Greg McLean
Calgary Centre, Alberta · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, today we honour the life and legacy of Philip Roderick MacAulay, a long-time president of the Royal Canadian Legion Calgary No. 1 Branch, who passed away on June 11.”
“Mr. Speaker, last week, Calgary's Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 1 hosted and was addressed by the leader of the Conservative Party on the importance of building a strong Alberta within a united Canada. It was exactly the right place for that message.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is great to be here, and I am thankful this debate is allowed to continue. I am surprised that it has to go through this last half hour of questions for the minister , but it is an interesting bill we are debating here today.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask the member if she can just tell us what the $1.7 billion would accomplish, because we have already thrown a lot of money at the situation. We have empty condos now that do not suit the market in Toronto.”
“Mr. Speaker, the minister knows this because I met him when he first got elected here on the floor of the House of Commons, and when he was named the housing minister, I told him that the first thing he had to do was to get rid of the people who have led us into this trap in the first place.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my friend from Quebec a question about government spending, because an additional $1.7 billion is to be spent on housing across the country. Quebec households are paying the cost of interest on both the federal and provincial deficits.”
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“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague. I know that Alberta, frankly, has a very robust social welfare system, the envy of many provinces across the country. Whether those funds come from the federal government or the provincial government, they are stacked and actually represent a level of sustenance across the economy that people in need actually require. That includes money for housing, for health and for all the things we look at in a social system, where people need to have a basic life and make sure they are taken care of. That is part of governing in this country: making sure we look after the people who do not have the ability to quite look after themselves and that we are there for them in that respect. Layering on a federal program on top of provincial programs is no way to approach federalism in Canada.”
“Mr. Speaker, that actually was an excellent question, because people ask me all the time, “What would you do differently?” I think we need to be very clear. We would make sure that those rules are very clear, unlike the muddled rules we keep coming up with where we are talking out of one side of our mouth to this group of people and the other side of our mouth to another group of people. There will be clarity about how we get through process quickly and sustainably in Canada. That is something every investor is looking for. What is the process? How long will it take? When can they start building and get a return on their investment? That has to be clear to all investors, all proponents, in getting things done in Canada once again.”
“Getting infrastructure built in Canada requires an onerous process in which the companies involved, large companies, have to spend more time, resources and money going through the process than they actually have to spend putting the infrastructure in place. That has to change. The process cannot be the only thing that matters. We have to get things built in this country again.”
“Mr. Speaker, there is a memorandum of understanding that some provincial governments say is a change in direction in the Liberal government but a change in direction on paper only. When we actually analyze that paper, as many of us have, we see that those changes in direction are not clear enough to actually indicate that people want to invest here. Ask the private sector entities that are impacted by those announcements and those words on paper that the government has put forward. It is still not committing capital. The reason it is not is that there is no clarity about the outcome for the process they have to go through.”
“Then it must focus on restoring the fiscal discipline to reduce inflationary pressures and rebuild economic confidence; re-establishing Canada as a destination for investment through clear, stable and competitive policies; and embracing a realistic approach to energy, one that supports both economic growth and environmental progress without undermining either, because growth is not accidental. It is the real result of consistent, coherent choices over time. Canada has everything it needs to succeed, the resources, the talent, the entrepreneurial spirit, but potential is not enough. Without the right policies, opportunity is lost.”
“The world continues to need energy, and Canada should be part of that solution, responsibly, sustainably and competitively. This leads to a broader issue: productivity and investment. Canada is falling behind. We are attracting less capital per worker than our closest peers. We are seeing weaker productivity growth, and over time, that erodes living standards. When investment slows, everything slows: job creation, wage growth and economic mobility. Investors are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for clarity, clear rules, predictable timelines and confidence that Canada is a place where long-term investment is welcome. Today's motion calls for a plan, and rightly so. A credible plan must start with recognizing how we got here.”
“We are one of the most resource-rich countries in the world. We have the expertise, the workforce and the environmental standards to be a global leader, and yet, at a time when the world was actively seeking secure, democratic sources of energy, Canada failed to step forward. That was a moment of opportunity, and we missed it. In Calgary, the consequences are clear. Investment decisions are delayed, projects face prolonged uncertainty and the new memorandum of understanding does very little to solve that problem. Capital looks for more predictable environments. This is not because the resources are not in Canada. It is not because the talent is not in Canada. It is because the policy framework has not kept pace with reality.”
“It is time to acknowledge these mistakes and change course to restore the conditions necessary for Canadians to succeed. [ English ] The consequences of these choices are now showing up in the daily lives of Canadians. Household debt has reached historic highs, not because Canadians are reckless, but because many have had to rely on credit to maintain their standard of living. At the same time, inflation drove up interest rates, and now families are facing the combined pressure of higher borrowing costs and higher everyday expenses. I hear it constantly. People who felt financially stable just a few years ago are now reassessing everything, from major investments to everyday spending. This is not abstract. This is real, and it is widespread. Nowhere is the gap between potential and performance more obvious than in Canada's energy sector.”
“None of this is new. The real concern is that these warning signs were not only ignored then; in many cases, they continue to be ignored now, because instead of correcting course by repealing Bill C-48 and urgently amending the Impact Assessment Act to provide certainty, the government has doubled down on the very approach that caused the problem: more regulation, more delay and more confusion for those looking to invest in Canada. [ Translation ] The signs have been clear for years. Economists warned us that persistent deficits would lead to inflation. Investors pointed out that regulatory uncertainty was driving them to look elsewhere. Workers saw opportunities dwindling in key sectors. However, the Liberal government did not take these warnings seriously. Today, Canadians are paying the price.”
“We saw early signs of declining business investments, particularly in key sectors like energy. We saw capital beginning to leave the country. Those signals were ignored by the Liberal government. (1630) We told the Liberal government that global demand for Canadian energy would remain strong, and it has, but instead of positioning Canada to meet that demand, the Liberals layered on uncertainty and delay through job-killing policies, like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 , that told investors loud and clear to take their capital somewhere else, and that is exactly what they did, leaving Canadian workers and communities behind. Again, the warning signs were there, even on productivity. Long before today, experts pointed out that Canada was falling behind our peers: less investment per worker, slower output growth and weak gains in competitiveness.”
“The motion before us reflects a troubling pattern. Canada is underperforming relative to its peers. Growth is weak. Household debt is high. The unemployment rate is rising faster than in comparable economies. This did not happen overnight and it did not happen by accident. Choices have been made all the way along that have caused us to be exactly where we are right now. For years, there were warning signs. Economists raised concerns about persistent deficits during periods of economic growth. My Conservative colleagues and I on this side of the House spoke about it repeatedly here. The Liberal government was told that continued spending without corresponding productivity gains would eventually create inflationary pressure. Those warnings were dismissed.”
“That is what is contributing to inflation and what is going to contribute to the fact that we are going to have economic pain here going forward and we need to get ahead of that as quickly as possible. GDP is going down. Labour productivity is not improving. I want to talk about this motion today in support of Canadians who are increasingly asking a very simple question: Why is it getting harder to get ahead in this country? The debate is not just about G7 rankings. It is great to make sure we compare ourselves to other economies, but it is about whether Canadians feel progress in their daily lives. In my riding of Calgary Centre and across the country, people are working hard, doing everything right and still finding themselves falling behind. That should concern every member of this House.”
“To get down to the real pain points here, we have half a million former students in Canada who are still unemployed and who do not have the jobs that they trained for in their educational institutions. These are real lives. They are real contributions that people are trying to make to our economy that are not being fulfilled right now. We need to move in that direction. Payrolls are down, but let us think about where they have gone. Since 2023, we have 300,000 more public sector employees and what we call MUSH employees, municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals, and there is less private sector employment. That is a problem in an economy running a huge deficit, and we note that the current government is not shy about running higher deficits.”
“There is a significant amount of debt. We are the most indebted country in the G7. There are a whole bunch of statistics here. I know they are just statistics when we talk about numbers. They are not just statistics to real people who are losing their houses and are having to refinance their mortgage at higher rates. These are pain points that people are feeling across Canada and that we have to make sure that we are looking at rather effectively. Let us think about our unemployment rate now. It was 6.9% this last month. When we had what is called a technical recession in the rearview mirror in 2015, the unemployment rate was 7%. That is 7% versus 6.9%. We are not far off from an unemployment indicator that would be severe for this country.”
“Other indications include incomes going down, which is clearly the case in Canada; production going down, so manufacturing and all these other industries that are actually declining in Canada at this point in time; and an inverted yield curve, which we had in 2023 and is usually an indicator that down the road we will enter a recession. All of these indicators are here right now, so we are looking at where we are going to be. There is falling consumer confidence. Once people are losing their jobs and are out of work, we are going to see them participating less in the economy. That makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy because they pull in their spending. They decide to forgo the expenses that would lead us to where we need to go as an economy. Rising bankruptcies are an indicator. Let us look at the debts that Canadians have right now.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak about an economic matter in the House of Commons today again. Before I actually get into my speech, I want to talk about the broader terms we are talking about here. We are talking about what a recession is. Of course, there is a technical definition of a recession, but the real indication is usually in the rearview mirror. It is an indication that there has been a significant decline in economic activity that has spread across the economy and has lasted more than a few months. A wide range of data go into that, including GDP decline, which we have had and jobs decline, which we have. We are now at a 6.9% rate of unemployment.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member on the other side. He gave a speech about what the opposition is doing right now. I am a little dismayed, because I think he needs to speak to what the motion is, which is about the recession that Canada is very clearly heading into now. There are a number of data points we have to give here, but the member has to identify, and probably has to own, quite frankly, some of the policies the government has pushed the country to that have led us to the economic point we are at right now. Would the member please address that as opposed to blaming others, either south of the border or on this side of the House, saying that we are the ones misspeaking on this? The data speaks for itself. The country is in economic decline.”
“Mr. Speaker, before the member goes too far defending this boondoggle, let me refer him to the publicly disclosed documents. A year ago, the spaceport's auditor indicated it was near bankruptcy. Nothing indicated the potential windfall of a $20-million lease with the government. Overpaying is one thing. Gifting $20 million to one's friends is an egregious abuse of taxpayer trust: Liberal insiders selling their shares for millions of dollars after the minister 's giveaway. The securities commission will have to investigate. Will the minister tell us who he thinks is going to be left standing when the music stops?”
“Mr. Speaker, today the CEO of the spaceport described questions about this $200-million giveaway as a “clueless meme”. He is in good company. The Minister of Defence has similarly responded to questions about the egregious lease terms as being “stupid”. Let us review. The minister signed a lease gifting $20 million of taxpayers' money in arrears to a near-bankrupt company. Insiders immediately cashed out millions of dollars. Canadians are rightly asking questions. Can the minister explain how this makes taxpayers clueless or stupid?”
“Mr. Chair, that is interesting, because most global CEOs are investing in the U.S. and Mexico, including in infrastructure, where it takes about one-third of the time to get a project built than it does here in Canada. Does the minister believe legislation like the Impact Assessment Act has made it easier or harder to build major projects in Canada?”
“Mr. Chair, it takes five, six or seven years. These tracks keep getting longer, and the minister does not seem to recognize that this is the problem. Is that timeline shorter than it is in the United States?”
“Mr. Chair, it took five years for TMX to get built, and it was $28 billion over budget. The Liberals just announced a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Alberta to build a pipeline that is going to be a projected deliverable seven years from now. Why is that going to take so long if there is an energy emergency around the world?”
“Mr. Chair, TMX took five years and went over budget five times, by $28 billion Canadian taxpayer dollars, to triple the size of a pipe on a pathway that already had a pipeline. That means no new pipe and no new land. Where did the $28 billion go?”
“All they seem to be able to do is add a whole bunch of money into the equation whenever those messes seem evident to everybody. We have to make sure we have a real solution here that gets people working and actually gets an electricity system that works for the whole country.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is very important. The government talks about training people, but it does not talk about how that is actually going to fit into the economy. I know the Prime Minister made an announcement while we were not sitting in the House of Commons last week about building our electricity system across Canada. Talking about the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, we know they are going to need those jobs. I think we have to take a good look. As I said earlier, the government has caused the problem with the electricity system in Canada because it inherited a bunch of policy advisers from the Government of Ontario who more or less botched the electricity system in Ontario for a decade. Then they moved to Ottawa and decided to botch it even further.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his long question. I think I got the gist of it. It is important to have support for stakeholders in the Canadian economy right now. I wonder how the federal government will measure success when we are losing so many jobs to the United States. It is important to keep jobs here in Canada. What measures will the government put in place to mitigate the effects of this situation?”
“Mr. Speaker, if I have said something that upset my colleague, I apologize, because I know they are working hard, but as I said in my speech, I think it is very clear that we need to measure these outcomes. At this point in time, we have signatures on letters of intent and everything. I am saying that the Liberals should bring these paths forward to the House of Commons. Let us pass all these documents they are signing that they think are going to do better for Canada. Let us measure the results. We do have a problem south of the border that we need to deal with at this point in time. Diversifying our trade, of course, is one of the most important things we do. We will look at the results when they arrive.”
“They should act as if there is some urgency here and get some things going. We do not mind sharing these ideas with the government. We need to make some things happen in this country as quickly as possible. I beseech the government to take the good ideas we have presented to it and make them work going forward. (1700) There are a whole bunch of other issues here. I would love to keep talking, because there are other things I have to talk about, but I know my time has come to an end.”
“Something else I think the Liberals could put on there, if they are thinking about taking something else from our books, is defence. I know they have increased the money for defence. They have increased the salaries. Good for them. Now they are going for another defence procurement agency, a defence bank, and all these things where they are spending money on bureaucrats. Here is what the Liberals need to do. They need to spend money on defence and spend money on actually getting things. The United States has rightly been complaining about how much we have not spent on defence in Canada. They should take another page from our book. In the last election, we talked about getting Iqaluit built as a base. That should be a 90‑day process: Here is the money we need to spend on this and here is where we have to get going.”
“On March 27, the Liberals increased the borrowing authority to $2.54 trillion. That tells Canadians where they are going with this. We are going to have an extra half trillion dollars in debt going forward. Congratulations. There is no stopping this train. I need to give the government credit for what it has done with respect to training and for allocating a whole bunch of money to the trades. I am very thankful for that. I would like to thank the government because that is another page from the Conservative book that it took out of our policy manual, having more money put into the trades in this country so that we have better outcomes. For that whole layer of jobs that is unfulfilled at this point in time, we need to make sure we get those technical people trained. I thank the government for putting that in there.”
“The difference between $2 trillion and $1.4 trillion is $600 billion, which is in the various accounts at Crown corporations and other borrowing entities, many of which have opaque accounting mechanisms where they are not writing off their debts. Therefore, when the new government comes in, we are going to have to see a massive writeoff of all the debts that the current government has accumulated and has not put on its books at this point in time. That includes things like, of course, the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We pointed out at committee that it had $600 million‑plus in loans to Lion Electric in the first place. We have all kinds of boondoggles like that sitting in several Crown corporations that are part of the government's debt profile. They have to be more transparent. This is something that has to change going forward.”
“Members would know that when we talk about GDP, we are talking about consumption plus investment, plus government expenditures, plus exports, minus imports, one of which is government expenditures. Government expenditures keep increasing and therefore keep increasing the GDP. The rest of the equation is not holding weight because it is not that investable an economy. We need to do much better in that respect. A $67‑billion deficit is one thing, but $1.4 trillion in debt is the government's book number. Let me explain what that means. The government has borrowed almost $2 trillion. It is paying interest on almost $2 trillion through its various agencies.”
“However, no sooner do they see a whole bunch of new revenue coming in from taxation than they decide to spend that in a bunch of other maladjusted ways as far as investing and throwing more money out the door. They can call it an investment, but it is a really bad use of our money. This is not a bottomless pit. Canadians need to make sure that we get back to balance at some point in time. That balance means at least a zero deficit, and hopefully a surplus at some point in time, because we have gotten massively into debt in this country. The government got cute in the spring economic statement and changed its actual fiscal anchor from a net debt to GDP and a declining deficit to a net deficit to GDP. That is because the GDP is not increasing enough.”
“We have to take a step back to understand what is happening here. Part of what is happening, of course, is the lack of transparency with respect to what happens to the investments people make in Canada. The government talked about fiscal discipline. Let me contradict it very clearly here: There is no fiscal discipline on that side of the House whatsoever. The Liberals talk about changing from a $78-billion deficit in the fall budget to a $67-billion deficit looking forward in the spring economic statement because of $7.8 billion more in collections from the resource industry. This is how we are making our money. This is how we are getting better.”
“It is lopsided how much we actually benefit from the resources we export. We have to make sure that we have a level playing field that says, “Invest here, in this country, in these resources and you will get a return and there will be a line of sight on how that actually turns out for your shareholders and your company.” Now I am going to differ with a few things the government said in this economic statement. It talked about having the second-fastest growing economy in the G7. That is great, but most of those are in Europe. Japan's in a bit of a mix right now. Compared to our neighbour to the south, we are forecast to be growing at 1.5%, and they are at 2.3%. The growth rate in the United States is one and a half times higher than our growth rate. (1655) We are not doing that well considering who our nearest neighbour is.”
“I am sure the members know the numerous entreaties we have made to the Liberal government to make sure we actually have a better resource industry in this country, with more transparency and more ability to get some things done, because the budget did talk about transparency. However, there is no transparency. There is a complete black hole. What are the rules today? What are the rules tomorrow? Continually changing the rules on our resource industry is what holds back investment in our most important part of our economy. I say most important not because I am trying to diminish any of the other parts of the Canadian economy, but because I want to make sure people understand how much those resource industries contribute to Canada, in employment, in taxation and in the balance of payments with our trade partners around the world.”
“That return on capital, of course, is competitive with jurisdictions around the world, even to the south of us, where we have a trade partner that is not behaving as if we actually had a trade agreement with them. We have to make sure that we actually stand up against that. The next thing the budget talked about was tax competitiveness, but it was talked about under new business investment. All the current business investment is not taxed efficiently here in Canada. However, the government will give all kinds of tax credits if some new capital is brought into Canada. There is no clear path to what that represents as far as the rule of law going forward is concerned. Then it talked about Canadian resources, which we are proud to stand for on this side of the House.”
“We need to make sure we have a more diverse economy, a more open economy, an economy where people can see what the rules are and invest accordingly, not just invest when the government says, “Hey, we have some friends here, let us give them some money so they will put some more money into the economy.” That is not the way a modern, democratic country is supposed to run. It also talked about investment attractiveness. Let me tell the House what investment attractiveness would actually mean. It would mean that the pension funds that collect money from Canadians in Canada would actually reinvest that money into Canada. Most of those pension funds invest most of their money offshore and for good reason, because this government has created an economic and investment climate in this country that does not work if we want a return on capital.”
“The budget talked about a few things, and I know that the government likes the high-level stuff to start the budget. It talks about the rule of law in Canada. If we had the rule of law in Canada, we would have a very stable investment dynamic right now, which we are clearly missing. This stable, reliable financial system is one that is layered more and more on top of an oligopoly that really benefits from the weight that it maintains and that, of course, the government would like that to be.”
“I do not mean to just be critical, so I will also be giving some good feedback on some of the things that work in this budget. First of all, let us talk about what my colleague across the way talked about, all the announcements of the 20 economic and defence partnerships signed in the last year. Partnerships are signatures. I would like to see what really comes out of those at the end of the day. We need to measure these outcomes. These are not just papers we sign. We are not a republic. Our Prime Minister is not a president who gets to write executive orders and say, “This is the way things are.” We are diminishing the role of the House of Commons here. We need to get back to actually doing things in the House of Commons that are good for all Canadians and include the input of people from across this country. I went through the budget.”
“Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from New Tecumseth—Gwillimbury . [ English ] This has been quite the spring economic statement or spring economic update, whatever the government wants to call it. A lot goes into every financial statement the government puts forward. It seems that there is no shortage of money to keep pouring out, but there is a real lack of fiscal discipline. One thing I did notice about this government over the last six and a half years that I have been here is its ability to announce and announce, as if it is going to continue to do great things. Announcing things, spending money and accomplishing very little seems to be the flavour of the day and that happens all the time here. I want to go through a bunch of things in my speech here.”
“Can I ask the member how she thinks she is going to solve something that she actually helped the government create, as opposed to turning it over to people who actually know how to solve something?”
“Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the whole issue of a new electricity system across Canada to double our electricity. The thing I like best about this approach is that for years, the government, including this member, who has been here for years, as I have faced her for over six years now, has hobbled our electricity system across this country. Now it is flying in at the last minute saying, “Oh my gosh, we don't have enough electricity in Canada,” because we are actually importing electricity in Canada right now for the first time in decades, as a result of failed policies. It is now coming in as if it is the saviour and saying, “I get to fix this.” Well, if someone is an arsonist, they get to put out the fire.”
“Mr. Speaker, I just want to ask my colleague a question, because the questions coming at her all the time from the Liberal side are about how we should not be talking about this in the House of Commons because Canadians are uninformed. I want to ask my colleague if it is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to raise issues, discuss the issues and get the facts on the table about how we deal with the issues, rather than bury our head in the sand like ostriches.”
“Mr. Speaker, let me explain "stupid" to the minister. He gifted $20 million, backdated to a company on the brink of bankruptcy. The company's chairman, someone with a history of securities infractions, made millions on a quick pump-and-dump sale of shares. The lease that taxpayers are paying for is nowhere in the company's previous regulatory filings. The company's Liberal insiders met with officials 158 times. Someone is going to face the music here. Will it be the Liberal insiders who were stuffing money into their jeans or the minister who signed this God-awful document?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Defence signed a $200‑million contract for access to a spaceport that the company itself leases for just $14,000 a year. That is $20 million a year for a decade. Worse, the contract is backdated by a full year when no lease was being negotiated and while the company's own auditor warned it may be bankrupt. After the deal was signed, the company's stock surged and a well-connected Liberal insider cashed out for millions. Will the minister explain how this is not another multi-million-dollar boondoggle rewarding friends while taxpayers carry all the risk?”
“Mr. Speaker, one thing the member missed in his speech that I think needs to be brought here very clearly, and I know the member will be able to address this, is the extra $3 billion put forward by this government, in a horrendously overstretched deficit, for international climate initiatives around the world. Does the member really think that Canadians can afford an extra $3 billion, and what does this signal as far as the government's commitment to actually get things done properly with Canadian taxpayers' money?”
“That risk is going to be borne exponentially, as the cost of capital goes up and as the risk that the government puts on these projects goes up. The government wants to finance a whole bunch of things that the market does not want to finance. That is the problem. Here is the solution: Change the regulations, and we will get things done in this country.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague very much for that, because there is a part of my speech I did not get to: the cost of debt. The more that is borrowed, the higher the cost of debt goes up. It is not just linear but actually exponential. He will know that because he is a good financier as well. The issue, of course, is that the more the government piles on, the more it is borrowing money. It wants to borrow more money. The beneficiaries are the people who are lending the money. There is no risk in lending Canada money. Those rates are going to go up. The people at risk are the people who are actually bearing the equity investment, and that is going to be shovelled onto the backs of Canadians in this exercise.”
“Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. At the moment, I do not agree with investing Canadian taxpayers' money in projects carried out by other investors in Canada. The problem with Canada right now is that regulations are too focused on investment in the sector that is the most important part of the Canadian economy. We need a regulatory system that works better for the whole country.”