Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1
Date: 2023_04_27
Chamber: HOUSE OF COMMONS
Mr. Tako Van Popta: today we are talking about budget 2023, the budget that the Minister of Finance had signalled would be a budget of restraint. Let us take a look at what "restraint" means for our Minister of Finance. This is what it means: $63 billion in new spending. That does not look much like restraint. To put it into a number that people can understand, that works out to about $4,300 per average Canadian family, and I do not think that is what the average Canadian family identifies as being restraint. The Minister of Finance will tell us that this spending is coming at a time when most of the prepandemic jobs have returned and most Canadians are working. I agree. Unemployment is down to 5%. I think most economists would call that full employment, and that is good news, of course. When people are working, they are paying taxes, and when they are paying taxes, the government is receiving revenue. Therefore, one might think that it is circumstances like these that would present the government with an opportunity to present a balanced budget, or maybe even a surplus budget, to pay off some of that extraordinary national debt we accrued during the COVID pandemic years. However, if that is what members are looking for, they will be disappointed, because that is wrong. What we have here is another deficit budget, to the tune of $40 billion. Even in times of full employment and good government revenues, the government is still making no effort to balance the budget. So much for restraint; it was nothing but empty words. When we are talking about the economy, a logical question is whether we can trust the Prime Minister to deliver on his commitments, so let us take a look at his track record. In 2015, when he was the leader of one of the opposition parties and was vying to become the Prime Minister, he promised the Canadian people that, if he became Prime Minister, he would have some small to medium deficits for three years, but in year four of his mandate, 2019, he would deliver a balanced budget. We got the deficits and we got the debt, but we did not get the balance. What we did get was a new concept in economic theory presented by our Prime Minister, which was that we should not worry about the deficit, because budgets balance themselves. He has never explained what that meant. It is still a mystery to us. Maybe it will be in his soon-to-be-released memoirs. I am looking forward to it. The same Prime Minister also said that, with an extra $20 billion a year in the civil service, his government would be able to deliver better services that Canadians need and rely on. We got the spending, but we did not get the services. What we did get was a very unhappy public service, which is now on strike. There are 155,000 public service workers on strike, fighting for better wages that keep up with the inflation that the government's inflationary spending has caused. The Prime Minister also said that he could build the Trans Mountain pipeline for $7 billion. This is after he scared away private investment money that was quite happy to build a pipeline, but the investors abandoned ship and the Prime Minister had no choice but to pick up the pieces, and the latest estimated cost for completing the project is now at $30 billion. Therefore, no, we cannot trust the Prime Minister on his commitments. Once again, this year, the Prime Minister gets an A for announcements and an F on delivery. We cannot separate talking about the 2023 budget from talking about inflation, which is at a 40-year high. People are struggling to pay their bills. Food prices are up over 10%, and one in five Canadians is skipping meals. There are 1.5 million Canadians who are regular food bank users. The average rental rates stand at roughly $2,200 a month, and the average mortgage payments are now at $3,300 a month. These numbers are about twice what they were when the Prime Minister took office eight years ago. These are not just numbers thrown around by economists; these numbers represent people's lives and the pain people suffer. This is especially true for our young Canadians who are just getting started. Nine out of 10 people under the age of 25 believe that they will never own a house. This has always been the Canadian dream, but it is disappearing. Inflation is also particularly tough on seniors who are on fixed incomes. They cannot go on strike for inflation-adjusted wages. However, inflation also affects what government can and cannot do. We have an accumulated debt now of over $1.2 trillion, and it is growing, to the tune of $40 billion this year, and that debt needs to be serviced, just like the family mortgage does. As the Bank of Canada hikes up interest rates to combat inflation, the government's mortgage payments go up as well, to about $43 billion this year. That is money that goes to wealthy bondholders and, consequently, is not available for government programs, like dental care, for example. The government may think that it does not have to worry about deficits, and we are still waiting for the Prime Minister to explain that economic theory. Maybe he does not think that this is a danger, and maybe we will continue with deficit budgets into the future. The inflationary cycle continues. However, there is hope. A Conservative government would turn all this hurt into hope. It would ensure that Canada's economy works for those who do the work. A Conservative government would demonstrate with actions, not just with words, that future generations, young people and immigrants can realistically hope for a secure future. We would bring common sense back into the budgeting process to ensure that taxpayers get value for their money. I want to turn back to comments that the Minister of Finance made about a year ago, in relation to the 2022 budget she presented. At that time, she adopted a fiscal anchor: maintain a GDP ratio at a manageable level and keep it shrinking. She noted that our debt-to-GDP ratio is not worse than that of other nations. It is a pretty soft compliment to say that we are not as bad as other people, but she also noted that Canada has a fundamental economic problem: lagging productivity metrics when compared to our major trading partners. It is a well-known fact that, for every dollar that an American worker pumps into their economy, their Canadian counterpart contributes about 67C/ to our economy. This does not mean that we are not working as hard as Americans; we are probably working harder than they are, but our economy is just not as productive. We do not have the tools, we do not have the scaled-up companies and the efficiencies that go with that, and we have too many gatekeepers. This is not what the Minister of Finance said; this is what our leader has been saying. We have too many gatekeepers, who are getting in the way of productive Canadians and money that is looking for a good place to be invested. They are scaring investment away. However, the Minister of Finance does acknowledge, at least, that we have a productivity problem. She calls it Canada's Achilles heel. Her predecessor, Bill Morneau, agrees. In his recently published book, he noted his frustration with his boss, the Prime Minister , over his not being interested in economic and fiscal policies and the real challenges that face Canada's economy. Mr. Morneau says of his former boss, the current Prime Minister, "So much time and energy was spent on finding ways to redistribute Canada's wealth that there was little attention given to the importance of increasing our collective prosperity--let alone developing a disciplined way of thinking and acting on the problem". When we think about the national debt, it is not sufficient to talk just about the debt-to-GDP ratio. We also need to look at our collective ability as a national economy to create the wealth that will service that debt, that will eventually pay down that debt, to secure Canada's future for future generations. Canada's abilities in that regard are severely challenged due to the Prime Minister 's mismanagement of our economy. It is time for a Conservative government to take over the keys and fix what the Prime Minister has broken.