their policies drove away investment. They bought a pipeline late and way over budget. Liberals can never do anything on time or on budget.”

Rob Morrison

Conservative 12:05 p.m.

“I'm from a rural area. Food prices are high. Fuel prices are high. No one says they've never had it so good. People blame me for food prices when I'm in the grocery store.”

Jasraj Hallan

Conservative 12:10 p.m.

“The Prime Minister doesn't care about high grocery prices. I spend two hours in the grocery store hearing struggles. A single mom had to move in with her abusive ex because she can't afford child care, rent, and groceries. This is because of failed Liberal policies. There's nothing technical about the suffering.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, unlike the Prime Minister, who does not do his own grocery shopping and does not care that the Liberals' policies are raising the cost of groceries, when I go grocery shopping, just like the member, I spend at least two hours there because of how many people come up to me and talk to me about how much they are struggling. In fact, last week when I was grocery shopping at the local Superstore, a single mom said to me that she had to move in with her abusive ex-husband once again because she could not afford child care and to live anywhere else, and groceries are the last thing. She is one of those people having to put groceries back. This is the result of failed Liberal policies. This is the direct result. There is nothing technical about the suffering Canadians are facing under the failed Liberal government.

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Jasraj Hallan

Conservative 12:10 p.m.

“Say 'Liberal recession' a lot. Get rid of the current government and its laws that block development.”

Pat Kelly

Conservative 12:10 p.m.

“The Liberals messed up the economy. The Liberals spent too much. The Liberals blocked oil exports. The Liberals promised a trade deal with the United States and did not deliver. The Liberals' budgets are bad. I want the Liberals to stop spending so much.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, Canada is in a recession, but the Liberals, and even some of their apologists among the punditry, say that it is only a technical recession. Allow me to get technical for a few moments. Technically, economic growth is shrinking, and that is how we measure the strength of a national economy. Technically, 40,000 more Canadians are out of work so far this year. Technically, the cost of living has left millions of Canadians unable to afford basic necessities, like food. Technically, under the Liberals, Canadian families are the most indebted in the world, which means they are tapped out, and cannot lead the way out of a recession through increased consumption. Technically, young Canadians are giving up on the dream of home ownership, and with it, the dream of starting their own families, because Canadians technically have the most unaffordable housing among peer countries. Technically, over the last 11 years, the Liberals have passed a series of laws and ministerial orders that have prevented Canada from bringing its resource wealth to world markets and provide high-paying jobs for Canadians. Technically, the Liberal finance minister would make Chrystia Freeland and Bill Morneau blush over the fire hose of new spending and federal debt that young Canadians know they are going to be on the hook for. Technically, the PBO said the finance minister misled Canadians in his budget. Today, we are having a debate about the recession that the Liberals are responsible for and we demand specific actions in response. I can already hear the howls of protest from the Liberals saying things like, “What about the tariffs? What about the war in Ukraine? What about the war in Iran?” These global events affect every other economy in the world. Let me say something before I hear even more howls from the Liberals claiming, “Do the Conservatives not know that Canada is more vulnerable because we are more trade dependent on the United States than those other countries are?” They are the same Liberals who claimed that their leader would have a trade deal with the United States by summer 2025. They are the same Liberals who spent the last 11 years actively preventing Canada from diversifying its export markets by systematically preventing the construction of the energy infrastructure necessary to export Canadian energy to the world. Canadian oil and gas is by far Canada's most valuable export. It dwarfs everything else. Oil and gas exports are worth $160 billion a year. The Prime Minister said that he had the experience for this moment and assured Canadians that he would be successful in defending Canada's interests by negotiating a deal with the Americans while diversifying our trade. What has the Prime Minister done? He teased Canadians by saying it was time to get things built. He teased Canadians by claiming that his government would see that major projects would be built at speeds thought unimaginable. I thought that might mean that a year after he made these claims, there would be some kind of approval on the horizon for a pipeline project. I could easily imagine that. In fact, I could imagine maybe one like the Pacific north coast pipeline that the previous Conservative government approved and that the Liberals cancelled only a few days after they were sworn in, in November 2015, a decision endorsed by the current Prime Minister at an energy committee meeting in 2021. He said then, five years ago, that he supported cancelling northern gateway, and now all of a sudden, he is scratching his head saying, “Yeah, maybe we should build some major projects,” but the projects are not being built. The northern gateway pipeline that the government cancelled and the Prime Minister opposed did not get built. If it had been built, it would be carrying 525,000 barrels a day today to world markets. At today's prices, that would bring about $20 billion per year to the Canadian economy. Would we be in a recession today, if the Canadian economy had another 525,000 barrels a day in exported production? I do not know, but it would be better than what we have now. What if Canada had built an east coast pipeline too? Let us think of what that would mean for world energy security and what it would mean for the Canadian economy. The opportunities squandered by the Liberals contribute to the recession we are in now. They have prevented Canada from being part of the international solution to world markets that are cut off from the Middle East and from those that want to defund Putin's war machine. So far, all the government has done is create a so-called Major Projects Office that will have incredible sweeping powers of exemption from Canadian law. It was set up nearly a full year ago and there are no major projects. On top of the economic self-harm the Liberals have imposed on Canada, 11 years of incessant debt, deficits and money printing have left Canadians deeply in debt and unable to afford necessities. As bad as Bill Morneau and Chrystia Freeland were, the current finance minister is even worse. He might end up challenging Allan MacEachen and Marc Lalonde as perhaps the worst finance minister in Canadian history. Do members remember those guys? They ran up deficits in the eighties that were so big that by the time the Liberals were defeated in 1984, Canada was literally kiting interest payments by issuing new debt just to cover the interest on the existing debt. That disastrous time under the Liberals took successive governments, Conservative, Liberal and Conservative, to restore sanity to Canada's finances. Now the current government is threatening to take us back to those dark times. After Pierre Trudeau, there was a consensus that balanced budgets matter and ought to be every government's goal. The Liberals have blown it, despite their 2015 promise. Last week, there was a series of terrible reports that challenged the very credibility of the government and the finance minister. The Parliamentary Budget Officer published a report that said that the deficit would be billions of dollars higher than the finance minister said in his budget. It would be higher this year, higher next year and every year in the projection. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that spending would be higher. She said that borrowing would be higher. She said expected income tax revenues would be lower because she expects Canadians will have less income than the finance minister projects. She said that, based on the government's stress tests, which, “draws on decades of Canadian economic and fiscal history, including, recessions, financial crises, oil price crashes, and runs thousands of combinations to show the range of possibilities....that the likelihood that the deficit-to-GDP ratio will decline...is less than 1 per cent.” That was the Liberals' latest fiscal anchor, the one they came up with when their last fiscal anchor was cut loose. They said that the deficit would decline as a percentage of GDP every year through 2031. The PBO said that the odds of that happening are less than 1%. After 11 years, they have made promise after promise about fiscal anchors and guardrails and have broken every single one of them. The finance minister is like a sailor who forgets to connect the anchor chain to the boat, then drops the anchor in the water and has to go back to the chandlery to get a new one while everybody on the dock laughs at him. I can only imagine what next year's fiscal anchor is going to be. This latest anchor, the one that is already on the bottom of the ocean with no chain allowing the budget to drift toward the rocks, was never even a good anchor to start with. In fact, the PBO notes that the IMF thinks Canada would be better off with its old anchor of a declining debt-to-GDP ratio, but that anchor is also overboard on the bottom of the ocean. It has been dumped overboard without a chain I do not know how many times. Canadians are increasingly asking why the Liberals cannot table a plan to return to the balanced budget they started with in 2015. Many witnesses at the finance committee have called upon them to do so. However, the minister, in his arrogance and hubris, refuses and lectures those who ask him to simply do what his government promised to do way back in 2015. It is not just the PBO, not just the finance committee witnesses and not just Conservatives challenging the wisdom and credibility of the government's budgets; two of Canada's major banks have dropped reports downgrading their forecasts for the Canadian economy to below 1%. Given the fact that Canada is in a recession and the government's budget outlook is deteriorating and lacks credibility, Conservatives ask this House to call on the government to reverse its 11 years of continued deficits and broken fiscal promises, and rein in its spending and borrowing before things really do spiral out of its control.

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Pat Kelly

Conservative 12:20 p.m.

“You keep denying that anything's wrong. You deny we're in a recession. You deny the bad projections. You deny misleading the House. You just keep telling Canadians everything's great and they should be grateful.”

Pat Kelly

Conservative 12:20 p.m.

“You say we want to spend public money on pipelines. No, I want the opposite. I want government to stop blocking private investment so investors can build their own pipelines. I want government out of the way. I don't want to subsidize anything.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, the member brings up the Trans Mountain pipeline and, again, Conservatives were not calling upon the government to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline and build it themselves. They were calling upon the government to stop moving the goalposts on their approval process so that Kinder Morgan would commit and build it at its own expense. Conservatives do not believe in the public sector taking over and intruding on that which should be left to private investors. Let us just get the government out of the way, so that actual private investors, with their own money, will invest in Canada's energy infrastructure and allow our production to increase. This is not about subsidizing anything. This is about getting the government out of the way.

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Anna Roberts

Conservative 12:20 p.m.

“You say everything is great. But many people still use food banks, and more seniors than before. I don't think you care about seniors.”

Pat Kelly

Conservative 12:20 p.m.

“You Liberals don't care about real people's problems. You just want more power and money for insiders. I bet your 'sovereign wealth fund' will be full of corporate welfare.”

Pat Kelly

Conservative 12:25 p.m.

“I don't know if $34 billion for a government pipeline is inflationary. The government didn't have to spend public money. I wish the government got out of the way and let companies spend their own money to build pipelines instead.”

Bob Zimmer

Conservative 12:25 p.m.

“You've been in power for 11 years and the Northwest Territories keeps going into recession. You're not fixing it, you're just turning 30% into a park. Is the Northwest Territories in recession right now, yes or no?”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, I just want to bring up to the member across the way that his government has been in power for the last 11 years, and the Northwest Territories should be one of the powerful cylinders in our economic engine, but it is seriously misfiring. The Northwest Territories was in a recession in six of the years since the Liberals formed government: 2016, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2025, after job-killing Liberal policies were enacted by the previous prime minister and the current Prime Minister. The current Prime Minister does not seem to be wanting to fix it either. He just turned 30% of the Northwest Territories into a park. My question for the member is this: Is the Northwest Territories in recession, yes or no?

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Bob Zimmer

Conservative 12:25 p.m.

“You're changing the subject. I don't want to talk about what you asked.”

Rhonda Kirkland

Conservative 12:40 p.m.

“My opponent is wrong. Everything is bad. People are struggling. I don't like my opponent's attitude. People in my riding have problems.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, it is a wonder the way the member is talking, making it sound as though everything is just fine and there is nothing to see here. He suggests that our government is doing all the things and that everyone is getting everything they need. It is more gaslighting from a narcissistic partner than I have ever heard in my life. The member clearly is not living in the real world. Perhaps he needs to come down from the clouds and talk to constituents in his riding. I know it has been a while, maybe, since he was there. I am pretty sure he does not live there anymore. Perhaps he should talk to them and to folks in Whitby, Clarington and Oshawa about what they are really struggling with, because the day-to-day reality is harder than what he is gaslighting them to make them think it is.

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Rhonda Kirkland

Conservative 12:40 p.m.

“I don't want to apologize. I want to insist I did nothing wrong. I'm going to change the subject to praising myself instead.”

Rhonda Kirkland

Conservative 12:40 p.m.

“I take back the word 'lie'. But I still think it's wrong.”

Grant Jackson

Conservative 12:55 p.m.

“I don't like when the government says mean things about me. It makes me sad. It's not fair. More people are using food banks. Food prices are high. People can't buy houses. I think the government caused all these problems.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, there are a few disturbing comments on the record already, unfortunately, early this Monday, from the government whip and the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader. I find it very unfortunate that they continue to accuse Conservatives of hating Canada. I love this country, and the member for Winnipeg North knows that. I find it very disturbing that he continues to accuse us of rightfully calling out the government where it has failed over the last 11 years. There are more Canadians at food banks than ever before, including educated Canadians with post-secondary degrees, more than ever, lining up at food banks because their jobs do not pay them enough to pay for the increase in food prices under the Liberals. There are more Canadians under 35 out of the housing market than ever before. What exactly is it that the Liberals think they have to be so proud of?

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Jacques Gourde

Conservative 1:15 p.m.

“I'm just asking this question so I can score political points and make the government look bad in front of my colleague's constituents.”

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