Pierre Poilievre
Battle River—Crowfoot, Alberta · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, for over a century and a half, Canadians took for granted that when people came here from around the world, they left their problems behind.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the constituents of Battle River—Crowfoot in communities like Amisk, Hardisty, Hughenden, Czar, Metiskow and Lougheed and the MDs of Wainwright, Provost and Flagstaff, who have all raised significant concerns about problems with cellphone coverage and data service, adding to already limited connectivity in…”
“Mr. Speaker, I will tell the member what we are for. We are for an affordable Canada, a Canada with growing paycheques and safer streets, which is the exact opposite of what the Prime Minister has delivered. This is his record: Count them; there have been five consecutive quarters of declining investment.”
“Mr. Speaker, do people know why the Prime Minister cannot stand to answer a question in the House of Commons? It is because he has been wrong about every single economic issue of the last decade. He was wrong to push bigger and broader carbon taxes. He was wrong to say that we should keep half our oil in the ground.”
“Mr. Speaker, no, we do not plan for a restful summer. We plan to fight all summer long against the Liberal recession, Liberal inflation, the rising Liberal cost of living and the rising Liberal crime crisis in our streets. Let us take, for example, investment. The Liberal Prime Minister promised he would increase it.”
“Mr. Speaker, at least the Liberals listened for once. I explained to them that houses are built by plumbers, electricians and carpenters, and the members stood up and said that the building trades build homes. We know who builds homes, but do we know who blocks homes? The Liberals block homes.”
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“Countries with real sovereign wealth funds, such as Singapore, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, accumulate surpluses year after year, which they then squirrel away and invest to grow bigger returns for their people. The Liberal Prime Minister has no surplus to invest. In fact, the net equity of the government is negative $1.3 trillion. If we take all the assets and deduct all the liabilities, that is what is left. We call that our national debt. Just two days ago, the Prime Minister announced that he is running the 11th Liberal deficit, which is being put on the national credit card. There is more debt, more taxes and more costs on the credit card. The Prime Minister is just another Liberal. In fact, he has doubled the deficit since Trudeau left office, so he has no wealth to put into the wealth fund.”
“It is the illusion of action from the people who caused the problem, the illusion of investment from the people who drove the investment away and the illusion of growth from those who blocked the growth because, in this Liberal model, the economy does not belong to the people; it belongs to the politicians, bureaucrats and other authorities who control it and the powers that influence them. The real debate in our economy today is that of a political economy versus a market economy. A political economy allocates wealth based on power. A market economy allocates wealth based on free choice. Enter the sovereign wealth fund, which has no wealth. It is another Liberal illusion.”
“He basically creates a regulatory prison and charges a ransom for anyone who wants to build something to get out of it. If they want a place to live or food in their stomach, they have to wait for the government to send back some of their money. If they want to build a home or a pipeline, they have to kneel before the king and seek his good graces. If they want investment for their enterprise, they have to bow before the state. State-controlled crony capitalism is how the Liberal Prime Minister enriched himself. In fact, his Brookfield investments profit off government favours that typically help a tiny group of politically powerful but unproductive takers at the expense of the great mass of productive makers. (1015) Help is the sunny side of control.”
“Instead of just following the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, the government does plenty of harm and then claims that it provides the cure. Like the great Ronald Reagan said, if it moves, a Liberal taxes it. If it keeps moving, he regulates it, and when it stops moving, he subsidizes it. Why not just get out of the way and let things move? Why not let the builder build, the worker work, the investor invest, the farmer farm, the miner mine, the manufacturer manufacture and the trucker truck? It is because then there would be no role for the Liberal politician, no power, no control, no permit to authorize and no cheque to hand out. If people could just launch a business, produce resources, grow food and build homes, the Prime Minister and the people within his castle walls would be irrelevant. Instead he forces everything to go through him.”
“The Prime Minister blocks investments with high taxes, drives $1.2 trillion of pension funds out of the country and then subsidizes investment with new corporate welfare programs. He drives up the cost of living and the cost of food with inflationary money printing, carbon taxes and red tape, then prints even more money to give people cash payments to help them with the cost of the food, which he inflated. He blocks development, taxes production, regulates investment, delays permits, drives capital away, kills projects and crushes builders. Then, when the economy slows down, the Prime Minister shows up with a subsidy, a fund, a bank, a summit, a task force and a photo op to solve the very problem he caused.”
“Immediately he pulled out another syringe and injected them with an antidote, and he said he did that so he could save their life with the antidote. They asked why he had done any of it in the first place, and they were told that he wanted to save their life because that is what he does. That is exactly how Liberal economics work. The Liberals do massive economic damage to our country, and then they claim to be its solution, its antidote. The government blocks homebuilding with taxes and red tape then sets up a fourth federal housing agency to subsidize housing. The Liberal Prime Minister blocks resource projects with high taxes, 19‑year permitting delays, and bans on oil shipping off the B.C. coast, and then he creates massive new offices to get projects built, which promise carve-outs, bail-outs and handouts to favourite businesses.”
“These countries have surpluses every year, which they set aside as savings for their countries. They have no deficits. The Conservatives want to remove government barriers in order to attract private investment again, boost our economy and pay our bills through private production. That way, the cost of living will come down for Canadians who are already paying too much. That is how we will free up our economy and restore affordability. We will be strong at home and masters in our own house. [ English ] Imagine someone went into their doctor's office, and suddenly the doctor injected them with some strange substance. They asked what it was, and he said that it was a poison. They then asked why he had injected them with a poison.”
“He said: Mr. Speaker, today I am responding to the costly, gimmicky schemes of the Prime Minister , who now wants to put $25 billion on the national credit card to fund handouts for well-connected businesses, Liberal elites, and co-operative forces, all while increasing the cost of living for everyone: workers, small businesses, and seniors. We have seen that this Liberal government has already racked up 11 deficits on the national credit card. After a year of this Prime Minister, we are seeing higher costs, more debt, higher taxes, and more money on the credit card. He is just another Liberal. To have a sovereign wealth fund, there need to be funds. There are no funds because there is no surplus, unlike in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Norway, and so on.”
“Motion moved: That, given that, (i) sovereign wealth funds must have wealth that comes from budget surpluses and resource revenues, (ii) this government has run no surpluses, only deficits for the last 11 years and has no funds to invest, (iii) the Prime Minister is proposing to put his 25-billion-dollar fund on the national credit card, which will cause further inflationary pressure, (iv) the Prime Minister has already created 12 new Crown corporations, agencies and bureaucracies, (v) when government directs capital, it always goes to the politically powerful and not the deserving, (vi) there is over 1 trillion dollars in pension fund money that Liberals have pushed out of Canada that we could bring back with faster permits, lower taxes and free enterprise, (vii) the rising cost of fuel and food is already burdening hard working Canadians who cannot afford to pay more for handouts to Liberal insiders and corporate elites, therefore, the House call on the government to abandon this sovereign debt fund.”
“Mr. Speaker, this Liberal Prime Minister has been wrong about every major economic issue of the last decade. He was wrong to push for bigger and broader carbon taxes, wrong to say that we should leave 50% of our oil in the ground, wrong to oppose the northern gateway pipeline, wrong to say COVID would lead to deflation, wrong to say money printing would not raise the cost and wrong to say that affordability is the best that it has been in a decade. He keeps getting it wrong. Yesterday, he repeated the same mistakes. When will he realize that the more he gets it wrong, the more the Canadian people have to pay?”
“Mr. Speaker, these Liberals are like the Bourbon dynasty: They learn nothing, and they forget nothing. Over the last decade, they told us that if we racked up the credit card, somehow it would grow the economy. What did we get? We got the worst growth in the G7, the highest housing costs in the G7, the worst household debt in in the G7 and the worst investment per worker in the G7. Now, it is déjà vu all over again with the Prime Minister repeating exactly the same policies: more debt, more costs, more taxes. He is just another Liberal. Will the Prime Minister recognize that Canadians are paying for his mistakes?”
“Mr. Speaker, the deficit Justin Trudeau had provided for this year was $31 billion. Yesterday, the Liberal Prime Minister provided a deficit of $65 billion, and 65 is bigger than 31. I will speak slowly for the Liberal mathematicians on the other side of the House. As The Globe and Mail said, “In the upside-down land of the Liberals, a spending spree is a spending cut, blowing a windfall of billions of dollars is prudent and failing to prepare for a fiscal storm is, well, just good management.””
“Mr. Speaker, it is just that the Liberal Prime Minister has gone from writing Justin Trudeau's policies to plagiarizing his talking points. Actually, that is not fair to Justin Trudeau. This Liberal Prime Minister has done the impossible: He has doubled the deficit that Trudeau left behind. There is more cost, more debt, more taxes, more on the national credit card and more interest payments for Canadians. Once again, with Canadians spending $3,000 per family on interest for the debt, is there any limit on the Liberal credit card?”
“Mr. Speaker, he just stole Justin Trudeau's talking points, although he has doubled Mr. Trudeau's deficit. Not only has this Prime Minister left Canadians with the worst food inflation in the G7, but his costly credit card budget is forcing Canadian families to pay $60 billion in interest on our debt. That is more than the government spends on health care and more than it collects in GST. Canadians are paying more to bankers than they are to nurses and doctors. Why?”
“Mr. Speaker, more costs, more taxes, more debt, more money on the credit card: This Prime Minister is just another Liberal. He has doubled Justin Trudeau's $31‑billion deficit to $65 billion, with $27 billion in new spending this year alone. Now he is forcing Canadians to pay $3,400 per family in interest on the debt. Is there any limit on the Liberal credit card?”
“Mr. Speaker, the government has created so many funds, so many agencies and so many programs to shift the burden of government spending onto Canadians that it is hard to know which one she is talking about. I imagine it is the sovereign wealth fund. It is a bottomless pit. Normally, sovereign wealth funds accumulate surpluses. Countries like Norway, Saudi Arabia and Singapore have surpluses year after year. They save and set aside this money to bring prosperity to their people. Here in Canada, there are no surpluses. There are deficits, year after year. We have a debt of over $1 trillion that needs to be paid off. The Prime Minister says he plans to use credit cards to invest in influential government-linked companies. I imagine Canadians will lose money and pay interest on the new debt the Prime Minister is going to add.”
“I cannot imagine that a very busy single mother working as a waitress is going to be able to go to the bank twice and fill out all those forms. As a result, 18 years later, her child is not going to have a savings account to help with their future. Let us make it automatic. Let us make it simple. Let us empower people's lives and not drown them in paperwork.”
“Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. First of all, obviously, if somebody is on disability, they should automatically qualify for the disability tax credit. I will note there are a lot of people who should also qualify for, but are not receiving, disability provincially. It should not necessarily be the case in the reverse direction. The other thing that needs to be simplified is the disability savings account. I think that when somebody applies for the disability tax credit, they should be able to tick a box for the CRA to contact their bank and alert the bank to set up, free of charge, a registered disability savings account. It took us two trips to the bank and a large stack of paper in order to do it. It took forever.”
“At the same time, the money that the Prime Minister is putting on the national credit card is funding corporate welfare and handouts to insiders. While the Liberals lock up all the other small business owners and entrepreneurs, they give special deals to Liberal insiders and powerful elites. That is the economy that they have created. It is an economy for insiders and elites. We want an economy that is bottom-up, free enterprise for every Canadian who works hard, pays their taxes and plays by the rules.”
“Mr. Speaker, of course, the budget is going to balance itself. We make fun of Justin Trudeau, but how can we really continue doing that when the new Liberal Prime Minister has a deficit that is 100 times bigger? Did members ever imagine that anyone could outspend Justin Trudeau, that anyone could be more irresponsible than Justin Trudeau? We wonder, is it sheer incompetence, or is it because the Liberal Prime Minister and the elites around him actually profit off of all of the inflation and the handouts this creates? Members will remember that the CEO of Brookfield said that inflation drives profits for Brookfield. It means that the company can charge higher rent to working-class tenants. It means its stock price goes up. It means its assets go up in price while destroying the working-class people.”
“Mr. Speaker, that question is very simple. The oil sector does not need corporate welfare. It is extremely profitable if companies are allowed to operate. The problem is not a lack of money. The product these companies produce is extremely valuable. The problem is the government barriers that are preventing these companies from producing this resource. Let us therefore issue permits within six months for pipelines and new projects. Let us axe the industrial carbon tax and allow oil companies to pay more to help fund health care for all Canadians, including Quebeckers. They do not need corporate welfare. Instead, they need the government to get out of the way. The Liberals want to tax, regulate and ultimately subsidize oil companies. We do not want any of that.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member has been rattling on about the same thing for the last 10 years. What has the result of the Liberal government been? It doubled the debt, doubled housing costs, doubled food bank lineups and gave us the worst growth in the G7 and the worst food price inflation in the G7. We have seen the results. Every time the Liberals use the word “invest”, what they mean is to add more debt. Today, we got more costs, more debt, more taxes and more on the national credit card. What we need is not a credit card economy. We need a paycheque economy, an economy where hard work brings home a powerful paycheque that buys affordable food and homes in safe neighbourhoods. That is the promise of Canada that we would restore.”
“Imagine a young tradesperson able to afford the homes that he builds; a mother filling her grocery cart worry-free, making decisions about her children's nutrition and not worried about emptying her bank account; families breathing freely; entrepreneurs launching ideas the same day they invent them; and our resources coming out of the ground and enriching all our people, not foreign coffers. No limits exist on the potential of the Canadian people when they are free to pursue it. We must be realistic and optimistic, because a realist counts the odds, while an optimist changes them. Let us do both.”
“As Saint-Exupéry, the famous French author, said, “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to remove.” By removing Liberal burdens, Liberal taxes and Liberal red tape, we will liberate the Canadian people to fulfill their potential. By lifting 11 years of Liberal burdens, we can free Canadian energy, genius and ambition. There is a Canada in the heart of every immigrant and pioneer, and in every indigenous person whose lineage dates back to time immemorial. It is this: With freedom we can achieve anything. Our promise is not a memory. It is our destiny.”
“Canada sells 20 times more to the United States than it does to China, and that is not going to fundamentally change, no matter how many illusions and falsehoods the Prime Minister promises. The same Prime Minister knows this. That is why he has 91% of his investments in the United States and not in Canada. Unfortunately, under his leadership, his investments are among those that have fled. In short, we need to remove the obstacles, the tariffs, the taxes, the red tape and the bureaucracy. Other government obstacles need to be removed. In essence, we need the government to get out of the way. It is not about what the government must do; it is about what it must stop doing.”
“We will unblock a dozen LNG plants, create a strategic energy and mineral reserve for crises and for leverage, and we will use that leverage to fight for tariff-free trade with the United States. That means building up our leverage to end the needless tariffs on our steel, aluminum, autos and lumber. Pushing a new auto pact will also allow us to work with our American friends to increase production on both sides of the border. We will seek to relaunch the Keystone pipeline to move hundreds of thousands of additional barrels of oil south of the border, and we will not seek a permanent rupture with our closest customer in favour of a strategic partnership for a new world order with the dictatorship in Beijing.”
“The choice is clear: We can have an economy of lobbyists and handouts, or we can have hard work and competition. Between political aristocracy and economic meritocracy, I choose meritocracy. The final principle, of course, is autonomy. Our Canadian sovereignty act will bring home paycheques and production through free enterprise and not subsidies. We will repeal the anti-development law, Bill C-69 , lift the northern B.C. oil shipping ban, scrap the industrial carbon tax, cut regulatory burdens by 25% in two years and bring in a two-for-one rule. Every new regulation must eliminate two old ones We will move to the world's fastest permitting, and we will bring in binding pre-permits so we can get projects moving quickly and our economy rolling.”
“Like Switzerland, we will balance budgets in the medium term by slashing spending on consultants, bureaucrats, corporate welfare, foreign aid and handouts to false refugees. We will cancel the $90-billion wasteful Alto rail project and enforce a strict dollar-for-dollar rule. Every new dollar of spending will be matched with a dollar of savings to pay for it. We will unlock and unblock the free enterprise system. We will end corporate welfare, cut taxes, end taxes on homebuilding, energy and reinvestment, and lower taxes on work by simplifying and lowering the rates in our Income Tax Act. We will unblock homebuilding and resource extraction by eliminating delays. We will do all of this because we believe in an economy that serves the hard-working people of this country.”
“Conservatives choose a big, open, free market economy where everyone can fulfill their potential, where our money is sound, where our money buys more and where the people are thoroughly in charge of their own lives. Our plan rests on four principles: one, affordable, abundant energy; two, low inflation and taxes by cutting the cost of government; three, free market competition; and four, national self-reliance. Energy touches every aspect of our lives. Conservatives, therefore, propose to scrap all taxes for all of the year on gas and to get rid of all carbon taxes forever. Workers and farmers would pay less. Truckers would deliver our goods more affordably. (1700) We also need strong money. Strong money rewards work and savings.”
“We should be able to afford everything we want in this wonderful, splendid country with all of the abundant bounty that we have been given. That is our birthright, and it is our potential. Our mission for an affordable, autonomous, strong country is realistic. We possess the third most uranium, the most hydro potential and the cheapest natural gas to produce affordable, abundant electricity. We have the most oil reserves anywhere in the G7 and the shortest shipping distances from the Americas to both Asia and Europe. We have the most land per person of any G7 country, by far, on which to build homes. We rank third globally in farmland per person. We should have the most affordable food.”
“I share these harsh facts because we must replace the illusion with reality if we are going to fix what the Liberals broke. It has been said that optimism without realism is delusion, and realism without optimism is surrender. We will neither delude ourselves about the harsh reality nor surrender to Liberal failure. Today, Conservatives speak of a different, more hopeful, better Canada, a Canada that is the most affordable and autonomous anywhere on earth. Everything in Canada should be dirt cheap, because we have the most dirt in which to build homes, dig resources and grow food. We hold the most resources per person of any country in the history of the world. A home with a yard, heat in the winter and fuel in the tank should be easily affordable. With vast farmland, the cost of food should not even be a concern.”
“Finally, the Prime Minister wants Alberta to spend $20 billion on a money-losing carbon capture project that has never been proven anywhere as a condition for building the actual pipeline. What about the Prime Minister 's famous Davos speech on middle power alliances? It has produced a lot of MOUs, but zero new free trade agreements around the world. Announcements are not results. Lofty speeches do not pay mortgages, fill tanks or stock the shelves. At the root, this Prime Minister still holds the same Liberal ideology of top-down government control that concentrates power and money among insiders like him, a philosophy that doubled our debt, killed growth and priced families out of the basics. He has been wrong on all of those issues all along. After one year of this Prime Minister, our economy is weaker, more expensive and less hopeful.”
“The Prime Minister promised to cut red tape, and yet not one anti-development law has been removed. As I said, 13 new agencies have been created. He said we would build at speeds not seen in generations, yet after we gave him unprecedented legal powers to approve big national projects, that new office, which those laws created, has not approved a single one. Then there is the pipeline to the Pacific that he promised. It has no permit, no route, no investor, no start date, no end date, no starting point and no end point. The only company that we know could actually build the pipeline, Enbridge, says that Liberal laws and taxes will prevent us from generating enough oil to put in it.”
“(1655) The Canadian Federation of Independent Business reports that after one year of this Liberal Prime Minister , more businesses closed than opened; that we face an entrepreneurial drought; that high costs, red tape and uncertainty are crushing the next generation; that closures have outpaced start-ups for six straight quarters; and that over half of small businesses told a survey they would not recommend someone start a business in Canada today. The CFIB concludes that Canada's economic foundations are cracking. We cannot regulate and tax ambition out of our economy and expect to build a strong country. Nothing has changed. Everything costs more. There is no real tax reform other than the rebranding of the carbon tax to be called the clean fuel standard.”
“Under the current Prime Minister , Canada now has the highest household debt in the G7, the most unaffordable housing in the G7, the lowest investment per worker in the G7, the second-worst productivity and the second-highest unemployment in the G7. Half a trillion dollars of net investment has fled to the United States. Twice as much capital has left than has returned. Twice as many Canadians are starting businesses abroad than they are at home. In fact, more Canadian firms opened in the U.S. than opened in Canada last year. Last week's Liberal convention had a solution for all these people and this money leaving. They said they want an exit tax: a gigantic wall of taxes to prevent people from fleeing the costly policies of the Prime Minister. Any country that punishes its citizens for fleeing has lost hope.”
“He was wrong to say we needed a bigger and broader carbon tax, wrong to oppose the pipeline to the Pacific, wrong to say there would be deflation after COVID, wrong to say that printing money would not cause prices to go up and wrong to say we should keep 50% of our oil in the ground. How can we ever expect him to get anything right when he has been so wrong for so long? There is $11 million to hold a summit. One meeting with a bunch of global financial elites will cost $11 million. In case anyone is worried that this is something new, Justin Trudeau held the same meeting with the same people at a Shangri-La hotel 10 years ago to set up the Infrastructure Bank, and how did that work out?”
“Today, we learned that the government is going to spend millions of dollars to set up a transition office that will eventually set up a permanent office to borrow on the national credit card to place bets on Liberal-chosen corporations. Then there is $3 billion for international climate finance, the same money scheme the Prime Minister used to enrich himself at Brookfield and through his now bankrupt net-zero alliance. I see someone over there from Brookfield was applauding. It was the former environment minister. He might feel like he is out of business sitting in the corner, but no worries, the Prime Minister's net-zero alliance is also bankrupt, so he is not alone. The Prime Minister has been wrong about everything, by the way. He tells us every day how smart he is.”
“Outside of COVID, last year's was the largest deficit in Canadian history, and this year's spending is the highest, as a share of GDP, since 1996. Interest on the national debt will hit $59 billion this year, more than we transfer for health care and more than we collect in GST. That means every penny we pay in GST goes to bankers and bondholders, not to doctors and nurses. Every Canadian will spend $3,400 on interest payments. An increasing share of spending goes to Liberal elites and corporate insiders, so not everyone is hurting. The Prime Minister 's so-called sovereign wealth fund, which has no wealth to put in it, is relying 100% on the national credit card.”
“The Prime Minister broke his promise that he would reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio over the fiscal horizon. Today, he reported that the debt-to-GDP ratio will go up, not only over the fiscal horizon, but in every single year that this government serves. He broke his promise to spend less, with spending, year over year, going up 4.9%, which is far more than the combined inflation and economic growth, and about twice inflation plus population growth. He has added $37 billion of brand new spending measures in this economic update alone, on top of tens of billions of dollars already announced in the last year. Since taking office a year ago, the Liberal Prime Minister has created 13 new government agencies.”
“Who would have thought that Kazakhstani, Vietnamese and Moldovan youth would be happier than Canadians in their youth, in the springtime of their lives? That is the tragedy of Liberal credit card budgeting, which imposed higher costs on people's lives. Here is how it works. They put the nation's bill on the national credit card, and they force Canadians to put their bills on their personal credit cards. Meanwhile, a small group of Liberal elites and corporate insiders get fantastically rich off government handouts, bailouts and carve-outs. Today's Liberal fiscal update brings more costs, more debt and more bills on the national credit card. The Prime Minister is just another Liberal. Here are the facts. He doubled the deficit from $31 billion to $65 billion.”
“Nationwide, food banks are recording nearly 2.2 million visits per month. That is double from seven years ago. Working parents are skipping meals so their children can eat. Seniors are choosing between groceries and medication. Young families are staring down mortgage increases as inflationary government spending drives up their mortgage costs. All of this is leading to real misery in people's lives, the real human costs we saw with the index of the World Happiness Report, which saw Canada fall from the fifth happiest in the world to the 25th during the span of the Liberal government. Among Canadians under the age of 25, we now rank 71st, behind the U.S., the U.K., Australia, even Kazakhstan, Vietnam and Moldova.”
“On this day, as he congratulates himself for putting an 11th Liberal budget on the national credit card and tells Canadians that “Affordability is the best it has been in over a decade”, let us remember that his illusions are not reality. With Canada's food prices rising the fastest in the G7, just last week in Calgary, on April 25, thousands of families lined up for hours at the Guru Nanak’s Free Kitchen, many with suitcases, so they could take away 80,000 pounds of free potatoes and groceries because they cannot afford to feed themselves. In Moose Jaw, the food bank has to limit visits to once a month instead of two. I do not know what people are doing for the rest of the year. There has been a 150% increase in the demand at that local food bank under the Liberal government.”
“That is how we can and must make Canada more affordable at home, stronger at home and greater at home. (1650) [ English ] On this day, I want to congratulate the minister for his speech and thank him for his commitment as a father. I thank him for his commitment to simplify the disability tax credit. Our people should be spending their time living their lives rather than filling out forms. We want to make life simpler for people who already have enough challenges. Unfortunately, then comes the bad news. The Liberal Prime Minister has now doubled the deficit that Justin Trudeau left behind, from $31 billion to $65 billion. Everyone thought it would be impossible to outspend the reckless Justin Trudeau, but then the new Liberal Prime Minister came along and said, “Hold my champagne”.”
“The economic update also predicts slower economic growth and rising inflation. All of this Liberal Prime Minister's policies are driving up the cost of living and driving down workers' wages while a small Liberal elite keeps getting richer. A year down the road, our economy is declining and the cost of living is rising. I say that simply so that we can face reality and put a plan in place to reverse the trend. The Conservative plan has four pillars. The first is affordable and abundant energy with no gas tax or carbon tax. The second is very low inflation and very low taxes thanks to cuts to the public service, consultants, corporate welfare, foreign aid and other kinds of waste. The third is free market competition. The fourth is national self-reliance because we can free up our natural resources to meet our own needs here at home.”
“We see this with the new sovereign wealth fund, which has no wealth to put in it. It is the new gimmick with no wealth in it. That will go on the credit card too, and the money will go to cronies and people well connected to the government. It is a big financial risk. We see more waste benefiting the global elite. More specifically, we see $3 billion in funding for international climate finance. This is the same money scheme that this Liberal Prime Minister used to enrich himself at Brookfield and through his now bankrupt Net-Zero Banking Alliance. We see that there is $2.3 billion to subsidize electric cars manufactured abroad, which will jeopardize Canadian jobs. Another $11 million is earmarked for a major gathering of the financial elites to discuss how to spend taxpayers' money.”
“Today, he announced $37 billion in new spending. That is the net number, not including the small savings measures he promised. Since taking office, the Prime Minister has created 13 new agencies. That means more bureaucracy. Outside of the COVID-19 pandemic, this is the biggest deficit in Canadian history, and government spending now accounts for the largest share of our economy since 1996. Interest on our national debt now stands at $59 billion. That is more than we spend on health care and more than we collect in GST. That means that when a Canadian pays GST, every penny goes to bankers and nothing goes to nurses and doctors. Every Canadian family will have to pay $3,400 in interest on the national debt this year. There is nothing left for services. (1645) An increasing share of spending is going to Liberal cronies.”
“We hear the same stories all across Canada. The Liberals' credit card budget means higher inflation, higher prices today and higher taxes in the future, all while a small circle of well-connected Liberal elites continue to enrich themselves through subsidies, corporate welfare and tax havens, which the Prime Minister himself is also using. Here are the facts from the Liberal economic update. It brings higher costs, more debt and more taxes being racked up on the national credit card. The Prime Minister is just another Liberal. The Prime Minister broke his promise to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, which is set to rise in each of the next four years. The Prime Minister broke his promise to cut spending. In fact, spending is going up 5% this year, which is more than under Justin Trudeau and more than economic growth and inflation combined.”
“Today, the Liberal Prime Minister patted himself on the back for the Liberal's 11th credit card budget. On top of that, he told Canadians that the cost of living is the best it has been in 10 years. However, let us put aside these illusions and look at the reality faced by ordinary Canadians. We have the worst food inflation in the G7. The situation is quite dire for seniors in Quebec. According to the newspaper Le Journal de Montréal, one-third of seniors have an income of less than $25,000 a year. Many have to choose between rent, good groceries and medication. One retiree told Le Journal de Montréal that she would have been homeless if she had not found a solution at the last minute, given that the cost of rent is skyrocketing. Many seniors live on less than $1,900 a month. They are saying that they have to skip meals every day.”
“Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate the hon. minister on his presentation and thank him for proposing to simplify the disability tax credit. As a father, I appreciate that. We are ready to work with him to simplify the system and help more people. I have already filled out these forms and can attest to how complicated they are, so this is a worthwhile proposal. Despite that, we now know that the Liberal Prime Minister has doubled the deficit left by Justin Trudeau, increasing it from $31 billion to $65 billion. No one thought it was possible to borrow and spend more than Justin Trudeau, but the current Liberal Prime Minister has done just that. This deficit-driven budget will lead to higher costs, higher taxes, and more debt on the national credit card. The Prime Minister is just another Liberal.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am glad he asked, because I have some direct answers. This is how to answer a question. What is inflationary spending? It is $90 billion for the wasteful Alto project; $1 billion for a gun grab that the public safety minister admits will not stop crime; $20 billion, which is double, for consultants; a 7% increase in the spending on the national bureaucracy; over $1 billion in handouts to fake and phony refugees; a 100% increase in spending on corporate welfare. It is all inflationary spending. Will the Liberals stop putting it on the national credit card and get rid of it instead?”