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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“I beseech members to recognize that there is one atmosphere, and when we emit CO2 around the world, we are emitting CO2 for everybody around the world. Therefore any type of reduction that we can benefit from here in Canada with respect to the production of Canadian resources, to abate emissions around the world, is one we should take advantage of. We have ignored that for far too long because of prejudicial policies that have been put upon our oil and gas industry by the government for 10 years. We need to make sure they are repealed in order for us to contribute to the world, to contribute to solutions for the environment, to contribute to our economy and to contribute in the way we can to security around the world.”
“Members of the House know that coal is a higher-emitting energy source than natural gas or oil, so the fact that coal consumption is increasing around the world is an indication that the world is going toward the energy solutions that it can find first and foremost, because we cannot supply our liquefied natural gas. We have liquefied natural gas in abundance here in Canada. We are the fifth-largest producer in the world and could be much higher if we actually took advantage of the opportunities of providing this much cleaner fuel to our allies, to our friends and to the developing nations around the world that do not have that option right now. That option would increase their standard of living and their environmental outcomes.”
“Suddenly it became obvious to many countries, the United States in particular, that they could export their resources to Europe, which was desperate for those resources. Who else needs those resources? Everybody in the world is demanding clean resources because where the world goes for energy right now is increasingly toward coal. Most people who are not in Parliament do not realize this, but the consumption of coal around the world has increased significantly over the past 10 years, primarily because most developing nations want power more than they want something green.”
“Before I proceed any further, I want to make sure the House understands that I am splitting my time today with my hon. colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley . In order for us to contribute to the world from a security perspective, an energy perspective and an environmental perspective, we need to make sure the world is doing better with the outcomes we have. One of the consequences around the world is the economic and strategic messaging that we have in this country versus what we have to deliver to the world. The world is begging for energy. Let us think about how many countries in the last five years have said, “Please give us natural gas. We need LNG delivered here.” Russia then started a war in Europe that caused the disruption of the energy industry all the way across Europe and, as a result, around the world.”
“We think about what we do for oil and gas around the world. We think about what we do for the environment. All these things are connected, but the most important thing in the unveiling world context right now is our energy supply as a strategic resource for the world as it faces a more and more conflict-based and more and more risky future. I analyze what we are talking about regarding getting an emissions cap cancelled, which is frankly a production cap on the oil and gas industry, by design or by consequence. The government has, for the past 10 years, tried to punish the most productive part of the Canadian economy. When I say productive, I mean the most value per job and the highest export value of any industry in Canada. We have to get back to the point where we are adding some value to make sure we contribute to the world.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address one of the issues that have been dogging this country for years, a cap on emissions in our oil and gas industry. A cap on emissions is of course a cap on production. To pretend otherwise is to be talking out of two sides of one's mouth; that is something the government is becoming better and better at, but eventually it has to land on some real solutions. The government talks about an energy superpower, which are old words that it chose from a previous government. Let us recognize what that means. An energy superpower is one whose economy contributes to energy around the world so that we actually influence security outcomes around the world and not just the price of oil and gas, although that is part of it. We think about our supply to the world.”
“We need to get better food to Canadians, make sure they can afford that food and make sure it is delivered without cost. Cutting the deficit is part of averting food inflation. Will you please get ahead of this inflation you are causing?”
“Mr. Speaker, the point that I think is still being missed by the government side of the aisle is that we cannot spend our way out of a deficit and a mounting debt problem. More and more money is flowing off the table. The member refers to the idea that we are giving more to programs so it should not be as bad, but the fact is, food prices continue to inflate. This is a basic human need. We have to make sure that we get this under control more than anything else, because Canadians need to eat and need to eat well. The whole thing about what we eat is a contribution to our lifestyle, both the quality of it and and how long we live. This is something the Liberals have to get in front of. It is a fundamental indication of how we are doing as a society.”
“Here is another touchpoint: Since the government came in, $86 billion more has left the country, on a net basis, this year alone. We do not have the right policies. We have to change direction here. I would love to hear the government say it is actually going to address the problem, but right now all I see is a Prime Minister and a government who want to continue to spend money and continue to visit economic pain upon Canadians. Will they please indicate how they are going to turn this around?”
“The money leaving Canada is an indication of how badly the economy is actually doing. Here is just a quick number. Back in 2014, the net difference between the money invested in Canada by foreigners and the money invested by Canadians elsewhere was about $100 billion in deficit. That is $100 billion more in Canadian investments going outside the country versus what is being invested in Canada. Now that number has ballooned to $971 billion as of the end of 2024. That is $971 billion more invested outside Canada than being invested in Canada. Canadian money is leaving this economy for a good reason. It is that we have bad economic policies compared to almost anywhere else in the world where it can be invested. Our Canadian dollar is going down.”
“Let us put it at a deficit of over $100 billion coming out of this year, which is more than double what the deficit was expected to be and what the deficit was last year. This means more in payments, which, of course, means more inflation. All of these things roll through the economy, and they are felt by Canadians. The inflation is felt in basics such as food and shelter, so Canadians are bearing the brunt of bad economic policies that the government continues to go down the road on. There is a price to pay for overspending, and that price, of course, comes out of the pockets of Canadians themselves. The hidden costs of these deficits are $50 billion-plus last year. When the interest rates actually go up at some point in time in the near future, that cost to Canadians is going to be significant. Let us look at the money leaving Canada.”
“This is significant inflation built into our basket of goods that, I hope my colleagues on the other side will recognize, are part of daily life for so many Canadians. I try to bring this together with respect to what is happening in the economy. Things are costing more for Canadians, and this is a result of economic policies brought about by the current government, particularly overspending. The government plans to spend, in its initial estimates from last year, 8% more this year than last year. The government is going to have to print more money. More money is not coming in. More money is going out the door. Since then, of course, we have delayed and delayed the budget, so now we are actually going to see how much more the government is going to spend, but it is going to be a lot more than an 8% increase over last year.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to be here tonight and to ask the questions that I did not feel were adequately answered back in June. I was talking about the increase in the amount Canadians were spending on food out of their weekly budgets. It was about $800 a year more being spent on food at that point in time. However, we can take a look at what has happened with the cost of food since then. The latest information on food inflation is that it is up over 3.4% year over year. I acknowledge I am cherry-picking some statistics here, but people will know what I am talking about when I tell them that ground beef is up 15.3% year over year, bacon is up 13%, canned salmon is up 11.6%, oranges are up 11.6%, fruit juices are up 11.5%, nuts and seeds are up 14.2% and coffee, that ever-sustaining fluid, is up 27.9%.”
“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what is in the bill and how it would actually move things forward as far as safety goes, particularly on the border. I hear from my colleagues on the other side that they listened to police officers over the summer. My question is this: What took you so long? All of these things make so much sense. Were you not listening for the past 10 years, or four years in particular? What took you so long to get to what are the most commonsensical security changes we need to make in Canada?”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague asked me that question because I am often focused on this country's economy. The number that the PBO came up with is about $20.4 million per year in additional administration costs to get this program across, if it is approved in this way. That escalates going forward, of course, and that means more cost to Canadians. We can think about that as it continues down, with children upon children upon children. Eventually, we are going to have to deal with this, and the sooner the better.”
“Something we need to address here going forward, very clearly, is proper legislation, and this is anything but proper legislation. I do not think it is being stubborn for us to do the work that Canadians expect of us in order to get good legislation passed in the House.”
“Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my colleague because I was going to respond in French. However, he used the word “stubborn”, so I think I am going to have to respond in English. Our job here is as His Majesty's loyal opposition. Members know that. There are gross holes in this legislation and the member knows that. He knows what happened at Roxham Road, and he knows how the Quebec government had to twist the federal government's arm after three years of Roxham Road in order to stop the flow of people who were just taking advantage of that slippage, where the border is not a border but the border is where there is an office with a border. That is ridiculous. That is a judge who does not know what they are doing. That is a government that does not know how to address a dumb situation.”
“Mr. Speaker, that member continually brings up what happened 15 years ago, and then he spouts it off as if it is actually fact. He talks about reality. I am not sure that member recognizes reality. He talks about “cancel and delete”, yet we talk about the number of Canadians who were brought in during the Stephen Harper years. It increased substantially, and that member does not really seem to want to grasp that. Every government has challenges with this file. Until the Justin Trudeau government, our immigration system was renowned as professional around the world. It no longer is, and that is for a reason. The Liberals messed it up.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have an office in Calgary that is well known for its casework in immigration, and that casework in immigration is becoming more and more backlogged. The speculation on that is that the government is, pardon my phrase, ragging the puck so it does not have to deal with these issues. It can just drag things out, and hopefully people will eventually get the hint and move on. There are very few ways it can deal with the number of excess files it has at this point in time. I think it is going to continue to be that way. The Liberals are going to continue to bluster and will not be able to meet their own targets. How are they going to meet the timelines? The expected timelines are being extended all the time, and the government is outside its targeted guidelines repeatedly.”
“Mr. Speaker, it was an Ontario Superior Court judge who ruled that the existing law was unconstitutional. I think that we should also consider the opinions of other judges who have ruled on constitutional issues since then. We should not rely on a single judge from a single court, namely the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Perhaps we should also consider the opinions of other judges who are more familiar with constitutional law.”
“Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague to the House of Commons. As I told him in my speech, I have already been in committee looking at this bill. I would like to see it go to committee once it has the proper amendments put into it so it is presented as something we can debate at committee and we can discuss the pros and cons of it. If I could make a suggestion that would get it to committee very quickly, I would ask, as the government is very good at copying previous legislation, why do the Liberals not just copy the previous bill, Bill S-245 ? It would solve the most immediate problems that they see as problems without opening a great swath that Canadians will not support.”
“It is a privilege, a responsibility and a bond to this country. Bill C-3 would weaken that bond. It would allow people with minimal ties to Canada to claim the same rights and benefits as those who have lived, worked and contributed here.”
“Although it is not a law, there is a process by which the Minister of Immigration , and one of my colleagues on this side said that this is how it is dealt with currently, can actually deal with these lost Canadians very easily with her current power. She knows that. The government knows that, but it will not admit it. That is the problem here. The government is doing something here, but it already has tools to address it, and it is widening the whole approach to this to make sure we are doing something. Most Canadians would say, “What are you doing, and why are you doing it?” It effectively says that we are opening the door here, for all intents and purposes, for the foreseeable future and confusing everybody, causing some problems that we are going to have to address one way or another. Canadian citizenship is not just a passport.”
“This is just ignoring what is actually happening out there. They do have some modelling. They do have some clarity that they have been provided on this, but they do not want to see that. I am suggesting that maybe they are doing that for a reason. They are putting some canards out here to make sure there is some debate that continues to spend time in the House of Commons, as opposed to coming up with a real bill that actually gets things done. This arose from a court ruling, a superior court ruling in Ontario. People do not really know this, but a superior court is a lower court. It is not the Supreme Court, as one of my colleagues on the other side said this morning. It was appealable. It was not a great decision, because this is already dealt with.”
“We think there are about 115,000 people who would immediately qualify over the first five years of this program, and then continuing all the way through, because once they have a connection to Canada, their children do, etc., from children to children. This is something that is going to continue to escalate until it is addressed, until it is actually amended. In doing our job here, we look at making sure that this is the case. There are also logistical factors. This is going to cost over $20 million just for administration, per year, as these come through our IRCC department. Again, government members do not understand the numbers, even though the Parliamentary Budget Officer has clearly put the numbers on a plate for them. They will not even quote the number of how many people this is going to affect.”
“We support, again, the concept of restoring the citizenship of lost Canadians. We support, clearly, treating adopted children the same as biological children when it comes to citizenship, but these provisions were largely addressed in Senator Martin's bill, Bill S-245 . They do not justify the massive overreach in Bill C-3 , nor in Bill C-71 . I have a quote here, on the commitment we talked about: “Introducing tens of thousands of new [Canadians] without a robust integration plan is reckless. Our social infrastructure is buckling, and health care is under severe pressure. The lack of a clear strategy for accommodating this potential population surge only heightens concerns.” What is the surge we are talking about here?”
“We have to make sure that the people we are actually helping across the world when there are actual conflagrations, as there are all the time and we are expecting more and more, are actually Canadians and actually will continue to contribute to our society going forward. (1720) As Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill, puts it, “Canadians living abroad sometimes can be a burden for the government in the sense that if we need to evacuate them, during an armed conflict, or if they come back to the country, to seek health care and so forth.” That is part and parcel of being Canadian. It is just not open to everybody all around the world. We have to make sure that we understand what it means to be Canadian, the value of Canadian citizenship. Let me be fair.”
“Of course, billions of dollars of taxpayer money goes off the table for what is often a very long process of getting Canadian citizenship. It is a very big constituency, and I know my colleagues on the other side of the House profit from that, because they collect money from it. It is a bit of an aberration. Let us not forget something here. The first-generation limit was introduced in 2009. It was a response to the 2006 Lebanon crisis, where Canada spent $94 million evacuating 15,000 “Canadians of convenience”, as they were called at the time: people who held citizenship but had little or no connection to Canada. I see that, on the other side of the House, they have no hesitancy to run up the numbers in Canada; $94 million is $94 million, and we cannot repeat that again.”
“There was a problem with that, because we were no longer meeting our growth as a country. Inflation was more than our GDP. That is a problem. It is a problem in any country, and we cannot just paper over it by throwing a whole bunch more people into Canada. That would be increasing one number without a quality increase. I have always speculated, and I do not mind saying it in this House of Commons, that the reason the Liberals intentionally make a mess of this file is that they have a large constituency that profits from the middle of the immigration mess. They have all kinds of consultants, and I think that one of their previous ministers of immigration was actually from that very constituency, the ones who actually make money from legal representation, consulting and everything else.”
“When I was on the immigration committee, I guarantee we received anonymous phone calls from bureaucrats talking about how badly the system was being run by the party on the other side and how there was no managerial control being used. The Liberals effectively opened the doors, shortcutting a whole bunch of security processes in order to just push the number of people coming into Canada. This is speculation, but one of the reasons is that the Liberals did not want to actually see the GDP of Canada go down, because their policies across the way were punitive to the economy. If we are just increasing the number of people, of course there is a GDP associated with new people, but if we look at the actual math, we can see the math actually shows that our GDP per capita was not increasing.”
“That changed whether someone was in a post-secondary institution or just on their pathway to becoming a Canadian citizen. All of a sudden, new roadblocks were put in their way. Delays were incurred. Effectively, people were pushed out of the queue, and that is not meeting expectations. People build their lives, and it is an onerous process to become a Canadian citizen. Sometimes it takes five to seven years. It is a long process. People have to be committed to it and want to become Canadians. It is a prize to actually get in here and contribute to this society. We are honoured to have such great people come into our country and contribute here, but an open door does not make that worth its while. We have to close that broadly opened door so we can actually have a managed system like the one we used to have.”
“I can tell members pretty clearly that it had no connection with the reduced health care that occurred across Canada and with the reduced housing that occurred, the housing crisis and the health care crisis. Those have no connection, because we can increase demand without necessarily increasing supply, if we do not believe in actual economic rules. However, all Canadians face this because of a more or less disastrous policy. As a result, one minister got shuffled out, and then the next minister came in and reversed many of those policies. There was an impact from that reversal. That reversal caused this: A whole bunch of people had been given expectations about what the path to becoming a Canadian would be, and all of a sudden that changed.”
“To change that, where somebody can get Canadian citizenship very easily, cheapens the work we have done, everything we have accomplished in this country and what we build here for all generations. (1715) It would be a loophole, as we have said, and it needs to be fixed. It needs to be addressed, because if it is not addressed this time, it will have to come back to the House and get addressed another time. What do I mean by that? This is my third term as a parliamentarian. I have seen a number of ministers of immigration, and it has been an absolute disaster. Canada went from being a country where about 350,000 people, maximum, were new immigrants per year, to 1.2 million per year, for two years.”
“We also have postnational citizenship, the idea that citizenship is no longer solely defined by national borders and that new forms of participation and belonging are emerging. Now, I am the great-grandchild of Canadian immigrants on one side and the great-great-great-great-grandchild of Canadian immigrants on the other side. That makes me a Canadian. I can tell everyone here that my family has contributed to building this country, as every Canadian immigrant family has all the way along. We build and grow this country, and we are proud of this country and the contributions made by everybody who comes here and makes sure they build lives here, build families here, seek opportunities here and develop this great country into what it could be.”
“What is a multinational corporation? Well, Brookfield would be a multinational corporation because it has holdings in many companies. There can be a government that, maybe, has some considerable expertise in these areas and a shiny new face that was both head of a United Nations body and also head of Brookfield. This is part of what we are drifting down. The whole thing about looking at a postnational state suggests that national identity and loyalty are becoming less central as other forms of belonging and identity gain prominence. If we are going to have an open door to coming into Canada, effectively Canadian citizenship will mean less, and I do not think Canadian citizenship means less at all.”
“I am going to go into the last prime minister's statement about how we got here and what we are doing here. This is what people call the postnational state. I say the previous prime minister, but as I say, the new government seems no different from the old government. “Postnational state” refers to a perspective that acknowledges the diminishing importance of the nation-state, Canada, and national identity in favour of global, regional and local entities. It does not mean the end of nationalism, but rather a shift in focus and power dynamics where supranational organizations, multinational corporations and globalized culture play increasingly significant roles. What does “supranational organizations” mean? A supranational organization is like the United Nations, many nations. We talk about multinational corporations.”
“Perhaps it is because breaking the system and then bringing it back in front of this House in two years' time, if the Liberals manage to push this bill through with some support, would be something that occupies the House's time. There would be some more and some more, as opposed to dealing with the issues one time, fixing everything right and getting it done. This bill does not provide a substantial connection to being Canadian. It is a loophole. It would allow for multi-generational flow-through citizenship to people who may never have lived in Canada, paid taxes here or contributed to our society in any meaningful way. It is an open door, telling people they get to come to Canada because they have a long-term, long-ago connection, that they have, effectively, been able to passport shop and come here.”
“If we count the years, that is three years of, effectively, maybe visiting family three months at a time or whatever the case may be, and suddenly they are Canadian. That is less than three years, with no requirement for consecutive presence and no criminal background check. Effectively, people would be getting around what is a very important and very highly considered international requirement for becoming a citizen in almost any country. Can we get an international background check on this? Can we have some police check? No, this person would automatically be a Canadian citizen. I do not know why that is a point of contention.”
“It took a targeted approach to make sure those wrongs were righted and that these people did have a pathway to Canadian citizenship, and it was very clear. (1710) Bill C-3 goes way beyond fixing the holes. It goes way beyond any sanity as far as how a developed nation's immigration system is supposed to go through a process when we are bringing people into this country. It is a sweeping overhaul. It opens the door to abuse and weakens the very meaning of what it means to be a new Canadian. First, this bill would eliminate the first-generation limit on citizenship for children born abroad. Under this bill, anyone born outside Canada to a Canadian parent, regardless of how many generations removed they are, could claim citizenship if that parent spent 1,095 non-consecutive days in Canada. What does that mean?”
“I will get to that later in my speech, about how we were dealing with that, and how the government and the department of immigration were dealing with that without this broad legislation coming in to suddenly change and upend the world. Conservatives support fixing the issue of lost Canadians. I cannot say how many times I have heard over on the other side that Conservatives are opposed to this. That is a talking point. Conservatives absolutely support the issue of lost Canadians and making sure they become Canadian citizens. We think there are around 20,000 eligible Canadians who are not eligible right now because they have fallen through the cracks of what the previous legislation said were Canadians. Senator Yonah Martin put forward a bill to address exactly that. It was Bill S-245 ; that is the numbering they have over in the Senate.”
“It is all presentation and absolutely zero substance about how this is going to affect the country. I will go through this in a number of ways. We have the government and the deputy government House leader on the other side. He may be the chief government whip or deputy government whip. I am not sure what position he has been shuffled to at this point; I apologize. Effectively, what we are talking about here is a new government that is just a change of socks from the old government at this point. This is disastrous, but it goes back a long way. One thing we have always been clear about on this side of the House is that there was a gap in the actual admissibility of Canadians that the previous law had. That was being dealt with.”
“It is embarrassing, quite frankly, but this is a game, and this game cannot continue. If we want good legislation, we have to put good legislation forward. It is our job, as His Majesty's loyal opposition, to make sure we bring forth the problems we see in this bill, and there are numerous problems. We have pointed them out for the last couple of years and said what the Liberals have to change. I have listened to speeches here from the members across the way today, and it is almost like they are living in an illusion. There are talking points. They are making things up. They are given Liberal talking points and told to just go out there and say them. It does not have to be the truth. It does not have to be based on reality. It just has to be the Liberal talking points.”
“Frankly, we should be talking about the economy, the nation's debt or what we have to do to get projects built in this country again. However, the government is obsessed with repeating the same mistakes it made before. I am a little surprised that this topic comes up so high on the Liberals' agenda. I was on the immigration committee last session, and this one is back here again. We always thought the Liberals were just trying to co-opt the party that used to be known as the New Democratic Party by making sure they were spinning their wheels and continuing to gain their support. Evidently not, though, because I am not sure the Liberals need the seven votes that are independent over here now because the NDP failed to maintain party status as a result of being the Liberal Party's lapdog for the last three and a half years.”
“I thank them all for everything they did to make sure we brought good government back to this side of the House to make sure we hold the government to account, because frankly, I think it is the same old government even though its members protest that it is new. It does not seem like any of its actions are new. That leads us to today's legislation. Bill C-3 is a carbon copy of Bill C-71 from the last Parliament, and it got stuck every step of the way because of exactly what we are talking about today. There are big holes in this legislation, and the government knows that. The government has put another bill on the table that we get to spend time talking about in this House of Commons when we really should be dealing with things that are much further up the rank in importance.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague who just gave a barnburner of a speech and a clinic to everybody in this House about what is wrong with this legislation. I will try to follow that. Before I do that, I want to thank everybody who is participating in this Parliament today, but I also want to thank everybody who got us here, specifically the volunteers in Calgary Centre who did a really good job in making sure we have good representation continuing in Calgary Centre. I will do my utmost for my constituents, to make sure their opinions and input are represented well in this House of Commons. I thank the volunteers, of course, and my family and my wife.”
“Would my colleague across the way endeavour to look at the numbers that would be impacted by this bill, and will she come back to the House with that estimation at some point in time?”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was interesting because, again, I do not think it addressed the bill at all. The big question we have here is this. Every expert has looked at the number of people this might open Canadian citizenship to as more or less a free pass. If the member cannot arrive at some number here about how many people we are inviting in for Canadian citizenship, then the bill is moot because Canadians do not understand what this is. If the Liberals are going to fill a hole that is necessary, and that might impact 100 Canadians who should be Canadians, by letting in more than 100,000 Canadians to have Canadian citizenship, then I am going to suggest that, potentially, they are taking the wrong approach.”
“If we do not continue to respect the norms of this House and deliver the democratic minimums that have been expected in Canada for decades now, such as budgets, so that Canadians can see what is going on in the House of Commons, let me say to my colleagues on the other side of the House that if they are not part of the solution, they continue to be part of the problem. They might think they are a new government, but if they are going to act like the old government, they are going to continue. When is the government going to give us a budget?”
“Well, Mr. Speaker, so it continues. Even the decline of the House and the parliamentary norms that were once expected by Canadians continues. The member across the way had notice of exactly what my question was about tonight; it was about the budget. We have repeated this several times in the House, and that was the question. She delivered her own speech based on narratives around labour and where the Liberals are going. That was not at all what the question was. Let me address that. We do need a budget in the House. We need something that actually shows Canadians what they can expect going forward.”
“This is what is known in international finance as “managed decline”, where citizens' well-being is gradually withdrawn from them and their efforts become someone else's gains. The Prime Minister must do his job. He must table a budget that reflects the seriousness of this moment. He must show Canadians that he understands the gravity of the situation and that he is willing to act, not just talk. If he will not do this, then Canadians will be left to conclude what many already suspect: that they were sold a bill of goods in the last election, that the Prime Minister has no plan and that, like his predecessor, he wants to spend taxpayer dollars with no accountability. Canadians deserve to see the plan. When will the Prime Minister deliver?”