Greg McLean · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-06-02

“You're avoiding the real question. Canada is heading into a recession. Your policies caused this mess. Stop blaming everyone else and tell us what you'll do to fix it.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member on the other side. He gave a speech about what the opposition is doing right now. I am a little dismayed, because I think he needs to speak to what the motion is, which is about the recession that Canada is very clearly heading into now. There are a number of data points we have to give here, but the member has to identify, and probably has to own, quite frankly, some of the policies the government has pushed the country to that have led us to the economic point we are at right now. Would the member please address that as opposed to blaming others, either south of the border or on this side of the House, saying that we are the ones misspeaking on this? The data speaks for itself. The country is in economic decline. Can he tell us what he thinks he should change on the other side of the House in order to arrest that trend?

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Oral Questions

Aerospace Industry

2026-05-28

“I want you to look bad for giving money to your friends. The government should investigate and blame people when this project fails.”

“You sound bad when you dismiss questions about your own spending. That handout smells like corruption. This company took our money and then mocked us for asking? Swing voters won't like that.”

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-05-26

“You think CEOs like us, but they're really investing in the U.S. and Mexico. Our Impact Assessment Act is probably why.”

“I want to regulate more. The government should have more power.”

“You're praising Canada's investment but I want to change the subject to approval delays.”

“I want the minister to admit Shell didn't really invest in Canada.”

“Have investments in Canada's resource sector gone up or down since 2015? I want the minister to give a clear answer.”

“You wasted public money and time on TMX. Now your new pipeline plan is just as slow. You don't get things done.”

“TMX was slow and expensive. I want you to admit that $28 billion is a lot of taxpayer dollars to spend on a pipeline that isn't even new.”

“You say investment is up, so tell me: how long did it take you to build TMX? Did your 'conditions' take too long?”

“I want the minister to admit we need private investment so I can say the government's policies are bad for it.”

Government Orders

Spring Economic Update 2026 Implementation Act

2026-05-25

“The government caused the electricity problem. They're spending money without fixing it. I want them to make a real solution that creates jobs.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it is very important. The government talks about training people, but it does not talk about how that is actually going to fit into the economy. I know the Prime Minister made an announcement while we were not sitting in the House of Commons last week about building our electricity system across Canada. Talking about the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, we know they are going to need those jobs. I think we have to take a good look. As I said earlier, the government has caused the problem with the electricity system in Canada because it inherited a bunch of policy advisers from the Government of Ontario who more or less botched the electricity system in Ontario for a decade. Then they moved to Ottawa and decided to botch it even further. All they seem to be able to do is add a whole bunch of money into the equation whenever those messes seem evident to everybody. We have to make sure we have a real solution here that gets people working and actually gets an electricity system that works for the whole country.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

“The government is losing Canadian jobs to the U.S. The government should fix this. I want the government to tell me how they'll measure success and keep jobs in Canada.”

“You say you're signing a lot of trade deals, but we need to actually pass them and see them work. Show us real results. You know we have a trade problem with the U.S. right now, and it's urgent. I don't care how hard you say you're working -- prove it.”

“I want to criticize the government's economic update. They keep announcing things and spending money, but not accomplishing much. They talk about fiscal discipline, but there is no fiscal discipline. The deficit is still $67 billion, and the debt is $1.4 trillion, but we're actually borrowing almost $2 trillion. The economy is not growing as fast as the US. We need to have a level playing field and transparent rules for investment. The government should take some ideas from us, like spending more on defence and actually getting things done quickly.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from New Tecumseth—Gwillimbury. This has been quite the spring economic statement or spring economic update, whatever the government wants to call it. A lot goes into every financial statement the government puts forward. It seems that there is no shortage of money to keep pouring out, but there is a real lack of fiscal discipline. One thing I did notice about this government over the last six and a half years that I have been here is its ability to announce and announce, as if it is going to continue to do great things. Announcing things, spending money and accomplishing very little seems to be the flavour of the day and that happens all the time here. I want to go through a bunch of things in my speech here. I do not mean to just be critical, so I will also be giving some good feedback on some of the things that work in this budget. First of all, let us talk about what my colleague across the way talked about, all the announcements of the 20 economic and defence partnerships signed in the last year. Partnerships are signatures. I would like to see what really comes out of those at the end of the day. We need to measure these outcomes. These are not just papers we sign. We are not a republic. Our Prime Minister is not a president who gets to write executive orders and say, “This is the way things are.” We are diminishing the role of the House of Commons here. We need to get back to actually doing things in the House of Commons that are good for all Canadians and include the input of people from across this country. I went through the budget. The budget talked about a few things, and I know that the government likes the high-level stuff to start the budget. It talks about the rule of law in Canada. If we had the rule of law in Canada, we would have a very stable investment dynamic right now, which we are clearly missing. This stable, reliable financial system is one that is layered more and more on top of an oligopoly that really benefits from the weight that it maintains and that, of course, the government would like that to be. We need to make sure we have a more diverse economy, a more open economy, an economy where people can see what the rules are and invest accordingly, not just invest when the government says, “Hey, we have some friends here, let us give them some money so they will put some more money into the economy.” That is not the way a modern, democratic country is supposed to run. It also talked about investment attractiveness. Let me tell the House what investment attractiveness would actually mean. It would mean that the pension funds that collect money from Canadians in Canada would actually reinvest that money into Canada. Most of those pension funds invest most of their money offshore and for good reason, because this government has created an economic and investment climate in this country that does not work if we want a return on capital. That return on capital, of course, is competitive with jurisdictions around the world, even to the south of us, where we have a trade partner that is not behaving as if we actually had a trade agreement with them. We have to make sure that we actually stand up against that. The next thing the budget talked about was tax competitiveness, but it was talked about under new business investment. All the current business investment is not taxed efficiently here in Canada. However, the government will give all kinds of tax credits if some new capital is brought into Canada. There is no clear path to what that represents as far as the rule of law going forward is concerned. Then it talked about Canadian resources, which we are proud to stand for on this side of the House. I am sure the members know the numerous entreaties we have made to the Liberal government to make sure we actually have a better resource industry in this country, with more transparency and more ability to get some things done, because the budget did talk about transparency. However, there is no transparency. There is a complete black hole. What are the rules today? What are the rules tomorrow? Continually changing the rules on our resource industry is what holds back investment in our most important part of our economy. I say most important not because I am trying to diminish any of the other parts of the Canadian economy, but because I want to make sure people understand how much those resource industries contribute to Canada, in employment, in taxation and in the balance of payments with our trade partners around the world. It is lopsided how much we actually benefit from the resources we export. We have to make sure that we have a level playing field that says, “Invest here, in this country, in these resources and you will get a return and there will be a line of sight on how that actually turns out for your shareholders and your company.” Now I am going to differ with a few things the government said in this economic statement. It talked about having the second-fastest growing economy in the G7. That is great, but most of those are in Europe. Japan's in a bit of a mix right now. Compared to our neighbour to the south, we are forecast to be growing at 1.5%, and they are at 2.3%. The growth rate in the United States is one and a half times higher than our growth rate. We are not doing that well considering who our nearest neighbour is. We have to take a step back to understand what is happening here. Part of what is happening, of course, is the lack of transparency with respect to what happens to the investments people make in Canada. The government talked about fiscal discipline. Let me contradict it very clearly here: There is no fiscal discipline on that side of the House whatsoever. The Liberals talk about changing from a $78-billion deficit in the fall budget to a $67-billion deficit looking forward in the spring economic statement because of $7.8 billion more in collections from the resource industry. This is how we are making our money. This is how we are getting better. However, no sooner do they see a whole bunch of new revenue coming in from taxation than they decide to spend that in a bunch of other maladjusted ways as far as investing and throwing more money out the door. They can call it an investment, but it is a really bad use of our money. This is not a bottomless pit. Canadians need to make sure that we get back to balance at some point in time. That balance means at least a zero deficit, and hopefully a surplus at some point in time, because we have gotten massively into debt in this country. The government got cute in the spring economic statement and changed its actual fiscal anchor from a net debt to GDP and a declining deficit to a net deficit to GDP. That is because the GDP is not increasing enough. Members would know that when we talk about GDP, we are talking about consumption plus investment, plus government expenditures, plus exports, minus imports, one of which is government expenditures. Government expenditures keep increasing and therefore keep increasing the GDP. The rest of the equation is not holding weight because it is not that investable an economy. We need to do much better in that respect. A $67‑billion deficit is one thing, but $1.4 trillion in debt is the government's book number. Let me explain what that means. The government has borrowed almost $2 trillion. It is paying interest on almost $2 trillion through its various agencies. The difference between $2 trillion and $1.4 trillion is $600 billion, which is in the various accounts at Crown corporations and other borrowing entities, many of which have opaque accounting mechanisms where they are not writing off their debts. Therefore, when the new government comes in, we are going to have to see a massive writeoff of all the debts that the current government has accumulated and has not put on its books at this point in time. That includes things like, of course, the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We pointed out at committee that it had $600 million‑plus in loans to Lion Electric in the first place. We have all kinds of boondoggles like that sitting in several Crown corporations that are part of the government's debt profile. They have to be more transparent. This is something that has to change going forward. On March 27, the Liberals increased the borrowing authority to $2.54 trillion. That tells Canadians where they are going with this. We are going to have an extra half trillion dollars in debt going forward. Congratulations. There is no stopping this train. I need to give the government credit for what it has done with respect to training and for allocating a whole bunch of money to the trades. I am very thankful for that. I would like to thank the government because that is another page from the Conservative book that it took out of our policy manual, having more money put into the trades in this country so that we have better outcomes. For that whole layer of jobs that is unfulfilled at this point in time, we need to make sure we get those technical people trained. I thank the government for putting that in there. Something else I think the Liberals could put on there, if they are thinking about taking something else from our books, is defence. I know they have increased the money for defence. They have increased the salaries. Good for them. Now they are going for another defence procurement agency, a defence bank, and all these things where they are spending money on bureaucrats. Here is what the Liberals need to do. They need to spend money on defence and spend money on actually getting things. The United States has rightly been complaining about how much we have not spent on defence in Canada. They should take another page from our book. In the last election, we talked about getting Iqaluit built as a base. That should be a 90‑day process: Here is the money we need to spend on this and here is where we have to get going. They should act as if there is some urgency here and get some things going. We do not mind sharing these ideas with the government. We need to make some things happen in this country as quickly as possible. I beseech the government to take the good ideas we have presented to it and make them work going forward. There are a whole bunch of other issues here. I would love to keep talking, because there are other things I have to talk about, but I know my time has come to an end.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

“You caused this problem. Now you want credit for fixing it. That's like an arsonist getting to put out their own fire. Stop pretending to be the hero. Let someone else fix it.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the whole issue of a new electricity system across Canada to double our electricity. The thing I like best about this approach is that for years, the government, including this member, who has been here for years, as I have faced her for over six years now, has hobbled our electricity system across this country. Now it is flying in at the last minute saying, “Oh my gosh, we don't have enough electricity in Canada,” because we are actually importing electricity in Canada right now for the first time in decades, as a result of failed policies. It is now coming in as if it is the saviour and saying, “I get to fix this.” Well, if someone is an arsonist, they get to put out the fire. Can I ask the member how she thinks she is going to solve something that she actually helped the government create, as opposed to turning it over to people who actually know how to solve something?

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-05-07

“The Liberals keep saying we shouldn't talk about this. They think Canadians don't understand the issue. As parliamentarians, isn't it our job to discuss issues and get the facts on the table instead of ignoring problems like ostriches?”

Oral Questions

Aerospace Industry

2026-05-07

“The company you gave $20 million to is shady and has Liberal friends. I think this looks bad. I want you to admit this was wrong. I want you to be held responsible for the money you spent.”

“I want the minister to explain this suspicious-looking contract. Why are taxpayers paying so much more than the company does? Why backdate it for a year when there wasn't even a lease being discussed? A Liberal insider seeming to cash out after implies corruption. It looks like a scam that helps friends of the government while leaving taxpayers holding the bag.”