Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Riding Mountain. On April 28, the Minister of Finance proudly tabled his economic update. He talked about “Canada Strong”. He repeats that line every week in the House. The 167‑page update includes billions of dollars in spending, $25 billion for a sovereign debt fund, strategies, programs and announcements on top of announcements. In Parliament, the government was talking about ambition. Meanwhile, on April 28, people in Baie‑Saint‑Paul, Saint‑Hilarion, Beaupré, Boischatel, L’Isle‑aux‑Coudres, Île d’Orléans and in Montmorency—Charlevoix were going about their daily lives. Families were worried about their grocery bills. Young couples were holding off on buying their first home. Seniors were counting down the days until their next pension cheque. Workers were wondering how they were going to be able to pay their mortgage at the end of the month. These are the two realities that we are facing here in Canada in 2026. In Ottawa, the government talks to us about billions of dollars; in Quebec, however, people talk to us about dollars. I am rising today to make a connection between these two realities. To hear the Liberals talk in the House, it seems like all is well, yet Canadians know the truth, because they live with it daily. They go to the grocery store and see that things are more expensive. They go to the gas station and gas seems a lot more expensive too. When the time comes to pay their rent, mortgage or credit card, they see that something is wrong. I would like to talk about credit card budgets. The government talks about discipline, caution and responsibility, but let us look at the facts through the eyes of an an impartial third party. Claude Lavoie is not a Conservative. He was director-general of economic studies at Finance Canada. He said this: It’s not that the GDP is doing better. It’s more that we took in more revenue [including from gas taxes, because gas is expensive, so it brings in more money] and spent a little less by deferring certain expenses. In other words, the programs that were announced were not delivered, the money was not spent and people were taxed more. Now, the government is telling us that public finances have been carefully managed and that it has kept its promises. No, the government did not keep its promises at all. Not only did it not spend the money, but it imposed more taxes. It is also important to note that the Liberals are projecting an average deficit of $55 billion over five years. Things are not going well when it comes to taxation. The Conservatives are calling this a credit card budget. Basically, the government is paying the bills with the national credit card. Then, Canadians are forced to pay their bills with their own personal credit cards. That is why everything costs more. It is because when the Liberals spend without any limit, prices, interest rates and mortgages all go up and families get poorer. Today, the interest on the debt costs more than all of the health transfers to all the provinces. We were talking about health transfers. The interest on the debt costs more than all of that. Imagine. Every dollar people spend on federal taxes when they make a purchase goes toward paying bankers and bondholders. It does not go toward paying doctors and nurses, let alone supporting patients. Meanwhile, Canadians are skipping meals. There are parents who work full time. Some even work overtime, like Kevin, who called me this week to talk about his situation. He even shared his story with QUB Radio through tears. That is the reality for hard-working citizens who can no longer make ends meet. It is not that these people are not putting in the resources, the work or the effort. It is that they simply can no longer survive under Liberal rule, which takes everything from them. There are seniors living on $2,000 a month. How is anyone supposed to get by on $2,000 a month? The Prime Minister told us that affordability is the best it has ever been, but people do not live in press releases. They live in the real world. I would like to discuss something else that was announced: the sovereign debt fund. Despite inflation and the cost of living crisis, the government found a way to borrow $25 billion to create a gimmicky sovereign debt fund. The government talks about Norway and says that it will follow the Norwegians’ approach. It cannot be serious. Norway built its sovereign wealth fund by developing its resources and became wealthy by selling these resources. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is worth $3.5 trillion Canadian. It achieved this by developing its resources, not by going into debt and borrowing money. What is the Canadian government doing? Instead of using surpluses, it is taking on more debt to create the illusion of a sovereign wealth fund when that is not what it actually is. Basically, it is as if our neighbour boasted about opening up a savings account and depositing money into it but failed to mention that he used his credit card for the deposit. Ultimately, it is not a terrible idea, although what is most concerning is that the government refuses to even say how much this fund is going to cost per year. It is the flagship measure in its economic announcement, its economic update, but it refuses to say what the real annual cost will be. When a government refuses to say how much its key measure will cost, that is not transparency; it is a warning about what is to come. It shows what Canadians are going to experience in the coming years. While the government is asking people to tighten their belts and telling young people to make sacrifices, we are seeing money fly off in every direction. The government is investing at least $90 billion in Alto, a high-speed train project that the Minister of Finance recused himself from, or at least, he was supposed to. After 18 hours of Liberal monologues, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics was finally able to call the minister to answer questions. The government is investing close to $1 billion in the program to confiscate legal, registered guns. The government is going to spend nearly $1 billion to take those guns away, when they are clearly not the problem. The government spends $20 billion a year on outside consultants. It has hired 100,000 public servants over the past 10 years, and yet it still has to spend more than $20 billion a year on consultants. It has spent $65 billion on bureaucracy, which just keeps expanding. It spent $42 million in just one year on the Major Projects Office, which has not recommended a single project since it was created. Meanwhile, Canadian families are still having to choose between paying for groceries, paying the rent and putting gas in their cars. That is why the priority really lies elsewhere for the Conservatives. Our priority is to put money back in the pockets of Canadians, not in the pockets of consultants, not in the pockets of well-connected insiders and not in the coffers of poorly managed megaprojects. We want to put money back in the pockets of Canadians. I mentioned mismanaged projects. One that comes to mind straightaway is Cúram. Cúram is the latest chapter in an ongoing saga. In fact, we have not talked about it enough, and it needs to be discussed. It was in the budget. It is a computer system that was supposed to modernize pension payments, but what actually happened was that tens of thousands of seniors did not receive their cheques. These are people who worked all their lives, paid their taxes and trusted the government. What did the government do? In its economic update, with the trust of Canadians, it threw another $473 million at this fiasco. The total cost of creating this software was estimated at $1.75 billion, yet it has apparently surpassed $7 billion. That is what we are learning, because we are finding out more every day. The cost increased by 277%, for a cost overrun of $5.25 billion. That is what the Liberals’ idea of sound and effective management of public finances. It gets even worse. It might seem like this must be the end, but it is not, because there was also an internal memo forbidding public servants from telling seniors who were not receiving their cheques that the problem was caused by the new software. Two days after the economic update was released and the additional $473 million thrown at this fiasco was discovered, the government used its majority to block the opposition’s requests for parliamentary documents. Every day when a sitting of the House of Commons opens, the Speaker stands up and says, “Let the doors be opened”. Basically, the Speaker is telling the citizens to enter the people’s House. However, when opposition parties ask questions, those doors close. That is not transparency. That is certainly not accountability. I would, however, like to mention one good thing about the economic update, and that is sport. When something good is being done, we should be able to acknowledge it. The investments in amateur sport and sports federations are excellent news. It is too bad that we cannot vote on just one measure, because everyone agrees with that one. That is not a Conservative or Liberal point of view, but a Canadian point of view. The investments in sport and physical activity are good investments. That said, this measure is aimed primarily at the young people, families and volunteers who spend their evenings at rinks and fields. I look forward to seeing how direct support will be delivered to our teams on the ground. People can trust me because I am able to point out what is being done right. I am not just being partisan when I make a judgment and say that bad things are happening. Our role is not just to criticize or oppose; it is also to put forward proposals. Conservatives believe that a government should live by the same rules as Canadian families. When money is tight, choices have to be made. The government should cut waste, reduce unnecessary spending and respect workers’ money, because every dollar spent comes out of taxpayers’ pockets, and that needs to be respected. I will conclude on that note. The government needs to cut spending on consultants, trim the bureaucracy, put an end to mismanaged projects, cut waste and stop interfering in areas of provincial jurisdiction. The government also needs to excel in the few areas where the Canadian federation requires its involvement, namely borders, the armed forces, the justice system, a strong dollar and strong interprovincial trade. This is what we should be focusing on to ensure that our constituents live in a prosperous country and feel that that is their reality.
