Hon. Pierre Poilievre · TranslatePolitics.ca

Oral Questions

The Economy

2026-06-03

“I want the Prime Minister to answer my question about the shrinking economy. Canadians deserve real answers. Are we in a recession or not?”

“You said no to that request. I'll make you say no again to this one. Are we in a recession or a technical recession?”

“Canada has the worst economy in the G20. I want the Prime Minister to admit how badly he's failed.”

Oral Questions

The Economy

2026-06-02

“That makes me sad. People are struggling. I want you to blame the Prime Minister.”

“I am attacking you. I want you to feel guilty. I think you caused a recession. I'm going to make you look bad by talking about people who are hurt by it.”

“I want to blame the government for a recession. Other countries have problems too but they're not in a recession. The Prime Minister is making excuses.”

“I want to blame the Prime Minister. The economy is bad and he's making excuses. Mexico is doing better. The Prime Minister says it's because we don't have enough immigrants. He thinks our economy per person isn't so bad. But the economy per person only went up 0.2%. That's nothing to celebrate.”

“Look, Canada's the only G7 country in a recession. We're falling behind and you're skipping question period. All you have are excuses, like trying to claim investment is up. Investment's down for the fifth quarter in a row! I think you're just making things up now.”

“You're making weak excuses for Canada being the only G7 country in recession. Blaming it on low immigration and bragging about 0.2% per capita GDP growth won't cut it. Stop avoiding responsibility and give real answers.”

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-06-02

“The other party's actions have caused a recession. Many Canadians don't have enough food. Food banks are running out. Think of the real people harmed by this. If the Prime Minister cared, he would answer a question about it.”

Official Hansard

Yes, Mr. Speaker, this is the human cost of the Liberal recession. Canadians cannot afford to eat. In fact, yesterday's report demonstrated that about 25% of Canadians are food-insecure and 25% of food banks at some point last year actually ran out of food. Imagine being that single mother at the checkout, her bank account empties and when she tries to pay with her debit card, it is rejected. She looks at the lineup of people who all just saw her get rejected. She gets into her car humiliated, makes her way to the food bank and it is empty. What does she do now? Liberals say that this is just a technical recession. I ask them to look that mother in the eye and say that her children's hunger is technical. There is nothing technical about it. There are real human costs for the Liberal government's failures, and if the Prime Minister cared at all about those costs and the people paying them, he would come into the House of Commons and answer a question about it, for once.

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“I want to say the other party steals our ideas. But they don't use them. They only talk about it. They spend and borrow too much. They add rules that make it hard to build things. They say they will change but don't. I wish they would use our ideas for real.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I would love to say that the Liberals have stolen our ideas. They have done so in words, but not in action. They have not put those ideas into practice. Over the Liberals' 10 years in government, they have increased the cost of government, doubled the national debt, expanded the bureaucracy and public spending, and blocked the development of our natural resources. In the last election, they promised to turn things around, but nothing has happened. It was nothing more than an illusion. The Liberal Prime Minister has kept all the anti-development laws in place. He has doubled Justin Trudeau's deficit. He has increased the cost of the bureaucracy. The government now accounts for a larger share of the economy than at any time in the past 30 years. All the anti-development taxes are still in place. I wish the Liberals would actually implement the ideas they steal from us, not just pay lip service to them.

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“I think Canadians are tough. They endure our government's bad results. I want the economy to lead the G7 in good ways, not bad ways. I don't like our government leading in household debt, expensive housing, and fast-rising food costs. I don't like our government having the first economy in recession.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the member asked two questions. Do I have anything positive to say about Canada? I have plenty of positive things to say about Canada, particularly the resilience of the Canadian people who, because of their hardiness, are able to endure the punishment that the Liberal government continues to mete out. Do I have anything to say about the growth that the government claims the economy is going to lead on? I cannot say anything about that because the government and the economy it leads are not leading the G7 in any metric, other than the most household debt, the most expensive housing and the fastest-increasing food costs. In all of those areas, the economy is leading under the Liberal government and, of course, the first economy to go into a recession. That is not the type of leadership we want for our economy.

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“Canada is the only G7 country in recession. The Prime Minister won't talk about it. He finally spoke today but made excuses. He said it was only a technical recession. There's no such thing. Two quarters of shrinking is a recession. He said we can't just look at one thing. Okay, let's look at more: 112,000 jobs lost, 45,000 more unemployed since he took office, second-highest unemployment in the G7. It's because of his policies. We need to cut taxes, red tape, spending. Conservatives will fix this.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, on Friday morning, we learned that Canada is the only G7 country in a recession. This is the topic the member for Edmonton West will address, as I will be sharing my time with him. As he will explain, we are the only G7 country in a recession. For the past five days, we have been waiting for a response from the Prime Minister, a man who has portrayed himself as a brilliant economist and crisis manager. For five days, we have been in crisis due to the revelation that our economy is the only one in decline, for two consecutive quarters. We are the only country in North America that is in a recession. What does the Prime Minister have to say about this? First, he said nothing. It took four days before he spoke to reporters. Last night, he approached a reporter. He thought she might ask him a nice question, perhaps give him a compliment. He was very happy. When she got to the microphone, the reporter asked him a question about the recession. Suddenly, he was unable to speak. He turned around and dodged the question. That is quite a response from a great economist. This morning, we asked him the question: Is Canada in a recession? He did not answer, other than to say that the economy is weak. Yes, it is weak. It is not the biggest and fastest-growing economy in the G7, as he had promised. It is a weak economy. Then he started making up excuses. Today, we are going to deal with the excuses that the Prime Minister is coming up with to justify having the only recession in the G7. Today, he says it is purely accidental and that if we take a closer look at the data, we will see that the investment component of GDP is up. Let us look at the report that Statistics Canada released on May 29, 2026. What does it say about investment? Allow me to quote a line from that report: Business capital investment fell 0.7% in the first quarter of 2026, the fifth consecutive quarterly decline. Investment has been down for five straight quarters. One of the causes of this recession is the dearth of investment. Based on the numbers since this Prime Minister took office, there has been a net decline of $20 billion in investment. In fact, we have the worst investment numbers in the G7, and we can see that the only economic aspects that went up last quarter are government spending and consumption, not investment. The Liberals' second excuse is that this is just a technical recession. There is no such thing as a technical recession. Two consecutive quarters of negative growth is, by definition, a recession. The Liberals and their friends say we cannot just look at a single data point, so, okay, let us look at more data points. In the first three months of this year, 112,000 jobs were lost. The net number of jobs lost since the Prime Minister took office a year ago is 45,000. Canada's unemployment rate is the second-highest in the G7. It is one-third higher than in the United States. The economy contracted in three of the last four quarters since the Prime Minister came to power. Our economy has bled more than $20 billion in net investment. A total of $109 billion drained out of the Canadian economy, and only $89 billion flowed in. Most of that foreign investment has been used by foreign corporations to take control of Canadian businesses. There has been no real, material investment. Canada has by far the highest level of household debt in the G7. This may be why Equifax reported that the number of insolvency cases had reached levels not seen since 2019, with a 19% increase over the previous year. In fact, 1.5 million Canadians missed a minimum payment on their debts. The mortgage delinquency rate rose by 32% compared to the previous year. When we look at the numbers in Canada, it is clear that we are in a recession because of the Liberal policies that have been imposed. No, they cannot use the usual excuse of tariffs or global factors. Every other country in the world is facing these challenges, but no other G7 country except Canada is in a recession. Mexico is part of North America and shares a border with the United States, but it is not in a recession. Canada is the only one in a recession. That is why we need to reverse the Liberal policies that caused the recession. The recession was caused by taxes, anti-development laws, government red tape and the doubling of the deficit. We, the Conservatives, are proposing to cut taxes on labour, energy, investment and housing construction. To reduce the cost and size of government, we are proposing to cut red tape, consultants, business support, foreign aid, handouts for bogus refugees and so on. The free enterprise system will enable us to grow our economy and cut costs. That is a real solution and that is what we are proposing today. I rise today to address the news from Friday that Canada is the only G7 country in a recession. Five days have gone by, and the Prime Minister has not bothered to answer a single question in the House of Commons addressing this terrible news. He said he was a man with a plan, a guy who could handle a crisis, and yet for four days, he would not even take media questions on the fact that Canada was the only G7 country in a recession. Yesterday, while walking out from a speech, a journalist called him over. He had a big smile on his face, expecting that the media was going to again throw rose petals at him. When he arrived and found that the question was about the recession, he said oh, ah, and he turned around and walked away, that being his first response after four days of learning that Canada is in a recession, the only country in the G7 in a recession. Today, he finally took a few questions from the media but refused to answer whether we were in a recession. He did make a number of excuses. He claimed that it was just that some aspects of GDP shrunk. In reality, he said, investment, is up. What does Statistics Canada say about that? The report that broke the news of the recession said, “Business capital investment fell 0.7% in the first quarter of 2026, the fifth consecutive quarterly decline.” It is not true, Mr. Prime Minister, that investment is up. In fact, the only things that were up were government spending and consumption, meaning that Canadians had to spend more just to survive. The things one would want to be up, like the net exports, were down. We have a trade deficit. Investment was also down. He went on to claim that, in fact, it was just a technical recession. In what sense is it technical? The textbook definition of a recession is two back-to-back quarters of negative growth. That definition is met. Liberals then say, as the Prime Minister said today, that we cannot focus just on one thing. I agree. Let us focus on the other data points. In the first three months of the year, 112,000 jobs were lost. Since the Prime Minister took office, on a net basis, there are 45,000 more Canadians unemployed. We have the second-highest unemployment in the G7, a third higher than in the United States. Of the last four quarters under the Prime Minister, the economy has shrunk in three of them. Business investment is down 0.7%. Over $20 billion of net investment has fled since he took office. Equifax reported that insolvency rates have increased to levels not seen since 2009, up 19% year over year, and 1.5 million Canadians have missed a debt payment in the first three months of this year alone, with mortgage delinquency rates up 32% year over year. Canada has the biggest household debt load of any country in the G7. The CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto said that one-tenth of Toronto is now eating at a food bank. That is the real cost. This is not technical. Hunger in the bellies of Canadians who cannot pay their bills is not technical. Canadians need a reversal in the Liberal policies, and that is what we are fighting for today. Let us have a strong, affordable and safe Canada.

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Oral Questions

The Economy

2026-06-01

“People are struggling. Food banks are empty. The government is failing families.”

“The Prime Minister is making the economy worse and hiding from questions. Canada is the only G7 country in a recession. He said he would fix a crisis, but he made one instead. The Prime Minister should stop avoiding accountability and answer questions.”

“The economy is bad and it's your fault. Mexico isn't in a recession, only Canada. Lost jobs, high unemployment, worse than the US. Money is leaving Canada, investments are dropping, mortgages are defaulting. All bad since you took over. Why is it only Canada in trouble?”

“Canada's economy is the worst. Why are we the only ones in a recession under this guy's leadership?”

“I want to blame the government for causing a recession. Canada's economy is worse than other countries. People can't pay their mortgage or feed themselves.”

“I want to blame the Prime Minister for Canada being in a recession.”

Statements by Members

Anti-Semitism

2026-05-28

“I'm a father. This makes me sad. We have to do something. Bad people are doing bad things. We can't allow this. I want to look like I care.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to express my outrage and disgust as a father. Fourteen-year-old Esti Biran has been missing for over two weeks, since the autistic girl was last seen with no shoes on. Reportedly, on Friday, an anti-Semite began tearing down the missing person posters because she is Jewish. What kind of sicko would do that? This is a child. It compounds the bullets that have been flying into children's schools, the Molotov cocktails hitting synagogues and the 6,800 anti-Semitic instances, by far a record since the counts began over 40 years ago. We obviously have to take action to protect our Jewish community from this growing scourge of violence and hatred. It all starts with condemning it and stating that we will not put up with it. A person has no place in this country if they are targeting innocent Jewish children because of their heritage, their religion and their race. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have a right to feel safe. They are members of the Canadian family. Each and every one of us has a duty to say that enough is enough. We are standing up for our Jewish friends.

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