The Budget
Date: 2023_04_19
Chamber: HOUSE OF COMMONS
Mr. Adam Chambers: I do not know how I will top the remarks and wonderful intervention by the member for Calgary Confederation . We are in trouble as a country. It is very serious. We are a country in decline, but listening to the government, it is as if Canadians have never had it so good. The Liberals say things like that we have the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the developed world, or that we have the best growth in the G7. What they do not say is that our living standards are in serious decline. Our living standards have been in decline since the 1980s. In fact, in a research report released just yesterday, the Institute for Research and Public Policy highlights an urgent need. The report says, "In 1981, Canadians enjoyed a $3,000 higher per capita standard of living than the major Western economies (adjusted for inflation and currency fluctuations). Forty years later, Canada was $5,000 below that same average. If the trajectory continues, the gap will be nearly $18,000 by 2060." We care about per capita because that is how we measure standard of living. We often hear people talk about the economic pie, which can grow, but if people's slices still stay the same, they are not better off. The government is achieving economic growth solely on the basis of volume alone. What do I mean by that? We are growing the pie, but the size of everybody's piece of the pie is staying the same. Our population is growing. We are only growing demand. That is the only thing that is happening and will continue to happen. Last year in the budget, the government was transparent about this issue. It highlighted a chart that showed Canada toward the bottom of the OECD in peer countries from GDP per capita growth. All of a sudden, this year, that chart disappeared. I wonder why. It is because the story is so awful. I have to read a quote from 2015 for my colleagues: The OECD has cut its 2015 GDP forecast for Canada to a dismal 1.5%. By way of excuse, the minister today claimed, "We are doing better than most developed countries." That is simply not true. The OECD puts us behind Australia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden, the U.K., the U.S. and yes, even Spain. This is no global problem, as the government likes to pretend to excuse its shoddy management. This is a made-in-Canada runway to recession. The Deputy Prime Minister said that. Maybe the Deputy Prime Minister should go back to her 2015 self and take some lessons. This is the context in which we have to think about this budget. It was not even one year ago when members on this side stood up and asked the government what it would do if inflation does not come down and we see economic uncertainty. What was the answer from the government? It was that these hon. members are "economically illiterate". Guess what? Unfortunately, the worst is happening. Inflation is still high and unemployment is going to go up. We are walking into a recession because the government's spending is out of control. The government's own projections state that unemployment is going to go up by 1.3%. That is 275,000 to 300,000 Canadians who, the government is projecting, will lose their jobs before the end of the year. I do not think they really care at all what inflation is in the U.K. or in the U.S., or that we somehow have a little bit better growth than some of our peer countries. We can argue about whether the causes of inflation are domestic or international. They are both, but more recently, really smart people are saying that we have too much demand in Canada. Our own central bank governor says that inflation is caused by too much domestic demand. Stephen Poloz recently said that the size of the deficit last year caused interest rates to go higher. What does this mean for Canadian families? Derek Holt at Scotiabank suggests that one full percentage point of central bank increases is related to government overspending. What does that mean for the average Canadian? If the average mortgage is $360,000, they are paying $3,600 extra per year in interest because the government has been overspending and increasing demand, meaning interest rates have to go up to cool inflation. If someone happens to be a new homeowner or is trying to get an $800,000 mortgage, that is $8,000 extra a year they have to pay. The bank is working very hard to bring inflation down, and we should be supporting it. Instead, the government is making its job harder. It is putting on additional taxes that have been determined to be inflationary. We have had food inflation in double digits for more than a year, and the government has never bothered to even ask how the carbon tax affects food prices in Canada. Food has to be produced, and farmers are paying the carbon tax. One farmer in a nearby community showed me a bill with $13,000 in carbon tax alone in one month for natural gas. Also, the government thinks farmers have so much money that it put HST on top of the $13,000. It is absolutely incredible. The Liberals are not willing to admit this massive problem. They can only stand up and point to few things, saying that we are so much better off than the rest of the world. The only thing they have done to help people over the last year has been the GST rebate to help low-income Canadians. There is one in the budget and one in the fall, and the Conservatives supported and support both of them. We would like to see that go forward. All of this spending has consequences. We are spending almost as much, this year coming up, on interest on the debt as we are giving to the provinces to spend on health care. How incredible is that? Just a couple of years ago, when the Deputy Prime Minister was asked about interest rates increasing and how much that would cost, the response was, "These are investments in our future, and they will yield great dividends. In today's low interest rate environment, not only can we afford these investments, it would be short-sighted of us not to make them." The Liberals ignored inflation when it came and said it was transitory. Now they are ignoring economic uncertainty and a recession. They are calling it a shallow recession that is going to be short. Maybe they are also saying it is going to be transitory. They were asked about economic uncertainty, and they called us economically illiterate. They said the debt-to-GDP ratio was going to keep declining, but they have broken that promise too. Now Canadians are paying the price for their prediction. The plan is not working, inflation is high, economic growth is slowing and the impacts on Canadians are real. I will give just a couple of examples of what is happening. People are not getting great service in many circumstances. I heard from a young woman who is a PSW at a retirement home in Midland caring for our vulnerable. She is trying to get her PR card. She is also a nurse, but she cannot change jobs while she is waiting for her PR card. She has been waiting two years, which is an incredible injustice. We are preventing a young nurse from getting into the system. Then there is Gary, a pilot who is retired. He builds planes. All he needs is his medical approved by the transportation department so he could fly his plane and enjoy his retirement years. That is not happening either. If members thought it was all doom and gloom, I want to end on a positive note. Last week I was in Ms. Thompson's grade 11 law class. Mr. McEcheran is a student of Lakehead who is observing that class and helping out. These students asked the most amazing questions. It gives me a lot of great hope for the future of the country. They asked about crime, homelessness and land conservation. I was very energized by this conversation. I think the country is in great hands when we have student leaders like them engaged in civics discussions. I could not answer many of those questions and could not point to things in the budget to address their concerns. I hope next year we will have a better shot.