Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1
Date: 2023_04_24
Chamber: HOUSE OF COMMONS
Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan: I am honoured to rise to speak today. I will start with a quote from former president Ronald Reagan, who said, "Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives." Budget 2023 was a direct attack on Canadians, their hard work and the paycheques they try to bring home. What budget 2023 would do is not only tell Canadians how to live their lives, which this government is known for, but also, in some cases, ruin a lot of livelihoods as well. This was a budget that was supposed to have fiscal restraint. The Liberals blew right through that, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who said that they added an extra $69.7 billion in new gross expenditures. Those new expenditures are going to cost each and every struggling household an extra $4,200. This is a government that said it wanted to make sure it did not cross the line of debt-to-GDP ratio. Well, it blew right through that line, so far past it that the government cannot even see that line anymore. This is a government that said it would be responsible and that it understood the pain of Canadians. Then, it turned around and jacked up its job-killing carbon tax to pile-drive Canadians with even more taxes, five to be exact, just this year. This is the government that said it is here to help people. I think this is as ridiculous as thinking that the NDP is still an opposition party. Before I move on, Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with a great man, who we call the great boss from the great riding of Beauce . When my family moved to Canada, there used to be a pretty good deal between Canada and its citizens. Today, after eight years of the Prime Minister and the Liberal-NDP government, that deal feels broken and so does Canada. One in five newcomers to our great country want to pack up and leave. The number one reason for that is the high cost of living that has been caused by the Liberal-NDP government. It borrowed and spent more money than every single government before it combined. It made interest rates go up and that made the cost of living crisis even worse. The government is the architect of this inflationary fire, and the budget has thrown a $69.7-billion jerry can on top of the inflationary fire, which has made things even worse for Canadians. My family moved here when I was young because we wanted to live the "Canadian dream". My parents wanted us to have a safer future and a better education. They wanted us to be raised in a country where we could feel safe and where we could raise kids to feel the same way. However, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, that Canadian dream is nothing but a nightmare and a broken dream today. Newcomers should want to flock to Canada, but Canada is not seen as a country where people can survive. It is not seen as a country that is even open for business. When we look at the budget, productivity is not going to grow because the government has done nothing to help support businesses and create an environment that would have more investment coming to it. In fact, the number one complaint that we hear is that the regulatory burdens and the economic uncertainty that the government has created does not let good investment and good jobs come to Canada. The government would rather stand under its make-believe ideology on things like the job-killing carbon tax, which is driving people away. It is driving costs up. It is making everything more expensive, and Canadians are suffering for that. Canada is one of the last destinations people want to come to today. That is clear when we hear that one out of five newcomers want to pack up and leave. We can look at some of the disastrous policies that have caused so much pain on Canadians today. Let us look at housing. When we moved to Canada, it was reasonable to find a house. Someone could get a job and put in the hard work. That was the deal Canada used to have. If people worked hard, they would see the fruits of their labour. That deal is broken today. Nine out of 10 young people say that affording a home is just a pipe dream now because of the rising cost of living. Who can save for a down payment? Down payments have doubled. People have to spend double just to for a down payment on a house now. Rents and mortgages have doubled under the Prime Minister , after eight years of failed housing policies. It is impossible for young people to move out of their parents' basements today because of eight years of failed housing policies. How does a government spend $89 billion on housing and the outcome is that rents and mortgages have doubled, and nine out of 10 young people say they will never be able to afford a home? How does a government spend so much to accomplish so little? It is on par for that government. It shows its incompetence every day. It does not stand with the common person. It does not want to make the lives of people easier. If it did, it would not have jacked up the cost of the failed carbon tax. It has accomplished so little on that as well. We finally have an environment minister who admitted that the government misled Canadians all along about the failed carbon tax scam. For years, the government said that it was going to make the lives of people better. For years, it said that Canadians would get more back from this carbon tax scam in so-called carbon pricing rebates than what they would pay into it. We now have the Liberal environment minister admitting that this was misleading all along. We requested a report from the PBO report and that report confirmed that more Canadians would pay more out of pocket in this scam than what they would get back in these phoney rebates. It is time for the Liberal-NDP government to stop causing Canadians, farmers and producers pain. It needs to scrap this scam, axe the carbon tax and let Canadians survive. If we look at the price of groceries today, we see how the carbon tax has impacted how expensive they are getting. The government has done nothing to help with the inflation it has caused. It not only has caused this inflation, but it keeps adding more fuel to the fire, and the carbon tax is a clear example of that when we look at the price of groceries. When me and my family, and many other newcomers, came to this country, we could not have imagined that in a single month 1.5 million Canadians would be visiting a food bank, a third of whom are children. One-in-five Canadians are skipping meals. One-in-five Canadians are saying that they are completely out of money. This is not the Canada that me and my family envisioned when we moved here. However, hope is on the horizon. We have a new Conservative leader who will turn this hurt that the Liberal-NDP government caused Canadians into hope. We are going to do many things, the first of which is to get rid of the Liberal-NDP government. We are going to ensure that we bring home powerful Canadian paycheques. We are going to bring home lower prices for Canadians. We are going to get rid of this job-killing, failed carbon tax scam. Most important, we are going to bring in more homes that our young people and many others can afford. We are going to get the gatekeepers out of the way. We are going to ensure that Canadians keep more of their hard-earned paycheques in their pockets so they can make their own decisions and bring back the freedom our country so much deserves. The Conservatives will restore safety to our streets, so people do not feel they are going to be attacked randomly. We keep seeing violent crime on the increase after eight years of the government. We need to bring home common-sense solutions for the common people. We need to return Canada to a place where we have elected officials who work for the people, who understand their pain and do not cause more pain. That is exactly what the Conservatives will do when our new Conservative leader, the member for Carleton , becomes the Prime Minister of Canada. We will return Canada to being the freest nation in the world.