Pat Kelly · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

Spring Economic Update 2026 Implementation Act

2026-05-01

“Madam Speaker, our economy is still worse off under this government compared to when we left it under past prime ministers in 2015. I don't like pointing that out. You're just clinging onto that one AAA credit rating to measure yourself. I think other measurements show that the economy is still bad under this government.”

“Madam Speaker, I only had 10 minutes. I am glad I got the chance to speak. The tariffs are bad. The government said they had the answers but they don't. They promised a deal by last July but it didn't happen. There is no progress. I don't know what the Liberals' plan is. They seem to think slogans will solve the problem.”

“I want to call out slippery accounting. They talk about a 10% debt-to-GDP ratio but that's trickery. It pretends we could use the entire Canada pension plan to pay off debts. I want to criticize the Liberals for being in office for 11 years and not building the port of Montreal like they promised in 2015.”

“I want to complain about the budget. I think it has too much debt and spending. The government should spend less money. I want the government to build pipelines and highways, not a wealth fund or other projects. The government is doing it wrong.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, let us make no mistake, this is another Liberal costly credit card budget. This budget has record debt, record debt service charges and record spending. This is just more of the same failed approach we have seen for the last 10 and a half years since the government came into power and inherited a balanced budget. This is a failed approach that is continuing to fail. We have a deficit now on this budget of $67 billion. That is double the budget that was projected in the last Trudeau budget for this year. Does everybody remember what happened then? That was when the Liberals were going to table a budget of $30 billion for the deficit for this year, and that deficit then was considered so big and so bad that Chrystia Freeland resigned rather than table it. Do members remember that day? I was in the lock-up that day. It was pure chaos. Nobody even knew whether the budget was going to be tabled or not. Nobody would sign it. When it was dropped, it had no signature. There was no minister, and nobody was willing to take responsibility for even a $30‑billion deficit projected in this year. It precipitated the eventual resignation of Trudeau. Here we are a year and a half later, and the Liberals are tabling a budget that is twice as bad as that one, which was so bad it brought down a finance minister and a prime minister. They turned to the guy who was supposed to be the adult, who was supposed to have the credentials and be the experienced person who knew that money did not grow on trees, that we could not borrow our way to prosperity and that money borrowed eventually had to be repaid. Everybody thought that was the guy they had gone to. Here we are at $67 billion. That is double the deficit that was so bad a year and a half ago that it brought down a prime minister. This budget is going to begin to squeeze out other spending. The fastest-growing item in this budget and in the projections is debt service. The current expenditure on debt service is $57.8 billion. This is money that is not being spent on health transfers, on old age security and on building, buying and procuring submarines, which is something the Liberals have not done yet. It is the fastest-growing part, and it is going to go to $80 billion in the short-term horizon that this budget covers. We also see debt growing through accounting trickery, because the Liberals are going to borrow $25 billion to fund this so-called wealth fund. It is right there, buried in an appendix at the back. They are going to borrow this money, which is a charge against the consolidated revenue of Canada. It has to be paid, but they offset it and pay it as an offsetting asset, which will not be generating money to repay the debt, and certainly not anytime soon, if ever. The debt is actually getting worse than even the deficit number would state because of this wealth fund that the Liberals have created, so let us talk about an exercise in announce-ology. We heard the previous speaker talk about building Canada. Yes, we need to build in Canada. There are so many things that need to be built in this country. We need a strong Canada. Everybody in the House wants a strong Canada. Every Canadian wants their country to be strong, secure, prosperous, stable and peaceful. These are all the things we want, that all Canadians want, but we are not going to get there by just simply borrowing money and declaring that we have a sovereign wealth fund when there is no wealth backing it. That is not going to get us where we need to go. Think of where we were 10 years ago. The Liberals had a balanced budget. The northern gateway pipeline was approved. The Liberals came in here with an approved pipeline and a balanced budget. Enbridge could have built that pipeline, and today it would be pumping out half a million barrels a day into world markets, creating $50 million a day at today's prices in revenue, so $20 billion a year. Think of how much in taxes and provincial royalty we could have, and all of these public goods that would have gone toward building schools, hospitals and public services that Canadians rely on, but they cancelled it. It was literally the first thing they did. Now here they are, having this out-of-body experience, wondering why things have not been built in Canada over the last 10 years and why we have this deficit in infrastructure. They ran in 2015, promising to borrow in the short term in order to build infrastructure that would allow the budget to balance itself, but it did not happen. The deficits happened, and they continue to spiral upward to what we have today, a $67-billion deficit. The opportunity lost and squandered over the last 10 years is devastating, and it has accelerated in the last year and a half since they changed leaders on the other side. The deficit and productivity crisis are getting worse. In fact, we are coming up on the second anniversary of when the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada declared productivity to be a break-glass emergency. We are at the bottom of our peer countries in investment, plants, equipment and intellectual property. These are the things that improve the productivity of our economy and lead to higher wages, so that people can afford the increased cost of living. The Liberals ignored this productivity emergency. They are not building productivity-enhancing infrastructure; they just talk. They create new Crown corporations, funds and bureaucratic structures, but we do not see real, tangible infrastructure investment. The last thing, which they are still talking about, was the Alto project. They say it will cost around $90 billion, but an average cost overrun would take that to about $135 billion, and 12 million people a year, according to McGill University, would ride the thing. Doing the math, it would be probably around $500 a ticket just to service the debt that it would cost to build this thing. That is not nation building, it is pet-project annouce-ology, announcing something that people will feel good about, but has no basis in fact. Why do the Liberals not take that money and twin and build a proper Trans Canada highway? We have seriously dangerous portions of the highway where people are killed regularly. The accidents in northern Ontario are horrific. I come from western Canada, where there are some horrific portions of that highway in B.C. Think of the productivity drag. We have ports that are ranked among the very worst in the world. Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Montreal all need billions of dollars in improvement. These are the kinds of things that would improve the productivity of our country. They announced a wealth fund with the same model as the Infrastructure Bank, which was called a failed industrial policy by the Montreal Economic Institute on Monday. Representatives from the Montreal Economic Institute came to committee and said that the Liberals are doing the same thing. It did not work with the Infrastructure Bank, but instead of winding up the Infrastructure Bank and moving on, they are doubling down and creating a new thing where people who are seeking regulatory relief and self-enrichment or subsidies would lobby the government, and those with the best connections would be chosen by the government. This fund would be politically controlled. Its board would be PMO buddies who would approve the projects that the Prime Minister wants to have approved. The Prime Minister said as much. The Liberals have talked about, “We can give regulatory relief or subsidies to some of these guys, but we are going to want a piece of the action, too”. Think of the kind of language that they are using. Why not use a common-sense approach? Let us repeal all of the bad laws the Liberals have passed over the last 10 years that have been chasing investment out of the country and we will see building and construction of a strong, resilient, sovereign Canadian economy. That is the approach Canadians need, not the approach that benefits rent-seekers and insiders rather than the people of Canada.

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“Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to have a turn after I speak.”

“You said the government is halving the excise tax rate, but really you're just halving the size of the increase. The tax is still going up, just not by as much. Don't try to trick Canadians. Tell the truth - is the tax now going to be as low as it was back in 2017 before you started hiking it up every year?”

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-04-30

“I did explain what the Liberals should and shouldn't do. You're arrogant to tell us what we can oppose or ask about. Opposition days are for opposing bad government policies and proposing alternatives. Question period is for asking important questions. We don't need you to tell us what to ask or which policies to challenge.”

“The government's new fund is not a real sovereign wealth fund. A sovereign wealth fund invests surplus government revenue, but this government has no surplus. This fund will be a Liberal slush fund, borrowing money on the nation's credit card. It's a $25 billion hit on the national credit card. The government should repeal anti-development laws and lower taxes to encourage investment and growth, not create another Liberal slush fund.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, the Liberals' new fund they have announced should never be called a “sovereign wealth fund”. A sovereign wealth fund is a fund that takes surplus government revenue, usually from resource export revenue, and invests that surplus internationally. That is what a sovereign wealth fund, by any normal understanding of the term, means. The government in fact even explicitly compared its new fund to actual sovereign wealth funds, like those found in Norway and Saudi Arabia, but the government has no surplus. It will borrow 100% of the funds to seed its fund, so it is not a sovereign wealth fund at all. It will become a Liberal slush fund that will inevitably become a plaything for the Prime Minister and his Liberal insiders, bought on national credit. The government's own announcement said, “the government will provide $25 billion over 3 years, on a cash basis, to seed the [fund].” Well, the Liberals just tabled an economic statement with a $67-billion deficit, without counting the $8.3 billion the government will need to seed the fund initially, which is in the cash flow statement and does not show up as a balance sheet entry. The Liberals enter this new debt with an offsetting asset that produces nothing, but Canadians will still have to pay the debt borrowed to seed the new fund. The fund is created by new debt to be repaid by Canadians, not created by surpluses invested on behalf of Canadians for their future. This is going to be a $25-billion hit on the national credit card. There is simply no denying this. The government's own announcements and fiscal update confirm it. The government announced, “The Fund will invest in strategic Canadian projects and companies alongside other investors—with a clear objective to achieve commercial returns to build the wealth of Canada.” Well, that sounds wonderful, does it not? Who could be against Canadian projects and investing in companies that deliver commercial returns for the wealth of all Canadians? However, the skilful announcement cannot hide what this really is. The problem is that borrowing money and handing it to politicians and their hand-picked cronies to invest in companies that are chasing preferential regulatory treatment, subsidies and self-enrichment, all done on the nation's credit card, is absolutely the worst possible way to go about building Canada and the wealth of Canadians. The best way to build Canada and the wealth of Canadians is to repeal the laws that the Liberals passed over the last 10 years that have resulted in capital flight from Canada and in economic stagnation. In 2015, the government inherited a balanced budget from the previous government. The New York Times, hardly a Conservative media organ, declared that Canada then had the most prosperous middle class in the world. Homes were affordable for most people. Food was affordable. A pipeline to the west coast was approved. Kinder Morgan was preparing to invest billions of dollars to expand the Trans Mountain west coast pipeline. The TransCanada pipeline project, as it was then called, was doing the preliminary work for an application to build an east coast pipeline. This was what was on the table in 2015. Then the Liberals formed their government in November 2015, and their election promise was to run three years of modest deficits to fund unprecedented investments in national infrastructure, resulting in economic growth that would lead the budget to balance itself. However, the very first thing they did was cancel the existing pipeline approval for the west coast. They did it by a ministerial order before Parliament even met in November 2015. If they had not done that, the west coast pipeline would already be built. Half a million barrels of Canadian oil would be on world markets today. At today's price, that is $50 million a day in Canadian energy exports. That is nearly $20 billion a year at today's prices. Now the Liberals are having a sort of out-of-body experience, wondering why we cannot supply our allies and the world market with energy. Before anyone says, “Wait a minute, Trudeau's gone. All the leave-it-in-the-ground Liberals have been shuffled off to the back row and off to the sides or given cushy diplomatic appointments,” let us not forget, let no one in the House forget that, in 2021, the now Prime Minister appeared at the industry committee and was questioned by the opposition leader. He was asked about that decision to cancel the west coast pipeline, and he said then that it was “the right decision.” These Liberals have been wrong about everything for the past 10 years. Their deficits were not a transformational investment into productivity-enhancing infrastructure construction that allowed the budget to balance itself. Their deficits quickly became structural and have now spiralled ever upward since. It did actually come to a head in the late 2024 session. Does anybody remember what was happening in December 2024? That was when a projected $30-billion deficit for this year was so bad that Chrystia Freeland refused to sign off on it. Do members remember that? Remember when $30 billion was enough for her to resign as the finance minister? Remember the wave of resignations and retirement announcements? Remember when fiscal management finally became the focused issue and finally forced Trudeau out? The man then who was supposed to be this serious, experienced, credentialed, technocratic adult in the room who would restore the health of Canada's finances after nine years of neglect is now doubling down on the state-led, rent-seeking, crony capitalism of the Trudeau years and has doubled that deficit, which was such a crisis for how huge it was at the time. Consider now the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Nine years ago, the government said that this new thing it gleefully announced would transform Canada. Its members said that it would leverage private sector investment and unlock hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment. It was all nonsense. Their press release said that there would be four private dollars invested for every public dollar. Do members remember Bill Morneau? He went even beyond his own announcement and said that it would be $5 to every one dollar, in his speech, where he announced it. Here we are nine years later, with billions of dollars still not invested, no projects done and the real number of leveraged private sector investment is 66¢ on the dollar. Now the current Prime Minister wants to do the same thing with this new fund. I do not have time to explain all the things that are wrong with the Infrastructure Bank. This is the same industrial policy that failed with the Infrastructure Bank. With this system, the government makes rules that kill investment, then sets up an office staffed by the Prime Minister's appointees, cherry-picks which projects it does not want the existing laws of Canada to apply to and then leaves itself free to create whatever future rules or subsidies to force the taxpayer to guarantee the success of whatever project it has chosen. This is what the Prime Minister has more or less admitted himself. All the government needs to do to undo the damage of the past 10 years is to repeal its anti-development laws, rein in its deficits and lower or repeal its taxes and investment will flow. It will flow to its logical conclusion of projects built, jobs created, taxes collected, public services funded, taxes lowered and people free to live in comfort, plenty and freedom. That is why we call on the government to cancel this Liberal slush fund that is being charged to the national credit card. Its approach is not free enterprise; it is state control. It is the approach that always leads to decline, poverty and, eventually, it follows all the way to its logical conclusion: loss of liberty. I call on the government to not proceed with yet another Liberal slush fund.

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“I dislike the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We were told it would bring in five dollars for every taxpayer dollar, but it's actually only bringing in 60 cents. Expert witnesses say it's a failed industrial policy. This new fund will be a boondoggle just like that. Can my friend affirm that? I want [him/her] to criticize the Infrastructure Bank more and say the new fund will fail the same way.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to comment on comparisons that have been made between this new fund and the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We were told by expert witnesses at committee on Monday that the Infrastructure Bank was failed industrial policy and that the fund would be just more of the same. We have heard defence of the Infrastructure Bank. In fact, one of the Liberal members claimed that it was leveraging private sector money. It was promised to do five dollars for every one dollar of public funds. We were also told at the finance committee that there would be about 60¢ of private investment for every dollar. Could the member comment on the failures of the Infrastructure Bank and how they correlate to this new future boondoggle?

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“I say the real debt number is higher. He's comparing a misleading number to make our debt look small. I think his number hides the real size of Canada's debt.”

“The other side's speeches today were full of nonsense. I want to give the member more time to explain why.”

Oral Questions

Finance

2026-04-27

“The other party spent too much. They made it harder to buy a house and food. They should have built more things people need. They built things that waste money. I want to know if they will spend too much again this year.”

“Government spending makes things more expensive. The Liberals spent a lot and now we have more debt and higher prices. The Prime Minister is as bad as Justin Trudeau. Will tomorrow's deficit announcement be even higher than Justin Trudeau's?”