Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve more for their money. Hard work should be rewarded here in Canada. Those who get up every morning to go to work and those who are trying to retire after having worked hard their whole lives deserve a good paycheque. However, after 11 years of this Liberal government, the more time passes, the less work is rewarded. A larger share of wages in Canada is being eaten up by inflation. People even have to hand what they earn at work over to the government in the form of very high taxes. However, the government will argue that taxes pay for services. Is that true? Are the services we receive commensurate with the taxes that we pay? The fastest rising-cost under this government is not the cost of services, health care or benefits for children or seniors. It is the cost of the interest payments on our national debt, which will be $60 billion this year. That is more than the government is spending on health transfers, more than it is spending on services, more than the total amount Canadians pay in GST, twice as much as the government is spending on benefits for children and much more than it is spending on our soldiers. What does the interest on the national debt cost a family of four? Five years ago, a family of four had to pay about $2,500 a year in taxes to cover the interest on the national debt. Today, that same family must pay $6,000 in taxes simply to cover the interest on the debt. In four years’ time, that family will be paying $8,000 a year just to service the interest on the debt, not to pay down the debt itself. That makes debt interest the fastest-growing expenditure of all. At the same time, the Prime Minister’s record deficits are driving up the cost of living by fuelling inflation. The debt situation is far worse today than it was a year ago. Canadians were promised a Prime Minister who would be more prudent than Justin Trudeau, but instead he has doubled the deficits. He did so after resorting to creative accounting in the government’s books. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, this Prime Minister plans to add another $733 billion to the national debt over the next five years. That means an additional $40,000 in federal debt for every Canadian family and every household, on top of the $1.3 trillion already owed. Canadians are being crushed by the government’s debt. What are the consequences? More people are turning to food banks. An entire generation is being locked out of home ownership. Fuel prices at the pump are among the highest in the western world. Poverty is on the rise. That has to change. Canadians deserve better. The goal of the official opposition is to save them money, save their jobs, keep them safe, repair and reduce immigration, and put Canada first. That is why we are proposing to invite the Prime Minister to appear before the committee so that he can explain to Canadians how a family is going to pay $6,000 a year in interest on the national debt. It is also so that we can put forward our solutions, such as cutting down on red tape, consultants, corporate welfare, foreign aid, money for bogus refugees and more, in order to reduce the deficit and restore fiscal balance. The size of government must be reduced, along with the burden that government imposes on Canadians. We want to return to a country where everyone who works hard can have a big paycheque that stays in their pocket and where the dollar keeps its value. Greater purchasing power will enable our young people to buy a home, our families to buy food and our seniors to have the excellent retirement that they deserve. That is the Conservatives’ goal. For those reasons, we are calling on all parties to work with us to fulfill and restore the promise of Canada here, at home. Hard work should pay off. When someone puts in a long day’s work and bring home a paycheque, the money should stay in their pocket, and the dollars should retain value. The money should buy affordable food, homes and fuel. People should be able to put their kids in sporting activities that improve their health, their discipline and the quality of life they enjoy. They should be able to retire knowing that the money they saved up will buy them the necessities of life and allow them the freedom to enjoy the years they have earned. That means they should get value for money from the government. When people pay taxes, they expect something in return. Are they getting it? Well, what is the fastest-growing expense in the government’s budget? Is it seniors benefits? Is it health care? Is it the child benefit? Is it police? Is it our military? No, it is none of the above. Under the Prime Minister, for the first time in over two decades, the single biggest expense is interest on the national debt. It is an expense that has more than doubled in the last five years. Now, $60 billion of Canadian tax money goes to bankers and bondholders. That is more than we spend on health care transfers, more than we spend on the military and more than we spend on the child benefit. In fact, it is almost twice as much as we spend on the child benefit. Not only has it gotten worse; it threatens to get worse still. It is up from 10¢ to 13.6¢, almost 14¢, of every dollar the government spends that goes straight to bankers and bondholders for interest. This is the highest share of our budget since 2007. Here is what it means for the average family of four. In 2021, interest on the debt cost it $2,500 a year. Right now it is $6,000 a year, and in four years, under the government’s plan, it will be $8,000 a year. To put it in perspective, we are now spending vastly more on debt interest than we collect in GST. That is right: Every time we make a purchase at a retail outlet and we see that GST on the receipt, we should know that 100% of what we paid is not going to health care or our troops but is going to pay interest on the national debt. The situation, though, I have to say, is not as bad as it seems. It is worse, because the Prime Minister has cooked the books. He has decided that if he divides the debt and deficit up onto three separate credit cards, it will not cost as much. He says that some of the spending is operating cost. Some, he arbitrarily says, is investment. Further sums are for Crown corporations. At the end of the day, it is all money the government has to borrow and on which it has to pay future interest, all of which is a burden on the shoulders of taxpayers. To be clear, what the Prime Minister calls investment is fuzzy, undefined, and based on no generally accepted accounting principle. No other government in the world follows his definitions. It is simply what he picks in order to reduce what he calls his operating budget. Well, even with cooking the books, the Prime Minister has not managed to do that either. The Parliamentary Budget Officer reports that operating spending is up 11% in just over a year, rising well over three times faster than the growth in the population and the overall economy, and the Prime Minister intends to add $733 billion to our national debt over the next five years, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. This works out to $40,000 in new debt for every single family in this country, and to get what? It is bigger lineups at food banks, a generation of youth who cannot afford a home, higher insolvencies, jobs leaving our country and our brightest people moving south. It the biggest increase of any country in the world of people exiting to go to the United States of America. It is “elbows up, Canadians out”. That is a bad result for all those hundreds of billions of dollars of deficit spending. There is a better way. We could restore the value of hard work by cutting bureaucracy, consultants, foreign aid, handouts to fake and phony refugees, and other wasted money in order to bring down debt, inflation and taxes; to make our money worth something; to ensure that our dollars are spent on health care, military, policing and borders, not on bankers and bondholders; and to restore the promise of this country, where anyone who works hard gets a great life on a safe street in a home they own, with meat and potatoes on the dinner table and a wonderful retirement under our proud flag. Let us make it happen.
