“I oppose this budget bill. It continues wasteful spending that increases our national debt. It also creates a new defence agency that gives a minister unchecked power to skip fair bidding rules with no accountability.”

“Madam Speaker, today we are debating the 330-page budget implementation act, no. 2. All I can say is here we go again. This act, which puts in place measures to implement what was announced in the update, is just more of what we have become accustomed to from the Liberal government. The Liberals keep building bureaucracies and spending at speeds never seen before, faster than the previous Trudeau government. Any fiscal room that was generated by higher-than-expected revenues went immediately out the door. For more than a decade, the Liberals have preached that deficit spending will drive the growth in the economy needed to produce good-paying jobs for Canadians. For a government that is desperately trying to convince Canadians it is different and would achieve the results Canadians have been waiting a decade for, the spring economic update proves very little has changed. Every dollar that comes into the economy is another dollar to subsidize itself. The Liberals have caused the regulatory burden in Canada to balloon and suppress innovation and growth. Inaction is a choice. A perfect example of this is the sections in this bill that create the Defence Investment Agency as a stand-alone entity. The powers it is granting to an unnamed minister are broad and sweeping. The exceptions to competitive procurements are vast and can be used as much as the unknown minister chooses. Exceptions are likely to become the norm. No one would argue that defence procurement has been in major need of reform. Onerous rules and layers of bureaucratic processes have only grown. The pace that meets the operational needs of the Canadian Armed Forces has been sorely needed. One could expect that over the 11 years the Liberals have been in power, they would have worked to overhaul and reform the systems and rules around procurement. One could expect it, but they would be wrong. The Liberals’ solution to the bureaucratic bloat seems to be the exact same as it was a year ago. It was in Bill C-5 this time last year that the Liberals claimed they needed extraordinary powers to bypass regulations and roadblocks that got in the way of major projects. They have yet to use any of those powers to designate a project in the national interest to advance our resource development. I do not bring up Bill C-5 to talk about the lack of results from the government on resource development; there are more than enough examples to talk about this elsewhere. I bring it up because it was originally drafted in such a way that would have allowed the government to bypass not only certain acts of Parliament to build projects, but virtually any act of Parliament. Allow me to list a few of the acts it sought the ability to bypass before it was amended at committee: the Access to Information Act, the Canada Labour Code, the Conflict of Interest Act, the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act, the Investment Canada Act and the Lobbying Act just to name a few. The only reason this was prevented at the time was because of the minority government that Canadians had elected. A year later, now we have the same story. Procurement has become slow, costly and unable to deliver the lethality and operational readiness our armed forces need. To give members an idea of the state of operational readiness in our armed forces, we can use the Department of National Defence’s own annual results from 2024-25. Less than 60% of our maritime fleet is serviceable and ready to go out on operations. Only 51% of our land fleets are sitting at the ready and well maintained so troops can use them. Only 42% of our aircraft in the Canadian Armed Forces are ready to serve and have the proper maintenance. That is years of waiting for the government to deliver while rules and processes grew without any reform. The solution, according to the Liberals, is not to bring about reform or transformation, but rather to grant an unknown minister near-unlimited power to bypass competitive procurement rules. He or she would be able to bar anyone from being allowed to compete without ever having to provide a reason why. This unknown minister can draw $1 billion from the consolidated revenue fund, without ever needing to go to the Treasury Board to purchase shares in companies, and fire entire boards. They can use exceptions to competitive procurements to no end, never having to justify or report it to anyone. These powers can be delegated to the CEO, undermining the entire point having a single place for accountability. A year ago, we had Bill C-5, and the same story, the same solution was presented. In this case, however, the Liberals are seeking the ability to just go around the rules without ever having to explain why to anyone. This is rife for abuse. If power is to be given, the case must be made for how it will be balanced with accountability. This budget implementation act allows the same failed thinking that got us here: no case for reform and no change in approach. As I said, inaction is a choice. Proud Canadians in my riding of Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek were looking for a signal that something better was on the way. Instead, they see that the Liberals under this Prime Minister have not changed their approach at all. Deficit spending still has not produced the results the Liberals have been promising. The interest on our debt will total more than $50 billion. Nobody on that side of the aisle seems to be interested in what we could do with our economy with that $50 billion every year. These interest charges will continue to rise and total more than a projected $80 billion by 2030‑31, with no course correction in sight. Instead, the Liberals continue to announce even new ways to deficit spend: enter the sovereign debt fund. We recently learned that the estimated interest payments to borrow the money for this fund will be three-quarters of a billion dollars annually. They have yet to even tell Canadians what the return on their money might be. Canadians have been waiting. They continue to pay their taxes and play by the rules. They have kept their end of the deal. Saskatchewan and Saskatchewanians have kept their end of the deal. In return, the government is supposed to deliver on the results it promised Canadians. It is avoiding real change. Instead, after more than a year since the previous election, it has opted to tinker with the margins or make small changes around the edges, and it has not been willing to change the approach it has taken to our economy. Its spending and its Defence Investment Agency all follow the same failed logic of the previous 10 years. Simply allowing the Liberals to have more power and more authority to avoid the bureaucracy they created and accountability is not the solution. Conservatives will wait to see who will be named as minister, and whether the Liberals will use their manufactured majority to continue a pattern of avoiding accountability at committee when this bill is referred to it.”

“I oppose this budget bill. The government is still spending money it does not have, and that is hurting Canadians.”

“Madam Speaker, I believe that under way are the key words in that phrase, because the first five projects the government announced were well under way. That was more performative than anything. What I would say is that Bill C-31 is proof that in year 11, the Liberals continue to put forward legislation that keeps the same failed logic we have come to expect. Believing that an 11th try using deficits to fund jobs will bear the fruit they desire is wishful thinking. I heard someone else say the issues are real and the consequences of bad policy-making are being felt across the country by Canadians. It truly is time the government holds up its end of the deal and changes course from the reckless deficit spending it has become known for.”

“I am worried about this bill and the economy. The government caused these economic problems, and its policies will not fix them.”

“Madam Speaker, that could be a very short answer if I wanted it to be. The answer is absolutely I am worried. I am worried about the fact that we have a government in power that has created the mess in our economy and then wants all Canadians to believe it has come up with the solutions and is the saviour to the problems it has created. Yes, I am worried because the government continues to introduce the same failed policies that got us to this place after 11 years. I do not see it changing, and that is deeply concerning.”

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“Canada will spend over $50 billion this year just on interest for the national debt. That money does not help Canadians or create jobs. I want my colleague to talk about how this debt will hurt families and future generations.”

“Madam Speaker, every dollar spent on interest is a dollar that cannot be spent on the future. Canadians will pay more than $50 billion this year simply to pay the interest charges on federal debt. That money produces nothing. It creates no jobs, builds no infrastructure and improves no public services. Could my colleague share her thoughts on the long-term consequences of forcing Canadian families and future generations to carry the cost of today’s reckless deficits?”

“The government needs to stop spending more money than it has. This spending hurts Canadians, and things will not get better until the Liberals change course.”

“Madam Speaker, we are already seeing what the devastating effects are for Canadians today. Without a change in policy, without a change in the government continuing to implement its deficit spending and believe that somehow things are going to get better for Canadians, that is concerning. It is just going to continue to repeat itself long into the future if the Liberals do not get control of the deficit and their deficit spending.”

“I do not want this budget bill to pass. The government spends too much money, and more people are using food banks than ever before. Now the Liberals are cutting off debate on this huge bill to rush it through.”

“Madam Speaker, it is certainly my pleasure to get up today and put a few words on the record about the disastrous situation in which we find ourselves with the government moving time allocation on Bill C-31. Some of my colleagues today have covered the challenges pretty well. This is a habit we see from the Liberal government relatively frequently. We have members opposite making comments that this is a new Liberal government. Of course, it is not. The vast majority of members of the government benches on that side are certainly people who have been in cabinet and parliamentary secretary roles for a very long time, so the argument that this is a new government in any way, shape or form is a bit fictitious. Nonetheless, the government continues to perpetuate this myth to the Canadian public, which we find very unfortunate. Similarly unfortunate is the Liberals’ inability to control their own spending. The Liberals go on and on about how they are going to create more jobs and how everybody in Canada is going to do better with just one more deficit. One more is going to do it. “I promise,” say the Liberals, that one more deficit will be the one that is going to get Canadians ahead this time and we are going to make it. We have yet to see that reap any real benefits for Canadians after 11 long, tired years of this failed economic strategy. In fact, more Canadians now are lined up at food banks than at any point in recorded history. That is a shockingly bad statistic and one that these members fail to take accountability for. It is a bit alarming that they seem to think that the few programs they have put forward, some of which are tweaked with this budget implementation act, are going to make any substantial dent in those enormously long lines at every single food bank across the country, many of which are actually running out of food. We are a bit shocked that the Liberals cannot eat a little slice of humble pie. They cannot find that at a food bank because they are out of food, but if they could make one for themselves and take a little bite, it might be good for the Canadian public to see that for the first time from the tired 11-year-old Liberal government. They might actually come to appreciate the efforts they are undertaking maybe slightly more, because right now they seem to hear from the government that life has never been better. I do not know any constituents in Brandon—Souris who believe that is true. On top of that, then the Liberals go and blow another $60-billion deficit, or whatever they managed to pitch that down to with the spring economic update. It is shockingly high for a government that committed in the last election to spend less to invest more. What happened to that? I have no idea where that slogan went to die, somewhere in the Liberal backbench. Perhaps the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie took that with him when he walked out with the environmental caucus. I am not sure where that is going, but nonetheless, we are concerned about the spending the government continues to perpetuate. If that was not bad enough, now we have government members who do not even want to debate their spending or answer questions regarding their spending. The Prime Minister failed to stand up and answer any questions in question period today. It is fair game to question why exactly that is. He also failed to take any questions from the media all weekend long, including today, and particularly on Friday, when it was announced that this country has in fact dived into what is unquestionably meeting the definition of a recession. The parliamentary secretary to the finance minister often stands up and loudly proclaims the Prime Minister’s economic credentials. If he is such an expert, why does he not want to answer questions about the economy? He does not want to answer them from us. If he does not respect Parliament and does not want to answer questions in question period more than once a week because it is too much of a bother for him, okay, but he should answer questions from the media then. The Liberals always profess to have a greater respect for the national press gallery than Conservatives, they claim, and yet it is our leader time and time again taking questions from the media. I was with him today when he offered a press conference, offering not just critiques of the government, but also our party’s proposed path forward to deliver a better economic path for this country that might get us back out of this recession. There was nothing from the Prime Minister, nothing at all. What a shame. There was nothing from the finance minister either. Where is the finance minister? Why is he not answering these questions for the media, if not for the House of Commons? I would add that I am splitting my time with the esteemed member for Airdrie—Cochrane. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Grant Jackson: Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North knows better than that. I know that he does not like what I have to say, because he is a member of that tired, exhausted, spent Liberal team that has been in the front couple of benches for the last 11 years. The Liberals have no new ideas. They have no vision on how to spend smarter to actually get this country into a proper economic footprint. We are the only country in the G7 that has slipped into a recession. That is not a proud legacy for the member for Winnipeg North, and I feel bad for him, except for the fact that he cannot admit it. None of them can over there. They cannot admit their mistake, and that is unfortunate for Winnipeggers, unfortunate for Manitobans and definitely unfortunate for the country of Canada. Perhaps it is time for some fresh blood from Winnipeg. We have the member for Elmwood Transcona, who is fresh blood as a Winnipegger in the House. What an excellent member of Parliament he is, and I cannot wait to see all the contributions he is going to make to this Parliament over the course of its duration. However, to get back on track here, we are talking about finances, and it is terribly concerning what that member and the entire Liberal cabinet have done to the finances of this country over the course of the last long 11 years. The Liberals said that budgets balance themselves. Do members remember that one? That was a good one. What happened to the minister of middle-class prosperity? I loved that one, before I got elected to this place. There is still no definition from Liberal members as to what the heck that means. There is no concept. What has happened to the middle class since they appointed that ministry? Well, the ministry got abolished pretty shortly thereafter, because it was such a tire fire. Unfortunately, now all the middle class is at the food banks, and they ran out of food. That pretty much sums up the Liberal record on middle-class prosperity. It has been an abject failure, and now they do not want to even take questions on it. The Liberals have moved time allocation on this bill so that they have only three hours of debate on a bill that, as my colleagues have mentioned, is over 300 pages long. They are going to ram through votes so that they can go off for the summer and spend like Liberals often do. I guess we will see. Maybe the eleventh time is the charm. I doubt it. I really doubt it, but perhaps this time the significant deficit put forward by the government, the minister and that failed front bench will have better luck than “budgets balance themselves”, better luck than “spend less to invest more” and better luck, hopefully, I am praying, than the former minister of middle-class prosperity.”

“The government says it supports the Port of Churchill project, but this budget does not say how much money it will get. This is the only big project the Liberals have for Manitoba, and they are not funding it.”

“Madam Speaker, I was born in a time when Liberals failed to meet their commitments to Manitoba. There is no question about that. The member mentioned the Port of Churchill. There is no mention of a dollar figure for Churchill. If the Liberals support the Port of Churchill plus project, how much are they spending on it? We do not know, because it is not mentioned in any of these documents. That is the only major project that the Liberal government has come up with for the province of Manitoba. The Liberals have six Manitoba members. One of them represents northern Manitoba. Is this all they could come up with? There are no budgetary figures for the one project they have got referred to the Major Projects Office. That is a shameful legacy for the Liberal members from Manitoba and a shameful record for the government overall.”

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“Donald Trump's taxes on Canadian goods are hurting our workers and businesses, and the Prime Minister broke his promise to make a trade deal with the United States. Conservatives want a trade deal instead of wage subsidies. We should use our oil, gas, and minerals to push the Americans to drop their taxes on our goods.”

“Madam Speaker, there is no question that Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian products are an absolute disaster. Unfortunately, an equal disaster is the Liberal government’s failure to live up to its election commitment to negotiate a deal with his administration. The Prime Minister touted himself as the big economic expert who was going to fly in and get a win for Canada. Well, here we are, well over a year into his prime ministership, and there is no deal with America, so my friends from Quebec, as well as those from every other province and from specific industries, are facing the brunt of that because of that failed promise from the Liberals. The Conservatives do not believe in wage subsidies in particular. We would rather negotiate a deal in which we could continue to have tariff-free access to the American market. Our leader has put forward a plan to boost Canadian natural resources, not just in the oil and gas sector but also in the critical minerals sector, and use that as leverage to negotiate with the Americans for tariff-free access to their market. That is something we would love for the Liberals to pillage from us. Maybe the Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade wants to take that when he is on his next junket down to Washington. We would be glad for him to take it, glad for him to finally get some success on this file and glad to help our friends from Quebec and their industries that have been impacted by Donald Trump’s disastrous tariff policy.”

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“The government promises more money and recruits for the military, but it has cut funding and treats veterans poorly. I want to know what veterans in the member's area say about this, and if they still tell people to join the military.”

“Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member something that is absolutely related to this. We hear this talk about the investments that we have yet to see that the Liberals claim they are going to make in our Armed Forces. They claim that it is going to mean huge increases in recruitment for the Canadian Armed Forces, but we see the way they treat our veterans. We see the massive cuts that have been made. I know that the member represents many veterans in his area. I wonder whether he would like to comment on what he hears from veterans and whether they would recommend that people get involved in our Armed Forces, based on how our veterans are treated by the government.”

“We must support our veterans. The Liberals criticized us for moving a veterans office from Brandon to Shilo, but they permanently closed their own Brandon office last year.”

“Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his important work standing up for the veterans of this country. No higher purpose, as I see it, really exists in this Parliament and in this country than standing up for those who have put on a uniform and put themselves in harm’s way for the rest of us. An hon. member: You closed down the office in Brandon. You know that, right? Grant Jackson: Madam Speaker, to the member for Winnipeg North, I love this question because, yes, the office in Brandon was temporarily closed and moved to Shilo. The Liberals made hay of that when they were in opposition. They have since closed the Brandon office that they reopened. I wonder if the member for Winnipeg North knows that. It closed last year, permanently. An hon. member: No. Grant Jackson: Madam Speaker, yes, they gave up the lease, and the entire staff has been moved to Canadian Forces Base Shilo.”

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“I do not support this bill. It creates a new defence agency that lets a minister spend money and hand out contracts without any oversight or competition. The government is also cutting money for veterans while wasting funds on consultants.”

“Madam Speaker, before we get too much into that debate, the members over there who are heckling right now should understand that that is exactly what happened. The members over there are taking a very hypocritical action. That is for sure. I stand today to address Bill C-31 and division 16 of that bill. I cannot help but feel a sense of concern among Canadians about what we are seeing here. It seems that the Liberal government makes announcement after announcement, and plan after plan, but it never actually implements anything. At times, people have been tempted to see some promise in some of the announcements and things that they hear, but Canadians are now starting to realize that once those announcements are made, nothing happens afterwards. The fear here is that this pattern is going to continue. There is concern around this so-called Defence Investment Agency. The express purpose of this agency is to expedite the process for procuring new materials and new supplies for the Canadian Armed Forces, but the new agency has been announced with no real framework on how it would work. This bill attempts to address the powers of the new minister who would oversee this agency, but it leaves an awful lot to be desired. It leaves many grey areas that have members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and Canadians more generally, very concerned. To start, there are many grave concerns about accountability. This seems to be a troubling pattern with the Liberal government. There seem to be some real, grave concerns about the accountability of this new agency, and the Liberals refuse to indicate who this new minister would be. There are provisions in the bill that would give this new minister immense power, to, for example, sole-source contracts on a wide variety of things without any oversight. Based on the sheer number of spending scandals that have been tied to the Liberal government over the past more than a decade, how can Canadians feel even remotely comfortable with the Liberals giving their ministers more power to spend without any oversight? Division 16 would allow the Liberals’ new agency the authority to spend on more consultants, despite the record number of bureaucrats they already employ to do the same work. It is well known that Liberals have abused the use of contractors and consultants to pay their own insider friends, and people are left to wonder how this would be any different. The division also provides extremely loose definitions of what would be counted as defence spending under this new agency. It would allow the minister untold powers to sole-source products and materials, even when they are only just very remotely connected to matters of national defence. Canadians need to have a clear understanding of what the Liberals are setting up in this agency, especially after they have misused so many taxpayer dollars on so many other occasions. The Liberals use what can sometimes be seen as good causes, and this would certainly be one of those, and they claim they are in the national interest, but then they use them to pay out their friends and to turn projects into slush funds. They did this with things like the green slush fund, the ArriveCAN app, SNC-Lavalin and, most recently, PrescribeIT. How can Canadians who are eager to see investment in and rebuilding of our Canadian military feel secure that Liberals will establish a new agency and grant the minister of this agency so many powers, to take loans, advance payments, give government financial guarantees, give grants, establish corporations and buy shares, and do this all with no oversight in place? The Liberals have done absolutely nothing that would warrant the trust of Canadians, yet they are marching ahead with new ways to pay themselves and their friends, and they are trying to shroud it as defence spending. I wonder if the Liberals could give the House even one example of past military procurement projects being held up or drawn out due to transparency in funding. Are they really suggesting that there is too much accountability in spending and that that is what has prevented the government from investing in the military? I doubt they can make that argument. If that is not their argument, then why introduce these provisions buried in the back of a division in an omnibus budget bill? This reeks of corruption, and Canadians are not satisfied with the answers they are getting. There are ample examples in the bill of the new agency’s being granted the power to bypass procedural fairness in contracting and procurement processes, but to what purpose could that be? How can avoiding open competition for procurement projects and being able to sole-source contracts without explanation possibly result in the best use of taxpayers’ funds for our military? Bill C-31 would grant the new minister of the agency the ability to spend up to $1 billion without any checks and without any reporting mechanisms in place to show Canadians what was purchased for the spending. Clauses in the bill would grant this unnamed minister the ability to purchase shares of corporations using taxpayer funds and to replace members, directors and officers at their own discretion. Once again, this is the government famous for enriching its friends by giving them taxpayers’ money and putting them in prestigious positions while the military suffers with outdated equipment and Canadians line up at food banks. The loss of trust does not end there, though. It also deeply affects veterans in Canada. This is especially troubling because the Liberals are so certain that all these new announcements will attract record numbers of Canadians to join the armed forces. That is what we keep hearing over and over again. While the Liberals assume this will happen, they turn around and treat Canada’s veterans like they are just a bother, a hindrance to get rid of, rather than treat them like the heroes they are and give them the help they deserve. How can the Liberals expect Canadians to line up outside recruiting offices, when they see thousands and thousands of veterans left injured, homeless, changed by their service and not getting the help or resources they need once they are released from the military? I have heard, in my role as shadow minister for Veterans Affairs, from hundreds if not thousands of veterans who say that while they are proud of their service to Canada, they would never recommend the forces to their children or loved ones, because of how poorly the government has treated them since they left. They often say this with a broken heart, because they love the country they served and want our armed forces to be successful. When our veterans are warning Canadians to stay away, we have a much bigger problem. The Liberal government needs to stop with all the talk and start with some action. The Liberals have been in power a year with the new Prime Minister, and it has been more than a decade that they have been in power in total. The only thing we have to show for it so far is an economic recession. Most of the provisions in Bill C-31 lay out how the Liberals can spend more money on contracts and consultants, but nothing is mentioned about actual defence procurement. The one area that Canadians do want to see some spending in is our defence and veterans. The Liberals are dragging their heels and are busy trying to bury in legislation ways that would allow them to spend without any oversight rather than really doing the work of building up the military. This same omnibus bill approach, designed to not allow Parliament the proper time to check and analyze the contents, made historic cuts to veterans services just months ago. More than $4 billion was cut from veterans services in this budget. On one hand, when the Liberals are caught trying to sneak in legislative changes to make it easier for them to enrich their insider friends, they tell Canadians that these provisions are actually going to make things better and make the ranks of the military swell with new recruits. However, on the other hand, they make the largest cuts to Veterans Affairs. This cognitive dissonance is not lost on Canadians or on members of our armed forces. Through creative accounting, the Liberals are claiming they are spending 2% of our GDP on the military, despite the fact that they are counting things such as infrastructure spending, personnel benefits, the civilian Coast Guard and other things in their calculations to reach this conclusion, and these are all things that NATO will not count toward the 2% criteria. Now the Liberals stand before the House, after slashing support for veterans, after years of numerous scandals and after billions wasted on consultants, and ask Canadians to trust them with these new measures that would make it easier for them to abuse taxpayers’ funds. I say that is something of great concern to many Canadians.”