Official Hansard
Madam Speaker, I send my regards to my colleague from Whitby, whom I have not seen in a while, and to you as well. You know how much I enjoy speaking when you are in the chair, especially since you are often the only person who listens to me, along with my Bloc Québécois colleagues. I doubly appreciate it. I did not want to start a debate on that, though, so I will start my speech over again and give back the 30 seconds I lost saying those things. We need to take this seriously. It is an opposition day. As I said recently in the House, there are 343 members of Parliament—though there are a few vacant seats—and I do not think there is anyone in the House who is not concerned about the cost of living. I think that is important. When we visit our ridings, we see that people are concerned about the rising cost of groceries and transportation. There is also the anxiety and fear of what may lie ahead. The Bank of Canada is talking about raising interest rates. That means higher mortgage rates. There is talk of increasing bond rates, which will also have an impact on fixed rates. People are not just worried about the cost of living and the price of gas at the pump today. People who are budget conscious and are stretched increasingly thin are worried about the impact in the medium term. This is a big problem, because a situation that we thought was temporary, with the Strait of Hormuz and the war in Ukraine, seems to be becoming permanent. I have said this to a number of colleagues here, and I have also discussed it with the Minister of Finance and National Revenue: The least wealthy 20% of Quebeckers and Canadians must be foremost in our minds. We know that 80% of people have seen a significant increase in their purchasing power in recent years. We tend to forget that. People generally feel that they deserve pay raises, but do not deserve higher costs. The fact remains that some people have experienced a real increase in their purchasing power. Meanwhile, 20% of people have not seen their purchasing power grow. For those people, the slightest increase in the cost of meat, gas and utility bills hits hard. That is why I think we should vote in favour of this motion. Why do I think that? It is because the Prime Minister who took over the reins of government told us that Canadians could judge him by the prices at the grocery store. I am not the one saying that. Quite frankly, I would never have said something like that during an election campaign. I would never have made such a statement, but the Prime Minister did. Perhaps he has some kind of superpower the rest of us do not have over food prices, which are set on the Chicago Board of Trade. I do not know what superpowers the Prime Minister may have, but he said it. Now, the preamble to the motion does take a simplified view of the situation. We acknowledge that. It is a Conservative motion. If we are ever going to vote for a Conservative motion, we will have to accept some oversimplification, which I will discuss later on. However, I think that politely asking the Prime Minister to spend a little time here in Parliament and in committee, to pay a little attention to the parliamentary process and to come and speak about the cost of living, might not be such a bad thing. As I said, ever since the Prime Minister took office, we do not really know what is going on at the Department of Finance anymore. We do not know who is truly making the decisions or where the initiative is coming from. In committee, the Minister of Finance does not answer our questions. He shows up with infographics, pages covered in little coloured bubbles, and says, for example, that ordinary people can do the math on the excise tax cuts using a paper and pen. The Prime Minister has expertise in economics. He knows the impact of taxes. He knows how these things are calculated. He has a background in economics. Perhaps that could compensate for those economic areas where the Minister of Finance is lacking. That might help increase the quality of debate at the Standing Committee on Finance. We would be remiss in not having the Prime Minister appear before the committee. It is a sound idea. I think the Prime Minister would like that. He is a great communicator. He is someone who has learned over time to communicate, sometimes directly with the public. However, he needs to learn to communicate with parliamentarians, especially since there are legitimate concerns. For instance, the motion refers to debt and government spending. When the Prime Minister arrived, when he first decided to take that position, the first step was to convince people that this was a new government, but it depends on how one defines a new government. A few seats changed hands, and there are a few new ministers. The truth is that the Trudeau government had been in office for nearly a decade, a decade during which we can all agree that fiscal restraint was not a priority. The Prime Minister therefore decided that there was not much he could do about that. He was in a tough situation. His hands were tied. On top of that, he arrived in the midst of a crisis. The Prime Minister decided he would cover up the problem by inventing an investment concept that the Parliamentary Budget Officer does not understand and that CPA Canada was unable to explain to us in committee. Despite what the government says, this is not at all in line with what is being done in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has a unitary government, whereas here we have health transfers. When Quebec uses a transfer from Ottawa to build a hospital, who does the infrastructure belong to? Does it fall under Quebec’s infrastructure plan or is it an investment expenditure by Ottawa? Is it counted twice? Brushing problems aside or redefining them to sweep them under the rug does not get rid of the dust that is under there. I think that the Prime Minister needs to explain that decision. Why is the government classifying tax credits as investments, as tax expenditures? That is not done anywhere else in the world. To my mind, investments normally refer to assets that appear on a balance sheet: concrete, buildings, hospitals. Ottawa owns 2% of all capital, of all public infrastructure in Canada. That 2% comes from the investment advisory council set up by then finance minister Bill Morneau. It was tabled in committee. That means there are no federal investments. The few federal investments that do exist are already accounted for in private sector accounting. Some of our colleagues come from the business world. Airports, which the government is seeking to privatize, along with ports and many Crown corporations, are already accounted for elsewhere. That means they cannot simply be folded into the government’s figures through creative accounting. When a government’s response to a problem is to obscure it, redefine it and deny its existence rather than resolve it, I think that raises a number of questions. As I said, CPA Canada representatives appeared before the committee. This is the organization that people look to for expertise on tax rules and definitions of what constitutes an investment in Canada. When I asked the CPA Canada representatives if they considered this to be an investment, things got pretty awkward. Sometimes, the people who appear before the committee do not want to upset the government, but they did not have an answer. The Minister of Finance does not have an answer. All they can say is that a written response will be provided to the committee. Now, the motion oversimplifies a few things. Is it true that federal government spending caused inflation? I think the House should know that this is not an entirely accurate interpretation of reality. Our GDP is below its potential. In other words, we could produce more without creating inflation or inflationary pressure. Our unemployment rate is above what is known as the “natural” rate. In other words, we could have economic growth and reduce unemployment without creating inflation. We know very well that, in a situation like this, government spending does not systematically cause inflation. That is taught in school. Decades and decades of empirical research prove it. However, that does not mean that borrowed money does not carry interest. That does not mean that the government should spend money willy-nilly. That does not mean that it should not have fiscal anchors. That does not mean that it has to spend years saying it is keeping an eye on the debt-to-GDP ratio. Now, all of a sudden, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance are blowing through the targets. When targets are not met, they cannot be redefined. They cannot. Obviously, the Conservative motion oversimplifies a few things, but the concerns about the stewardship of public funds are not unreasonable. What the Conservatives are essentially asking is why we do not put questions directly to the Prime Minister, who seems to be making all the decisions himself. It is a bit hard to object to that, especially since the government has decided to forgo certain revenues. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says that we will have to wait and see what the budget says, because certain things could still change. Decisions are going to be made. We will find out next week. Based on the current trajectory, however, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that the deficit expectations will not be met, that the deficit is going to be bigger and that the resulting additional deficit will add up to roughly the same amount as the tax holiday recently granted by the government. The parliamentary debate on that issue just ended, but the government is giving itself two or three weeks to draft a budget, which we know will very likely pass, barring a major upset. Considering all the toing and froing between the two sides of the House, anything could happen in a week, but nothing is expected to happen. Anyway, there was the excise tax, and there were also the tax cuts for the rich over the past few years. The government tells us that it cut income tax rates for the middle class. However, while it lowered them for the first and second tax brackets, the wealthiest people, earning $200,000 to $300,000 a year, pay taxes at the marginal tax rate. I see some puzzled faces. As members know, we have a marginal tax rate. A wealthy person gets the basic exemption and pays a lower rate in the next tax bracket. In the next tax bracket up, they pay a higher rate. The wealthiest fall into every tax bracket. When the government says it is lowering the second bracket, the people who benefit the most are those who make a great deal of money. There are other mechanisms for redistributing wealth. The government is forgoing revenue without achieving the intended redistributive effect on households. Since we have a budget management problem, it is important to redistribute the money to people who have less. Spending is high, but it is not achieving the goal. We could be doing more with the same amount of money, so it is worth asking the Prime Minister some questions, and even asking the Minister of Finance some questions too, if he is willing to answer. Now that is a challenge. The Minister of Finance is very talented when it comes to sidestepping questions, but I think we deserve some answers on this. We also deserve answers on oil subsidies. The last time I checked, oil is not subject to tariffs. It is the sector that has received the best treatment from Donald Trump. It seems that Donald Trump is just as passionate about oil as the Prime Minister is. Why has this industry been getting 90% of the government’s attention for some time now? I was listening to the member for Whitby speak earlier. Before becoming a parliamentary secretary, the member for Whitby was one of the Liberal caucus’ most ardent advocates for combatting global warming. He moved motions about it. He held press conferences with the people who are now suing the government for its inaction on climate change. Someone is paying for these subsidies. The Liberals are counting them as investments. There are people paying for these subsidies. They have an alternative use. If these are indeed investments, there are other types of investments that would be more beneficial for future generations. We deserve some answers about that. The government tells us that it is going to make 15% cuts to all departments, downsize the public service and speed up attrition. At the same time, it is creating Crown corporations. First, there was an agency for defence contracts. That was under Bill C‑31. The government is now introducing Bill C‑40, saying that it will undo everything that Bill C‑31 did. We do not even know what the right system is anymore. Bill C‑40 is going to undo what Bill C‑31 did and create a Crown corporation whose CEO will earn twice as much as the Minister of Finance. We are wondering why the government is doing this. Are there issues of transparency or issues of conflict of interest? Did the Ethics Commissioner ask about it? We do not know. Why not ask him these questions? The Prime Minister is a smart guy. He is known for his intellect. He is capable of answering our questions. I would like to get an answer to that, especially since he keeps cutting public service positions while telling us that AI is going to solve the problem at the Canada Revenue Agency, never mind that AI is making 80% of the errors. Then he goes and creates agencies like this one. Are the staff at these agencies counted as part of the public service? These agencies will of course have staff. Do they count? When he says he has been very successful in reducing the number of public servants, will those be real numbers or not? I asked that question in committee, but we did not get an answer, so I think that still warrants hearing from the Prime Minister. Then there are the provinces’ finances. There are public services. We were talking about the cost of living. People want to be able to afford their groceries. They want to be able to go to work. They want to be able to afford daily essentials, but people also get sick and they want to receive health care too. They want decent hospitals. They want infrastructure. Last year, the Minister of Finance met 50% of the provincial premiers’ requests for infrastructure funding, and he attached all kinds of conditions to it. Receiving health care is important. People continue to get sick even though the federal government does not run the hospital, and those folks need to be taken care of. The conditions need to be scaled back as well. Transfers come with a bunch of conditions attached. The Liberals are saying that there are interprovincial barriers and that they should be doing something other than dealing with regulations, red tape, bureaucracy and so on. They are now saying that they are going to make transfers and that there are going to be two million conditional federal-provincial agreements, each of which will take a whole floor of public servants to manage. Is that not the opposite of the approach preferred by the Prime Minister, who has the heart of a Conservative, and by the Conservatives, who, in many ways, have the hearts of new Liberals? Should we not ask questions about that? We should, because the provinces, Quebec and the federal government are interconnected. That is part of the cost of living. As for seniors, they are now divided into two classes: those aged 65 to 74, and those aged 75 and over who are entitled to more than the others. The long-standing understanding has been that, when people plan for retirement, everyone begins receiving OAS at age 65. By the way, OAS benefits are taxable and subject to the progressive income tax system, as I was explaining to my colleague opposite a few minutes ago. There is therefore an element of fairness and targeting at play. How is it that the government has money for the excise tax but it suddenly does not have the same amount of money to give to Quebec seniors? These are questions that must be answered. The same can be said of fiscal anchors. When a government is first elected, it promises fiscal discipline, but when its fiscal anchor no longer suits its purposes, it simply changes the anchor. Why? I looked up the definition of “anchor” in the dictionary. It is something that is supposed to be solid, otherwise the ship would run aground. A fiscal anchor is not meant to be changed with every budget. That is what the Parliamentary Budget Officer lambasted the government for. She says that we need to pay attention to the debt situation overall, not just to the deficit as defined by the Prime Minister. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, over the next five years, cumulative deficits are projected to total $333.3 billion, while the debt will increase by $732.9 billion. That is more than double. We need to ask questions about that. We need to challenge the investment expenditures. Are they really investments? Incidentally, Ottawa does not have an infrastructure plan, unlike the provinces, which follow proper accounting rules. Ottawa tells us that these are investments, but there are no assets backing the liabilities. There is no annual depreciation of those assets. It is all a fiction. Quebec actually records the money it deposits into the generations fund as an expense. In other words, Quebec sets aside cash in a fund for the benefit of future generations and accounts for it as an expense. Ottawa, on the other hand, records spending as an investment when there is in fact no investment. That raises questions. The Parliamentary Budget Officer tells us that, in five years’ time, by 2031, the debt-to-GDP ratio is going to rise from 40.8% to 42.6%. That is just the federal debt. Canada’s public debt includes provincial and municipal debts as well. When the Liberals compare themselves to the G7, they compare Canada’s federal debt to the debt levels of unitary states and announce that things are just fine. On that note, I want to say that the government has had an obsession with the G7 for the past year and a half. The G7 is all it thinks about. G7 countries have high-speed trains, so it wants them too. G7 countries have this, G7 countries have that. It seems to be stuck on the G7, or maybe its G7 key is stuck—I will work on that and ask for a correction to the blues later. Who is this government comparing itself to? Perhaps it is comparing itself to France. How are things going in France when it comes to the cost of living? How are things in France? Perhaps it is comparing itself to the United States, which is part of the G7. The debt situation in the United States is great. Perhaps it is comparing itself to the United Kingdom. Are things going well in the U.K.? Is that an example to follow? Let us keep looking. It is comparing itself to Japan, where the savings behaviour and public debt ownership are primarily Japanese, and there have been significant problems with public debt and demographics for years. It is comparing itself to Japan. The Liberals point to the G7 to argue that things are going well in Canada and in Germany. The questions being asked about the trajectory of public debt in Canada and the questions that the Conservatives want to ask are legitimate. Those questions deserve answers. If the Prime Minister disagrees, he can say so. In the last minute of speaking time I have left, I would like to return to what our priority should be. A budget is coming, and our priority should be the people who are at risk of losing their jobs today. The government has announced a $9-billion fund for Ontario’s steel industry, yet not a single penny has been set aside for Quebec. Where is the fairness in that? There are steel mills in Quebec, but they are not getting a single penny. We need to protect those jobs, too. The 20% of households that will be hit hardest may find themselves unable to buy school supplies for their children when food prices rise by even half a percentage point. We need to look after these people. We need to increase the Canada groceries and essentials benefit. We need to look after them. The Liberals know that their suspension of the excise tax is set to expire early next year. They need to prepare for it. They must keep in mind the people I have just spoken about. If the Prime Minister keeps these people in mind, rather than business leaders, then I am confident he will agree to appear before the committee and work constructively with us and the rest of the opposition.
